#I was meant to colour and render the last frame

[insomniphic]

Really like you’re Narrator @kittygameratx, take my art offerings ❤️❤️❤️

(Don’t pay attention to the low quality, the file was too big :[)

This is my first time animating/animatic-ing, so I’m pretty proud :D

[theherdofturtles]

Fandom: Hetalia Prompt: Worked themselves to exhaustion Rating: G Word Count: 2570 I whumped England but I actually whumped Ireland. England works himself to exhaustion because he makes bad life choices, Ireland begrudgingly picks up the pieces because England's life choices also affect the people around him. @badthingshappenbingo

Usually when Éire showed up at England's place in the middle of the night, he showed up to return to himself the things which England had stolen from him over the years.

Éire got a kick out of giving England no part in the transaction. It was a turning of tables long overdue... so, silent as the night, he’d take his things and leave no trace of himself.

He'd retrieve an old sword, a king's crown, his wand their mother had given him, his henri hippo money box... the usual objects his kleptomaniac of a little brother had seen and somehow immediately sensed that this, this had sentimental value attached, and dragged far misplaced from the original steward.

Usually when Éire showed up at England's place in the middle of the night, he would slip through the window. The old dusty one behind the garden rose bush, the one which had lost all its screws, which England still hadn't realised, and the same one which had lost the short decorative awning lip over the top to small faerie teeth. The window had a sideways damaged flair— that was why England planted the rose bush in the first place.

He was terrible at hiding the problems he refused to fix.

And Éire had gotten deftly skilled at dealing with the hurricane of problems left in the wake of what his youngest brother refused to fix.

But tonight was different even if his entry stayed the same.

Éire slipped into England's house with feather-feet. The storage closet heaps around him absorbed sound between their packed boxes, keeping him secret as if they, too, were on his side, begging to be rescued from the dust-forgotten corners of England's dragon hoard.

His fingers wrapped around the knotted bour wand in his pocket to retrieve the tool. A spell whispered under his breath caused a warm faerie glow to light like a firefly from the tip.

Then, stepping light-pawed around the boxes, Éire continued soundlessly. In the dark he was obscured: a lanky man dressed in brown tweed wool, a narrow movement between narrow spaces that moved a swift pace in a cat-like-gait.

He manoeuvred to leave the closet and he entered England's relatively new house. 

The halls were stoic to his presence as usual. They were oddly protective of the ugly deep green imitation of toxic Victorian wallpaper they drowned in, but the sheer number of paintings, posters, framed letters, photographs, and swords hanging over the painful paper drowned even the wall's colour.

Éire disliked this house less than he disliked the last one.

This house, particularly, had only actually been England's house for a few decades. The new residence was government owned rather than having been gifted to him by royals, which was almost a plus for Éire. See, after England’s last home had been rendered unliveable as it was a bombed, fifty room, bleed-your-taxes-out, museum of a pile of rubble, the UK authorities had leapt at the chance to shove him into a smaller, twenty room, bleed-due-to-your-housing-crisis-out, hoarders' paradise of an estate.

In Éire's opinion, the 'house' could probably squeeze five Westminsters and the Palace in it if England threw away his hoard.

Which, to him, meant the ‘house’ was way too large to justify one man living in it... the UK authorities should move his things into a museum or send them back to their owners and put him in a normal house like all the other privileged Britons.

And each of his brothers had been plushily treated to the same British bribery while Éire still lived on the same stoney island he'd claimed since Vikings would knock down his door. No one could make him budge.

He didn't understand why his siblings had all stumbled after similar impractical lifestyles.

Éire whispered a second spell under his breath, an old one he'd created, "dul sa tóir ar dhuine namhad." 

He flicked his fingers to his shoes, flicking magic as if it were water. The leather shoes absorbed the words and whispered back, d'aimsigh mé an deargnamhaid.

They began to walk and Éire trusted their direction.

Two things happened at once after a nice stroll through England's hoard.

Éire rounded a corner with cozy fire-feet.

A fizzle of sparkling firecracker-green wizzed by his head.

The crackling spark missed him by a lot. It struck a poor undeserving photograph of a horse and immediately splintered the glass like a shrieking spiderweb.

So that was how the little dragon was today...

Éire's magic smoothed an immediate fire-gold shield in front of himself.

England let loose a string of curses.

"Watch your magic. And your aim. That was horrendous on every front," Éire said.

His littlest brother cursed again.

He looked worse than he'd looked several days ago when Éire'd last seen him. England might've been attempting a furious glare, but the bags under his eyes were taking all of Éire's attention, and Éire couldn't focus on anything else except the massive purple bandit bruising on his face.

My God... those bags were three times larger than usual. He looked like a raccoon.

It suited the greedy little bastard.

"Get out of my house!" England said. He swayed on his feet like a goblin fortress threatening to collapse in the wind. 

"No thank you," Éire didn't smirk as he usually would. He wasn't sure what was wrong with the little beast yet, and he felt he should know before he began kicking anthills.

"What's got you leasing brain power into the void this week?" Éire said sceptically. "Three days ago, you missed your queue to imitate a frazzled pup when I called your latest political stunt the world's most irrelevant tantrum. Then you said, 'thank you' when I tossed a note containing a list of GIS data demands in the general direction of your head."

England narrowed his eyes. 

He looked deeply concentrated.

Then, "sorry," he said

Sorry? Éire almost laughed, because that was the wrong answer.

England must be feeling economically sick already to be that delirious. England didn’t say ‘sorry’ to him, ever.

"I'll ask Scot to write your obituary if he hasn't started already." Now Éire smirked. "Do you have a fever? Immediate global backlash? Investors betting on your poor choices? Well well well, consequences of your own actions." He was going to sprinkle salt in England's wound just to watch him squirm.

"Please get out of my house."

"Your house? Could've sworn I stood on public land. British taxpayers bought this place-"

"I don't have time to fight you tonight!" England growled. He stomped, but it was a weak stomp, and he nearly stumbled with the motion.

This pulled Éire off his elusive high horse and back onto his original mission, which was to make sure England wouldn't kneel over dead. A ruin of fun, really, but there was an unfortunate responsibility that came with being the eldest of four magical island men without a mother in sight.

"Are you drunk as well as sick?" Éire asked.

"What?"

"Are. You. Drunk?" Éire pronounced each word clearly and slowly for England's aid.

England's wrinkled raccoon peepers widened slightly and he shook his head adamantly. "Why'd you always think 'm drunk." He sounded genuinely puzzled and upset.

"It's a Saturday night, you're alone, yesterday you were withdrawn. Believe it or not, Arthur, you're an incredibly habitual creature."

"I'm not drunk!" 

"You're like a toddler trying to bike without stabilisers."

"Leave!" England boldly moved forward. Very pathetically he tried to push Éire.

His bones were fish floppy, his feet were flippered messes without stance, and his resolve faded before Éire could bother lowering his magical barrier to help England save his dignity.

"This is the worst attempt you've ever put forth in controlling me; this should earn you tears." 

Even in this poor state, England was desperately clutching filing cabinets and alphabetized dictionaries. Éire was a wild card no matter how desperately England attempted to tame him into his perfectly organised box of a universe. But this? This was a particularly resigned attempt to settle his order.

England's grip loosened and he wobbled more, steadied himself, and drooped. He was a staggering drunk.

He dropped further as if gravity had grabbed his shoulders and tugged him eagerly for a hug. 

"England, are you drunk?" He asked again. He was sterner and teasing in the same tone.

England didn't respond this time.

Was the little bastard going to kneel over and die? 

Éire... didn't know how to feel about that. He'd need at least a week to ponder whether to sing and dance or sacrifice a single tear or do both at once during his funeral.

Suddenly England's droop sloppily straightened, his fingers glowed a magic green, and Éire's barricade prepared to take another missed shot.

England's hand waved up at his own head as he muttered 'wake' at himself.

The green glow fizzled over England before sinking into his skin.

Immediately his littlest brother straightened fully. His eyes glazed sharp. His face contorted angerly as a mask over his tiredness.

"I'm not drunk, thank you very much, dear brother."

You had got to be kidding...

He was just sleep deprived?

And cursed?!

A magical method to force wakefulness didn't negate the necessity of sleeping!

"You're cursing yourself!" Éire accused. 

"Jealous?" England taunted.

"Of sleepless torture? Why would I be?!"

"That you didn't get to curse on me by your own hand," England clarified. He sneered in his ugly pug-face way which always made Éire want to swing a nice left hook into his flat Saxon skull.

The purple sagging under his eyes made Éire think twice about pummelling him. He was already pummelling himself.

"I can solve that problem and curse you now, you little bastard," Éire flicked his wand upwards. The wand summoned an opaque white fog of faerie dreams which twirled, misted, and glinted, in small, dreary loops around his wrist, ready to curse England into a deep sleep.

Alarmed, England put a few feet of distance between them.

"No, no, no you can't do that, I forbid you!" His hands waved up as if they could shield him.

"Oh yes I can." Éire grinned sharply. "You can't forbid me from anything."

"I'm not done working needs to be done before tomorrow I've a deadline another stack of documents— this pertains to you! This is interests you!" England shouted.

Éire lifted his chin. 

Clever intentional little bastard. Manipulative baby brother. Lying kid.

"Really?" He said, tilting his head. England brightened.

"Yes, very important," he gestured mindlessly at his desk, "this needs to be-"

Éire flicked the faerie fog off his tangle-bore wand into England's face.

England fell like a stack of bricks.

"You forgot that I don't care for your words," Éire told the soundly sleeping English lump. "... but, er, sorry mum," he mumbled as an afterthought. She never liked it when they fought. 

Éire stepped over England's sleeping form and strolled over to England's desk to check what he'd been forcing himself awake to finish.

A stack of documents lined one side. A smaller stack lined the other side. Highlighted on the paper in the centre of his desk was an EU document.

So... England was starting to fill out his divorce papers.

Éire would chuckle to himself if he wasn't tied to his brother's fate. The deadlines were indeed short, England might've been working for days without sleep if he wasn't being helped with all these documents.

Éire picked up a page and flicked the thing straight before reading aloud.

"The bilateral arrangements between the Union and the United Kingdom under the Protocol do not give rise to rights and obligations for third countries," he read the part circled next to a note scribbled illegibly.

Ouch... England getting labelled a 'third country' by the EU was exactly the cold shoulder which England had signed up for. It was different to see it first hand, though.

"Consequently, any imports pursuant to Union import tariff rate quotas or other import quotas applying to goods originating in a third country that are brought into Northern Ireland..." Éire paused as he focused much deeper into the document, "cannot be counted towards that third country’s rights vis-à-vis the Union, unless agreed by the third country. That situation poses a risk to the proper functioning of the Union’s internal market and the integrity of the Common Commercial Policy by allowing the possible circumvention of the Union’s tariff rate quotas or other import quotas."

England hadn't lied.

This was about him and his Union membership.

That made Éire feel odd. The little dragon's whole mouth was silver, to have heard him actually use the truth as his defence was weird.

This wasn't just England's battle, how'd England not bring this up to him three days ago? The foot Éire still had toward his little brother's United Kingdom would cause scruples over import and export tariffs as goods flowed freely without strict regulation between all of Éire's land regardless to which side it belonged. It was a tentative measure to ensure peace.

Dealing with that without contacting him? Ridiculous.

The fact that this made space for squabbling between England and his fresh break with the Union meant England should be meeting with Éire more often about this topic at hand. The Union wouldn't like how plausibly England could escape tariffs by utilising Éire's scar.

And if the Union got their ideal way, England might be further split from Éire's Northern half by regulation. The ordeal depended on how this particular negotiation ended. It wouldn't be a wise choice to put a customs border in the middle of Éire, as reinforcements of his split would call back to more violent times in his history.

But a customs border on the Irish sea would put Éire fully a fence away from the United Kingdom, separating his North half from their main source of imports.

Éire hummed and tapped two fingers to the corner of his mouth.

This... was a stick poking a delicate tower of cards. Éire could sense tension and riot material already.

Loyalists and Nationalists, back at it again with bricks and sticks and fire wicks.

No fun. Especially for Éire.

"You've tripped me for the thousandth time," Éire said to his sleeping brother. The thorn in his side always, the deep splinter in his foot which his own mother had made. England honestly couldn't help but jump off a cliff and knock Éire over in the process. 

England: professional discord sewer. 

An ironic situation considering England spent every second of his life attempting to control and sort everything into his own perfect order.

Éire sighed.

"If you didn't exist there'd be nothing on earth that could keep me humble. I might've been king. Let's get you to a proper bed," he begrudgingly told the little bastard. He was going to drag him over every stair-step like he and his other siblings did when England was passed-out drunk.

Then, he was going to make him sleep for three days before he lifted the spell. Mainly, because Éire didn't want to deal with him; secondly, when Éire did deal with him, he should be well rested and thinking with a clear head. This was his fight before it should be England's, but England had a part to play and he’d better play well. Éire wouldn't take the consequences of England's choices without driving his stake into the ground first.

[astranauticus]

ok one last post about the Project to truly exorcise it from my brain. just some process/design thoughts (also now that it's done if you want to read my liveblogged whinging for whatever reason here it is)

first off some stats because i kept stats like the nerd that i am:

time wise making this animatic took about 93.5 hours give or take (thanks procreate process replay) spread across exactly 2 months

anyway when i said i finished this project mostly through stubbornness and sunk cost fallacy this is what i meant lol like a lot of my thought process through this was just 'no way in hell am i letting some of these drawings disappear into my drafts forever'

on average each frame took about 2 hours 45 minutes but thats a bit of an overestimate since i forgot to count some of the animated bits from the first two lines (so id guess the actual number is more like.. 2 hours 20 minutes?)

btw that line with the starry apparition fading away? 12 hours total

the single longest and most painful frame to draw was the one of the crew walking through tu'narath (5 hours 30 minutes) because a. perspective b. architecture design c. for some reason i put a lot of detail into rendering the armour on all the githyanki i drew why on earth did i do that

(its especially painful bc that frame was one of the ones that didnt... feel like an important enough moment in the actual story of the show to be worth capturing the way the wish or even like, endellion is, i just needed to put that there for the storytelling flow or whatever of the animatic itself and it bothered me so much)

one other interesting little mishap was that i did all of these on canvas size 1080x720px (so that's why the youtube resolution isnt particularly high lmao) which is why procreate let me put an absolutely absurd amount of layers in one canvas (all 8 frames of with memories projected on the astral sea were done on one canvas. 159 layers) because the layer limit for that canvas size is 400 BUT. i accidentally started the starry apparition fade on an A4 canvas (my default canvas size for like all my normal fanart) and i only realised after finishing all the lineart and starting on colouring because i hit layer limit so i had to resize the canvas which did... interesting?? things to the lineart resolution

also if youre wondering how i drew K-LB that many times in something resembling timely fashion the answer is i sacrificed some... amount of sleep to 3d model and rig him in blender which. honestly? i consider it a roaring success

splitting the frames by bar was a Choice and certainly a choice ive.. had doubtsTM about but thats the kind of thing you cant really change without bringing the whole project crashing down so if the frames seem to move a bit too fast im so sorry there was really not much i could do there

idk if people actually noticed the very very tiny drawings of the crew moving around on the ship in the 4th line especially since they sometimes get obscured by the subtitles but the REASON for that is in my original drawings the subtitles went in the top left corner but they kept conflicting with other stuff so i just gave up and threw them to the bottom (also i originally included the chinese lyrics but then i got lazy lmao)

anyway that little detail like VR-LA angstily looking at the sea reminiscing about the JourneyTM and the crew sort of appearing along with the memories of their adventures together was one of those things that seemed SO COOL in my head but once i actually execute it its like. hmmmm not sure if that worked out the way you thought it would buddy. also the tiny crew was EXTREMELY hard to draw so put that down as another point in 'me subjecting myself to deeply painful and out there compositions for no good reason'

anyway i called this my magnum opus but i do actually have some thoughts about another one (a companion piece, if you will) for another song by the same band because now that i know what capcut can do im.. really itching to try something a little different because this like powerpoint presentation style? fully a product of me using iMovie as my only available video editing software for the past like 7 years of my life

[drew-mga2022mi6015]

Clean Up | Shot XIII

Shot 13 is the climax of the entirety of the office sequence before it, and as such needed to be the most impactful section of the first act of this film. Most of the important sections, I had blocked out in the rough animation, however I made a few modifications in several places where I saw fit. This shot also tested my ability to believably draw hands consistently, and animate lightning fast movements.

