#checking to see if your drawing looks weird from a different angle

[miserymisume]

Certainty

[melrodrigo]

friends? - cairo sweet

Cairo Sweet x Reader

Summary: A new class leads to some heated feelings

Warnings: Finally wrote an enemies to lovers, they’re academic rivals ur honor, my writing, cairo being a meanie, quite an excessive use of italics

Word Count: 1k+

A/n: wanted to practice some, tell me what u think? do you want a part two?

“Cairo Sweet.” You read aloud, scrolling down your class list for the next year. Winnie —your best friend since childhood—laughs quietly at the sound.

“Funny name.” She mumbles when you quirk an eyebrow at her.

There was no reason to think ‘Sweet’ was a weird surname; however, Winnie, at the moment, was high out of her mind, so you let it go.

“Jacob Weinstein, Sophie Bell, Anthony Smith—god I don’t know any of these people!” You whisper, the slightest bit of anxiety creeping in.

Your first day is tomorrow, and you’ve sworn to yourself not to check who is in your specific class, wanting to try to spontaneously make new friends.

The keyword was try, because god you were bad at small talk.

Even in her mellowed state, Winnie could tell the nerves were settling in. She reaches out and draws you towards her, sitting so you’re facing each other, only a finger away from completely pressing into one another.

She swirls the lollipop in her mouth around, angling your head to look her in the eyes.

“It’s gonna be fine. Don’t sweat it, please? It makes me sad to see your pretty face in distress.” She spoke evenly, making you feel like you had steady ground to walk on, helping you come back to earth. You let out a deep breath, one you didn’t know you were holding.

“You’ve got to stop flirting with anyone and anything that moves.” You tell her, lightheartedly. She had helped taken the edge off, for now.

-

Bless her heart, Winnie’s reassurance lasted about until she left for her own home, leaving you alone with your thoughts in the big lonely house you had to call home.

It takes a book, or maybe two, for your eyelids to flutter shut, comforted by the smell of old paper and the feeling of coarse parchment.

Walking to school is no different. You listen half-heartedly to whatever Winnie decides to babble about this specific morning, your mind elsewhere.

As you near the doors of your next class, Winnie gives you a quick wink.

“Good luck soldier.” She says, smiling an almost teasing smile.

The minute you push open the doors you’re taken by surprise. It was fairly early, and though you expected no one would be there yet, there was a girl sitting smack dab in the middle of the class. Her head rested on her hands, staring blankly at the chalkboard in front of her.

You walk up silently to the desk behind her, far enough so you weren’t in the first few rows, but close enough that you wouldn’t be sitting with all the slackers in the back.

You slip out a book, kick your feet up to rest on the wooden table, and relaxed slightly. She seemed to pay no mind to you, and didn’t seem to want to pay any mind to you.

After a few pages in, you realize you’ve been reading the same sentence over and over again, not quite comprehending the letters that now looked like a random jumble.

There was a sinking feeling starting in your stomach, as if something were twisting and screaming for your attention.

Table or chair, wind or sun—you couldn’t quite figure out what it was that was bothering you.

Your eyes wandered from the page to your surroundings, trying to pinpoint what it was.

You must’ve been making quite some noise, because the girl in front of you turns around, an obvious distaste on her face. The moment you lock eyes you feel it.

Ah, I know what it is now.

It seems almost silly to say, but you could swear, she was the root of your problems.

There was an almost inimical aura about her, the way she acts—the flick of her eyes, the slight clench in her jaw, her rigid robotic posture—was enough for you to cower.

Of course, you had never even talked to the girl, but you could tell all at once, you weren’t going to be good friends.

“Could you stop moving so much? It’s distracting me.” She tells you, in a manner too rude to be a real request.

Her eyes narrow when you don’t answer. You had elected instead to stare at her freckles, ones that littered her face. Not counting your current feelings for her, you couldn’t deny it, she was beautiful.

However, the way she was acting now was more than enough for you to be sure she was not someone friend-worthy, and you ignored her remark.

In a quiet retaliation, you wait till she titled her head back that you scratch the rug beneath you with the heels of your feet.

It creates a faint screeching sound. When the mysterious girl turns back once again, this time with fury in her eyes, you avert your eyes and look around the room, whistling.

You could tell you were pushing her buttons, but oh boy if it wasn’t just the most fun. If it weren’t for the sound of the door opening you’re positive she would’ve gotten up and confronted you.

In walked a short, scruffy, middle-aged white man whom you concluded must have been the teacher.

“I didn’t expect anyone to be in yet. Students aren’t usually thrilled to learn my class.” He said, sounding pleased with himself to have two new focused students.

“I’m quite excited to see how it’s going to go, I’ve never learned with a favorite author of mine.” The girl spoke, this time with no venom in her voice.

The professor let out a strangled sort of squeak, obviously caught off guard.

Great. She’s also a suck-up.

“Well, i’ll be damned. I’ve never met someone that’s read my book— other than my wife. Although I’m not sure if she even read the whole thing.” He said, failing to hide the excitement and disbelief he was surely feeling.

“I thought it was amazing commentary on modern marriages and love through difficult times.” She said, the light from outside lighting her hair up a lighter shade of brown.

Blah, blah, blah. Someone save me.

As if hearing your prayers, another student entered the room, effectively cutting off that godforsaken conversation. More pupils start filling up the class, and even though you can tell the professor wants to keep talking to the brunette, he steps up to the small platform.

“Good morning class, my name is Mr. Miller, and I’ll be teaching you english literature.” He announces, voice full. You can tell he’d practiced this beforehand.

Your plan to make friends, to both your joy and dismay, get crushed almost immediately. There are no group activities or opportunities to even speak to the other people in the class, all attention directed to the front while Mr. Miller scrabbles on the chalkboard.

The brunette’s name, you learn, is Cairo. She manages to be the first person to raise her hand, to challenge Mr.Miller, to question almost every single thing on the board.

And even though that nagging feeling you felt when you first saw her is gone, you let yourself dissociate and simply stare at the girl. If the class was going to be boring, it wouldn’t hurt to have some eye candy, would it?

“Now, who can tell me exactly why Orwell chose to use these sets of words? What do they give to the overall tone of the book, umm-y/n?” Mr.Miller called, looking from his list of students.

You stir in your chair uncomfortably; you have not been listening to him. The air had turned very cold; your heart picking up its pace.

“I don’t know.” You mumble after a while of every face turned your way, impatience in their gaze. You shrink into your seat.

You hear a little scoff from ahead of you, coming from none other than Cairo Sweet.

You bite back an insult, and try to ignore the disappointed murmur that comes out of Mr.Miller.

Before you know it the hour is gone, and the sound of books stacking against one another breaks you out your daze.

Winnie’s waiting for you outside the door, quite creepily, you tell her as you walk together to your next class; a subject that you both have.

“So, how was it?” She nudges you lightly, smiling expectedly.

You flash her a tight lipped smile, then let it drop when you know she’d be able to see right through you.

You grip her arm and lean in closer, checking around you.

“There was this one girl, she was horrible!” You whisper, a new spark of energy flowing through you at the prospect of telling Winnie about it.

“She was the BIGGEST teachers pet, and she said something so rude to me before class, so like we were sitting and…” You continue to recount the story, trying your hardest to recreate Cairo’s glare.

When you get done, you turn to Winnie, waiting for her to join in on your gossiping.

“So am I going to witness an enemies to lovers type of thing right in front of me?” She sighs, exasperated.

You’re so shocked you don’t follow her into the class, stood rooted to the spot at the door.

“Wait, what?”

[tommydarlings]

obsession at first sight | c.l

pairing: dark!stalker!perv!charles x reader

warnings: dark, stalking, obsessive behaviour, possessive behaviour, extremely perverse!charles???, borderline psychotic and mentally sick!charles, male masturbation, drugging, throwing up, gagging (in a non-sexual way!), mention of a panic attack, manipulation, stockholm-syndrome

w/c: 5.8k

summary: Since you’re school ordered you to do an internship somewhere you’d like to work at in the future, you decided to do one at the formula one Ferrari company, it was almost like a dream come true seeing everything in real life… little did you know, that from that point on, you’re life would turn into nothing more than a sick and twisted nightmare. (based off of this request)

check this out: my masterlist <3 // my ko-fi to support me! <3 // my PayPal to support me! <3 // my Patreon to become a member! (get access to +65 works) // Save a Life carrd made by me! <3

It was love at first sight.

Or to describe it better, it was obsession at first sight. Because the second Charles laid his eyes upon your almost angelic and way to innocent looking figure, he knew he had to have you, one way or another, no matter the consequences, no matter the risks.

You were mindlessly wandering around the Ferrari garage while one of the not oh so important engineers explained some car related stuff to you, showing you around and simply introducing you to Ferrari.

Charles was seeing red as he watched with dark eyes how the engineer that he didn’t even bother knowing the name of showed you around and had the opportunity to talk and look at you.

And even touch you. Charles would have done absolutely anything to place his big hands onto your waist or back, feeling your delicate skin under his rough hands.

While nick — the engineer — happily explained various stuff about Ferrari to you, you caught Charles staring at you multiple times already, looking at your face, looking at your thighs covered in the black pair of leggings or starring right at your cleavage, biting his inner cheek each time you took a deep breath which made your breasts appear even bigger.

You thought it was weird since the two of you didn’t even exchange a single word yet and also probably won’t in the future but you didn’t mention it to anyone, not thinking to much about it and focusing more on the work related stuff nick was explaining to you.

Most probably, you were simply delusional. But you could sworn upon your life that you caught Charles taking a picture, or maybe even multiple picture of you, some even from different angles.

But you were probably just seeing things, so you decided to ignore it and shake it off, not thinking nor talking about it as you shook your head and removed your gaze from the weirdly–behaving monaguesque, smiling at nick again.

And oh did Charles hate the fact that you flashed this basically no-name engineer your pretty little smile that he wished to draw on your face each time you look at him from across the garage, but he could only dream.

At least for now.

“Charles! You’re needed!” One of the managers yelled at the young driver, making Charles still not remove his eyes from you.

A little smirk creeped up on his face as he watched your figure walking around next to the engineer, “coming,” he mumbled more to himself before he put his phone that contained multiple pictures of you from various angles back into his pocket, quickly walking away from you, leaving you even more confused.

—

“Don’t forget to hand in your assignments that are due until tomorrow, guys!” Your professor, Mr. Gregory, yelled through the big hall that’s filled with loud students chatting about their internships.

You smiled to yourself since you already finished it and don’t have anything to do today, so you happily left the building with your books in your hands.

Your intuition was telling you that something was off as soon as you made your way to the bus stop, multiple times checking your surroundings to see if anything seemed foul, but there was nothing.

