#also i sketched this first on paper a week ago

[unknownhyperial]

Happy 2k followers @rorydrawsandwrites !!

I meant to draw this way sooner, but admittedly I only had motivation to start properly drawing this 2 days ago. I've had this idea for what to do for this picture for around a week now so I'm glad I finally sat down and drew it!!

Rory, you are such a creative person and very sweet the few times we've talked! I can't wait to see what you do in the future! Just do not feel obligated to post about Puppeteer if you have no motivation even if it did gain you some popularity. :]

[thefandomsfervent]

Personal Pigments Viktor x Reader (Part 1) - Cadmium Yellow Deep Hue

Heimerdinger forgets to warn the science bros that an artist is coming in to visualize them and Hextech, a collaborative program between a Piltover art school and the academy for some new hall meant to be unveiled at an upcoming progress day. Large paintings can take years to do, with Hextech’s promising growth they are to be started in a preemptive manner. Reader is from Zaun, not sure what I’m going to do with this yet. Takes place in the coming months after they first get council approval, hexgates aren't complete. Wrote an imagine (here) and now I’m needing to see it through, would y’all want more?

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Viktor should be focusing. He is, but not on the right thing. His hands still fiddle with cogs as he looks to you for the umpteenth time this hour. Your brows were furrowed together as you compared pastels and pencils together.  Your lips pursed to the side as if you were biting your cheek in concentration. He would have been worried about being caught starting but your focus was elsewhere.

You had papers clipped to a drawing board in front of you.  The stool you usually sat on abandoned by the small table next to you.  He watched as your hands turned colored sticks over, looking for something. He didn't know what, but he appreciated the view regardless. 

In this summer heat the lab was humid, Jayce had gone out for water and Viktor himself had forgone his vest. You were starting to sketch something in wide yellow strokes, the smooth scrape of pressed pigment to paper filling the heavy air. You hummed a sound of affirmation, as if finally approving your choice before grabbing another stick in blue. As you continued your efforts, he took in all of you. A loose button up over a tank top, well fitting trousers, simple boots. The same attire you'd worn for weeks, but today something was different. The tank-top was a lower,  looser cut. Likely chosen for the heat plaguing Piltover this summer. Your warming up sketches facing a daylit window. 

“Composition, speed, and colour work.” The words you had said months ago lingering in the back of his mind. “You can never practice too much.”

He sees you from the side, the strap had been half way off your shoulder all morning. Innocent enough. Not truly your fault in any way.  

The white over shirt unbuttoned. Also loosely caught by your elbows, draping over your work surface. Picking up colors and dust. He follows the sleeves up to your hands, to your arms. He should be working. Reading a section in another overdue library book. Not watching you. Not following the gentle way you pick up and set down your pastels, certainly not the way today’s heat has exposed your neck, your shoulders, your collarbones and how they lead to the hollow of your neck. He looks away for a moment. Steeling himself. 

Surely he is not ogling you. That would be inappropriate. Yes, it has been a long time since he has been able to indulge in thoughts of that manner. But he shouldn't start down that kind of path here.

A clattering sound pulls his gaze back to you, a soft curse leaving your lips as you have to bend down to grab a pencil that rolled off your desk. His breath catches in his throat, your tanktop drooping lower when you lean down. The swell of your breasts, the curve of your bra revealing itself in a sinful second. The moment was very quick, and to his luck you didn't notice. The lab door opens as Jayce walks in. Ice cold water in a pitcher, three glasses on a tray. 

He sets one down on your desk looking over your shoulder. "The window today?"

"Just something quick, the sun is hitting the glass just right." You punctuate your sentence with the wave of a pencil towards the shaft of light illuminating a stack of books.

"I see," he says as he walks over to one of the many messy tables near you to set down the tray. He brings another glass to viktor. If he notices the red flushing his partner's face he doesn't say.  Maybe he assumed it was this wretched heat. In a way, it was the fault of the weather. 

"Thank you," Viktor says, just before he downs the whole glass. 

He gets an acknowledging pat on his shoulder before Jayce settles in his own station.  Each of you returning to your own work. The silent hum of drawing and tinkering becomes a soothing balm on the room, and on the tension in his shoulders. He fiddles with his engraver, marking runes onto various metal bits. He wonders to himself how he even got into this position. How he finds his thoughts, and apparently his eyes, wandering to you. 

He remembers that first day, how many months has it been since you’ve come here? 

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-------------------.·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ Part 2.·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .---------------------

------------‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊ ♡ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙· Master Fic List *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ♡ ‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊--------------

[jadeshifting]

— THE HOGWARTS NEWSPAPER

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦　　　 　˚　　　　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔

i’ve had this in my script and my drafts for a while, but i saw @beatrixshifts mention on my tl that it would be cool so that’s why i’m posting it >:)

(also, I did not come up with the name of the newspaper, i got it from another user yearsss ago, so cred to them !!)

“The Daily Prophet and their flobberworm of a head reporter can keep their drama— we don’t twist our stories to fit some stale Ministry narrative.” — The Editor-in-Chief of The Puffinton Post

THE PUFFINGTON POST is a chaotic yet strangely efficient operation run out of a repurposed classroom on the third floor (which is lovingly referred to as The Quillery.) run by a rotating team of overachievers, gossipmongers, and one sleep-deprived layout wizard, it’s both a battlefield of deadlines and the social pulse of the school. the editors use enchanted Quick-Quotes Quills to speed up production, though it’s anyone’s guess if the quills capture actual facts or just the juiciest version of the truth

HOW IT’S RUN

the team is led by an Editor-in-Chief (usually a loud, opinionated seventh-year), assisted by a handful of section editors who wield red-inked quills like weapons. each week, they hold heated brainstorming meetings, where the room crackles with enchanted floating parchment and enough spilled tea (literal and metaphorical) to fill the Great Lake. submissions are open to any student, but staff writers get first dibs on big stories—assuming they can charm the editors, who love a bit of drama

THE NEWSPAPER TEAM

REPORTERS . scout the juiciest gossip, biggest news, and weirdest happenings on campus. practically unstoppable, they’ll dive into the Forbidden Forest for a scoop if it means landing the front page

EDITORS . ruthlessly revise articles and argue over headlines, aiming for maximum drama without ending up on a professor’s radar

PHOTOGRAPHERS . armed with charmed cameras that capture moving images, they often risk life and limb chasing Quidditch players mid-match or snapping Peeves in action

ILLUSTRATORS . craft whimsical moving cartoons or hauntingly detailed sketches, depending on the tone of the piece

LAYOUT TEAM . use advanced spellwork to arrange articles, images, and enchanting advertisements that sometimes wink at readers

SECTIONS & NOTABLE STORIES

HEADLINE NEWS . covers Hogwarts’ biggest events. Recent splashy stories include “Are the House-Elves Planning a Union?” and “Hagrid’s Pumpkin Patch: A Site of Magical Growth or Magical Mischief?”

QUIDDITCH CORNER . tracks team stats, with columns like “Is Gryffindor’s Seeker Actually a Golden Snitch Magnet?”

SOCIAL SPOTLIGHT . a slightly catty, endlessly entertaining rundown of who’s dating, who’s fighting, and who’s been caught sneaking butterbeer into the Astronomy Tower

MYSTERIES & ODDITIES . a deep dive into Hogwarts lore, featuring pieces like “The Hidden Staircase That Eats Shoes” and “Who Really Haunts the Fourth Floor Lavatory?”

OPINION & SATIRE . snarky takes on everything from new potion regulations to the controversial topic of house unity, with regular features like “Why Ravenclaws Think They Know Everything” (written by a Ravenclaw)

CREATIVE SHOWCASE . poems, short stories, and student artwork, like “An Ode to Dobby” or fine-tip pen sketches of the Black Lake’s grindylows

DISTRIBUTION

The Puffington Post is distributed every Friday morning via enchanted paper airplanes that zoom directly to breakfast tables in the Great Hall. the magic wears off if you take too long to read, so dawdling isn’t an option. prefects often complain about students reading under their desks during Charms, but professors secretly subscribe, too.

SPECIAL EDITIONS (every one is a chaotic affair, jam-packed with so much Hogwarts spirit you can almost smell the butterbeer stains on the parchment)

— THE VALENTINE’S SPECIAL : Love, Lies, and Lacewing Potions

this edition is dripping with enchanted hearts and aggressively pink margins, with stories like “Top 10 Secret Spots to Swoon Your Sweetheart” and “The Most Romantic Love Potions You Absolutely Shouldn’t Use (But Totally Will).” the gossip column goes full throttle, outing secret crushes (with questionable accuracy), while the Creative Showcase features poetry so sappy even Madam Pince has been caught dabbing at her eyes

— THE FIRST-YEAR SURVIVAL GUIDE : Sorting, Snitches, and Surviving Snape

released every September, it’s a crash course for newbies. expect practical tips like “How to Get the Moving Stairs to Chill” and “10 Ways to Not Cry in Potions (Impossible, But Worth Trying).” veteran students contribute anonymously to the “Unofficial Rules” section, which includes gems like “Don’t Look the Bloody Baron in the Eye” and “If Fred and George Weasley Offer You Candy, Run.”

— THE YULE BALL EDITION : Fashion, Feuds, and Footwork

a glossy, glitzy masterpiece with enchanted images of past Yule Ball outfits and step-by-step charms for fixing last-minute wardrobe disasters. the Social Spotlight section is essentially a pre-ball betting pool on who’s showing up with whom, while Opinion dives into debates like “Should Durmstrang Boys Be Banned from Stealing All the Dates?”

— THE END-OF-TERM SPECTACULAR : Grades, Gags, and the Great House Cup Debate

published in June, it’s part celebration, part roast. professors get “awards” (like Flitwick for Most Patient and Snape for Most Likely to Kill You with a Glare), and there’s always a cheeky exposé on house-point shenanigans. expect tear-jerking farewells to seventh-years alongside brutally honest year-in-review recaps, like “Was That a Troll in the Dungeon or Just Another Tuesday?”

EXTRA, EXTRA !!

— RIVALRY . there’s a (very one-sided) feud with The Weekly Wizard, a smaller Ravenclaw-run zine, though it’s been dismissed by most students as “too niche and painfully dull”

— BEHIND THE SCENES . the staff always keeps a stash of Honeydukes’ chocolate for late-night edits, and their mascot—a tiny enchanted quill named Zippy—flits around leaving motivational doodles on unfinished articles

if Hogwarts has a pulse, The Puffington Post is the enchanted quill jotting down every thrilling, bizarre, and scandalous beat

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦　　　 　˚　　　　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔

[grison-in-space]

Hi fellow neuroscientist and animal behavior observer! What's up? It's a weird ass time to be a scientist in the US right now. Like there's the doom and despair taking up most of my brain but also I have a lab presentation in 1.5 weeks and my committee meeting two weeks after that. How do you make yourself focus on lab/science stuff?

I'm so sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you; I've been rotating this ask in my mind for over a week now. I hope your lab presentation went well, and I hope your committee meeting does, too. Bear in mind that I am reeling as much as anyone else, but... well, I have had a lot of things happen during my academic career, and I have had some practice with this by now. I was displaced from my home three or four times during grad school, and all but once that was because of climate change related flooding. (I actually cannot remember offhand. That kind of thing fucks with your ability to reckon in chronological time, which is why no one has been able to work out how years work since 2020 at latest.) I did my PhD in Texas, too, which gave me some exciting experiences around campus violence and guns.

But maybe the biggest thing for me is that I started grad school in 2012, right in time for the government sequester of 2013. That was the year Patty Brennan (of corkscrew duck penis fame) published an article in Animal Behaviour laying out helpful tips in case your research is targeted as "wasteful spending" by members of Congress seeking to reduce scientific funding. Brennan's work legitimately is groundbreaking--I started out close enough to her field to be able to say that almost no one was looking at vaginal anatomy when she started and she's really driven the field of reproductive conflict forward by systematically looking at methods by which females exert "cryptic choice" to control their own reproductive futures. But it sounds silly at first blush in a sound bite, so she immediately became a target when her work went viral. And that paper came out a decade ago, and we are no better than when we started.

I've gotten pretty good at working through grief and fear, and I've tangled with burnout more than once. So how do you handle it when everything is overwhelming and frightening?

You sketch out the work you can do, and you do it as best you can. Same as anyone else.

Here's the thing. You're a budding scholar. Whatever your field is, you probably know more about it than anyone who isn't a scholar in your field already, and you care about broader justice or you wouldn't be asking me this. This makes you a precious potential resource for whatever activist cause is nearest and dearest to your heart. You are placed, as a person whose career is focused on the pursuit of knowledge, in a position of great authority. Yes, even as a PhD student, although I do agree that having the PhD makes the things you say even more impactful. But you'd be surprised how far even just "PhD student" can go when you're making a stand.

You are a valuable voice when it comes to the intersection of your expertise and your community--and by that, I don't just mean your discipline and your geographical location; I mean your lived experiences and your identities too. If you burn out, your voice and effort may be completely irreplaceable. So make sure you don't burn out, but don't waste your potential to speak out, either. You can do that by working out what your "beat" is: pick one to two things you care really deeply about working on in the world, that you want to make better, and focus on those. Use your authority to make changes.

Currently, my "beat" is focused on disability justice (especially in terms of neurodivergence) and sex/gender, because those are communities I am part of and that I think deeply about. My work there can take a lot of forms: shoving hard on the pernicious medical thought process that tends to conceptualize disorder and disease as a deviation from a uniform functional population; pointing out the complexity inherent in sex differences and sex itself; building relationships with disabled academics to make networks for one another so that we can better support trainees as well as ourselves building alliances between disability justice scholars and researchers tackling these topics with an eye towards integrating the comments and interests of disabled people into the field of study that theoretically focuses on us. These are topics that tie into my research interests (context dependence, decisionmaking, strategy, developmental plasticity, etc) but also into my sense of justice and the communities in which I spend my life as an autistic queer butch.

Think about the things you care most about making better, and think about how those things intersect with your research interests. Is there a bathroom bill you could write a deposition for explaining how complicated sex actually is? A local news reporter who could use a scientist talking about the long term climate impacts of the new fracking project up the road? A new policy on immigrant familial separation that is going to lead to kids with major attachment issues down the line and increase the odds of terrible outcomes? Creative ways to send promising undergrads from underrepresented backgrounds on for new opportunities if you live in a state where DEI initiatives have been banned? (Man, that was an exhausting conversation to have with the North Carolina folks at my last conference. And the Floridians.) Where will your voice carry the most weight for the amount of energy you allocate to it?

Here's my best stab at practical advice for junior trainees:

Figure out what your limit for practical engagement is and defend it viciously. The thing about being in academia, and about having the PhD for that matter, is that it gives you a lot of leverage for speaking authoritatively about problems in your field and in your community. This, too, can be a form of activism and shaping the world. But if that's the weapon you are making out of your career, you can't also be an effective organizer on the ground for eight different local causes. You can't do everything at once, so pick a limited subset of things to focus on and work on those. Like academia, public impact will suck you dry if you let it, so you have to set boundaries and you have to be clear with yourself about that.

