#but like rotating in my mind like how to come at it from different angles/starting from themes etc

[planet4546b]

been wip brainstorming lately cause i need a new story to pick away at and it’s fun like. being a writer who is also an adult and can come at things from different angles. cause so many of my wips are from when i was like 14-18

[lemon-lime-behavior]

Do you have any tips for drawing noses? Sorry this is out of nowhere but I'm wanting to improve on my art, specifically the faces, and it's always the nose I find myself struggling most with.

I really struggle w making it fit the face if that makes sense? Every time I try to add it it just throws the whole face off, especially the eyes, not to mention how to make different nose types and the angles </33

I love your art style so bad, it's so smooth and satisfying to look at and the way you draw noses like it's nbd (and anatomy in general like damn) baffles me so I was just wondering if you maybe had any tricks or not, Ty either way for sharing your art in the first place <33

@extravagav Well I can try! First off thank you very much, I often feel like I still have a very long way to go in regards to proportions and anatomy so I really appreciate your kind words <3

Hokay, so, noses. I do love noses. To start off when it comes to drawing noses I'm afraid I'm going to have to give you the most annoying advice in the world which is just to practice a lot. Find a lot of pictures of noses in a bunch of different shapes from a bunch of different angles and just draw them until your brain melts out of your ears. Pay particular attention though to the nose as a 3D object!

It's of course trickier to do than I'm making it out to be but the more you practice at imagining the nose as a 3d physical form the easier it becomes to make a nose model in your mind that you can rotate like a microwave.

This is my personal very very basic understanding of the nose's construction:

it's like three circles and a taco shell.

Okay so now that you've got a basic understanding of the nose's construction, how to put it in the middle of the god-dang face??

So the funky thing about noses is that they tend to change shape the least out of all our facial features when we're making expressions. Our eyes change shape, our mouths move, our eyebrows, our cheeks, our jaws, they all go all over the place. the nose, however, tends to be pretty stationary and doesn't deform much (save in one important way I'll get to later). So because of all this, and here's my biggest piece of advice when it comes to making the nose fit in the face, I like to draw the nose first! I do a very loose head construction, draw the nose, and then sort of "hang" the rest of the features off of it:

Two very different expressions, same nose!

Now when it comes to noses interacting specifically with the eyes the greatest thing to remember is that the part of the nose that sits between the eyes sticks out farther than you might think, and will likely be obscuring one of them, the extent of which depending a lot on the angle and how pronounced the nose bridge is.

for someone with a pretty flat nose bridge you'll be able to see most of the eye except in a more extreme angle, while someone with a protruding ridge might obscure the eye entirely. but the nose will likely be interacting with at least one eye if we're not facing the character head on. Really making your brain think in 3d is gonna most helpful here.

Finally! The nose being expressive! So the main way the nose plays in to expression is by wrinkling. the muscles that pull up your top lip and the muscles that pull down the middle of your forehead are almost all connected to the nose, so the nose tends to develop a lot of wrinkles whenever brows are furrowed or teeth are bared.

Adding those wrinkles can add a lot of impact in the expression! And not just angry ones neither:

Sooooooooooooooo yeah! noses! They're weird and they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and they can do a lot to add character to a face and they can also make you want to tear your hair out in big clumps! I'm still learning myself when it comes to noses (and most other things) and I'm faaaar from a master at it, but I hope I've been able to provide at least a little bit of help. If you do use my advice going forward please let me know! Good luck!!!!! (And here's all my nose "headcanons" for the strawhats. The ones who actually have human noses, anyway):

[godbirdart]

Looking at your recent commissions, those backgrounds are soo pretty!! Do you have any tips for backgrounds? I always struggle with them :>

aAA many many thanks!!

backgrounds can absolutely be a struggle but they don't have to be! they just require a little more creative planning~!

whether it be a commission or a personal drawing, if I'm building an elaborate art piece i focus on establishing the background First.

the background is the stage for your character! planning the background first will make it easier to tailor the character's actions and how they interact with the environment around them.

planning the background first can be the difference between your character standing awkwardly front and center with the setting going on behind them, or actually participating in their environment.

if i'm super stumped for background ideas, i browse stock image sites to get inspiration. sometimes it helps to doodle on an image to generate some ideas - kinda like you're playing with JPEGs like dolls.

that said - while i'm pinpointing WHAT i want to draw, i keep the ideas loose. i don't want to focus on the itty-bitty details until i've got the overall aesthetic and layout in mind, as i might get inspired to add something in later!

THUMBNAILING

if you're planning a big piece it can be helpful to break it down into something bite-sized before you go all in and start lining or painting. these are "thumbnails" - fast little sketches that establish the scene in a way that doesn't consume a lot of time or effort. it's also great as a little perspective exercise as a treat.

here i decided i want to draw a character walking home in a back alley street. with these photo references in mind, i can plan a layout and how the character will act in the scene. is this a candid shot? are they posing cutely? are they looking down at us in a tense way? there are many ideas to be had!

after you've chosen the layout / vibe for your idea, you can scale up your thumbnail to your preferred canvas size and start fleshing out the details. be sure to keep referring to your reference images to get additional ideas, such as storefronts, items, props etc!

3D MODELS

If you're trying to create a unique environment that photo references simply cannot help you visualize, 3D models exist! This gives you that ability to rotate / scale things for better visualization. Clip Studio has a vast catalogue of 3D models to download For Free that you can fiddle around with. i know there are many 3D builder sites out there as well, though i've never made use of them so i'm afraid i cannot recommend any off the top of my head. hell, you can even use the Sims game to design a setting and go from there!

also if anyone is going to come into my house and say 3D models are cheating: they are not. using a 3D model to better grasp an angle or get a better idea for perspective is not cheating. using 3D models to help plan the environment in your art is not cheating. they are no different than brushes; these are tools made to HELP YOU. use them!

PERSPECTIVE

perspective and angles can make a HUGE difference in the art piece. there's nothing wrong with static long shots! if that's what you want to draw, do it!! there's no right and wrong here!

but if you're finding your work to be a little robotic and stiff, slap an angle in there. consider an overhead view. these same techniques are applied to photography and film! nothing wrong with wide shots, but every once in a while it can help to throw in a dutch angle.

if there is one note i'd like to leave off on, it's that your backgrounds do not have to be 100% accurate-to-life to be Good. unless realism is something you're really striving for in your style, don't feel compelled to nitpick every brick and leaf in your art. us artists can tend to over-prune our work until our art looks a little bare and soulless. flaws can give your work character, and that's often a lot more appealing than how accurate the scale ratio between background building A and building B are [again, unless you WANT to go for that realistic look then you can fuss over those details all you like].

i hope this helped a little! MY APOLOGIES FOR MAKING IT SO LONG AH

[perfectlysanexd]

How do you do your Final Fantasy edits?

The hard way, my friend. No AI is used here, I do it all by hand. 🥰 I assume you mean the screenshot manipulations I create? I'll try and give a simple summary... First, I boot up Remake on PC and use a "free camera" mod(you can find the links to the mods I use on my archive pages for manipulations, which is on my pinned post) to take a couple screenshots that I think will work well together. Sometimes I change my mind and choose a different one. It can be hard to match the camera angles and lighting, so sometimes I have to mess with that later, as well. But it's easier if they fit together from the beginning. We'll take my current WIP as an example. I started with these two screenshots:

I open them in the free program GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), which anyone can download at gimp.org. Then the first thing I do is choose the base image. In this case, they're both facing the same way, so I choose to flip Sephiroth(you can't really do that with Cloud easily because of his earring, and his hair is less symmetrical). Since the camera was closer up on Cloud, and he's the smaller one, I usually choose Sephiroth's to be the base image. With that decided, I roughly cut Cloud from his background and paste him onto Sephiroth's image as a new layer. Then I position him, resize him, rotate him, whatever I need to do until he seems to be in the desired place, which ends up looking like this: (I ended up adding snow for this preview, so it would look more complete than it is when I showed it to my server, haha)

If you look at Cloud, you can still see a thick outline of his old background around his head. Once he's positioned properly, it's time to remove the rest of his background(I use a size 10 eraser with 100% hardness and zoom in about 5 times). Then I need to think about where they're connected, and how to make them look like they're touching, as well as layering to make them seem intertwined, as if they're truly occupying the same space together.

I cut away some of Cloud's shirt, and the rest of that effect will come with shading later. If I wanted Cloud even closer, I would make a duplicate of Sephiroth and erase his background, so that his lock of hair would appear to go over Cloud's face. I could also make it semi-transparent, so you could see the outline of Cloud's face through his hair. You can see I have some small game defects to fix, such as Cloud's hair clipping through his ear. I leave those tiny details for later, typically. Sometimes, because of their height differences, I have to "rebuild" missing parts of them from scratch, such as I did for this other manipulation:

It's a delicate process that's mostly the clone tool(to keep the textures) and some freehand drawing, but I don't have an art tablet, so I use my mouse for everything, which can be quite challenging. I've had a lot of practice from translating doujinshi, where I'd erase the words, rebuild the missing part of the image, and then place the translated words over that spot.

In any case, I decided I wanted more out of this manipulation than just leaning against each other. I wanted Cloud to be reaching up towards Sephiroth, and perhaps for Sephiroth to be pulling him closer. To do that, I needed pictures of their hands/arms like so:

I've taken hundreds of shots, so I looked through what I had first, but it wasn't the right angle, or was the wrong outfit for Cloud, so...then you open up those images and cut out the parts you want. After that, you work on positioning and things like that again. I haven't finished with that part yet, so it looks a little awkward. (And when you're doing these kinds of things, color matching is very important, but that's a bit advanced.)

I'm not fully satisfied yet, so I'll probably remove the rest of the background from the arms and then mess with the placement. As for Sephiroth's hand, I intend to thread it in Cloud's hair, so Cloud will need to be duplicated in order to create that layering effect, as mentioned previously. Which should end up looking similar to this one:

(I had to draw in most of Cloud's hand because I didn't have the camera mod back then, and the Sephiroth shot was provided to me by Coeurlwhiskers.) After that, it's a matter of shadows and highlights, remaining details, and finishing up the colors, etc. It's a long and difficult process, and can take many hours to complete, depending on how ambitious I get with it. Most of that stuff would be a much longer tutorial, and I did used to do some actual artwork a long time ago, so I...kind of know what I'm doing?? I probably do a lot of stuff the hard way(like not using layer masks) because I just don't have the time to teach myself more than the basics. 😅I know it may seem daunting, but it's really fun! I hope I managed to answer your question properly. Feel free to ask follow ups~

[jq37]

How do you rank the Rat Grinders in terms of "most want to be friends" vs "die"

Honorable Mention #1 spot goes to Lucy Frostblade who seems like an absolute sweetheart. Anyone who's doing the Cinderella thing w/ the local rodent population is worth befriending in my book. Hope you're resting in peace now girl. You would have loved Zayne Darkshadow and Edgar.

(1) Oisin: OK listen, I am aware that all Rat Grinders must be regarded with some level of suspicion but come ON. I want so so badly for him to be exactly what he's been portrayed to be--a hot buff nerd who is easily flustered by Adaine. Fig got a wizard girlfriend so Adaine should get a wizard boyfriend. That's just equity. Don't you believe in equity Brennan? Joking aside, I think it would be really nice for Adaine to have another someone in her life who thinks she's great and tells her that since she spent so long deprived of that and is just recently starting to get that from people. Anyway, would love another wizard paramour in the Bad Kid rotation.

(2) Buddy: Hear me out. This dude absolutely needs to be deprogrammed a bit but so did Kristen when we met her. And his heart seems to be in the right place. I think he could be a good friend if they approach this from the right angle/are interested in flipping him. Also I went to college in Alabama, alright? His southern charm got me.

(3) Mary Ann: I haven't really gotten a solid read on Mary Ann yet. Is she suspicious or worn down or just Like That? No way to tell yet. But she hasn't actually done anything wrong yet so she gets this spot.

(4) Ruben: I'm more suspicious of Ruben this week than last week after his performance turned about to be a secret ritual, and he's also consistently been shitty to Fig which I don't like. But I'm suspicious abut how much of that is his natural energy and how much of that is related to the rage god. He wasn't emo when he started, remember? He was all smiles and braces and acoustic guitar. People can just genuinely change for the worse but I dunno. Might be something there and the Bad Kids ally list includes SEVERAL people who should be in jail right now so you know. Open mind.

(5) Kipperlilly: Kipperlilly is frankly just more fun as an antagonist than as an ally lol. Like even outside of the point that they hate her to the point of refusing to properly say her name so friendship was never an option, it's just not the most fun route.