At least that’s what you thought.

Charles — who was closely watching you the entire day already, could only chuckled as he watched you shaking your head to yourself and walk towards the bus stop you walk to every Friday at exactly 2:20 p.m with the exact same three books in your arms.

Science, literature and mathematics. Charles knew it all, he would be stupid if he wouldn’t since he’s been studying you since you left Ferrari.

The day you left Ferrari, December the 11th at around 3 p.m, Charles felt uneasy. He felt like they wickedly ripped you away from him and told you not to think to much about him.

Even though he wanted to be the only thing on your pretty little mind, just like you were the only thing on his mind.

He noticed how your feet carried your breakable, little body faster than the usual pace towards the familiar bus stop, making Charles furrow his brows.

'Why was she walking so fast?' He thought to himself before he quickly crossed the street and followed you, eyes not being able to rip themselves away from your bouncing skirt and pretty legs as he walked closer and closer to your rushing figure.

While walking behind you, Charles quickly grabbed his camera and snapped a couple of pictures of you. Some of your silky smooth hair, some of your soft legs, but most of your bottom which was covered by your white, bouncy skirt.

He bit his lips as he zoomed even further in, focusing on taking a picture in the perfect moment where the slight breeze of the wind would blow your thin skirt to the side and expose the bottom line of your panties a bit, forcing Charles to readjust his jeans.

“Fucking hell, angel,” he mumbled deeply to himself before he took a brief look at the photos he just took, “please never stop wearing that goddamn skirt, y/n baby.”

While Charles was rubbing himself over his jeans with one of his hands while the other hand held his thousand dollar camera, you were busy with your phone as you waited for the bus to come, releasing a breath of relief as he finally came.

But right when you wanted to step forward, one of your heavy books slipped out of your hand and landed onto the dirty, hard concrete floor, making you whine since you really didn’t wanted to bend down with the other heavy books in your arms.

“Wait! Here, I’ll help you,” you heard somebody yelling as a man ran towards you, taking you by surprise as you realised who it was.

“Charles Leclerc?” You laughed, not expecting to see him here… with an expansive looking camera in his hand?

Charles briefly smiled at you as he heard you saying his name, quickly trying to push the camera a bit out of your view before he bend down and picked your book back up,

“The one and only,” he joked with a kind smile, making you giggle as he handed you your science book.

Charles quickly cleared his throat as he glanced at the upcoming bus who was coming closer and closer to the bus stop the two of you were currently standing at, “You enjoyed your time at Ferrari? Did nick treat you well?” He asked with furrowed brows.

You were suprised that he even remembered you, nodding at his question, “Yep! I really liked it and nick was a great teacher, yeah!” You answered with a gentle smile.

Charles nodded even though his blood was boiling at the mention of another man’s name coming out of your pretty little but sadly empty mouth.

He shook his head with a smile as he thought about how much of his cock he could effortlessly be able to shove into your mouth before he would hear the fist gagging sound, before he would see the first tears welling up in your eyes and before he would have to wipe the first tears away from your hallowed cheeks.

“Thank you,” you quietly told him before you stepped into your bus and took off, leaving Charles at the bus stop with a growing boner and the most sinful fantasies in his head.

All of them obviously including you.

—

Charles bit his lip with a sinister smile on his face as he put some tape onto the last picture that he just printed out and sticked it to the other 49 pictures on his wall, admiring the big wall that he just proudly filled with dozens of pictures from different days and different angles.

After a few seconds of simply starring at the with pictures filled wall, he sat down onto the bed across from the covered wall and swiftly opened his pants, eagerly pulling his cock out before he slowly stared pumping his length, groaning and throwing his head back as he did so.

“Fucking shit, mon amour,” he furrowed his brows in pleasure before he groaned again,

“You make me go crazy,” the monaguesque gulped, eyes focused on the multiple pictures sticking to the wall across from his sitting figure,

“Tellement fou, tu n'en as aucune idée,” so fucking crazy, you have no idea, Charles harshly gripped the sheets with his other hand as his eyes tried to focus on one picture, but it was impossible, his gaze locked onto almost all of them, forcing more groans and moans out of him.

His knuckles were already turning red from how rough he was fisting the sheets next to his hips as his other hand got quicker, wet and slick sounds filling the hot air while Charles's eyes slightly watered from the immense pleasure he currently felt just by looking at the picture across from him.

“Oh god, oh god!” His head fell forward this time, hand that he was jerking himself off with trembling now, “I’m gonna cum for you, y/n!” He gasped loudly, deep moans and groans turning into whines, “Tu vas me faire jouir, oh mon dieu!” You’re gonna make me cum, oh my god!

Only a couple seconds later Charles was painting the various pictures with his load, eyes squeezed shut and deep, heavy breaths filling the air as his hand and legs slightly trembled from all the pleasure.

As Charles opened his eyes again and looked up at his well decorated wall, he was only able to smile at the sight on front of him.

His cum was perfectly covering a picture that he took of you yesterday. It was a bright picture that was showing your smiley face, a smiley face that was now covered in Charles's cum.

The Ferrari driver licked his lips before he buttoned his jeans back up again and laughed at the pictures.

Another one right in front of him was showing you laying on your bed in just a short top and your pink panties, some of his fresh cum now also covering your peachy ass that was facing Charles's camera since you were laying on your stomach.

Then his eyes caught a picture of you in college, nicely sitting like a good and smart girl in one of your lectures during what he guessed was German class.

He followed you everywhere. There was no place where you could possibly escape him, he knew all of your lectures and friends. When you have science or math class, when lunch break begins and ends, when you have your next German or history exam, and when you meet up after school with your friend Katie.

He knew it all. He studied it all. To the brim.

Charles slowly stood up and walked over to one of the pictures that he first sticked onto the wall since it was one of his favourite pictures — not like he got a specific favourite one since he loves every single one of them — but this one had a special place in his heart.

It was the picture of you waiting for your bus a few days ago, three books in your hands and a pretty white bow in your hair while the wind helped Charles this day and lifted your skirt up a bit, exposing the bottom of your ass cheeks to his camera.

Charles was sure that he could cum again just by looking at the picture and rubbing his fingertips over it, especially over your ass.

“Oh mon petit lapin, les choses que j'aurais pu te faire ce jour-là, mais je me suis retenu parce que je suis un bon homme, tu devrais me remercier bébé, ouais... tu devrais me remercier petit lapin,” Oh my little bunny, the things I could have done to you that day, but I held myself back because I’m a good man, you should thank me baby, yeah… you should thank me little bunny.

Then he leaned forward and gave the picture a kiss, placing his lips right there where your white skirt barely covered your bum.

Charles smiled at the picture, hand already rubbing himself through his jeans again… your body always gave him a boner.

“Hop as far away from me as you can, little bunny,” he tilted his head to the side with a tiny smile, “I will always catch you.” His smile fell before he opened his jeans back up again, urge just simple to big to resist.

—

“hurry up, little bunny,” Charles mumbled to himself before he went back to watching you through his binoculars again, “Your literature lesson begins in 20 minutes and we don’t want you to be late, now do we?”

The monaguesque watched closely from one of the windows with his black pair of binoculars as you hurried through your apartment, heavy bag strapped to your well dressed body.

But when were you not well dressed? Looking all pretty and sweet, obviously only for Charles. Exactly. Never.

“You’ve got 15 minutes left y/n, goddamnit hurry up or I drag you personally to your lesson, baby,” Charles hissed to himself before a notification on his phone caught his attention.

'Dear students of class 11B, since your literature teacher, Mr. Woolword, called in sick today… you won’t be having literature in your first period, instead you’ll be lucky and have a free period.'

And as soon as Charles read that — since he’s logged into your school schedule app with your account — he jumped up and sprinted towards one of the windows in the very back of your apartment, quietly entering your home for the hundredth time already.

“Oh god, I need to leave, shit my literature books!” You mumbled to yourself but Charles heard it, swiftly making his way to your room and taking the heavy books with him, hiding in the meantime in your closet, leaving the door a tiny bit open to get a good peek at you.

Charles caught how you cutely furrowed your brows and turned into every direction to find your literature books, but it was no use, you couldn’t find them and you were already running way to late.

The Ferrari driver who was carefully watching you with your books in his arms, grinned and bit his lip, holding the books in one arm before he grabbed his camera and quietly laid down onto the floor.

Oh you made a great choice by wearing a dress today.

With a wicked grin, Charles focused himself on being quiet but still catching the perfect moments to take a picture of your panties peeking through the bottom of the dress, smile widening each time he got the perfect picture of your bottom.

“Oh mon Dieu,” oh god, Charles groaned quietly in a raspy tone before he started rubbing his crotch against the hard floor, biting his lip and groaning and moaning in very quiet and soft tones to not catch your attention before he snapped a couple more pictures.

“Ugh, fuck it, I am already so late,” you angrily muttered to yourself before you stormed out of the room and put your shoes on, swiftly running to the bus stop… without your literature books that you — unbeknown to you — wouldn’t even need today anyway.

—

“Seriously, I’m so happy that we have a free period!” Your friend, Lydia, said with a bright smile, making you smile as well.

“Me too,” you nodded as you entered the small café that’s only a few feet away from your school. Quickly sitting down onto one of the wooden chairs in the corner of the café.

After ordering, the two of you just talked about all sorts of stuff. At first you talked about typical class drama, then you started talking about your upcoming exams and even gossiped about some of your teachers, very common stuff to talk about with your friends.

Suddenly, you heard a camera clicking. At first, you ignored it and just continued listening to Lydia explain something about the upcoming English exam to you, but when you heard the same camera click for a second time, you swiftly turned around and scanned the shop, making Lydia stop mid-sentence.

Lydia tapped your arm, “Y/n? You okay? What’s wrong?”

You shook your head, still nervously looking around the small café with wide eyes, “I-I just thought t-that I heard something… just forget it,” you mumbled more to yourself than to your worried friend.

“Heard something? What do you mean, y/n? You’re scaring me…” she trailed off, looking deeply into your eyes.

“I just thought t-that I heard a-a camera clicking… like,” you gulped, hoping that you didn’t sound to crazy, “like somebody t-taking a picture of me.”

Lydia nodded before she gulped as well and quietly stood up,

“We’re leaving, c'mon,” she took you by your hand, “I honestly can’t see anything or anyone but if you don’t feel safe or comfortable then we’ll leave,” she leaded you towards the exit while you still continued scanning the café, eyes suddenly catching very briefly another pair of eyes that way intensely looking at you.

You’ve seen that pair of eyes before, but you couldn’t put your finger on it…

Shortly after making eye contact with that familiar looking man, your friend drags you out of the café without another word.

