#busted out the watercolor pencils for this too

[iguanodont]

My half of the art trade with @eisly :)

His lovely character Swan, the strangest of farm animals

[princeoferror]

Mystic Rauru

What would the skeksis counterpart to Rauru be like??

Commission info | Buy a Print! | portfolio | Twitter | insta | Discord server

Progress pics below!

I don't know if people still know what the dark crystal is, but I really wanted to redraw rauru from totk as a mystic. I feel like he fits the vibes so well.

Sketch:

I've been drawing a lot of full body pieces recently so this ones just of the head. This sketch is a bit more lose as I try to draw like they did. The main extra details is the swirly patterns in the skin and including fly aways in the hair.

Line art:

The line art needs to just be a cleaned sketch, so instead of precisely lining evey shape, I can just imply the shapes with each stroke. The hair is the main thing that isn't a solid shape apart from where I've thicked up the edges for readability.

Flats:

For the flats I've kept in this more yellow area. Anything blue is just grey and I'm relying on colour theory to make it appear blue.

Finished render:

So going into the finished render I originally wanted to replicate the watercolor and coloured pencil style the dark crystal's art style has... Unfortunately procreate's default watercolour bush is kind of awful. A lot of this was shaded using the airbrush and soft round brush. I was experimenting a lot for this piece, a lot of it was different to what I'd usually do.

So the colours are too gloomy for my liking. I was trying out a colours theory thing, and it worked, but for this specific piece it's way too gloomy. I've also noticed a weird thing with the eyes where if you look at the piece on a small screen they look too dark. You have to look at this piece at the size I drew it to properly see the eyes.

Basically.

I wanna redo this one at some point.

But that's how experiments go sometimes, I did learn things from it so it's not a total bust, I just wanted this piece to look very different to what I got here.

So be sure to follow so you don't miss when I attempt to shade this again.

Also have a look at my inprnt page if you want a print and my commissions are open if you'd like one.

Oki bye

[kittysimp-daycareauart]

Hello people! Sorry I've been gone for so long. ;w; School and personal life stuff reasons, stuff everyone has heard before reasons basically.

But moving on! I found these markers through my art teacher saying a student gave her them for supplies some years ago. I immediately liked them and went to go buy some for myself! Now they are streaky, as you can see, but they do go on very smoothly. They're dual tip, brush and pen, and my carmra doesn't show it well, but they are very good in color. They are more vibrant than what the picture shows.

Now, I don't think these work the best in the particular way I was trying to use them, but it saids it works for watercolor stuff too, and I haven't try using them like that yet. I'll bust out my watercolors and try them with that later, though. I also think if you paired them with good color pencil they'll look better too. I'll also probably try that later as well.

It's my last week of school until my summer break! Also, guess what? I was born in the queer month, June 2, and I'm going to be 17! Terrifying how I'm growing up so fast, but I'm choosing not to focus on that fear for now. Instead, actually, I'm focusing on making little pride pictures for my persona and my FNaF daycare attendant AU characters/interpretations! And probably some other characters from Hazbin Hotel, my two OCs for that fandom will definitely be included in that.

Just to mention here, I want to try and open art commissions for the first time in my life during this summer. I want to mention that here to vaguely get the idea out there to hopefully someone. I will make a dedicated post about it in the near future.

Now I think that's all for the moment.. Thank you so much for reading if you've reached the end of this! Cya, next post!!

[doctorguilty]

Some random thoughts

One of the worst things art professors did to me in college was insist I wasn't allowed to have a lined notebook as a sketchbook for class. I had to use a proper sketchbook. Before that happened, I would fill lined notebooks passionately with art, but for whatever reason I'm my brain, I just can't do it with plain blank paper..

So I didn't do good on the class sketchbook assignments anyway because the quality of what I did was shit if I ever did it at all. And I really internalized the whole thing, because the way I felt belittled and mocked.. so i tried to stop using notebooks, I tried every kind of sketchbook I could find, big, small, thin paper, thick paper, textured, off white.. I just drew less and less for pleasure. It genuinely fucked me over. And for what?? I do less art, I'm less passionate about it, because notebook paper is too pedestrian? Yeah so worth the tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt I'll have for the rest of my life. (I could talk at length about how I wish i had more agency and did everything different about college entirely but.. that's a whole other thing)

Over the years I've gone back to my notebooks and have done a good amount in them, though I still couldn't get over some of my reservations, like how i shouldn't waste my Good drawing materials on lined paper .. I'd stick to pencil, ballpoint pen, fine tipped inking pen/sharpie, thick sharpie, and cheap markers like Crayola and whatnot (and highlighters though I still LOVE coloring with my highlighters)

It's been a rough past several years, I've barely done any art both traditional and digital alike.. but I'm working on changing that. I busted out a notebook recently and have been doing some doodles and I decided not to hold back using the fancy stuff, like these really nice watercolor markers I think bog may have given to me cause he didn't see himself using them? Idk where else I would have gotten such nice markers. They're SO nice. I'm using them on the lined paper. If I use them up I'll get more. It's not the end of the world. (I'm really trying to live more of the "use the nice things now, don't wait for a special occasion that never comes" philosophy in general)

I'm going to like Michael's or whatever when I can and picking up some colors and things I want and don't have, cause they sell like lose stuff like that..

Anyway just some thoughts.. as I procrastinate going to sleep even though I gotta get up in ~4 hours to go to the doctor 🥲

[lemontartc]

Rum Update #3

Okay I did layers 2 and 3 of her faceup today and more... learning experiences, lol.

Layer 2 was kind of a disaster. First, I definitely did too much shading/contouring on layer 1. I also did too much MSC (it was my first time spraying it, I had no idea what I was doing), and my droplet/blotting incident made one side streaky and trying to blend it out only made the splotchiness from the rough texture worse. I really like how the eyeshadow I did came out, but trying to blend the splotchy side of the face made it obviously darker than the other and in the end I... gave up. I tried to erase it, which made the splotchiness worse to the point I went scorched earth and got acetone. That was very touch and go and honestly I still haven't decided if that was a good or bad call. I think neutral because it kind of wrapped back around to where it started, meaning it's no worse but still a time waste. Anyway I washed the whole side away twice trying to make it less splotchy and match the side I liked more. I decided to go ahead and seal in what I had eventually because I needed the MSC back to give the clean side tooth again before I could try to build it up.

That took me about an hour. I let that sit for half an hour before going in for layer 3, which took me about an hour and a half. That one went... better, although the left side of the face still has enough splotchy/streakiness that all the undoing kind of felt pointless, especially since it made her eyeshadow suffer on that side too and I really like how it looks on the "good" side.

I was getting nowhere with her yellow eyes on the orange vinyl until I remembered you can wet the watercolor pencils to get more color and that helped with payoff. Unfortunately, I don't have the reds and oranges I need to pull off my plan, and I'm honestly not sure how possible it is without paint, but I locked in my base colors and I plan to go back for one last layer fixing up the lips and brows (they're only loosely sketched in rn) and adding the highlights and details into the eyes as much as possible. She's also supposed to have a soft white stripe down the center of her face that I tried to do but really doesn't show up on camera so I'm trying to decide if I'm leaving that as is or going to try committing more to it.

Here she is right now. Behind her is my original plan for her faceup. Color is a little blown out from my lighting but she's coming out way better than I worried she might! I was afraid I'd be terrible at this and I think I'm just learning right now and it'll get way better with practice :) I'm planning to change the black stripe placement to cover up some of the stripey/splotchiness on her left cheek (you can't really see it head on, just from that side. Unfortunately my doll shelf is positioned so that's the side facing me in the room). I'll bust out paints for the stripes and probably - eventually - use them on the eyes too, I just don't have any right now. I was waiting to see how I liked this and if pencils were enough before spending more money but I'll definitely be doing more of these so it's worth it lol.

[dragonji]

Days 1 + 2: Mid Autumn Festival + Family

Getting back into pen and ink arts with the untamed fall fest!! I'll be combining every 2 prompts for most of the event in an effort to keep up lolol~ These first couple prompts immediately made me imagine wangxian piling their son with way too many mooncakes and that was too good of an idea to resist🌕💖

[yourdeepestfathoms]

take me out to the back of the shed (and shoot me in the back of the head)

(Read Anne as Courtney!Anne)

Title is from the song Old Yeller. It’s apparently a TikTok trend song but I first heard it from a furry animation when I was in 8th grade lol

Word count: 3112

Prompt: “Calm down! You’re scaring me!”

———————

“Jane! Jane, look at this painting I made for you!”

“Yeah, yeah- hang on a moment. I’m busy.”

“Jane-”

“In a minute.”

“But-”

“In a minute!”

This is the exchange Anne watched from down the hall- Joan following Jane around with a canvas gripped tightly in her hands like a little duckling and Jane doing her best to pretend the girl didn’t exist. After she was snapped at, Joan moved away slightly, but then perked up, hope glinting in her eyes.

“Okay...I’ll wait in my dressing room, alright?”

“Alright,” Jane said, not really listening to what was being said to her.

“Just come in when you’re done, okay?”

“Okay, Joan.”

“Great!” Joan beamed. “I’ll be waiting!”

With that, Joan turned around and scurried back to her dressing room, an excited smile on her lips. Anne watched her go, waited a moment, then walked to Jane’s room. Inside, the woman seemed to be packing up to leave for the day.

“You’re going to go see Joan, right?”

Jane looked up as she was grabbing her purse. She sniffed, nostrils flaring slightly, clearly miffed.

“She can wait.”

“She would starve to death by the time you finally got around to seeing her,” Anne pointed out, leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest. She raised an eyebrow at Jane as if to add, “Am I wrong?”

“I have other things to do.” Jane said, sliding past the comment instead of facing it head on.

“Like what? Knit? Watch Love Island? Cuddle Kitty for the hundredth time?” Anne narrowed her eyes in an accusing stare. She’s been defensive of Joan ever since the Live where the music director fell asleep in her lap. “All of that stuff will still be there after you take ten minutes to go see what Joan made for you.”

Jane’s soft, kind facial features contort into that of a snarling white tiger’s- teeth bared, eyes alight, ears pinned back. But Anne wasn’t scared of her- not anymore. Deep down, she knew that Jane was nothing but a scared little kitten trapped in a circus cage.

“Joan isn’t my main priority,” Jane said dismissively, but the tiger’s claws remained unsheathed. “I don’t have to do anything for her.”

“Jane, that girl would take a bullet for you.” Anne said, stalking closer. Her voice went into a low whisper- a growl of sorts. “You know that, Jane. She would do anything for you.”

It was like a stare down between a tiger and a mountain lion- neither wanted to back down or step away.

“Why can’t you just be a good person? I’m not asking you to sign adoption forms for the kid, I’m asking you to just be a friend to her and go see what she wants to show you. It’s not that hard. It’s— her presence isn’t going to strike you dead! Just go look at her painting!”

Jane stared into Anne’s smoldering eyes, adjusted the strap of her purse hanging from her shoulder, and stepped past her towards the door.

“Kitty needs me.” She merely said.

“Of course she does,” Anne rolled her eyes. “It’s not like there’s three other fucking people living in that house than can respond to her every beck and call.”

Jane didn’t reply, as she was already out the door and making her way to the lobby by the time Anne finished her grumbled comment.

Anne considered going after her and dragging her to Joan’s dressing room by the hair, but she didn’t want to give the woman anymore thought. So, instead, she went to the dressing room herself and her heart broke a little when she saw Joan sitting patiently in the chair at her desk, legs swinging back and forth excitedly, smiling down at the canvas in her hands. Her head snapped up when she heard Anne step inside, but her expression dimmed when she saw that it wasn’t the silver queen.

“Oh. Hey, Anne.”

“What? Am I really that bad company?” Anne said teasingly.

“No,” Joan said, giggling slightly. “I just- I thought you were Jane.”

Anne frowned. She walked over to the girl and set a hand on her shoulder. Joan looked up with those adorable, glistening lamb eyes of hers and the words momentarily caught in Anne’s throat.

“I don’t think Jane is coming, dear.”

Joan blinked. Anne knew she knew what she meant, but she was trying to not believe it by playing dumb.

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“She just left.” Anne answered gently.

Like that, all hope and excitement is gone in a flash, replaced with deep sadness that forms over Joan’s head like a thick, dark rain cloud. She looked down at the painting lying in her lap and clenched her fists tightly around the edges.

“Oh.” She whispered.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Anne said. She looked down at the canvas, too, and before her eyes soft watercolors and metallic paints and dark line-art came together brilliantly to form the beautiful painting of Jane Seymour. It was a bust shot of her in her show costume, but she was also adorned in shimmering strings of diamonds and pearls and topazes, and had a sparkling crystal crown sitting atop her head.

“This is beautiful, Joan!” Anne exclaimed honestly, because it absolutely was true. Joan truly was skilled with paints and pencils. “You’re so talented.”

“Thanks,” Joan replied, slightly disconnected. She appreciated the comment, Anne knew she loved praise, but she didn’t want to hear it from the green queen.

She wanted to hear it from the silver one.

Joan sighed and stood up, and Anne half expected her to destroy the painting or throw it away, but a tiny, hopeful smile actually tugged at her lips.

“I’m just going to leave it on her makeup table,” She said. “So- so it’ll be the first thing she sees tomorrow!”

Anne smiled and gently rubbed the girl’s head.

“That’s a good idea, Joey!” She said, even though she knew the odds of Jane actually going to Joan and telling her how much she loved the piece of art were very slim.

Still, for the time being, it cheered Joan up and she beamed at Anne before hurrying to go put the canvas in its place. Anne’s smile disappeared the moment she was out of sight and she sighed. She made a mental note to stay up until 11:11 that night so she could try wishing. Might as well see if the superstition was true.

———

Anne ended up falling asleep way before 11:11, but it didn’t matter because she knew trying to wish on a set of ones on her phone screen and alarm clock wouldn’t have made a difference since Jane would still be prancing around the theater like she is now, as if she hadn’t been gifted a gorgeous work of art. Anne wasn’t even sure if she had even seen the painting, but upon peeking inside the dressing room and seeing that the canvas was moved to the side of one of the makeup tables proved that Jane had, in fact, seen it.

She just didn’t care.

And that made Anne furious.

Poor Joan. She didn’t even have time to warn or distract the girl before she was skittering up to Jane with excitement glittering in her eyes.