The most important section of this animation was the point of no return; where Katu explodes. This sequence needed to be packed with intensity, but with as few frames as possible in order to capture the true impact. The impact frames actually followed a slightly different style of rendering to the rest of the animation; where most of it had clearly defined lines and borders, in order to create more lucidity and a visual spectacle, these impact frames were instead drawn out with a lineless approach in mind. I feel that this really lent to the final effect.

In terms of colour, I created new swatches from the pre-existing shot palette since these colours would not make a return at any other point in the animation. While I knew I wanted everything to look saturated and bright in order to contrast against Katu's office, I also wanted to stay within my style of more pastel colours such that the animation did not feel too jarring. The final colours that I used for the impact were red, yellow, pink, blue, purple, and white.

The final cleaned up version of this shot looks far better than I could have imagined it, and I am very satisfied with it. During the last section of this shot, Katu's "face" becomes charred after the explosion, hence the grey. This would not be present following this shot, as it was mainly meant to show how overheated Katu felt at the moment. In post, I may create and add a charcoal texture to just that colour on those frames to further accentuate this.

I also realised that if push comes to shove and I run out of time, I do not necessarily need to animate Katu's laptop closing, as the composition of the shot is such that it really does not require the laptop to be closed. Considering that it is never explicitly shown that Katu packs their bags and leaves the office, I do not think leaving this detail the way that it is would be a problem.

[mi5018roishutton]

Sofa Composit Shot

I began my second last tracking shot with the usual node tree set up in Nuke. The GeoCube seems to track nicely when played back so I am happy for this to move on to Maya.

After inserted the cube and image planes into Maya, I constructed a shape for the sofa as a shadow matte as well as importing the Changeling and adjusting its size to the scene.

Once I was happy with the placement it was time to begin animating the rig. I want this scene to show the Changeling trying to learn how to sit on the sofa in what it thinks is a human way.

I realised I should have made knee joints for the rig however it is too late now to go back and fix this so I'm going to have to only have it sit with its knees up when it's facing towards the camera and not side on.

I had to change the shape of the sofa so that it caught certain shadows but this meant the shadow matte turned up strangely in Nuke. I intended to rotoscope to fix this as hopefully that will work.

Any rotoscoping I tried didn't work the way I wanted it to, so I have hidden the sofa model in Maya completely and instead put a flat plane in and rendered this to see if will will look the same and not need rotoscoping in the same way.

This seems to have worked for the most part, the shadows just need some colour correcting.

The shadows under the foot became an issue with this approach, so I had to go back to Maya, adjust some of the key frames of the model as well as bring the plane shadow matte as close to the model as I could.

[canmom]

Graphics programmer here! I don't work on AAA games but I can provide some comments. Broadly you're right though, expect diminishing returns and shift of emphasis.

There's a million different factors in what makes games 'look good'. For decades, some notion of "photorealism" trumped everything, although exactly what that meant has shifted considerably (currently 'looking like a modern digitally-shot film'). Nowadays I think we're finally letting go of that - in part because of the diminishing returns discussed above - and experimenting with more creative, nonphotorealistic art direction.

Besides simply computers getting faster, in the past couple of decades two really huge things happened in graphics: the introduction of programmable shaders, and physics-based rendering theory. Both of these drastically changed how graphics were done and opened the door to all sorts of inventive new techniques.

I don't think it's likely that we'll see that sort of massive paradigm shift again anytime soon. Newer developments in graphics tend to be a lot narrower in scope. (Yes, even raytracing).

So "graphics" does not progress evenly. We've gotten very very very good at surface shading, and we've built a standardised workflow around PBR that means we can pretty reliably get the computer to simulate what happens when light strikes most types of object. We've also standardised on a lot of sensible ways of doing things - e.g. doing light calculations in HDR floating point and tonemapping which gives it a sort of 'filmic' look (because modern films are also shot in HDR and colour graded in much the same way lmao). These two things are basically solved problems. We are unlikely to render a better-looking brick.

There's a lot of other stuff, though, that is still way too expensive to simulate accurately in realtime - so realtime graphics is still an incredibly complex game of smoke and mirrors.

For example, take water. (I'll be writing a massive article on water rendering soon). If you want to simulate a choppy ocean, there's no computer on Earth that could do an actual fluid sim in real time. But you can make your GPU add up a bunch of Gerstner waves in the vertex shader or even do a fast fourier transform of some real ocean spectra, and instance some particles at the wavecrests to simulate foam, and whack some Fresnel on the speculars, sample the colour buffer using displaced coordinates to approximate refraction, and a handful of other tricks, and you'll get a pretty tasty ocean.

The stuff that's really hard to do is stuff that involves light bouncing around the scene in multiple ways before it reaches your eyes. Speculars, diffuse interreflection, subsurface scattering, all of that. Rendering a leaf with the sun on the other side is a much harder problem than rendering that brick.

The hot new feature of the latest hardware is raytracing. That will help with all of those things, potentially! But the thing is... we've spent the last decade finding ways to fake it.

Take reflections. If you want to do realtime specular reflections, your options are:

only reflecting the lights: most materials do it this way, but if something is quite shiny, you've got something missing

an environment map: essentially you render the scene onto the surface of a sphere around a point. good if the object is very small compared to the scene, the reflections are blurry, and the object is bumpy. if you just want to make something 'look shiny', this is a good option. can baked in advance (but you won't reflect non-static objects) or updated with a special render pass (expensive, so you try not to do this every frame).

a reflection camera: good for planar reflections like mirrors. you basically render the scene twice, once reflected through the mirror. can also be used with a normal map to get slightly distorted reflections, up to a point. (expensive - you have to render the scene twice, lots of texture reads without mips)

screen space reflections: you raymarch into the depth buffer and then sample the colour buffer. you won't reflect anything that's not onscreen, which can be jarring, but you can do this all in the fragment shader. (expensive - gives your GPU's ALU a workout, lots of texture reads without mips. works well with deferred rendering.)

raytracing: the new revolution that's going to change everything forever! ...assuming the players are really paying close attention to shiny things to notice the difference, anyway. (noisy, mega expensive, requires the player to have a card that supports it)

Besides raytracing, all these techniques are pretty old. Which ones should you use for your game? It depends on so much shit: art direction, target hardware, what else you're spending your render budget on. If reflections are important, you can probably use one of the first three for most situations. But if you can use raytracing, it will probably look nicer. More accurate reflections, more objects reflecting the whole scene.

How much does this affect someone's enjoyment of the game? If they're a graphics nerd, they might be pretty excited. If not... maybe they'll get a general feeling that things look 'more realistic', but you can already get so far with rasterisation, baked lightmaps and screen space techniques that it's not the same sort of dramatic leap that previous generational changes have represented. The difference is actually most obvious in lower-detail scenes with a lot of smooth surfaces, which is the opposite of most games lol.

So on the pure rendering front we're definitely hitting hard diminishing returns.

There are other fronts of advancement, but it's increasingly subtle details. e.g. real time cloth sim has improved drastically in the last few years.

And there's a lot of stuff that while it ought to be simple, still confounds modern games. Although it's become increasingly popular to record huge amounts of mocap data, animation systems have sooo much room to improve. It's really hard to get two characters to interact according to a prerecorded animation in a natural-looking way - either you have to jump a character into place or accept there may be janky misalignments. So e.g. in Warframe, a game that's got all sorts of crazy advanced graphical techniques... if I try and get my character to pet her cat, she will most likely wave her hand somewhere in midair half a metre from the cat. Animations like kisses where two characters squish together and physically interact are especially hard to do well (there's a reason people went nuts about that TLOU2 trailer a couple years back).

There's also a lot of technical puzzles to do with interacting with terrain (foot IK, flattening against walls, squeezing through gaps) and animation blending (with the new hotness being 'inertial blending'). The future will probably involve more sophisticated systems for blending procedural animation (IK, physics sim etc.) with authored animations, but that's a tricky technical problem to solve and cover every single weird edge case. It's been a persistent problem that game characters tend to have much nicer shading models than animation systems, so they look great in a screenshot but move really unnaturally, or can't act expressively, all of that.

Even something that seems as simple as a character picking up an item in their hand is something that is really hard to get right! Most games simply sidestep the problem and teleport the item from the world space to the character's hand/holster/etc. Or if the player can manipulate the world with physics, they hold it with an invisible ray.

How much difference will that make? I don't know. It fascinates me, but I think players have learned not to care too much about a bit of animation jank.

Destruction is also really hard to do well. It's something we're seeing lots of exciting experiments around - take Teardown's incredibly clever voxel rendering, where a different abstraction (voxels rather than polygons) lets them do a bunch of really detailed physics and semi-raytraced reflections without specialist hardware. Boolean cuts are a mechanic explored in some games (quite far back). Or you pre-simulate the destruction, which has been done as far back as HL2E2. But inevitably you have to abstract over it somehow.

The other technical front is like... handling all the data involved in modern games. Both on the game logic side - making most efficient use of threads and CPU cache, 'data oriented' design - and the graphics side, swapping between LOD levels seamlessly - and also especially with loading stuff off the disc and figuring out what to drop from memory so you don't get janky pop-in. AAA games especially pull from a massive worldwide asset production line and nowadays, might weigh in at tens or even hundreds of gigabytes compressed on disc. Streaming all of that off the disc in an open world game is a really insane technical feat honestly - dealing with networking in the mix, customisable costumes etc., even more so. But we mostly recognise it when it goes wrong: animations don't load in when they should so a character T-poses, or the textures look really blurry for a bit.

And just because it's insane that this can be done at all doesn't mean it's necessarily always done well. Making modern AAA games is a ridiculous logistical operation as much as everything. Even with increased use of mocap, photoscanning, and the like, all that data has to be authored, cleaned up and incorporatedi nto the game. The quieter revolution has been the scaling up and Taylorising of videogame production, so you can get a few hundred people in twenty different ocuntries to make the armour plates for your robot dinosaur, or cosmetics for your loot shooter, or whatever. There's a lot of room for improvement on data compression as well, as Fitgirl constantly demonstrates lmao. A lot of games don't go for the level of efficiency we could achieve with modern hardware, just 'good enough'.

Anyway all that said...

Art direction is way way way more important than graphics tech, and rather than chasing diminishing returns of realism, the real leap forward will come when people start applying the tech to other purposes besides "realism".

Take Hades for example. Fantastic looking game - but it's not doing anything super fancy on the technical side, just drawing lots of sprites, some animated vfx sprites, and some low-detail models with a cel shading effect, I think there's a subtle bit of bloom over the top. What makes it look so good is the incredibly strong use of colour and the fantastic illustration style unifying it all. It's clearly a well-engineered engine that loads quickly and runs at a high-framerate, but it's ultimately just using existing tech to strong effect.

Or Disco Elysium - painted backgrounds which have depth, normals and occlusion information allowing real time lighting in a shader, low-detail 3D models with painted textures that unify them with the game's style. And again loads of static paintings and illustrations.

3D? How about Scorn? Made in Unreal, but it doesn't look like any other Unreal game you've played; it looks like a Giger painting, down to all sorts of subtles of how light works. It's full of gorgeously little gruesome animations of your character sticking their hand in squishy ports and things like that. And that effort paid off hugely. The devs of Scorn chose a few specific things to focuse their effort on, tech-wise - exactly the ones most necessarily for the vibe they were trying to set.

So I really hope that games will go the direction animated films are going lately, and start exploring the "nonphotorealistic" aesthetic space a lot more. I think we haven't even scratched the surface of what GPUs can do. I especially think most games on the platform I work on at the moment, the Quest 2 standalone VR headset, are not nearly making full use of the expressive power of this hardware. We don't have to make everything look like plastic.

it becomes a lot more understandable that people claim graphics haven't advanced noticeably since the 360/ps3 era when you remember everyone who says that and isn't just a liar is someone whose only current gaming outlet is phones and/or the Switch, both of which really can only handle 360/ps3 graphics.

[ncitygirls]

pink - mark x gn reader

fluff, smut, cw: submissive!mark, 2k

The concept of colour is an intriguing one. Much like seeing, seeing itself is intriguing. Intriguing as well is the notion that seeing is believing when the blind trust so fiercely. They must trust the yellow of the sun resembles the middle of daisies, and runny yolk. They must trust the red of a ruby resembles that of flowing blood. They must trust that at any given time, the blue painting the skies can resemble that of bluebells, blueberries, and all blue things.

The concept of colour is not an admissible one. It is convoluted and complex. The pink of a rose, of a poked eye, of a healing wound, of a stained linen. They all contain a bounty of hues; some dimmer, paler, or truer than others. They all carry their own meaning, things we assign and ascribe to an item; be it clothing, furniture, text. The point to all this is, you do not think you will ever be able to truly explain how perfect the pink that colours Mark’s lips is. You try every morning you are fortunate to wake beside him - when you are first to wake that is. You peel open your eyes one by one, blinking away sleep and tears from the strobes scorching your corneas, falling victim to the allure of sunlight that lures you from your dreams, only to wake to another.

Pink. It is too simple a word to describe the creases in his lips that sit a couple shades darker, not enough to call magenta nor red. Every morning, you ache to run your fingers along the ridges, to rouse him from sleep, punish him like the rising sun did you. You never do. You lay there, watching as silent breaths cause the rise and fall of your lover’s chest, perturbed by the riddle that curses you every other morning.

How does one describe the indescribable?

It is your job no? To spread word of such wonder. A man who proves the existence of a higher power. A man whose face cannot be a product of the algorithms of colliding comets, nor of destiny. Hands of an omniscient being carved this face, moulded him into the wonder that you wake to every morning. That pink is not just pink. It is a perfect combination of the richest red and a waxen white. God needn’t have spent long, given his almightiness, but he did spend more time than on others. For that reason you think it selfish to waste this time, to roll out of bed and busy yourself with the trivial, menial tasks of readying for work. No, you must solve this riddle. You must find a way to proclaim what you have thought since the very first moment you laid eyes on Mark Lee.

“How are you real?”