(6) Ivy: Choke on grapes, bitch. I hope she ends up in hell with Penelope. This is Fantasy High. You can be a murderer but you can't be RACIST.

Interested to hear anyone else's takes if their list is different!

[memorycycle]

post for @wuggen asked to see the code i wrote for simulating a realistic car engine so here

its built in godot btw

the script extends rigidbody3d cus im actually just moving an invisible sphere along the ground with a car basically stapled to it

did you know car engines put out different levels of torque at different rpms which affects like basically everything about the car. the torque curves are actually way more complicated than this, they kind of look like ramps with a hump in the middle followed by a dip followed by a bigger hump. but im just doing something that looks more like a perfect mound here. it works fine

i found the equation power=torque*rpm/9549.3 online from a forum where some guy posted the results of a dyno run on his porsche. the number 9549.3 is definitely specific to that porsche, so its probably a variable id want to be able to change later i guess

theres 2 big scary chunks of code here written by someone else which youre looking at in the pic above. i dont know shit about rotating and transforming 3d shapes so yea thanks guy on youtube

^this is basic shit but let me say one thing having the layout of accelerating with up on the right stick and braking with down on the right stick makes racing games so much more intuitive to play because suddenly it all just becomes one button that like the player understands in their mind as just "movement" and say for example when the player is coming up on a turn and they point both the steering and throttle joystick towards the turn whats happening is that they steer towards the turn of course but also they decelerate because the right stick is no longer pointed fully up in the Y direction, its Y value is now something like 0.7 instead of 1.0 because of the angle the stick is pointed in, that extra 0.3 went to the X direction , meaning the player automatically decelerates the car based on the angle of the turn without even having to think about it. if the turn starts to become more hairpin the angle is so great that the Y starts becoming negative and now braking is happening instead of acceleration automatically. its actually beautiful how simple and effective it is

^heres my cool function that does basically everyuthing related to the rpm. different gears rise and fall at different rpm speeds and it even simulates the effect of engine braking caused by releasing the throttle when shifting gears. it has so many fucking magic numbers from me just fiddling with it for like years trying to get the acceleration and shit to feel just right

^this ones mad complicated i commented every line

awesome gear shifting stuff its so fucking yummy because if u look closely in the video at the top u will notice i never use the brake to slow down. i downshift gears which causes causes the car to lose speed because the power it was giving out is less efficient now due to the lower gear ratio which also means the rpm jumps up to redline speeds which lets me instantly shift back up to retain some acceleration i cant tell u how satisfying it is to drive this thing and it feels like a real car

^and thats it thats the last function. 212 lines of code honestly pretty small tbh. theres still stuff missing like for example when a car is turning the rpm starts increasing at a slower rate due to things like centripetal force traction rolling resistance weight transfer weight load engine load steering angle friction but im probably just gonna end up calculating it only based on velocity * steering angle or something lol. if anyone made it this far i contratutle you i dont think anyone who isnt as obsessed as i am with this stuff could ever read this whole thing so thank u

[ahmadjonesblog]

Scene Recreation Exercise: Her (2013) by Spike Jonze

Original scene (starting at 0:59)

Recreated scene

Production documents:

For this final project, the team worked together to recreate a scene from the film Her. My contribution to this recreated scene was my work as producer (booking equipment), costume and prop department (searching for and purchasing the clothes for the character) and camera operator.

During pre-production on this project, I worked closely with the director to oversee his vision for the scene. We had a pre-production meeting in which we discussed the set dressing and costuming of the character, while I booked the equipment required for the scene. This close working relationship continued into the actual production itself, as I talked to the director discussing how I should move the camera in order to make it exactly like the scene.

The director, Alfie Malley, was fantastic to work with. Despite the constant challenges with shooting the scene, Alfie continuously made sure the team worked together so effortlessly. While he took charge of the production, he still allowed others to have their ideas, not being afraid to do multiple takes on a single shot in order to get it most like his vision.

Along with this, I worked closely with the DOP, Arthur Moss, who was also extremely capable. He assured that the lighting was accurate in all shots, breaking each light source down and coming up with creative solutions for how to give the same warm glow effect with the cold lighting equipment that we had on hand.

[A shot using the 35mm lens, with the lighting done expertly, and because the original scene was done with the same lens, it looks extremely accurate]

Without such a good team on board, we would not have been able to face the challenges on set. These challenges consisted of the size of the location. While the flat we filmed at achieved the appropriate effect we got from the scene, it was incredibly small, and we had to squeeze into locations, moving around furniture to create a completely different floor plan for a shot. At some instances, we had to move the sofa, for the dancing shot, putting the chairs in the background and rotating the sofas so they weren't in shot.

Another challenge we faced while shooting was the lack of variety of lenses. We only had the Sigma zoom lens 35mm due to the others being scheduled for maintenance, and while this worked for some scenes that were clearly shot with the 35mm, there are very clear discrepancies with some wide angle shots. With the use of all of available lenses, we would have been able to recreate the exact focal length of each shot, however without this we had to use techniques like false perspective and lighting to make it seem more accurate.

[A shot of the wide angle, without the lens the scene feels more constricted than it should, with warm lighting and the changed floor plan we did all we could to give it the same effect that the original scene has]

With all these challenges in mind, I believe we did a fantastic job at recreating the scene in shots and tone. The closeups especially worked so well, in lighting and in effect. I am so proud of how well the team did in the end.

[magpiemirroring]

It varies, but usually what I see is pretty clear even if the focus is soft. Sometimes I can focus and up the quality. Sometimes I get high quality stuff without calling for it. Sometimes things come in different styles, including cartoony or animation if that’s.....what my brain thinks is appropriate or what it associates with something? But a lot of it is involuntary and may depend on what my brain has to work with!

I get involuntary imagery a lot. So if you say something that makes a funny image or sequence in my head because I took it too literally, I may laugh or get distracted because of it. The downside is that if you say something that brings up a gross or disturbing mental image, I may picture that with way more clarity than I want! Sometimes these are full scenes. Sometimes these are just objects in a void. This also happens when I am reading. I don’t tend to get full movies, but I will take what info I am given and build up images of characters and setting and certain moments. (Sometimes I will stop and flesh something out a lot if I am trying to decide how I might illustrate it.)

But like, if you say “Picture a apple” I can start with a pretty generic red apple and then give it more depth and change it from that to a Red Delicious, to a Granny Smith to a Honeycrisp (and thinking of each of those as I type this causes the corresponding apple to flash into my mind at least briefly) and then I can hold that apple in my mind and rotate it and look at it from different angles. But this is also because I have looked at a lot of apples from a lot of angles and my brain has good info on apples. 

But, for me, high level detail seems to take more brain power. So while I might be visited by sudden detailed imagery or might choose to play with it, most of the time things are soft focus, especially if I am not really focusing on them. So like, I can picture a person in a room, but it’s rare for me to get “normal vision” detail on the whole room. I can choose to alternate my focus but I lose detail on everything else.

(Hilariously, though, I am somewhat face blind. Faces are really hard for me to picture and bring into focus as other than a jumble of features that won’t quite stay put. I may have an impression of people I know well but cannot bring their faces to mind enough to like describe them well or draw them.)

Hey. People who can "see" pictures in their imagination.

Do you see, like. Images exactly as you do with your eyes, I full color with depth and everything?

Or is it like the after image you get from looking at something under bright light, then turning the lights off? Just the strongest concepts of a thing?

Or flickers, like wax that melts and unmelts and reshapes itself in the static of a dying TV?

Or something else entirely?

Just curious

[ohmystaxk]

Goodbye, My Dear Stranger (2)

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Pairing(s): (Jake Lockley x Reader) (Steven Grant x Reader, Marc Spector x Reader later on) [Pre-Moon Knight show]

Chapter Character(s): Steven Grant.

Content/Tags: Reader having creep tendencies, somewhat of a date (?).

Word Count: 3.3k

Summary: After meeting Jake, you decided to go to the Museum with a friend. There you meet someone that looks like Jake, but isn't him?

Two days had passed since the night you had met Jake at the café. Unfortunately for you, he had not come back again. Truthfully, you didn’t expect him to. Yes, you had hoped he would come by, order himself the same coffee he had last time and ask how your day was. Perhaps he would check up on you and ask if you had encountered the same guys from last night again. You hadn’t. Perhaps Jake’s little play pretend had worked.

Even when you wanted an interaction with the man, something told you it would not happen again. At least not anytime soon. He seemed rather reserved, since he had barely spoken to you. But then again, he seemed like a lonesome kind of guy. Yet another thing he seemed to share with your elusive neighbor. 

That night, when you got home, you noticed no lamps were on at your neighbor’s apartment. The following days had been just the same. You started to think that perhaps he had pieced the puzzle together and realized it wasn’t the first time you were a creep that spied on him. Just the thought made your insides turn and your palms sweaty. Young adult spies on their older neighbor. You could see the headlines in your head. 

“You there?” You blinked a couple of times. A face appeared in your field of view, accompanied by a waving hand. It was Deanna.

“Sorry, what?” You asked her and she tilted her head to the side.

“You were gone for a second there. You alright?” She placed her bag on the bench next to you. Deanna turned her body towards you as she sat down on your left.

“I was just thinking. Did you say something?” Deanna nodded with a short sigh.

“Sure did. I’d like to go down to the gift shop if you don’t mind. We can also go down to The Green Wall, see if Martha will get us something to eat after we are done here, yeah?”

Today you hadn’t worked at The Green Wall, the name of the coffee shop. And so, Deanna had asked to go to the Museum down the street from the shop. Neither of you had even been there and wanted to check out the new exhibit they’d been advertising with massive banners outside the building. The concept seemed fun and it wasn’t like you often went to those kinds of places.

The two of you wandered and looked around for about an hour and half. The place was beautiful, tall white walls, some ceilings had skylights allowing for better visibility, and the floor had polished marble tile on the main area. They had a lot of Egyptian artifacts and replicas, paintings, and displays that showed videos of reconstruction of what Egypt could possibly have looked like back in its glory days. It was nice to go out and do something differently than going home and working on your laptop, or watching shows for hours.

“Yeah, sounds good.” You answered. “I might get something from the gift shop too.” Deanna nodded with a smile. 

“I saw some cute plushies on our way in. Come on.” She stood up and you followed.

The two of you made your way to the gift shop as Deanna showed you some of the pictures she’d taken when exploring the place. They all looked good and she was trying to decide which ones to post on social media, debating between two pictures that looked the exact same.

So when you walked in, you both were staring at her phone. You pointed at one that had a replica of The Great Pyramid of Giza, the angle and the lighting worked great. When Deanna got herself entranced by her phone, you decided to take a look around, the first thing in front of you was a rotating metal display with postcards.

Most of the pictures were of Egypt, others of the Museum, and a couple of London. You took one in your hands, the photo had the pyramids with a low sunset in the background. It was beautiful. You looked at the rest of the photocards that might catch your attention, it was a voice that caught it instead. You looked through the display and towards the check-out counter.

At the register was none other than Jake. No hat and no low lighting to obstruct his face from the world. You felt your gut flutter with sudden surprise, and reached for Deanna who was still on her phone.

“What?” She looked at you when you tapped her arm.

“It’s him.” You simply said, your eyes wide. You felt your cheeks flush as you looked towards Jake who was with another client at the moment.

“Who is it? Is it the guy from the bad date?” She asked with interest.

“No, the guy from Green Wall.” Deanna’s eyes widened with disbelief.

“One of the fucking dickheads?” You looked at her with a frown.

“What? No. The one that helped me. His name is Jake.” Her expression softened.

“Oh so that’s the lad, yeah? He seems pretty nice and all. Won’t you go and say hello, then?” Deanna shoved you gently, an encouraging smile on her face.

“You know I can’t.”

“Of course you can, love. The man over there doesn’t look like he bites, go on then.” You sighed and tightened your grip on the postcard.

You started walking towards the counter once the clients had left. Your hands grabbed three things at random and made your way towards him.

Once in front of him, he looked up at you. He had a friendly smile on, it seemed genuine and that eased your nerves. In reality, he had a rather pretty smile; warm and inviting.

“Hello there, you found everything?” He said and then you frowned. You remembered him having an accent, just not an English one.

“Y-yeah.” You then placed the items on the counter, not looking at them. 

He nodded and started scanning. He looked at you through his lashes. His eyes were soft, not deep or distant like last time. There were eyebags under his eyes, his hair was disheveled, and he had a shadow of a beard. He looked completely different from that night. A hot mess you would dare to say. 