“Jane!”

Jane sighed as she was getting a cup of coffee from the break room. If Joan heard the noise, she didn’t acknowledge it and just kept up her eager demeanor.

“Hello, Joan,” Jane said. All evidence of the warmth she had been speaking to Kitty with just a few minutes earlier was now gone.

“Did you see my painting? The one I made for you?” Joan asked. “I waited for you yesterday, but you didn’t come in and I just assumed you were too busy, so I left it on your table! It was there, right? Did you see it? Or did it get moved? Was it there?”

“Joan!” Jane growled, her hand clenching tightly around the cup she was holding. The sudden sharpness in her voice made the girl before her step back slightly. “Joan.” She smoothed out her tone, but remained as caring as Zira from The Lion King 2. “I saw it, yes. It was there.”

The momentary flash of fear and anxiety from getting yelled at disappeared from Joan’s eyes. She perks back up again, her feet now shuffling and tapping happily on the floor (her “Happy Feet”, as it's been dubbed by Maria).

“Oh! Great!” If she had a tail, it would definitely be wagging. Or if she were alone, she’d probably be frolicking around the room like a happy little lamb. “So? What did you think? Did you love it? I mean—like it? Did you like it?”

“It was nice,” Jane said, trying to swerve around Joan and her radiation of glee blocking the path to the door.

“Really?” Joan wanted more. She wanted more than just ‘nice.’ She needed more. “I’m really glad, Jane, because it was the first time I tried out watercolors and metallic paints together in one painting so I had no idea how it would turn out but it seemed to be good, right? I mean- obviously! You just said it was nice! B-but, umm-” She watched Jane walk for the door without really listening to her. She followed after her desperately. “S-so— Are you gonna hang it up?”

That’s what got Jane to stop. She turned to the girl impatiently fidgeting behind her and looked at her as if there were elephants parading out of her ears.

“Why would I do that?”

Up until that moment, Joan had been looking at Jane in a way that made it seem like there were swelling hearts in her eyes. But those hearts just broke with that single comment. Joan is left scrambling to pick up the pieces, but can barely catch anything, as all her hope also bleeds out through her fingers.

“B-because I...I made it. For you.” She said meekly.

“Fans make me stuff all the time but you don’t see me putting it on the fridge,” Jane chuckled, actually quite amused by the situation. “It was nice, Joan. And I appreciate it. No need to push it farther than that, because then it’ll just get weird. Like I’m worshiping a simple drawing or something.” She laughed again, then continued her stride out the door.

Joan was distraught, but as she watched the queen leave, her words fully sinking in, anger bubbled up inside of her. She grit her teeth, fingers clenching into fists. She could feel the ram horns poke uncomfortably against her forehead and slowly breach from her flesh, primed for blood.

“It’s not just some simple drawing, you—!!”

That’s all she could yell before Jane wheeled back around and stared at her from the hallway. Then, she enters once again and Joan backs up in fear, as if she were being stalked by a starving white tiger. She could almost see it in Jane’s face, but her teeth weren’t bared. Her lips were just set in a startling flat line that brought out the horror of the rest of her blank features.

“What? What?” Jane prodded. “I’m what?”

“Nothing...” Joan squeaked, hunching her shoulders in and lowering her head.

“I’m what, Joan?”

“Nothing!”

“A jerk? A prick? A bitch? A cunt? What am I, Joan?”

“Nothing! You’re nothing!” Joan cried. “I’m sorry!”

Jane had Joan cornered- literally. The girl was backed up in the far corner of the room near the window, which she glanced at for just a moment, as if she were considering jumping out of it to get away from the queen’s sterling wrath.

Jane calmly set down her cup of coffee on the nearby counter and laced her fingers together against her stomach. Her gaze was callous and cruel, offering absolutely no pity to the girl cowering beneath her uncaring stare.

“I’m going to explain this to you once, Joan, so you better listen because I will not tell it to you again.” She said. Her words are slithering slowly from her lips like venomous snakes, scaly and fanged. They bite Joan’s ears, pumping their poison into her brain no matter how hard she tried to combat them. “Nod if you understand that.”

Joan nodded shakily. She isn’t making eye contact, rather focusing her gaze on the floor and nothing else.

“I am not your mother figure.” Jane said bluntly, not even bothering to sugarcoat the comment. She was so tired of having Joan trying to force her way into her life. “You are not my daughter.”

With just those two simple sentences, it was as if Joan’s entire life just ended. It didn’t just come crashing down to her feet- it was over. She was nothing without her queen.

“B-but—”

“You are not my daughter.” Jane repeated coldly. “Do you understand me?”

This time, Joan doesn’t nod.

Jane narrowed her eyes dangerously.

“Nod, Joan.”

“Wh-what about—Kitty-”

“Don’t bring her up, Joan. This isn’t about her.” Jane warned lowly.

But Joan couldn’t stop the words that began to bubble up in her throat. Her voice comes out way too loud and way too shrill and way too desperate, but she can’t choke it back.

“Why? What does she have that I don’t? What did I do? What can I do to make you love me like that? Why her? What makes her so—”

The sound of a slap resonates through the room.

Joan was hit so hard she actually stumbled into the wall. She tentatively touches her stinging cheek, which burns upon contact, then looks up in fear at Jane, whose hand is slightly red from the force she had used.

There is no remorse present in the queen’s steel grey eyes.

“Do NOT speak of my daughter in that way again, you vile little pest!” Jane roared. Her old self, her fearsome queen self slips out in her words, and it chills Joan to the bone. “I will bring your guts into your mouth if you even THINK to do it again!”

It’s as if Jane was dehorning Joan- grabbing onto the ram horns with strong, clawed hands and twisting and twisting and twisting until they snapped off and are pulled out of her flesh with copious squirts of blood pouring free, leaving twin gaping red horrors open in her head.

“C-calm down!” Joan squeaked. “You’re scaring me!”

“And you WONDER why I don’t want to be your mother figure!” Jane went on, ignoring the plea. “I could list a hundred reasons right now and that still wouldn’t be enough to explain to you about how much I don’t want you as a daughter!” Joan doesn’t ask for any of them, but they’re still shoved down her throat anyway. “You’re clingy, you’re needy, you expect everyone to like you, you’re always tugging at my sleeve, you seem to think everything is about you, you act like a complete attention whore, to name a few! Why would I EVER want to be the mother to someone like you?”

“HEY!!”

It was like watching two big cats fight on a wildlife documentary- Anne seemed to come out of nowhere and charged her entire body into Jane’s, sending them both slamming into the back wall.

They tussle and squirm for a moment, snapping and hissing and clawing, and then Anne’s hand closed around Jane’s neck. Not enough to choke her, but enough to shove her head back up against the plaster and grind her skull into it.

“Anne, get off of me—”

“You bitch! You fucking bitch—”

“Get off—”

“You’re absolutely—”

“Stop—”

“What gives you the fucking right—”

“Let go—”

“You deserve to—”

Jane shoved Anne’s shoulders with both hands, causing the woman to totter backwards before she regained her footing. She almost lunged at the silver queen again, but somehow managed to tame herself enough to not pounce on her like a puma and gouge her eyes out, as much as she wanted to at that moment.

“You are SICK!” Anne yelled.

“You were about to strangle me!” Jane fired back.

“Yeah? Well, I wish I fucking did! Because God knows you deserved it!”

Anne paused her spray of fire to look at Joan, who was hunched against the wall, knees buckled and barely holding her up, tears streaming from her eyes, one hand cupping her swollen, red-purple cheek. Anne snapped her head back to Jane, bloodlust and rage blistering in her eyes.

“Did you fucking hit her?” She snarled.

“She was being a—”

“BULLSHIT!” Anne snapped, cutting Jane off. “That’s not what I fucking asked! Did you hit Joan?”

Jane just glared at Anne, as if she were an angry child that didn’t get the toy they wanted.

“Oh my god,” Anne half gasped, half laughed. “You absolute cunt! You really think that nobody else in this world matters, huh? Some ‘cast mother figure’ you are. It’s just you and that spoiled little weasel you keep on a harness!”

Despite loving Kitty to death, Anne couldn’t care about the comment she just made about her baby cousin because it was true.

Jane went to say something, went to somehow defend her actions, but Anne was talking again.

“I get it now! I finally understand!” She said. “You didn’t die of natural causes at all! You died from God striking you down because he KNEW what a horrible, cruel mother you would have been. He SAVED Edward from you!”

Finally, that’s what got Jane to crack. And, damn, it felt good to watch horror twist up her features.

“You really do have a heart of stone.” Anne spit.

She crossed over to Joan, who had been crying silently, and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, helping her stand. The poor thing was shaking so badly.

“Come on, sweetie,” She whispered, her tone softening in an instant. “Let’s go.”

Joan staggered for a moment, nearly collapsing, but Anne managed to hold her up. She grappled onto the queen’s shirt and Anne could see that her cheek was definitely bruising.

“Oh, Joan…” Rage bubbles in her veins. She hears the girl whimper. “Shh, it’s okay. I’ve got you. I’m not going to let her hurt you ever again.”

Anne casts a dark look at Jane.

Jane does nothing but stare forward blankly, lost in her own memories.

“Come on. Let’s go get something for your cheek.”

Joan didn’t resist. She let Anne guide her out of the room.

But not without Anne shooting out one last comment.

“Oh, and I’ll make sure to vote for you as Mother of The Year, Jane.”

[noonachronicles]

Notice Me

Park Chanyeol X Reader (ft. Kim Jongin)

Word count: 2.6k

Warnings: None 

A/N: I don’t even think this is angsty. 

There was no one in the world quite as beautiful as Kim Jongin. You weren’t sure of much, but you were positive of that. You weren’t even sure what he did day to day besides walking around the office in his perfectly tailored suits, with his bright smile, oozing charm all over everyones desks and you’d worked with the man for seven years already. Honestly if you were in charge you’d pay him to do just that too.  

He was more than just a pretty face, he was so kind and thoughtful as well. The first time you’d talked to him was in the cafe on the first floor. You’d been at checkout and realized you forgot your wallet upstairs. He’d happened to be standing behind you, the ease and grace with which he pulled his wallet from his blazer pocket without a second thought was stunning. And when you told him you’d pay him back once you got back upstairs he just flashed that blinding smile and told you that you’d better not even think about it.

At the company holiday party a couple years later you’d been walking down the stairs when the heel snapped off of your louboutin. He’d grabbed you in his arms before you did too much damage but you’d already twisted your ankle trying not to fall on your face. He brought you to the bar and helped you put your leg up and found some ice. His friends had been begging him to come back to the party but he waited until he knew you weren’t going to be alone. He was the perfect man. You got the definition of heart eyes every time you saw him.

So at the company camping and team building retreat when he asked to be your partner during the craft hour you were on cloud nine. You’d been nervous at first but the way he’d been so sweet and asked you so many questions calmed you. He was so interested in everything you said, eyes never leaving your face as you spoke. When the hour was over, and it was over too soon, you were crushed.

“That’s an amazing idea, Y/n.” he said finishing up his painting as you’d finished telling him some of the bigger ideas you had for the company. Ones you’d never have the courage to share with anyone. “It’s exactly the kind of thing Sooman keeps asking me for. I just, I’ve had such a bad mental block lately...I’m sure I won’t have this job for long anyway.”

He laughed as he placed his paintbrush on the table but you worried he was serious. “Take mine. Use it.”

“I can’t do that.” he shook his head and turned his paper towards you, “What do you think?”

Your heart caught in your chest. He’d painted a watercolor portrait of you. You’d have said it looked just like you, but it was too beautiful, too ethereal. The face was so simple but your hair was a flowing rainbow river. “Jongin...it’s so beautiful.”

“Here.” he handed you the paper with a smile. “Show me yours.”

With a groan you handed over the portrait you’d done of him. It was a pencil sketch. You thought it looked like a doodle. His eyes grew wide and bright as he looked down at it. You watched as he looked it over. His free hand moved up to his face touching his jaw, and his lips before he looked up at you in awe. “That’s what my cheeks look like?”

You laughed, “I think so.”

“Wow, I love it.” he said genuinely, “Thank you.”

Everyone else was standing up to move on to their next activity so the two of you stood up too.

“Jongin…” you grabbed his wrist as he turned to leave and he looked back at you. “Take my idea. Please. Sooman is never going to ask me for my opinion on anything. If it will benefit you, I think you should use it.”

In a flash he had you wrapped in a tight hug, his lips pressed against your forehead and you thought you were going to explode. When he leaned back he was beaming, “Thanks y/n. I owe you.”

Outside of the craft cabin your desk buddy Chanyeol was waiting for you on one of the benches. He rolled his eyes when he saw the dazed look on your face. Quickly jumping up from his seat he fell in line with you while you walked down the path.

“How was your hour with Prince Charming?” he asked.

You sighed happily, “What’s better than phenomenal?”

“Gross.” he groaned.

“Honestly, Loey, no one has ever listened to me so intently in my life. I felt truly seen.”

Chanyeol pouted beside you, “Rude. I listen to you intently every day of my life. And! I stare at your face all day long too, sometimes you’re not even wearing make-up until like three hours in after your sixth coffee.”

“You have to listen to me and look at me, idiot, you sit across from me.” you said flicking his oversized ear.

“Ow!” he whined grabbing his ear. He nodded towards your paper. “Let’s see it then. Is he an artist too?”

“There’s nothing he can’t do.” you grinned flipping the paper over to show him the portrait.

“Oh, come on!” he scoffed as he looked down at the painting. “Your hair looks like Rainbow Road. You should add Toad in a little car falling off the side.”

You rolled your eyes and looked over at his paper, “Who did yours?”

“Baekhyun and it looks a thousand times better than yours. Sorry.” he said, showing you his paper.

A snort of laughter escaped your mouth immediately. Your entire body shook as you laughed, tears threatening to fall from the corners of your eyes as you looked it over. It looked like a craft project done by a five year old. Stick figure Chanyeol with overexaggerated ears and a backwards hat on top of a busted looking skateboard. There was a black blob behind the stick figure that you couldn’t figure out.

“Pothole?”

“Toben!” Chanyeol shouted defensively, though he smiled as you continued to giggle over it.

“Frame it.” you suggested.

“I will be. I’m going to keep it on my desk but face it towards yours so you have to stare at it all day long.” he threatened “Just like I have to stare at you.”