One glance and he knew you hadn’t meant to ask it aloud. It is a regular action you do in regards to him; thanking God for the blessing that was Mark Lee’s creation. It occurs at all hours of the day, both verbal and non verbal, physical and non-physical alike. Whether it be the sudden airiness in your laughter, or twirling strands of his hair betwixt your fingers. Every time your eyes settle on his face, your senses heighten while your sense diminishes.

“Morning, angel,” he mumbles, tugging you from your angelic pose on his chest and pulling your lips to his. He offers you just a press, but should it be your last, it would still be enough. Mornings spent in his company always make for an easier start, one full of wistful goodbyes but wishful hellos. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes,” your lips fall to his toned pec, offering scattered pecks. “Did you?”

Mark hums groggily, head falling to his pillow, failing to follow your sudden flurry of kisses. He finds the energy to speak just as your lips closed around his hardened nipple, as you begin to suck ever so slightly. His hands find your hips, clinging onto your frame as you kiss a path down his chest, marking his skin on your descent. “It’s almost eight,” he regrets to inform you, wishing nothing more than to enjoy this extended dream. “Won’t you be late?”

You show no signs of stopping, journeying south at a most leisurely speed. He relinquishes his hold on you, instead finding purchase in the bed linens, his fingers clasping around the duck down feathers. When your lips suddenly leave him, Mark fears the worst, that his reminder had a delayed effect. That is reluctant warning, seemingly good deed is now working against him. He soon finds his concerns were in vain as your lips close around the clothed head of his cock, sucking long and hard on the darkened material. His hips rise toward your mouth, chasing the stimulation you offer up to the deity beneath you, the one you call Mark. The one you call yours.

Your fingers grip his waistband, slowly lowering the material to the tops of his calves. His hot length meets the cool air with a hiss, his jaw tightening as you offer a languid tug from his base to his tip. A strangled moan fills the air, coating either end of your name. As you slowly pump him within your closed fist, you admire how the morning light always caught the beautiful tone of his arms, the shadows casting over his chest. He is more firm beneath your palm, more concrete, more real. When he casts his gaze toward you finally, finding some room for restraint within your steady pace, he allows himself to admire the gentle knit of your brows, the smirk upturning your lips as his breathing changes when you tighten your fist. He gasps when your eyes fly back up to his, your fist stilled at the base of his abdomen, a silent question in your eyes, a small lick at your lips.

He nods, watching you lower your weight, resting on his tensed thighs. He is breathless, eyes stuck on the plumpness of your lips, your pink tongue sweeping over your bottom one, teeth catching the skin as you run your closed fist over his cock once more, gripping tighter as he mewls.

Words escape him as he offers up devout concentration to his breathing, praying he does not crumble under the warmth of your touch and sweetness in your eyes. His eyes squeeze shut when you thumb his slit, a hard shudder passing through his bones, his hips bucking in time with your closed fist. Mark whines beneath you, the patience he forces is admirable, his whitened knuckles gleam as they blend in with the cloud of sheets. And still you wait, feeling his skin burn as his precum gathers in your palm, squelching in the air.

“Minhyung,” you breathe suddenly, fearful you might shatter the moment. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah,’ he chokes out in response. ‘I want you, please.’

You chortle at his sweet plea, capturing the skin of his thigh in a slow kiss as you pump him harder, puckering your lips along the skin at his base as his thrusts start to increase. “Slow down for me,” you whisper. Mark loves what you are doing, reducing him to the shell of himself as you lure his first orgasm of the day from him. He grips your hand then, ready to chase a release he knows you will not give him.

“Please,” he begs softly, skin a flaming pink, lined by the morning light and in a light dew.

Pressing a final, fleeting kiss to his tip he wishes to chase, you release him, drawing his brows together as you slow down before climbing off of his lap. He frowns as you kneel beside the bed before patting his shin, “come ‘ere.”

He bites his tongue, stuffing it in his cheek, “I know you’re teasing me.”

“No,” you laugh, “you’re just impatient,” you coo, watching as he follows your instruction anyway, shuffling to the edge of the bed. You tug his pants down to his ankles before you are hovering over his cock, admiring the gleam as the light reflects off his slick head. He sighs as you do, your breath cooling his angry tip, a twitch running through his cock as you just hover. He almost whines again when you pucker around his slit, the tip of your tongue passing over it ever so slightly.

His sweet moans fill the air, his breaths laboured as you tease him, lapping at his shaft as he toys with your hair, moving it aside so he can see you. He watches you take him, burying his lithe cock between the hot confines of your mouth before sucking around him, humming as he mewls beneath you. He assigns no time to keeping himself together, instead admiring how quickly you render him powerless. How you swirl your tongue around him, pump him as you suckle on his head, swallowing around him. He is completely at your mercy, his cum threatening to pour down your throat as you push on his abdomen, sending his back into the mattress. He huffs as he falls, sighing as his stolen release is remedied by your cool, slick coated finger prodding at his puckered hole.

His moans are unintelligible, garbled mumbles filling the air as you glide your finger into his ass, curling ever so slightly as you pump the digit. “I think I-,” he starts, unsure how, or just unable to finish.

“It’s okay, Mark,” you breathe on his cock, curling your finger harder with every suck you offer his leaking tip. “It’s okay, you can come.”

“Fuck- I’m-” his voice escapes him before he can help it, the mere thought of it forcing you to suck harder. His release tears through him like molten iron, encrusting his every nerve, setting him alight. His cum coats your throat as he bucks into your mouth, your name barely comprehensible as it pours from his lips. It is pleading, prayer like, something you repel. It was Mark who was God like. Mark who was heavenly.

He humps up into your mouth while grinding down on your finger, milking himself, using you, silently forbidding himself to succumb to the oversensitivity of his orgasm. He clings onto the nape of your neck, lodging his tip in the back of your throat while chasing the finger pressed beautifully to his prostate as his mind and body struggle to process the endless limits of his pleasure, though the two can agree it rests in your hands.

When he is somewhat present, Mark quickly recognises your figure lying by his side, your unsoiled hand massaging the expanse of his chest. He gazes up at you with fatigue in his eyes, and a sickly adoration. And something else he thinks he is ready to name.

“Y/N?” Mark calls, still a little breathless, failing to notice the way your eyes catch the time. “I think I-”

“Shit, it’s past nine! Mark, I have to go.”

You disappear down the hall, your presence made known only by a flurry of rushed sounds before you return in the peachy pink shirt you left behind last time. He can’t figure out how it looks better on you every time he sees it. Much like the pink of your lips when circling his cock or the more innocent pink lining your tired eyes. Even the pink hearts that fly around your head as he watches you rush around the room, glancing at him every so often, laughing to find him still watching you. Each time you do, he sees that nothing beats the colour of the red raw love he feels for you. Mark hopes to tell you this some other beautiful morning. For now, he smiles against your lips as you bids him farewell before letting him return to his slumber.

He dreams only of you.

[tales-unique]

FAULTS OF THE HEART  II

Chapter 2

That night is, quite possibly, the worst night of your life, so far. No matter how you try to position yourself you manage to aggravate your wound, rendering any progress towards sleep null and void in a matter of seconds. You hiss in frustration, sitting up after what feels like hours of fighting, deciding that there was no sense in trying while you were so wound up.

You decide instead to sate your curiosity about the place you have been brought to, starting with the room you’re in. It’s bathed in iridescent moonlight, the fire having long since burnt out, which gives it an almost ethereal glow. In its prime it must have been such a beautiful place to read and study but now it sits abandoned, a sad echo of former glory. All the books, though dusty and stained with age, look to be in good condition and, despite your fatigue, you untangle yourself from your makeshift bed to peruse them. As you edge towards them the wood creaks beneath your feet and you freeze, listening for any signs of life other than yourself in the building. When you hear nothing you release the breath you had been holding, gazing in awe at all the different books before you. Some of the names you couldn’t even understand, their beautiful cursive calligraphy written in a language that was foreign to you. Perhaps the man of the house was an avid collector of interesting books? You gently trace your finger over the spines, ignoring the burn of protest in your shoulder as you move away towards an old desk that sits under the bare window. The wood is chipped and covered in a layer of dust just like the rest of the room, the items scattered about its surface also buried. Your hand disturbs a stack of papers, the paper parched from years of exposure to the sun, to see if there’s anything you can gleam from them, but the ink is so faded that you barely make out the words. You frown at the inkwell that sits near a stack of books, some of which look like writing journals, the quill stuck inside the dried up ink. The feathering had mostly vanished, decomposed until barely any were left to cling to the brittle spine. This was someone's private space once, but not any longer. All at once the feeling that you were an invader hits you like a tidal wave and, with one last somber look, you back away from the desk to look at the door. For all you knew the man could have locked you inside, to curb any possible excursions without him knowing. The thought sent a spark of fear shooting through your system and with a brisk pace you came face to face with the door. It’s old, just as the rest of the room is, and the ornate handle is a deep brass colour under the layer of dust and grime. You hesitate, your hand hovering over the handle, sucking in a deep breath to try and calm yourself. Quickly, you tell yourself, before your fear petrifies you. The grip you have on the door handle is so tight you barely register how your knuckles are turning white, or how your shoulder aches in protest at the awkward angle you're bending at, as you peek out into the dark hallway. After a cautious once over you tentatively step out, careful to tiptoe your way down the hallway so you wouldn’t alert anyone to your presence. But it was already too late for that. The man, the lone inhabitant of the abandoned place, was already awake and wandering himself when you decided to leave your room. He had been angsty knowing there was someone, a human no less, in his castle, and so, like you, sleep evaded him. Your movements were easy to trace, the vampiric blood that flowed through his veins heightening his senses to an alarming degree. Hidden in the looming shadows he follows you, all while you are unaware, to see just what it is you’re doing wandering around at such an hour. At the end of the hallway you find a grand staircase and a hazy memory clouds your mind. You remember being swept up these stairs in the arms of your nameless rescuer, the receding image of the almost comically tall doors receding as your vision grew darker, your consciousness slipping in and out. There was even a trail of drying blood leading up to where you had been left, noticed only now that you were actively looking at the floor beneath your feet. You grimace, making sure to descend on the other side of the stairs. Once at the bottom you come to stand in front of those large doors, ever imposing, and a sense of apprehension settles like a lead weight in the pit of your stomach. Although you had no idea where you were the danger of leaving while still injured with no means to protect yourself loomed threateningly, and that alone made you hesitant. Swallowing your fear you gingerly tread towards the doors, careful in opening them lest you further injure yourself. Whatever you had been expecting, or not , when you stepped out into the night, you could have said with certainty that it wouldn’t have been impaled corpses . You freeze, your blood like ice. Corpses. Impaled. On spikes . Any and all doubts you had about the dangers outside being greater than the ones inside were now none-existent. The man who lived here, the one who had saved your life , was the same man who had done this to these people. A rational person with a sane mind wouldn’t willingly do this to someone, right? No, which meant you had to leave, and quickly, or you could be next. But, oh God , how would you get past them? You barely had time to register that they were more mummified than fresh, having been there for a while, since you were back-peddling as quickly as your legs could take you. Until your back hits something solid and more alive than the doors. You let out a scream, partially from shock and from the pain sent rocketing through your arm, twisting sharply on your heel to see the doors cast open wide and none other than the man standing there, blocking your path. “You’re up late,” he speaks with a casualness that unnerves you more than anything, his gaze solemn. Your chest heaves as you stare at him with wide eyes, panic surging through your veins. Inside you're a mess of emotions that will not be tamed. Utter chaos and turmoil. When you don't respond he lets out a defeated sigh, a weary sound that betrays how worn down he has become. "If you wanted to leave you could have just said so," he muses, frowning when you recoil away from him when he moves to pass you. He stops to look at the corpses that frame the entrance but there's no feeling there. Not anymore. His hate and anger and pain has faded into nothingness, a void he had hoped he would never fall into. You watch him like a hawk the entire time, body tense. At any point he could turn on you and you had to be ready . But the moment doesn't come. There's just him, standing illuminated in the moonlight, broken. "Where would I even go, if I could leave?" The words are quiet but you can't stand the stifling silence any longer. "You could go anywhere," he answers easily, resolute. You scoff, brushing your fingertips over your bandaged wound. It stings and you wince with a hiss. "And do what? I have no money, my arm is useless right now. I'd be dead in a day or two. And that's if I don't get found by the Baron's men first." It's true that the Baron was still a threat to you, even more so now that his hunting party had been cut down, so blood would be demanded. Just not yours if you could help it. "Who are you, anyway?" You ask, changing the subject. There's so much you want to ignore at that moment so you focus on him. There's a moment of silence before he finally responds and his voice has an edge to it that you can’t quite place. You get the feeling that he’d much rather remain nameless to you, but out of politeness he must give in. How quaint. "Your people call me Alucard," he replies, turning to look at you expectantly. You quickly stumble out your name, suddenly feeling like a caged animal under the starkness of his golden gaze. They almost glow in the light, giving him a predatory air. "Well," you clear your throat, quickly stepping past the, ahem, decorations , to stand next to him at the top of the stone steps, "thank you, Alucard. I'd have died if you hadn't helped me." It's the truth; you owe him your life, and he knows it. "You are welcome," he responds slowly, awkwardly, glancing at you from the corner of his eyes before they turn heavenward. "A beautiful night, isn't it?" He's trying to ease the tension and even though it doesn't help much you appreciate the sentiment. "Yes, it's nice," you answer softly. Looking at him as he is in that moment you find that he doesn’t seem so intimidating as you had first thought and you feel ashamed for having judged him so harshly so quickly. Not that it doesn’t diminish what you have learnt from your little excursion outside the castle. After all, there were dead bodies on his front step. Maybe there was more to this than first met the eye, maybe not, but you were determined to discover the truth.

[kangyeosaang]

#showyourprocess

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES — When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

thank you csenge @imdefs​ for tagging me to show how i made this set ✨

buckle up folks this is gonna be long bc min. character limit uni papers thought me a lot of things but def not how to be concise 

01. planning

this was a long time ago but i do remember wanting to make something with overlays bc quite honestly i started working on this way too late and it seemed the fastest lmao. jokes on me i had 2 failed attempts and this also went through some changes along the way. initially i wanted to combine dye, bol and present:you... them being my fave eras for this lovable dumb man. so it would’ve been one pair for each gif.