“Did you enjoy the tour?” He spoke and you blinked.

“We didn’t take the tour, we just explored by ourselves.” He nodded and placed your items in a bag.

“What were your thoughts? Having, well, not much to go on from.” He then leaned forward just a little, like he was about to hear a secret.

“I liked it. I’d rather do things at my own pace. That way I get to enjoy things and take the moment all in.” He seemed to light up as you said that, a smile formed on his lips again. He had very nice lips.

“That’s good to hear. I hadn’t thought about it that way, you know, the whole no-tour thing.” Yes, Jake didn’t have an English accent. It was then that your eyes fell on his name tag, ‘Steven’.

“You should try it, it’s always nice if you enjoy doing things by yourself.” He nodded again, and he stared at you for a couple of seconds.

“I will. It seems fun. Not like I don’t already do it.” He smiled, he liked to smile, and not forcefully. It was something different. Steven was different. And you liked that. The man was attractive despite his current state.

“Would you like to go out for coffee or something later?” You felt the air leave your lungs the second you uttered those words.

This wasn’t like you. You would never ask a complete stranger out for coffee, or for anything really.

“Sorry?” He seemed just as shocked as you were with a slight tint on his cheek. You opened and closed your mouth like a goldfish.

“I’m sorry, I don't know why I said that. That was so inappropriate, I’m really sorry.” You pull out your wallet and look at the register, the total displayed for you. You placed the amount on the counter.

“No, it’s just. I wasn’t expecting that. Has never happened to me before.” He confessed to you, he seemed genuinely surprised and that made you feel less guilty of pretty much having thrown yourself at him.

“I have never done that, if that helps.” You gave him your name, he smiled and said it out loud. It sounded nice coming from him, you realized.

“Steven.” He pointed at his name tag. “I would love coffee. Tea preferably, I have to admit.”

“Right, well, there’s a coffee shop right down the street by the plaza on main. It’s called The Green Wall.”

“Oh, I know that place! I go there sometimes before work, their tea is truly something else.” His smile got bigger, showing his teeth.

“Well, what about tomorrow? Seven p.m.?” When you asked he nodded enthusiastically.

“It’s a date.” He said and then his smile dropped. “Is it?”

“Sure.” You gave him a smile and he handed you the bag.

“Well then, see you tomorrow night, yeah?”

“Yeah.” You offered him one last smile before slowly turning away. He had smiled before, yet it didn’t seem to compete with how giddy he looked as he smiled at you. 

You waited outside the gift shop for Deanna to finish browsing. Every so often, you would stare back into the place to see Steven, taking the time into paying attention to his mannerisms, the way he would emote. You felt like a freaking stalker, but it was impossible for two people to look that alike, right? Your only interaction with Jake had been brief. But, even then, you could tell he was nothing like Steven, and Steven seemed nothing like Jake. Two polar opposites in the same city, in very close proximity to each other. 

Jake had mentioned going back to work. You recalled his attire. Either the man liked dressing like somebody's old grandfather who drove cabs for a living, or he actually was a cab driver and dressed as such. Then, there was Steven, a very tired-looking gift shop employee at a Museum. Neither of them seem like the owners of a big flat in downtown London. Unless they had other jobs, just like you did in order to provide for your way-too-small flat. Perhaps, the two were twins and were raised differently, Jake coming from overseas and staying at Steven’s.

Once you and Deanna had made it to Green Wall, it was already night time. You had been shopping around the plaza and getting coffee was the last stop for the night. The two of you said hello to Martha and Rose, the ones working today’s closing shift. The Green Wall ended up getting busy today, people came and went as there weren't many empty seats. Luckily Deanna had snatched a table the second a couple had left.

The door swung after a few minutes and eyes shifted towards the noise it made, more of a reflex than sheer curiosity. Steven had wandered in, his eyes looked at the busy place as he tried to make his way inside. He stood by the register as Martha was taking another order, he fidgeted with the strap of his bag, his shoulders  were upwards and closer to his jaw, and his eyes gazed around, as if to busy himself. Steven looked nervous, perhaps even overwhelmed.

“Isn’t that tomorrow’s date?” Deanna spoke from beside you.

“Yeah. His name is Steven.” She frowned at your response.

“Wasn't it  Jake?” You shook your head.

“I think Jake and Steven are brothers.” 

“Then why ask him out?” You shrugged.

“He seems nice enough. That, and he’s cute.” Deanna shoved you playfully as she pointed at Steven with her chin. You got the message and stood up, making your way towards the man.

Once the two of you were at a good distance, she spoke up gently, not wanting to startle him. 

“Hey there, stranger.” Steven turned to look around, his gaze landed on you.

“Hey, a bit busy, innit?” You nodded.

“More than usual. Probably has to do with that new exhibit of yours.” He frowned, tilting his head in confusion. “The museum.”

“Oh, right! Yeah, of course.” He slapped his forehead playfully, looking around. “At least there’s good business today. Place deserves it.” Steven looked back at you.

“Thanks. We work very hard to make everything as good and fresh as possible.”

“Do you own the place?” His eyes widened. You laughed, slapping his shoulder gently.

“No, no. I work here, just not today as you can see.” Steven nodded slowly as you spoke, his mouth forming an ‘O’ as he let out a quick laugh. “Do you want to sit down with me? While you wait, in case you have somewhere else to be.”

“Only place would be my flat, I think Gus can wait a bit.” Steven said and you raised an eyebrow. “My goldfish, he has one fin.”

“Like Nemo?” Steven laughed at that. A hearty laugh that showed you his teeth.

“Just like him, little fella is very special to me.” You couldn’t help but laugh back.

“I bet he’s one lucky little guy.” Steven stared at you again, he seemed to do that a lot. You were not used to it. Then, his eyes softened and creased at the corners as he smiled. He had pretty lashes, long and thick, his eyes doe-like as the warm lighting shined on them.

The sound from the music on the speakers faintly seeped through your ears as time went by.

Take me out tonight

Where there’s music and there’s people

And they’re young and alive

“Yeah, he is.”

Driving in your car

I never, never want to go home

“Are you two ready to order?” Rose spoke suddenly. The two of you turned towards her. From the way she grinned at the two of you, you knew she was having a laugh. You rolled your eyes at her.

Because I haven’t got one

Anymore

“I’ll go and sit down.” You placed a hand on his back gently before walking towards the table you were sharing with Deanna. 

Deanna eyed you with a smirk once you sat down. “What was that?”

Driving in your car

Oh, please don’t drop me home

“Rose decided to interrupt us.” You responded.

“I know she did. Poor lad had heart eyes and all of that.” Deanna started gathering her things. You raised an eyebrow at her and she scoffed. “You’ll need another chair, unless the man offers his lap for you.”

“Thank you, Deanna. Let me know when you get home.” The woman bent down gave you a quick hug. You hugged her back.

Because it’s not my home, it’s their home

And I’m welcome no more

“Sure thing. Don’t forget to tell me how things go, yeah?” You nodded at her, she waved at you as she left your table. She walked through the dining area, waved goodbye at Martha and Rose, then she left the shop.

Steven came back a few minutes later. He smiled nervously as he gestured at the now empty seat. You nodded at him.

“Did your friend leave already?” He asked as he sat down, placing his bag on his lap. He looked around one more time.

“Do crowded spaces make you anxious?” You asked him with curiosity as you took a sip of your drink.

“No. It’s just that I’ve never stayed long enough to take a good look at the place.” He was still looking around, his eyes filled with awe.

“You seem to like it.” You placed your drink down. Once again, his eyes found yours.

“I do. It’s rather pretty here, and it feels cozy.” He admitted to you with a sheepish smile.

“I think so too, but this isn’t better than the museum.” When you said that, you had said it in a playful way. However, he shook his head with a frown.

To die by your side

Well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine

“The museum? No, no. I love the museum, yes. But the employees are much nicer here, I have to admit.” When he said that last sentence, he grinned at you and you rolled your eyes with a smile.

“Don’t think that’ll get you a free drink, sir. Are your coworkers not nice?”

“Most are, some barely notice me. Then there’s my boss Donna who makes me stay overnight almost every night, she also calls me Stephen.” He gave you a tight smile, his eyes shifted to your hands when your fingers rubbed the side of your drink in a distracted manner.

“You can always stop by and fill out a job application.” You offered. 

“No, no, it would be a mistake to hire me here. I would end up setting the place on fire somehow.” The two of you laughed. The conversations around you seemed to dissipate as you both kept on talking.

Take me anywhere, I don’t care

I don’t care, I don’t care

“Well, I think you would make a great barista, you just haven’t tried.” As soon as you said that, you heard Martha call out an order, to which Steven turned around immediately.

“That’s mine. I’ll be right back” Steven got up from his chair, placing his bag down on the chair and walked towards the counter.

Steven behaved like he was dreading something would inconvenience him along the way. His shoulders held tension while he dug around one of his front pockets. As he received his drink, you saw Martha smile at him and he gave her a quick nod. You didn’t know if he smiled back, but the slight quirk on his lip as he turned around to walk back towards you, told you he might’ve.

And in the darkened underpass

I thought oh, God, my chance has come at last

The soft light of the café showered him. Brown skin glowing a honey gold, soft messy curls that seemed chocolate brown instead of black, and full lips with a hint of pink. His clothes, loose and big, hid his frame under layers of funky prints and fabric. 

By the time he returned, the tension on his body was gone. His long lashes shined under the light and his eyes seemed to twinkle when he smiled nervously at you.

“Everything alright?” He spoke, taking his seat once again.

But then a strange fear gripped me

And I just couldn’t ask

Then it hit you. 

This was the man who you’d been spying on for the past month. The man who you would unconsciously await to see turn on his light at night, and then you’d watch him read by the table. Unbeknownst to him, you had formed a routine around his schedule, a parasocial behavior with a man you’d never met before. Something a creep would do. Something you did.

You couldn’t talk to him. You couldn’t get to know him. 

“Yeah, sorry.” You grabbed your bag. “It was nice having a little chat, Steven. I have to go now. I was out all day and I have to work tomorrow.”

“No worries. Do you want me to walk you to the tube, or to a cab maybe?” He was about to stand up, but you shook your head.

“It 's alright. The stop is not that far from here. And you just got here. Enjoy your night, Steven.” You stood up and felt your heart tighten when Steven spoke.

“Thank you, love. Be safe on your way home, yeah? I’ll see you tomorrow?” He was smiling so warmly at you.

“I’m afraid tomorrow will be just as busy. Maybe another day. I’m sorry.” Steven shook his head this time.

“Don’t be. I understand now that I see how packed it gets in here. I hope we get to know each other more another day. Stay safe.”

Oh, there is a light that never goes out

There is a light that never goes out

“Goodbye, Steven.”

That night when you got home, you moved your workspace away from the window and back to your bedroom. From the gap between the drapes, you saw a light turn on from his apartment. You pulled the fabric shut.

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[bloody-bee-tea]

Low

Inspired by this art on Twitter, even though it has nothing to do with Mingcheng.

When Jiang Cheng opens the door and comes face to face with Nie Mingjue—and only Nie Mingjue—he fights the urge to slam the door in his face.

“Where’s Huaisang?” is the first thing out of Jiang Cheng’s mouth and he scolds himself for it, for being rude like this, but Nie Mingjue just renders him stupid whenever he sees him and usually it’s Nie Huaisang’s job to make sure Jiang Cheng maintains a sliver of his sanity.

But Nie Huaisang is not here and so Jiang Cheng’s sanity flew out the window the second he laid eyes on Nie Mingjue.

It’s a problem, Jiang Cheng will admit.

“He’ll be late, but he didn’t want me to wait for him,” Nie Mingjue says with a slight grimace. “I can—wait outside?” he asks as if Jiang Cheng would honestly kick him out.

“Don’t be stupid,” Jiang Cheng grumbles and steps aside to let Nie Mingjue in. “As if I would let you just wait outside.”

He might get increasingly stupid when he’s around Nie Mingjue, which more often than not leads to him being rude, but he’s not that rude. And besides. Just because Jiang Cheng can’t form a coherent sentence when he’s around Nie Mingjue doesn’t mean he doesn’t like to look at him.

“Thanks,” Nie Mingjue awkwardly says as he steps inside and Jiang Cheng realizes that for all that he knows Nie Mingjue just as long as Nie Huaisang, he can’t say they are friends.