—

You felt paranoid as you entered your apartment, Lydia closing the door behind you with a thud as she cautiously watched your pacing figure.

“What happened back there with you, y/n? You seemed so nervous and scared… did something in the past happen that you didn’t tell me?” Lydia asked you while you removed your shoes and jacket, quietly turning around.

You sighed, “I might be crazy Lydia, but… I feel like somebody has been watching me for a while now,” you whispered the last part, still nervously scanning the apartment.

Lydia gasped, walking over to you, “Why didn’t you tell me! We could have called the police by now! We'll do it now!” She said in a loud tone before she grabbed her phone but you stopped her.

“No!” You said in a louder tone, “Don’t do that, the person might be watching us now and I for sure don’t want you involved in all of this mess, okay?”

Lydia sighed before she slowly nodded, “o-okay, but please! If you notice anything shady looking again, you immediately call me, alright!” She pointed her finger at you before she made her way towards the door, slowly leaving you alone.

You gave her a tight lipped smile, “I will, I promise,” you closed the door behind her, taking a deep breath before you went upstairs.

You just really needed to lay down right now and let that all sink in, you needed to calm down for a bit.

Knock. Knock.

With a groan, you left your comfortable bed, lazily walking towards the front door again,

“Lydia!” You rolled your eyes with a tired sigh, “it’s fine! I can look out for myself, I swear-!”

But it wasn’t your friend Lydia who stood infront of your front door as you opened the it, it was formula one driver Charles Leclerc, the one you saw numerous times when you made your internship at Ferrari not to long ago.

“Oh, uhm, hey!” You smiled at him kindly, making Charles lick his lips before you spoke up again,

“What are you doing here if I may ask, mr. Leclerc?” You stopped to the side, silently welcoming him into your apartment. You couldn’t deny that he was quite good looking and charming, probably no women could deny that.

You noticed how Charles gulped and briefly smirked in a sinister way as you said mr. Leclerc instead of just Charles, but quickly replacing the smirk with a charming grin again, “I was just coincidentally in the neighbourhood for some work related stuff and thought that I personally ask you if you enjoyed it at Ferrari and if you would actually consider working there after you’re done with school!”

He told you in a happy tone, forcing you to raise your brows in utter suprise since you really didn’t expect him to ask you such question. After a few seconds, you confusingly nodded,

“Uhm, yeah! I really enjoyed it and I actually do consider working there, yep! Really loved it, was a lot of fun but also super educational which I thought was just great!” You explained to him after he entered your house, closing the door behind him,

“You want something to drink? Tea? Coffee?” You asked him, slowly walking towards the kitchen while he scanned your house… unbeknownst to you for the hundredth time already.

Charles shook his head, “just a glass of water, please,” he flashed you a bright smile before he watched you disappear into the kitchen.

While you were grabbing a glass of water for the young Ferrari driver in your living room, Charles quickly pulled his phone out of his pants and opened his notes app, proudly crossing one of the tasks on his little 'To-do List' off.

Get her to invite you into her house and make her feel comfortable around your presence.

Charles could only smile and cheekily bite his lip before he was forced to quietly throw his phone onto the small table infront of him since he already heard you coming and just a few seconds later you handed him the small glass with that infamous smile of yours.

Oh how he wanted wipe that smile off of your beautiful face and replace it with a pathetic pout while you’re desperately begging for his cock.

After taking a few sips of the cold water, Charles spoke up,

“Where’s your bathroom if I may ask?” He turned towards your smaller frame, looking down at you with soft eyes.

“Just right around the corner over there!“ you pointed towards the small hallway. Charles quietly thanked you before he left you alone in your living room.

You kindly smiled again before you noticed his slightly cracked phone laying on your small table. You know that you usually shouldn’t do that, especially not with the phone of a celebrity but your curiosity got the best out of you, so you carefully picked his phone up and ran your fingers over the cracks on the back of it, wondering why he is just not buying himself a new phone… isn’t that man like a millionaire?

But as you turned the phone around, you were suprised to see that Charles didn’t lock it, almost as if he was in a hurry and just quickly tossed in onto your living room table.

But what was even more surprising to you was the fact that his phone brightly showed a note in his notes app, a very distrusting note.

Get her to invite you into her house and make her feel comfortable around your presence.

Which is crossed out.

You furrowed your brows before you swiped further down and gulped as you read the next couple of words on his disturbing 'To-do' list,

Carefully gain her trust and use your charm on her.

Which is also crossed out.

With wide eyes, you nervously bit your lip before you glanced towards the hallway, checking if he’s not hiding behind the wall or something.

Luckily, he didn’t caught you…yet.

After taking a deep breath, you scrolled again,

Ask her if you can use your bathroom.

Crossed off as well.

Your bottom lip was already trembling in pure terror as you dared to scroll further, swallowing tears down as your eyes scanned the next terrifying words,

Force her into unconsciousness after coming back from the bathroom by standing behind her trembling figure while she’s going through your notes ;).

Before you were even able to gasp, a big wet cloth covered your mouth from behind, giving you as good as no time to fight before you heard his voice in your ear from behind,

“Shh, go to sleep, little angel… I’ll wake you up again when I need you, okay?” Gently kissing your temple before you feel not only into unconsciousness, but also into Charles arms.

He chuckled, “knew you’d be a curious little bunny, going through the phone of other people… that’s not something a typical good and smart girl like you should be doing, hmm? Guess I need to teach you better then.”

—

Slowly, you felt yourself waking up, rising from the bed that you were laying on with a groan as you tried to come to your senses again.

Your shaking hands went up to your head, checking if you’re bleeding or hurt in any kind of way.

Nothing.

You sighed in relief, but that relief was quickly replaced by pure shook and fear as you realised what the room that Charles put you in looked like, eyes widening and suddenly getting automatically filled with tears.

Pictures. Pictures of you. Pictures of you in any possible size, captured from every possible angle.

You gasped, hand immediately covering your mouth as you started helplessly crying, shaking your head as you turned your head and scanned the other pictures on the other side of the room with wide eyes, legs quickly leaving the bed that you guessed was his.

This… was his bedroom.

The walls in his bedroom were filled to the absolute brim with pictures of you. Pictures where you were walking to school, coming home from school, pictures from the small window that perfectly showed your living room, pictures that showed you taking a shower or that showed you sleeping in your bedroom.

You walked through his bedroom, eyes scarily scanning every single picture with a poor, blurry vision as your hand couldn’t stop shaking.

Pictures from inside the house. Pictures visibly taken from your closet, from a disgusting angle that perfectly showed your ass and panties. Pictures taken of you as you changed in your bedroom, showing you completed naked or pictures that showed you masturbating.

He caught every single moment, every single activity of yours, it was perfectly visible on the walls of his bedroom.

You never felt so sick before, you swiftly covered your mouth with your hand but it was already too late, quickly, you went to a corner of his bedroom and loudly threw up, emptying your stomach as your sobs only got more violent.

Suddenly, you felt a hand on your shoulder and another hand holding your hair back, helping you as you continued throwing up in disgust.

You shook your head and groaned, tears staining your red cheeks, “L-Let go of me! Now!” You tried to run away from him but Charles quietly put one of his arms around your waist and pressed you against him, other hand still holding your hair in a makeshift ponytail so that they wouldn’t be hanging in your face.

“Shhh,” he mumbled in your ear from behind, almost as if he was trying to sound comforting as the thumb of his other hand stroked your hip, “It’s okay, you can let it all out,” Charles told you quietly, “I’m here.”

You bend forward again and threw up another load as you felt him touching you and stroking your hip in a reassuring manner, making your head spin even more before you shook your head again,

“N-No!” You took a deep breath as you placed your palms on his biceps, “you’re a-” you gulped and took a deep breath, “you’re a monster! L-Let me go, p-please!” You pleaded with teary eyes and a sore throat.

Charles furrowed his brows behind you and shook his head with a giggle, “what? No! I’m helping you, can’t you see?” His voice got a bit louder, “I’ve never done anything bad to you, angel!” The Ferrari driver stated, almost sounding proud to be able to say that.

It sickened you even more.

“You’re sick!” You spat at him, gagging again as he pressed himself closer to you, your mind not being able to forget the awful pictures that are surrounding the two of you at the moment.

Your hand squeezed his biceps as you softly cried, “C-Charles, please!” You begged, “Let me o-out of here, I’m begging you. I need t-to get out of t-this room, please,” voice quiet but rough as you leaned forward and squeezed your eyes shut, trying your best to avoid looking at all of those pictures.

“You want to get out of this beautiful room, mon amour, why?” He chuckled into your ear from behind whilst he squeezed your hip with his palm, lips still running along your temple, cheek and neck. You felt it all.

He chuckled again, “I decorated it all so beautifully for you and me, do you even know how much time that took? And now you wanna leave? You’re such an ungrateful little bitch, do you know that?” The driver spat at you from behind in a harsh tone as you felt like you would choke to death on your tears any second, you never cried that much before.

You repeatedly shook your head but slowly tried to give up, letting your head hang low with a tired sigh as you tried your best to calm yourself down since you felt like you were on the verge of a panic attack.

Charles somehow took notice of that, slowly letting his grip fall around your hips but still pressing himself against you from behind, standing up straight to peck the top of your head, “you're finally coming to your senses and calming down, huh? Good girl.”

Your bottom lip trembled as you couldn’t stop to sniffle and whine, big, teary eyes scanning the pictures on the walls as if they were the scariest things you’ve ever seen.

And honestly, they were the scariest things you’ve ever laid your eyes on. No doubt.

“Yeah,” Charles whispered from behind your trembling figure as he scanned the room as well, “take a look around, my angel,” he smiled at the various pictures, “they’re so pretty, aren’t they? I’m quite proud of myself to be honest,” he admitted with an evil grin as he proudly stared at his walls.

You took deep breaths and still shook your head as you also dared yourself to look around his room, finger still unintentionally squeezing his big and muscular arms that wouldn’t let your waist go, “h-how long did a-all of that take you?” You don’t even why you asked that question, apparently you were simply curious.

Charles thought about it for a few seconds as his eyes didn’t leave 'his work'.

“Well, including the taking the pictures, printing them out, perfectly cutting them to the right size and sticking them all into a specific order onto the wall… about three months, why are you asking, sweet girl?”

You gasped before you let your head hung low again, watching how the tears started to stain his floor. Pathetically, you only whined.

Charles furrowed his brows, “what’s wrong, my angel? You don’t like it?” He asked carefully as if he would really care right now, but you only whined and cried, whined and cried and whined and cried even more, so much that you’re entire body already started to feel the pain that was consuming your mind.