02. creating

picking footage

so onto creating,, first things first the concept had to be changed bc present:you only had light shots so that had to be removed rip, here you can see a failed attempt at me trying to include it. this was before i started making proof on concepts for gifsets which later on saved me so much time... but not this time

once i accepted defeat i had to reshuffle the shots and add some new ones but it was all good i was not losing braincells at all. so onto the real gifs, gonna show you the red one bc that’s my fave of the three. 

making the base

btw i’m always working with timelines and smart objects bc it feels way easier than frames. so here we started with this jaebeom, and since the background and his hair it’s pretty dark those will be the parts which will be covered with the next gif. i made it black and white and also adjusted the levels a bit to make it a bit softer (lowered the whites and lightened the blacks)

for aesthetic purposes i always go for one close shot and one wider shot, then literally all i did was add the other gif on top, and set it to lighten. okay this is it that’s the whole process bye. oh we need the rest too? okay okay. so btw for a while i was considering making both of them coloured but then bw looked better when having all three gifs under each other, felt more like a ‘set’

now for this gif in particular i did not need to mask anything, shocking, but for the others i had to either blend the edges or make the bottom layer darker at some places to let the top layer show up a bit more e.g. for the second gif i needed a tiny blending like so (it’s the layer 1 copy 3 lmao)

making the overlay bits

then we are basically done with the main part of the gifs, obviously i applied colouring to each inside the smart object. but i always like to add something extra on top which are usually two things: 1.) full overlay gif something blurred (literally any kind of footage.. i used leaves, water, space renders etc. so far), or a light leak, oooor a bokeh effect whatever and just keep it subtle. and 2.) some smaller moving bits which are usually sparkles, dust, stars, galaxy stuff etc. u get the idea. for the above gif this happens to be Layer 1 copy 2 rip. also in this case this overlay is actually this jaebeom footage blurred and with some colouring added on top of it to have this redish brassy tone (not me forgetting about this completely lmao) obviously it’s zoomed in and i’m using the top left part of the video blurred. look at me explaining my chosen gif with another gifs gahd i’m bad at this. anyways it just goes to show i use practially anything i can think of and just blur it. 

for the full overlay footage i either go black and white and set it to overlay or soft light, whatever works best, or go coloured and set it to lighten again.... whatever blending mode works best. for this specific 2nd gif i went with lighten. for the smaller moving bits same tbh i just adjust the levels/curves to only show the bits i need when it’s set to lighten, i.e. i make its background more black so it won’t make the gif hazy. 

 adding the text

so anyways i add those on top so it’s not boring anymore,, practically just concealing the fact that all i‘ve really done was adding a gif on top of another and set it to lighten rip. oh yeah we have the text layers, nothing fancy here: for the script i used Challenge and the serif is FogtwoNo5. For the script i sampled some red from the background and just set it to overlay, and for the serif i just went with full caps adding some extra kerning bc one: for full caps you always need that, not this much lol, and two: it just looks better okay. 

last touches

then i added a levels adjustment layer because i felt the gifs were a bit brighter than i wanted, so we ended up with this 

saviiiiiing 

oh my gahd we are almost theeeere, for saving gifs here are my settings, i did not have to tell photoshop which colours to use luckily so it was an easy process.

03. posting

eeehmmm posting... yeah nothing exciting? i just save it in my drafts check it on mobile, and if something is really messed up i’ll change some colouring and saving settings, but this was a fairly ‘easy’ gif for tumblr to compress decently so none of that. 

if you read this far bruh.... i don’t think i’ve made sense anyways thank yooouuu 💕

and the five amazing CCs i’m tagging are 

🎬 dear wifey, rosie @se-jun​​​​ for these victon posters which i definitely did not make her choose and we ended up with the same i would’ve chosen 🌈 vivi @yeekies​​​​ for making a rainbow from the mostly yellow blob that is the fireworks mv 💙 yv @woodzm​​​​ for this beauty where the blues are colourmatched so well it makes me mad 🌸 lotta @halahala​​​​ for this miracle of a gifset which made me not despise pink 🌈 bridget @lilacwoo​​​​ for this 12/10 rainbow right here because apparently i like rainbows. shocking.   

feel free to ignore and all them usual stuff

[hhjs]

the grey area.

type. ⤳drabble.

pairing. ⤳lee know x gender neutral reader.

trope. ⤳ exes to lovers???

genre. ⤳angst with a dash of fluff.

word count.⤳773.

In hindsight, when he pictured being independent, all he could envisage was doing whatever he wanted without any hindrances whatsoever - sure that sounds childish - but not even in his wildest dreams could he engineer that moving in with you would turn out like this.

The guest room is smaller than your shared bedroom, the walls are a muted grey but he can tell it used to be some other colour long ago, the heater barely works and the worst of all, he thinks, is that he can never go back to being who he was before you came along; surely a lengthy trip down memory lane would prompt him to recall that he was always an advocate for preferring alone time over having company.

But now solitude feels odd, like something is missing.

There is a huge crack.

Fissuring out in areas of the ceiling where the paint had started to wear off. Minho wonders why he hasn't noticed it before, marvelling at its big blob-like shape.

But then you call out his name again, hip pressed to the door frame and he knows his sight is fixated on the particularly unimportant spot because he wants to avoid looking at you.

"What do you want?" He poses, trying his best to sound like he isn't partially thrilled by your presence.

"Can I sleep here tonight?" a rustling noise follows, the flicking of switches which cause the hallway lights to go off, he already knows the outcome of your demand and maybe you do too.

This has happened so many times over the last few months that Minho supposes it ought be a routine of some sort, he wants to ask you what you really want, not just now, what you want out of the two of you, if you still love him - and yet, his pride prevents him in this regard, no, he reminds himself, you asked for this, this gap between you and him.

His fingers make a fist around the fabric of his blanket, didn't you say you want a break? How ridiculous is it to want something like that when you insist on living together - not that you had a choice, he reasons, broke college students can only manage so much rent all alone.

On one hand, he is grateful that he still gets to teeter around the edges of your life in spite of the 'break' or whatever the hell that is but on another, it meant that Minho would eventually get to witness you getting over him, letting go of him, when he's clearly far behind in both departments.

He feels irrationally angry at that specific thought but regardless of this - because he can never actually say no to you (but also because he too has gotten out of the habit of sleeping alone) - he sighs defeatedly and without tearing his gaze away, patting the vacant space beside him, says - "Come here." Your smile, even in the vague moonlight percolating through the window pane, is unmistakable.

Minho sucks in a breath through his teeth when he feels your fingers trailing up the bumps of his spine, he feels you grin against his shoulder.

"Cut it out." He whines, looking, watching as your fingers are paused mid-air ready to repeat the action.

 Minho renders a blank look before forcing himself to look away, even though all he wants to do is trace his fingers along your jaw, the jut of your nose, the shape of your lips, just tracing the milky lighting against your face like he wanted to memorise the design, areas where the shadows thinned out to form ribbons, any excuse to touch you, just once again, like he used to.

To no one's surprise, not even a second passes before he's made to sense digits ghosting against his shoulder blade again, your breath lingering against the back of his neck, in a poor attempt to make sure he doesn't notice.

"You're gonna do it again, aren't you?" He groans, turning on his side for good, watching you grin wider to convey an unsaid but positive response.

What he doesn't expect - at all - is the way you quickly press your mouth to his.

He stiffens at first and then in a sudden bout of sheer madness, realises just how much he missed you, missed this. The familiarity of your fingers scrapping against his scalp, the way that draws a groan out of him. He lets himself go, wraps an indolent leg around your hip to draw you closer.

Maybe it's a test, just to see if you still had him wrapped around your finger.

(Minho hates how the answer is more apparent than he would've liked.)

...

[written-on-the-trees]

Chris Motionless Fan Fic - I Know You

Prompt: Cursed

Word-count: 1625 words

Warnings: none

Description: Many beings who cast curses are also the beings who break them...it becomes at little awkward, at least in Chris's opion, when the only way to break the curse he cast is through true love's kiss.

Chris knew the other fairies hated him. He was fine with it; he didn’t exactly like them, either. So long as their hatred never outweighed their fear, he didn’t care how much they whispered when they thought he couldn’t hear, or cowered when he came into sight, or avoided him as if their lives depended on it. He had no problem with being left alone to his own devices at all.

 However, what Chris did have a problem with was three of the boldest fairies deciding they were going to try and break his curse.

 Angelo, Thomas, and Josh were all beings Chris had maybe once considered friends…yet they took the side of the humans who had attempted to destroy Chris’s life. Even if Chris hadn’t been on the best of terms with the three other fairies at the time, the betrayal was enough to have him seeing red. Taking the side of human was bad enough: taking the side of humans who had demonstrably decided they had no care for fairies or their lives…any fairy in the Moors would be angry at them. They were trying to leverage bonds of friendship that hadn’t existed in decades against him, but Chris wasn’t having it.

 They were trying to help the humans circumvent his curse by hiding the cursed chit of a human away from the palace she had been born into as if Chris’s magic was insipid enough to be tricked by a mere change in location…but it would do them no good.

 On the night of her twenty-first birthday, the princess would prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel, and would fall into an endless sleep that only true love’s kiss could wake her from. Her parents could destroy every spinning wheel in the kingdom: Angelo, Thomas, and Josh could secret her away to a cottage in the forest: and every ‘magician’ and ‘sorcerer’ from across the land could work on breaking the curse, but it wouldn’t work. The outcome Chris had cursed the human to was inevitable and unavoidable…and even if, by some sheer coincidence any of them did come up with a way that could risk the curse not coming to be, that was why Chris was here, sitting in the shadowy lower branches of a large tree that overlooked the cottage they had attempted to hide the chit in, watching.

 He would not be denied his revenge.

 He would not.

 Even if it meant that he was getting cramps in his legs and dew was settling on the feathers of his wings, he would ensure everything went to plan. He was half-expecting Angelo, Thomas, or Josh to come out and confront him, or ask him to break the curse now there was just a week until the princess’s twenty-first birthday and there was no-one who had come close to breaking or circumventing his curse. He wasn’t expecting to see the princess herself.

 She had, as Thomas had said, become a beautiful young woman, with his gift granting her long hair so pale it appeared silver in the moonlight, ivory skin, bright green eyes that seemed to shine with the reflected light of the stars, and a graceful walk as she cut through the long grass outside the front of the cottage. Chris knew he shouldn’t be surprised the young woman was so beautiful, he had been there to hear Thomas give her that gift, but…it was a hollow beauty.

 Her sadness was so obvious, it rendered her beauty shallow and empty. Her eyes may reflect the light, but they were hollow behind that reflection. Her lips were full and a fascinating shade of pink, but they were turned down slightly at the corners. Her cheeks were pale and smooth, but there was no hint of colour to them, no sign of life or joy. She was like a statue; beautiful, but cold.

   “Are you here to visit my uncles?”

   Chris almost started out of his tree at the question.

 Almost.

 Instead, he managed to keep his surprise on the inside, and instead turned to quirk his head at her, wondering if she would be put off by his tall frame, or wide raven-like wings, or the horns that rose from his head.

 But she wasn’t. She just waited patiently for him to respond, looking up at him calmly from the base of his tree.

   So Chris just shrugged: “No, I’m not.”

 “Then why are you sitting in the tree outside their house?”

 Their house, not our house…interesting…Chris pushed the thought aside for later, and just shrugged again: “Because I want to be.”

 The princess nodded: “Oh, that seems reasonable, I suppose. I’m Dawn - may I ask your name?”

 Being raised by fairies, the girl should have known better than to offer her name…but manners were manners, and as she had, Chris offered a name of his own in return: “You may call me Chris.”

 “Well, it was nice to speak to you, Chris.” Dawn offered, even though their little tête-à-tête was hardly what Chris would call a conversation: “Have a nice evening.”

   She appeared ready to walk on deeper into the woods, and Chris acted on the sudden urge to join her and elegantly dropped down from his position in the branches.

 Dawn seemed lonely - and she was only going to become lonelier after she fell into her death-like sleep. Chris wouldn’t say he felt bad for the young woman, but he did acknowledge that she was innocent. His war was with her father, King Stefan, the man who had tried to cut off his wings, so the least he could do was offer the girl some company during her last waking week. As recompence for using her as a pawn against her father, even if she didn’t know he was doing so.

   “Let me accompany you.” he offered, along with his arm so she could tuck her elbow through his: “We can continue to speak on your walk.”

 Unsurprisingly, Dawn accepted - even though Chris was appalled at how little Angelo, Thomas, and Josh had taught her - and treated him to a smile that finally injected some life into her features: “Thank you, Chris. I would very much enjoy that.”

   And so off they went.

      Chris slid into the grand chamber they had laid Dawn in.

 The thorny wall that he had grown to surround her in her sleep, back when he hadn’t wanted anyone to break his curse, had been no obstacle for him. He had found his way to Dawn’s bedside with no trouble at all, for all the good it would do him.

 He had been foolish. So, so foolish.

 Each night for a week, he had met Dawn at the edge of the forest, and they had spent a few hours walking among the trees, with her arm tucked through his.

 At first, it had been an attempt at recompense: just something to make up for the loneliness she would feel in her endless sleep, but then…but then he had gotten to know her. Dawn was everything she had been gifted by the fairies and more. Beautiful inside and out, full of physical and mental grace, kind, intelligent (albeit sheltered), and utterly lovely. And now laying eerily still on an ornate four-poster bed.

 He carefully perched on the side of the bed, and finally looked at Dawn properly. She looked like a memorial statue: a version of herself carved in marble to rest atop her grave, and it made Chris’s chest tighten. He had long thought his heart was beyond use, but seeing Dawn in an inescapable sleep, one that was his doing, made the long-forgotten organ stutter and ache.

    “I’m sorry, Dawn.” he whispered, choking on the emotion welling in his throat, reaching out to brush his fingertips over the curve of her cheekbone before cupping her cheek in his hand: “So, so sorry.”

   Of course, there was no response - and for the first time since he’d escaped Stefan, Chris felt tears well in his eyes.

 This was all his doing. Dawn would remain in an endless sleep, with no-one to wake her, because her father and ‘uncles’ had kept her isolated from anyone who could truly love her. There was no-one to deliver true love’s kiss, no-one who could wake her, and it was all because of his bitterness towards her father.

 Leaning in, Chris pressed a soft kiss to Dawn’s forehead.

 He’d remain here with her. He had no-one else to miss or who would miss him, and even if she was asleep, Chris prayed that somehow she would know that she wasn’t alone. It wasn’t enough - would never be enough to make up for what he’d done - but there was nothing else he could do.

   Closing his eyes against the tears that were threatening to spill, Chris snapped them open again when he heard a voice he thought he’d never hear again: “Chris?”

 Dawn looked up at him, face painted with confusion, but Chris couldn’t bring himself to worry about her confusion.

 She was awake.

   “Dawn!”

 “You woke me up…” she whispered: “I thought only…but that would mean…”

 “I think we have a lot to talk about.” Chris whispered after she’d trailed off, still awed that his kiss had actually been true love’s kiss, and Dawn was awake and talking: “But we have time for that. You’re awake…”

 “I am.” Dawn beamed: “Because you woke me.”

   She reached out for him, and Chris met her half way, pulling her into his arms and clutching her to his chest before leaning down to kiss her properly this time, smiling into it when he felt her return the kiss eagerly.

 He’d never been happier.

[bowieandqueen11]

Always Called It / Danny Torrance Imagine

Request: Hello Love I hope you’re doing well! I wanted to ask if you’d be willing to make a Danny Torrance imagine where him and y/n where friends when they were little because they both have the shining but one of them moved away but reunite because of Abra and they end up getting married in the end (a happy ending please). Thank you love! 💚💚 

This is honestly what I need right now ;’3 <3 Also I’ve received SO many requests for more Danny Torrance wowey

Comments are always appreciated!

The bench was once a sea boat, one that had ridden so many waves with buoyant ease, feeling the sun and letting the wind pass by with its tuneful song.

Now the colours of every year she was painted show through in rainbow flakes, rendering her all the more beautiful, safely in her earthen harbour. The bench had been exposed to the elements for many seasons, likely it was older than Danny could even count to yet on his fingers, but still he ran them over the swirls in the wood grain as he talked to DIck, his breathe tasting like brine as the old man turned on his heel and left him there alone again. He sat, not without impatience, but feeling as if his legs had been glued to the seat. He knew if he tried to move, his feet would give out, and Wendy was too far away to shout for help.