“Getting to stare at me all day long is a blessing.” you argued.

“And a curse.” he laughed. “Anyway, this is where I leave you. I’m going hiking with quality assurance.”

“Kayaking with the billing department.” you said nodding towards the lake.

“Meet back up at the bonfire?” he asked.

You nodded, “Save me some smores!”

“No promises!” he shouted as he ran down the opposite path you were headed down.

-

Your afternoon was not nearly as thrilling as your morning. Kayaking was fun at first but you were pretty sure you were sunburnt by the end of it and you definitely smelled like lake water, which was a bit fishy. You took a long shower when you got back to your cabin before getting ready for the bonfire. And you felt lucky you did when the first person you ran into on your way through the forest was Jongin.

“Hey! Y/N!” He called before making his way over from the group he’d been walking with.

“Hey.” He was so happy when he saw you, it made your cheeks burn.

“So, I talked to Sooman this afternoon about your idea-”

“Your idea.” you corrected.

“Right. Anyway...he loved it.” he grinned, “I can’t thank you enough. You saved my life.”

You laughed, “Hardly. You’re welcome, though. I’m glad it worked out.”

“Cool. I have to get back but, see you around?”

He gave you a quick pat on the shoulder and headed back to his friends. When you turned around Chanyeol was on the path in front of you. He looked upset.

“You gave him your idea?” he asked as you stepped around him. “The one you’ve been telling me about for months?”

‘Yeah.” you muttered as he followed behind you. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Why would you do that? This is your career.”

You sighed, “I’m not going to lose my job over one idea.”

“No, but it could have made your career.” he said grabbing the sleeve of your sweater. “Stop a second. That idea could have made the difference between you getting a promotion and being stuck where you are for another year. It should have been you telling that idea to Sooman. Not him.”  

“He needed an idea. I had one I wasn’t about to share with anyone. And anyway,” you said quite exasperated, “it’s already done. So there’s no use in going though whatever this conversation is.”

“Why?” he asked quietly, “Why’d you do it? What did you possibly expect to gain?”

Part of you knew where this was going. That part of you had been trying to avoid thinking about why’d you’d done it. You wanted to keep going on pretending like it was out of the goodness of your heart, that you hadn’t expected anything. But you knew you had, and it seemed like Chanyeol did too.

“I did it because he needed me to.”

“You sure?” he asked, “You’re sure you didn’t do it because you thought maybe if you did he’d...what? Finally realize how great you are and ask you out on a date. Then what? He falls in love with you?”

You crossed your arms over your chest. “Stop.”

“I just want you to know that’s not how it’s going to happen. He’s going to be praised for your idea and forget you even exist until the next time he needs something.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” you shook your head, “He’s not like that.”

“You thi-” he sighed and looked up at the sky before dropping his face back to yours, “You think he’s so different. You put him on such a pedestal. He’s not perfect, he’s human just like the rest of us.”

“He is different.”

“He’s sleeping around with Jennie. Did you know that? They have been for months.” he saw the hurt on your face but he kept going anyway. “He doesn’t want anyone to know because he doesn’t want to commit to her. That’s the type of guy he is. That’s your Prince Charming.”

You bit your lip hard to keep from crying as Chanyeol took off down the path. How you could be standing out in the middle of nowhere and still feel trapped was beyond you. You thought about going back to the cabin and avoiding everyone until the busses took off in the morning after breakfast. The idea of hiding out and crying over a boy reminded you way too much of being sixteen so you turned and headed down the path. You’d sit around the bonfire, have a beer, and be visibly miserable in public like a grown up instead.

It wasn’t until you were walking around the fire nursing a bottle of beer that you realized you didn’t know any of these people, not really. You’d caught sight of Chanyeol standing over by Baekhyun, both of them laughing and drinking. You hadn’t really considered going over to him but seeing the way the smile dropped off his face when he saw you confirmed that you would not be. And that was it, your only friend, no longer your friend. You wondered if you should quit or if that would be too dramatic. Just the idea of going to work and not having Loey to talk to was anxiety inducing.

After awhile you found a log near the fire and you sat down. Across the way from you, you watched Jongin hanging out with all of his friends. The cool kids. You could see his arm snake around Jennie’s waist and the way he whispered against her neck. Your shoulders dropped as they snuck through the trees together like teenagers. You really had been so blind.

Turning back to the fire you found a freshly made smore in front of your face. When you looked up Chanyeol gave you a lopsided smile, “Saved you one.”

“Thanks.” you smiled small as you took the treat, “Sit with me?”

He plopped down on the log next to you and stretched out his legs. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come off so hurtful. I just...I don’t know. You’re too good for that guy.”

“You don’t have to apologize, you were right anyway. I was being stupid.”

“I saw.” he said quietly, “You okay?”

“I guess. I just thought high school and all the feelings that came along with it were over.” you muttered, pinching a bit of marshmallow off the smore.

“That’s a mood.” he sighed, “I mean this job has gone exactly like how high school went for me. Spend years falling in love with a girl and she doesn’t even know you’re there. At least I’m getting paid this time around.”

Your forehead scrunched as you looked over at him. “You like someone at work?”

“Yeah.” he let out a small laugh as he watched the flames of the bonfire dance through the air.

“Who?” you asked curiously, momentarily forgetting your own woes. “Who could you possibly be in love with? You barely talk to anyone except Baekhyun.”

He turned his face to you, leaning his chin on his shoulder as he smiled, “I talk to you.”

It took you so long to get there that Chanyeol genuinely thought you might not get there at all. As he sat there looking at you, your mouth opening just slightly and then closing, and then opening again as you found a response and took it back, he thought maybe that was part of what made him love you so much.  

“Me? You’re in love with me?” you asked finally.

“Of course you can’t tell that I am in love with you because you were too busy loving someone else to notice me.”

“No...that’s not-” you tried to deny it but both of you knew he was right. “You didn’t exactly act like you were in love with me. How was I supposed to know?”

“How are you supposed to act when you’re in love with someone?” he asked amused, “Did you want some grand romantic gesture? Should I have shouted it from mountain tops?”

“Ugh,” you growled, “No! I’m just saying...you could have said something. I don’t know.”

“I’m saying something now.”

“Loey!” you laughed and shoving his hip with your palm. “You know what I mean.”

“Fine...you want me to say something. I’ll say something.” he said and stood up from the log you were sharing.

“Stop. I don’t know what you’re doing, but stop.” you begged.

“Excuse me!” he shouted until everyone around the bonfire was looking over at him. You buried your face in your sweater. “I just want everyone here to know, I love this woman! I’m in love with her! Tell all your friends so they know too!”

There was some confused applause, and you could hear Baekhyun from somewhere cheering for his friend. You kept your face in the material of your sweater as your face burned.

He sat back down next to you and ran his hand over your back. “You know what? I do feel much better, don’t you?” he asked leaning down so his lips met your ear.

“No.” you mumbled, “Is everyone looking?”

“Oh, a thousand percent.” he laughed. He snuck his hand underneath your chin and lifted your face to his. You kept your eyes on his face, mostly to avoid seeing everyone staring. “You can kiss me if you want.”

You lifted your hand, slipping your fingers over his neck, “I don’t know if I love you yet, especially after that.”

“Wait until after the kiss to decide.” he grinned.

With a quick roll of your eyes you leaned forward.

[prince-aly]

Artist Sam Winchester Headcanon

Disclaimer: I don't own Sam or Dean or Supernatural. I only own a copy of the Men of Letters Beastiary book that inspired this.

Sam started off by drawing little doodles in the margins of his notes as a kid. He continued drawing in school, taking art classes whenever he had the option. By the time he went to Sanford, Sam was great at drawing figures. He loved doing ink drawings with different pens.

Sam started doing commissions to make some extra money. He saved up enough to get a full calligraphy set and some nice paper. Sam did some calligraphy writing, but he preferred drawing.

Even when he was back into hunting, he kept drawing. Sometimes he would scribble absent-mindedly on his notes or scraps of paper. Sometimes he would go all out and make beautiful portraits.

As much as he loved drawing figures, he missed playing around with the various calligraphy tips. Sam wanted to buy a new set for quite a while. But the little calligraphy nibs would either be lost, broken, destroyed on accident, thrown away, or cast into bullets.

This pushed Sam to work work graphite and charcoal. Graphite looked nice, and charcoal was easy to make. He kept his drawings in a little sketchbook he bought at a book store. It kept the charcoal from getting all over Dean's car and kept the drawings from getting too smudged.

Once the brothers moved into the bunker, Sam took a chance and bought a new calligraphy set to keep in his room. He thought he would be a bit rusty from years without practice. Sam was pleasantly surprised to remember how to hatch, cross-hatch, stipple, and all the other drawing techniques.

Sam bought a new sketchbook that was a bit bigger and had better paper. Now that he and Dean weren't moving around so much, Sam could make bigger drawings and experiment with more mediums like colored pencils, oil pastels, water color, and acrylic. He enjoyed colored pencils the most because of how much detail he could put into a piece, but ink was still his favorite.

Sam didn't show Dean his drawings. As much as he loved his brother and as proud as he was of his work, his art was private. It was something he could do for his own enjoyment without worrying what others would think of it or want him to do.

The trouble is, Dean has a bad habit of just busting into Sam's room without knocking if he's excited about something. Whenever Sam works on a large drawing, he keeps his door closed and puts a towell or a blanket to block light getting out. That way, Dean would assume he was asleep.

Sam had a few close calls. He'd once walked into the kitchen with a big smear of charcoal on his face. He told Dean it was from trying to reach something behind a dusty cabinet. Usually, it was nothing more than a few stains of ink or paint on his hands that he could easily hide.

Despite his efforts, Dean still came really close to finding out. Sam had just finished a large watercolor and colored pencil piece of a beautiful garden. He cleaned up and put everything away minus the picture. Dean burst into Sam's room moments later to announce that he found a hunt.

The picture caught his eye immediately.

"Whoa... Did you make that?" He asked.

Sam let out something between a chuckle and a gasp. "Uhm... No. No it's something I bought from a local artist. What's the case, Dean?"

Dean knew Sam was lying. He just wasn't sure why. The artwork was stunning. From his angle, it looked like a photograph. For now, Dean would stay quiet and try to get some answers later.

For the next month, Sam did whatever he could to throw off his brother's suspicions. He pretended to "sketch" what a witness said about their attacker, only to show a juvenile doodle, complete with little sticks as hair.

Sam made sure he had absolutely no traces of his mediums on his hands or face when he left his room. He also hid his work in a more secure location where Dean wouldn't look.

A couple months later, Dean surprised Sam by asking about the artist Sam bought the painting from. "Just think the bunker could use something colorful since it's so grey."

Sam pretended to keep chewing his food to get out of answering the question. He settled with "The artist moved away a couple months ago. I got the piece from a moving sale."

Dean let his fork drop onto his plate with a loud clatter. He gave Sam his best bitch-face and sighed. "I know you made that piece, Sammy. I've known for a while. You've been drawing since you could hold a friggin' crayon! Why did you lie to me?"

Sam looked anywhere but at his brother.

"Sam?"

"I didn't wanna draw monsters," Sam admitted.

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Why d'ya think you'd have to draw them?"

"Some of my work looks pretty realistic and it would be useful to have accurate references for the things we hunt. I thought if I said anything, you'd ask me to make them," Sam answered. "I just wanna do something that doesn't involve hunting or monsters."

They sat in silence for a moment that felt like an eternity.

"I'm not gonna make you draw monsters, kiddo. I never even considered it. You gotta have somethin' that you do just for you," Dean assured.

Sam finally looked up. "You're not mad?"

"I'm a little ticked you thought you had to hide this, but I'm not mad. Just... no more lyin'."

After their talk, Sam stopped trying to hide his art. He showed Dean some of his paintings since they had the most color. They bought some picture frames and scattered them throughout the bunker halls.

There was one drawing that Sam really wanted Dean to have: an ink drawing of the Impala from different angles. One of those pictures included Dean looking into the hood of the Impala to fix her up.

Sam didn't say anything about it. He had it framed, then set the picture on Dean's desk.

Dean moved the picture to his bedside table, where he would see it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. He might've also made it his wallpaper on his phones and laptop but Sam doesn't need to know.

Edit: Fixed some typos.

[magicsmutshop]

When You See My Base Line - Pt 1

part 1 of 4

Pairing: Jung Hoseok/Reader Genre: Multi-chapter smut Rating: Explicit Word count: ~2500 Warnings: Alcohol, swearing, drooling over Hoseok’s perfect face and body Summary: You need a hobby, so you take a figure drawing class. Hoseok is the nude model. Note: this is my first fic so please take good care of me! Navigation: part 2 | part 3 | part 4

Who is that man talking to Namjoon by the desk? You’ve never seen him before, but as you look him up and down, you definitely like what you see. Dark, wavy hair with blond streaks flops over his finely-drawn eyebrows. The man’s eyes appealingly crinkle as he beamed at your art teacher, showing off a wide, heart-shaped grin.  He looks a bit short standing next to Namjoon--but who doesn’t, next to that tree of a man? More importantly, his loose hoodie and baggy yellow shorts reveal swathes of honey skin and lean muscle. He has the look of a dancer, slender but powerful. Your eyes catch on his exposed thighs (those shorts were really rather short, weren’t they?). Damn, those are truly something to behold. You’d never considered yourself a leg woman before, but those yellow shorts are changing your outlook. 

As you drag your appreciative gaze back up his body and face (was that a freckle on his top lip?), you realize Yellow Shorts is looking right back at you. You get lost in his dark brown eyes for a moment until it dawns on you that you’ve just been busted checking this gorgeous man out. His smile grows impossibly wider as your cheeks grow hot. Damn your easy blushes.

You quickly break eye contact, busying yourself with digging through your leather satchel, pretending to look for your pencils. Your hands are actually trembling a bit, and you can feel your heart pounding. How can a 5-second eye lock have such an effect on you? Yellow Shorts is still talking to Namjoon, but every time you accidentally look in their direction (who are you kidding? Your stare is drawn to him like you're magnetized), you can feel the weight of his gaze on you.  

Suddenly, Namjoon breaks the tension by clapping his hands together, drawing the attention of everyone sitting at their easels. You turn your attention towards your teacher, but out of the corner of your eyes, you notice Yellow Shorts slipping away towards the screen in the corner of the studio. Is he the model for tonight? You could only be so lucky.