They know each other and they have spent an insane amount of time together but Jiang Cheng wouldn’t call them friends.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t have friends that make his heart beat wildly away in his chest and that make his stomach swoop with just the hint of a smile and that shut his higher brain function off with just a look.

“You want something to drink?” Jiang Cheng asks, walking away towards the kitchen, where he gets back to preparing the food for that evening.

They’ve been doing these movie nights for years by now, always rotating between their places, and today it’s Jiang Cheng’s turn, so he has to provide dinner while Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue bring snacks and drinks.

It’s a tested method.

“I brought drinks,” Nie Mingjue says and lifts the bag he carries in his hand. “I’m good.”

“Alright,” Jiang Cheng shrugs and tries to pretend that he didn’t just got hot under the collar watching Nie Mingjue’s biceps move like that.

He sharply turns away, but he still hears Nie Mingjue open a can and Jiang Cheng does his best to ignore the fact that Nie Mingjue is probably watching him.

That thought is not doing anything good for his heart after all.

It works for about five seconds, until Nie Mingjue decides to pull out one of the chairs from the kitchen table and sits down and then Jiang Cheng is hyper-aware of his every movement.

“You’re just going to watch me cook?” Jiang Cheng snaps, because it’s what he does when Nie Mingjue makes him nervous like this and he can see Nie Mingjue shrug from the corner of his eye.

“I doubt you’re going to let me help,” Nie Mingjue replies and Jiang Cheng sighs.

He’s right. If it’s Jiang Cheng’s turn to cook, then it’s Jiang Cheng’s turn to cook and he doesn’t actually like it if people interfere with his work.

He knows what he’s doing in the kitchen and he doesn’t need any more hands ruining his carefully set out plan.

Instead of giving Nie Mingjue a verbal answer, he simply huffs, which causes Nie Mingjue to chuckle and Jiang Cheng to die on the spot.

Someone as tall and broad and buff as Nie Mingjue has absolutely no business being this adorable too, and Jiang Cheng curses every god he knows for making Nie Mingjue this perfect.

And unattainable for him.

“Well, you’re right with that,” Jiang Cheng finally says, because he fears that otherwise he’s going to choke on all of his feelings and he tries to concentrate on the food in front of him.

He is done with most of the preparations, but Nie Mingjue is a little bit early and so Jiang Cheng didn’t actually yet get to the cooking part of dinner.

“You mind if I stay here?” Nie Mingjue asks him suddenly, as if he didn’t already sit down anyway and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes.

“Bit late to ask that now, huh?” he gives back but then he shrugs. “I’m not actually going to ban you to the living-room and make you sit alone until I’m done or Huaisang shows up,” he then tells Nie Mingjue. 

Nie Mingjue settles a little bit more firmly into the chair, clearly absolutely ready to watch Jiang Cheng get to work on the frying and stirring part of dinner and Jiang Cheng is surprised to find that his hands are shaking.

He can’t remember the last time Nie Mingjue was watching him this intently, without any distractions around and Jiang Cheng is not dealing too well with it, it seems.

So instead of getting started immediately, Jiang Cheng takes his time to get his apron out. There’s a split second where he thinks that Nie Mingjue will make fun of him for it, and Jiang Cheng is not actually sure if he could take that, but then he shakes that off. 

The apron was a gift from his sister and there are little puppies on it and Jiang Cheng always wears it when he’s cooking. He’s not going to change that for Nie Mingjue, incoming teasing or not.

Jiang Cheng’s shoulders are already tense when he puts on the apron, but to his surprise, Nie Mingjue stays quiet. 

He dares to dart a look over his shoulder, and Jiang Cheng is surprised to see that while Nie Mingjue is still watching him, he’s also clenching his jaw and keeping quite the tight grip on his can.

Jiang Cheng frowns but he can’t bring himself to ask, doesn’t want to find out if there’s something in what he’s doing that’s upsetting to Nie Mingjue and so instead of opening his mouth, he ties his hair up.

He likes it tied up and out of his face when he actually cooks and it’s a practiced enough move that it barely takes him a few seconds to be done with it.

There’s a beat of silence when Jiang Cheng takes a breath to center himself and to sort out all the steps he has to do now in his head but then suddenly Nie Mingjue speaks up.

“I swear I’m gonna marry you some day,” he whispers, just low enough for his voice to still carry over to Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Cheng is pretty sure he wasn’t meant to hear this, but he did.

And it freezes him right up, even as he goes hot all over.

Jiang Cheng is pretty sure that his brain is shut off because he can’t form a coherent thought, but something else takes over. He turns around, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms in front of his chest, as he eyes Nie Mingjue, clearly looking much more composed than he actually feels.

Nie Mingjue’s face is white and his eyes are big and Jiang Cheng realizes that maybe he didn’t mean to say that at all.

But it’s out there now, and Jiang Cheng is actually going to roll with it.

No matter how nervous he is, and how fast his heart is beating or how sweaty his hands are and how much he’s screaming inside his own head.

“Excuse me? Don’t you think you’d have to ask me out first?” Jiang Cheng asks him and he congratulates himself on how put together he sounds.

Even though he feels like he’s going to vibrate right out of his skin with excitement.

Nie Mingjue’s eyes go even bigger at that question but he keeps quiet for a worryingly long time. Long enough that Jiang Cheng starts to shuffle his feet and he wonders if it’s too late to cite an emergency and simply run out on Nie Mingjue.

Before Jiang Cheng can decide to do that though, Nie Mingjue moves.

He slides off the chair and before Jiang Cheng can panic that maybe he isn’t doing well and this is a medical emergency, Nie Mingjue goes down on one knee.

Then, Jiang Cheng panics for entirely different reasons.

“Mingjue,” he gets out, his voice now definitely coloured with panic but Nie Mingjue shakes his head.

“Wanyin,” he says, and Jiang Cheng breathes just a little bit easier when he hears the slight tremor in Nie Mingjue’s voice. “Will you go out on a date with me?” Nie Mingjue asks him and it takes Jiang Cheng a moment to realize that it’s not actually the marriage question, like he feared.

But it seems to be a moment too long.

“What the fuck is happening here?” Nie Huaisang suddenly says from the doorway and Jiang Cheng jerks at hearing his voice.

Nie Mingjue doesn’t fare much better, because he shoots upright fast enough to nearly topple over his chair.

“I leave you alone for five minutes, to give you time to figure out your shit and you propose?!” Nie Huaisang screeches and this whole scene is ridiculous enough that Jiang Cheng starts to laugh.

It seems to dissipate the tension entirely, because even Nie Mingjue chuckles, while Nie Huaisang continues to look scandalised.

“No one proposed, Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue finally says, but he can’t quite seem to bring himself to look away from Jiang Cheng. 

“You were down on one knee!”

“It was situational,” Nie Mingjue tries again, still looking at Jiang Cheng, who is slowly blushing with having Nie Mingjue’s attention for so long. “I was actually asking him out.”

“And what did he say?” Nie Huaisang asks and he sounds so eager that Jiang Cheng has to laugh.

“I didn’t say anything, cause then my boyfriend’s annoying younger brother ruined the moment,” he says, keeping his eyes on Nie Mingjue, too, and so he sees the moment the words register with him.

“Boyfriend, huh?” Nie Mingjue asks and it only takes him two steps to cross the room and put his hands on Jiang Cheng’s waist.

“Boyfriend,” Jiang Cheng nods, trying to sound much more firm than he feels, because his heart is definitely trying to beat right out of his chest at the moment and he feels jittery with happiness.

“I like how that sounds,” Nie Mingjue lowly says and he leans down, brushing his lips over Jiang Cheng’s cheek.

“You better,” Jiang Cheng gives back, angling his head to give Nie Mingjue better access. “Because there’s no getting rid of me now.”

“As if I would ever want to,” Nie Mingjue breathes out and then finally, finally claims Jiang Cheng’s lips in a kiss.

“Is this what I get for plotting this?” Nie Huaisang asks from somewhere behind them and he sounds so thoroughly scandalized that Jiang Cheng has to break the kiss to laugh against Nie Mingjue’s lips.

“Your brother is a little pest,” he conspiringly tells him and Nie Mingjue only nods, too busy peppering Jiang Cheng’s face with kisses.

“You’re both so rude,” Nie Huaisang complains and Jiang Cheng can’t be sure, because he can’t bring himself to look away from Nie Mingjue but he thinks Nie Huaisang just stomped his foot. “Still, if one of you goes ring-shopping, I want to be asked to come along.”

“You’re getting way ahead of yourself,” Jiang Cheng tells him over Nie Mingjue’s shoulder, his hands gripping Nie Mingjue’s waist hard when he lightly nibbles on his jaw and Jiang Cheng has to admit that his knees might just give out at any moment now.

“Mh, I don’t think he is,” Nie Mingjue says into his skin. “I’m definitely going to marry you some day.”

“Mingjue!” Jiang Cheng can’t believe what he’s hearing, but he can’t deny that a tiny part of himself already wants to say yes.

He hopes the day is not too far off in the future.

Link to my ko-fi on the sidebar!

[mathysphere]

All righty, let’s watch some sausage get made!

I managed to dig up all four of the WIP pixel art files for the Chemistry Sampler, with the oldest dating back to Dec 2018-- three years ago, now!-- and with them, loads and loads of old sketches, rejected ideas, and half-finished panels. So if you’d like to come with on a lengthy-- lengthy!-- dive into the process of making a 16-part sampler, click below!

(I’m not kidding, though! This got long as hell!)

I’m going to go through the sampler panel-by-panel, in the order they were first conceived, but that is not at all how the actual design process went. One doesn’t work on a single panel, finish it, and then move on to the next-- instead, it’s all working on every panel all at once, jumping from here to there, trying to make each piece look good on its own and also look good as part of a whole. I also started and stopped working on the sampler at least three different times over the years, which meant even more changes as my style and abilities altered over time. But for ease of organization, I’ll be taking things one panel at a time. So, from the top-! 🎬💥

The Test Tubes were the first panel sketched, with no specific color in mind, and the original composition didn’t change a pixel all the way to the end! The colors, however, changed constantly: I remember for a while they were mostly neutrals, but once I knew I wanted to have a yellow pencil, orange bottle, and some brown cookies in the other panels the colors of the test tubes changed to match.

When I went to stitch the sampler, this was the panel I started with: since it uses thread from every single color family in the sampler (except for the two blues), I figured if I could find threads that worked well together here, they’d look good everywhere else, too.

The Microscope was the second panel sketched, and it didn’t change too much, either. The very first sketch was wicked flat, and imho flat = boring, so I rotated it around to put it at an angle and give it some more depth. I later decided to put a little molecule model (ethanol-- looks like a cute little puppy) next to it to help fill out the space. There is also a full-panel picture of another molecule model elsewhere in the sampler, but by the time I decided to include that panel this one was both already completely designed *and* completely stitched, so it was a little late to change the molecule to something else. And anyway, I like the little guy! So I’m glad he stuck around. :)

The Periodic Table was the no. 1 absolute must-have for a chemistry sampler, but it also posed a unique challenge in that it was the only part where the size was out of my control: if I made each element 2x2 squares they wouldn’t all fit in the panel, so they had to be 1x1-- but that left a huge amount of empty space around them. My solution: placing the table inside a classroom, as a poster.

The first classroom draft doesn’t read well (is that a kitchen sink??) and the second one was even worse. I liked the idea of including larger squares for the elements, but drawing them that small and at odd angles made them hard to identify even as pixel art, and as a general rule of thumb fine details are always *less* distinct in the stitched version than in the digital pattern. Version three is much better: you can see multiple workstations and stools, making it clear that it’s a classroom space, and the repeated diagonal lines give it a nice sense of dimension. That’s always a good thing. 

(Confession: on its own, I like the rainbow color palette better than the final one, but aside from a tiny bit in the volcano panel this was the only part that had any green at all. Next to all the blue and orange panels the green looked out of place, so for the sake of the larger, cohesive whole it had to change.)

The PPE was the reason this sampler ended up so blue! I liked the first sketch, and the first colors, so I started using the same two sorts of blues to sketch out other panels. Made a few small changes to this one later-- added another glove-- but nothing major.

The Molecule Sketch also didn’t change much, except that it started off *really* messy and was constantly tweaked to be a little cleaner each time I came back to the sampler after a break. Turns out it’s hard to draw a pentagon on a square grid! In the first sketch younger me tried to use antialiasing to smooth out the corners-- see the pale grey parts along all the diagonals-- but nowadays I would consider that extremely bad pattern design. Yeah, it’d make the lines look better when stitched on white fabric, but on dark fabric the pale parts would stick out like a lightbulb and the whole effect would be ruined. 