As always with research, your topic should be something you're interested in. Apply your priorities as a human being to your research. Move your project in directions you really care about and which are aligned with your values. Talk with your mentors about how you pitch that to other scientists in your field, of course, but if you're really shaken and scared by the political climate... well, better to apply that to your work than to not be able or interested in focusing on the work at all.

Look for things to celebrate and militantly celebrate them, even if it feels silly. You submitted a manuscript? Make a special dinner. You survived your committee meeting? Meet up with a couple of friends for coffee and cheering. You need things to cheer about, and your job is not going to naturally provide them, so lay out things you can celebrate and celebrate them even if you don't feel like you really achieved anything. (Your PI should help with this, but a lot of them don't. If your PI is absentee, try to find labmates or colleagues to celebrate when you can.) Joy and pride fuel us to keep going; make sure you are feeding them. You do not need money to make this happen, either: there are inexpensive ways to make things feel special, even if your stipend doesn't stretch nearly far enough.

Especially if your lab isn't full of people in your corner, make some friends who feel the same way you do about your "beat". Fellow activists (or just people who care) about your biggest priority are a great choice. Back in the day, I would have exhorted you to join Twitter to build that network; these days, I think most everyone is on Bluesky or Mastodon. You need people who get you and who are in your corner, and you need people who don't have power over your career to help you weather it when the storms rise.

People in the midst of despair don't know the future, either. There will be victories to come moving forward. It will be impossible to imagine them as you are today. The future is murky and uncertain, and you never know what battles you can win until you pitch them. Don't let anyone tell you a battle has been lost until you fight it, and don't make the mistake of thinking that what you do today doesn't matter intensely.

Life is iterative: it always starts from what you do today, and small aggregate decisions have a lot more power over the whole than any individual large one. If you don't like the direction you're going, you can always change direction for a while and see where you go. The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago; the second best time is now.

Find ways to take breaks completely from the political situation. Currently, I have just gotten into Minecraft for the first time, and I am playing a lot of stupid pixelated escapism games. You have to have time to recharge yourself away from all of it. Whatever that looks like to you is good enough. I need, personally, to get back into going for long walks in the woods; that one is one of my old reliable helpful ways to think without getting overwhelmed about it.

So. I don't know if anything has gotten better or worse for you over the last couple of weeks, but I hope for better for you. As for me... well, it's probably time to go back to my grant. We're short on funding going into this mess and who knows if the grant I'm writing for an explicitly DEI-oriented program will survive the coming hammer blows long enough to get it in. Even if it doesn't, I have a couple of book pitches I'll write up and a couple of suggestions for jobs along the way I can take. I can always redirect my effort to a new direction.

Take care of yourselves, friends.

[awrkive]

PLS SHARE THE DOYEON CONFESSION SCENE DRABBLE PLS RACHEL SEND IT TO US X🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️

summary: tlp drabble #1 where doyeon confesses to jk in first year med school

w/c: 1.5k

note: this ask was sent a few days ago and i actually already have this drabble in the drafts so.... yes 🤓i welcome u to the ribbon cutting ceremony of the unlocking of a new tag in awrkive nation: tlp drabbles

Doyeon believes that she’ll only live until sixty-five – seventy, if luck’s on her side. Ultimately, she’s firm on her stand that life is short and everybody needs to get off whatever is on their chest before it’s too late. 

It’s why when she sees Jungkook arriving in Moon’s Printing Shop – where their study group holds their sessions – she sits upright and fixes her already neatly piled books and notes on the table once again, preparing herself.

Just ask the question and get over it quickly. She reminds herself.

“Where’s __?” Is the first thing that comes out of Jungkook’s mouth, taking off the straps of his backpack and setting it down on the chair across hers, as well as some of his bound reviewers and iPad. 

Doyeon raises her brow.

It’s weird when Jungkook does that. Asking about you whenever and wherever when you’re not around. She knows you were friends first before you both found her, and you are close – it’s second nature at this point. Still, Doyeon can’t help but be a little suspicious.

But she decides to ignore that, not wanting to put malice in Jungkook’s intentions because it would be unfair to him. She doesn’t want to be that kind of person who thinks that men and women can’t be purely platonic. You’re just good friends, is all.

Though, she definitely did assume that you both were a couple the first time she saw you. Physiology had just ended and Jungkook said he needed to go to the next floor to meet someone for lunch. Doyeon asked to tag along, and that was the first time she met you. Fast forward, you actually weren't his girlfriend. She couldn't stop thinking about the way Jungkook blushed though when she asked him about it.

Glancing at her phone, she sees the empty notification bar, indicating that you haven’t replied to her text from twenty minutes ago. 

“She said she was coming. Twenty minutes ago. She also said it’s okay if we start without her.” Doyeon responds, and she watches as Jungkook settles on his seat, nodding at her.

He goes for his own phone, clicks on it as if also texting you himself. 

Doyeon watches him with furrowed brows. Jungkook is definitely… conventionally attractive. He sports a medium-length hair, is quite tall, and has a good sense of fashion – even now when he’s just wearing the university hoodie and a pair of baggy sweatpants, he looks good. Naia from Physiology has been asking about him.

Doyeon has had a few crushes from highschool to college, and she thinks Jungkook might be her first in post-grad school. 

She’s been thinking about it for a while… though, she’s only known him for two months. Still. He looks good, and most of all, he’s nice. He let her borrow a pen from him the first day they met and was extremely friendly. 

And also really smart. Doyeon likes that most about him. 

Doyeon rids her head off the thoughts.

“Anyway. Anatomy.” She starts flipping through her book, ready to start the session. But she remembers about what she has to say to him.

Oh, well. She's already mentioned Anatomy and studying. Might as well put off the confession for a few more days. The exam is more important.

Putting his phone down, Jungkook looks through his book as well. "Midterms is next week, right?"

Doyeon nods. “Yeah... and brachial plexus is convoluted to me.” 

“Oh, yeah. Threw me off at first, too,” Jungkook chuckles and shakes his head to himself. He grabs a piece of paper. “You just really have to figure out how the branches and divisions work. Let me show you something,” 

Jungkook turns the paper to Doyeon’s direction, and with a pen, he sketches out a simple diagram of the brachial plexus, starting with the roots, then moving to the trunks, divisions, cords, and finally the terminal branches.

“Okay, so it starts here with the roots— C5 to T1. Think of it like the beginning of a tree. Then these roots combine into trunks,” He scribbles it, and then looks at Doyeon for awhile, making sure she’s still following. She gives him a slight nod. He smiles. “Annnd, there’s the superior, middle, and inferior trunks… and they split into anterior and posterior divisions.” 

He’s talking calmly, methodical in his words. He simplifies such a complex system with clear, organized steps, and this makes Doyeon lean closer, impressed not only by Jungkook’s understanding but by how easily he breaks it down.

When Jungkook’s done explaining, Doyeon leans back to her chair. “That is a really neat diagram.” She looks at the original illustration that the lecturer presented a few weeks ago, and when Jungkook sees that, he laughs lightly. 

“Yeah, that diagram is just a mess. But it does click when you just think of it like a pathway—kind of like navigating through a map,” As if he remembers something, he lights up a little. “And oh, __ also taught me a mnemonic. You just have to remember the terminal branches, MARMU. Musculocutaneous, Axillary—’

“Radial, Median, and Ulnar nerves.”

Jungkook grins. “Exactly.” 

Nodding her head, she starts to do the same drawing on her notes. 

A few minutes passed, comfortable silence hanging in the air. Doyeon had kept on looking up from her book to Jungkook, who’s diligently reading and scribbling on his iPad. 

She remembers the confession again.

Doyeon can't help it. She has to ask. Now.

“Hey,” she calls.

Jungkook looks up from his device. “Hm?” 

“I have to ask you something.”

With a raised brow, Jungkook says, “You look serious. I’m a little scared.”

She furrows her brows and he chuckles, telling her to continue. 

“Are you dating somebody?” Doyeon asks straight ahead. There’s no need to tiptoe around it. She just has to get it out of her system before it becomes worse.

Obviously taken aback and not expecting the question at all, Jungkook opens and closes his mouth like fish in water. 

“... no?” 

“You’re not sure?” Doyeon asks, confused.

Jungkook stammers. “No, I mean— yes. No. I’m not dating anybody,” He raises a brow at her. “Why?” 

Doyeon nods. 

“I like you. Are you interested in going out with me?”

Doyeon waits. She watches as Jungkook seems to freeze in his seat, his hand holding his apple pencil pausing mid-air; mouth agape, eyes widened a bit. 

She waits for a few seconds, still not getting an answer from Jungkook. 

“Okay.” Doyeon says after the stretched-out silence, going back to her book.

Well. That was worth the shot. At least she's let it out now. 

“I—what?” Jungkook splutters, sounding incredulous. “What do you mean you like me? Like, like? And you want to go out with me?” 

Doyeon rolls her eyes. “Offer is now off the table. Let’s get back to studying.” 

“What— were you even serious?” Jungkook insists. “Was that a prank or something?” 

With furrowed brows, Doyeon looks at him quizzically. “Why would I joke about something like that?” 

“Because…” He trails off, then his shoulders deflate after a few seconds. “I don’t know.” 

“Okay?” When Doyeon sees him with a pouty expression on his face, she can’t help but frown. “Don’t think too much about it, Jungkook. It’s not serious. I just wanted to ask. You gave me an answer. That’s it.” 

“I didn’t give you an answer, though?” 

“Your silence meant enough.” Jungkook doesn’t say anything. She nudges his foot under the table. “Come on, don’t be weird about this.”

Sighing, Jungkook nods his head. “Alright.” 

A few beats of silence, and Doyeon remembers something. “Don’t ever mention this to anybody, not even __, you understand me?” 

He blinks at her. “Okay.” 

Doyeon can’t say the next few minutes weren’t awkward. She felt Jungkook looking up at her every now and then, as if checking up on her. By then, she started to feel the hairs on her body prickle. Is he thinking she’s like, in love with him, or something? 

“Hello!” Doyeon looks up from her notes to see you walking in the door. “Hi Doyeon, hi Jungkook!” you cheerfully greet them both with a bright smile. 

Doyeon thinks your smile is contagious, so she mirrors your it as well. When her gaze falls to Jungkook, that’s when she takes note of it. 

The way his eyes suddenly light up at your arrival. It's not the first time it happens. He has that look every single time you're in the room.

Jungkook instantly goes over to you to help you with the books you’re carrying. When he sets them down on the table, he empties the chair beside him so you can settle down on it, which you do. 

“You’re late. Where were you?” Jungkook asks, and Doyeon doesn’t know if it was supposed to be subtle— but he definitely scooted his chair closer to yours, leaning his elbow to the table and twisting his body to your direction, giving you his undivided attention.

“Oh, just good old traffic. I made a quick trip to a cafe,” you wave him off. Lifting your hand, Doyeon looks at the cup holder you’re holding. “I bought coffee. Doyeon, do you like iced americano?”

“Uh, yeah,” Doyeon smiles shyly. She’s still shy around you. She doesn’t know why. “Thank you. I’ll venmo you.” 

There’s an instant frown on your face. With a pout, you take the cup holder close to your chest, an offended expression on your face. “No, it’s a treat. Don’t venmo me anything.” 

Doyeon can’t help but chuckle. 

“Okay.” 

Your huge grin returns and you give her the cup of iced americano. Turning to Jungkoon who looks like he’s eagerly waiting for his own, you raise a brow at him, saying, “And this one's for you. But double the price.”

Jungkook frowns. 

You both end up arguing again. It’s light-hearted and good-natured, that’s what Doyeon thinks. Your friendship is just… bizarre like that. 

But as she sits across from you, watching both your and Jungkook’s interaction, Doyeon realizes something. 

She should’ve known. She’s always thought about it. She wanted to ignore her hunch because again, she thinks women and men can be friends – but that is hard to uphold when Jungkook is so painfully obvious. 

Oh, brother. Doyeon internally shakes her head. Jungkook definitely likes you.

[theladyofbloodshed]

And a bonus Halloween fic especially for @vadutton21.

Almost 7000 words, featuring Nesta Archeron as Mina Harker, Cassian as Count Dracula, and Jurian as the vampire hunting Doctor Van Helsing.

It had been a long time since a letter had come. Nesta Harker tracked her sister’s journey upon the large map in the drawing room. On the first of October, Feyre had penned a letter in Munich detailing her journey from London to the Bavarian capital. The following day, her train had been delayed so she arrived in Vienna later than expected. The letters had arrived together, despite the dates on them. Feyre’s journey had then taken her to Budapest where she had written that she felt the divide between the west and the east.

Nesta had not wanted her sister to go. It was not for a woman to take on their father’s business upon his death, but Feyre – headstrong to her core – had insisted upon becoming a lawyer like him. It was at the request of Count Cassian of Transylvania that Feyre was travelling to Romania, so that she could assist him in purchasing a home in London, along with all of the bureaucracy that it entailed. There had always been a restless spirit to her sister. Her excitement was clear in her words as she wrote of the Carpathian Mountains. At the bottom of the paper, Feyre had sketched the view, only in black ink, but it was detailed and beautiful.

Then her letters had all but ceased. A final one had arrived eight days ago, dated three weeks earlier, detailing her arrival to Castle Cassian, nestled in the Carpathian Mountains. No more had come. Feyre had promised to write every three days once she arrived to Transylvania. Her business with the count was only to take a fortnight at a maximum then she’d travel back to London by train along the same route. There should have been at least two letters detailing her return.

‘It shall be Lucien.’

Nesta’s eyes snapped to her younger sister who stood beside the window, her brown hair bound in a loose braid as they did not expect to leave the house that day.

‘You have decided then?’

Elain gave a nod then turned on the spot. ‘It is bad business to choose, but I believe Lucien will offer me a stable future and a happy life, more so than the other two.’

She concurred with her sister’s statement. The three men were companions, so she hoped there would be no fall out from Elain choosing Lucien Vanserra to marry. Such was life when one sister was gallivanting across Europe and the other had three men vying for her hand in marriage.

‘Dr Balthazar Seward will be most upset that you will not join him in his asylum.’

Elain shuddered. ‘I cannot see myself as mistress of the asylum.’

‘And Graysen Morris would spirit you away to America if he had his way. He is rough of tongue, but strong of heart though,’ said Nesta. She tidied away Feyre’s letters into a neat pile. ‘Still, when Lord Vanserra dies, Lucien shall inherit the title. We may find that you become Lady Elain.’

***

The three men accepted Elain’s choice well enough. A small, congratulatory party was held where Nesta ducked and dived from her own potential suitors who were keen to sink their claws into her family’s fortune.

‘I should like to escape the city a while,’ she announced to Elain the following morning, shortly after Tomas Mandray had been turned away by the household staff once again. ‘There is too much here clouding my thoughts. I’d like to head north for a while.’

‘Whitby is always perfect at this time of year,’ agreed Elain. ‘What of Feyre, have you heard from her?’