Besides, he could feel you in his mind, poking about, and it comforted him plenty to know you were there with him.

‘Who was that?’ 

He felt the wind tousle his hair, cool, refreshing and let his eyes fall on the ocean, the horizon, far away. He wondered how many had sat in this very spot and what their emotions were, perhaps some were boys with their dads on their way back from school, some the old folk come to remember a loved one who's passed. He was neither of these things, and yet somehow both at the same time.

He wondered if anyone else had felt as scared as him whilst they sat here.

‘My friend Dick. He’s trying to help me get rid of the monsters. And control the shine now that Tony’s gone.’  

‘I thought I was helping you?’

Today was damp and bleak, and a light grey mist hung over the lake like a veil, clouding his view of the sun. 

‘You do. You are. You’re my best friend, you know that... where are you?’

Whipping your head around to make sure your mum was busy tending to your sibling, you step a little closer up the brown crunchy grass of the slight hill by the lapping water to splay your hand against the trunk of an old tree. You watch Danny for a moment, the brown haired boy slumped against the seat, his skin so pale at first you think he’s ill before you see him slowly raise his thumb up to his mouth.

‘I miss you. I wish you were here.’

An unfamiliar, and unsettling feeling churns in the pit of your stomach as you watch his eyes dull, an unknowing blush spreading a hot red against the the brows of your cheeks as you finally dare to step out and speak. 

‘Danny, I have to tell you something. We’re moving.’

~

The bench was an old brass colour that reminded Danny of a fire extinguisher. Strange, he knew, but there was something menacing about the twirling swirls of metal that wound like spikes around the top as he lets his fingers fall to the surface, feeling the heat of the day that had soaked into the metal. Only here such a thing could remain, here in the walled garden. The bench was typical of the parks, the rosy cedar browns married to the iron that curved into the great arms and grew into ever-blooming flowers to rest on.

The park covered a wide area that could fit about three small houses. It was hilly with a tall tree or two near one hill. There were benches for people to sit in every corner and jogging tracks were all around the edges of the park. The west corner had some swings too on which many children used to come and play. Flower hedges and bushes grew all around; this made the park look more pleasant and attractive. This place would have been most beautiful at this time; it would have been so pleasurable to relax here and take in some cool fresh air but only if bad things were not happening. If only his heart wasn’t hammering so harsh in his chest that he felt the sick rise up his throat in hot lumps of acid.

‘Hello, Danny.’

He feels his breathe leave his body as he turns slowly around, every nerve and every fibre of his being trembling as he spots the lady standing next to Abra.

‘Hey Uncle Dan, I told you I’d find her! Lucky she’s my teacher, huh? It would have been harder to find her if she lived miles and miles and miles away-’

Finally braving a small cough, before placing his hand against his chest with what he could only hope was a perfectly reasonable pass for a smile, Danny allows himself to fall back onto the bench as you leave Abra’s side and sit down next to him.

‘Hi-’

‘What happened to your hair?’

You laugh lightly, and Danny feels the tips of his ears burning red as you hit him gently on the shoulder. ‘It’s a good look, I’m not sure the bowl cut is super in fashion right now.’

‘Jeez, I’ve missed you Y/n.’

‘Yeah, I missed you too. I tried to find you, I swear, but it was just so difficult over such a long distance-’

‘It’s fine, it’s fine, really. I always knew this day would come.’ 

He pauses for a moment, his fingers lightly gliding across the cold metal, its material coarse against his skin, but as his fingers splayed closer to yours, he couldn’t care less. He held in his breathe, not daring to move or even look at you as his pinkie bumped against yours, before his trembling fingers finally find the courage to slowly slide over yours, enveloping them completely.

‘Or at least, I hoped it would.’

The night passes so quickly, Danny can hardly recall the time difference between Abra leaving the two of them with a big smirk on her face just a little past when she was meant to be home at dinner, and when the darkness blanketed them in a mist so cold Danny finally offered to walk you back home.

He had always enjoyed the nights here, the pure inky black a comfort, a blanket of generous velvet that kept him safe and illuminated the world in a light he could understand and draw upon. It is the pure black that makes the moon so beautiful, that makes a stage for her to stand upon, and gives the stars a beauty that makes the soul serene, and lights a spark in the imagination. That night was no different, but there was the added bonus that he felt after years of gazing out of his bedroom window wishing that he was out there with you, you were finally here with him.

Kicking at the gravel softly, a dopey smile on your face, you allow the short tufts of your hair to fall over your forehead, embracing the cooling breeze, but not allowing yourself to meet Danny’s gaze in case he figured out how reminiscent they had become.

Beaming like the sun, Danny gazed fondly at you, before asking ‘well, what shall we do now? The night is still young, and I don’t have to be at work for another few hours.’

‘And hopefully the day will be too’, you add, looking up at him quickly with a stiffness in your frame, an electricity surrounding you that nearly takes Dan’s breath away. Your hoarse voice continues, as you begin to bite your bottom lip, ‘and the day after that, hopefully too.’

~

You look at yourself in the mirror one last time, imagining the young girl who used to wave at the young boy she’d heard in her kindergarten class was the strange child with the dead father, the boy who’s mind used to shout at hers whenever he passed her by in the corridor. Your young mind not yet afraid of consequences or danger or in-laws, built up the courage to climb the tree outside his house and reach out to tap on his window before nearly falling out of it when his Wendy ran out the front door and caught you in the act, inviting you in for milk and cookies and asking you, next time, to just ring the doorbell. That was the day Danny had realised he felt a strange, scary but right feeling, almost as if the part of him that had been lacking or missing or longing for something in this strange town. After the Overlook, after all the monsters, he truly believed you were there to save him.

And after Abra brought you back to him, he made it his job to never lose you again, even if it meant settling down in New Hampshire (which Billy was thrilled about).

Taking Abra’s hand, you step into the Church, seeing the face of your fiance turn from anxiously sweeping the guests into a gaze of adoration and complete devotion once he had spotted you, you knew that whatever the future held for the two of you, as long as you were together, he would be alright.

And for the first time in his life, Danny Torrance wasn’t afraid of the future. In fact, he looked forward to it.

[fizzyxcustard]

Thoughts Of You

Fandom: Richard Armitage RPF

Summary: From the imagine of ‘Imagine Richard is in a loveless relationship but can’t stop thinking about you’. This was requested by @sunflwrnroses and I believe a couple of other people, but I’ve misplaced the asks. 

Pairings: Richard Armitage x Fem!Reader, Richard Armitage x OFC

Warnings: Angst, yearning, requited love (but not acted on), swearing

Word count: 1069

Comments/Notes: If you wish to be added to my tag lists for a particular fandom, character, or even everything, please send me an ask or a private message and I will add you. This idea actually came into my head from looking at a GIF set of Lucas North. Your background with Richard and also the woman he’s with have been left open for you to fill in your own gaps. 

Music inspiration/listened to for this piece: Two Steps From Hell personal playlist. 

Masterlist of fan fiction here

Every time Richard woke up next to her, he wished it was you.

How long had he felt like this? It felt like forever. Locked inside a life that he had grown to hate, which had made him forget who he really was. This relationship had become same old, familiar and comfortable. Well, maybe for her. For Richard it was unbearable. A lead weight was constantly on his shoulders, pushing downwards, crushing and leaving him breathless.

Whenever she texted him, asking what he wanted for dinner, Richard would sigh. He never wanted to go home. The pain was becoming worse every day, heightened by the fact that he felt in his own heart and mind that you would never want him in the way he wanted you. You were younger, fresher and probably didn’t want to be dating a man not far off the right age to be mistaken for your father.

One afternoon, Richard sat in a coffee shop two blocks away from his apartment and watched the heavy rain fall outside. People dashed through the streets, holding umbrellas and drenched papers over their heads. She would be at home now, probably talking to her friend on the phone, gossiping about a woman in their friendship circle who had recently got divorced.

Oh, it’s absolutely terrible. She’s going to be single with three children. Who’s going to want to take that on? Most men don’t want to date divorcees with children. I’m so glad that it’s not me in that situation.

Richard rolled his eyes at the thought. How had she become so judgemental in her attitudes? And then there was the added headache that every time she and Richard walked hand in hand past jewellers, she’d begin hinting at which engagement rings she liked the best, but making sure he knew that she only wanted one that was at least a carat in size. Anything less would not be acceptable.

The clock on the wall behind the barista’s head said half five. There was no way he could make this outing last any longer without her asking where he had been. Richard’s meeting with Audible was only meant to go on until three, and he had already called her saying he was going to be late; oh, what a lovely lie to tell.

Suddenly Richard’s phone chimed and an incoming text appeared on his lock screen. He grinned. Your name immediately caught his attention. With fumbling hands, Richard unlocked his phone and made his way to your message.

I’m going to be in the city tomorrow if you’d like to meet for a coffee or lunch.

Of course he wanted to meet you. There was no way he could defer seeing you, even if it meant lying to someone or cancelling an important meeting. You were the small speck of happiness that remained of his existence, a shining light that was a sign of a ‘could be’ life. The rest of his life was falling apart, splitting at the seams through his need to escape from her clutches.

***

She sat opposite Richard, grinning at him, waiting for him to comment on the meal. Her brightly coloured and perfectly manicured nails were gripping a wine glass. Richard’s well-earned cash had brought those claws which he hated and had grimaced at numerous times when they had scratched him during love making. No, not love making, just sex. That was all it was to Richard now. Purely a physical act, nothing emotional about it.

“You’re quiet, darling,” she said sweetly. “Something wrong?”

Everything is wrong. I’m sharing my apartment, my life and my wealth with a woman I can’t stand. And I’m forever hoping on a life with someone I actually love who I doubt wants me in return.

“Yes, things are fine,” Richard replied flatly, his voice holding no emotion to it whatsoever.

She narrowed her eyes at him, her smile disappearing. “I slave away over this meal for you and you come home with a face like thunder. You are so ungrateful, Richard!” she shouted, slamming the wine glass down on the table. “It’s probably that little bitch you’ve been texting.”

Richard shot up from the table, his heart hammering and his blood becoming so hot that he could hear it rushing in his ears. “How fucking dareyou check my phone!” he boomed. “I want you out.”

“You can’t throw me out,” she scoffed, putting her hand on her hip for emphasis.

“I can, and I will. The lease for this apartment is in myname. I want you out by tomorrow afternoon. This is the last straw for me. I can’t stand living with you…”

Then the waterworks began. “Richard, darling, please!” she begged. “I have nowhere to go.”

Richard stepped towards her, looking down upon her shorter frame. His teeth were gritted, and he snarled at her. “That’s not my problem.”

“It isher, isn’t it?”

“That’s none of your business. She’s nothing to do with you. Start packing….” Richard’s voice had deepened significantly. He felt no guilt for rendering her to pathetic dramatics. “Things haven’t been right for months, and this was the perfect way of endings things.”

She continued sobbing, falling back onto the chair.

Richard walked out of the room and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. All he could think of was you. Not her, but you. His reason, his light.

Wailing echoed through the apartment as she vocalised her grief at the sudden prospect of being without a man who would give her money and be the reason she would fit in with all her socialite friends. Richard rolled his eyes, staring at his reflection in the mirror. Then he stood to his full height, feeling fresh air finally fill his lung and the crushing weight began to ascend.

There was a buzzing sound as Richard’s phone began to vibrate angrily. Your name flashed on his screen again.

Richard sighed in relief and answered, almost bursting into tears at the sound of your voice uttering the simple word ‘hello’.

“Hi, love,” he whispered, overwhelmed by the sudden rush of heat in his chest and stomach.

“Are you alight?” you asked.

“Couldn’t be any better…”

There was a sudden crash outside the bathroom door.

“What was that?” you asked in concern. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fine. Now, about that meet up tomorrow…”

Follow Forever tag list:

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Richard Armitage tag list: @inkededucatednnerdy @crazytxgradstudent

[jacksonxschuester]

I Owe You a Painting || Jacksher

Date: September 20th, 2020 Who: Jackson and Asher @asherkarofsky Description: Jackson delivers the painting he did for Asher, as a thank you for the easel Asher made for Jackson, which was a thank you for... you get the point. Jackson then helps Asher make his suite feel a little more like home Note: Not finished, but it’s cute and I want it on the dash. 

Jackson had actually finished the painting a few days ago, but he'd gotten ambitious and decided to try oil paints for this piece, and he'd wanted to give it lots of time to dry before delivering it. Taking inspiration from some Bob Ross episodes, he'd created a sweeping prairie landscape with a duck pond and a farm house. There were a few trees and bushes and flowers, but plenty of open blue sky and a worn, homely feel to the house. He'd painted it on a 18" x 24" canvas and had signed his name in the bottom corner. Overall, he was pretty proud of how it turned out, but he was still a little nervous about Asher's reaction to it as he stood outside the Dom's door and knocked. He hoped it would be well recieved.

Everyone had told him he would settle in and get more things and that the giant suite wouldn't feel so giant anymore. That had not happened yet. Mostly he ate in the cafeteria and spent any time out of classes in bed sleeping. Today he'd decided to do some whittling in his suite since the workshop didn't have the light he needed. There were small curls of wood on the kitchen bar where he was working. He'd just put the small creature on the bar top to look at when there was a knock on the door. He opened it wondering who would be coming to see him. He was happy to see that it was Jackson. He just didn't know what to say. "Hi." He even waved before feeling awkward and letting his hand drop. "Oh... oh come in."

Jackson forced a smile onto his face when he saw Asher. "Hi." He greeted, and stepped in when he was invited. He stood awkwardly for a moment, and then remembered the reason for his visit. "I um... I finished it." He said, turning the painting around in his hands for Asher to see. "It's my first attempt with oil paintings, so it's not perfect, but I hope you like it and even if you don't it's okay because I can always try to do a better one..." He rambled.

Asher hadn't expected to get the painting yet. Surely Jackson had so much other more important things than him, but here it was right in front of him. He didn't know what he'd been expecting, but the painting was perfect. "It... it's perfect. It's exactly like the place I dream of having some day. Like that's exactly it." He reached out for the painting but hesitated. "Can I... Is it okay to hold it?"

Jackson's expression shifted into a softer, more genuine smile as Asher took in the painting. He was relieved that the Dom seemed to like it. "Yeah, it's totally dry, you can hold it." He assured. "You really do like it?" He asked, seeking confirmation and reassurance.

"Like it? No. I love it." He carefully took the painting in his hands walking closer to the large living room window to see it in the light. "How did you know this was exactly what I saw in my head? I have this dream... kind of dumb I know, but I'd love to own a place like this someday. A place to call my own, you know?"

"I didn't know." Jackson shrugged. "I just ran with the idea you gave me and this is what came out. It does look like a nice place to live though. Peaceful..." His smile turned sad as he realized he'd never even given any thought to the type of house he'd like to have someday. Not since Steven had passed, anyway. "I hope you get to have a place like this in the future, Sir."

"Yeah peaceful." He turned to the other man. "I hope so. Gotta be careful with dreams though." He hated that he couldn't just be one of those hopeful, optimistic people. He blames his parents for ruining that for him. "Will you help me figure out the best place to hang it." He looked around at the suite. It was very.... white. The painting would start to make this place feel a little like home.