I also eventually added a little backstitching detail, since somewhere between 2018 and 2020ish I finally got over my irrational fear of designing with backstitch. Baby steps! 🙏

The Boiling Flask started life as a closeup shot of a bunsen burner flame + some tiny bubbles, but after a little while I figured that the water was more interesting than the flame. Plus the silhouette is clearer!

We’ve already seen where all the blues came from, which means it’s time to bring in the oranges!

Jupiter in a Bottle is, along with the PPE, one of the two panels that set the tone for all the others. There were about three seconds where I thought I’d try for a pale, crystalline effect for it, but I quickly switched to something brighter and rounder. At that point the chem sampler looked roughly like this:

…so, ah, not very promising, but I remember thinking ‘well, if nothing else, at least I’d have fun stitching the goggles and the orange one”. So since I was sure I wanted to keep those two, all of the other squares ended up being designed around them and borrowed a lot of their colors.. In the end I decided to go all-in on the oranges and blues, and, well, I think it worked out nicely! :)

This little bastard was The Reagent Cabinet, and it’s one of the panels that eventually got cut! It was a very early introduction, and stuck around almost all the way to the finish. I didn’t ever like it, though: it’s not very interesting, not very beautiful, and if I had stitched it it would have been the *only* full-coverage panel in the entire sampler, and so would have looked very out-of-place and heavy compared to the rest of the design.

Still, it technically fit the color scheme, and technically the theme, too, so I didn’t actually have the guts to chop it until I went to export the image and start stitching. At that point, dreading the idea of laboring over an entire full-coverage panel of a design I hated, I finally deleted it and started stitching everything else anyway, just with a giant empty hole in the corner of the pattern. I figured “well, I may be burnt out on designing for now... but once I’ve been stitching a while I’m sure the spark will come back, and I’ll think of something to fill the space”. And so it did, eventually!

The Cookies, however, are a panel that I’ve loved from the beginning 🤎 I wanted to include a nod to ‘everyday chemistry’ alongside the more ‘serious’ designs; a carryover from the math sampler, in a sense, with its bees and shells. 

These particular cookies are based off of my Mom’s chocolate chip cookies, which are kind of sort of like this recipe, but better somehow, and made out of old Y2K surplus that she bought off a disenchanted ex-prepper. Somehow the 20-year-old powdered peanut butter just hits different...

The Billowing Liquid was a effect that was, at least at the beginning, too far above my pay grade: I knew I wanted ‘some kinda sick-looking swooshy liquid effect, like in VFX reels or something?’, but that’s, uh, not a very concrete concept. I ended up realizing I was thinking of an ink-in-water effect, so from that I was able to look up reference vids and start sketching out some actual shapes. I added a little fizz on top, too, for extra effect-- and I think it did end up looking the way I originally envisioned it, even if I didn’t have the words or the skills to capture it back then! 

Another cut panel! This one’s the Alchemical Equipment: the idea was that hey, the modern science of chemistry is descended from the mystical practice of alchemy, so wouldn’t be cool to put a nod to alchemy into the sampler? Also alchemical symbolism is wicked cool. ⁽ᴬˡˢᵒ ᵃˡˢᵒ ᵐʸ ᶠʳᶦᵉⁿᵈ ʰᵃᵈ ʲᵘˢᵗ ᵍᵒᵗᵗᵉⁿ ᵐᵉ ᵗᵒ ᵖˡᵃʸ ᴺᵃⁿᶜʸ ᴰʳᵉʷ: ᶜᵘʳˢᵉ ᵒᶠ ᴮˡᵃᶜᵏᵐᵒᵒʳ ᴹᵃⁿᵒʳ ᵃⁿᵈ ᶦᵗ ʷᵃˢ ʳᵉᵃˡˡʸ ᵍᵒᵒᵈ⁾

I tried a couple different takes on this panel, and I still like both of the last two a lot, but in the end they didn’t fit at all with the rest of the sampler, so! For the good of the whole ✂

The Atom is one of the few where I still had my very, very first sketch saved! 😆 Normally I don’t save these-- I’ll either start cleaning up the sketch on that same layer, or will delete the sketch once I’ve got a first draft started-- but not for this one, or for the next two with it!

After the jump from sketch to first draft, this panel didn’t change much: I just added in the nucleus and made some of the curves less jerky and more smooth.

The Glassware Collection was sketched at the same time as the atom, so you can see its original iteration too! The biggest challenge here was to figure out how I wanted to handle the transparency of the glass: all the other glassware in the sampler was filled with something or other, and I debated whether or not to fill in these beakers and bottles too, with either plain white stitches, or grey, or both. In the end I stitched a bit of white shine on each bottle as a highlight, and left the rest of the space empty. Straight up, on my fabric it’s hardly visible at all, but I made some mockups and found that if someone were to stitch this same panel on black or dark fabric, then this version would look way better than one with the bottles filled completely with stitching. So it may not make my version look any better, but hey, for somebody else someday it will. :)

The Volcano is a kid’s chemistry classic! I toyed briefly with the idea of doing one of the other classic childhood experiments: red cabbage pH tests, or the rubber egg, but none of them are as instantly recognizable as the vinegar-and-baking-soda volcano, I think. 

The Element of Carbon is a spinoff from that one rejected periodic table idea! This panel was one I made right after returning to the project after a long, long break. To get back into the swing of things I went through a bunch of my old discarded prototypes, and discovered that there were some good ideas hidden in there: they just needed to be fleshed out more, and given their own space to breathe.

Also, in the time since I started this design I finally learned how to do a french knot! At long last, I’m a real cross-stitcher 🏅

The Bunsen Burner was made right before I started stitching the sampler: at that point I had the color scheme just about figured out, and most of the panels most of the way done, and there were only two or three spaces left with no design or a soon-to-be-cut filler design. At that point I reached out to a friend of mine who had studied chemistry in college and asked them for some feedback, and they helped me tighten up the design a lot! This is when the alchemy panel finally got the chop, and in its place the bunsen burner came back: now zoomed all the way out, for easy visibility, and with a pretty new shine effect up top.

The Centrifuge was the other panel my friend recommended-- and Evan, if you’re reading this, thanks a million! This one was an easy breezy design to make: pleasant shapes, an interesting subject, and lots of ovals. I do love a good oval.

This panel and the one before it came together *fast*: I was trying very hard to lock down final designs so I could lock in final colors so I could lock in a final arrangement so I could finally, finally, start stitching. I figured if I could get the sampler to the stitching phase then the ball would at last be rolling fast enough that I wouldn’t be in danger of abandoning the project again-- a pretty bold hope, given that I was more than two years and several abandonments in, but hey, I was still hoping! 

One problem: this is the point when I finally cut the reagent cabinet, so, while I *had* finally gotten to the stitching phase, I was still only stitching 15/16ths of a pattern. Enter:

The Molecule Model

The final panel! I had hoped to come up with a suitable final idea in the process of stitching the sampler, and it took a hell of a long time to get there: I believe I had all the panels started, and a few of them finished, even, by the time the idea for this one rolled around. I was working, then, with a fixed position for the panel, along with a fixed color palette, but if anything those constraints made designing it easier. I just picked an interestingly-shaped molecule (theobromine, found in chocolate and tea), built it in MolView, spun it around until I got a cool angle, sketched it, and bam! Final panel complete!

…minus a mountain of tweaking, of course. All the other panels had had months to get their rough edges ironed out, but for this one I just kept the file open as I stitched, fixing problems as I found them. I would not recommend it-- you have to unpick a lot of stitches anytime you decide ‘actually, it looks better one square to the left’!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, did it work? Did it all come together in the end? God, I hope so!

But you know, I think it did. :)

Thanks for reading! ✌

-Geri

P.S. it’s not about any specific panel, but you see how the early drafts have colored borders, while the final version has white ones? At one point I was using a draft of the sampler to mess around with GIMP’s content aware fill, trying to make some glitch art, y’know? And the results were pretty cool, but also overwhelmingly line-y:

…and I was hoping to try and make glitched-out versions of the individual panels, instead. So I took the version I was experimenting with and deleted the borders from it, and from that discovered two things: 

One, that it was a huge improvement to the composition and should absolutely be carried over to the official version of the file, and

Two, that it did not make the content aware fill work any better, and in fact made the results look worse.

This postscript has a happy ending though: turns out if you take any individual panel and use it to tile a plane then you can select a chunk of it, use the content-aware fill, and then pick out the best bits to make your own glitchy sampler :)

✌!

[thetruearchmagos]

Oh my god I am late to this but~~

Okay, this, this all some very impressive stuff. There's a ton of angles I've been looking at this from, real 'rotating in brain like microwave' hours, so if what comes below is a little scatter shot that's why.

Alright, going to the pre-list stuff first;

Very, very happy to hear the prompting was useful! I do recall Hadria from the whole 'channel blocking' thing with the Espalans, nice to see they'll play a role themselves in the course of events. As for any Espalan operations, just my two cents, but I'd probably say that they wouldn't have had the neutral Hadrians as the main target of whatever incident they engineer, though they'd still wind up dealing a degree of collateral damage. Maybe something like a violation of Hadrian neutrality by some form of 'covert' action that was meant to hit an enemy target within Hadria's territory, or wider 'sphere of influence'.

------

Now, on to The List, and my small number of comments-which-mostly-aren't-critiques! I will warn you though, they are not well formatted...

Right off the bat, kudos to just getting that list to exist. Organising one's thoughts on the actions of a dozen nations across a whole continent is not easy, and you've done a good job of it.

We've been keeping this whole discussion fairly naval-focused so far, so I'll stick to that here. First off, I'm imagining that what you mean by the various Fleets 'moving' north, south, etc., was them moving into different bases and anchorages? Just a small thing, but I'd love to see them marked on your excellent maps! I have a strange fascination with naval bases and the stories and myths surrounding them, which might have something to do with how cool I find the name 'Scapa Flow'.

One thing I was curious about was how you separated the Espalan Western and Eastern fleet 'points' on the List. Did they embark on their [pre-planned?] movements at the same time, or did those of the Eastern Fleet really take 'that' long to begin? Also, about those negotiations, this feels like a great time to bring up the Montreux Convention so I'm going to do just that. Interesting international treaties like that are always fun, or so I say, and seems like one would fit here, if that's appropriate! Or if it's the sort of matter in Mortal Sparks that doesn't get mediated on in some sort of international forum, that'd be interesting as well.*

Ahh, no better way to start a war than blowing up a harbour! Just ask the British about Copenhagen, and the Danes weren't even at war yet. A more contemporary example would be the Imperial Japanese Navy's raid on... Port Arthur!** Not quite as successful as what would happen a few decades later, but that's what you get for not inventing naval aviation. Here in Mortal Sparks, at least, it might make for an interesting tactical scenario to play through.

Hmm, battlecruisers, you say? An interesting choice, I think, since the doctrine and theory behind that most controversial class of major surface warship depended heavily on the operating environment of the Royal Navy of the era when it devised them. Not bad ships, though I'm biased towards them on beauty alone, but there's a reason the theory didn't catch on all that much. Also, reminds me that I've been meaning to ask you what were the sorts of battleships that existed in MS, at least in a 'pre- vs post-Dreadnought' sense, and if a 'revolution' of that kind ever happened. So... I guess that question has now been asked? No hurry though, shame on me for just chucking that in there.***

Ah, Kostha! I think you've mentioned their Navy before, but now I think something's come to mind with them and that whole northern theatre with the Royal Republic and Ritanians. If I'm reading your maps right, and I'm sorry if I'm not, it seems like Kostha's main coastlines are all within the 'Polar circle', along with that body of water through which they can access the other two? If that is the case, well, life is going to suck for all involved. Naval operations in arctic conditions aren't untold of, but they are rare; I'd point to the Battle of the North Cape in WW2 as an example, and one which shows how very bloody hard it all is. Also, I was wondering to myself mostly how that kind of geography would impact the strategy and strategic policy of Kostha itself, what with their lack of a warm water port, along with the rest of their economy and society. Might have something to do with Naval stuff, might now, but either way I don't think there's a reason to dwell on it right now.

Oooo, you've got two battles in mind, now do you? Neat, twice the fun, more or less. Wonder how they go, and if and how the former influenced the latter, if you'd like to elaborate on it. Also interesting to think about all the stuff that'd go on in between battles... and I just remembered that I've returned the book I borrowed about Jutland. A shame, it had a pretty interesting part at the end which analysed how the respective fleets faired once they'd returned to port, and over the course of months repaired themselves with different degrees of success and speed. Anyhow, that was a strange tangent, moving on, and I'll end off by saying that I am very curious to know how either battle goes, and eager to help any way I can!