Another few days had trickled by with no letter. That morning, Nesta had sent one of the servants to the post office to have letters sent to the train stations in Paris, Munich, Vienna, and Budapest should Feyre call in there. A few of her father’s acquaintances had businesses across Europe so letters were also sent to them to enquire after Feyre using their contacts. A further letter was sent all the way to Cassian’s castle. If there was no word in another week, Nesta would journey there herself. Her sister could be unwell or mislaid her purse so had no finances to rely upon. It could simply have been that she was having a grand time in Transylvania or had mislaid her ink or parchment.

Together, Elain and Nesta journeyed to the north east coast of England to Whitby where they had a home upon a hill overlooking the sea. In Whitby, they could talk together freely and build their castles in the air. It was dark when they arrived, the sea breeze turning the air colder. But, by the morning, it was calm enough to take a walk along the beach and breathe in the fresh sea air. A commotion was afoot upon the shore for a boat had wrecked in the night. Pieces of splintering wood washed up with each roll of the waves upon the sand.

‘It is the strangest thing,’ one man said, scratching at his bald head. ‘The captain was found bound to the helm, as if to keep the boat on course to the rocks. Not a single body has washed up besides his. Clothing, yes. But not a single member of the crew.’

‘Is that possible?’ Nesta asked.

‘Possible? Not probable. A ship this size would have had a crew of at least fifteen. They should have washed up on the shore by now.’

Nesta hooked her arm with her sister’s, leading her away from the grizzly sight unfolding.

The days in Whitby were far more enjoyable than London. Nesta could take a walk along the high street without needing to avoid suitors. There was a respite from managing her late father’s accounts – although she had brought a few volumes with her to go through with a fine-toothed comb when she had the desire too. Mostly, she whiled away the time at her leisure by either reading or merely sitting in the large window, watching the passers-by. The folk were less refined in the north where labourers were more common. They were friendlier than Londoners too.

With a blush upon her face, Elain entered the lounge. She clutched a letter to her chest.

‘Is it Feyre?’

‘Feyre? Oh, heavens no. Lucien will come tomorrow with Balthazar and Graysen. The servants are preparing rooms for them.’

She cocked a brow. ‘Is that why your cheeks are so aflame?’

‘Not entirely. I have met a most curious man upon the high street. I knew at once from his clothing that he was not from Whitby, nor indeed did I think him from England at all,’ Elain said in such a hurry that she had to suck in a breath. ‘Like that count our sister is assisting, he is also from Transylvania. A most polite and charming man with dark, waves of hair and hazel eyes set against his warm brown skin.’

Nesta folded her arms across her chest in distaste. ‘You have agreed to a marriage with Lucien, if I must remind you. I hope, at least, you received the name of this stranger.’

‘He did not give me his name. He promised to next time we met.’

‘Elain,’ she scolded. ‘You risk a scandal.’

Her sister’s blush deepened. ‘I did not agree to meet him, Nesta. I laughed away his words and returned to the home.’

The news of the stranger unsettled Nesta for a reason that she could not name. She felt as though pieces of a puzzle were coming to her although she could not say if they were all from the same puzzle – or indeed pieces at all. Her sister’s prolonged silence abroad. A strange shipwreck. A man from the same place as Count Cassian here in Whitby too.

Her dreams that night were ill. She dreamt of Feyre lost and wandering in an endless castle. Her dreams had only ended when she heard a window slam. Nesta had hurried at once to Elain’s bedroom where the source of the sound had come from. One of the panes of glass in the window had cracked from the force of it hitting the frame, but her sister slept through it all.

‘The night is too cold to have this window open,’ muttered Nesta, closing it.

It was most unlike Elain to sleep so deeply. For a moment, Nesta remained rooted to the spot to watch her sister’s chest rise and fall then she noticed two raised lumps upon her neck. Her sister’s skin was cold, almost like ice, beneath her palm. The marks on her neck were as if she’d been pricked with a pin and they had bruised around it.

Nesta sent a servant out for a doctor, knowing instantly that her sister was deeply unwell. Elain would not wake, but how she shivered within the sheets. A deathly pallor crawled upon her skin. Even with a stoneware hot water bottle tucked beneath her in the sheets, Elain remained cold and pale.

‘It looks like an animal bite,’ the doctor announced. ‘But of what sort, I cannot name.’

‘Then what use are you?’ The snap in her voice was brittle.

The sun was beginning to bleed into the morning sky, but Elain only grew worse. She writhed in agony until Nesta closed the curtain to block out the light. When Lucien arrived with Balthazar and Graysen, Nesta took a moment to dress herself although she felt tired and adrift with no enthusiasm to face the day.

‘She was well yesterday?’ Lucien asked as he clutched Elain’s limp hand. ‘How can she deteriorate so quickly?’

‘The doctor had no answer for us,’ she admitted.

The three men kept a vigil beside Elain’s beside while Nesta saw to the skeleton staff in their holiday cottage. Breakfast was being prepared as she entered the kitchen. One stopped abruptly at her arrival then pulled a letter from her apron.

‘Ever so sorry, Miss Harker. What with Miss Elain unwell and the arrival of the gentlemen-’

‘It is quite alright,’ Nesta cut in. She took a knife from the counter to slice the envelope across the top.

The cursive was different to their own style. The English was not wholly accurate and there were spelling errors throughout. The news was ill. Feyre had been taken unwell in Transylvania. Following delusions and fever, she was being held in a hospital in Budapest. If Elain had not been so poorly, Nesta would have taken the first ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam to seek out Feyre. She was trapped here between a rock and a hard place; forced to choose between two sisters.

Lucien arrived downstairs, a frown pulling his brows together. ‘This illness is most unusual. If I may, a friend of mine is a doctor. He lives only in Scarborough. He can be here within the hour.’ At her nod, Lucien continued. ‘Are you well yourself, Nesta?’

‘Yes. I have my health although it seems both of my sisters do not.’

She handed him the letter to read.  

‘What will you do?’

‘What can I do? One sister is safe in hospital thousands of miles away, the other is in touching distance, ailing from a sudden illness that has no cause.’

‘We will find the cause – and the resolution,’ Lucien said gently, before departing to call upon his friend in Scarborough.

Elain grew worse as the minutes ticked by. There was a blueish hue to the skin beneath her eyes and the tips of her fingers remained cold even as Nesta rubbed them between her warm hands. The bedroom grew stiflingly warm with the window closed and fire burning. Elain’s rejected suitors, both Graysen and Balthazar, remained holding their vigil in the bedroom.

When Lucien returned, a sweat upon his brow as though he had run to them, the doctor was not at all what Nesta was expecting. In fact, she had half a mind to ask if he truly was a doctor. He came without the usual clean, leather bag but a well-worn brown satchel instead. His hair was not combed neatly – if combed at all – and fell to his chin in loose waves. He was young, perhaps newly qualified, so Lucien’s love for his friend was likely clouding his judgement of the doctor’s abilities.

‘This is Doctor Jurian Van Helsing, a trusted friend and experienced doctor.’

Jurian did not bother greeting them, but strode forwards to Elain’s bedside. His fingers went to her chin and Nesta had been about to complain because there was dirt beneath his short nails when he turned her head to inspect the marks there. His hand stole away to his satchel as if to reach for something then he stopped.

‘Last night?’

‘Yes,’ said Lucien, glancing to Nesta. ‘We arrived this morning but Miss Harker found Elain unwell in the night.’

Jurian’s dark eyes roved over Nesta. ‘What did you see?’

‘What on earth does this have to do with my sister’s illness?’

‘Everything.’

Nesta recounted hearing the window slam after her strange dreams. Jurian pressed her on any sounds she might have heard and if she didn’t peer out of the glass to investigate.

‘She is dying from acute blood loss.’

‘Dying?’

‘Blood loss?’

Lucien, Graysen, and Balthazar offered themselves up at once for a transfusion, their forearms bared towards the doctor. He claimed it would be pointless although Lucien insisted that they try. He asked for a servant to be sent into the market to bring back as much garlic as possible, including the flowers. When the second man – Doctor Balthazar Seward – had almost finished transfusing his blood to Elain, the servant returned. Jurian, in a most severe manner began tying bulbs of garlic together using thread from Nesta and draping it in front of the window. He tied bunches of garlic flowers into the four corners of the room, more above the door, and even knotted it into a necklace for Elain.

‘Keep the doors and windows locked tonight, Miss Harker,’ he said, voice rough and accented. He spared one look to Elain who remained wasting away in the bed. ‘Sleep apart from your sister. I insist upon it.’

Only the doctor’s warning pried Nesta and the others from Elain’s bedside.

Upon the dawn, Elain had died.

It was in a numb horror that Nesta returned to the lounge where Graysen sat beside her in a chair, forcing a tea into her hands while Lucien put aside his grief to call for the undertaker. Balthazar wrote the letter to Feyre, informing her of Elain’s death where Nesta could not then departed to have the letter sent to the hospital in Budapest.

The doctor called in soon after. Jurian did not appear shocked by the news of Elain’s death nor did it seem she was the reason for his visit. He inspected the men’s necks then came to Nesta. A scowl was upon his face although it seemed to be his regular expression. His hands remained grubby, but they were warm as he tilted her face this way and that, feeling and inspecting the soft skin of her neck.

‘I am sorry for your loss. Such evil must be eradicated.’

‘Evil?’ Nesta leaned forwards in her chair. ‘You know what ailed my sister.’

‘I will not speak of it – but I will see it finished.’

***

For three days after the funeral, Nesta did not leave the home. She wore black and haunted the lounge while servants stepped around her in silence. The foods they offered her remained untouched. Both Balthazar and Graysen returned to London with Lucien following them on the second day after Nesta asked him to leave too.

When twilight began to creep in and mist rolled across the town from the moors, a brisk knock sounded at the door.

The servants did their usual routine and tried to shoo away visitors, but this one was more insistent. Jurian bypassed the footman and sought Nesta out.

‘We must speak at once.’

She blinked at him in shock. The man was put together sloppily; his shirt was open at the collar, exposing a glimpse of bronzed skin and his dark coat billowed out behind him.

‘Doctor Van Helsing, I am in mourning. I will take no visitors.’

‘This is a matter of life and death,’ the doctor replied, bending to a knee before her and gripping her hand. ‘For all that is right in this world.’

When he rose, Jurian took Nesta with him and led her to the window. Lights were scattered upon the horizon as the sun waned. 

‘I want you to believe...to believe in things that you cannot. I ask this of you as a sister to the deceased. We must go to Elain’s tomb with haste.’

The man would not take her refusals. He forced her by the hand from the house and marched her towards the graveyard. Nesta had not wanted her sister buried beneath the ground or returned to London which had never felt like home. Her mother’s family had a marble mausoleum which could be considered beautiful if it were not so macabre. That was where Elain had been laid to rest.

It was only when they reached the iron gates of the graveyard that Jurian lurched out of his coat and draped it around Nesta’s shoulders.

‘There have been stories in Whitby of a Bloofer Lady.’

‘I have not heard of such a thing,’ she replied.

Jurian gave a grim nod. ‘Then I wish I could spare you from the pain, but I cannot. Your sister is one of the undead. A vampire.’

‘A what?’

‘A creature so monstrous that hell does not want it,’ said Jurian Van Helsing in a low, rough voice. ‘Three children have died on three consecutive nights. Each one drained of blood. Each one bearing the same marks as your sister.’

‘You cannot accuse my sister of such a crime, Doctor Van Helsing. Elain is dead.’

The final word choked her. Nesta had not wanted to admit such a thing.

‘Your sister is hungry, Miss Harker. She will drink and drink blood until she is satiated or until her master calls her home.’

‘Her master?’

‘The one who passed the curse to her.’

It was all a lie. Nesta had to believe that it was all make believe. And yet, when Jurian led her to her family’s crypt, they found Elain’s tomb empty. How could it be? Nesta had witnessed the undertaker and his men put her sister’s lifeless body into the mausoleum.

‘This cannot be real.’

‘I assure you, it is. I make it my business to track vampires and kill them.’

Nesta frowned. ‘You are not a doctor at all, are you?’

‘I am a doctor of medicine,’ he confirmed. ‘But when a patient of mine rose from the dead and tried to bury her fangs into my neck, I staked her and her sister through the heart. The supernatural is my calling, Miss Harker, for there is nothing I detest more in this world than the vampire.’

They searched across Whitby for Elain, as farcical as it sounded. For hours, Jurian had her hunt alongside him through every cobbled alley and dingily-lit underpass.

When her feet throbbed, Nesta had half a mind to call it all off, hoping that she’d imagined her sister’s empty tomb. Then, they saw her. Elain, still wearing the pink silk dress that they’d buried her in, had her teeth buried into the neck of a small boy with fair hair.

Jurian’s hand clamped across her mouth to keep from crying out. In his other, he brandished a crucifix at Elain.

Elain Harker, but yet how changed. The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness.

Blood streaked her chin as she prised herself away from the child’s neck. He fell limply onto the cobbles, his life spent.

She hissed at the crucifix then fled.

They chased her towards the hallowed ground as the dawn leaked into the sky. Nesta could only watch on in horror as Doctor Van Helsing cornered her sister and drove a wooden stake into her heart. Instead of collapsing to the ground or shrieking in pain, Elain turned to ash.

‘To London we must return, Miss Harker,’ said Jurian, wiping the point of the stake upon his trousers. ‘We must discover her creator and destroy him once and for all.’

***

If her sister’s suitors had any knowledge of the supernatural in the way that Doctor Van Helsing did, they remained quiet as the four of them gathered at Doctor Balthazar Seward’s asylum. The cries and shrieks of patients echoed through the walls as they sat around a large table in Balthazar’s office.

‘Is this a place for a lady,’ asked Graysen, the drawl of his accent making his words sound slow.

‘She has a man's brain - a brain that a man should have were he much gifted - and a woman's heart,’ Jurian replied, offering her a heated look. ‘The good God fashioned her for a purpose.’

‘Well, Jurian, you know how to hunt these creatures best,’ said Lucien. ‘How will we find the devil that robbed us of our sweet Elain?’

Nesta tried not to flinch from the violence that came from the man’s lips. He spoke of stuffing garlic in a vampire’s mouth, beheading, dousing them in holy water, or staking them through the heart as they had done to her sister. It had hardly been her sister. Elain had died. Whatever creature had returned to this earth had not been her sister.

‘Careful, Jurian,’ warned Balthazar. ‘You will give Amren an idea.’

‘Amren?’

‘A patient of mine. One who believes by ingesting creatures whilst they are still alive, she can harvest their life force,’ explained Balthazar, shaking his head in dismay. ‘It started with flies and other insects. If rats come to her cell, she eats those raw and wriggling.’

Nesta recoiled at that.

‘No matter what we put in place, birds, spiders, and rats continue to seek her out to be devoured. And just last week, a knife was in her cell although all staff deny supplying it to her.’ Balthazar rolled up his sleeve where a fresh cut was healing, the stitches spitting.