Jackson nodded, "Of course I'll help." He said, glossing right over the bit about being careful with dreams. He'd given up having any sort of dream himself. He didn't want to bring Asher down by talking about that. "What about that wall there?" He pointed to one of the walls in the living room. It was opposite the couch, so that you could see it if you were sitting there, and the shape and size of the canvas was very appropriate to the size of wall it was

He nodded. He realized instantly that if he was on the couch he'd be able to see it and also it there it would be visible as soon as he walked in the door. "Here hold it. I'll get my tools." He went to the kitchen bar, but stopped and turned back to look at Jackson. "Thank you. Thank you for this." He grabbed his tools and walked back over. Gesturing around the suite, he laughed. "As you can see I'm not so good at, decorating. Personalizing." That was the better word. He didn't need 'decorating' but he did sort of crave personalization in his life.

Jackson waited patiently while Asher grabbed his tools, and upon observation he found that Asher's statement was accurate. There weren't a lot of personal touches around the place, except for the pile of wood shavings and some sort of carving on the counter. Jackson assumed that's what he'd been working on when he arrived, but now that he knew the wood shavings were there he was itching to sweep them up and put them out of sight. "I could help you with that, if you like?" He offered suddenly, unsure of exactly way. Maybe he just needed to feel like he was useful, needed by someone.

Ash was pulling out his small hammer and some finishing nails that should do the job to hold up the painting when Jackson spoke again. "Hmm? Oh.. oh really? You'd do that?" He looked around again. "Don't even know where to start." He shrugged and kept his gaze down on the hammer in his hands that he was spinning around. "Used to have a little picture of me an' Silas and Dave as kids, but I lost it." It had been the only thing he'd had to remind him of his family. And losing it was the very last time he ever cried.

Jackson nodded. "Yeah, I don't mind." He said. "Is there a way to find a copy of that picture, maybe? Would Silas or Dave have a copy?" He asked, already planning on asking Silas for any photos of Asher as a kid to frame. "We could also paint the walls to whatever colours you like, and add things related to stuff you like." He motioned over to the carving on the counter. "Do you do a lot of that sort of thing? You could display your work on your bookshelves and such.

"Don't know. Maybe Dave. Si kind of left in a hurry. Don't think our folks let him bring much when he came here." He frowned. "They won't mind me paintin'?" He been worried about the holes he was about to put in the wall and already had a plan on how he'd repair those when the time came. He laughed and smiled at Jackson. "Don't if they're as good as all that, but might be nice to look at 'em." He looked over at the creature on the bar. He found a lot of happiness in making them even as silly as they were.

Jackson made a note to check with Dave, also. Just in case. "They don't mind paint and things like hanging pictures or hooks or decor, they just don't want anyone doing extensive damage that'll cost a lot to repair or render the suite unusable for any period of time." He informed, remembering one incident when he was a teenager that his father got very heated about. "One time a student knocked out a couple of walls to combine all the bedrooms together. My father was not pleased. That was way before I came here, though." Curious, Jackson made his way over to the counter. "Give yourself a little credit, not everyone can carve things out of wood like this. I'm sure they're..." He trailed off when he saw what the little creature was. A tiny bird sat on the countertop near the pile of shavings, and Jackson felt his heart jump into his throat. "... great." He finished his sentence, carefully picking up the carving and examining it closer. The word pajarito played over and over in his head in Mateo's voice, 'little bird' it meant. The tears were stinging at his eyes despite his valiant effort to make them stop.

Asher's eyes went wide. Knocking down the walls was a huge undertaking and could actually be downright dangerous. Generally with a large building like this the load bearing walls were all around the outside, but still. "I don't even use the space I have. Can't imagine needing more. "They aren't too hard. Learned when I was a boy. They do..." He noticed that Jackson had stopped talking and that he had tears in his eyes. "Sugar, are you okay?" He dipped his head to get in between the other man and the small wooden bird taking shape out of the wood.

Jackson took in a shuddering breath and tried very hard to steady his emotions. "Fine. I'm fine." He insisted, despite it not being true in the slightest. "It's nothing. It's a stupid thing, actually." He rambled. "Little bird is the nickname Sir Mateo gave me, that's all." He said, knowing Asher would want an explanation, but Jackson felt really stupid for such a small thing affecting him this much. Sometimes it hit him like a sack of bricks, the magnitude of losing yet another Dom, and in those moments Jackson found it really hard to breathe.

Asher didn't hesitate for a moment. He snatched the bird off the counter and shoved it in his pocket. "It's not stupid." He obviously had no idea of this reaction when he decided to carve a bird, but he hated that it had caused him to remember this pain. "I'm sorry."

Jackson shook his head. "It is stupid. And it's not your fault." He insisted, and then his hands where against his arms, fingernails digging into his skin. He hated how fragile  he was. He took a few steps away and took a breath, "I'm sorry..."

Asher didn't want to argue but he didn't think it was stupid at all. He'd never been in love before and he couldn't image having it and losing it. That whole 'better to have and lost' seemed like bullshit to him. He stayed quiet for a while and then spoke in a quiet voice. "Wanna get this painting up and then help me pick out my next carving should be?"

Jackson could feel his skin start to break under his fingernails, and the sharp pain brought him a brief moment of respite from the mental pain. He heard Asher speak and for a moment, he wasn't sure what the Dom had said. He turned, wiping at his eyes. "Maybe I should just go?" He asked, not wanting to further bring Asher's mood down.

Ash saw the way Jackson's body was stiff Nd he was scratching roughly at his arm. It must have hurt the way he was pressing in. "I really like having you here, but don't wanna make you stay if you're feelin' uncomfortable." He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Can I walk you home? Make sure you're safe."

Safe. The word rung hollow in Jackson's ears. Sure, he might be away from any immediate harm, but safe? Could he really count himself as safe until he was claimed? Mateo had promised him safety... he had promised to do whatever it took to include Jackson in his family, but when the time came it turned out there was a line he wouldn't even consider crossing. Jackson realized it had been a minute or two since Asher had spoken, and he still hadn't replied. "Um... I... I'll stay if you want. You needed help, right? I can help. I can be useful." The words were mostly spilling from his mouth as they came into his head, no filter in between to remind him what was socially appropriate and what was not.

Ash wished he was his brother in this moment. Silas would have the words to comfort Jackson. But he just waited. "You've been so damn helpful to me Jackson. I gotta tell you, don't really got friends." He shrugged. "You're probably not supposed to decide this one sided, but you're my best friend Jackson. Don't know what I woulda done here without you. So yeah, if you want to stay, I could use your help." He didn't know if that meant Jackson was useful, but it damn well did mean he was needed. Asher really needed him.

Jackson felt himself tear up again. Asher considered him his best friend? It felt good, but it also made him feel a little guilty. Should he be putting more into this friendship than he has been? Asher really must not have had many friends if he considered Jackson to be the best one... He wiped at his eyes again and just nodded. "Okay... I'll stay." He said softly. "Tell me what you need me to do, Sir."

Ash smiled. He felt like he'd maybe unwittingly manipulated Jackson to stay, but it was hard to muster any guilt over that. For whatever reason, he just felt like his friend belonged right there for the time being. The suite felt like something more than a place to rest from time to time when he was there. "Let me just tap a nail in here." He did just that and then hung the painting up before looking over at Jackson. "So is it straight?"

Jackson just watched as Asher hammered in the nail and hung the painting. He let out what could only be described as a half chuckle/half sniffle. "It's about as straight as I am." He informed, which was to say, not at all. "Needs to go a little to the left."

Ash let out a snort. The years away from his parents and their church as well as the same years spent working side by side with all sorts of people had freed him from most of his prejudices. The ones that remained only seemed to direct inside toward himself. He liked that the chuckle sounded even if there was a bit of a sniffle with it. It hinted at what a joyful sound he would make if he was truly happy. He tilted it to the left. "How's that?"

Jackson gave a thumb's up as he used the other hand to wipe his eyes. "Much better." He said. "Probably as good as you'll get it without using a level, anyway." He added.

"I'll probably order a better hanger. 'Fraid the nail will damage it long run. I'll get some wire and do it up right. Then I'll use a level." He stepped back and stood next to Jackson. "Ain't that beautiful. Best thing I've ever owned." He looked over to his friend. "So I got a bunch of these little wooden critters. But some's better than others. Help me pick some for the shelves?" He raised a questioning eyebrow. "Then I got some of that casserole you made me. We could share some if you want. Maybe watch somethin' on the tv?"

It warmed Jackson's heart that Asher loved the painting enough to think about things like whether or not the method of hanging would damage it. He had to admit, he liked the way it looked in this room. It was just a touch homier now, and soon Jackson hoped to make this place feel like a home to Asher. He got the sense that Asher didn't feel at home here yet, and that made him sad. "Sure, let's look at them." He said, "That all sounds good, Sir." He offered a smile. It was small, only lasting a second or two, but it was genuine.

"Hang on. Be right back." He had realized at the last moment that his room was in no state for Jackson to see it. Usually he was quite neat. After all it was easy to be neat when you didn't have a lot of things. But that morning he had been in a hurry to get to class and he knew for a fact there was a pair of underwear right there in the middle of the floor. He scooped them up and tossed them in the hamper on his way to grab his duffel bag. The little wooden figures rattled around inside. Once back he sat on the couch and unzipped the bag. And started to pull the little creatures and set them out one next to the other. "I know they're kinda silly."

Jackson sat on the couch while he waited, trying to calm his mind and heart. His fingernails naturally found their way to his skin again, using the sharp little pains as a distraction tool until he felt less like bursting into tears at any moment and more focused on his actual surroundings. When Asher returned, he tugged a sleeve over his arm to hide a particularly bad spot. As the little wooden figures made their appearance, Jackson's eyes widened. "They're not silly at all, Sir." he assured, "They're amazing..." He reached out for one, gently lifting it to get a closer look. "Is this... Vulpix? Like from Pokemon?" He asked.

Asher wasn't the type to blush and he didn't quite blush now, but he looked a lot more like an a shy boy then he ever did. "Oh... umm, yeah. Used to love Pokemon when I was little." He still loved it clearly, but it felt safer to couch it in terms of a childhood thing. "The folks decided Pokemon were demons and wouldn't let us watch." He shrugged. "Guess just feels good to defy 'em."

Jackson smiled, picturing a young Asher and Silas sneaking over to a friend's house to watch Pokemon after school. "I used to love Pokemon too. Still do, sorta. Guess I'm not as into it as I once was, though." He admitted. "These are really cute though." He said, looking over the rest of the figures. "I think you should display them all, honestly."

"I should give the Pokemon one's to Si. He loves all that stuff." He picked up the bundled up little koala bear and handed it to Jackson. "Okay. I'll put 'em on the shelf. Better than bangin' around in my bag huh? But umm... would you take this one?" It was like how he felt Jackson should be... bundled up and protected.

Jackson carefully took the little bear, smiling at it. "Are you sure?" He asked, already kind of in love with the little figurine. He wasn't particularly attached to bears or anything, but he adored the way this one was all cozied up, and the fact that Asher had made it made it all the more special.

"Positive. It'll make me happy and proud knowin' you got him." He smiled and nodded. "So which do you think you'd like doin' more..." He had taken some time to research OCD and there was this thing he read about how control over tasks was super important. "figuring out how they should look on the shelf or heatin' up the food? Or we could to 'em both together."

Jackson nodded. "I'll keep him safe, Sir. I promise." He said, and then at being given the option, Jackson blinked. He wasn't used to that. Normally, Doms would just give him an order and he'd happily follow it, feeling happy to at least be useful. "Um.. I could put these up on the shelf, Sir." He said, knowing he'd get an immense amount of satisfaction from deciding how to arrange them in the most aesthetically pleasing way.

"Cool." He chuckled. "Was hoping you'd say that. Don't know where to start with that kinda thing." He figured that because the food was prepared by Jackson, he would feel comfortable eating it. He went to the kitchen and started to pull out the food and then suddenly had a thought. He left the food in the fridge and pulled out a bottle of cleaner and gave the counters and microwave a good once over, even though they were already clean to his eyes. He scooped the wood shavings and put them in the garbage before finally starting to reheat the casserole. He would occasionally look out over the kitchen bar to where Jackson was working. The suite felt like so much more than just a place in that moment.

Jackson immediately set to work, teaking hte figures and spacing them out along the shelves. He decided it would be best to have them throughout the whole room, it would help unify it a little, as well as give the whole room a personal touch rather than just one section. He kept like figures together, like the ones wrapped up in little wooden blankets like his koala were together. And the pokemon ones, while he was sure some were destined to go to Silas, he put on display for now as well. Sea creatures had their own shelf while terrestial creatures were on another. He couldn't resist, however, putting an owl next to a little wolf. He debated whether he should ask Asher for the little bird, and put it with them so they could all at least be together in one form, but somehow it felt wrong. He had taken notice of how Asher had cleaned his kitchen and microwave before starting, and he felt a flutter of fond appreciation grow in his chest for the man. He was taking a lot of extra steps, clearly for Jackson's benefit, and it made him feel really welcomed and important. He hadn't felt like that in a while.

He hadn't once eaten at the actual table, choosing instead the bar on the occasions when Jackson has brought him one of his always delicious meals. It feels appropriate to have his first meal in the place with Jackson. Once the casserole was hot enough he looked for something to go with it. The cupboards were pretty much bare, but he did find some bottled waters. He went through the cleaning process for the table and then set out two plates, the casserole with a serving spoon, and the bottled waters before making his way over to the living room. "Wow." He looked around and it honestly seemed like a different place. "Looks like someone actually lives here."(edited)

Jackson had just taken a step back to examine his work, and like always, he was finding tiny little flaws and details and was now making micro-adjustments to the configuration of a few of the figures when Asher came back into the room. Despite it not being perfect yet, the fact that Asher seemed to like what was going on so far made Jackson relax just a tiny bit. Maybe he didn't need to adjust everything to perfection today. He did finish with the figures he was working with though, before he stepped back. His eyes caught the little wolf with the little owl again, and he had to force himself to turn away. When was it going to stop hurting so much, he wondered? Every little thing seemed to remind him of what he'd lost, and distractions only lasted a few moments before he was reminded yet again. "You like it?" He asked Asher, not fishing for compliments, but rather fishing for another distraction. Anything, really, to keep his mind from spiralling any further.

"I really do. Feels like a home." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Never really looked at my stuff all at once. They're not too bad huh?" The little critters had been his secret friends, but he'd never really 'looked' at them. "Thanks. Wouldn'tna done it myself." He rubbed his neck again. "Got food ready. Wanna eat."

Jackson nodded in agreement. "They're amazing, Sir." He assured. They really brighten up the place." He stated, and as he looked over at the table he was endeared by how Asher had even set the table and everything. "Yeah, let's eat." He agreed, making his way over to the table to sit.

Asher hurried over to pull out a chair for his guest. He suddenly felt like this place was more than just four walls. It was his home. A home that Jackson had helped him build. It all started with that painting. As he pulled out his own chair and sat he looked over at the painting and smiled. "This is the first time I had someone over for dinner." He didn't mean just here at Lima. He'd lived a solitary life since leaving home. Sure he'd go to a bar with co-workers or grab some food off the roach coach with them, but sharing a meal in his own home? This was a first. And he liked it. "So... umm.... how's classes going?" Alright so he needed to work on his small talk.