Well, well, well! It seems the Espalans have gotten what they wanted, but when I read that next to the first part of your post I'm a little sceptical. Very curious about the no doubt fascinating machinations behind all that, and I wonder if perhaps the Eastern Fleet would wish they hadn't been allowed to pass at all.

------

*Also kinda like how it works in the 12 Worlds. International bodies and treaties and such there are... complicated, but I've mostly got it down that the UC can be a little stubborn when it comes to giving a rat's ass about them.

**Did I get you there? Probably not, but I thought it might be funny. I am writing this eepy so my humour is buggered.

***Ah, crap, now that I'm done with this I realise I had another question that I can't fit in now. Basically, is there a particular reason you chose to specify 'Battlecruisers', and do you mean that Kostha sent a force of only BCs, and all of them they had, to battle?

Was doing some light reading on a defence blog I follow, when they mentioned a certain piece of naval lore which reminded me of Mortal Sparks, and our discussions on 'non-Big War' naval activities a nation might take.

This actually sparks a whole thought-train of mine in the course of the war! So I've been thinking a lot about Hadria and its relationship with the other nation-states during the war, and how Hadria's actions are really very important to the outcome of the war. Mainly being, due to Hadria breaking with Bresia and allowing the Republics to gain an early upper hand, the war is drawn out far longer than it might have been if Bresia had Hadrian support, or at least true neutrality.

I think as the war drags on, Hadria is undergoing its own shift in politics, and national sentiment is shifting to support the Republics over the Imperials. As a result, I think that something like this could happen between Hadria and the rest of the Northern Continent, as a horrible miscalculation on Espala's part that helps propel Hadria into the war.

Also, because I like making lists, I have decided to make a list of the major war events in the opening stages. Feel free to critique.

Cascade of War Declarations & Troop Musters

Espalan Western Fleet Moves North

Kostha Invades Niladal

Ritanian Fleet Moves South

Espalan Eastern Fleet is Stalled by Hadrian Negotiations

Sag Nel Raiders First Attack on Bresian Harbors

Kostha Battlecruisers and Royal Republic Fleet First Battle

Gresian Republic Invades Kostha

First Battle Between Ritanian Navy and Espalan Western Fleet

First Battle Between Kostha and Gresian Republic Armies

First Battle Between Royal Republic and Aslos

Second Battle Between Ritanian Navy and Espalan Western Fleet

Espalan Eastern Fleet Enters Strait of Hadria

[tallbluelady]

The Desk

1.6k. Part 1 to Carbuncle!

Rowan watched the waterwheel turn as she sat waiting outside the Carpenter's Guild. Her mother had given the suggestion that she should get any commissions started for Urianger as soon as possible. With how rarely they all were at peace, she found it to be prudent.

"The Timbermaster's ready for you, Mistress Argentas," the secretary said.

She nodded, took one last look the waterwheel, and hoped she could explain her vision to Beatin.

He smiled at her as she walked in. "So the Rowan-child is getting married, is she?"

"It appears to be so, Guildmaster," Rowan smiled back. "Thank you for lending your time to me."

"Oh, anything for Alfinne's daughter." Beatin waved his hand dismissively. "What did you have in mind?"

"At the very least, a desk and chair." She pulled out a few pages from her folio. "I'm coming to the guild because I want these charts inlaid in the desk."

Beatin picked up the chart and gave it a discerning look. "Star charts, eh? I suppose it would suit a wizard's study. We should easily make it turn, as well."

"Good, I wouldn't want him to try and turn the entire desk to get a better angle for his calculations..." She laughed at the thought of Urianger struggling to rotate the heavy desk.

"He wouldn't be the first to try that." Beatin shook his head. "Such men inspired such leaps in innovation. Is there aught else you'd like to have as part of the commission?"

Rowan nodded. "Aye, there is. Tis a bit more on the fanciful side, but I have confidence you and your carpenters can get it made. To put it bluntly, my fiance is a bit of a mess. My house is now covered in books, despite the extensive bookshelves the guild has installed."

"And we thank you for that work."

"Right. What drives me crazy is that despite having space to put the books, Urianger continues to leave them on the floor. Then because he's working on multiple tomes at a time, he looses the one he needs at any moment and then proceeds to tear up the house."

"Mayhap you might employ a maid to remain tidy? Or multiple maids?"

She shook her head. "Nay, he would quickly undo their work trying to find what he needs at the given moment. I think he actually has a display problem, rather than a storage problem."

"How would you have us display these books in a different manner than shelves?"

"Before I came in, I was watching the waterwheel turn..."

*   *   *   *

When Beatin told Rowan that her commission was ready, she had all but forgotten that she had put it in in the first place. The events of the past few moons had really thrown her sense of time through a loop. Once again, she thanked her mother's wisdom in the matter.

Before she would confirm what day the Guild would come in to deliver and install the desk set, she called Urianger on the linkpearl to see if how much longer he would be traveling with Thancred.

"There hath been a lull of travails in our travels, so we saw fit to pause and reconnect with loved ones. I was just about to contact thee to expect mine arrival ere long," he said in happy tones.

"How long is ere long? I... actually have your wedding gift ready. Well, it will be ready quickly. I just need you out of the house for a bit," Rowan said.

"Shouldst thou have enough time to prepare the gift if I return tonight? I have a few errands to run myself, but I doubt I could manage to stay away from thee any longer."

"It should be. I might have to pay more, but I definitely have enough gil to cover it."

"Very well. I look forward to out reunion, my love."

"See you then, darling." Rowan smiled, then turned to Beatin. "Do you have enough hands to get it over to the cottage today?"

"For the ones who saved the Star, I do," Beatin said.

Rowan, realizing that she would need to clean up the house before anyone other than her fiance came home, hurried off to her house as the Carpenter's Guild started to load the commissioned pieces into a wagon. She made a clear path from the entrance to her old bedroom, which would serve as Urianger's study when everything was installed. Still full of anticipation, she started baking so the installers would have a treat after all of their hard work. She would tip them in gil as well, but Mama had always done these kinds of things when she had any workers in the home.

She tried so desperately hard not to add instructions on top of Beatin's. Sure, it was her house and she was paying for the entire endeavor, but she wasn't the Guildmaster and she hated when idle hands were issuing commands. She told Beatin to let her know if she could be useful, but he said that anything past glasses of water weren't necessary. Moving furniture was part of the profession.

So she waited anxiously as various folks heaved, turned, measured the door frame, heaved, measured the door frame again, and then finally got the large desk through the door without scratching the door, floor, or desk. The chair came in much easier, carried in by Beatin himself. The third and final piece entered her house unassembled. The Guildmaster shooed most of his workers to the kitchen as he worked on it, so Rowan offered them the cookies and gave them their tips as she was also banned from the study until it was completed.

She got to see the finished piece when one of Beatin's more trusted assistants, Cemi, called her in.

"Beatin, this is amazing!" Rowan said, turning the wheel.

She grabbed a few opened books and placed them on the trays as if she were referring to all of them. Then she turned the wheel. All three trays stayed upright with a gentle swinging motion. Mayhap it wouldn't serve to place an open flagon of ale on one of them, but it would serve to display at least a few of the books Urianger would work with.

"I can't say it wasn't a challenge, but with Cemi's dedicated research, we were able to adapt it from a different design." Beatin smiled at the Miqo'te girl, who beamed back in pride.

"And the craftsmanship of it all..." Rowan started running her fingers over the delicate inlays. "I didn't expect it would go outside of the star charts."

"Aye, well, twas hard to refuse those who wanted to contribute. I had to set up a competition of sorts lest there be multiple styles clashing everywhere," the Timbermaster said.

Rowan nodded absently as she traced the intricate designs. There were bits of gold leaf, clear gems, and red garnets inlaid throughout the three pieces, all following a celestial theme that she requested.

"I take it that it's to your satisfaction?" Beatin asked.

"Oh, aye, it is indeed!" Rowan looked up and smiled. "Are there any extra charges I need to worry about?"

"Nay, we fell within the generous budget you gave."

She nodded, and tried to dig out her gil pouch when she heard the front door open. "Oh, I think Urianger's home early."

"We can get the account settled at the guild tomorrow. Congratulations on the wedding."

Rowan nodded and escorted Beatin and Cemi out of the house, the party briefly passing Urianger in the kitchen.

"Welcome home!" Rowan gave him a quick peck on the cheek once the guildmembers were out of the house.

He drew her in close and kissed her hair. "Tis a blessing to be home."

She basked in the warmth and comfort of being in Urianger's arms for a minute before trying aught else. It was the reason she just gave him a peck on the cheek rather than embracing him in the first place. Not that she minded.

"Was that the Timbermaster again? Didst thou have more shelves installed in my absence?" Urianger asked when the thought occurred to him to ask.

"Not shelves... Mayhap we should start our gift exchange now." Rowan took his hand and lead him to her old room.

She stopped him as he reached for the door. She was almost bouncing with excitement as she cleared her throat.

"May I present to you... your study." Rowan dramatically swung the door open, revealing the desk set inside.

Urianger turned to her, turned to the room, then turned back to her.

"It's all for you." Rowan kissed his dumbfounded cheek.

He took a few slow steps, as if wary that the whole thing would disappear like a glamoured object once touched. But once he grabbed the chair and felt it's stability, he slumped into it. Then he noticed the star chart on the desk and turned it.

"Tis accurate," was all that was able to come out of his mouth as he continued to turn it.

"Well of course, darling, why wouldn't it be..." She stopped when he sniffed. "Are you crying?"

"I - I know not why I am so overcome. Pray forgive my weakness..."

Rowan took him by the shoulders and held him tightly. "There isn't aught to be forgiven for. It's just unexpected."

He pressed his cheek against hers. "Mayhap the idea of being invited to share thy childhood home with thee hath stirred emotions I never knew were held within me. That thou wishest to share in the joys and tribulations of life with me... I thought I had grasped that concept fully, but mayhap I failed to do so..."

"Well, I do want you in my life. Welcome to the family, Urianger."

[kimnjss]

blowing bubbles | ksj

⇢ pairing: ot7 x reader // seokjin focus. ⇢ genre: smut. // pure unedited filth. ⇢ word count: 4.7K ⇢ theme: established relationships. ⇢ rating: explicit. ⇢ warnings: cursing, slight dirty talk, dry humping, nipple play, oral sex (m. receiving), bath sex, riding, over stimulation if you squint real hard, unprotected sex (be safe loveys!). mentions of exhibitionism.  ⇢ A/N: added a bit of hobi in there for y’all!! buut oof ., i had to do my boy jin bc he’s been wrecking me all week-

You find Hoseok sat outside, scrolling through his phone. Joon sits across from him and Jimin beside him. The fire in between him lighting up his face, the sharp features that make up his side profile. He laughs at something Joon just said, head tipping back as the melodic sound fills the night air.

Quick to close the space between the two of you, arms hanging over his shoulders as your body rests against the back of his chair. Nose nuzzling gently in his sweet smelling hair and you want nothing more than to have him close.

“Come cuddle,” Hoseok's strong hands are reaching up to wrap around your wrist, his head tilting back to look at you. A smile laying upside down on his face from the angle, and you grin down at him.

Capturing his lips in a Spider-Man like kiss, jaw moving slowly as you become deeper and deeper enveloped in him. You can feel his grin grow against your lips, being granted with that large smile of his as he pulls away – lifting his head to glance at the boys seated across from him.

Discussion of a rematch at ping pong is thrown between them before Joon is standing from where he sits. Jimin not far behind him, securing his hood over his ears before he's looking over at the two of you.

“You want to come watch?” He offers, but Hobi is declining the invitation as quickly as it comes. Dramatizing his fatigue with a yawn and a stretch as he stands. “Think we're just going to go to bed?” Words directed to you for reassurance and you're nodding with a bright smile.

Both Jimin and Joon stalk off in the other direction while Hoseok drops his arm over your shoulder, leading you into the house.

Nights spent with Hoseok were always your favorite. Whether you two were rolling around in the sheets, sweaty and panting your release, or if you were wrapped up in his arms talking about everything and nothing. You didn't mind it, genuinely enjoyed yourself.

Close in age so things felt most comfortable between you two. Much like with Namjoon. Despite the romantic feelings you had for him, there was an underlying friendship there. Like if you two were to be in the same class in school or whatever, you'd be close. More often than not, you found yourself thinking about that.