‘Curious,’ murmured Jurian from the seat opposite Nesta. ‘For many years, I have made it my duty to discover the lore of vampires. To be knowledgeable of the enemy is a weapon in itself. It is said some of the strongest vampires have a thrall over creatures like the rat or the bat.’

A knock at the door had them all startling. A worker of the asylum slipped in. ‘Apologies for the disturbance. A member of the Harker staff delivered this letter with utmost urgency for Miss Nesta Harker. It is from her sister.’

For a moment, Nesta’s heart went to Elain – as if she had found a way to communicate from beyond the grave. But she had a second sister who was being nursed to health all the way in Budapest.

Dear Nesta,

I write to you with haste although I fear my words are too late. I was held captive in the home of Count Cassian by three monstrous creatures. Rhysand, Azriel, and Morrigan had acted as friends if not overzealous with their attentions. I was left to them wherein they descended upon me with fangs and claws while he departed for England, my purpose served. Only leaping from the window and running towards the dawn has stopped me from becoming one of them. Rumours of such creatures – vampires – run rife in Transylvania. They are creatures of the dark who drink blood. All of them answer to him.

I write to warn you. Beware of Count Cassian. I fear I shared too much of our family with my host. He was most taken by your portrait. Alert the authorities that he resides at 347 on Piccadilly Street, if they will believe this tale. Do not seek him out. For all that is good in this world, do not seek out Cassian.

Yours,

Feyre.

When Nesta had finished reading, a silence descended upon them, broken only by the faraway cries of Balthazar’s patients of the asylum.

‘Then they are the same,’ Jurian announced. ‘The one that killed Elain is the very same Count Cassian. And I will make it my duty to see him dead once more.’

‘How will it be done?’

‘A vampire can only rest with soil from his home country. Somewhere within his home will be earth from Transylvania. If we destroy it, he will not be able to rest again in England. It will force him to flee to his country.’

‘And then,’ Nesta pressed. ‘What will we do?’

‘I will travel to Romania. I will kill him.’

‘Not alone,’ added Lucien. ‘For Elain, I will go with you.’

‘And I,’ said Graysen and Balthazar in unison.

Nesta sucked in a long breath. ‘As will I.’  

The following day and night was spent busy planning how to enter the home of Count Cassian. Graysen and Lucien had scoped out the home then provided Jurian with a plan of the exterior. The doctor believed Cassian would take to the cellar in the daytimes where a coffin would provide him with respite from the light. It was better for them to attack during the day when the vampire was at his most vulnerable.

‘We shall go this evening, before dark,’ said Jurian. ‘We waste time plotting. Cassian could infect or kill another dozen victims if we continue to allow him to roam the streets of London.’

The men loaded themselves with holy water from the church and sacramental bread. Crucifixes were strapped to them along with bulbs of garlic so they made a strange sight. When it came to the time to depart, Jurian placed a hand upon Nesta’s shoulder. The warmth of his touch seeped through her dark gown.

‘I will not say this is no place for a woman for you have proved to have a mighty heart already, but if Count Cassian is taken by your image, I cannot in good conscience lead you to him.’ Jurian’s fingers squeezed her shoulder. ‘Here, where it is safe, is where you must remain, Nesta Harker.’

Worry knotted in her chest as Nesta bid the men farewell. Balthazar, stoic and serious; Graysen, loud and excited for the action; Lucien, as warm as the sun; and Jurian, rough and determined.

The asylum did not feel safer, not with the haunting sounds leaking from every corridor. She could not remain in the office with her heart so troubled. Would it be Lucien that she would have to run through with a stake next or another?

Nesta wandered the darkened corridors, keeping close to the wall to avoid the outstretched hands of Balthazar’s patients. The walk only made her more unsettled. She had to be mad too if she thought walking the halls of an asylum would soothe her.

The room at the end had a chink of light seeping from it. Nesta took one step closer then froze. It was Amren’s cell; the patient they had spoken of earlier that evening. It was open. The prisoner was released somewhere.

Biting back on her fear, Nesta sprinted back towards Balthazar’s office, her feet hitting the ground hard.

Strong arms gripped her, stopping her from running.

A man, tall and broad, with dark hair slicked back examined her. There was an instinct in Nesta to flee from his grasp although she doubted that she could. His clothes were not that of an inmate, nor were they the fine cut of a gentleman like Lucien. They were leathers for an ancient battle.

‘I have crossed oceans of time to find you.’

Nesta knew at once who this man was: Count Cassian.

'You are mine forever.'

Before she could scream, two large fangs were bared to her then he sank them into her neck.

Pain shot through her veins. There was no ecstasy, no allure to it. Count Cassian gripped her by the hair, holding her still as he drank his fill while Nesta went limp in his arms.

‘And now you must drink from me.’

There was a wound on his chest. The sight of blood streaming from it should have made her recoil. There was a deliberate voluptuousness that was both thrilling and repulsive. His voice was in her mind, echoing through its chambers encouraging her to drink. To drink and to drink deep. And as Nesta arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal. What spell had been cast upon her?

‘Be gone, foul beast from the abyss,’ came a shout.

The vampire holding her hissed. Jurian shot an arrow towards them, the bolt embedding into Cassian’s shoulder. Something showered Nesta. For a moment, she’d believed it was blood then realised it was water. Holy water.

The vampire fled into the night.

*** It had been an uncomfortable discussion with the men. Her neck had been thoroughly examined. Jurian had forced her to step into the direct sunlight, convinced she would burn to ash. She could ingest holy water and hold a crucifix as usual. Doctor Van Helsing theorised that upon Nesta’s death, she would turn into one of the undead. Had he been a minute later, perhaps Nesta would have met the same fate as Elain.

The patient, Amren, was discovered dead. The bars on her windows had been bent wide to allow Cassian entry to the asylum. She must have invited him in. Then, he’d drained her of blood, her purpose served.

‘We were successful in destroying the earth from his land. Cassian will have fled to Transylvania – and it is to there that I must travel.’

Lucien laid a hand on Jurian’s shoulder. ‘You cannot mean to go alone, friend. We will see this through to the end.’

When Graysen and Balthazar echoed his sentiment, Nesta added, ‘The world seems full of good men - even if there are monsters in it. I will follow you, Doctor Van Helsing, as far as you will lead me.’

They took the first train out of London to Dover then a ferry across to France. It was growing dark when their train ventured out of Paris. With many hours still to travel, and change required in Munich, three of the men opted to sleep in their carriage. Nesta remained with Jurian in her own one. He was the most equipped to handle her if she turned at any moment into a vampire. Indeed, Jurian kept a crossbow beside him on the long, green seat and a crucifix was around his neck. The countryside sped past in a blur of indigo skies and darkened trees.

‘You ought to sleep, Miss Harker.’ Jurian’s pupils were blown wide by the dim carriage so his brown irises were swallowed by the darkness. ‘I will protect you,’ he vowed. ‘I will not see you become a monster.’

‘I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him.’

His fingers flexed. ‘Should you like to marry me, Nesta?’

There was no response she could give that didn’t sound like a lie. Doctor Van Helsing had all the trappings of a distinguished gentleman by name, however he was rough and unkempt the eye. He did not speak with the same level of politeness as Lucien, nor could his casual tongue be explained away as being from across the ocean as Graysen could. Jurian, for lack of a better word, was rugged. Her mother would roll in her grave if she knew that Nesta even entertained a thought of marrying Jurian. He certainly was not a man who could provide her a stable home or the future her parents wished for her – but what was a future without Elain, or with the knowledge that these blood-drinking creatures roamed freely? Couldn’t Jurian provide safety and stability in his own way?

‘Is that a proposal, Doctor Van Helsing?’

Jurian just gave her a sly grin in response.

The train continued on his journey then, he added, ‘I shall not ask for I hate to be disappointed.’

When the night grew long, Nesta remained unchanged. Jurian postulated that Cassian had not managed to drink too deeply or infect her. Only her death would alter her. It gave her a small kernel of hope that perhaps there would be a future for her. A future as a human. She’d stake herself through the chest if she became like Cassian.

‘Try to sleep,’ Jurian said as softly as a rough-tongued man like him could manage.

‘I find myself not only plagued by worries but chilled by them too.’

In response, Jurian crossed the narrow trench of the carriage and lay beside her on the cushioned bench. His arm looped around her middle, holding her in a way that ought to have caused a commotion. If anybody witnessed this… But what was propriety when faced with the undead?

Nesta eased closer to him, her face nuzzling against Jurian’s chest. His heart was slow, calm. There was a faint scent of the wild upon him like Jurian had been made from it. He was different to the gentleman of high society that Nesta had traded barbed words with; the sorts of men who’d force her to be a subservient wife and broodmare.

‘What if this is our last night?’

Jurian touched her cheek. ‘Then I will greet death with the knowledge that a beautiful woman has slumbered in my arms.’

‘And if I say that I do not want to sleep,’ murmured Nesta, the words bolder than she felt.

Such a rough-hewn man surprised her with his gentleness. Jurian rolled her beneath him on the narrow stretch of bench. One hand cradled beneath her head, the other lifted her skirts. His lips pressed to her own, urgent yet careful. She met his tongue with her own, the kiss deepening. Without a care for who could see through the steamed-up glass of their carriage, Jurian freed himself of his breeches then settled himself between her legs.

Nesta held onto Jurian in ecstasy as he thrust in and out in a quick rhythm. There was a frantic energy to their coupling – a knowledge that their time on this earth was dwindling like sand running through their fingers.

Jurian pressed his forehead to hers, his breathing rapid when he was spent. Nesta held him. Held him and wished that the future would be kind to them.

***

‘I do not believe all of us will live to see another dawn,’ said Jurian, as they looked upon the famed castle of Count Cassian. ‘We will step into death with the knowledge that we tried to eradicate evil.’

‘Always so positive, my friend.’

‘When it comes to vampires, they’re faster, stronger, and lack a conscience. I am realistic, Lucien.’

Jurian’s gravity reminded Nesta of herself. So often, she’d been told what a serious child she was then what an equally grave adult she had become.

The castle was on the very edge of a terrific precipice where there was a great chasm beneath where the rivers wound in deep gorges through the forests. It was a beautiful place to die, Nesta thought grimly.

Feyre, who they had collected from Budapest, accompanied them. She had knowledge of the castle’s layout and its inhabitants. It took courage to return to this place so Nesta was grateful to her sister for having such a mighty heart.

‘Morrigan and Azriel are strong,’ she explained, ‘but Rhysand… I’ve never seen such speed. He’s fast and powerful.’

‘We will split. Miss Harker – the younger – you will go with Lucien to the top floors. Balthazar and Graysen, take the middle.’ Jurian turned his dark gaze upon Nesta. ‘There is nobody else I would trust to guard you, Miss Harker. You are the one Count Cassian wants. If my hands cannot keep you safe then nobody can. We will take the ground floor and the cellar for that is surely where the vampire will reside.’

Nesta stared up at the imposing castle as the light breached from behind it. They had chosen the first light to mount their attack in the hope that it gave them the advantage.

The castle was macabre within. Cobwebs hung in the corners of the vaulted ceiling and spiralling pillars ran through a great ballroom that spoke of a faded opulence. Nesta kept close to Jurian Van Helsing who moved with the swiftness of a hunter. There was no hesitation in his movements. The doctor stalked his prey, prepared for any eventuality. Nesta clutched the crucifix in her sweaty hand, heart hammering with its fear. It was not solely fear for her life, but for that of the ones she loved who also moved through the castle.

When they descended upon the cellar, they found it empty. It had once, perhaps, been a chapel but no God would allow Cassian entry now. They found the graves of the three vampires under Cassian’s command. Jurian sanctified the graves of Rhysand, Morrigan, and Azriel to put an end to them. From the dust, however, something had been moved. Jurian touched the outline upon the stone floor.

‘A coffin.’ He gave Nesta a grim look. ‘Count Cassian is on the move.’

Just then a commotion sounded outside.

They rushed towards the source, Jurian smashing a window on the ground floor to give them a quicker route to it.

Feyre, Lucien, and Balthazar were engaged in a fight with local men. Many of them had formed a ring around a stationary carriage where surely the vampire must have been. The men were in a strange trance, their eyes glazed and red around the irises. They fought without recognition of their pain for one was shot in the flesh of his shoulder by Jurian’s crossbow and he continued without flinching.

‘The carriage! We must get to the carriage.’

Holy water and crucifixes did not work for these were living men enthralled by the vampire. The only way to put an end to the horror was to kill Cassian.

They acted like a battering ram as they forced their way towards the carriage, felling living men as they went. Lucien and Balthazar used their pistols to shoot, the sound of their bullets ringing in Nesta’s ears.

With an almost superhuman effort, Jurian eluded the men and leapt upon the cart where he forced the coffin upon the ground with a show of his strength. Lucien slashed his way through the men towards the doctor.

Inside the coffin, Count Cassian was covered in earth from his homeland which allowed him to travel. His eyes opened and fixed upon the setting sun. The look of hate in them turned to triumph.

At the last moment of sunlight, Jurian who wielded a great, silver knife chopped off the vampire’s head while Lucien’s knife plunged into Cassian’s heart. Almost as though he was drawing in a breath, Cassian’s whole body crumbled into dust and passed from sight. Even in that moment of death, within such a horrid face, she was sure a look of peace passed over the vampire, his soul finally at rest. The local men were released from the spell, confusion washing upon them.  

‘We will sweep the castle,’ said Jurian, wiping his dirtied blade upon his leg. ‘What of Graysen?’

‘Rhysand,’ supplied Feyre. ‘He died a gallant gentleman.’

‘I am sorry to lose him.’

***

Such wounds were difficult to heal from. As Nesta stood upon the Whitby shore once more, she thought of her sweet sister whose life had ended because of Count Cassian. She thought of the others, the other victims, whose time was stolen from them.

Jurian rested a hand upon her waist.

‘It has been three years yet the wound feels just as keen,’ she said.

‘Time is a slow healer. But it will heal. It will.’

In an unexpected turn of events, Feyre found solace in Lucien’s arms after the horrors they had seen. Their first child had been born in the spring and they had chosen to escape the busyness of London to live permanently in the quiet corner of the world that was Whitby. Balthazar’s brush with the supernatural had repulsed him from the asylum. He had chosen to explore the world. He wrote often of his adventures all the way from the arctic to Australia. Jurian remained militant in his search to eradicate vampires. Often, he was called away to investigate mysterious murders or to lecture on the supernatural. Nesta was the hand that wrote his words. Together, they had published two books on their tale, vampires, and their origins.

‘Come, Mrs Van Helsing, we have a long journey back to London and I fear your cold hands will try to touch me in the carriage.’

Nesta pressed her wind-chilled fingers to his chest, making him jolt backwards and hiss between his teeth.

‘You wicked woman.’

‘Your woman,’ she reminded him.