“Hey guys, welcome to week three! Glad you could all make it out on this rainy evening.” Namjoon addresses the class, a dimple appearing in his right cheek as he smiles. “By now, you’re all pretty familiar with the drill, right? We’ll start off with 5 minutes of quick warm-up sketches, and then move into some 10-minute poses. 15 minute coffee break at the hour mark, and then we’ll do a 45-minute pose. Sound good?” He nudges his black-rimmed glasses up his nose as your classmates murmur their agreement. 

As you pull your sketchbook out of your bag, you think back to how you’d ended up in this studio in the first place. 

---

You’d just ended an 18-month long relationship a few months prior. It was a reasonably amicable breakup--no cheating or dramatics. You had just… fallen out of love. In fact, you weren’t sure if you were ever actually in love. Your relationship had quickly fizzled out of the honeymoon stage, so towards the end, you were in a rut of watching bad tv together on the couch nightly, your ex playing Overwatch on his laptop while you browsed Twitter on your phone. Your sex life wasn’t any more interesting--you hadn’t even “Overwatch and chilled” in quite a while. One night, you looked over at him and realized you had no desire to do this for the next 40 years, and told him it was over. He shrugged, barely looking up from his game.

However, no matter how boring it had been towards the end, it had been comfortable companionship, so your apartment now seemed empty at night. Even the stereotypical post-breakup gym routine couldn’t fill the hours, although you had never looked better. You thought about getting back into the dating game, but the selection of men on the apps was, to put it lightly, terrible. 

One night, you were out at a bar with your best friend getting wine-drunk and complaining about your boredom. Ashley took a long sip of her drink before looking at you over her glass. “You know what you need? You need a hobby. And no, Twitter and Tinder don’t count.”

“Twitter is a perfectly valid hobby. I’m keeping up on the latest political news and memes! Plus did you see the latest posts from Mark Ruffalo? That guy is a genius.” You drained the last of your glass and looked around for the server. You needed another drink.

Ashley scoffed. “You’re not even keeping up with politics. You’re getting into flamewars with people over the latest episode of the Bachelorette.” Damn. Your best friend knew you too well. She turned her head and effortlessly flagged the server over while checking her watch. Twenty minutes left for happy hour specials. “Hi, can we get two more glasses of the rosé please?” 

You resisted the urge to check your Twitter account and incur more of Ashley’s scorn. “What do you suggest, then?”

“My coworker, you know the one that had the breakdown after she walked in on her husband fucking the babysitter?” Ashley paused as the server dropped off the fresh drinks.  You nodded--that was a juicy story you wouldn’t be forgetting anytime soon. “Anyway, she started taking art classes at the rec center. She does everything from pottery to watercolors. Apparently, her psychologist recommended it, but she loves it. She never stops talking about how healing it’s been.”

You wrinkled your nose. “The rec center? I thought those classes were for kids and senior citizens.”

“She did mention there are a lot of old people in her classes. But get this--the drawing teacher was this really hot Korean guy. With dimples.” Ashley gave you a meaningful look. She really did know you too well.

“Ehh… art class? I don’t know if that’s really my thing. I haven’t touched a sketchbook in years.” You had actually been a decent artist in high school, but had dropped it in college as you got wrapped up in your classes and parties. You honestly couldn’t remember the last time you’d done anything artistic, outside of mandatory bridesmaid crafting duties for bridal showers and bachelorette parties.

“Hot. Korean. Guy. With. Dimples.” Wine splashed out of Ashley’s glass as she jabbed your finger at you for emphasis. “Plus, getting some culture could be healing for you. It worked for Jessica. You really need to get out of the apartment more.”

You gently grabbed Ashley’s glass, rescuing the wine from her flailing and promptly. pouring it down your throat. “I’ll think about it.” You weren’t going to think about it. There was no way you were going to take an art class with a bunch of senior citizens, even with the lure of a hot instructor.

Two drinks later for each of you, Ashley was squinting at your credit card, trying to type the numbers into the rec center’s shitty website on her phone. “Boom, you’re signed up. Class starts Monday so you’d better get your supplies this weekend.”

In your rosé-induced haze, what you hadn’t realized is that Ashley had signed you up for a figure drawing class. You were in for a double shock when you walked into the rec center 10 minutes late that first Monday night. The first shock, that the teacher, Namjoon, really was that hot (with fantastic dimples)--and the second shock, that there was a nude middle-aged man posing on a couch on a small stage.

Much to your surprise (and Ashley’s smugness), the figure drawing class really was enjoyable. Namjoon was a great teacher--patient and encouraging--and you’d forgotten how good it felt to create something rather than just passively consuming media. You’d even gotten used to the nudity as you focused on capturing the model in efficient pencil strokes in your sketchbook. Your first few figure sketches were horribly amateur, but you soon got caught up in the art, and the first two classes had flown by. The second week’s model had been a young college-aged woman with the most amazing tiger tattoo covering her back, which had been a lot of fun to draw. You had been looking forward to what week three would bring, but you had no idea what was really in store for you.

---

As you finish setting out your pencils and erasers, you notice motion from the corner of the room again. The hot guy from earlier emerges from behind the screen… and he's no longer wearing the shorts, but is wrapped in a knee-length gray robe. Oh holy shit, he really is the model for the night. One of your pencils goes flying out of your suddenly-clammy grip and clatters across the floor, rolling to a stop in front of Yellow Shorts. Your face bursts into flames again.

His face scrunches up into a warm smile. “Oops! You might need this.” He bends over (don’t look at his ass, don’t look at his ass), scoops the pencil up, and saunters over to your desk.  The pencil appears in your line of vision where you're staring fixedly down at your sketchbook. Slowly, you look up and meet his twinkling eyes. His smile doesn’t dim as you stare blankly up at him and the little dimples in his cheeks, but he waves the pencil in front of you again. Your attention caught by his hands, you suddenly notice how long and elegant his fingers are. He wears a silver ring on his middle finger, and a delicate chain on his wrist. 

As if in a dream, you finally take the pencil from him. Your hand brushes his. His fingers are warm and dry, but you feel your breath catch at the light touch. He drags a fingertip across your palm as he lets go of the pencil. Your eyes snap up to his, which look decidedly darker. But his light tone of voice doesn’t match his eyes as he simply says, “Here you go! Please use it to draw me well!” He turns away to join Namjoon in front of the stage.

Namjoon chuckles quietly. “Everyone, this is Hoseok, our model for tonight. Some of you might know him already. He’s the dance teacher here at the rec center, but moonlights as an art model in his free time.” A dancer, of course. That explains the muscle. Your blush still hasn’t gone down and your palm is still tingling as you try not to stare at his toned legs. Namjoon turns to Hoseok and claps him on the shoulder. “We’ll start with the 5-minute warmup first, so just change your pose every time you hear the timer beep.”

Yellow Shorts--Hoseok--nods cheerfully. “Aye aye, boss!” He steps up on the stage and unceremoniously shrugs out of his robe, laying it to one side and sitting down on the chaise lounge. All of the blood that had previously been in your cheeks is now rushing down to lower parts as you’re treated to an uninterrupted view of his sinuous body. He’s perfect. His collarbones catch the light as he turns his face to the side, revealing a sharp profile. His biceps flex lightly as he lowers himself down on one elbow, accentuating the line from his elegant shoulders to his narrow waist. A very defined v-line draws your eyes from his lean abs to his relaxed cock resting on one of his gorgeous thighs. You subtly squeeze your legs together under your desk at the sight. Shit, even his dick is perfect. You genuinely think your heart might stop--but what a way to go.

Suddenly, your lustful reverie is broken by the sound of the timer going off, indicating that a minute in the quick sketch period had gone by and it’s time for Hoseok to switch poses.  You haven’t drawn a single line in your sketchbook yet. You’re fucked.

read part 2

[mysticsparklewings]

On The Edge

It feels like it's been quite some time since I sat down and got to work on a more involved mixed-media project. And in plenty of ways it has, but I have been working on other artsy projects behind the scenes, which I should be posting sometime soon, I hope. Anyway, this artwork had to be moved to the top of my priority list and also my upload schedule (some of those other projects are already finished, just back-logged) because this is my entry into the Arteza Awards hosted by, shocker, Arteza, and the deadline to enter was the 24th. I actually started working on this piece a week or two early, but me being me, I procrastinated and only just barely got it posted to Instagram with the appropriate tags (per the contest rules) with about 20 minutes to spare.  Then again, maybe that's a good thing because I've been known in the past to pull some of my better work out of thin air at the last minute. If that proves the case this time, it would certainly be to my advantage. Anyway. There was no set theme for the contest. The main rules were that you had to use Arteza supplies and they needed to be visible in the image posted to Instagram. I understand why, but I normally don't photograph my art with the supplies because I can usually get more accurate colors and proportions with a scan, and you can pretty much always see the details way better on a scan. But considering the prizes on offer, I wasn't about to let that stop me. I figured I'd just post the supply image first, then add the scan so you could swipe to see it. That way I could have my nice scanned version and still follow the rules. (Also, since they specify Instagram is the main platform for the contest, I'm assuming it doesn't matter if I don't post the supply picture everywhere else. If it does...whoops :P ) For reasons I don't think I should get into here, I knew I needed to go for something kind of high-impact when you first glance at it. But it also needed to not be too involved, lest I be working on it well after the entry window closed and my efforts become somewhat less valuable. I'm not exactly sure how, but this led me around to a concept I've had floating around in my head for a while: A girl (because I am one and know I can draw them better) standing on a mountain top, that looks as if she's one step from free-falling. Originally, I dreamed up this idea hoping to make it into an acrylic painting, but (aside from that fact that I didn't get around to executing the idea until now) I do not own Arteza'a acrylic paints (though I have wanted them for quite some time--It just hasn't happened yet) and also acrylics are not my strongest suit, so now did not seem like the time for an impulse-purchase that could compromise the integrity of my work and therefore my chances in the contest. Although for the day I do get my hands on their acrylics, I now have a solid idea to use to test them out.  ;) The Arteza supplies I do have at my disposal are their tube watercolors, woodless watercolor pencils, and 72 expert colored pencils. Which as I learned the last time entered a contest hosted by Arteza, is a fairly limited variety as to what I can actually do. The watercolors by far as the most versatile and my personal favorite of the three though, so they're what I used the most of here. Also, somewhere between deciding to run with my standing-on-the-edge idea and actually doing it, I also decided to add-in the wings in this constellation style I've used somewhere infrequently but am very fond of. As a result, the whole concept has a very similar feel to me as this artwork that I found here on dA years ago and fell so in love with that it spent a good few months as my desktop wallpaper. Obviously, the two images are very different, but to me the idea of the wings is similar: Their structural integrity to fly is questionable, as the wings in the original image appear to be made of glass. Maybe it matters, maybe not. Same thing here: Maybe the wings are really there and just look like a constellation, or maybe this girl just stood in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time. Is the girl even there? Is she real? Can she die? Does it matter if she falls? Would she choose to fly at all, whether the wings work or not? It's sort of a Schrodinger's Cat situation, and something about that is really intriguing to me. Anyway. I started out with a digital sketch this time, mostly to iron out the kinks with...well, everything. I knew getting the right pose would be difficult, and I actually had a pretty different one of her looking out over the edge, maybe clutching her chest or something, originally, but I just couldn't get it to work the way I wanted to and I really struggled to find references for it, so I went with the pose you see here, that I found references for by accident while looking for the other one. I have to admit, seeing the final product I think this pose might actually have been the better choice anyway. The mountain/cliff/whatever I was also having a hard time finding references for, at least for exactly what I wanted, so in the end I had to mostly wing it. I think it turned out okay, though. The wings were probably the most challenging part to plan because I wanted something between traditional butterfly/fairy wings and something that stretches out farther like bird or bat wings. I toyed with the lines for a long time until I got something I was happy with, and then I actually went in and did the constellation lines for both sides by hand instead of doing one side and making a flipped copy, because I wanted to make sure I kept the overall shape of the wing on the (our)right (her left), as after all the warping I did to get the original lines, I wasn't sure I could replicate the process again. I also drew 2 or 3 versions of a simple dress over the figure before giving up because I wasn't happy with how any of them were turning out and decided that I would instead preserve her modesty with magically misty cloud-things. Although, it's kind of a shame because that ended up mostly hiding the one piece of hair clinging over her left (our right) shoulder. :P But once the digital sketch was done so I had some idea of what I was doing, it was time to move on to the traditional, actual artwork. I cut a piece of my 100% cotton paper down to size (nice paper because I didn't want to be held back in that regard--go big or go home, as they say) and then held it up to me screen to trace my cliff lines into place, and some vague markers for the figure and her wings. My idea from the very beginning was to make the galaxy largely with watercolor in such a way that it gives the wings color and focus, without having to actually color all the individual segments. This means lighter colors towards the main area of the wings, and getting darker as I moved out/away from them. Now, because it has been a while since I was painting with watercolors regularly, I did set aside a smaller piece of the same paper and busted out a practice baby galaxy before diving into the final. I learned very quickly I was going to have to be extremely careful with my placement of this orangey color and black, less either of them ends up mixing with colors they weren't supposed to and leaving me with a big muddy mess. (The practice piece did survive though and I'll be posting it some other time.) Before I could get to the fun part [the galaxy] though, I painted the mountain with a mixture of black and blue, which actually went a lot smoother than I thought it would. It took several light layers of blending out the paint built up slowly, but ultimately I'm pretty happy with how the color for it turned out...Even if it's still kind of up for debate how much it looks like a "mountain" or "cliff-edge" or not.   With that out of the way, I cut some paper to act as a mask for that section and then spent far too long going back and forth, putting down layers of color and blending them out, dabbing color on and waiting for it to dry, rinse, repeat, trying to get the Galaxy portion just right. I was actually having a fair amount of trouble getting the right color balance, and as sometimes happens with these things, I was pretty worried about how it was looking before I went to bed that night. (I had procrastinated just long enough that I had 2 nights to do this is; the bulk of the painting took place on night 2) But the next day, once it was fully dry, it didn't look so bad. It did need just a few more touches before I went in and added the splatter/stars, though. So I broke out the colored pencils, which I really should have done sooner because they were much easier to blend out and had a bit more covering power over the watercolor than...more watercolor because watercolor is often transparent and there it can be hard to cover with it. Admittedly, I still had more worries about the "naked" galaxy, but then I went to splatter town with the white, added a few pointed stars, and as it usually does, that really brought everything together and made it look a lot better. Never underestimate the power of a good splatter-fest! ;)  I must say though, I underestimated the combination of the white watercolor and white colored pencil together when I moved on to the figure and wings. I was trying very hard to not use my white gel pen (because the rules for the contest didn't say if it was okay to use non-Arteza supplies in conjunction with Arteza supplies or not) and so I was sort of bending over backward to find another way with my limited resources. (Although I assumed using a lightbox to see the lines underneath the paint, as is a normal practice for me, wouldn't really matter because it's not like you can really tell from the final product anyway.) Still, even though a mixture of paint lifting, the white colored pencil, and the white watercolor were better than I expected, I still ended up having to punch the lines up a bit digitally to get them to pop the way I wanted them to. But oh well, at least it made a nice glowing effect and mostly worked for the cloud-mist covering. :P  Overall though, I do really like how it turned out. If it weren't a little on the small side I might actually consider using it as my new wallpaper/banner art everywhere. Maybe that's a conversion project of some kind for another day? Point being, I'm pleased. I probably won't place in the contest because I'm just too small of a fish in this pond, but I made some pretty art and it was mostly fun, so no harm done. :)  Actually, if this could maybe be the excuse my brain needs to get back into posting regularly, that would actually be really great. I miss it, despite what my most recent journal entry and my spotty activity levels might lead one to believe. If it is, I hope you guys don't mind seeing some crafty things thrown into the mix! :D  ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings 

____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[asknightmareanderror]

Angel wags her tail and holds up a watercolored picture of them, with Error leaning on Nightmare. Sunshine shakes his head as he eyes the picture she drew of him and his brother. "Ink, stop drawing us its creepy-" "Shut up and go back to the floof." Sunshine regards her for a second, sets Galaxy down, flops over, then slams his face into his brothers fluffy body again. Poor Galaxy gives Angel a 'wtf' look and sneezes. Angel busts out laughing, throwing a pencil at them.