If you had met the boys in a different setting if they weren't the superstars that they are. How differently would your relationship be? Dating made much easier. Would they all still want to be with you?

“What are you thinking about?” Hobi's words are breaking through your thoughts, steps halted halfway up the stairs when he realized you haven't said a word since the two of you left the table.

He's turned to you, close in the small stairway. Smelling as sweet as he always does, even after the long day spent outside. Your arms are lifting with no hesitation, wrapping around his neck to pull him closer as you lean back against the wall. Shoulders shrugging slightly, you lean up to press a soft kiss to the tip of his nose.

“You, me, us.” His smile grows, hands dropping down to enclose your hips. Warmth spreads throughout your body at the simple touch. Easily leaning into him as he rests his forehead on yours.

“You, me, us... doing what?” His brow lifts as he steps closer to you. A single hand dropping lowering down your hips. Fingers splaying over the curve of your ass, the gentle pressure pushing your hips closer to his.

The giggle that falls from your lips is automatic, not even the slightest bit surprised with how quickly he could shift your mood. Not much effort needed to make you putty for him and he knew it. “You thinking about having all of us fuck you?” He guesses and if you weren't thinking about it then, you definitely were thinking about it now.

It was safe to say Hoseok was most fond of the idea of sharing you. Was always the first one to perk up when it was suggested and never batted an eye if he found Jungkook lurking. Always fucked you harder, rougher when he knew there was an extra set of eyes on him. As if he got off on being watched.

A soft whimper slips past your parted lips, mind flooded with just how good it's felt to be shared by them. Never have you had all of them at once, their concern of overwhelming you leaking through – but even just two of them was enough to make your head spin. Heck, one of them was enough.

Hoseok is taking the sound like a green light to lean up, pulling your lips between his in a heated kiss. Instantly melting into him, your hands creeping up the back of his neck to tangle in the soft strands of his freshly washed hair.

His hands are warm, their decent from your hips to your thighs igniting liquid fire beneath your skin. A gentle tug on your leg has your thigh pressed firmly against his torso, his body slipping further between your legs until his chest his pressed against yours. All at once, his hands are gripping tighter on your thighs, easily lifting your body into his arms – using his hips to push your back against the wall.

“Think I'm gonna keep you to myself tonight, though.” Mouth still pressed against yours as he speaks, teeth pressed against your lower lip when his lips spread into a smile. Head ducking down until he's able to latch onto your neck.

Sucking hickeys into your skin, his hands roaming over the smallest part of your waist. He's holding you up with his hips, and you can feel his arousal through the fabric of his pants.

“Oh.” You gasp, not sure if it's from the sharpness of his teeth or the slow drag of his crotch over yours that he's started. Soft hands creeping underneath the hem of your shirt until he's meeting the top of your bra. In one swift movement, he's tugging the cup down to so you're tit is spilling over the top.

A soft groan falls from his lips, mixing the with your moan from the feeling of his thumb flicking over your hardened nipple. Just a simple tug has your chest lifting, teeth cutting into your lower lip.

With your fingers clutching his messy hair, your hips begin to roll against his. The sudden friction causing his own hips to lift, rutting gently against you. “God, look at you.” You can hear the smirk in his voice, the hand left on your hips tightening. He uses his grip to move your body faster against his.

You can only imagine how you look right now. Cheeks flushed and eyes unfocused as you try desperately to get yourself off through the fabric of your clothing. Fingers clasped tightly around his neck as you bounce between him and the wall. “Should I make you cum like this?” His voice is gruff and close to your ear, his hips lifting to press his cock harder against you.

Head bobbing like some sex-crazed bobblehead, a soft chuckle falling from his lips. He's bending forward enough so he's able to wrap his lips around your nipple. The feeling of his wet tongue coaxing the bud has a shock of arousal cruising through your veins, hips rotating to feel his cock nudge against your clit.

“Y-you feel so good,” You whine, desperation lacing every syllable. His hips rolling slowly, pressed firmly against your clit. The sudden pain of his teeth sinking into your nipple has a yelp flying from your lips, fingers tightening in his hair as you pull him tighter to your chest.

He moves with determination, the goal of making you cum heavy in his mind. And it's not long before you feel the familiar tightness in the pit of your stomach, toes curling at his sides as he drives his hips roughly into yours.

All at once, you feel the band snapping, eyes screwing tight as your head falls onto his shoulder. Your hips move frantically against his, attempting to ride your orgasm out as it washed through you. Heavy breaths lifting your chest as you urge yourself to regain your composure, in slight disbelief with how sensitive you've become.

A chuckle falls from Hoseok's lips as he's pulling back from you, carefully setting your body back onto your feet. “Good?” He says with a grin, watching for the nod of your head. His lips are coming down to press a soft kiss to your lips and your heart is singing with the feeling of them.

The kiss is quickly deepening, his tongue slipping past your lips and rolling against yours. His body pressed against yours and you can feel the hardness of his cock pressed against his thigh. Your mouth is separating from his with a pop, lust-filled eyes peeking up at him.

“Take me to your room,” There's no hiding the whine in your voice and he's grinning at the sound, hand clasping in yours as he pulls you the rest of the way into his room. Your back hitting the softness of his bed the second he's pushing the door closed.

“Whoa!” You're shouting a bit too loud with the fact Jungkook is asleep in the room behind you. Taehyung's arms on either side of your body, caging you against the railing as you steer the remote control boat.

He's laughing at your surprise of the speed of the boat, chin resting on your shoulder as he watches you play. His fingers wrapping around yours to help you steer. Tae's soft curls tickling the side of your face.

You were woken up early this morning by melodic piano playing from downstairs. Hoseok stirring as the sounds became more consistent and it's not long before the both of you are standing from the bed. Finding Taehyung in the kitchen, you take a seat on the chair beside him, holding his plate as he cooks.

Following him out of the house and onto the dock as soon as you finish. It doesn't take much for him to hand over the controller, letting you steer as he watches. Holding your body close to his the entire time.

“Oh! It's Jin-Hyung!” Taehyung is pointing excitedly, gesturing a little way in front of you. Eyes squinted to make out the two figures jogging in your direction, a large smile lifting the corners of your lips as you wave your arm.

Whatever the conversation they're having comes to a pause when he's catching sight of you. A large grin taking over the elder's features as he waves back at you. “I'm gonna go say hi,” You tell Tae, who simply nods moving back to release you from his grasp.

Both him and Hoseok are seated at on the lawn chairs when you walk up, easily sliding into the vacant space on Jin's lap, fingers mussing up his slightly sweaty hair. His arm is easily sliding around your waist, continuing his conversation carelessly as if you hadn't just park your bum on his thigh.

Gentle fingers draw shapes and patterns against your leg as the three of you chat. Conversation bouncing easily between the three of you, body completely relaxed against Jin's body.

You've seen the least of Jin since you were arriving. He always seemed to be busy either fishing or cooking, the lesser part of you had started to think that maybe he was avoiding you – but the bigger, much smarter part of you knew that that wasn't the case.

Simply enjoying his free time in the wilderness, catching up on all the things that he's not normally able to do with his busy schedule. Either way, you're happy to be in his arm now. Despite how invested he's in the conversation with Hoseok, his attention is still on you.

The gentle brush of his fingers against your skin is proof enough. His chest is hard against your back, the slight dampness left on his shirt from his run making it easier for you to feel the ripples of his abs through the fabric.

You're only half-listening to their conversation at this point, simply enjoying the fresh air, finding comfort in being with them. At ease ever since you've arrived here. It was something about being outdoors, being around the people that you loved that made this trip so healing.

Not a single worry since you were stepping out of the car. And it was only getting better as the days went on.

It wasn't often that you were able to let loose like this with them. Always so busy, on the go and you were really just seeing them when you could. But now? You had all of them around you, free to breathe to be with you and you were honestly so happy.

Your thoughts are coming to a halt when you feel the lull in their conversation, attention on you that has your brow furrowing. Head tilting to the side so you're able to get a good look at Jin. He must sense your confusion, put together that you weren't exactly listening to his words because a soft laugh is falling from his lips.

“I said, I need to go shower.” It's then that you're noticing Hoseok has stood from his spot beside you, only a few steps away as he makes his way into the house. Sliding from his lap, Jin stands – a hand instantly wrapping around your waist. “I haven't showered yet,” Offering up the information in hopes he'll catch your drift.

Tiny smirk twitches on the corner of his lips, his grip tightening slightly around you to pull your body closer to his. “That so?” He says, feigning indifference but you knew for a fact the thoughts bouncing around his mind.

“Mhm. Sharing would make sense, right? Save time.” Although, you had all the time in the world right now. Jin is nodding his head in agreement without a moment of hesitance. “And water.” He adds, picking up the pace of his steps as the two of you enter the main house.

Only a few seconds of debate is had before Jin is filling up the tub, the sound of a bath more appealing to him than a shower. As soon as you're seeing him strip from his sticky clothes and lower himself into the bathwater, you're agreeing.

The tub isn't huge, not enough space for the two of you to sit side by side, so it's obvious where you'll be settling. Jin watches you with hooded eyes the entire time you're peeling your night clothes from your body. Basking in the slow way you pull your shirt over your head, tits bouncing slightly from the movement of your arms.

Then you're moving down to your shorts, tugging them down your long legs along with your panties. His eyes follow your hand the entire way, slowly dragging up to check out your neatly shaven mound. He's hard just from the sight of you standing over him, cock twitching as you lower yourself into the water – a leg on either side of him.

Jin is not pouncing on you the moment you're straddling him, despite how much he wants to – he has more restraint than that. His arms simply wrap around your body, pulling you in close as your head naturally finds his chest.

His skin is warm against your cheek, arms cradling you in nicely into his body. Hard cock pressed firmly against your thigh, but he pays it no mind. Instead, he's walking his finger up your back, twisting your damp strands of hair between his fingers.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” The vibration of his voice tickles your cheek, pushing a smile onto your features.

You nod, recounting the short time spent here. With them. “You guys seem so relaxed.”

Plump lips stretch into a smile before he's puckering to place a soft kiss to your forehead. “And what about you?” He's moving underneath you, leaning forward to reach behind you, but you don't make an effort to un-cling from his body.

“I'm relaxed too.” You answer just as he's leaning back a loofah in hand, drizzled in body wash. “That's good. I'm glad, baby.” He speaks softly to you, bringing the sponge toward your body to lather the soap into your skin.

He moves from your back to your arms to your front, the entire time soft hums falling from your lips – eyelashes fluttering from the gentle massage. His touch so light and soothing, you could see yourself falling asleep in his arms. Jin was always the most gentle with you.

Taking his time with washing you, he makes sure to lather your entire body – paying special attention to your breasts until he's positive their squeaky clean. The same amount of care is given to the apex of your thighs. You'd think he was just being thorough if it wasn't for the constant jump of his cock each time he was reaching an erogenous area.

Your body jolts when he's accidentally nudging your clit, thighs pressing together as a murmured cruse leaves your lips. Jin's head is lifting, brow arched as he searches your features. “Sensitive?” He asks with a smirk, bringing his hand down for an experimental swipe of his thumb over your clit.

Your hips buck this time, head nodding instantly as your hands on his torso tightened. “Very.” The constant, round the clock sex, had definitely affected you more than you liked to admit. And judging from the smirk on Jin's face, he's liking the idea of your new sensitivity.

But he doesn't push it, simply rinses the suds from your body before reaching for the shampoo bottle resting on the shelf. “Wash my hair?” Back straightening and fingers reaching for the bottle in an instant. You squirt a bit of shampoo into your palm before rubbing your hands together, leaning close to bury your hands in his hair.

At this new angle, his cock is pressed directly against your core. Just resting between your lips and you can't stop the gentle roll of your hips that has a groan falling from both of your lips. Large hands resting on either side of your rib cage, thumbs running over the underneath of your breasts as his eyes fluttered closed.

Jin has his head tipped back, lip tucked between his teeth as he allows himself to enjoy the feeling of your nails brushing against his scalp. Massaging the shampoo all throughout his head while at the same time twitching from the light stimulation between your legs.

“Fuck, you're getting so wet.” His voice so low, you're not sure if you imagined it. Sure you hadn't when you feel one of his hands drop, landing directly on your ass to push your hips close to his. This has the rough tip of his cock pressed right against your bundle of nerves.

You whimper, legs spreading slightly in hopes to feel more of him. But he keeps your hips steady in his grip. “My hair,” He reminds and you're only then noticing that your fingers had gone frozen between his strands.