You felt like you could scream. like you could cry nonstop, until you have not a single drop of a tear left anymore, like you could breakdown and pass out and wish that you’ll never wake up again. you felt so inhuman… so disconnected from yourself as you sobbed.

And then it happened, you quickly turned your body to the right side and broke down, knees and palms hitting the floor with a tiny thud as you felt like you’re breaking into a million pieces, all created because of him.

Charles immediately went down with you, arms now removing themselves from your waist before he positioned his body in front of you and picked you up, cradling you reassuringly in his embrace before he set you down onto his lap, leaning against the wall with your small, shaking figure.

“Shh,” he whispered as his back touched multiple pictures of you, “I am sorry, my sweet angel, I’m sorry,” he mumbled into your ear as you only squeezed your eyes shut and let the tears stain his shirt.

Was he actually apologising? Wow, but why now?

Your hands slowly left the floor and placed themselves on his broad shoulder, trembling fingers fisting his t-shirt as he went on in a hush tone,

“I‘m sorry that you don’t seem to like the pictures, I have six envelopes each filled with one hundred-fifty-five other pictures of you, my love… I can replace them if you’d like,” he shrugged as he kissed your temple, right hand caressing your head while the other hand went up and down your back.

You were done. You were so tired, confused and disturbed. Sadly, you let your head drop into the crook of his neck, purely out of humongous weakness, shedding those immense amounts of tears really does take a toll on the human body.

Charles sighed, “believe it or not, sweet little thing, you’re the absolute safest… only in my arms, and nowhere else, you understand that, right?” Hands suddenly trembling ever more as you heard his words being whispered directly into your ear.

After you didn’t answer for a few seconds, Charles got impatient, “right?” He spat in a rather harsh tone at you, hand now pulling your head by your hair out of the crook of his neck and forcing you to look at him with your teary eyes.

You immediately nodded, sniffling after you whined at his rough grip on your hair, “r-right, yes C-Charles,” you could have puked again the second you mumbled his name, it all made you sick. His touch. His name. His voice. His words.

He made you sick. Letting your body feel sick, but also your mind.

“Good,” he leaned forwards and kissed your wet and red cheeks, gently kissing your tears away while his hand let go of your hair and softly massaged your scalp now, “That’s the good girl I like, don’t disobey me, okay? It will only force me to hurt that pretty little body of yours and I don’t want that, alright? You’re way to pure and beautiful for that, my angel,” he mumbled.

Your hands shook unstoppably on his broad shoulders, so hard that even Charles noticed.

The formula one driver briefly looked at your soft hands shaking on his shoulder before he looked back at you,

“Oh no, you’re all shaky, sweet girl,” he looked worried, “c‘mere,” Charles told you in a soft tone before he grabbed both of your hands and raised them up to his lips, gently giving each of your palm a lightweight kiss, lips only briefly grazing your skin as he kept his eyes on you.

“It’s okay, just calm down for me, you’ll feel better then, I promise,” he whispered, thumb caressing your palms before he intertwined your hands with his, lightly squeezing them.

[meanbossart]

Oh boy, VaM is kind of a trial and error experience LOL I couldn't really show you how to use the interface and stuff without a whole video or something, but it's not THAT difficult to get a hang of if you just give yourself a day or two to play around, not to mention the number of tutorials you find out there. Luckily, if you only want to use it as a reference software that makes the process far easier (to this day I have no idea how to animate on that thing, since that's not what I use it for)

As for how I use it, it's pretty self explanatory - if there's a complicated pose I want to draw but I'm either having trouble with it, or just want to double-check angles/anatomy, I will use it as a resource! I use for most of my "proper" pieces (y'know, the nicer looking ones) and every once in a while for my silly comics if I'm having trouble with a pose.

Lets use this drawing for example (the character on top of DU drow belongs to @namespara )

I don't draw a lot of mud-wrestling (shocking, I know) but I had an idea of the kind of pose I wanted them to be in. So the very first thing I did was make a rough sketch of what I was envisioning:

I often do a rough sketch first, even If I know I'm going to be pulling the program up because A) It's less tedious than adjusting the models over and over again until I pick a pose and B) because sometimes I'll decide I don't need the reference, after all, and so that's 30 minutes I'll have spared myself of playing around on the software.

Now, this is a pretty complicated pose! It's in a weird angle and the bodies are making contact in ways I'm not used to depicting, so I did choose to whip out VaM for this one. I went into the program and after some messing around, I flopped my little dolls together like this:

Now something really cool about VaM is that you can completely customize your models, and if you have the patience, I would definitely encourage you to do so! Obviously, you don't have to make picture perfect replicas of every single character you have, but as you can see here I have made a DU drow "decoy" to help me better understand some of his features when I draw him: he has a strong brow, a short nose, a square jawline - these are all going to look a very specific way from certain angles, and I might not always be sure of how to draw it right! So it's useful to have models that bear SOME semblance to the character so you can better understand how different viewpoints will affect their bone structure and mass.

Also thank fucking god for the elf-ear slider. Figuring out how to draw those shits from certain angles was a huge pain in the ass when I started drawing DnD races.

So, with the reference in hand, I go over the sketch again:

Now you may notice that I don't stick to the reference 100%. There's three reasons for this:

posing on VaM is tedious as hell. You can get something incredibly natural looking and picture-perfect to reference from if you wish, but it's going to take you hours to do. So, for the most part I just slap guys together until the results are "close enough" and use that.

In my opinion, you should always aim to ENHANCE your reference material, not replicate it exactly!

While VaM is a PRETTY DANG GOOD source of anatomical reference, it isn't perfect, I often supplement it with further reference from real life resources or make tweaks based on my own knowledge where I catch it falling short (and, antithetical to what I just said, I sometimes fuck the anatomy up further on purpose if I think it looks better that way LOL it's all jazz baby).

Then lines, color, yada yada. I don't have a tutorial on that and I don't think I could make one, because my process is chaotic as hell, but I do at times use Virt-a-mate as loose reference for lighting too when coloring - waaaaayyyy less so however, because that process is even more tedious and I feel like I often get better results by just winging it. It is a feature of the program though, and I'm sure it would be helpful for someone who has a difficult time visualizing lights and shadows. I only started using this program a few months ago, so I happened to already have a pretty good understanding of that kind of thing and just don't personally feel like I get much out of that particular mechanic.

Here's a few other examples of pieces that I made reference for (WARNING: Suggestive)

Now, for the question many of you may want to ask:

"Can I trace this junk?"

And to that, I say: Buddy, you can do whatever the hell you want with the reference material you created.

However,

If your goal is to learn and improve your art, and to recreate realistic proportions and anatomy from memory, tracing won't help you.

Developing your own style, your muscle memory, and personal technique will all be hindered by choosing to trace instead of drawing from observation, so I would encourage against it. Hell - even when tracing is employed as a technique, it's usually by high-skill realism & concept artists who are looking to either cut some corners, save time, or just double-check their own proportions in order to improve further - if you try tracing as a beginner, you will most definitely find the result to still look stiff and "off".

So trust me, there is so much more to be gained from drawing from observation. Make note of tangents, compare proportions, use all the elements of the picture to dictate where and how things should go - it will be a far more rewarding experience.

Hopefully this has been helpful! VaM is a really cheap program (you get it on the guys' patreon for I think 8 dollars, just google it!) and it's definitely been worth my money as an artist since I found it. Learning to use it can be a little intimidating at first glance, but as I said above you only really need a day plus one or two tutorials to get a hang of the interface.

A fair warning though, IT IS A SOFTWARE MADE FOR VIRTUAL SEX/ADULT ANIMATION So when looking it up expect to see a some spicy content.

[gosmigenergy]

WAKE UP CALL

( Will ‘Ironhead’ Miller x F!Reader )

Summary: Will invited you on one of his work trips but when you wake up early and can’t get back to sleep, you find a perfect use of your time.

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Hand job, no use of Y/N.

Word Count: 1.5k

You didn’t know how long you’d been awake.

It surprised you when you roused, knowing that you and Will were definitely still up at midnight after managing to commander the motel’s hot tub, the couple of other patrons nowhere to be seen.

He still slept peacefully beside you and you hated him for it.

When you opened your eyes, the room was dark and gradually the colour shifted to a shade of blue as the sun began to rise. You tried to find ways of entertaining yourself, your phone was charging on the opposite side of the room and you refused leave the warm cocoon of the bed. Stretching over to your bedside table, you found the remote yet the television showed nothing other than those weird shopping segments and kids cartoons.

So you switched it off and tried to go back to sleep.

Except you couldn’t.

You hear every noise from outside, the birds in the trees, that couple that have checked out so ridiculously early you can only question why. Then you try to reposition yourself, rolling left and right, tangling yourself into the sheets before sticking a leg out into the cool air. Finally, you just accept it, lay on your back and open your eyes, making shapes as you gazed at the whipped cream plastered ceiling.

It took a while for the sun to come through the slit of the curtains.

Sighing, your head lulled to the side.

The orange ray cut along the carpet and crept up the bed before perfectly framing Will’s profile like he’d fallen straight from heaven. His short hair was fluffy around the edges from last night’s escapades, his bottom lip peeking underneath his lightening whiskers. The fragment of light captured every sharp angle from his square jaw to the tip of his nose, his eyelashes casting the softest of shadows.

“Bunny…”

You blinked in disbelief, his mouth barely moved.

“I can feel you staring.”

“Sorry,” your voice was meek.

“Go back to sleep.”

“I tried.”

“Then put on the tv.”

“There’s nothing on.”

He grunted gently, already letting sleep take him.

If he was looking at you, he’d see the faint pout and doe eyed expression but it didn’t last when he lazily threw an arm up, gesturing you to come. Smiling, you crawl to his open chest and entangle your limbs around him, tucking one leg between his. Placing your head on his shoulder, he folds his arm over your back, his hand drawing down your arm until your fingers met.

This was a better time than ever to truly take him in.

You bring his hand millimetres from your face, take note of the length of the lines and try to remember their meanings. His fingers twitch as you drag a single fingertip over the central crease before you press your palm to his and assess the size difference. You cradle his wrist in both hands following the firm muscles in his arm to inspect the eagle tattoo that decorates it.

You were happy to see him using balm you got him, one produced with honey that made the ink shine as if it was freshly done.

Draping his arm over your stomach, you roll further into his body and nuzzle into the crook of his neck, the hairs on his jawline scratching your forehead. Breathing him in, you can smell his natural scent, the one you can never quite describe. Your hand comes to his chest, rising and falling with the rhythm of his breathing.

Stretching your arm out, you graze his shoulder on the opposite side before following his collar bone. You leisurely stroke down the middle and circle round to trace the lightly formed six pack of his torso.