[rudnitskaia]

This note was supposed to appear in a Christmas fanfic, but after @acesandocs sent me an ask about RoMaunce "Who leaves little notes in the other’s one lunch? (Bonus: what does it usually say?)" with an art request, I made a decision to post both the fic and the note much earlier. The fic is under the cut, enjoy the Christmas spirit in the middle of summer. :D

Bonus: the fic also tells the story of The Most Ridiculous Scarf's creation. x))

The Winter Wonder

Working until the last client was an awful practice.

Mau couldn't remember when she had gotten a good night's sleep. Hiding behind the storefront window, she rested her head on her hands folded on the counter and tried her best to keep from falling into slumber. She might have fallen asleep for real if it hadn't been for the cheerful music that was playing from the radio.

“Let's not disturb Miss Maura,” a cheerful whisper sounded barely audible next to Mau. A few coins tinkled quietly as they fell onto the counter, and two visitors headed for the exit.

She didn't instantly realize what was happening, and raised her head too late. Before the front door slammed shut, all she could see was Rocky wrapping a threadbare blue scarf around his neck with one hand, and gently pushing his cousin toward the street with the other.

The two young men who frequented the eatery, and who were different from most of the visitors, were constantly drawing a lot of suspicious stares. When Rocky had first brought his redheaded cousin to the place a few months ago, it had been noon on a workday, and the workmen who lunched at the eatery had become strangely quiet when the two young men had taken the only available table near the exit. Until that day, Rocky had always sat at that table for some reason, but every time he had been lucky enough to come to the eatery when there were few or no other guests. On his first visit with Calvin, though, it was as if he had deliberately chosen the busiest time of day. Like he wanted them to be noticed. But Rocky had guessed, apparently, that they had attracted too much attention, and since then, alone or with his cousin, he had shown up at the eatery either when honest people were busy working or at closing time, when honest people were getting ready for bed.

Such was the case to-day.

“And the following composition will immerse you…”

With a click of the switch on the radio panel the main room fell into silence. Despite the approaching Christmas, Mau was in a horrible mood, and even with all her love of music, she had no desire to listen to another sickeningly festive song. It was a cloudy, unusually snowy day in St. Louis, and Mau was apparently infected by its grayness, so even her usual chores were draining. Mau's father and the owner of the eatery, Mister Augusto Venza, had been away for a couple of weeks in Chicago on extremely urgent business, so Maura had to serve the clients alone and, moreover, had to meet 1928 all by herself. Though she was rather glad of the latter.

There will be no fuss.

Slowly, one by one, Mau counted the coins that Calvin and Rocky had left as payment for the coffee, and was surprised to find a piece of paper folded several times next to them. Unfolding it, Mau saw some amusing, almost childish, drawings in red crayon. On the first one, she herself was sleeping with a terribly sullen expression in a daisy field under a big, angry raincloud. In the second, Rocky held a sheep, which resembled a cloud of cotton candy and was eagerly munching on that raincloud, above his head, while the cartoonish Mau was already smiling. Next to these sketches was a wry caption:

“Don't be sour! Let sweet dreams eat all the bitter thoughts. R.”

Chuckling, Mau shook her head. She scrutinized the drawing for another minute or so, then sat down on the floor behind the counter and pulled one of the wooden baseboards towards herself.

“Come on, stop being stubborn…”

Finally, the baseboard gave way, revealing a narrow gap at the bottom of the counter that Mau used as a stash for part of her tips. She folded the sheet tighter and put it with the notes Rocky had sometimes left on his previous visits.

The front door suddenly swung open, letting cold air into the room. Mau's heart leapt, and she hastily pushed the wooden flap against the gap, then hastily stood up from the floor and shook off her knees.

“What is it, my dear? Are the spoons running away from you again?” the old Missis Bruno creaked in Italian.

“A keen eye you have,” Mau answered her also in Italian and added: “The usual for you?”

The woman nodded and headed for the far table. As she looked at her, Mau noticed the bright green knitted scarf under her coat and walked to the kitchen to serve Missis Bruno her favorite cheese ravioli.

“You have such a lovely scarf,” she said as she passed by. “Where did you get it?”

“Knitted it myself,” the woman's eyes flashed with pride. “There's some wonderful yarn at Scaffidi's now.”

“You're such a talented needlewoman,” Mau said, putting the pot on the stove. “I can't knit at all.”

The eatery became awkwardly quiet for a moment. Maura's revelation made Missis Bruno squirm uncomfortably in her chair. The mere thought that a woman of Mau’s age could not knit not only disturbed her, but appalled her. From the kitchen, Mau couldn't hear the old woman muttering worryingly to herself:

“Poor girl, there was no one to teach her…”

But even that wasn't enough of an excuse for her. She had friends, neighbors, and yet Maura Venza, at the age of twenty-two, could not knit! It's not a long way to ruin one's fate, thought Missis Bruno, nervously rubbing her napkin in her fingers. No, she could not let it go! A little while later, she said loudly:

“This is just unacceptable. What's your father thinking about? Certainly not that his daughter is so mature and can't knit. That's embarrassing,” her tone changed from condemning to admonishing. “Tell you what, Mau, honey, I'll teach you how to knit. It's easy, you'll see. Mama left you needles and yarn, didn't she?”

“I don't think so. Even if she did, it remained in Kansas City,” Mau lied habitually, barely containing a grin. She was amused at Missis Bruno's attitude toward such things. No wonder, though; things had been different when she had been young. Mau couldn't prove to her that knitting wasn't a required skill now.

“Not good. Not good at all,” the old woman continued to wail. “Back in my days…”

Mau sincerely hoped Missis Bruno hadn't heard the low chuckle that escaped her lips. She pulled a small bag out of the freezer. Knitting. Well now! There was a book she couldn’t finish for more than a month, and today there were mountains of plates, cups, and baking pans to wash. What knitting to think of.

Listening to Missis Bruno half-heartedly, Mau soon put a steaming plate of cheese ravioli with pesto in front of the old lady and returned to the counter. With the toe of her shoe, she again tried to discreetly slide a piece of baseboard back into the gap.

“…and then on Christmas Day…” Missis Bruno persisted. The wooden part wasn't falling into place. Mau frowned and mentally cursed. Why had she even opened the stash in the middle of the day?

Oh, yes, Rocky. Rocky and his funny drawing.

…and his old worn-out scarf.

Mau looked outside the window, watching the snowflakes fall slowly. She rarely got a chance to go outside, but Rocky, given his very specific occupation, had to be out in the cold a lot. And sleeping in the car in this weather must have been uncomfortable, too… it wouldn't take long to get sick. The mere thought of that made Maura uneasy. She pictured him huddled under his coat and a thin, shabby blanket, huddled in the back seat of the car, and she clenched the side of the counter tighter. He had been taking time out of his day for so many months now to come to her and just cheer her up with something: a humorous story, a funny trinket, or a little candy. As if whenever by any means he could find a little bit of warmth somewhere, he had always rushed to share it with her. And now, more than ever, she felt the desire to return that warmth to him a hundredfold. Slipping the teaspoon to the floor, Mau ducked under the counter and pulled back the flap of the stash.

“You know, Missis Bruno… I think you're right. I really should learn to knit. Could I ask you to lend me needles until my father returns and show me how to do it?”

“Of course,” the woman said enthusiastically, obviously pleased that her story had piqued Maura's interest. “Maybe you want to make something specific?”

“A scarf,” Mau answered without hesitation.

“Oh, a scarf is quite simple,” the woman squinted her eyes, smiling broadly. “With my advices, you’ll do it in two evenings. It's the dresses that require all sorts of tricks, but this…”

After a moment, Mau sat down in the chair opposite Missis Bruno and handed her a few crumpled bills. All her tips from the last couple months.

“Good. Can you buy a couple skeins of good yarn for me, please?”

Two evenings was easy to say! A week had passed before Mau could manage to do anything right at all. And Christmas was the day after tomorrow! So little, so little time… Mau yawned. She could hardly keep her eyes open, and therefore even had stopped watching whether the rows of stitches were knitted straight or not. She finished her work only in the morning, and fell asleep, holding her knitting in hands, with the needles dangerously close to her eyes.

And overslept.

In the morning, after freshening herself up, she hastily stuffed the scarf into a bundle of paper and rushed to the eatery. She spent the whole day in anticipation, hoping Rocky would come, and every time the bell over the door jingled, her heart jumped in her chest. Until finally the young man appeared on the doorstep, shaking off the snow from himself.

“Today is on the house, in celebration of Christmas,” she told him, setting coffee and a plate of chocolate pancakes with raspberry jam, garnished with three raspberries and sprinkled with powdered sugar, in front of him. And while Rocky, as if being hypnotized, stared at this gorgeousness and tried to guess if the berries were purposefully arranged in a heart-shaped pattern or not, she shoved the bundle into the pocket of his coat, which hung on the clothes rack behind him.

When Rocky walked out of the Venza family's eatery that evening, he couldn't stop smiling dreamily. He passed by the lamppost, dancing around it, and laughed softly, putting hands into his pockets. To think that Mau had baked pancakes just for him, and damn, what pancakes they were! But… what in the world was that?

He stared in puzzlement at the slanted bundle, and immediately opened it.

Seeing… a scarf.

Or rather, it looked like a scarf, except… the blue stitches wiggled from side to side, the crookedly sewn buttons reminded two eyes, and what should have been white trim on both ends looked more like jagged teeth. If it was a scarf, it was the most ridiculous scarf he had ever seen.

“How did you knit to me, buddy?” Rocky murmured, twirling the knitted mess in his hands. But there was no clue neither on the scarf nor in the paper shreds of the wrapper. Frowning, Rocky looked over his shoulder at the eatery and bit his lip.

Could it be that it was made by Mau?

There was certainly a chance that someone had put the bundle in his coat by accident, but somehow Rocky felt like there was no mistake. It was definitely a present. A self-made Christmas present. From Mau. For him! Rocky straightened the scarf and lifted it as high above his head as his arms could reach, looking at it like at an absolute miracle. The scarf, swaying in the wind, stared up at him with its button eyes and its crooked, white-toothed grin. And Rocky, as he continued his way toward the Little Daisy, smiled broadly back at it.

“Zib, please have mercy,” he kept whimpering, clutching at the man's pant leg. Zib made another attempt to make a step, but after dragging Rocky across the stage floor a little more, he gave up again.

“Kid,” Zib sighed, “if you don't let me go, I'm just going to sit on you.”

“Oh, please! I'll even be your personal horse, taking you out to the audience every night, right under the spotlight…”

Zib gave him a confused look and snorted nervously.

“No, I think I'll pass, thank you.”

“It's a matter of life and death, Zib! What can I do to get you to say yes? I'd do anything. Give anything. Literally. Even my eye teeth.”

“Why on earth are you so damn eager?” The man flailed his arms up. Rocky pulled himself closer to Zibowski's legs, squeezing them like a vise.

“It's just Christmas. I can't resist the urge to do good deeds. What a stale dry man wouldn't be heartbroken at a picture like this? Just imagine: a poor, unfortunate soul burning with a passion for music, but locked in a prison of pots and pans… as the servants of Euterpe, it is our duty to rectify such injustices! Even if only once a year.”

Zib groaned doomedly. He looked down at Rocky tiredly, then up at the ceiling, then back at Rocky, whose blue eyes stared back at him, not even with a plead, but with an almost childlike hope.

“I'm going to regret this…” he muttered, sighing heavily.

The next bright, frosty morning, Mau went down to the eatery and began her routine. She wiped off the dust, pulled open the curtains, opened the window vent, turned on the stove and set a batch of muffins to bake, began to prepare the batter for tomorrow as usual, and then…

…heard the music.

From the street, very close by, came a jaunty jazz tune, accompanied by the singing of several male voices. Mystified, Mau rubbed her hand over the fogged glass of the window and looked outside… no, it couldn't be. She ran out onto the porch and, still not believing her eyes, stared at the whole orchestra on the sidewalk in front of the eatery. When Rocky noticed her, he stepped forward and twirled around himself, playing his violin with an unusually wide smile. Looking at him, Mau laughed warmly and outlined the musicians with her hands, as if silently asking: How? How is this possible? Rocky only fleetingly lowered his gaze, paying her attention to his new scarf, and then winked at her, continuing his improvised dance with the violin.

It was a real wonder.

Soon the music and singing subsided, and Maura, still grinning happily, loudly applauded.

“Bravi! Bravi! Oh, but please hurry inside, I don’t want you all to catch cold! Come on!”

Zib's band could barely fit into the cramped space of the eatery, but that only made the atmosphere more welcoming. When Rocky cheerfully introduced Mau to all the musicians, whose names immediately mixed in her head, she brought out cinnamon coffee for each of them and a vase of ginger cookies to bite until the cupcakes were ready.

“Mind if I smoke?” Zib asked, making himself comfortable in the old chair. Mau shook her head, locking the door. No, there will be no working until the last client today. Today will be only the celebration.

“How could I say no after such an amazing concert? How did you all even sign up for this?”

Zib chuckled, giving Rocky a sly look.

“Well, let's just say he's got a long way to work it off.”

“Oh, it was worth it,” the young man shrugged nonchalantly.

Following the cozy Christmas aromas, the tiny room was filled with stories from Zib's band's past, music and laughter. Mau couldn't remember when she had felt so alive, so it was like a dream. Such a sweet, sweet dream. In her mind, she went back to those distant noisy evenings in New York, when every holiday she and her father celebrated in the large company of the Riva family. When there was no fear or anxiety, when there was warmth and hope in everything. Mau's gaze lingered on Rocky. She didn't understand how he, with all his troubles and hardships, every time managed to do the impossible: even if only for a short period of time, but to bring her back that long-lost hope. But it was then, on that sunny Christmas Eve, when she finally heard in herself undeniably loudly: I love you.

After more than one hour and more than one cup of coffee, after a series of stories and a particularly noisy argument, Sy climbed up on the counter and began to dance and juggle apples to the lively rhythmic clapping…

When suddenly, dumbfounded, with a key in his hand, Augusto Venza appeared on the doorstep.

[yosajaeofficial]

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER UPDATE

Heya everybody! We’re back for a double episode of, “The Monthly Jayce Myles Comics Updates”! The reason why August wasn’t fulfilled like normal was due to college and how busy I immediately got when entering in, which is what I figured would happen so I’m not too surprised with it to be honest. I took some time in order for me to make a fulfilling update instead of doing a rushed one to pump out yk? We’re now gonna get to the updates and bonus content I’m gonna show.

Buckle your seat belts, close your eyes and take your hands off the wheel cuz this is gonna be a ride~

THE COMIC

(OFFICIAL W.I.P: PAGES 28 & 31)

The comic’s gotten slower due to college, however, I really needed a break from it in general so I could prioritize my personal life and also refresh myself on drawing what I want to instead of rushing my age physically and turn 78 years old when I haven’t even reached 20 yet. Nothing much to say but showing the w.i.ps because of the slower progress, it’s getting there though. We got to 30 pages! Which means that the first section is sketched out (calculated to be approximately a fourth of the full chapter done, it could go lower or higher in the numbers depending on what I want/vision). I’m hella proud for getting 30 of them pages done honestly. A huge accomplishment for doing this story for a long while.