Jackson sat down and offered an awkward smile in thanks for Asher pulling the chair out for him. The switch picked up his fork and began to slowly separate the components of his food. It wasn't something he did all the time, but it was a habit that carried over from his childhood. If he wasn't feeling particularly hungry, he would take his time sorting his food, and eat by making sure he had a little bit of everything in each bite. It took way longer, but often his mind was so engaged in it he'd be able to get a good portion of it down before he had to stop. "Classes are... well, I don't think I'm failing, at the very least." He finished, realizing he was behind on at least two assignments already and there was some reading he had to do for a different class.

Ash watched as Jackson picked apart the casserole organizing all of the ingredients. He knew it wasn't because the food was bad. One, because it was delicious and more importantly because he made it. If Asher had made it he'd be worried. He figured it was something else... probably still feeling the pain about this guy he'd broken up with. He at casserole while listening. "I was never very good in school and it's been years now. Just weird getting used to homework. Homework! I'm too old for homework." He exaggerated hoping he could maybe bring a smile to his friend's face.

[ashes-and-ashes]

Birthday Part 1

A bit of backstory to this fic:

So tomorrow (July 15th) happens to be the amazing Aly’s birthday! Seeing as she is one of the most incredible people ever, I decided that I was going to write her a birthday fic.

Of course I had intended for it to be pure fluff, but my evil brain doesn’t work like that. After an hour, I seemed to have 2808 words of angst, with very little fluff. And (despite Aly being the Princess of Angst) I was not sure if she wanted such depression on her birthday.

So, I split the story up! Here is the first bit of angst, and I’ll post the fluffy bit tomorrow. The fluffy bit is purely dedicated to Aly, and I’ll write an incredibly long and gushy post about her tomorrow. However, here’s the first angst and depressing bit - hope it’s okay!

@withrewings

~

Sirius was going to explode.

It was March 4th, a mere 6 days before Remus’ birthday and Sirius still hadn’t managed to produce anything suitable for his present. He had started drawing in January, convinced that three months was enough for him to create something good enough to give to Remus, but the days had rolled by and suddenly Sirius was left with a sketchbook of half-finished drawings and a looming sense of dread.

He winced, bending back over the page, ignoring the shiny charcoal film covering the side of his hand. His fingers ached from grabbing onto the stub, his back sore from being hunched over the paper for hours, but Sirius didn’t really care. He bit his lip idly, tracing the curls of Remus’ hair, the tilt of his chin, the hollows carved into his back and arms -

“Goddamn it!” With a snarl, Sirius stood, interrupting Marlene’s rant about the Slytherin Girls. He hurled the sketchbook to the ground; the back cover bent with a slight crunch as it hit the floor, the pages flipping open to reveal the sketch he had just been working on. “God-fucking-damn it!”

The others barely looked his way - Sirius’ outbursts were common enough now that everyone had gotten used to the swearing and yelling. It was late at night - they were the only ones in the common room. James bent down, scooping up the book with one hand, eyes still fixed on Marlene. “Go on Marls. What did you say to her?”

“More like what did you do to her,” Dorcas muttered. “No way that girl made it out in one piece.”

Marlene flashed a quicksilver grin. “I hexed her nose off. Completely. Transfigured it into the tiniest mushroom attached to her ugly face. God, they were so mad.”

James let out a laugh, throwing his head back; in the background Sirius noticed one of the twins (Either Fabian or Gideon - the light from the fireplace was dim, and he couldn’t quite pick out the details on their faces) hand a galleon to Benjy, who was sitting on the mantle. “Priceless.”

Peter leaned forward, eyes wide. “How long do you have detention for?”

Marlene shrugged. “Detention will last 3 months. But the tales will last forever. I’ll be a goddamn Hogwarts legend.”

“You’re already one,” Lily assured her. She tapped James on the shoulder. “Prongs. Want to give Sirius his book back?”

With a smirk, James held the book out to Sirius, the covers still open to reveal the half-finished drawing. “Oh right. I forgot.”

Sirius snatched the sketchbook back, flipping him off. “Oh, shut up.”

They were all meant to be discussing Remus’ party (Remus having gone to bed ages ago) but the hours had ticked away and they had planned absolutely nothing. Sirius wasn’t surprised - nothing ever seemed to work when everyone got together, except for a whole heap of snogging between Marlene and Dorcas, and James and Lily.

He scowled down at the sketch in his lap, the half-finished outline of Remus, silhouetted against a huge moon, the curve of his spine mirroring the constellations twinkling above him. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, the words bitter in his mouth. “I’m so screwed.”

Lily looked surprised. “Why? That one is beautiful, Sirius. He’d love that.”

Sirius shook his head, violently flipping to another page. “No! This one is...is…”

Dorcas raised an eyebrow. She was sprawled in a huge chair, legs dangling over the side; Marlene gave her bare legs a long look before winking at Sirius. “I think this one is pretty.”

“God.” Sirius groaned, slamming the book shut. “It’s romantic. It looks like we’re dating or something.”

Benjy snorted, swinging his feet from where he was perched on the mantle. “Aren’t you already?”

Sirius flipped him off; he could feel blood rising to his cheeks. “I’m pretty sure Remus is straight, Benj.”

“Only one way to find out,” Kingsley muttered; the room erupted in laughter.

“I say,” mused Marlene, “That you should draw him in an intimate position.”

“Maybe with a collar,” Fabian called, “And chains, black leather and fishnets - “

Dorcas laughed. “A gag!”

“You should draw me in that!” Benjy yelled over the laughter. “I’d love to be drawn in collars and chains and black leather fishnet stockings.”

“Oh shut up,” Sirius said. He scowled, staring down at his hands; there was a scar shaking across his index finger where his mother had broken it once. “You guys are absolutely useless.”

“Says the guy without a present,” Lily muttered. Sirius stuck his tongue out at her.

Gideon rolled his eyes. “Look,” he began, “Remus is...Remus. He’d love anything you drew him. Stop over complicating it.”

Sirius spread his arms out wide. “Over complicating is what I do, darling.”

Benjy snorted. “I’d prefer that you do Remus.”

He was definitely blushing now, Sirius could feel the heat rising to his cheeks, spreading over the back of his neck like a flood. He scowled again, running a hand through his hair; it was already wild and tangled, paint and God knew what else caught in the dark locks. “You know what?” he said, then paused. “I was going to say ‘Screw you all’ but I reconsidered because I knew you would turn it into something about screwing Remus. So go eat a bowtruckle.”

He could hear Benny’s voice carry, even as he turned the corner and started up the stairs. “Why don’t you eat Remus?”

Sirius scowled. “Fuck off Benjy!”

~

Sirius glares down at the paper.

He knew he wasn’t going to give this one to Remus anyways. It wasn’t even the drawing that screwed it up - the paper was crinkled from where he had grasped it, the lines smudged and faded, too intense and too bold. It turned everything into hard lines, points instead of curves, edges instead of sweeps. He knew he was wasting time, drawing something that he would never, could never show Remus but it lessened the tightness in his chest, made it easier to breathe.

He had 2 sketchbooks. The first one had a red cover, and he used it for all his doodles. Pages of simple things: wand tips and goblets, candles and flowers, spellbooks and cauldrons and hundreds of unicorns. He brought that one everywhere, kept it in his school bag, was always doodling in it until the book was finished.

The second book was black, the cover heavy and Sirius always kept this one under his bed, because who wouldn’t know? This book contained everything - a boy on his knees, broken fingers, a single burning piano key. Scars, hundreds of them, rendered in perfect detail, all torn flesh and blood and bones, the lashes seared into his brain. He drew fingers with scar marks and backs with claw marks and even the broken, bleeding figure of an angel with its wings sawed off.

And Remus. This book was filled with Remus as well, all the shattered, beautiful parts of him, all the scars and cuts and marks. He drew Remus crying, and Remus screaming and sometimes he drew Remus kissing him.

He stared down at the drawing now, splayed on the page in front of him. He had hesitated when he drew him and Remus, but once he started he couldn’t stop. The charcoal spilled out of him, bleeding onto the paper, and everything was the same. Two boys kissing, the desperation clear in the clenching of their fingers or the arch of their spine, mused curls and closed eyes and scars like brushstrokes on their skin and Sirius couldn’t have stopped himself if he tried.

He wondered, sometimes, what Remus would say if he saw him, if he peeked into that black sketchbook, saw every dark crack in Sirius’ heart laid bare. Everyone had their secrets, he supposed. His were just more open than most.

There was a rustling sound from behind him; Sirius quickly flipped the page. It was late at night, the room filled with the sounds of people breathing, dreams spiraling into the air. The nightmare had woken Sirius up, the fractured visions of his parents and Death Eaters, and he had spent the rest of the night drawing, filling up even more pages in the sketchbook. He glanced down and started; the lines he had made were so dark that the colour had bled through the page, leaving smudges and streaks and the delicate tracery of lines carved into the page in front of him. He hastily closed the sketchbook, pulling the red one onto his lap, opening it to a random part in the book. Damn. This one was of Remus too, a idle study of him sleeping, his curls framing his face with gold.

He was about to turn the page again when the curtains on his bed flew open. It was as if his drawing had come to life; Remus stood there, golden curls forming a messy halo around his face, his eyes half lidded from exhaustion. He yawned, running his hands through his hair. “You okay?”

Sirius shrugged. “Sure.”

Remus frowned. “You’re always so closed off. It’s like you’re hiding something. Keeping something locked away.”

Yeah, my love for you, Sirius thought, but he didn’t say anything. He shifted, pulling the covers up around him, focusing on his breathing. Remus shot hi a concerned look.“Nightmares?”

“Yeah.” Sirius’ hands tightened around the blankets. “I’ve been up for awhile.”

Remus regarded him thoughtfully, then pulled the curtains wider. He slid into bed next to Sirius, gently rearranging the blankets until his warm legs tangled with Sirius’ cold ones. “It’s like lying in bed next to an ice sculpture.”

Sirius forced a laugh. Remus was too close right now; he was certain that he could feel his heart pounding. “It’s like lying in bed next to a furnace.”

Remus laughed, the sound warm and rich. God, Sirius could drown in that sound. He shifted over, giving Remus some more room, twisting until his head was tucked under Remus’ shoulder. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, the air smelling of wool and pine and clean cotton -

“Shit,” Remus said. “Is that me?”

With a jolt, Sirius opened his eyes; the book on his lap had fallen, the pages splayed open to reveal the sketch of Remus sleeping. He swallowed, hard, fighting to keep his voice steady. “No. It’s the fucking Duke of Alytown.”

Remus punched his shoulder. “Shut up.” With a shaking hand he reached over, picking the book up carefully, tilting it so the light fell on the pages and illuminated the drawing. “Did you...did you draw this?”

Sirius resisted the urge to roll his eyes. His heart was hammering triple-time in his chest, like a huge drum - he was certain Remus could hear it. “Nope. I just fall asleep with drawings of you on my lap all the time. I actually commissioned Snape to draw this, you see - he would creep into our room at night and - “

“Jesus.” Remus’ mouth hung open, his eyes wide as he turned the drawing back and forth. This close Sirius could see his eyelashes, golden against his skin, so fine that it looked as if they were spun from spider silk. “God. This is beautiful, Sirius.”

“You’re beautiful,” Sirius said, then quickly snapped his mouth shut. Smooth, Sirius. Real smooth you fucktard.

Remus laughed, more in shock then anything. “Me? I’m not...I’m not…”

“Beautiful?”

Remus looked down at his hand. “Yeah.” He pauses, clearly struggling with something; his mouth twisted into a bitter smirk before he continued. “Just look at me. I’m...I’m ruined. I’m scarred all over.”

Sirius bit his lip, hard. In his mind he saw his back, the lashes standing out like lines of silver, raised and thick and livid. He swallowed, hard. “Sometimes the cracks are the most interesting part of a sculpture.”

The barest edge of a smile ghosted over Remus’ face. “But it’s still ruined all the same.”

If only you could see, Sirius thought, If only you could see how beautiful you are, how perfect you’ve become. If only I could draw you the way I see you.

He coughed; with a steady hand he tore the sketch out of his book, handing it to Remus. “Keep it,” he said, then shook his head at the shocked expression on Remus’ face. “It’s yours now. I was going to give it to you for your birthday, but I’ll just whip up another drawing.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” Sirius said, and a beautiful, dazzling smile raced across Remus’s face, making it look like the sun had coated him in strands of liquid gold. Beautiful, Sirius thought, and his heart gave a painful twist in his chest.

“Thanks Sirius. But I don’t…I don’t need this, you know. All I want is...is you, I guess. Your heart. I want your heart, Sirius. That’s all.”

Sirius looked down. “Anything for you, Re.”

~

He couldn’t stop himself from drawing Remus.

The black sketchbook was open on his lap again, a fresh page blank and empty. His hands were dark, coated in the shiny-grey of graphite, his clothes covered in the stuff. He had been drawing for ages without taking a break, his eyes dropping from exhaustion and yet he allowed the sketch to bleed out of him, splattering across the page.

He was almost done the black sketchbook, had only a few pages left. Usually a book would last him 6 months, but he had filled half the book in less then 3 weeks. It was like he was an addict, thirsting for something he could never have, lightning and thunder and rain echoing through his veins. He couldn’t stop himself now, even as he continued filling the pages, Remus staring up at him from every angle.

Sirius took a shaking breath. It felt like he was underwater, drowning in his feelings for Remus, threatening to blow him apart with every gasping inhale of air. He set the pencil to the paper, letting his mind take over, the curve of Remus’ eyes gradually starting to fill the page.

He remembered the first time he had seen Remus, 5 years ago, standing in the compartment of a train as the sun went down over the hills. He was with James, wild and rebellious because for the first time ever he was free, when the door had opened and Remus had stepped into the compartment.

There was something different about him, even back then, some ethereal way that Remus moved. He remembered how the light had hit Remus’ face in just the right way, casting his features into shadow, making him look like some beautiful bronze statue and all Sirius could do was stare.

There was always some part of him that had loved Remus, but it really hit him in 4th year. He had been playing Quidditch, backlog against the setting sun, and he had looked down and seen Remus in the stands and his heart swelled up and he couldn’t breathe. He knew it then, while hurtling through the sky on his broom, knew he would have given up anything to make Remus happy.

He was drawn out of his thoughts by a sharp crack; he had pressed down so hard on the pencil that it had shattered, pieces skidding all over his sheet. Sirius scowled, glaring down at the page - there was a boy on a broom and a boy on the ground, the light hitting them until it looked like a spotlight, wind whipping their hair around them. He swore, staring down at his hands - it was so obvious. All it would take was for someone to look at his book to know what he felt towards Remus. He couldn’t burden Remus with that, the unrequited feelings of a shattered boy. Remus had already been through far too much - Sirius couldn’t heap another load onto his shoulders.

But what if he did? The thought rose up unbidden. What if he did like you?

His mind flickered back, sorting through the memories of the year - the Train, Remus’ hands tight around his neck. The Christmas Feast, sitting together under the cold half moon. January, grasping onto Remus’ fingers, the desperation in his eyes as he began to change. Valentine’s Day, a single chocolate, a whispered conversation. Sirius, I…

“I what?” Sirius had said.

Remus shook his head. “Never mind.”

So many moments, so many hidden touches, and Sirius’ heart was pounding because what if? What if there was a chance?