That’s when you feel the change of texture.

When it came to the boys and their scars, you never questioned them but this one on Will always surprised you. For a man who has been on the field as many times as him, he hasn’t got a scratch on him which means whatever happened here underneath your fingertips was… you never liked to think.

You continued to rub his chest until you heard the sigh slip past his lips.

It was the only encouragement you needed to go lower.

You brushed over the hairs underneath his navel before swooping from one hip to the other, fingertips skimming over his well defined ‘v’. His flaccid cock grows, swelling in anticipation of your touch but you make him wait, teasing the inside of his thigh. Cupping his balls, you gently massage them, a ragged breath escaping him as he becomes fully erect.

Your legs wrapped tighter around his as you softly roll your hips, the heat building in your belly and pooling in between your folds with the friction.

With a delicate touch, you stroke his cock to the tip, coating your fingertips with his precum before you start to play. You focus on there, it’s heat scorching through your skin as you circle up and down it’s domed shape.

His heartbeat was quickening, the sounds of his increasing breaths clear in your ears, the bob of his Adam’s Apple as he swallowed.

Mentally, he was cursing you.

The offer of his embrace was meant to send you back to sleep, maybe he should have completely engulfed you, pinned you into position so you had no other choice. Though how could he complain? 

All his other trips out of state were so similar, they blurred into one. Guided tours around bases that all had the same square foot, matching tables and chairs, everything clean to the point the room looks untouched. Offers to hang out with new recruits, to spend time talking to vets, to go for drinks. Dinner alone, settling into yet another white walled motel room with thin curtains and itchy sheets, his own hand his only company.

Your hand was much better.

Taking your hand away briefly, you lick the palm with your saliva before returning it back to his cock. His heavy weight jerks, the muscles of his abdomen straining as he stops himself from cumming there and then.

You pick your head up a little, glancing at his scrunched expression and noticing how he hadn’t opened his eyes because you both knew if he did, he was fucking screwed. Returning to his shoulder, you press a kiss to his skin before starting to pump him unhurriedly.

His body relaxes as he allows the pleasure to take over, each new movement of your hand spreading that initial warmth throughout. It brought a pink hue to his cheeks, sent a gravelled moan to his mouth from deep within, buried his fingers into the flesh of your stomach. The energy you once had in your hips dies out and you lay still with nothing but your hand moving, picking up the pace.

This wasn’t about the two of you reaching your release, it was solely about him.

His arm around your frame moves, his hand coming from your shoulder, moving the angle of your wrist. He chases the sensation, raising his hips and closes in on you, his cock now pressed in the middle of your stomachs. 

The temperature between you was stifling, made even more paramount when he tucked your face under his chin. Sweat clung to his chest, his breath hot as it fell over your shoulder causing the hairs to stand up on the back of your neck.

You pulled your focus to the head of his cock, flattening your palm against the top, rubbing as you slithered your other hand from underneath you. Contorting your body, you reach for his balls and squeeze before kneading him. He shuddered, the spark travelling up his spine yet he refused to cum. You begin to jerk his length again, other hand still on his balls and turn up the tempo.

The air hisses through his gritted teeth then he groans.

Your tongue flicks over your lips, glossing them with moisture and he can see them behind his eyelids as you bring them to his ear.

“Cum for me, baby.”

Hot seed shots over your stomach and smothers your hand as he finds his release, his body going rigid. The hold he has around your frame grows tighter, the honeyed moan loud over the squelching as more of his cum paints your skin.

You sigh as your slick palm falls from his hard cock, the grip on his balls loosening.

He takes his time to catch his breath, chest heaving, when you feel him slowly unravel himself from you. Rolling onto his back, his expression softens, the smile on his face forcing the dimple into his cheek.

“I have to say, that’s the best wake up call I’ve ever had.”

Finally, he opens his eyes, glancing at his coated abdomen, a smear where your hand came into contact. Then he looked at you as you inspected the mess he’d made over your body, drops of creamy liquid landing on your breasts.

You fix your gaze to his as you consider a retort but then you see how those baby blues almost sparkle under heavy lids and one never comes.

[tagedeszorns]

(Violetbirdie here) I think it's complicated due to a variety of issues. 40k as a franchise is huge, but it isn't the sort of thing that tends to have overlap with tumblr type fanspaces. It also doesn't help that 40k is a fractured fandom featuring tons of different factions, so it's not like a standard fandom where there are main characters and a main story that people will always flock to. The primarchs are the closest thing we have to that, which is why there is naturally more content for them. In addition, fandom itself is in a bit of a flux state and has been ever since the 2018 nsfw ban which caused a lot of people to leave for twitter, which is now undergoing its own huge changes right now (and I just hate twitter on principle).

I suppose the one thing I think would help, would be somehow getting the 40k tumblresque fandom space more consolidated as a whole. Like, somehow have a blog that is popular for all factions that posts headcanons about everything, thus getting people interested in parts they don't normally think about. Because 40k is a huge time investment to learn about. I've been listening to audiobooks for what feels like nonstop for over a month, and even then I could only ever feel confident telling people about Emperor's Children. So it naturally is harder for new people to get into the fandom and focus on some of the smaller things because there is just so much. It's almost how I view your blog. I check it daily for fun art/headcanons/just general character stuff, and you made me more interested in some of the captains and such. But even then, you have your focuses. So a space even more general where someone would reblog art from everything 40k would likely be nice? Maybe I just miss the livejournal days of fandom. As far as more engagement, I think having silly things like character weeks which encourages people to draw or write or talk about specific aspects is a huge benefit. It sets a schedule and makes people feel like they are shouting less into the void.

But as someone new here, maybe its my weird perspective, but I don't feel like things are getting less popular. If anything, from just checking AO3, it seems like things are only getting more popular for less of the reddit type and more for the Tumblr wanting to see hot dudes and their complicated feelings type. Also more people are getting into 40k in this side of the space through rogue trader. Like people I never talked to about 40k are starting to look into the series because they played Baldurs Gate 3, and needed a new RPG to play, and conveniently Rogue Trader is filling that for them. So, I'm optimistic if anything. Sorry about the long ramble! Just kinda dumping my thoughts out.

I love Tumblr because, unlike Twitter or Bluesky, it allows for way longer, way more elaborately structured posts. I love it when artists don't just slap their pics into a post and be done with it, but instead add stuff like maybe "I read this book, here's a quote, and it gave me this mighty need to draw this". Or "please listen to this music here while looking at my pic! It goes perfectly with it!". Or just a multi-paragraph-essay (preferably very unhinged) about the character in the upper left corner.

This in advance, so you can see I'm totally with you on the "miss Lifejournal"-thing, because blogs are so much better than just 500 characters, four pics and nothing else. And why I think Tumblr is a very good replacement for Lifejournal.

The multitude of Tumblr-blogs with their many different angles are such a treat and provide such a rich ecosystem! I follow artists posting exclusively admech-stuff, others solely Drukhari, some writers focussing on just one Astartes Legion ... it's phantastic and the depth of their niche-knowledge is mindblowing.

I agree with you that this will be overwhelming for new fans coming from rather monolithic stuff like Rogue Trader. And the key to keeping those new people involved and making them feel welcome is showing them all this variety without scaring them away.

Maybe this new feature Tumblr is working on, can be helpful here. I haven't read much about it yet, but it seems the "Community"-feature has the potential to bundle stuff in a way that's more approachable for new and old fans alike. Maybe there's room for your idea of having "character weeks" (I like that! Sounds very MacDonald's. I'll have Fabius with extra pickles, please! 😁).

I'm sharing your optimism that both the new games and maybe the new series/movies will bring a lot of new fans over and some of them may even stick around. I am a bit wary that there's the possibility of a MCU-situation starting to build up, but since Warhammer-lore is in a constant state of flux anyways this might just add some spice to the mix.

So, yeah, hope for the darkest of futures!

[neonfretra]

some thoughts on capturing likeness of people

this is as much of a tutorial as stories in the front of recipes teach you how to cook

so what the hell is likeness?

im drawin guys thatre supposed to look like real human guys. if you ever tried drawin a character with no in the flesh portrayal as well as in the flesh humans, this is a totally different skill set from just drawin uh. the illusion of a person? or maybe i just had the first unique experience in ever (equally as likely)

a persons likeness is their je nais se quoi, what makes them look and feel like themselves. you see a drawin and know its your guy, no matter how representative or abstract it gets? that got their likeness down pat. you see a drawin and scramble to the tags to figure who it is? (funny enough an experience i get often with my own stuff) not only did it not capture their likeness, they caught a whole new horse and i want it OUT of my kitchen what???

tangent: realism

did you know (semi-)realism is WAY easier to draw than whatever the weird little freaks i draw are, there is so much back and forthing on if it looks enough like the guy as a doodle for me

(i dont actually know what semi-realism is, its kinda the holding bin of anything thats not realism or anime, the only two art styles that are recognized casually. this is a gross oversimplification.)

its a LOT easier to work with making a guy look like himself with 200 strokes all over 20 strokes all im sayin . you get way more space and details to work with to get the bigger picture. simple doodles do not give you the same mercy. people who work with simpler styles thatre drawin real faces, i bow at your feet cause HARD.

basically when you see my sorta realistic kinda nothing portraits, these are my hyperrealistic eye drawings in the margins of my papers. ive never had an eye drawing phase.

massively simplifying faces feels like taking every part i know about drawing a face and severely compressing it. i mean yeah literally they tiny but

the hell is a proportion

something i noticed is a really common advice on how to get good at drawin a guy is to "focus on proportions"

okay okay i admit. thats incredibly true and you cant really skip around it if you want to get good likeness. having a grip on where things go on a face is the steak and potatoes to capturing a guys likeness . gotta study the blade to draw it etc

but also i am incapable of learning anything related to art without just tripping into the concept myself LOL

which is why im goin to be real i pay a lot less attention to the proportion and anatomy than i really should and instead go off strongest impressions of they face as a whole (and then editing parts afterwards because it looks wack)

i have an incredibly unoptimized workflow

heres my secret to you! memories are a lot less accurate than we think and pushing and pulling traits to get more caricature street artist than life study class makes players look more like themselves ^_^

some examples off the top of my head: drawing william eklunds chin longer, over emphasizing joey daccords eyes + devin cooleys smile, tomas tatars eyebrows dont even look like that. its not about the individual traits, its about the face as a whole

no one checks your work! you can get away with a lot you just need to take the money and run

just add shading! ^_^

one of the easiest ways to make a guy look like himself for me is shading LOL

its funny because just add shading is NOTHING advice and i will stand by this. (learning shading is a good skill in art but you dont NEED it for EVERY PIECE. this is usually a SUBJECTIVE PREFERENCE!!! there tend to be underlying issues that make you feel COMPELED like a lack of contrast or

on the other hand, shading gives me way more control about implying how much parts of the face stick out . form! its a wondrous thing

this is something i struggle with INCREDIBLY in with drawing noses actually! without angles it gets way hard to how showcase a lot of the shapes to it. and in my case i cant imply all these without shadow.

and then i doodle them

not tryin to make the case that drawin them as amoebas is challenging. im just sayin have you ever tried havin your first shot on drawin someone be instantly recognizable in as few lines as possible.