Ya’ll don’t really know, but I am indeed changing things here and there about the story where I’m shifting small details, doing redesigns, and reboots with other small things overall. I would be honest and say that’s where I’m progressing the most and not the debut chapter, I’m able to have a clearer vision of the story in my head and on paper when doing future chapters yk? I won’t go into details about redesigns or those details being changed since they’re hella spoilerish and a bit unnecessary considering that the JMC hasn’t even debuted yet. Ya’ll will get those details later when the comic functions and I will reveal more in future updates!

Also, last month Jae, no you haven’t drawn the turtles yet. However, we’re close to their debut for the chapter so keep strong! You’re doing great! :3

BONUS CONTENT: Jayce Myles Over The Years

Many of you know that Jayce Myles, whose name is in the title of the series, is our protagonist for this ROTTMNT comic! She’s my OC that I’ve had when going through my senior year of high school. We’re gonna be getting into a deep dive with her as a character and how their designs came to be during the process!

This is the first ever drawing of Jayce that I’ve done, the day I made it is so vivid in my head because I was going through it… I was in my Pre Calculus class and I had failed another test after multiple attempts through the school year. My initial idea was to cry (which I did) but then I just started doodling on my phone and I created this drawing, then from there it was history. This was in 2022, not too long ago. I became a Rise fan a couple weeks after the movie came out (which I didn’t know at the time, it was a pure coincidence) and I wanted to create a Rise OC for a while. So that day in Pre-Calc, I was able to take advantage of my mathematical suffering and create my magnum opus (exaggerated). She didn't have a name at the time so it was actually a stand in for me. Jayce got their full name until a couple days later.

EVOLUTION OF JAYCE MYLES

(October 2022- February 2024)

As you all can see, Jayce did indeed have lots of designs and ideas being sketched out while I created her as my official Rise OC. I had ideas for them to have an androgynous look from the start based off of my own self! I knew they were gonna have a Rise comic, but there were ideas for them to originally come from the 2012 TMNT universe with their "serious demeanor". It was quite interesting but there isn't much media of those ideas since they were cut a bit early on.

(Older Renders of Jayce from 2022)

Their signature color looked like it was gonna be this denim blue for quite a while but then I scrapped it cuz I thought it wasn't showing their personality like how I want it to. There was also another scrapped concept where Jayce's demeanor would be more monotone and "soft" (as in a blank slate, which doesn't give her a true personality). It was cut because it made me think that I wasn't giving her the best potential as the protagonist then I should've been giving them. Jayce was more introverted and quiet, but now they're much more expressive and full of personality. Ya'll will see in a more better light when the comic debuts, I'm not holding back with Jayce's personality anymore.

("Issue 1: Graffiti" Panels from page 1. The only page that was completed until the plot got scrapped.)

There were lots of pitches and concepts for the JMC over the years too, where lots of storyboards got drafted and one of the first of those drafts got their first page completed. However, I'm pulled a Richard Williams and kept being like "No, I don't like this" and kept going back to the drawing board. I like to look back on these old drafts especially after seeing the older interactions and how different they're gonna be in the official comics. I for sure was learning over 2023 and 2024...

Now finally, we're gonna touch on the last thing for this update~

JMC'S FINALIZED PILOT (ADDITIONAL CHARACTER)

We are going to talk just a teeny bit about the debut chapter but I'm able to become vague without spoiling too much since lots of the older pitches were scrapped. But yes, this was when I came up with the idea, "What if Jayce had a job?"

That's where the idea of Jayce working at a deli joint came from. Where she would have to get a 9-5 and possibly fired, it was pretty funny when doing the drafts since I never knew how a real deli worked and my dumbass just used my mom's experience at Denny's as referenced (she walked out and quit after almost a year).

Thus, our pilot was born.

You can go read a non canon comic I did that touched on this concept when it was fresh in development right here! [Jayce and Mikey Phone Call] & [Splinter/Randall and Jayce Interaction]

The shop itself was based off of a friend's film back in junior year. He made a FNAF parody called, "Five Nights At Fernando's" and it was such a stupid assignment but that gave me the idea of making use of the dumbass "Fernando's Shop" and make it a reality. So then Fernando's Taco Shop was created and we had the shop Jayce worked at. We already talked a bit about Archie and his deal in the first JMC Monthly Update and I can't say anymore due to spoilers but he was also involved of the creation of the pilot.

The older pitches had a cashier or a manager be like some NPC ahh character that never was gonna be brought up ever again but something in me thought it would be a cute idea to create an actual character for this manager that wasn't a stupid bossy ass hoe. It was very sweet in the drafts so I thought I could create more with that concept in mind.

Introducing: Rogelio Andazola!

(Rogelio Andazola Evolution: 2022-2023 | Still Not Showing The Finalized.)

His design is one that is the most consistent when compared to the rest of the roster, I guess that I hit the nail with his because I couldn't imagine him any different. There are only minor changes like his gray strands disappearing (bro reverse aged) and his facial expressions are much more expressive after I played around during the soft reboot. Once again (and as annoying as it is), you will all see where I'm coming from when the debut chapter releases! Rogelio as a character has also altered his personality, he's based off of my grandpa, can't wait to show you how that comes into play in the story!

Thank you all so much for sticking around for this very heavy update! I worked way too much for the photos to be sent on here and dug up lots of my old art in order for this to become a reality! It was actually insane that I kept lots of it instead of making it turn into lost media, I'm happy I got to show lots of it instead of having to make it the fuck up by memory (which I wouldn't have done in the first place and is an exaggeration). The comic is slaying in the runway and I'm working on it here and there at my own pace. Maybe next time I can finally show ya'll the turtles in the next W.I.P in the comic section. Have an amazing day/night everyone and we're on the way to victory!

[thestarfishface]

Kinda feel bad about not drawing much just because I don't have much to post. The truth is that I draw a LOT it's just mostly stuff I can't post right away (comic pages and video artwork/thumbnails), combined with having very little motivation to work on properly finished pieces right now. Sketching heals my weary soul.

Anyway I have 4 sketchbooks now and none of them are finished because Oops

So a few months ago I got a sketchbook and some alcohol markers sent to me as part of a sponsorship. The sketchbook is really nice marker paper and I love it but I have accidentally worked myself into the mindset of "If I draw in this sketchbook it needs to be for marker pieces". Which is silly, because the marker sketchbooks are not that expensive, but that's where my brain is at. The other problem is that this sketchbook is Big which makes it hard to carry around.

A few weeks later I was in a bookstore and saw some Moleskine notebooks. I've scoffed at MS notebooks before because they're really expensive considering the paper quality, but when I checked this most recent time I saw they had a line of smaller, art-specific sketchbooks that supposedly had thicker paper. "Bet", I said, and bought one, even though it came shrink wrapped and I couldn't feel the paper first.

It is heavenly. I love it. The paper is so so thick and smooth and I love every second I spend drawing on it. It's not really thick enough to handle my alcohol markers, but for little sketches with sharpie and brush pens (my favorite <3) it handles amazingly.

I liked having it as a travel sketchbook, but around the time I bought it I was struggling with some Life Stuff and needed somewhere to get the feelings out, so my MS notebook ended up becoming half sketchbook and half diary. And now the problem is that I LOVE drawing in my little MS sketchbook, but it is now filled with Sad Thoughts so I feel like I can't bring it out of the house with me. Or else I run the risk of people seeing the Sad Thoughts.

So THEN I think "Well shit, now I need to buy another mini sketchbook that can be my actual Small Sketchbook To Carry Around With Me (That Does Not Have Sad Thoughts In It), so I bought another, non-Moleskine sketchbook. So I did, and it's... okay. The paper's not AS thick but it's lavender and very cute and has more pages. And I figure "Okay, now the MS notebook can be my journal with some doodles in it, and the purple sketchbook can be the travel book."

BUT THEN I was at the Fancy Bookstore last weekend and got curious about another brand of fancy sketchbooks. They were also shrink-wrapped so I couldn't test the paper for myself, but from the numbers on the packaging it seemed like the paper was a decent weight! And it had some other cool features like numbered pages!

Turns out I got confused because I thought the paper weight was in pounds, turns out it's in grams, and the paper is BAD. SUPER thin and transparent, not even worth being a sketchbook. BUT. It is cute and orange. And it works nicely with some cute little stationery pens I have and like writing with.

So... Now I have my black sketchbook (big, for markers), my Moleskine sketchbook (red, my favorite for sketching but contaminated with Sad Thoughts so it's not allowed to leave the house), my purple sketchbook (travel sketchbook, cute), and orange sketchbook (locked forever in diary purgatory). Someone help that is too many.

(Next time I'm at the bookstore someone might need to physically restrain me from buying another mini Moleskine notebook. I have a PROBLEM!!! And the problem is WHY IS THIS PAPER SO NICE???!?! AGH)

[furbygoblinxiv]

Ok now to be annoying about a completely different flavor of Zelda: That cartoon from the 80s that has aged so poorly I take psychic damage every time I watch it (which has been multiple times (I have problems)). A few months ago when rewatching and being sick of the Link's personality from the show (his best feature is how funny the "Well excuuuuse me, princess" line is) I was like "I wish the quiet kid from the games/art was here instead" and accidentally thought too hard and made an au/rewrite of the cartoon lmao.

Anyways Zelda cartoon au where cryptid boy Link saves the post apocalyptic Hyrule of loz 1 and chills in the castle with cartoon Zelda to defend the triforce pieces that they have while trying to find the last piece before Ganon can find it, stumbling across the sleeping loz 2 Zelda along the way lol. Hijinks ensue as he teaches Zelda the brawns to back up her girlboss and he gets an adventure buddy because its dangerous to go alone and Zelda with her boomerang and crossbow goes hard. I think a monster of the week style plot works for the earlier Zelda games, but an overarching plot could coexist with that since that is kinda how games work lol.

As per usual here are a bunch of slapdash barely related sketches of my ideas with my expanded thoughts below bc I think it'd be fun to share:

I look at the official art of Link being a quiet determined little dude with a backpack of tools and wish that that was represented more. Like look at him! What a guy! Imagine giving a quiet puzzle solving 14 year old a sword, lethal magical weapons, and a wasteland to explore! I would love a show about that! In terms of other characters, swap out that annoying fairy character, put in a Navi clone, at least Navi didn't have a crush on Link🤮. Ganon can stay the same so long as he was always a demon pig and was never a Gerudo man because unlike Nintendo, I do not want to imply that the only prominent man of color in the series has only one big braincell thats just screaming "EVIL" on loop. But! Keep Zelda the same, I love her so much in the cartoon, she's obnoxious in a slay girlboss way, maximum vibes. By virtue of not having a paper thin plot, most other characters that were fine get fixed by proxy.

I think plot wise? It takes place a few years after the first game. Initially, Link saved the royal family and they started rebuilding that area of Hyrule, and Link traveled around to help people. One day, Ganon's minions start making attacks on the castle to steal the triforce pieces back to revive him fully, and a Zelda who greatly admires Links steps up to defend the place. Eventually, Zelda requests Link return to help defend the castle while they search for the mysterious hidden third triforce piece in order to combine the full thing and wish for peace in Hyrule. Link agrees and the hyjinks begin.

IIRC the og Link backstory was that he was the son of the hyrulean queen and the elf king or smth? In the manga? I didn't want him to be hylian royalty but I wanted to keep that cryptid vibe, hence why I have him related instead to the great fairy and the kokiri. He just leaves the forest/cave one day with literally nothing to go save Hyrule, what a chad. I think it'd be funny if people describe Zelda as feral due to how boisterous and headstrong she is, especially out on the field, but Link is the quiet version of wild that you don't notice at first. She is openly intelligent and snarky in comparison to "says 3 lines a day, bombs first and asks questions later, explore under every rock and bush" forest kid Link.

It would be fun though if "rushes into danger" Zelda resonated more with the triforce of power and "solves dungeon puzzles for funsies" Link with the triforce of wisdom, then they both resonated with the triforce of courage upon finding it. idk tho lol

I also think two different young Zeldas coexisting with each other after one awoke from a cursed slumber would be really funny. Like that's gotta be so awkward, especially if one has the fighter girlboss slay up to 11 and the other just woke up from a coma to her family gone and her kingdom destroyed and just kinda wants to read books and drink tea in peace. Imagine being the same age or older than your great (great?) aunt. Or imagine if the old lady Impa nursemaid to Zelda 1 Zelda was the young Impa nursemaid to the Zelda 2 Zelda. Wild.

If I wasn't incapable of remembering to finish writing wips I'd write that series lol. Alas, this is all I can pull for now.

I'd love to call this propaganda to go watch the show but maybe don't because its yikes. This is moreso propaganda for someone to make a Zelda cartoon show instead of the movie that I sense Nintendo is plotting to make. Also, if you've read this far, I should mention I also will probably be posting art from some of my actual long term Zelda aus beyond just expanding on the cartoon, though I may continue to do that if my train of thought continues on these tracks.

[mochi-marmalade]

Rose & Scar

ONE: The Rose

♡ series masterlist ♡

a/n: HERE WE GO royal guard!König x princess!reader 3.2k words chapter summary: you are assigned a personal guard, who you take a liking to. suddenly your days seem brighter warnings: language, slightly suggestive (?) 18+ MDNI

Exactly one week ago today, your father gifted you a personal guard. He had been handpicked by your father for your safety- after all you are a woman now. Father does little to conceal his distaste for your refusal to marry, but how can you marry when every suitor is so incredibly boring? They had no real interest in you anyway, many were pushed by their own royal parents or had come in hopes that you’d be a beautiful, complacent prospect. They were wrong. You turned down every single one of them. However… you cannot deny your liking for your new guard. He is quiet, but exudes an energy that demands respect. You know it is quite unbecoming for a princess to be in a situation like this, but nothing will come of it. You are sure that someday you’ll find a proper prince who actually wants to get to know you and court you. You hope. For now, you sit at your desk, head in hand, and look out the window at the scenery below. You are prone to getting lost in your thoughts and daydreaming, which you suppose you are doing right now. Instead you think you’ll ask for some tea. The door opens and you peek out into the long hallway. As usual, your guard is standing by your door. You call your handmaiden and return to your room while you wait for her to arrive. “You’re up early today, Your Highness.” She chimes as she walks in. 

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“I’ve brought your breakfast along with some tea. Which dress will it be today?”