E - “...heh...I keep forgetting that you’re an Ink...”

Yeah, it’s...actually hard to remember that.

E - “...it’s probably ‘coz you look nothing like the usual Ink...”

...

E - “...and you’re not obnoxious like him, too.”

[rheyninwrites]

Old Friends Part 12

By the time the evening arrived, we’d put everything away. All my paintings were on walls around the house, and I had to admit it made me feel much more at home. I think Arthur really enjoyed it, too. We had gone to get some groceries earlier that afternoon, so there would be enough food for me to eat during the day. Working at a school, I had summers off, so I would be at home while he worked. He made a comment on this while we were making dinner together.

“What exactly do you do all day, anyway?”

“I don’t do anything special, mostly just try to keep up with things that need to be done, play video games or watch movies. A lot of the time I paint, but I forgot to grab the supplies I had. It’s fine, though, they were mostly pretty old, and I could use some new stuff. I’ll probably run out and get some this weekend.”

“Huh. Okay.”

“What, you think I should be doing something more productive with my time? I still get paid during the summer, they spread it out through the year, but I guess I could get a job for the next couple of months, if it’ll help more with bills around here.”

“That ain’t what I was saying at all. I just find it interesting. And I already told you, I don’t expect you to help out. I’d have the same bills even if you wasn’t here.”

“Well, you wouldn’t exactly, because I’ll be using electricity while you’re at work, and you have to buy more food. And I’ve told you that I appreciate the thought, but I’ll feel guilty if I don’t contribute something, at least. Please don’t turn this into another bed situation.”

“Alright, alright, you win. But you’re only gonna contribute towards the bills you raise. Just as stubborn as ever, I see.”

“Of course, and you know you wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He laughed.

“Damn right, woman.”

After he went to work the next morning, I set about busying myself all day. I got the Xbox set up, then walked around the house looking for little things I could take care of, like emptying the trash cans or cleaning the bathrooms. It was maddening. There was almost nothing to clean up! He kept the place so spotless that by 10am, I had resigned myself to a day of movie watching. I made a note to pick up some books and a few fresh movies when I picked up more art supplies, and plopped on the couch.

I woke up to the sound of the key in the lock, then Arthur calling my name.

“Can you come help me get this stuff in?”

I slipped on my shoes and hurried to where he was outside, standing with Boadicea’s passenger door open. He had his eyes cast downward and a sheepish grin on his face. He also had a shit ton of art supplies in the seat next to him.

I let out a gasp and started rummaging through the bags as fast as I could. There were acrylics, watercolors, pencils, pens, markers, and all manner of sketchbooks. He’d also bought several canvases, an entire bag of brushes, and an easel.

“I didn’t really know what you liked to work with now, so I got a few different things. That okay?”

I nodded, then spun around to face him and threw my arms around him and pulled him into a tight hug.

“It’s perfect. Thank you so much. But you know you didn’t have to? I could have done it myself.”

“I know. I wanted to. Just wanted to see you smile, I guess.”

When he said that, looking right into my eyes as he did, I think I momentarily lost control of my body. I must have, because that’s the only thing that could explain why I did what I did next.

I reached up, put a hand on each side of his face, pulled him down to me, and I kissed him. Right, square on the lips.

What the hell am I doing!?!?

Why is he not running away?

He wasn’t running away, not at all. For a moment he didn’t do anything, just stayed planted, frozen, like I was some kind of Medusa. Then I felt him turn his head, just slightly, and wrap his arms around my waist. He was pulling me closer, not trying to push me away.

What’s happening here?

I tried to keep my thought at bay, to not give into my insecurities and just enjoy the kiss. But when you have scars so deep, you don’t usually get to just enjoy things. Those thoughts have a way of busting through any wall you build.

Geez. He’s so desperate for affection, he’s even willing to kiss you.

You know he doesn’t really want you, right?

A fat girl like you with a handsome guy like him? Oh PLEASE!

It’s never gonna happen honey, just accept it.

It’s a pipe dream.

He can do so much better.

You’re just friends.

He probably didn’t want to offend you.

YOU’RE

JUST

TOO

UGLY

The words echoing in my head were too much to take. I let go of him, then bolted into the house. I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to see how he felt. I knew I had ruined things no matter what. Either I had ruined our friendship by kissing him, or I had ruined the chance for more by running away. Instead of waiting around to find out what nasty words he might have for me, I went straight into the main bathroom, and locked the door. Then I sat down in the tub, pulled the shower curtain, and started to sob.

I heard him coming inside, bumping against the walls as he struggled to bring it all in. I know he had to make more than one trip, because I heard the door open and close at least one more time, and that made me feel even more guilty than I already did. I was afraid he was going to try to talk to me, and I was afraid he wouldn’t. Trauma does funny things to your brain, especially when it happens to you as a kid.

I heard his footsteps back and forth in the living room for a while, then nothing. My sobs reduced to hiccups, the finally a few silent tears before I was all cried out. Shortly after that I heard a gentle knock. He waited and I said nothing. I didn’t know what I could possibly say. Soon he tried again.

“Can I come in?”

No.

“You know you can’t stay in there forever.”

Wanna bet?

“If you don’t open up soon, I’m gonna just take the door off.”

I considered that for a minute.

You bastard, you would, wouldn’t you?

So my options were to stay in and attempt to starve myself and probably have the door removed on me, or open up. Eventually, it still meant facing the problem.

Dammit.

I reached as far as I could out of my tub fortress and unlocked the door, slipping back inside as quickly as I could. He waited a few beats before opening the door, then crossed the room and sat on the toilet beside the tub. He didn’t try to open the curtain, which I was very grateful for.

“Hey look, it’s okay. Well, I mean, it ain’t okay, but it’s gonna be.”

I could hear him shifting around beside the curtain for a bit before continuing.

“What happened was . . . I don’t know what it was. I don’t know if it was you, or me, or maybe even some outside force. But it happened, and we can’t change that. All we can do is move forward.”

I still didn’t say anything. I still didn’t know what I could say.

“All I know is that Ive been happier this week than I’ve been in years, and I don’t wanna lose you from my life again. It’s not worth all that. So I promise I won’t hold it against you, if you don’t hold it against me. Okay?”

“You hate me now.”

“I don’t hate you. I don’t reckon I ever could hate you. There ain’t many people who seen me at my best and my worst and stuck around through both.”

That got me, right in the heart. I knew exactly what he meant, because I felt the same way about him. My throat felt tight, and I swallowed hard. Slowly, I peeked out from behind the shower curtain.

“Promise?”

“Of course I promise. Now are you gonna get out of that tub, or you gonna make me climb in with you?”

“If you did that we’d be stuck here for the rest of our lives.”

“Then I’m guessing you better get out.”

I roughly pushed back the curtain and took his outstretched hand. I knew I had been ridiculous and dramatic, but sometimes that side gets the best of a person, even when they don’t want it to. Especially when you’ve just kissed your former best friend who you haven’t been around much in the last decade or so, but are hopelessly in love with, and just moved in with.

We left the bathroom and ate dinner, making the kind of small talk we both usually hated in order to cover the awkwardness. Afterwards, I helped him build my new easel and he helped me put away my art supplies in an old cabinet he dragged into a corner of the living room. Then, exhausted, we showered and fell into bed.

That night after he gave my hand it’s usual good night squeeze, he didn’t let go.

[bottled-bliss]

birds as beautiful as these

At first, Karen had thought they’d never go through with it. Foggy and Matt could bicker for hours, but they always made up in the end. This should be no different. Except it was. They’d had one disagreement too many and now, she had to watch Foggy take down the sign from the door and shove it in a box with the last of the stuff from his desk. ‘Nelson and Murdock’ was no more.

“You didn’t have to stick around for this.”

“Don’t worry, Foggy.” She squeezed his arm and sighed. She was really going to miss working with him. “It’s not like you’re making me late for work.”

“Sorry you’re out of a job,” he smiled halfheartedly.

Ah, yes, there was that too. “I’ll find something.” Preferably sooner rather than later. Rent was cheap, but not that cheap, and she quite liked eating, so being able to afford that would be nice.

“I wish I had some suggestions for you,” he grumbled as she held the front door open for him and they stepped out in the street. “Apart from that one… Hey!” An idea lit up his eyes. “I know a guy who knows a guy!”

“Looking for an assistant?”

“Technically, yes.”

“Oh, wow, that didn’t sound fishy at all,” Karen frowned.

“No, listen,” Foggy insisted as he shifted the box from left to right. “It’s going to sound weird but it’s good money. At least until something better comes along.”

There was no harm in listening to his suggestion, especially if the money was good. “How naked do I have to get?” she joked.

“I’m not sure. Is partial nudity off the table?”

She expected him to laugh any minute now. Any minute now. He just kept looking at her, waiting for an answer. “Foggy!”

“I’m not talking about porn,” he clarified in a whisper. “I’m talking about art! An artist looking for a model and nothing else.”

Imagining herself posing with a sheet draped over her body seemed funnier than porn for some reason. “I’m not a model, Foggy.”

“But you’re model material,” he said and winked playfully.

“How well do you know this man?” Karen pressed. There were lots of weirdos in this city and prior experience with an art major she knew in college, had taught her that artists could be the weirdest of them all.

“He tried to sell me insurance some time ago, before he switched careers,” Foggy explained. “I would never mention this if there was anything strange about it, okay? My guy is solid. He’s as good as they come and he has assured me the artist is decent, if a little bit rough around the edges. Kind of a recluse.” Seeing Karen’s hesitation, he decided not to push. “Think about it is all I’m saying. Sitting still for long periods of time isn’t the worst job description.”

That was true.

Which was why she’d agreed to meet the artist, see for herself what kind of vibe he gave off and have him explain what he would expect his model to do exactly.

His house, which could be more accurately described as a small, modest mansion, could at least speak to his wealth. But even before she set foot inside it, she could tell it wasn’t a home. It was certainly decorated beautifully, but it lacked warmth that the sun coming in through the large windows couldn’t make up for. Not a great start.

“Miss Page, I am Curtis Hoyle,” said the man who had let her in, the guy who knew the guy. “We spoke on the phone.”

Karen was somewhat disappointed that he wasn’t the artist, because the vibes coming off of him were generous and kind. “Nice to meet you in person, Curtis,” she smiled as they shook hands.

“You too.” He smiled back. “My buddy, Nelson, spoke very highly of you and I was anxious to see if half of what he said was true.”

“It probably wasn’t,” she laughed as he led her down a long hallway. Her perusal of the paintings in the foyer would have to wait- they weren’t all that interesting and there was artwork wherever she looked anyway.

“So you’re not patient and caring?”  

“Well…” Karen bit her lip. She could be patient, if she tried. Was that going to be part of her duties though? Having her patience tested by the elusive painter? “I can be.”

“Hard-working and dedicated?” Curtis went on as if checking qualities off a list.

“Definitely,” she nodded.

“And I can see with my own eyes that you’re gorgeous, so it seems that Nelson wasn’t lying after all,” he grinned as she went around observing a couple of paintings, unsuccessfully trying to hide her blush.

She pointed at a small watercolor of a cathedral. “Is this his?”  

“God, no,” he laughed loudly. “Frank hates that one and I only left it here to annoy him. Something about the equilibrium of the colors rubs him the wrong way. We don’t really keep his stuff in the house.” He moved to stand under the painting of a garden. “Besides this and...” The other one, the one he shouldn’t bring up. “And his current projects, but those are all in his studio.”

She didn’t know much about art which meant she couldn’t appreciate the process of creation like a real connoisseur could, but she’d have loved to have seen how this painting came to be. The elegant, crimson flowers popping out of the green, the tree whose misshapen trunk revealed it had weathered several storms but still stood tall against the backdrop of the morning sky. And those two birds, soaring with their wings spread like they’d just risen from the ashes, the silk of their feathers glistening and shining under a sun just outside of the frame. She had never seen anything like them. “This is…”

“Surprisingly, not his best work,” Curtis told her, a hint of pride in his voice.

“If he’s that good, how come I’ve never heard of him?” she asked, very carefully running a finger over the frame.

“He’s very famous in Europe.” What he didn’t mention was that Frank had managed to upset the most important art critics on U.S. soil, making promoting his work here next to impossible. “His reclusive shtick helps a lot. They view him kinda like Banksy, makes them go crazy.”