(fun fact: i draw some features only at certain angles in my doodles because it doesnt translate well without! its mostly prominent nose bumps. try not to pay too much attention to the technical aspect of it. can you imagine my grubi or macklini head on . can you imagine willyek from the side???)

tangent: tutorials

i actually love making tutorials can i be so honest. i dont even learn or teach well i just love making a weird long winded thing about how i approach random parts of a drawing (ive done ones on shirt collars, jawlines, jacket lapels, basic color theory, and arm muscles for an idea on what kind of tom foolery im about)

honest to god i was considerin a more tutorial angle on this but the problem is that my approach on likeness is more a mix of more technical aspects of portrayin different kinds of facial features and puttin the vibes over realism.

its not even necessarily a hard craft, its just hard to explain without havin to pull up the whole root system of how it works and how to apply it! even tyin your shoes sounds like rocket surgery if your teachers bad enough

could tell you how to draw a guys nose but that doesnt tell you how to arrange the guys face with it. you know??? and i dont think anyones in a hurry to draw how i do LMAO

anyways if you ever want a collection of low res mspaint images explaining any aspect of what i get up to . just ask! ^_^

the big picture

honestly i think i get away with the shenanigans that i do because i put more care into the big picture than the details

NOT TO SAY DETAIL WORK ISNT CUTE. i love it a lot, include that close up of your lovingly rendered eyelashes or complicated shirt sleeve wrinkles mwah mwah

its more just that its nice to get the shape of a guys eyes or his freckles down pat but if his profile looks like a whole other person, its going to look like that whole other person before it looks like his eyes, you feel what i mean? (in that way proportion is actually a huge deal in likeness to me)

if i ever did a detail shot of an eye you would have NO idea who it was though HAHAHAHA its all dots!

i really do think the more broad strokes you get down the more you can hide the lazier or less accurate parts in the back. because HOH you dont want to pull a photo up when you look at my drawings

bwegh

there is no conclusion go out into the world and be cute or whatever

this is more my personal observations from drawin hockeys for like. 10 months? thats like the length of a pregnancy give or take. i know my units of time

[funkyspacealien]

Rabbit of the Night He'll suck the orange out of your carrots (Sketches n' processes under the break! It's a REAAAAAL long one)

I've been meaning to draw a piece that actually includes a background instead of a character standing in the void. The issue that arises is that... I just didn't have any good ideas for backgrounds, lol. Partially the issue is that I tend to design the character first, which makes it challenging to draw stuff around them. Since around the time that I made this piece was October and the big holiday was Halloween, I figured I could do something within the theme. I've been meaning to draw my character, Nosferatu, again since they have always been one of my lowkey favorites of mine.

An older piece of the character, which you can see with the others here The character was quite macabre, which made it perfect for doing something slightly spooky. The cape also gave me a great idea for making something more visually striking, as well.

My first attempt. As you can see, I tried to do a thumbnail this time so I can have a better understanding of the amount of space I have to work with. I highly recommend that you do something similar if you struggle with doing backgrounds. Though, I think I ought to make it a bit more square, lol. I had to tweak some things to fit within the standard square shape since I drew everything at a wonky angle. I was inspired by Soul Eater and Majora's Mask when it comes to the background design, especially with the moon having a prominent appearance. I knew that was a consistent thing I wanted to keep throughout the iterations. The flowing cape was heavily inspired by Spawn and the artwork of Lelouch from Code Geass

I always found it to be such a striking iconography for the characters. Despite being an inanimate piece of clothing, it adds a lot to the design. Spawn was always an intimidating dude, but having that cape overwhelms the viewer and takes up so much screen space every time he wears it helps give him more of an otherworldliness. You may not truly understand who or what is he, but you may get the vibe that he's someone with great power and importance. It's befitting of someone who is viewed as the best spawn of the devil. I find it also interesting for a character like Lelouch. Now, I never watched the show he came from, only understood the basic premise from various sources throughout my life. Pardon if my read on the character is incorrect, but to me, he's quite the scrawny guy and perhaps lacks power of his own. Despite this, he runs a rebellion and goes under the alias of "Zero". He dresses up as Zero, including the cape. With it on, his form became much more imposing yet concealed. It gives him a sense of royalty, which you might attribute to the likes of Kings or Queens. Someone with power. Sorry for that brief character analysis tangent, lol. It's just something that I thought about when creating the character of Nosferatu. I find it interesting that something so simple as a cape can help give a feeling of power. It's something that I feel everyone subconsciously think of and not realize. Back on topic, the rest of the composition I wasn't super satisfied with. I sorta lean into the "Dracula" look the character had by having the castle in the background, but I think it came off as very flat. I also thought it made things visually unclear. A bunch of things off in their own corner instead of organic guiding the viewer's eyes. I scrapped the first idea and tried to go in another direction.

I had the idea of being underneath an overpass and having buildings being lit by the moon. I don't think it was too bad of an idea, but I had trouble refining it and making it more "full", if that makes sense? This had a weird sense of emptiness and dragged the composition down for me. Perhaps if I drew the character differently and played more with the perspective, it would've been better. I went back to my original idea and checked if I could improve some things on a base level.

Originally, I had the cape go off-screen but checking my original inspiration, like various art pieces of Spawn, I noticed that the cape "ends" tend to curve back into the frame. I decided to do something similar which I think helped give the piece a sense of "flow" to it. I found that it also gives a composition more layers of depth and fills in any "empty" spaces that I had worried about before. I tilted Nosf's head a bit so they weren't just standing there stiffly as well. Sometimes it's the little things that help improve the piece than having to redo it all over again.

Finally, I just decided to make the background more on the simple side. I think I had the issue of really wanting to prove myself that I could do backgrounds that I made it way more complicated than it needed to be. It gave me the chance to make the moon much bigger, which I always meant to be a striking aspect of the piece. When drawing, I decided to forgo the "ground" that the cliffs are on since I felt it cluttered up the piece with too many colors. Now, I just got to finish it!

I should be done, right? Well, not exactly. While I think it looks nice (I'm personally proud of my use of noise filters), it just still lacks the depth that I'm looking for. Something about it is too bright and clear. I went back and experimented some more until I found a solution that made me feel stupid not realizing it before, lol. So initially, I tried to use this photo editing program called "Picsart". I used to use it a lot when I was doing digital art since I like the added filters. I eventually stopped because it would ruin the image quality. I thought they fixed that issue, but it's still the same.

It's a bit subtle in this picture, but I like to use the "vintage" filter since I like the added shadows on the sides of the images. The problem is that the quality got ruined and I'm very stubborn about keeping it in the nicest resolution possible. I decided to see if I could replicate it in my own art program. What I discovered is that I can and the solution was very simple, lol. First I drew a square with a solid color on a new layer-

Then I used the "Gaussian Blur" Filter-

I turned down the opacity, set the blending to "burn" and overlaid it on the artwork, which gave the depth I was looking for!

I gave the head some slight shading too since the filter unintentionally gave it to their ears. Good call since I think that helped with the Halloween atmosphere I was intending.

[minty-tea-soup]

Doors and Stargazing

First Post for AU-gust Ringduo things.

This is part of the DnD!AU. Not my best writing but still fun.

“Why don’t you use your Soup Shrine ever? Sometimes there will be a little note forming at the Library, the start of the stay but its never long or cohesive. We can make it better for you? What isn’t good-” Tea cut off Minty’s rambling chitters with their own concern, “I didn’t realize that it meant that much that I wasn’t staying the night in them. I cleaned it and kept it nice just don’t want to get trapped in there overnight.” “Trapped? It doesn’t trap you. It gives you a break from the world so that you don’t burn out. Allows time to not worry, to consider and have to rest. Being able to add to the Library is a bonus,” Minty was now actively looking around the Shrine as if it was broken. Pulling the well maintained door back and forth, checking how it sat in the frame. Then moving on to check all the windows as well. “The door locks at night. Can’t get out.” Minty stopped looking at the different points that lead to the outdoors and turned back towards Tea. A look of confusion and his ears flattened in displeasure before going inside and checking the hearth where the yellow and green fire burned away happily. After poking at the hearth a couple times Minty let out a little distressed call. Tea followed hesitantly into the Shrine worry poking at their brain, what was so wrong about wanting to sleep under the stars? Or wanting to experience the dark and quiet that came with the night? “You never stayed long enough for gifts?” Minty’s reflective eyes showed Tea their own confusion reflected back across the different angles contorting like a fun house mirror. “I didn’t want to owe anything.” “But you cleaned! You have helped resupply food. Oh this won’t do. I am going to sleep here tonight and try to talk to Sun God about what to do.”

And that’s what he did as Tea made a small camp outside to watch the stars. The door locking the two from each other. But at the first light of dawn Minty came out with a hammer and a couple other tools that he definitely did not have the night before. Without waking Tea who was sleeping peacefully he started to break the door off the hinges. Not a quiet task. BANG! Tea shot up ready to fight a threat to see the desecration of the Soup Shrine from Minty. Minty who had told them once about how Sun God only ever held malicious for those destroyed its creations: Shrines, people, the Library, it’s woods. And here it’s favored Cleric, someone who would eventually be enveloped and stitched into the fabric of what made Sun God itself was destroying one. Was this because Tea didn’t like the door? Was Minty really throwing away their entire future, one they loved so much, for a fucking door?! BANG! “Oof sorry didn’t mean to wake you up but these last couple bolts didn’t want to come out,” Minty apologized as they picked up the door and moved it off to the side, “Spoke with Sun God last night and we agreed that while a Shrine without a door gives more fuzzy vague stories it is more important that the Shrine is somewhere you feel safe. It sadly means it can’t give anymore boons or gifts but that’s fine. It will still hold the protective charms, just a bit looser. It shouldn’t hold you in at night now. That was the problem right?” Tea just nodded and watched as the door that was now being broken down, hardware stripped off before the heavy ash was being broken into chunks. Then feed into the fire inside. “There we go,” Minty smiled, this weird bare of teeth that would have been more malicious looking if her tail wasn’t bopping back and forth. “Why? Won’t Sun God be mad?” Tea was trying to hide the worry but couldn’t help drawing their cloak tighter as if the sun itself might look down and burn them both like the bugs they were.