He was gripping the sketchbook tightly, so hard that the cover was digging into his palms, scoring lines across his palm. Remus had told him what he wanted that night, didn’t he? I want your heart, Sirius. That’s all.

“My heart,” Sirius said, out loud to the wind. Slowly, his hands tightened around the sketchbook.

He knew exactly what to give to Remus tomorrow.

[ladywindrunner]

Do you take drabble requests? Because that Disney's Robin Hood gif kind of makes me want to see how Sylvanas would react to a lil elf babb accidentally shooting at her with their My First Archery set.

drabble request // always accepting ::

i do in fact! drabbles are fun for me because of the challenge they present. c: 

Every day Lynna watched the Farstriders train. She observed with keen blue eyes as volley of arrows struck targets farther and father away, all with the hope that one day, she may be graced with the opportunity to make such impressive shots. Her little fingers ached to hold a bow, to nock an arrow, to strike down trolls, orcs, and other invaders that the adults murmured about and told tales about around campfires and hearths.

           Every afternoon after her classes had finished, Lynna would climb to the very top of the tallest apple tree there was. It sat on the edge of the grounds with the lowest walls, on the very fine line of trespassing. There, for at least an hour, she would admire the rangers. She’d marvel at their precision and discipline, and from her perch, she’d mimic some of their gestures. In her mind, she was as graceful as they were, her clumsy fingers moving with the finesse of the masters, and the stick she wielded with twine strung between its two points was none other than the famous Thas’dorah.

           She’d seen many heroes from her tree. Most often she saw Ranger-Lord Theron inspecting the troops, instructing them, and correcting those who needed guidance. She’d glimpsed Vereesa Windrunner, a fresh captain, passing by once in a while.

           And once – just once– she’d seen the Ranger-General. Sylvanas Windrunner, she walked quickly, with a purpose, not dallying. Yet she had spared a glance for her rangers, whatever their rank. Lynna took note that they stood straighter when the Ranger-General was present, and their movements would morph into mesmerizing unison. The Ranger-General’s hood had been down, her pale blonde hair shining in the warm sunlight, her cape a deep, wondrous blue with gold trim.  

           If there was anyone Lynna wished to be, it was Sylvanas Windrunner.

           But it was never to be.

           Lynna Runestrider was from a family of scholars, gifted enough with magic to be considered mages, though no one in her family had ever amounted to much. There were no magisters in her bloodline, no spellweavers. There were enchanters, as lowly as they were considered, but they kept to themselves, burying themselves in books and studies, either in Quel’Thalas or Dalaran. Lynna was the youngest of four children, and she was expected to enroll in the Arcane Acadium when she was of age.

           She was eight now, enrollment began at twelve. She dreaded it; she did not want to be a mage. She did not want to try and summon fire or bend water. Her siblings at least had shown some potential. Lynna did not, had not, and she was fearful of the day her mama and papa realized that she could not follow in their footsteps. It was tradition for the Quel’dorei, though she was only now becoming aware of what that meant.

           There would be no archery in Lynna’s future, only books, weak spellwork, and disappointment. She would not be a ranger; she would be a mage. She would one day perhaps rise to the rank of apprentice, but no higher.

           A sadness plagued her since she came to understand her fate, but still, she climbed the apple tree daily.

           Until today.

           Today was a holiday, and the streets were brimming with people. The courtyards where the rangers trained were empty. Today, Lynna slipped unnoticed past the few guards, the sheer number of citizens making one little, black-haired girl almost invisible. She scurried away from the gates, until she stepped into one of the wards. Narrow lawns of grass framed stone courtyards, towering white walls kept onlookers from peering inside. She admired a statue, one that was impossibly tall. She peered up at the bronze plague, speaking out loud.

                                                    Lireesa Windrunner

                                           Ranger-General of Silvermoon

                                                 Defender of Quel’Thalas

                                         Hero of the First and Second Wars

A firecracker went off, reminding Lynna that she was intruding, and she scurried off. She bolted out of the courtyard, past large buildings she did not recognize. She slowed only when her feet carried her to a familiar setting.

A lawn with targets, both humanoid figures made of hay and wood, and wooden discs with bullseyes painting on them. Lynna grinned, standing far back, she pretended that the targets were orc and filthy trolls, attempting to invade Eversong. She whistled with each imaginary arrow she fired, and played out the dying cries of her enemies. She kept up the game until the twine broke, and her make-believer bow was rendered moot.

Lynna frowned. She huffed out an annoyed breath, ears wilting. She couldn’t fight orcs with a broken bow, she couldn’t save people if she didn’t have a weapon to defend them with.

She pivoted, scanning her surroundings for string. She’d fix her bow and get back to it.

Only her gaze found something else.

The building appeared to be some sort of supply shed, though it was better made than any she’d seen in her village. It was made of stone, the roof thatched, and leaning against one wall was a variety of objects.

Two of which were bows.

Her heart soar, her eyes turned to saucers, without any hesitation she sprinted for the weapons. One was nearly as tall as she was, made of a dark wood with gold leaf decorating both the upper and low limbs. The other was smaller, made of a lighter wood, both in weight and colour. It wasn’t fancy, and it looked old to her, but there were no cracks in it, and the bowstring was taught.

She picked it up, admiring it in a way only a child could. Her eyes darted to the quiver next to the larger bow. It had three arrows in it.

Lynna slung the bow over her shoulder, ignoring that it was still much too large for her small frame, and snatched the quiver by its strap. She hurried back to the targets, naively dragging it behind her (though she endeavoured greatly to keep the quiver off the ground). She stood a little way from the target, a small bullseye.

She dropped the quiver unceremoniously to the ground, and unslung the bow.

Now she would definitely be able to slay the orcs.

Biting her lower lip, the girl plucked an arrow from its resting place and attempted to emulate the men and women she admired. She floundered, holding the projectile awkward as she pulled back.

With a sad, deflated twang the arrow fell to the ground.

Lynna frowned, brows drawing closer together as she thought. She tried to remember how the rangers held the arrow. She assumed she mimicked them perfectly from her perch.

This time, she did not hold the arrow uncomfortably. Satisfied that she was not just going to drop the projectile, she squinted as she glared at the target and pulled back.

Light preserve her, the bowstring resisted her. She struggled bring it back, her arms shook unsteadily, her hand ached from holding the grip wrong.

She loosed the arrow and it flew a few feet before it struck the ground depressingly short of the target.

“Damn…” she murmured under her breath, knowing the word was improper, rude, and not at all acceptable by her parents’ stringent standards. She’d heard her older classmates say it before, but they never dared to speak it within earshot of a instructor.

She’d have to aim upwards, if she wanted the arrow to reach the target.

She grabbed the last arrow.

She held the grip as best she could with her small hands, and nocked the arrow. She let out another exhale, utterly determined to make the arrow fly. She knew now how difficult the string would be to pull back. She was readied. She could do this.

She sucked in a breath and pulled.

Her arms shook once more, struggling to draw back far enough for the arrow to truly fly. Lynna shut her eyes tightly as she aimed upwards—

A firecracker went off.

Her heart skipped a beat, she spun around as her balance was lost, spooked by the resounding BANG. She loosed the arrow just as her eyes opened and—

The arrow struck one of the outer walls, its shaft sticking out of a crevice between two large stones. Lynna’s heart soared. The distance was greater than that of the target, and what were the chances of it landing so perfectly between the two massive slabs?

Then abruptly, she panicked.

Standing just right of the arrow was a figure, one she recognized with abject horror. A beautiful woman with blonde hair the same shimmering hue as the moon, adorned by a cobalt cloak lined with gold. Armour that was regal, a breastplate of matching colours, and hawk-head paldrons of elegant design. The woman glanced at the arrow, before her gaze fell on Lynna, who still clung to the bow.

                                                    Sylvanas Windrunner

                                           Ranger-General of Silvermoon

                                                 Defender of Quel’Thalas

                               Soon to Be Executioner of Lynna Runestrider

That same quick walk that Lynna had once observed from afar, saw the Ranger-General close the distant quickly after she plucked the arrow from the crevice. Lynna was nearly in tears before Sylvanas even reached her, she clung to the bow desperately, knuckles turning white. Her parents were going to have her ears over this. She’d never see the light of day again. She’d trespassed, used a real bow, almost killed the Ranger-General.

Sylvanas knelt down before her, Lynna’s shameful stare remained cemented to the grass.

“How old are you?”

Lynna swallowed the dreadful lump in her throat.

“Eight…” she murmured in response.

“Eight…” the Ranger-General repeated, sounding somehow,amused. “That’s quite an impressive shot, for an eight-year-old.”

Eyebrows gently turning downwards in befuddlement, Lynna dared to glance up. She met the woman’s gaze for half a second before she returned to staring at the ground.

She was nothing but a peasant, mama had always taught her you keep your head bowed to your betters. Sylvanas might have well been royalty to Lynna and her lowborn family.

“What is your name?”

Oh, there it was. The terrible, damning question. Lynna hesitated, then opened her mouth—

“Do not lie,” Sylvanas commanded.

Lynna shut her mouth abruptly.

“Lynna,” she muttered truthfully.

“And your family’s name?”

“Runestrider,” Lynna wanted to cry. She sniffled, mortified to be caught. She had just wanted to be a ranger for a little while.

“There’s no need to cry,” Sylvanas stated, her voice calm.

But Lynna couldn’t stop herself, tears fell. She squeezed her eyes shut, her ears drooping despairing low. She’d been so foolish, to think that she could do any of this correctly. Papa would reed both her ears for this. He’d take away all her toys and replace them with books.

A hand came to gently rest on her shoulder.

“Why are you crying?”

“B-because,” all of a sudden, words spilled out of Lynna as if she were a toppled urn. “I-I almost hurt you, I-I’m not s-supposed to be here, I’m bad at magic, and… and…”

She glanced sadly at the discarded stick with the snapped string.

“M-my bow b-broke…”

Sylvanas followed the girl’s miserable stare to the makeshift toy. Hand falling away from Lynna’s shoulder, the ranger reached for the item, plucking it off the ground. It was a simple stick with twine, nothing impressive.

“Well,” Sylvanas lifted Lynna’s chin with a soft touch, guiding the young girl’s gaze upwards. Through the blue glow, the Ranger-General could see Lynna’s eyes were red, bleary from crying. “I can fix it, but under one condition.”

Lynna sniffled, uncertain.

Sylvanas gave her a playful, but firm look. “That you always keep both eyes open when you have your bow drawn.”

The little girl blinked, wiping her nose off on her sleeve.

“Okay…”

“Promise?” Sylvanas tilted her head slightly, noticing how Lynna’s ears perked a smidge.

“I promise.”

Sylvanas stood, taller than even Lynna’s father. Somehow, despite there not even being a battle, she held the appearance of triumph. She did not lack for confidence, her smile was calm, reassuring, but also proud. Her gaze firm yet kind, her posture so perfect that Lynna found herself standing a bit taller if only to try and imitate the woman.

She led the way off of the range, instructing Lynna to return the items she’d taken from their resting place. Lynna did so, and followed without so much as a word. She was still sniffling, but her tears had slowed. Still, she felt sadness cling to her heart. What must the Ranger-General think? Rangers don’t cry, they’re not weak. They don’t get upset because life is unfair.

Despite the bubbling excitement in the young girl’s heart, she felt ashamed.

The room they enter is a small office, decorated with a few fine paintings, but mostly, the walls were lined with bookshelves. Lynna’s gaze wandered, trying to understand the titles on some of the texts, but wholly unable too. She chooses to instead, admire the few odd trinkets resting on a side table. They don’t seem particular noteworthy, but she can tell they were laid out with care.

One particularly odd item was an instrument, a small lute, old but cared for.

Sylvanas took a seat behind the desk, opening a drawer and retrieving something. She glanced at Lynna.

“My brother’s lute,” she explained, causing the girl to look over quickly.

“You have a brother?” Lynna asked, sadness temporarily abating in favour of curiosity.

There was something about the woman’s stare, as she removed the old twine from the stick, that struck Lynna as unbelievably gloomy. Sylvanas did not glance at the child, she instead took to winding new string about the item. Still, beyond the sadness in the Ranger-General’s eyes, there was no hint as to anything being wrong. Her ears hadn’t drooped, her expression was still neutral.

“All done,” Sylvanas spoke, offering the bow back to Lynna.

Lynna took it quickly, inspecting it.

No longer did her bow have old twine or string found about house, instead it had true bowstring. Just as the weapon she’d used earlier.

“Thank you,” Lynna smiled, looking up at the woman. Sylvanas smiled in return, though it faded somewhat as she recalled something Runestrider had said.

“Why is it important you’re skilled with magic?”

Lynna hesitated, she knew not to lie, but from her wary expression, it was clear the topic was a painful one.

“My parents are mages,” Lynna revealed, “scholars, my papa works in Dalaran.”

“And you do not wish to be one?” Sylvanas queried, watching as Lynna took to inspecting her toy as a distraction.

“M’ not good with magic,” Lynna admitted shamefully, “my brothers and sisters are, but I can’t even light a candle.”

She glanced up at Sylvanas, “I want to be a ranger.”

           The Ranger-General smirked.

           “Well you have talent for it,” she complimented, recalling the girl’s blind shot, “imagine the sorts of things you could do if you kept your eyes open.”

           Lynna giggled, but gave a depressed shrug just after, “my papa won’t let me be a ranger.”

           “Why not?”

           “Because my whole family are mages,” she sighed.

           “Have you ever asked him?” The woman’s inquiry was fair. Lynna dreaded the idea of such a conversation. Her papa would be so disappointed in her, she would be the odd one out in her family. What would everyone think?

           “No,” she said, strumming the string with her fingers, “he’d be mad.”

           “Why?”

           The question had no clear answer beyond that of her parents’ disappointment. She bit her lip and looked to Sylvanas, trying to find the words to explain.

           “Because… he’s a mage?” Lynna offered weakly.

           “Is he aware you run around with a bow?” Sylvanas asked the question with a thoughtful expression on her face.

           “Yes.”

           “And do you pretend to be a ranger around him?”

           “… Yes.”

           “Hm,” Sylvanas considered the girl for a moment, “I believe your father may already suspect something.”

           Lynna gazed up at the Ranger-General with utter uncertainty, “do you think I should tell him?”

           “I cannot tell you what to do,” Sylvanas replied, standing up from her seat, she turned on her heel and opened up a large cupboard, looking for something. “But honesty is often best, you gain nothing by lying.”

           Lynna considered the advice as she watched the ranger pull something out. Sylvanas turned around to face her, and knelt down, revealing a small bow, the size for a child, and a quiver to match. The arrows in it were blunted, but there was a magical shine to them.

           An archery set!

           The girl’s eyes lit up, lips parting in amazement. Her ears perked, and she gazed up at the Ranger-General with unbridled hope.

           “For me?”

           Sylvanas nodded, “practice every day. And don’t worry about the arrowheads, they’re enchanted, if they’re about to strike flesh, they’ll become soft and bounce off skin.”

           Lynna couldn’t help herself, she rushed forward and hugged the Ranger-General. Her heart thundered ecstatically, tears threatening to fall in delight. She would train every day, she would show her mama and papa what she could do, what she was meant to do. She’d be a ranger! Sylvanas Windrunner had given her this archery set, and there was no better marksman than the Ranger-General.

           “Thank you!” Lynna beamed, “thank you, thank you, thank you!”

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*.✧ kofi