“People love what they can’t have,” she whispered, almost like she hadn’t intended to say that out loud.

“Exactly,” Curtis beamed.

“Is that why he’s hiding? Marketing reasons?” An intrigued smile rose to her lips.

“Uh, no, he…”

He hesitated a moment too long and her smile fell away. “How terrible is he?”

“He’s not terrible, he’s just…” His eyes quickly flicked from her to the painting and back, and his shoulders lifted with tension. “Been through a lot. Hardened. Which sometimes translates to being-”

“Difficult,” she chimed in. “He’s difficult, I get it.” As long as he wasn’t rude. “Are we actually going to meet though? You don’t expect me to agree to work with a person I haven’t met, right?”

“In here.” He walked further down the hallway and knocked on a door at its end. “Frank, we have company.”

“Not now,” the artist boomed from the other side of the door.

Curtis turned to Karen with an apologetic look on his face. Then he twisted the door knob, pushed and entered the studio, while she stood back, wondering if this would be like what she did for Matt and Foggy; pretending she couldn’t hear them arguing, until the time came to bust in and act as a tranquilizer.

“When I say we have company, it means you have to stop being a hermit and talk to people,” Curtis spoke softly, only to spare Karen the awkwardness of overhearing a conversation that shouldn’t be happening at all.

“I’m not being a hermit, I’m busy,” Frank replied, his voice gruff and forbidding.

“Busy doing what? You were just looking out the window.”

“Jesus Christ, I’m busy in my head,” he grunted. “Go away, Curt.”

Yup, exactly like Matt and Foggy, Karen noted in her own head.

“Well, inspiration will come knocking again later, but Karen Page is here now and you will see her,” Curtis demanded.

“Another model?” he asked over the sound of shuffling papers. “She gonna be like the last one? Honestly, I’d rather go back to landscapes than work with someone who’ll struggle holding a pose for more than two minutes.”

“Frank,” Curtis blew an exasperated sigh.

Sighing was always her cue. She stepped into the studio. “Mister Castle, I’m Karen Page. Pleased to meet you.”

Ruggedly handsome, like a Roman sculpture that hadn’t suffered a limb deficiency, Frank Castle stood with his side to an enormous window, leaning over a drafting table. He straightened up immediately to shake the hand extending to meet his, and nodded. “Ma’am.” His eyebrows seemed to be perpetually knitted together in a scowl, complemented by the thin line his full lips were forming under his beard, while his ears blushed a bright pink.

He’s shy, Karen thought as she tried to suppress a giggle, watching him flounder with his pencils for a while.

“I don’t know what you’ve been told, but modeling isn’t easy money.” He turned to her with what, she imagined, was his most intimidating glare. “There will be times when your back will hurt and you’ll want to take a break, but the perfect shadow will have landed on your nose and you won’t be allowed to move a muscle, do you get that?”

She’d been able to sit very still during depositions of convicted criminals –one of them a murderer- even though her back, her head and her stomach hurt; and he believed this would scare her? “Uh-huh.”  

Something he caught on her face seemed to pique his interest and he held her gaze as he asked “How long can you hold a pose?”

“I don’t know. Let’s find out,” Karen said, dropping her bag on the floor. “Where do you want me?”

(ao3)

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Chapter 20: I can’t come up with a clever summary for this one that doesn’t ruin the surprise of the nonsense I’ve set loose, I’m sorry, I’m tired

[Beginning] [Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

Trucy has Christmas off from school – or maybe just takes it off, Apollo doesn’t ask these questions – but it is a weekday and the office is open, so Apollo spends it with her and Vera and Phoenix nowhere to be seen. “We would make a great investigation trio,” Trucy says, adjusting the Santa hat that she has moved from her head to Charley now to her wisp so that it, invisible beneath the hat, bobs about the office as some kind of strange holiday decor. “But I also hope no one comes in today, because – spending Christmas in jail because you’re accused of murder. Can you imagine?”

“Or being murdered on Christmas,” Apollo agrees.

Having said that, he still does like to get paid.

It’s cold, fae cold, like every Christmas Apollo has experienced in Los Angeles. (Like every Christmas Apollo has experienced; they didn’t celebrate it in Khura’in. They had their own holidays, things all dimmed down in his memories.) The dusting of snow across the sidewalk melts by afternoon between the bright sun and the foot traffic through the city, but the chill remains, making Apollo infinitely grateful for his Christmas presents from Trucy, a knitted beanie and scarf, even if the colors she chose for him are pink and limey green.

“I know you won’t really get cold,” Trucy had said to Vera, “but everyone should have cute scarves and hats, so you get one, too!” The knitwear she presented to Vera was pink and bright blue, colors that much better match her typical fashion – and her fae form, when she lets her glamour drop to hold the yarn against her skin. Trucy insists on a selfie with the three of them; right before she clicks the button, Vera washes away her watercolor skin, and grinning back from the photo are three apparent humans.

“Maybe shouldn’t have photo evidence that I’m not human,” Vera says quietly, but she is already reaching for her sketchpad and scribbling a tiny self-portrait, fae ears and all, in the corner of a page. She still takes a sketchbook everywhere with her but doesn’t keep it in hand at every moment, seeming a little more able and willing to express herself with words and either of her own faces.

Trucy tells them that she has also made Ema a scarf so that she can contribute to the scientific assessment that Trucy expects of Iris’ yarn. “Daddy says that humans who spend a long time in the fae world end up with kinds of glamours, too,” she explains to Vera, after catching her up on Iris. Apollo wonders who Phoenix learned this from; if he knew that, shouldn’t he have figured out what Klavier was sooner? Or is this another fact he’s only put together after that one realization? “So we’re all wondering what properties these might have. I expect you to take notes on anything strange while you’re wearing these. Like if people start telling you you’re more attractive.”

Apollo snorts. Trucy smacks him on the arm. “This is for science, Apollo!”

“How much do you talk to Ema, again?” He can’t say that he isn’t curious – could something like this be the origin of the infamous Magic Panties? – and he can’t say that he isn’t more curious than afraid nowadays, but he also can’t say that he’s not afraid of where this curiosity will take them. Everything Clay impressed upon him for thirteen years has collapsed in eight months.

(And Dhurke – well, maybe there was a nugget or two of advice Dhurke left him, half-forgotten, but he let Apollo and Nahyuta make their mistakes, and as far as that goes, Apollo is definitely making mistakes.)

Trucy is powerful, he’ll give her that. And if anyone can turn stage magic into entertainment in a city so full and wary of real magic, it would be her. (That seems to be her latest career aspiration, the latest turn of her Youtube channel after her stint as a cover artist, but she laments that it’s hard to really perform when she knows her audience could easily believe she’s just cleverly editing her videos.)

(If he really thinks about it, he wonders if she, like Klavier, has some innate glamour, if at least some part of her force of personality and charisma and likeability is magic.)

“I have two more very important things to tell you,” she says over a late lunch of Chinese, because Eldoon’s isn’t an option with Vera and he apparently takes some holidays off anyway.

“Uh-oh,” Apollo says.

The lights blink between two stages of brightness; Apollo still can’t really say he’s used to Mia’s rare laughter. “Excuse you!” Trucy says. “I object! I am having a New Years Eve party here and was going to tell you to come and invite your friends but now you are uninvited! Polly is, anyway. Vera you’re still good.”

“You can’t blame me!” Apollo says. “The amount of strange things that happen with Mr Wright, I never know if you’re just gonna tell me that he’s – I don’t know, got summoned back to the Twilight Realm for a stint and you need to crash on my couch – or whatever.”

“Oh, Daddy’s just over at Uncle Miles’ office today,” Trucy says. “Probably not actually doing work.”

“Uncle Miles?” Vera asks the question that Apollo was about to.

“Oh – Mr Prosecutor Edgeworth. Polly, you met him, right?”

“Prosecutor Edgeworth? I – yeah.” So he and Phoenix are close, close enough that Trucy calls him family. That’s probably important to know, another piece to Phoenix’s wide and varied social circle. “Well uh, I guess it’s good that he hasn’t been disappeared by the fae or something.”

“Oh, we’d be warned if something happened,” Trucy says. The cryptic vagueness of that statement seems fitting somehow. “There’s no need to worry!”

Apollo wouldn’t say he was worried; rather more of a neutral expectation he has that Phoenix is someday going to flake in some grander way than he did setting up the Jurist System.

“Anyway, New Years,” she continues. “I’m inviting a friend from school, and Ema, and a couple other people she and I know, and you can invite Clay if you want, and I need your phone for Prosecutor Gavin’s number to invite him.” She extends her hand, palm facing upward, to him.

“Erm,” Apollo says.

“Or you can invite him yourself,” Trucy says. She draws her hand back. “Do you think he’ll be more likely to say yeah to you or me? I mean, I’m cute but you already talk to him on the regular, so it could go either way.” She claps her hands together. “Okay, we’re decided: you invite him on my behalf!”

Apollo wouldn’t say that they actually decided it so much as Trucy decreed it, but sure, he’ll go with it. “I thought you and Ema didn’t know each other at all when we first met her,” he says. The tragicomedy of the white powder ordeal is still, and always will be, fresh in his mind when he thinks about Ema. “How do you have mutual friends?”

“Oh, y’know.” Trucy shrugs. Apollo does not know. “She knew Daddy and Uncle Miles back when, Uncle Miles knows other people who I know, then she meets them, then we meet – the usual. Everyone ends up working in the legal system.” She pauses. “Except me.”

“I think you count,” Vera says.

“You’re co-counsel,” Apollo says. “You definitely count.”

“I guess you’re right,” Trucy says. “Magic just keeps ending up hand-in-hand with the law.” She sits forward conspiratorial, steepling her fingers in front of her face. “Now,” she adds, unable to stop herself from grinning, “the second thing. This is top secret, invite-from-me-only stuff. It’s a secret family tradition that I’m only inviting the two of you and Ema and Kay’s tagging along because she’s like a superspy and found out about my conversation with Ema – anyway.” Leaving Apollo with little time to parse that sentence – does he know who Kay is? Has he heard that name before? He doesn’t think so – Trucy holds up a pointer finger. “You are both cordially invited to The Gourdyversary.”

“The what?” Apollo asks.

“The Gourdyversary,” Trucy repeats, sounding very serious but still grinning all the while. “The Gourdy Anniversary. It’s a very very secret Wright-Butz friendship tradition that is also very very important for the upkeep of Gourd Lake Park.”

“You’re losing me,” Apollo says. “Also, if it’s this secret, and you’re busting it open to everyone--”

“Not everyone! I thought Ema would be super interested, and Kay was being stalky, like I said, and then the two of you are super important parts other parts of the Wright-Butz social circle, so I was allowed to invite you!” Her eyes narrow in concentration. “Also,” she says, with an air of recollecting something, “Daddy mentioned you specifically, Polly, said that he’d like to see the look on your face because you always react a lot to finding out new magic stuff.”

“Great,” Apollo mutters. “I cordially decline your invitation.” He looks at Vera, who is just as confused as him, blinking her huge eyes owlishly at Trucy. “Wait,” he says. “‘Butz’? Who’s that?”

“You know – oh!” Trucy laughs and falls further back into the couch. “You don’t! That’s Uncle Larry’s other last name, the one he had first.”

On one hand, Apollo can’t really blame someone for wanting to be rid of that surname, especially in a profession where names are as important as they are to authors. On the other hand, there’s a certain expectation that Apollo has come to have. “Is this a fae thing in some way?”

Vera is the first to nod. “Deauxnim was one of the names his mentor used.” It appears thoughtless now, both the way she starts to raise her hand to her lips and the way she puts it back down. Is another incentive for her to break her habit of chewing her nails how strange the thought must be that she also has claws in a different form? Could it be possible for her to chew her claws off? “The last name she used before… before she died. She gave it to him.” She picks at the eraser on her pencil, clearly for something to do with her hands. “He – Mr Laurice offered it to me, too. If I want – if I want to sell my art someday and use it for my career, I could be…” She frowns at her sketchbook. “Vera Deauxnim.”

“I’d do it!” Trucy says. “It’s a good name, Uncle Larry says, and Uncle Valant always told me that it’s good to have spare names in case you really need to give one away.” She frowns, too. “But he only had one name. He was only ever ‘Gramarye’.”

“I know it’s a good name,” Vera says. “Mr Laurice says it’s lucky. But I have my name already, and it’s my dad’s. I shouldn’t – I shouldn’t give that up. Should I?”

“You’re not giving up anything!” Trucy says. “You’re Vera Misham and you can be Vera Deauxnim, like I’m Trucy Wright and then Trucy Gramarye on Youtube because that’s both my family and I can be both. Like Prosecutor Gavin said about different faces.” She spreads her hands wide in the air in front of her like she’s spreading something out for them to look at. “We contain multitudes!”

That pulls a grin onto Vera’s face.

“I must’ve missed when you started going by Gramarye again,” Apollo says. She’s called herself Trucy the Enigma, which he knows is a reference to her father’s name, and that was as far as he knew.

“Yeah,” she says, stretching herself out further on the half of the couch she has claimed. “It was sometime after we talked about just – me, and magic, in general, all that. And I thought, it’s my mom’s name too, I want to keep it for her. So I’ll make it mean something good, like I think it should be. Like I used to think it was.”

He wonders if when she holds the mitamah she hears something like he heard music; he wonders if he’d hear it again if he picked it back up. Sometimes he feels drawn to that drawer of Phoenix’s desk, a compulsion to understand who she was – is? A dead body with a bullet in it but a soul that is still here glowing? – that he stifles again and again. He opens his mouth to say something, anything, knowing how hard it all hit Trucy, knowing that she still can’t always find the light behind her eyes, but she forestalls him with a red-tinted grin. (A lie. Her smile is a lie, and it’s magic, a fae blessing, that tells him this.)

“Man, names are so complicated,” she says. And Apollo sees red and oh, this is the limit of it, isn’t it? Her smile is a lie but while he’s seeing that, any words she says might be true, might be a lie, and he’s already going to be stuck on her expression.

(Who was it that gave him Truth? Which one of them thought that was the most important gift? Dhurke? Datz? Nahyuta?)

“And they’d be this complicated even without all the magic,” Trucy continues. She cranes her neck to look at Vera’s sketchbook. “Ooh, nice!”