“No of course not. I got full blessing. Sun God is the god of Creation. Sometimes Creation is change. While Sun God tends to be the Constant Creation so less regressive change and more building and growing change sometimes erosion is still change. A lot of people misunderstand. They hear ‘God of Creation’ and think that Sun God made the world. No. Some other god or gods made the world. Breathed it into being. But then they made a fire to help it thrive. They called that fire the Sun and it looked upon this wonderful place they were born to protect and help guide growth to. And they grew from that. They aren’t always in the Sun anymore. Sometimes but often they are in the Library now. They want people to make art, to feel safe, to invent new machines, to protect, to build wonders and places to grow. And then they want the stories, to hear about your day and all that inspired you. To slowly take that story from you and sew it into itself so that it may have a little bit of you in it always. That’s what I will be eventually. Another patch in the wondrous quilt that is all.” Minty’s gestures were wide and excited as she opened one of the chests and pulled out some food tucked away for travelers. Other things Tea didn’t often touch, even if they did help replenish. “But why if you want to experience the world would you stay inside at night? Why not explore that wonder?” Tea questioned, imagining a world in which they would have never pondered or stared in the Void. “What can I see at night that I cannot see under the Sun?” “The Stars. The quiet. The Void, though that is less seen and more of an existence.” “Will you stay with me to experience it? I would like to take the story back for Sun God.” “Of course.”

And so they waited. Tending to the plants around the Soup Shrine, cleaning the windows and sanding over the area that would make someone believe that there ever was a door. Because now this Soup Shrine never had a door. After all if it had a door it couldn’t fulfill it’s purpose of being a Soup Shrine for Tea. And then Dusk arrived. Minty’s fur was puffing up a little in fear trying to smooth it back down with thin hands. Their antennae upright and terrified. Then the stars started to show. No moon tonight, Tea noted but that was fine because there was so many stars. Filling the sky and telling stories that no one could hear, unless they knew the language and where to listen. But there was another light a soft glow coming just from Tea’s right. Turning they saw Minty looking up at the stars in the wonder, experiencing the night sky for the first time in her entire life. And that tail that always looked so strange and hallow in it’s white exoskeleton was glowing a soft green. Just a little before fading and starting again. Minty hadn’t even noticed this change but Tea was delighted to learn this new fact about their friend. Nudging them gently they gestured to the tail. Minty’s eye stared at their own tail as if they had never seen this before. A new wonder to add to the Library.

[echoesofwisdomcountup]

89 Days Until Tears of the Kingdom Release. The Trailer Breakdown is here. Sorry Tumblr killed the image quality. This is Part One of Three.

Warning: This will be obscenely long. I have spent hours of my life on this and I even went around Hyrule in BOTW to double check things. I have also watched only one reaction/analysis video (Limcube) whose ideas I reference a few times but the rest is all me. Now, I know many of the oddities and differences could easily be explained by saying we time travel into the past but I’m going to approach this for the most part as if we are not time traveling because it's more fun this way. Also, the colors refer to the corresponding arrows/circles on the image above it.

First thoughts: Dang the sky is mad. Do not wear metal in this weather. Red: Malice spewing out of Death Mountain. Never not gonna be interested in that. Green: Green swirlies. I’m assuming this is something that lets you travel into the sky. Maybe lets you phase through the ground like one of the past trailers has shown us. Liquifies Link even. Orange: Weird funky rock. Meteorites?? Yeah I’m gonna point these out a lot.

Red: Malice pool right next to the green swirlies. Blue: Tiny glowing dots in the distance. Other green swirlies? If so they seem to dot the landscape like shrines in that you can see the glow far off. Unless they are more of those symbols/drawings inscribed on ground/grass that we see later.

First thoughts: Keese on steroids. My friend suggests calling them Geese. Second thoughts: Actually, they remind me of the flying enemies from Twilight Princess, Twilit Kargarok, only yellow. Hmm yellow and orange… I hope they are not electric or fire although there seems to be a lack of that in the trailer. Note: The area is clearly where the Sheikah Tower near the Korok Forest (Woodland Tower) should be, except well it’s obviously not there.

Blue: Glowing towers that are clearly not Shiekah Towers. I like the spotlights though. They look kinda prehistoric.  Orange: Big glowy symbols/drawing. I really want to know what these are for. Green: It’s kinda hard to see but I think it’s a big storm tornado thing in the sky. You can see it much better later in the trailer. Reminds me of the stormhead dome in Skyward Sword.

Blue: Glowing orange thing down there. Can’t tell what it is but maybe a chest? Idk why but I have this idea you might have to jump down from higher and angle yourself to land on it. You had to do this for platforms in Skyward Sword. Red: This island being at a lower altitude from the one taking up most of the shot pleases me. I like the idea of layered sky islands. Might be a nightmare for stamina and paragliders until we can get those vehicles.

General thoughts: Brand new underground area. I’ve never seen anything like this in BOTW. Green: Blue flame spirit things. These are so interesting. I wanna know what these are. They remind me of willow the wisps or maybe the Bluepee. I hope this means more spirit things in this game. I will be quite sad if they are only an environmental design choice. Red: Malice infused Lizalfos. Again I haven’t seen elemental enemies yet. Only malice ones. Huh it’d be pretty funny if they bled black but then that’d be infringing on the Linked Universe and enemies don’t bleed in Zelda games. Pink: Why are they mining? Seriously, Ganondorf, what are you having your minions mine for? You lose something? Do the bokoblins need money or ore for something? Hmm, a bokoblin run market would be interesting. Blue: This glowy snake tree thing kinda looks like a tunnel of some sort. Maybe it’s a way to travel from the surface to this. If so I’d treat it like a slide but then I’d break my knees cause you can bet fall damage is still a thing… hmm can’t wait to see people time how long it takes for Link to fall from the highest island to the ground and go splat

Note: The Bridge of Hylia is the same. Yes, I double checked. Words: “Rise, rise my servants.” I’m fairly sure this is Ganondorf.   Red: DRAGON. THREE HEADED FIRE DRAGON. Yeah so this is one of the few elemental enemies shown in the trailer. I want to fight this thing so bad. I’ve heard people say it's a Gleeok possibly (an enemy from the first Legend of Zelda game.) It reminds me of a much cooler version of the Hydra enemies from Skyward Sword. Blue: Vaguely green glow that probably denotes a green swirly thing. Pink: Malice holding up the castle looks sick. I like that you can see it glowing red from far away.

General Thoughts: It’s Hateno and it mostly looks the same but not quite Words: “Sweep over Hyrule.” Yeah, yeah Ganondorf we get you have a grudge. Green: Green swirly thing is new. It’s not quite in the same place as the shrine which is absent from this picture.  Blue: Purah’s furnace is gone and so are the blue flame lanterns along the road and the ancient furnace down in the village. Purah’s lab also isn’t glowing. Actually, this makes me wonder about teleportation since no Sheikah slate. Maybe we get so many new vehicles because no instant teleportation.

General thoughts: First time we see Link. Hello buddy. Also sequels and moons as enemies am I right? Words: “Eliminate this kingdom and her allies.” This Ganondorf doesn’t want to rule over people but wipe them out which makes me think about Demise’s anger and hatred. However, Ocarina of Time Ganondorf devastated the land pretty badly so maybe all of the Ganondorfs/Ganons like extreme destruction. Also, I’m pretty sure Hyrule’s allies are all the different races, Zora, Rito, Gerudo (talk about betraying your own people Ganondorf), Shiekah. I’m not holding out hope for other nations/kingdoms getting involved. Blue: You can see islands in the background. I wonder what the long trailing thing is. Pink: The shield is the same one we’ve seen in a past trailer but of course Link had a different outfit then. Also the bow is a brand new one that’s not in BOTW. The sword handle also makes me think it's a new weapon. I like the triforce triangles on the shield and the not-really-Sheikah-eye eye. It’s got eyelashes.

General thoughts: I wonder if we get a super strong blood moon in the beginning and then the cycle returns to normal like BOTW or will we get more frequent blood moons or maybe blood moons are every night but they don’t work quite the same like moon is just red everynight and enemies are stronger but every once and a while we get a super blood moon that respawns enemies. Words: “Leave no survivors.” This part really makes me think more Demise than Ganondorf. The way the VA growled this part also made me think of Pig Ganon or Ganondorf’s beast form. Blue: It's kinda hard to make out but that’s a lot of malice. It’s really consuming the castle there.

Green: Green swirly thing is already present when the Ganon moon starts raining meteors. Does this mean that this footage isn’t from the first cutscene the trailer is alluding to but a later blood moon cycle? Do the swirly things appear as soon as the green seal breaks on Ganon? Or do they appear before and that's why Link and Zelda were exploring underneath the castle? Also this one happens to be in the same spot as the Jee Noh Shrine. Pink: Great plateau walls appear to be fixed and this is the area that should be full of snow. The spot is on the south side of Mount Hylia. Trust me I double checked and Ganon was so helpful as to spawn a blood moon while I was checking out the walls so I accidentally recreated this part of the trailer. Why did the climate on the plateau change so drastically and did Link and Zelda repair the walls?

First thoughts: WTF IS THAT THING??!! Second thoughts: Either it's some form of Ganon or it's a mutated malice guardian enemy. It reminds me of the corrupted evil egg guardian from Age of Calamity. I can’t decide if I want to fight it or run from it. Black: On the third look, it has bone claws/hands. Uhhh weird bone growths line up with the other enemies but this thing is disturbing me the longer I look at it. Time to move on.

General thoughts: So besides the dragon this is the only other elemental enemy. At least I think it's an enemy. Seems like a really massive and powerful Igneo Talus. Unless it's a piece of Death mountain area rising into the sky to become a lava island but that seems like a stretch.

General thoughts: Just wanted to note that since pieces of the castle are breaking off, the layout of the castle is probably gonna be changed from BOTW. Idk how much but it makes sense that they would want to alter the interior map. Not like the Castle wasn’t already a bit of a pain to navigate.

General thoughts: The red lighting looks extremely intimidating. 10/10 Pink: Malice pools where the Magnesis Shrine should be. Did Ganon’s malice eat the shrines? Where is it even coming from? Is it bubbling From underground or from the blood moon? Considering it’s so close to that bit of water near the shrine, it makes me wonder if certain water sources will be infected with malice and what that will do to the Zora. Green: Glowy symbols again. I really really want to know more about those. Yellow: The plateau walls here are damaged unlike the more fortified ones in the previous plateau picture. I also double checked and as far as I can tell this is the same exact damage that exists in BOTW. Maybe Link and Zelda didn’t get around to fixing it yet? Also if I acknowledge the time travel possibility then this just tells me that the blood moons happen in both time periods.