You say the first color that comes to mind, “A green one.” She dresses you in a soft sage green dress that flows to the ground. She slips shoes on your feet and powders your face lightly. “His Majesty expects to see you at lunch today. Have a wonderful day, Your Highness.” With that, she slips out the door. You eat your breakfast and drink your tea rather quickly. “Another boring day.” You sigh to yourself. Although you are certainly very lucky and grateful to live the life you have, it still comes with its downsides. Every day is the same, and you are nearly crushed with rigid rules and expectations. You manage, though. Closing the door behind you with a click, you tell your guard, “Come along.” As you two make the short walk to the library, you tell him about your plans to take drawing supplies and books. You’d like to flip through several romance novels and sketch different scenes, maybe it would give you something to do besides study. He follows along in silence. You push open the doors to the library and revel in your grand collection. You think there are probably thousands of books in here, and you’re glad to have access to them. You peruse the selection of books and pick out a few sappy romance novels, also taking a few sheets of blank paper and a sealed well of ink. “Is there anything you’d like?” You ask him. He doesn’t reply, but his icy blue eyes flicker to you. You wonder why he wears a mask. Maybe you’ll ask him someday. Slowly, your guard shakes his head, muttering, “Thank you, Your Highness.” You stare at him, merely processing the sound of his voice. You’re actually not sure you’ve ever heard it before, but it lingers in your mind and you wonder what accent he has. German, maybe. You’re at a loss for words so you nod at him in response, and walk back to your room. You sit at your desk for a while and draw scenes from books: lovers seated on the grass, holding hands and looking at each other. You sigh, wishing you could have this kind of relationship. Really, you have very few relationships at all, including your father and servants. Father. You check the clock, finding that it is five minutes before noon and exhale a sigh of relief. You exit your room to go to the dining hall, your guard close behind. You take a seat opposite your father and brush a strand of hair out of your face. “Hello, father.”

“Good afternoon, daughter. I’d like to discuss a few things.”

“Such as?”

“I have arranged a ball for you to find a suitor! In one month’s time, nobles and civilians of higher standing will be gathered to celebrate your belated birthday and offer their sons. Is it not wonderful?”

“Yes… Wonderful.” You exchange small talk for the rest of your meal, then you are excused. You do not want to attend a ball. In fact, you do not like the idea at all. An event like that will attract all the wrong people, but you pray that you’ll be shown otherwise. You are guided through your studies by teachers for the next few hours, until you are released for dinner. After eating alone, you return to your room. What a dreadfully boring day. You’ve established a habit of undressing yourself, and as you unlace your corset, you spy the stars through the window. Once changed into your nightgown, you inspect the night sky. You’ve always loved stars. Finally, you crawl into bed and drift off into a peaceful sleep. 

Stretching, you awaken to your handmaiden setting down your breakfast. “Thank you.” You yawn. 

“Shall I draw you a bath?” 

“Yes, I think I would like that.”

She scurries off to do that, and you dress into a robe. She returns and escorts you to the bath, followed by your guard. You’re painfully aware of his presence outside the bathroom door, but bathe in peace anyway. When you’re done, you put on your robe again and call your handmaiden. She escorts you back to your room and dresses you in a sky blue dress. “You look lovely, princess.” 

“Thank you, Sara.” 

“You’re quite welcome.”

She leaves, and your attention is turned to your desk. There lays a bright red rose, which you’re sure wasn’t there before. You pick it up and notice all the thorns have been clipped off. Who could have left this? Then you realize it’s probably a gift from another suitor. Although you appreciate the simplicity, you scoff at the thought. Perhaps, though… it wouldn’t hurt to put it in a vase. It seemed too cruel to throw it away. You unceremoniously toss your fake flowers out of a shimmery pink vase and take your vase to the bathroom to fill it with water. As your guard follows, his eyes never leave you. “Just, um, getting water for a flower. Probably from another stupid suitor.” His eyes flicker to the side. “What’s your name by the way?” You ask.

“König.” 

“That’s German, right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you speak German then?”

“Yes.”

Suddenly, your hands are wet and you notice the vase is overflowing. “Oh, shit.” You say to yourself. He huffs in amusement, to which you raise an eyebrow. König quickly straightens himself, “Apologies, Your Highness. I just… Didn’t expect someone of your standing to use such language.” Before you know it, you’re grinning at him, not expecting this answer. His eyes scan you and he asks, “Did I offend you, Your Highness? My deepest apologies, I didn’t-“

“No, no! It’s just funny.”

König’s eyes crinkle in what you think is a smile. You stare at him and find yourself absolutely unable to form any words. You turn on your heel and quickly return to your room, forgetting to close the door behind you. You place the rose in the vase, and see König peeking at you out of the corner of your eye. “It’s the flower I mentioned earlier.” He visibly stiffens, and asks, “From the suitor?”

“Yes, I often have suitors ask for my hand in marriage. It’s nauseating. None of them even want to get to know me, they just want to own me.”

He hums, and you look down at the pretty rose. “Would you like to go somewhere with me?” You ask. “I don’t have much of a choice, princess.” What an ass. You walk with him down to the garden, which may be your favorite part of the castle. You sit on a white stone bench and motion for him to do the same. He sits slowly and carefully. “Princess, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to do this.”

“Oh, hush, it’s not a crime to sit.”

He looks away. You sit in silence for a bit, treasuring the sunshine and sounds of chirping birds. Finally, you tell him, “I love the gardens. Have you been here before?” 

“Yes, princess.”

A part of you feels dejected, as if you wanted to be the one to show him the gardens. “I used to hide here when I didn’t want to bathe.” What are you even saying? “The servants hated it.” Why are you still talking? Finally, you manage to shut up, but instead of repulsed König almost looks amused. You feel your cheeks heating up, and look at the hydrangeas to your right. It must be hot out today. Leaning over, you pick a small flower and smell it. A smile is brought to your face by the soft, nostalgic scent. You hold it out to König, telling him, “It’s lily of the valley. My favorite flower.” He takes it and nods. He really isn’t much for words, is he? “I’m sorry,” You blurt out. “I feel as if I'm bothering you with all my questions and conversation.” Shaking his head, he replies, “Don’t be. It’s my job.” Your heart sinks like an anchor in your body. Right. It’s just his job, why would you think there would be any semblance of a friendship? He notices you looking down at your hands for far too long and places his own gloved hand on your shoulder. “Princess, are you okay?” 

“Yes, I’m quite fine, thank you.” 

He can’t help but feel as if he’s said something wrong. You look up at him with tear-glazed eyes and it damn near breaks his heart. “Are you really only talking to me ‘cause it’s your job?” You manage.

“No.”

You relax and sniff once more, not sure whether you should trust him or not. You barely know him, after all. You smile at him anyway, and he gives you some sort of look you can’t discern. “Shall we walk, princess?” His question surprises you. “Yes, I suppose we shall.” You hold the crook of his elbow, and his muscles seem to become rigid under your touch. It seems almost as if you can feel his sheer strength from the size of his biceps alone. Now that you think about it, he’s huge in general. You wonder what it’s like to be trapped under him, utterly powerless against his- You pat your face with your free hand and decide that’s quite enough. “Er- Princess, forgive my forwardness, but that’s quite inappropriate, is it not?” You turn to him and your eyes widen before you realize he’s talking about the fact you’re holding his arm. 

“Ah. Well, I am quite clumsy. Besides, is it not a form of chivalry? Do you mean that you have no respect for the princess, König?”

“Certainly not, Your Highness! I simply meant… Is it not a sign that we would be courting?” 

He says the last word in a low voice, almost a whisper. The way he says it is as if he could never think of the possibility of courting you, and it almost hurts you. Then you remember that it is, in fact, not a possibility. You are a princess and he is your guard, and it is nothing more. So why do you keep thinking of him this way? As if you could sit on the plush grass together, holding hands and reading poetry. As if you could press chaste kisses to his knuckles and lay his head in your lap, weaving your hands through his hair. You wonder what his hair even looks like. He always wears a helm carefully designed by you, along with a cloth mask that covers most of his face. Your handmaiden, Sara, had asked for you to sketch a new design for the royal guards’ armor, although it had actually only been used for your special, personal guard. You wonder if he ever felt as silly as he looked- a large, hulking man with dainty decals on his helm and a large sword strapped to his waist. “Princess?”

“Oh. Well, I don’t see it that way and you don’t either, so it doesn’t matter.”

“But you must keep up appearances, Your Highness.”

“And who would dare to argue with the crown princess?”

König falls silent, and begins to walk along with you. The two of you meander through the lush gardens, watching birds flitter by and bees buzz among the flowers. You pause for a second to pick a purple cosmos and place it between the strap of his baldric and his breastplate. Surprisingly, it stays. “Ah… Princess.” He mumbles. You laugh absentmindedly. If he didn’t look silly before, he certainly does now. “It suits you well, König.”

“Princess, I am aware that I am your personal guard, although I’d advise you to distance yourself from me. You’re hardly fit to be friends with a soldier.”

“According to whom? I do think I have a say in who I become friends with.”

“Of course, Your Highness. However, I think… If you knew what kinds of things I’d done…”

“And who says that it would matter, König? Who says that what you’d done in the past determines your happiness now?”

The two of you are locked in a stare, and the air feels electric. His eyes move, from your eyes to your cheeks to your lips. You can hardly keep your feelings inside, butterflies threatening to explode from your stomach at any moment. Finally, he looks away. “Let’s return to the castle, I feel a bit hungry.” You’re such a liar, but you can’t stand the tension. He nods and follows you back into the castle. You call Sara and ask her to bring you a snack, perhaps finger sandwiches and tea. She leaves to do so, and you begin to reflect on what just happened. Step by step, you walk yourself through the past hour. You and König walked through the garden, and you took his arm and told him he deserves happiness. With you. God, you’re an idiot. He definitely thinks you’re weird and maybe even knows that you have feelings. Today, you’ve done irreparable damage to your reputation and relationship with König. You should have kept your mouth shut, you should have never even invited him to sit with you. “Your Highness, I’ve returned with your tea.” 

“Thank you, Sara.”

“You’re welcome, Your Highness. Is… everything okay?”

“Yes. That will be all.”

“Then pardon my intrusion. Have a wonderful day.”

You nod to her, although you’re looking through the window with your head in your hand. The closest thing you’ve ever had to a friendship is already destroyed. Feeling nauseated, you wonder if you’ve ever had a friend. You scoff to yourself for even wondering, immediately knowing the answer is no. How will you ever fix this? Maybe you’ll apologize or tell him you were joking- no, you’ll ask for a new guard. This is truly a fine predicament. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll take a short nap and sleep this disgusting feeling off. 

When you awaken, you lift your head off of your crossed arms to find the sky completely dark. Your dress feels incredibly uncomfortable and you walk to your closet to change. Then you’re interrupted by your stomach growling. Perhaps you’ll just grab a quick snack, but how? The kitchens must be closed at this hour, and you don’t know where else to go. You’d also rather not wake Sara. Groaning, you think there’s only one reasonable option, and you’re not even sure it’s all that reasonable. You peek your head out the door and whisper, “König?” He’s very much awake and alert, and looks surprised that you’re awake too. “Princess, what are you doing up right now?”

“I’m hungry.” 

He stuffs his hand into a pouch strapped to his leg, and after fishing for a moment he pulls out a wrapped bar of some sort. He looks away nervously, and offers it to you. “I’m so sorry, Your Highness, this is all I have. I don’t think the kitchens are open, unless you want to wake your servants, I’m sure they’d be willing to-”

“It’s fine. Thank you.”

You take the bar from him and retreat to your bedroom. You eat it absentmindedly and change into your nightgown. It tastes pretty good, actually, like it has peanuts and some kind of dried berry. You’re fortunate enough to be the kind of person who can sleep anywhere, anytime, so you turn the lights off and climb into bed. You let your mind wander for a bit, but you’re eventually lulled to sleep by the soft light of the moon. 

The next week is dreadfully dull and you don’t have anything notable happen. However, you continue to have friendly conversations with König. You’d like to get to know more about him, but you wonder how much he’d actually tell you. He doesn’t seem to be the very trusting type, nor does he seem eager to tell anyone about his past. You go about daily life for who knows how long, but somehow everything is different. Things seem more fun, and you actually look forward to certain activities. You’d like to learn another language, but don’t want to go through the trouble of asking your father for another teacher. Besides, he carefully picks each of your studies and you doubt he’d let you give up a current subject for language. You sigh, picking at the plate of chicken in front of you. Maybe falconry would be interesting? You’re sure you could find a book about it in the library. A servant from the kitchen comes to check on you. He frowns when asking, “Is the chicken not to your liking, Your Highness?”

“Oh, no. It’s wonderful, I just don’t have much of an appetite.”

He nods and takes the plate, and you leave the massive, empty dining hall. As you’re walking through the long hallway, you wonder how long it’s been since your lunch with your father. You freeze, realizing it’s probably been a few weeks. Weeks. Which means the ball is drawing near. The feeling sets as a pit in your already upset stomach, and you sigh louder than you mean to. “Is there something wrong, princess?” Of course König has to ask.

“Ah, yeah. There’s just this thing tomorrow.”

“Yes, of course, the thing I’m obviously supposed to know about.” His voice drips with sarcasm, and you shoot him a glare. “It’s the ball, you fool.”

“Yeah, and I was supposed to know that. Isn’t that a good thing, though?”

“Well, it should be, but my father expects me to find a husband. Tomorrow. Within a few hours.”

“I see. Well, I wish you luck.”

“Thanks.” You scoff. Tomorrow is going to be one hell of a day.

[artbyanca]

The troubled emperor

A family of zmei kidnapped the sun and moon in the reign of the Red Emperor and he sent word to all corners of the world that whoever rescues them and brings back the light to the world will recive half his realm and his daughter's hand in marriage.

It is strange to be working on Romanian fairy tales while I have never been more afraid for my country or my future in it.

For context:

Illustrating my childhood fairy tales has been a long time dream of mine but I always thought myslef not good enough to do it. Well, some time ago I had to snap myself to the reality that I already illustrated sevral books professionally so there's no excuse not to tackle my old favorites. I started with the Romanian fairy tale 'Greuceanu' and I was very self indulgent with the project since I managed to squeeze 15 illustrations out of a roughly 3500 word text and I also made some very choice design decisions.

Now, sketching them out has been an utter joy but the inking...I started doing it right before our first round of our presidential election. I've been a ball of fear, anger and dipair ever since a Russian stenographer who praised the architects of the holocaust as heroes and pretends he's a man of the people outsider even though he was in the background of some of our most corrupt goverments won the most votes with an entierly tiktok and scam call campaign. It has been a rough week to say the least and I've been trying to keep sane by moving my pen across the paper. Results mixed, but there's more illustrations comming.

[excineribusbooks]

we waste the same day like nobody dies by @magpieandwhale, illustrated by @cloudy-recesses

I've lovingly referred to this project as "We Waste the Same Day Like Nobody Dies: The Illustrated Edition" ever since its inception [mumblemumble] months ago (since, if you haven't seen it yet, @teleportbooks also made a beautiful binding of the same series!). magpieandwhale is another friend I've known for TWENTY FREAKIN YEARS somehow; I knew I was going to make her a copy of this as soon as she finished it, and I had the great joy of giving it to her in person last week while in her city for a family wedding ❤️

This was another design that got slammed sideways at the last minute by finding the perfect cover paper. Last month, Renegade Publishing had its first-ever retreat, which included plenty of paper for swap and sale -- and what should I find on the swap table but that incredible gold-and-black Art Deco-ish stuff? It fit so well with the titling I'd already done that I immediately switched it up from a full cloth binding to a quarter-binding, with an inset carved out of the board for the title to sit in. For contrast (and a little intentional clashing), I went with silver-and-black on the endpapers, to play with the idea of Xue Yang and Wang Haoxuan as two not-quite-separate entities with much more in common than either wanted to believe.