(Complicated, nonmagic, Apollo knows that too. On his birth certificate, a forgery, his father’s name is Jay Justice because his stage name was Jangly and they didn’t know his real name and even Datz who had the papers drawn up seemed to realize that they couldn’t put that down and just the initial J was a little sparse. His mother’s name they made up entirely. Dhurke named her Hera, because he always thought he was funny. Apollo had looked it up sometime in middle school. Hera wasn’t even the mythological Apollo’s mother.)

Vera has Trucy’s phone balanced up on the piano, showing off the selfie, and she is sketching from it but for herself, pointed ears and big eyes. “So what is the, um, Gourd… Gourdversary?”

“Gourdyversary,” Trucy repeats, as though she is teaching them an actual word that they might need to know. “You know Gourd Lake Park, maybe?” Vera shakes her head. Apollo nods. It was in the vague area of Apollo and Clay’s high school and a corner of the park was the popular hangout for stoners, which meant Apollo wasn’t surprised when a lake monster was sighted there. (He was surprised that tourists and not stoned kids who first made the claim.) In their senior year, he and Clay camped out in the abandoned, allegedly-haunted, boat shack, or tried to, made it to about midnight when Clay swore he heard a voice, and then later lied about it to their friends and Clay’s siblings to claim that they totally spent the whole night there and nothing happened. Every few years there were attempts to revitalize the park and make it a real community location. Those never worked.

“Well,” Trucy continues, “always sometime after Christmas, this year, it’ll be the 27th that, we go, before dawn, to the lake, to make the annual sacrifice.”

“I don’t like the sound of this in the slightest,” Apollo says.

“We don’t sacrifice people,” Trucy says. “C’mon, Polly. Really.”

“I hate that you know exactly what I was about to ask because it is actually a reasonable question in these circumstances.” Apollo smacks his head into the couch and stares at the ceiling. “Sacrifice what, then? To what? The lake?”

“You have to come along to know,” Trucy says smugly. “Exact time and meeting location will be disseminated only to true believers.”

“Believers of what?” Apollo demands.

Vera has folded her knees up onto the couch and has her sketchbook propped against them, her dark human eyes peering out from behind the top of it, darting between Trucy and Apollo.

“You’ll see,” Trucy says.

-

The next morning, Phoenix enters the office and asks for Apollo’s help getting the doors so that he can carry inside a heavy grocery bag filled with twelve-packs of hot dogs. “What is this for?” Apollo asks, when he’s followed Phoenix into the kitchen (not even asking why Mia wouldn’t get the doors because he knows the answer is going to be that she rightfully thinks whatever is going on is stupid) to watch him maneuver the contents into the refrigerator.

“The Gourdyversary,” Phoenix replies. He pushes the fridge door closed only for it to pop back open and six packs spill back to the floor.

“Is this a hazing ritual?” Apollo asks. “Like, am I getting hazed?”

“Apollo, I’m pretty sure the entire Kitaki case was the universe conducting a hazing ritual on you,” Phoenix says. “Why would I bother with anything else?” He winks. “See you bright and early tomorrow, huh?”

“I haven’t agreed to this ridiculous venture,” Apollo says.

Phoenix slams the refrigerator shut with more force this time. “But are you really going to disappoint Trucy?” He manages to take one step before, in defiance, the fridge spits some of its contents back out. “Come on, seriously?” he asks, turning about in a circle and gesturing helplessly to the room at large. “Just let us do our dumb shit, Mia, c’mon.”

Apollo leaves him to fight with the ghost of his mentor, only to find that Vera has definitively declined to join in on the Gourdyversary, and consequently, Trucy is pouting at him with the most pathetic puppy eyes he has ever seen from a person.

It isn’t that – he tells her, several times, it isn’t that – which gets him, and she, seeing Truth, should know that is the truth, but she keeps proclaiming victory for her powers of persuasion – “Powers of getting people to pity you, if anything” – when he acquiesces. It’s curiosity, purely and painfully, and if it’s only painful in the moment for everything required to make it to the main gates of Gourd Lake Park at 6 am, the chances are high that it’s going to be worse next time. And there’s going to be a next time, he’s sure of it: he’s come to feel at home in an office filled with the lingering wraith of a fae queen, followed Trucy and Klavier in pursuit of grimoires and faery rings, and he’s becoming desensitized, he’s sure of it. He’s on the road to becoming a missing persons report or a cautionary folktale for future generations.

But damn if he isn’t curious as to why Phoenix “cheapskate” Wright bought more than a dozen dozens of hot dogs.

Trucy’s gifts, the scarf and hat, seem to block out the wind better than any other he can recall owning, which Apollo tells her to note down for her experimental records when he reaches the park entrance. Twilight Realm yarn, helping him resist the fae’s cold snaps. The dead brown grass is dusted with snow and a few more errant flakes drift down from the dark sky. Whenever the sun finally rises, they probably won’t see it. Trucy is waiting when he arrives, bundled up in a heavy coat and matching blue knitted hat, scarf, and gloves, and talking with two women. One is Ema, recognizable by the crinkling snack bag in her hands – “Are you aware of the time?” “Yeah, it’s snack time.” – and the dead-eyed glare from over the pink scarf Trucy apparently saddled her with.

The other, Apollo has never seen, but when she spots him, she abandons her conversation and bounds over to him, grabbing his hand and shaking it enthusiastically. “Hi!” she chirps. “I’m Kay! Kay Faraday! Super glad to finally meet you, Apollo!”

Finally?

“Uh,” he says, allowing her to wrench his arm about, “I’m sorry, but I have no idea who you are.”

“That’s okay!” She lets go of his hand and strikes a pose, one hand in the air and the other on her hip. None of her clothing seems quite to match, a puffy pink coat with a huge dark scarf, gold hair accessories, and leather gloves that look more expensive than his life. “Kay Faraday, homicide detective, Great Thief and Mr Edgeworth’s first and best assistant, at your service.”

“You lost me at ‘thief’ right after ‘detective’,” Apollo says. He can already see why Trucy likes her, though.

“Get used to confusion,” Ema says dryly. “That’s all she does for you.”

“Rude,” Kay says. She skips back past Trucy and Ema and down the park path. “Let’s go get gourded out of our gourds already!”

“I don’t know what that means but I refuse to do that,” Ema says. She doesn’t move, watches Trucy race after Kay, and then holds out the Snackoos bag to Apollo. “Kay wasn’t even invited. She was just creeping around and was unrelenting in demanding to accompany me in finding out whatever Trucy’s on about.” Apollo declines the Snackoos and she shrugs and shoves a few more into her mouth. “That’s also how she makes friends so watch it or you’re next.”

“I see,” Apollo says, even though he isn’t sure that he does. “It sounds, uh, interesting down at the precinct.”

Ema snorts. “We’re like two steps away from being a coven at this point.”

“Prosecutor Edgeworth said something like that.”

She nods sagely. “He thinks he can stop it but I know it’s futile.” She stuffs the Snackoos into her jacket pocket and pulls her scarf up against the sudden onslaught of wind. “How’s Trucy doing?” she asks quietly, eyeing the distant backs of her and Kay. “Haven’t heard from her much since October and” – a pause, a search for a tactful phrasing that she doesn’t find – “all that shit.”

And it was, nothing but a bunch of shit, no more honest way Apollo can think to say it, Ema cutting back to the heart of the matter. “Better, I think,” he says. “We had a couple conversations about her family and er grandfather that seemed like – like she’s figuring it out.” Or just coping, but even that is harder than it sounds. “And Mr Wright is spending a lot of time looking into the mitamah thing trying to deal with that.”

“That’s good.” She sounds like she means it. “If anyone can find a way to fix it, it’ll be Mr Wright. I’m sure of it.” And on that she sounds so confident that Apollo almost believes her. Isn’t that how Trucy said magic works? And what must Phoenix have done for Ema that she still has such faith in him?

Trucy stands planted in the path ahead, fists on her hips, facing them. “Hurry up!” she calls.

“Bunch of snails!” Kay yells. Ema flips her off but above her scarf, her eyes squint up like she’s grinning.

“So clarify for me how you all know each other,” Apollo says when the four of them have reconvened. Along the edges of the path the trees thin out and he can see the dark glassy surface of the water. “Through Prosecutor Edgeworth?”

“Basically!” Kay says. “I first helped him investigate cases years ago – I saved him when he got kidnapped – then there were some international incidents – I got accused of arson once and murder twice – it was a ridiculous month. And we ran into Emmy” – Emmy? Apollo raises an eyebrow and Ema stares back with unchanging expression – “and she already knew Mr Edgeworth from stuff and she helped us out. And then later working with Mr Edgeworth, I met Mr Wright, and my little apprentice thief.” She throws her arm around Trucy’s shoulders and grins.

“I thought you were my assistant,” Trucy says.

“Anyway!” Kay barrels past that statement. Trucy sticks her tongue out at her. “Then Emmy came back to work at the precinct and hang with me again, and then she met you, and here we are!”

Apollo almost keeps pace with that. He has about half a dozen follow-up questions about the arson and murder, but they’ve come up to the biggest gathering area of the part, a few vendor’s stands unattended for the weather and time of day, and Phoenix and Larry waiting by the one bare tree in the area, the bag of hot dogs at their feet. “Hi, Mr Wright!” Kay shouts. “Hi, Mr Steel Samurai!”

“You’re never gonna let me live it down, are you?” Larry asks.

Kay swings a friendly punch at his shoulder. “Nah, but I don’t let Mr Edgeworth forget about it, either, if that helps.”

“It absolutely does,” Larry says.

“So are you gonna tell us what’s going on or drag out the mystery for a little longer?” Ema asks.

Phoenix and Larry look at each other. “I’m thinking we drag it out,” Larry says.

“I already have my reputation for being cryptic,” Phoenix says, turning his head to stare directly at Apollo, “so yeah, let’s torment the kids a little longer. And besides,” he adds, stooping and wincing as he hauls the bag back up into his arms, “we’ve still got a little further to walk. We’re heading back through the woods there – there’s a little outlet to the shore that’s a little more hidden.”

“The hot dogs are the sacrifice, right?” Apollo asks. Larry gives a thumbs-up. “So then you could just answer what we’re sacrificing to—”

“Wait.” Ema stops walking. “Trucy, you didn’t tell me there was ritual sacrifice involved. You just said ‘hey, there’s something you will want to see, scientifically speaking’ and I asked to make sure it wasn’t a hoax like the last time people said there was something cool at Gourd Lake—”

Phoenix and Larry glance at each other. Trucy looks up at them both. “No,” Ema says. “No, do not tell me that the lake monster is real.”

“You proved in court that it was a hoax,” Apollo says. “You proved that it wasn’t a real—”

“I thought I proved that,” Phoenix says, thankfully not taking any time to dwell on the fact that Apollo knows his cases well enough to know exactly when this happened. “I did prove that loud banging noises aren’t the hallmark of the monster, and that Larry was out on the lake looking for a bigass balloon he’d launched into orbit—”

“The balloon was also very real,” Larry supplies helpfully. “It was the Steel Samurai. It was pretty cool until I slipped up inflating it with the air canister. Launched that, too.”

“—but we were accidentally enlightened as to a little more, when was it – a couple days after the trial?”

“The day after,” Larry says. “And already you were moping about being lonely with Maya going back to Fairyland—”

“—so I went all the way to the bottom of my contacts list and came to hang out with you at your hot dog stand—”

“You had like, three people in your phone then. Don’t pretend like I was your last-ditch social reject friend! You’re my last-ditch reject friend!”

Ema coughs. Phoenix and Larry both clearly take the cue to continue the narrative. “We were about the only people in the park, hanging out back there.” Phoenix points back over his shoulder with his thumb. They are passing by the old boat shack now, its shattered windows and unstable rotting dock, and Apollo shudders. One step on that and it’s straight into the water. “And then, just, out of lake—” He waves vaguely and purses his lips together. “There she was.”

“And that’s why hot dogs?” Apollo asks. “Because he had a hot dog stand then?”

“Yeah.” Larry shoves his hands in his pockets. “Like hey, we didn’t know if it was gonna eat us, figured we’d throw some food that wasn’t us and hope that was enough.”

“And now we come back yearly with offerings to hopefully appease her and never find out why she was sealed away in the first place. Because as it turns out,” Phoenix continues, grinning broadly, far too amused for the fact that they are discussing the potential of some lake monster to eat people, “someone’s flyaway balloon got caught on a warding sigil and tore it off. Make a hoax monster while releasing the real monster.” His grin shrinks just a little. “We found the place where the seal originally was and went looking all over the park hoping to find it and put it back, but no such luck. Not like you can dig magic rocks out with a metal detector.”

“I cannot believe that Mr Edgeworth and I solved an entire murder conspiracy here at this lake and he never told me there’s a real monster in it!” Kay pouts. She does a good impression of a moody teenager, kicking a stray rock out of the way on the path, but she can only hold it for a few seconds.

Phoenix and Larry again exchange a look.

“He uh,” Kay says, her eyes narrowing, “does know about the lake monster, right?”

Phoenix sucks in a breath through gritted teeth. Larry elbows him in the ribs. “This one's all on you, buddy,” he says with a wicked grin. “You justify yourself.”

“Edgeworth does not know,” Phoenix says, sounding pained. Kay gasps exaggeratedly loudly. “Listen, we weren’t on as good of terms back then! He knew the part that came out in court about the hoax, and then I was not exactly sure that he would appreciate me reaching out to tell him no, there’s an entire fae monster actually there now.”

“And the ten years since then where you’ve been on very good terms?” Larry asks, still grinning.

“Fuck you,” Phoenix says to him. “I’d call it eight, also.”

“I think you should tell him,” Kay says. “He could stand to have his preconceptions shaken up every so often, that there’s more magic just chilling around than he thinks there is.”

“Yeah,” Phoenix says dryly, “until he asks me how long I’ve known and I have to figure out whether he’d believe it if I lied to him. Like logically I know the best thing to do, but at this point half of the fear of telling is the ‘why did you not mention that you knew this sooner?’ so I just drag it out even longer in the hopes that we’ll all live and die before Gourdy ever makes a situation where I’d have to mention it to him.”

“That is a very bad way of handling secrets, Daddy,” Trucy says.

“Oh, believe me, sweetheart, I know.” Phoenix frowns and sighs and shakes his head. “Though this isn’t just me covering my ass right now, but I think our new Chief Prosecutor has a lot more important things to deal with.”