Clean enough, you decide. Too needy for the teasing. Gathering enough water to rinse the shampoo from his hair, your haste pulling a chuckle from his lips. The hand left on your torso lifts, taking hold of your heavy breast; thumb swiping over your nipple quickly. 

At the same time, his hips are lifting his cock easily sliding between your wet folds, pulling a breathy moan from your lips. “Jin,” You pant, fingers curling in his soapy hair as your body bounces over him. Loving the slow drag of his cock against your clit.

“What do you want, princess?” With your head rested back on his shoulder, his lips are close to your ear. Their softness brushing against the shell of it with each word. “I want you.” You sigh, hand lifting to cover his on your breast. Guiding the movements of his fingers over your nipples, applying more pressure to his light touch.

You hear the smirk in his voice, not even having to lift your head to gauge the look on his face. “Want me to do what?” Huffing, a pout takes over your features. Whines are drawn out as you grind against him.

He acts as if he's not a mess from the friction. Doing a good job at suppressing his moans and the contortion of his features. What he can't hide, though, is the precum that dribbles from the tip of his cock onto your thigh. So hard and thick, ready to fuck into you.

Your legs tighten around his hips, shuddering at the new closeness. Hips slowing down so he can feel every bit of slick against his shaft. He bites his lip to hide his groan, but you're letting the moans fall from your lips freely. The sound hitting his ears and hardening his cock.

“F-fuck me,” You gasp when his tip catches at your entrance, but it's so quick you don't have the chance to bask in it before he's moving into the slow drag. “Please.” His fondness for manners hitting you last minute. Jin grins.

Fed up with the teasing, of you and himself, he's quickly lining his cock up with your dripping core. “This where you want me?” He mumbles, watching the frantic nod of your head. But he doesn't move.

“I don't know what that means,” Noticing the confusion that riddles your features. “Please, fuck me here.” You're panting out, legs opening wider for him as if to punctuate your words.

He's pushing forward without another word, thick shaft pushing through your walls, stretching you out with each inch until you're seated on his lap. The breath that you had been holding fans over his chest.

A hand reaching down, fingers rolling your clit around to loosen up your grip around him. It doesn't take long for your body to get used to the intrusion, walls unclenching just slightly – making it easier for him to pull out.

“Fuck, Jin!” You're crying out with the force he pushes into you. The snap of his hips causing your tits to bounce. He's quickly taking notice of that, arms tightening around your body as he tilts his head up – latching his lips around your nipple.

Wet tongue flicking against one side while his fingers lift to tug on the since neglected nipple. He doesn't slow the power of his thrusts, loud moans, and whimpers falling from your lips as you grind your hips down onto his.

Clit rubbing against his pubic bone in this angle, each brush having a pang of arousal shocking your senses. “Feel good, baby? You look so pretty bouncing on my cock.” Words delivered into your chest, but you hear him as if he's speaking directly into your ear.

“S-so good, Jin. Oh, fuck.” Your toes curl from the sudden deepness of his thrusts, tip of his cock brushing against the rough patch of skin deep inside of you. “Again, please.” Head bowed, your forehead pressed against his shoulder. Your thighs threaten to close from the immense pleasure, but it's impossible with the way he's wedged between them.

Jin pushes inside of you again, deeper. Pressing against your gspot deliberately this time and it has your body spasming. Back arching as shouted cruses leave your lips. Eyes squeeze so tight, you're seeing spots on the ceiling when you find the strength to open them.

Walls squeezing tight around him, slowing the movement of his thrusts but he's determined to push you over the edge your teetering on. Cock buried deep inside of you, he lets your hips roll against his. All the way, his fingers are finding that bundle of nerves, pinching it between his fingers.

“I'm gonna...” Words trailing as your lips find his, kissing him hungrily as your body grinds against him. The pace you created somehow faster, rougher than how he had been fucking you before. Jin's got your clit squeezed between his knuckles, and the quick tug has your body crashing down onto his. “I'm cumming, I'm...fuck, Jin!” The screech of your voice fills the bathroom, heard over the splash of bathwater, the slap of your skin as he lifts his hips to meet your thrusts.

Your body tightens around his, going rigid as your climax takes washes over you. Lashes fluttering as murmured words of thanks fall from your lips. Then all at once, you're going limp in his arms, breathing harsh while the aftershocks of your orgasm make your body twitch.

Lowering his hips, his cock slides out of you with ease. Glistening with your release, but still has hard as it was when he put it in. Most of the bubbles he had filled the bath with gone done, but some still coat his stomach and legs.

The moment the fog in your brain is clearing, you're sliding from his lap. His head is lifting at your sudden movement, hand dropping to catch yours just as you're reaching for his shaft. “It's okay,” He assures you with an easy smile, but you're shaking your head.

“I want to.” You pout, fingers closing around his cock to give him one powerful thrust. His eyes are rolling, head falling against the tile of the bathroom. A grin spreading across your lips as you lean forward, lips wrapping around his tip.

He hisses at the wetness of your tongue rolling over him, a hand lifting to tangle his fingers in your wet hair. Hands finding his thighs, you lower your head slowly taking as much of him as you can into your throat. “Fuck, just like that, baby...” He encourages with a sigh.

Cheeks hallowing, you drag your head back before pushing forward. Managing to get more of him into your mouth this time around, nose pressed against his pubic bone. A low grunt leaves his lips as your swallowing around him, teary eyes lifting to look at him.

Jin looks so hot above you. Struggling to keep his head lifted to watch you, teeth cutting into his lower lip. Brows creased with pleasure. “Fuck, princess.” He sighs, at the feeling of your closing around his balls.

He's gasping when your fingers squeeze around them, your head bobbing quickly over him; tongue dragging over his shaft. You ignore the bit of drool that leaks out of the corners of your mouth, concentrating fully on the sounds of his groans as you bring him closer to his release.

It's when his hips start to lift that you know he's close, thrusting shallowly into your mouth. The grip in your hair tightens and he's pushing your head further down. A hand finds his hips, slowing his hurried thrusts as your throat restricts around him. Lips wrapped tight around your base as he spills out.

Jumbled words of praise fall from his lips as you take in all he's giving you, swallowing down every last drop of his thick cum until his hips are sinking back into the water. Pulling off of him with a loud pop, you show off your empty mouth. Loving the way a grin lifts onto his features.

“You're so perfect,” He sighs, sitting up to reach for the back of your neck. He pulls your lips to his, enveloping you in the sweetest of kisses that have a flutter rising in your chest.

Jin is helping you out of the tub once the bathwater has gone cold, pressing loving kisses to the side of your face as he wraps your body in a plush towel. With his own towel wrapped around his waist, his arms are wrapping around your hips.

Walking you out of the bathroom with your body cradled in his. Laughter can be heard from downstairs, the boys talking loudly amongst each other. The sound, mixed with the gentle kisses from Jin's plump lips against your skin has happiness settling in your chest.

Oh, how you wished this week would never end.

- seven days in the forest spent with your seven boyfriends while they film their upcoming reality tv show. there’s no telling what the eight of you will get into when the cameras are off.

⬷ masterlist ⤖

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[spacedlexi]

Any tips for lighting scenes when drawing? I find myself struggling with it the most

HMM mostly im always thinking about how much light there is, where its coming from, and how it hits the subjects

ambient light scenes (whether day or night) are the easiest because theres not really a direct light source, so its more general shading. but once you add a direct light source/subjects are close enough to block light, things start working differently

these TWO VIDEOS video about ambient light and color are pretty helpful if you dont know what it is/how to apply it

long explanation (with examples) under cut!!

im not always thinking about the lighting for my scene when im drawing unless i have something very specific in mind before i start, but even then i dont worry about it until im actually coloring and adding depth to the scene

this scene has both ambient light (night sky. blue arrows), and a harsh direct light (emergency lights. yellow). so theres soft rim lighting coming from the environment (light bouncing around), plus one direct light source. its a close, bright source so its harsh

this one is also a night scene but its just one light source. moonlight coming in through the window, blocked by the bunk bed. so only part of them gets hit by the light and its a little softer (more ambient). but theyre also close to each other and a wall, so less light will bounce between them. the wall is in almost complete shadow so bounced light wont really make it back to violet whos closest

this one is a general light source but their proximity is casting them (mostly clem at this angle) into shadow. the light source is being blocked (why i didnt put the light shine in her right eye). but you can see it still hitting clems right shoulder a bit because the light isnt blocked that far out

it can be really easy to get carried away with lighting and lose your source. when i find myself struggling with how an object will be hit by light, i'll add directional arrows (like i did here) to help me keep in mind how much light there is and where its coming from. you can also block out the shapes of the light and shadows like ive done here. i color by blocking out shadows and then adding more detail to the shadows and highlights

theres also different ways to apply light and shadows! some people like to start in light and block out shadows, and some people like to start in shadow and block out light. i mainly use the first method except for hair where i start from shadow to light for some reason. but depending on severity of light i might start in shadow

it might help to to think of your light like a flashlight. you can make the cone wider or smaller, and move it closer or farther. you can rotate it and angle it. the wider the cone of light, the more light hits your subjects, and the farther it gets, the softer it gets as it diffuses. you can have different flashlights producing different kinds of light at the same time from different directions and angles. have fun with it :)

also learn the different planes of your subject. theres a lot of planes on the face that im still memorizing, but knowing the surface of your subject will help you figure out how itll be affected when hit by light. a lot of things can be broken down into the simplest of shapes

[spookyweaselbones]

how an idiot made a thing

I first had to learn to use OnShape which wasn't too hard since I'd already been pretty familiar with SketchUp.

The next step was obsessively measuring my arm and hand. Then I had to start making decisions and solving problems, and much of that happened in my head over the course of months. And honestly I don't think the solution I arrived at is even close to the best but it's ok for now.

The overall nature of the device is that it measures certain movements of the hand and thumb. The main challenge of doing that is that your hand is in the way of where it would be easiest to put stuff. So you have to make a pretty contrived set of gimbals that let your hand yaw, pitch, and roll. The roll is by far the most complicated, since the mechanism has to wrap around your hand. I ended up building a custom ring bearing with smaller bearings rolling inside a track, with the potentiometer at your fingertips.

Another challenge comes from the laser cutting aspect of this project. I'm not a very good fabricator, and 3D printing is very expensive. So I went with laser cutting because I'm familiar enough with bonding acrylic (plexiglas) using a rather tricky cement. But this process does require that all the parts be completely flat since you're cutting them from above from flat pieces.

But in order to turn these flat pieces into a triple gimbal, I needed them to be able to rotate, and that means mounting them to shafts. The only way that seemed suitable was to bond plates of acrylic at a 90 degree angle to create a surface for mounting, but then something has to be able to be fastened to that plate.

Through much research I identified mountable shaft collars and flanged tee nuts as two possible options. In general, I ended up buying up much more hardware than I would use in the end, because knew that no matter how perfectly I designed the laser cut parts, I would need some options when it came time for everything to be assembled. Plus I'm not a very good designer, nor a trained engineer. I need to hold the parts in my hand and measure them myself to really understand them.

ok so why do this

I love puppetry, and digital characters are really powerful and expressive, but I'm really not an animator. I don't have the sort of mind that can build up a performance from minute movements, for me the performance happens in real time in a single step, which is the essence of puppetry.

I first heard about these devices while watching behind-the-scenes footage of farscape. They are called "Waldos" because of a computer character created by Jim Henson named Waldo C. Graphic.

I'm a weird furry and have long envied people who are using VR rigs to express their characters as vtubers and in chat. But I can't tolerate VR, and besides, I wanted hand-puppet like control, rather than a visual based motion capture.

So the end game for me will to be to express my fursona with this, working in tandem with a flight control stick for additional axes of movement, plus mouth vowel control in real time. This too I'm cribbing from Jim Henson company.

Would this save animation money?

Maybe. If you had a whole pipeline with this, and experienced puppeteers, you would save a lot of time, and you would gain the spontaneity of real time performance. As for money savings... I don't know. Maybe once you absorb the cost of building this thing, which is considerable. Laser cutting is much cheaper than 3D printing, but the cost for this one has still been roughly $1200 USD for plexi, hardware, and additional electronics. And to be honest, this is not ready for anyone other than me to use. This device, like so many DIY solutions, is like an old car only one person knows how to start. A lot more development would be required to make it a viable product (ambidexterity, different hand sizes, eliminate edge cases where it can break, reduce noise, better plug and play functionality)

more testing with my waldo