The spheres in the cover design reference a scene partway through the third story, "shatter what you will not carry":

Xiao Zhan twirls his pen and digs up a fresh piece of scratch paper. “Okay. Think of a ball of some sort.” “Make it a football,” Yibo says, bone-dry. Involuntarily, Haoxuan laughs. His real legacy, right there. Xiao Zhan scoffs. “Too complicated, I’m not drawing that.” He sketches out a sphere. “A ping-pong ball. One half is black, one half is white.” He draws a vertical line down the middle, giving it dimension, shading it into a half-moon. “Do you get it? Two colors, one ball. If you rotate it so one color is facing you, the other is still there. Sound familiar?” Haoxuan glances at Yibo; his gaze is fixed on Haoxuan, stolid. It bores into him. Haoxuan swallows. He dabs his face with a napkin. Xiao Zhan keeps narrating. His pen dashes across the image. “Okay, now spin the ball on its axis. It’s still the same ball, it’s still got both colors on each side. But now that it’s in motion, the colors blend. The ball is.” He wrinkles his nose. “Gray. Should have chosen better colors. But now it’s a whole new thing, still with its component parts. Are you following?”

And the art! THE ART. cloudy-recesses, thank you so so much for letting me include so many of your incredible pieces -- whether they were made especially for the fic or just so fitting that magpieandwhale yelled "THAT ONE! I LOVE THAT ONE!" as we were hashing out what to include.

You can read the whole series at the link above, and see a whole lot more of cloudy-recesses's art on their Tumblr!

[nairanorica]

Ok so a friend asked about my acrylic process - and I thought it might be fun to kinda document this little painting here! Just as a disclaimer, my acrylic process is extremely chaotic and I have no idea what I'm doing, I just throw paint on there until it looks good.

So I hope I won't forget about taking photos down the line, first batch of photos and babbling under the cut!

So let's start with what I'm using, just bc I'm always interested in seeing what others use:

Some cheap (kinda beat up at this point) small brushes, very cheap shitty white (I like to use it to thin my paints a bit without lighting them too much), liquitex heavy body acrylics in quin red, quin magenta and cad yellow medium (only these three bc it's a three colour challenge thing) and threw in some white golden soflat to have a more opaque white (purely bc it was already sitting on my desk from something else and I'm too lazy to get up and grab a different tube)

And this is what we're working on:

Some sort of water lily dragon, which already has a coat of very watered down yellow on it. I do that for multiple reasons: for one I just like how it looks and it feels less intimidating than white paper lol. But it also helps to hide the coloured lines from the initial sketch and I feel it's easier to judge values when starting with a non-white background

I sketched this a couple of weeks ago at this point, and had kind of forgotten what my plan for colouring was. Whoops. So I mixed up some of the yellow and magenta and started blocking in some background shapes -

But wait!

That's when I remembered that I wanted the background to be light, like the light is coming from back there, behind vines and leaves and stuff. So I started building up lighter colours with more yellow and my shitty white

But I wasn't really getting anywhere, so I grabbed my other white and put down some really light areas. That's better - now I can start blocking in the general colours and shapes for the plants and water

These are all different mixes of magenta, yellow and the shitty white, with one of the frayed flat brushes. I'll add details and definition later

But this felt really dark now, so I decided I had to roughly block in all the other colours too to check if it was really that dark or just looked like it next to the bright yellow

That dark colour is a very pink magenta btw, not a dark red, my phone just hates that colour. The dragon is just red + shitty white for now and wow, you can really see how transparent that white is. I'll definitely have to use more of the good white for this if I don't want to lose my mind

And that's where we're at rn! I took a break to let everything dry properly while typing this up, so it should be ready to go now - I'll report back later :D

[mapletine]

silly celeb au concept sketches (wing photocard next week <3)

+ i have so many thoughts abt this au guys i need to be sedated (don’t open the cut unless u rly want more info bc. there's. A LOT. it will be a wall of incoherent rambling text im sorry)

ok first disclaimers: i know very little abt idols and even less abt modeling so!! if anything is horrifically inaccurate forgive me im stupid!! and also this will literally be stream of consciousness unedited so if it makes zero sense im very sorry

now we begin the madness

some background info: kite was scouted off the street (as he was walking off from pickpocketing someone LMAO) for his height and build, currently very sought after to model for many brands because he’s literally the same as the sketch models on paper so the designers don’t have to compromise on their clothing designs to fit the model, bc he just. looks exactly like the paper sketch. also the white hair is very distinctive!! and his prep/management team is his research team <3 he’s currently the face of several brands, including the zoldyck brand (i see the zoldycks as a very influential family in the fashion/modeling industry, kikyo was a former model until an accident, now she’s focusing on designing, all the kids are involved in the industry somehow, illumi is within the same agency (?is that how modeling works) as kite). he’s in his mid-twenties ish and hes 6'3" - 6'4" (190 - 193 cm)

wing and his idol group debuted a couple years ago (haven’t thought too much about the members, but im thinkin feitan maybe? kurapika?? shalnark?? idk guys maybe he’s a solo act) and they’ve skyrocketed to fame. uhh in terms of content they produce, thinkin something similar to wayv/bts type music (stuff that crowds just eat up LOL like love talk by wayv, luna by oneus that kind of music) and im thinking that wing’s debut look was REALLY BAD (they made the poor man blond) but when they put him back to his normal hair color he got rly popular. he’s had some bad eras where the stylists made him look a little goofy but… he’s good now (his best era was the mullet era). also he was trained by bisky who was a former idol who has retired and she's a legend in the industry… and wing is currently guiding an idol trainee (zushi lol). wing’s in his early-mid-twenties i think and he's 5'9" - 5'10" (175 - 178 cm)

ok and the main 4 fit into this uhh... i think gon is also an idol trainee along w zushi. and killua is currently modeling for a popular teen's clothing brand. i think i mentioned kurapika as being a part of wing's idol group but lowk i think maybe he's an actor instead. leorio is also. an actor. yeah ok there we go

uhhhh ok general thoughts:

i see them meeting at like.. the met gala or its equivalent and they meet when wing trips over kite’s clothes (he’s wearing something with a ridiculously long train and wing isn’t looking where he’s going), and at first wing thinks kite is super standoffish/rude bc he doesn’t apologize or offer a hand when wing trips… he just.. sorta stares at him on the floor for a second then clacks off in his very pointy shoes (he was flustered abt the very pretty stranger who just fell for over him. also he was STRESSED asf) (also the perspective that wing had probably didn't help bc bro was on the floor and kite was staring down at him from a height of like 6'9 with the heels)

afterwards there’s a bunch of pictures and edits of wing falling over all over the internet bc it was kind of funny… and ppl are telling him like “oh my god you tripped over yorknew’s top model the LITERAL FACE of fashion right now” and wing is like “damn i didn’t know also he’s a jerk”… and to kite ppl r telling him “oh my god the country’s MOST POPULAR IDOL tripped on you” and kite’s like “uhhh.. who?” (he doesn’t keep up with the entertainment industry despite being a part of it) and they both search each other up and they both have a moment like “oh my god i fucked up (also he's really hot)”

anyways they continue randomly (not at all random very much orchestrated by the people around them) meeting at things,,, there’s a very awkward apology from kite where he explains (sortof) why he didn’t help wing up… uhh stuff happens they fall in love and start dating LOL (i didnt think abt this part that hard) and for a hot minute there r paparazzi photos circulating of them together and the media is losing their collective shit

fast forward a little bit and they r like “yea we r together LOL” and then u start seeing kite at wing’s concerts in a spectator box staring very lovingly at wing on the stage and wing (and sometimes his whole idol group) starts showing up to fashion shows and wing looks like shellshocked every time kite steps onto the catwalk hes got kind of an awed stare on his face

ok future thoughts:

after abt two? ish years dating (engaged for 6 months out of those 2 yrs) they have an extremely private wedding with only close friends invited, and when ppl start noticing theyre wearing wedding bands (takes a while bc wing usually wears a lot of rings anyways, and kite wears his on a necklace and not on his hand) the media has a collective meltdown. again. (i am the media in this i think. i have meltdowns bc of them.)

um and eventually (around when him and kite get married) wing's idol group splits apart as they all go to pursue individual passions/careers, so now he's workin on his own music/vision. i think his personal music is much more peaceful and vibey than what his old group produced, more gentle love songs and poetic music and whatnot.

and kite steps out of the spotlight and is focusing on nature conservation philanthropy type stuff,, so he'll still step out and model for charity/fundraiser type stuff and he's the face of a large conservation foundation. (also bc sometimes he'll join like.. ocean cleanup initiatives or similar things and like. imagine ur volunteering to pick up garbage on the beach and u literally see like. anya taylor joy and her husband also out there picking up garbage or smthn. that's how the other ppl feel.) hes also a big advocate for no kill shelters and donates a shitload to them i like to think.

so yeah ok if u made it this far bless u!!! i dont really have any coherent storyline thoughts just this aggregation of random world building thoughts ok bye (btw if u have thoughts on this feel free to dm me abt them or tell me what u think in the replies or tags im brain rotting abt this stupid au so hard rn)

anyways im no writer (if u couldnt alr tell from this word vomit) so no fic but i may continue churning out thought fragments like this

[venusbby]

sketches and sunsets

characters/pairing: itoshi rin x artist!reader

warnings: they are so stupid and awkward and cute but i just wanted to write this because i found my old sketchbook from years ago lol. not proofread, sorry if there are any typos <3

the sound of hurried scribbling and rough strokes on the paper filled the room as he tried his best to stifle a yawn. he couldn't help but cringe a little at the possibility of you seeing his weak attempt to do so, eyes focused on your form as you continued to bring those quick and light lines to life in your sketchbook.

with your gaze flickering between the book on your lap and him in front of you, you made the same mistake over and over- making eye contact.

although you were looking back and forth, his eyes stayed on you and it was more nerve wracking than any thing. it was as if he was studying you and creating a sketch in his mind, and there's nothing more scary than finding out what you look like from his eyes.

"sorry, uh, if you're tired already."

rin was looking at you already, but he wasn't, you realized, when he finally looked right at you this time. if not your eyes, then what was he looking at?

for you, as an artist, (not sure you'd want to call yourself that because it takes you a few months to come back to your sketchbook after each drawing) the eyes are the most important. they're your favorite part to start with because they somehow guide you to draw the rest of the face. (even if it might not be the valid first step according to some art teachers.)

so for some reason you didn't really understand what rin was looking at other than your eyes.

speaking of eyes, his were really pretty.

you don't need him to know that, and you also don't need him to know that you spent more time than usual to sketch out his pretty eyes.

"no, i'm not tired." he said, almost finding his voice unfamiliar because of how long it had been since either of you spoke.

there was no special lighting except the warm, orange hues of the sun coming from the window of your bedroom and rin was in his usual clothes: a hoodie and sweats, because there was no reason to dress up. he lived next door anyway, so if there was a plan to go out and eat street food he'd just change into some jeans. your favorite watermelon slice pillow looking smaller than usual trapped between his arms as he used them for support to avoid slouching.

you sat a few feet away from the bed where he was, partially because you didn't believe you had the guts to stay so close while you studying his features. some artist part of you and some part of you that has fallen for the boy next door thinks its too intimate.

rin gulped. was it him or were the strands of your hair looking a warmer shade because of the sunlight? and your skin was glowing. you just did that thing you always do when you're focused, just like you were a few weeks ago when he had asked you to choose which pictures he should post on his instagram that was gaining followers left and right after blue lock.

how much longer?

he might just end up saying the things he's thinking if he looks at you any longer. saying that you're driving him crazy.

"alright, just a little detailing left. im sorry." you mumbled, now squinting so you could see better the minute details that you started adding, like his lashes.

"stop apologizing," rin said calmly. "i know it takes time."

you quietly nibbled on the inside of your cheek, feeling your fingers go slightly numb and hesitantly tossing your pencil on the study table nearby. "done."

rin moved. he moved closer.

he sat on the edge of the bed now, right in front of you. you felt your back ache from how you sat in the most uncomfortable position in your chair. he looked at you expectantly, holding his hand out.

this is the first time you've drawn after months. this is the first time you've drawn your best friend.

the reality of it all is just sinking into you and the burning sensation under your skin grew. you asked him if you could draw him and now that it's done you don't want to show it to him because it's a little embarrassing that you'd never put this much your heart and soul into a drawing before.

with a soft exhale, you gave the sketchbook and cracked your knuckles to relieve the pent up pressure. rin scanned the drawing from top to bottom, those pretty eyes stopping for a second at some point of the image. you licked your dry lips, hoping you didn't accidentally fuck up his features in a hurry.

he set the sketchbook down and your back straightened against the wood of your chair.

"i like it," he nodded once, blinking a few times to use the same eyes that he saw just now on paper, the prettier version.

"im glad," you smiled, anxiety defusing slowly. "it's been a long time since i drew. you're pretty easy to draw. wait, not in that way-"

"i love it." he admitted.

"oh, okay." you smiled wider, and while you thought of something more to say, rin beat you to it.

"i wanna draw you too." he mumbled, leaning in so, so slightly. "teach me, so i can draw you. i don't think i'll be able to make you look as pretty as you look in real life, because i'm not even close to decent at drawing."

your mouth opened and closed like a fish. you weren't even sure you blinked for the next five seconds- and oh, since when were you leaning in too? this was the most rin had talked in one go.

"are you.. calling me pretty?"

he took his time to answer that. gosh, you were too close. maybe you would've been able to draw his eyes even better if he was this close before.

"...yes."

rin's hand hovered just below your chin. he was hesitating. he wondered if his face looked as hot as it felt. he wondered if you were going to back off. you didn't. he gulped once more. "can i kiss you?"

it was too late. words had already died in your throat and you were surprised you even had it in you to nod repeatedly, slowly.

kissing rin itoshi while the sun had almost disappeared. what a story.

his lips were softer than you had imagined. and he seemed just as lost as you were, but even he didn't care. because he was kissing you.

his thumb and index holding your chin and your hand coming up to disappear into his dark locks, slightly pushing him closer so you could feel it more.

rin was almost on the edge of the bed and he was going to fall if he tried to get any closer. so he pulled away and guided you to sit on the bed beside him. his hands stayed glued to your waist as it all continued with fervor until you ended up lying on the bed staring at the ceiling that was covered in the green glow in the dark stars with your chests heaving and lips yearning for more. he remembered helping you put them up after school a few years ago.

your sketchbook laid right between you both.

your intertwined fingers didn't let go until it was dark outside your window and you guys heard your mom announcing that she had home from work.

rin only had a few favorite days to look back to. that day was one of them.