The path they follow through the woods is almost overgrown with the tangled underbrush and buried beneath icy dead leaves. Phoenix and Larry, when they aren’t bickering, seem to confidently know the way, leading their small troupe out onto the saddest beach Apollo has ever seen. Sand and mud mix with snow for a slick surface that slopes straight down into the water, and an old weathered sign prohibiting camping is the only apparent clue that people come out here – though why anyone would want to camp here, Apollo has no idea.

Phoenix drops the bag into the wet ground. “Oi, Gourdy!” Larry calls. His voice doesn’t echo on the open lake but seems to be swallowed up by the white fog that has begun to swirl across the surface of the water. “We’ve got your yearly sacrifices!”

“Please don’t say it like that,” Apollo says. “That makes me think you’re going to throw us into the lake.”

“If I’m throwing anyone, it’d be Larry,” Phoenix says.

Larry, standing right at the edge of the water, flips him off over his shoulder. Through the fog, Apollo can see the water rippling, before it moves, pointedly, a long white wake pushing toward the shore. Larry scrambles backwards up the slope to Phoenix and the bag of hot dogs, grabbing an entire pack but not attempting to tear it open.

At first Apollo thinks that it’s a catfish, coming up strangely above the water. Then it keeps rising out of the water, far higher than a fish could, and he sees – he doesn’t know what he sees. It has a face like a catfish with the wide, gaping mouth, the barbels, and the beady eyes at the sides of its head; but past its eyes, it has small pointed ears and an otherwise horse-like body, its skin a slimy-looking brownish-green and its mane a long tangled curtain of seaweed. “Oh,” Kay says, very softly. “Oh, geez.”

Larry tosses the pack of hot dogs, plastic wrapping and all, in an underhand arc toward the creature. It stretches its neck out and catches the hot dogs in its wide mouth, throwing its head back and appearing to swallow the package whole. “You feed it plastic?” Ema asks. “It – her?”

“I call her ‘her’,” Phoenix says, “but that’s mostly because all the most powerful and terrifying fae I’ve known have been women, and not for any actual reason. But yeah, most of the fae and fae creatures I’ve known also have not been concerned with what humans do or don’t consider edible.”

“That sounds like some people I know,” Ema says. Kay pouts, but Ema isn’t looking in her direction. Her eyes are fixed, understandably, on the horse-catfish creature.

“S’good as far as keeping litter out of the lake,” Larry says. He grabs another package to throw. Phoenix hasn’t reached for the bag but is instead grinning at the stunned expressions on their three faces. “But yeah, we just show up, feed it a couple dozen hot dogs, and then do it again next year. Simple stuff.”

“So you really did just invite us to see the looks on our faces,” Apollo says. Phoenix’s grin does not waver. Trucy grabs two packs out of the bag and tosses them each at different sides of the creature – Gourdy, they call it Gourdy, a cute name for something that is frankly terrifying – and it swings its head about, inhaling one after the other.

“Worth,” Kay says, still wide-eyed.

“You weren’t even invited,” Ema says. She frowns, staring up at Gourdy from narrowed eyes. Is this how tall horses usually are? Did it get the size right when it took this nebulously horse-like shape? “I wonder,” she mutters, more to herself than anyone. “Do you think it always looked like this, or it tried to look like things that do exist in our world as a – disguise, I guess. An attempt at one?” She glances over to Phoenix. “Because you’ve said the fae in their true forms look sort-of but not quite like humans, but that they can’t really – alter their glamoured appearances very much?”

Phoenix nods. “It’s more innate,” he says. “What, say, Mia looked like is what Mia looked like. She didn’t just decide, oh, when I pretend to be human I want brown hair. But that’s just the fae, and fae animals are an entirely other barrel of catfish.” He reaches up to adjust his beanie. “Horses. Catfish-horses.”

“Someone who can’t really draw’s idea of a horse,” Apollo offers.

“Don’t be rude!” Trucy scolds. “She’s beautiful!”

Gourdy turns one tiny beady eye on Apollo. Maybe it’s just coincidence, but he decides that he’s not going to say anything that can be perceived as insult again – he doesn’t know how smart this thing is and if it’s fae it probably has very dangerous responses to insults.

“But it’s like…” Ema pulls her phone out of her pocket and starts frantically typing something. “Was it trying to look like natural wildlife? Is it coincidence? Convergent development? How long has it been sealed here and was that before horses were introduced to North America? I have questions!”

Phoenix chuckles and Ema lowers her phone, turning her furious glare on him. “Don’t laugh!” she snaps. “This is interesting! These are real questions!”

“I knew you’d think so,” Trucy says brightly, instantly diffusing the first bits of tension. “And since I dragged you and Polly out on... “ She sighs. “You know. So I thought I’d at least drag you out to some fun magic stuff!”

She thinks she owes them, to make up for the debacle of finding her mother’s soul. Or she was hoping for something like an adventure and wanted to bring them on that. Apollo isn’t sure whether he’d count this as fun, either, learning that there’s a catfish-horse that could probably kill all of them somehow in the lake, but Trucy seems happy.

“I promise I’m not laughing at you, Ema,” Phoenix says, holding his hands up in an attempt to placate her. Apollo doesn’t see that he’s lying. “It’s just nice to see you get a bit of your spark back.”

The angry huff of her cheeks deflates instantly. “I was probably real annoying as a kid, babbling like that the whole time while you were just trying to investigate, huh?”

“Not at all,” Phoenix says, and again, he isn’t lying. “I mean, I’ll admit to having been a little terrified that if I let you out of my sight you were gonna summon something or make a bad deal trying to get more tools for investigating, but I wasn’t annoyed.”

Ema pulls her scarf back up over her nose, but Apollo catches a glimpse of the sad smile on her face as she does. Then she steps forward and grabs a pack of hot dogs, extending it in her hand to Gourdy on approach. With about a foot between its mouth and her hand, she apparently decides not to risk having her arm be swallowed, and she gives the pack a little toss to get it to its destination. “Oh,” she says, “sort of related, Lana asked about you the other day, Mr Wright. Wanted to know how you’re doing.”

“Ah.” Phoenix rubs the back of his neck. “At least with the Jurist System you’ve got something to tell her more than ‘still sucks at playing the piano’.” His sheepish expression looks a little less when he reaches the part about the piano, and Trucy laughs. Apollo again wonders why he ever bothered to get a piano for the office. “Where is she now, anyway? She got out a year or two ago, right?”

“About two years now, yeah,” Ema says. There is a rhythm to them feeding Gourdy, now, Larry, Trucy, and Ema. Phoenix seems content to hang back, and while Kay bounds forward, Apollo has no inclination to join in on this part of it. “She’s out near Reno, just wanted to get away, and she’s talking moving out to London where we’ve got some family. She’s hesitating now that I’m back, or something, but I told her just get outta here, flee the continent, go somewhere that no one knows your name, y’know?”

“Oh yeah,” Phoenix says. “I’d – had that option, honestly, but—”

“But you didn’t do anything,” Ema interrupts. “And she kinda did… most of it.”

“Do you think Gourdy would let me pet her?” Kay asks.

“I would not try it,” Phoenix says. Kay’s shoulders slump.

“She was gushing about the Jurist System when we talked about it, though,” Ema continues, with only a brief roll of her eyes at Kay’s question.

“I can’t imagine her gushing,” Phoenix says.

Ema shrugs. “It’s – a big thing, y’know, to her. To all of us, but, she’d said – she’d said that maybe it could’ve helped stop Darke, put him away before even more people died and…” She looks from her phone down to the hot dog bag. Its contents are mostly depleted but she grabs one and hurls it with a surprising amount of force. “Good for cases like that. Common sense, no evidence, maybe now justice gets served.”

Apollo can’t say why the name Lana, Lana Skye, seems familiar, but he knows with the expression on Ema and Phoenix’s faces, he’s not about to ask.

Kay whispers something to Trucy and, both giggling, Kay hefts the bag and whatever remains in it onto her shoulder and flings the entire thing at Gourdy. Its mouth doesn’t look wide enough to take in the entire bag, but it does – the bag is there and then gone with a wet sucking sound in the time it takes Apollo to blink. He suddenly wonders if when Klavier complains about Vongole eating everything he has, he means everything, takeout containers and all.

“That’s, um…” Ema taps a finger against her chin. “That’s something. Kind of impressive. Kind of horrible!”

“And scientifically fascinating?” Kay prompts.

“Absolutely!”

“That’s all we’ve got,” Larry says to the beast, showing it his empty hands, like he’s sending off a dog that has gotten its share of treats but continues begging. “Good talk as always, Gourdy. See ya next year.”

Gourdy tilts its head, seeming to carefully survey Larry. It trots forward and for a horrible moment Apollo thinks someone is going to be eaten but Gourdy bumps its square fishy head into Larry’s face and makes an arc back into the water. Its tail is the same as its mane, stringy green and brown weeds with sand and grit tangled up in them. The water around it barely ripples as it enters, doesn’t splash when the creature goes from being half-visible to gone, and the wake moving away from them is weaker than the one that arrived. The arc of its hoofprints left in the snowy sand are backwards, like it left the water where it really just entered.

“Very slimy,” Larry says, wiping his face with his jacket sleeve. “Sticky, slimy, would not headbutt again.”

“But you’re friends now!” Trucy says. “Officially!”

“You never knew what its skin was like before?” Ema asks. She has her phone out again for notes. Kay peers over her shoulder. “Or beyond what you could see that yeah it’s probably fishy. How long have you been doing this again?”

“It’s… Shit.” Phoenix shakes his head, laughing again. “Ten years, now.”

“Plenty of time to have observed and thought about some of the questions on my list.” Ema lowers her phone and stares at Phoenix. “I have questions.”

“My answer is gonna be ‘I don’t know’ to most, but go for it,” Phoenix says.

“There’s gotta be somewhere open for breakfast, right?” Larry says. “Right? Who’s up for that?”

“Eldoon’s!” Trucy says brightly.

“Oh no, no no.” Larry holds up his hands and takes a step back from her. “Eldoon’s for breakfast reminds me of being broke as hell and I’m not about that.”

“That mean you’re paying wherever we go?” Phoenix asks dryly. “Since I got the hot dogs and you’re worth your weight in faery gold now.”

Apollo looks at Ema. Ema glances out of the corner of her eyes first at Larry, then Apollo, then Kay. Kay looks back and forth between Phoenix and Larry.

“Metaphorical gold,” Larry says, jabbing a finger at Phoenix. “You can not phrase it like that, so they” – he points a thumb toward Ema and Kay – “can not be terrified.”

“I’m super down for breakfast, if nobody else is gonna say anything,” Kay chirps.

“You not gonna eat garbage for once?” Trucy asks. She says it with a grin so big that Apollo would find it impossible to take offense if she directed those words or similar at him.

“Hey!” Kay protests. “It’s cheap! It’s cost-efficient!”

“Like you have to worry about that,” Ema says, elbowing her. “Like hell won’t be frozen before Mr Edgeworth lets anyone threaten your salary.” Kay elbows her back, apparently harder, because she staggers. “Anyway,” she adds, looking more at Larry and Phoenix again, “Interrogating you both over breakfast sounds great.”

“Do you ever worry that bringing more and more people in on these secrets makes them untenable?” Apollo asks Trucy. It’s probably a better question for Phoenix, but Ema has already begun the process of cornering him. “Just – showing off magic to us all?”

Trucy shrugs. “Maybe?” she offers. She hooks one arm through Apollo’s elbow and the other through Kay’s. “You and Ema already know so much other stuff.” For a moment her eyes are sad, downcast, and then she turns a sharp look on Kay. “You, though—”

“Guilty of whatever you say,” she laughs.

Trucy shrugs again, jostling Apollo’s shoulder too. “But also we’re like family, and family should get to know some of the weird fun secrets that we have.”

Again Apollo wonders at her definition of fun. But family. Or like family. Like-family is nice to have.

Phoenix, over Ema’s head, raises an eyebrow at her. “Hey Truce,” he says. “Does that mean you’re gonna run off and tell Edgeworth without warning me?”

“I might,” Kay says, snickering and nudging Trucy, who bumps Apollo with the force of it.

Phoenix snorts. “Yeah,” he says. “I know you would, but I’m not sure he’d believe you.”

[counterintuitivecomics]

Art Commissions are OPEN!

Want a special made-to-order piece of art that you can give to your loved ones this upcoming holiday season? Or maybe you just want to treat yourself to a drawing of your DnD characters and your real-world pets! Well, I am ready and willing to make you some art, so drop me a line at laurelleake at gmail dot com and let’s make your dreams come true C:

Further details and examples are under the cut!

First, pick your subject! Then gather any reference images for me to use - ie photos for people and animals, and screencaps, drawings, photos of clothes, or short descriptions.

To estimate the cost of your commission, choose one option from each section and add them all up for a final sum!

Pick the # of figures: 

 $5 for the first figure

+$3 per additional figures

Pick the size of the figures:

+$5 bust

+$10 half body

+$15 full body

Pick the art style:

+$10 sketchy pencil

+$15 b&w lineart

Pick any additional coloring/shading:

+$5 colored lineart

+$10 simple digital color

+$15 pencil shading (1 color)

+$20 watercolor (1 color)

+$25 pencil shading (full color)

+$35 watercolor (full color)

I count a piece of b&w lineart or pencil drawing that’s in one color (like Smokey Quartz and Sasha Velour above) just the same as if it was black/grey, because that doesn’t take too much effort to change! Colored lineart means more complicated selected colors like the purple nubbin creatures. If you want a background, we can talk and figure out how complicated you’re thinking and how much it’ll cost ($5-15 or so).

Some examples:

The red sketchy drawings of Sasha Velour are 2 Figures ($8), one a Bust ($5) and one Half Body ($10), both drawn in Sketchy Pencil ($10) with no extra shading/colors, for a total of $33.

The first image of Smokey Quartz above is 1 Figure ($5) that’s Full Body ($15) drawn with b&w (or in this case just blue) Lineart ($15) with no shading/colors, so it’s a total of $35.

The last painting of my friend April as a sea nymph is 1 Figure ($5) that’s a Half Body ($10) in Pencil ($10) with Full Color Watercolors ($40), for a total of $65.

Please let me know if you have any questions at all that I can help with! Contact me at laurelleake at gmail dot com, or drop me a message here on tumblr if that’s easier.