General thoughts: So Ganon is spawning these guys in. What does this mean for the regular bokoblins? Were they all cleared out by Link, Zelda, and a recovering Hyrule so Ganon just spawned in evolved versions? Also I can’t quite tell where this is (unless this is on the plateau walls, the nice fixed up ones we saw earlier considering the trees in the background). Oh well.

Blue: First off this is a Redead. This is a hundred percent a Redead and I give Nintendo 15/10 for scary design. Redeads are always meant to be terrifying. That being said, I will ancient arrow these things (that is if ancient arrows still exist.) Of course this begs the question. Which unlucky dead person got resurrected and mutated to be a Redead? Did Ganon turn dead Yiga into Redeads or is he using the dead Hylians that he killed during the Calamity? I wonder what the lore on these things is gonna be. Green: Big guy. A very large dude. Reminds me of the Moblins from Skyward Sword. Yellow: Bone growth on the red Moblin reminds me of a Pachycephalosaurus (dinosaur.)

Orange: Big storm in the sky but much better shot. As I said before it reminds me of the storm dome thing from Skyward Sword. Blue: Again I really like the way the malice looks streaming up and out from under the castle. It looks sufficiently ominous enough for my taste. Like that’s an evil castle right there. Green: I hunted for this area since there aren’t exactly many paved/cobbled roads in BOTW. The best I can tell is that this is the road between the Sacred Ground Ruins and the Mabe Village Ruins. Yes, I zoomed around Hyrule Field on my motorbike dodging guardian blasts every five seconds. Yeah, I felt pretty cool right up until I failed to dodge but then I murdered those two guardian stalkers so all was well.

General Thoughts: Looks like the area where the golfing minigame is in BOTW, that same valley that leads to the Forgotten Temple. Blue: There is a Molduga in that avalanche. What the heck is that about?

Green: What is that arm holding? I know it's likely a mechanical part of some sort but I thought it was a brush at first lmao Red: Makes me think of Purah and/or Robbie but this area is definitely brand new. Maybe one or both remodeled. Or it’s neither of them but a secret third option. Still the blue glow also makes me think of teleportation so maybe it's not completely go

General thoughts: Poor Link getting accosted by Doctor Octopus arms. Blue: That’s the Shiekah eye so this is probably a Shiekah place. Still, why does this place give me Yiga vibes? Pink: Let me just appreciate actual chainmail under that Champion's tunic.  Green: Clawed ancient hand. I’m very fascinated by it so just noting that it’s not glowing here.

Blue: The strange rocks. They make me think of meteorites but also the big guardian pillars that surround the castle and the material that make up the shines. Did Ganon explode those pillars and pieces of them are now littered across Hyrule? Did they just emerge out of the ground? Or, if we’re thinking about time travel, are these the materials that the Shiehka later use to make the shrines and those pillars.? Green: Big dude has a large horn. The skulls on him remind me of the bokoblin skulls that you could collect from defeated bokoblins in Skyward Sword. Also does he have an ax on his head? Pink: I went to check all the areas I could with this type of tree (Taoba Grasslands, Oseira Plains, and the area right beneath the words Gerudo Canyon which by the way has fairies lurking around) but not a single one has greenish grass with flowers. Maybe the grass literally grew greener after Calamity was defeated for a bit. Hyrule restoring itself and all that jazz.

General thoughts: Hehe look at that Hinox with his dumb little hat. Also we are in a cave. We are totally getting underground sections. Pink: This green orb looks like the one you find on the Thundra plateau. It’s also making me think of the three orbs you have to collect in Wind Waker and place in those statues. Farore vibes. Red: What is this glow? Is it the orb or something else?

General thoughts: Yes, another one of the Hinox chase. I want you to appreciate Link’s running animation… jk. I’m just noting that I’ve never seen those plants in BOTW. You must be telling yourself OP how could you expect to know every little plant in BOTW but I’m telling you I’ve played the game for somewhere around 1000 hours and I’ve watched too many BOTW videos to count. Also there are plants growing on the cave walls in the back. (I kept an eye out while I was double checking other things for this breakdown and still couldn’t find these plants. Pls correct me if I’m wrong)

General thoughts: New paraglider, yay. I mean it doesn’t seem that different but I now know we can customize it with different fabrics. I hope there are in-game customizations as well as the amiibo ones. Also, no Ridgeland Tower. I really wonder where the heck all of them went. Red: I like that you can see all these islands in the sky from down here. Also what the heck is that cube island? Limcube said he thought it was related to the mazes but I don’t wanna think of dealing with a rubix cube maze that's vertical and horizontal. I’m gonna be lost for weeks.

General thoughts: Obviously, the symbols are driving me nuts. I wanna know what they are for so badly. I do think it's funny we can just ride a horse right through them. I just know someone is gonna try and set this grass on fire to see what happens. Red: What is this thing? It’s hard to make out but it looks like it has four limbs, a tail, and tusks maybe? Yeah it looks kinda like an elephant. I wonder if it's another new enemy. Blue: Just think it's funny that there’s a random rock here.

Blue: They are like the Twilight Princess Kargarok. I know I’m not the only one getting flashbacks to that one minigame where you had to hit those fruit balloons while the Kargarok was carrying Wolf Link similar to this. Green: New weapon that looks like a primitive hatchet. Yellow: So in BOTW this is the area that’s covered in darkness (Typhlo Ruins). I wonder why it isn’t covered in shadow here. Pink: Storm in the sky. I just like pointing this out. I wanna explore the storm tornado cause I just know something is interesting there. LET ME IN!

Pink: This guy has bull horns like a Longhorn (sorry it's hard to see here). I like this design. I didn’t get a picture of it but he slams his head into the ground so I’m assuming it's a new type of attack. So that means, even if the enemies look mostly the same, we should watch out for new attack patterns. Yellow: This is the Wooden shield so not new. Green: again looks like the Pachycephalosaurus (dinosaur).

General thoughts: They really just stacked stuff on top of the enemy skull camps. Blue: What is this stick weapon? Maybe, it's at an odd angle but it doesn’t look long enough to be a wooden spear and it’s definitely not a regular BOTW stick. It’s like a slightly heavier stick lol.

General thoughts: Whoa this is such a cube enemy, a block man. Square. Obviously, it reminds me of both Tetris and Minecraft. Also I really like that it’s so bright because the islands are closer to the sun. Red: Probably very much a glowing weakness. I hope we can break that specific block. It also glows the same shade as Link’s new arm so Zonai tech??  Blue: Pointing out the sky islands again. I really like the variety of shapes and altitudes. I can’t wait to explore these.

Next

[downwiththefuckingship]

always

i’m always afraid of ruining things

by saying them

out loud or in my head

the dock is falling apart

but we are waiting for a ship

that promised to come home

it’s a revival but no one knows

what we’re bringing back

we’re on our last leg

we’re closing up shop forever

we’re throwing the baby out

with the bath water

the last petal always lands on

loves me not

by definition of uninterrupted time

or no matter what

the other word for forever

you could say the bridge is always

coming apart when i’m on it

or that i step in front of bullets

that were never meant for me

that someone’s always pulling the ladder up

behind them when i’ve agreed to go last

i used to think it must be beautiful

to be naive

of the damage you cause

i’m always holding my phone

at weird angles

trying to shazam the wind

or river rushing by

the way grief always comes

crawling back inside

the way you’re always indiscriminately

angry with me

for this things i do or am about to

things i did in dreams and in a vacuum

always unringing the church bells

and jumping the gun

we’re always spitting in our hands

to make a deal

or make amends

you’re always on my mind when i blow out

birthday candles and when i consider

the currency of love

i’m always praying in the church

of missing you

the lights on the dash lit up like christmas

tiny microcosms without the festivities

always checking your eyes

for signs of life

always talking during my favorite part

of the movie

a day late and a dollar short

always losing it in the parking lot

when the music comes back on

always dragging the bedroom for bodies

the way i thought you’d always be there

why i always draw the nine of swords

asking my father why he always

let the fish go

the time machine always turning back

into a pumpkin

do we cry when we couldn’t hold on?

or because we always knew

we’d never be able to

why you always gotta make it about us?

it’s always sunny where you are

i’m always on my way but never there

something else always

glittering in the distance

when i want your attention

i always feel like the band on the titanic

i’m singing my letters love always

i’m signing off forever

thank you for always coming through

with a machete

when the wound is almost healed

to make sure it’s mortal

i was always under the impression

you’d give up on me

i remember you saying

“you are always welcome here” & “the door is

always open”

and then never speaking to me again

the shore always just out of reach

i always want to leave you voicemails

wondering what’s real

mommy fortuna always able

to spot the difference

there will be tears

there will always be tears

why are you always saying that to me

why are you always telling me

not to get hysterical

you told me to grow a set of eyes

in the back of my head

i never was able to bring that to fruition

they grew in ways that made me see

the way she speaks in i told you so’s

how she always avoids asking me

how i’ve been

we’re always taking turns

blaming each other

i thought you wanted life like a rocky movie

i’m always fighting the final boss

always talking about things

in the past tense

always wondered what that would look like

under an x ray

always disassociating in public

rubbing table lamps in target

under the halogen bulbs

rubbing my hands raw

on every teapot in the antique store

that reminds me of aladdin

i always thought urza

breaking into phyrexia to steal xantcha’s heart

was the perfect love story

when we pry your chest open

with the jaws of life to reveal

the same purple black explosion

as when i jam my eyes closed

on nights i open up like a crater

always running from the fight

when the knives come out

running your finger along the bleached bone

of my jaw just before removing my teeth

we cook from the same pantry

but the meal made with love

tastes different

the mechanic under the hood always

saying “see there’s your problem”

taking a hammer to the magic 8 ball

after everything shakes out

i always get the feeling you’re through with me

that my usefulness is almost dried up

always pretending not to notice

when i’m inconsolable

but says she’s an empath

the crossword puzzzle

always wants to know the french word

for drowning

we’re dropping like flies

because we don’t talk about

the things that kill us

can i tell you a secret

life is full of hard pills to swallow

i’m always taking my medicine

always wanted to be buried

on the spot where i heard you say it

i always wanted to write a poem about

the never ending story

that made you feel like you

were in the mud pulling too

the end is always your favorite part

have you read the paper this morning?

the mood ring always black

you’re always making that face

when i decide to breathe

or when i take the lions share

of the suffering

i’m always telling jenny

that i know what love is

i’m always mistaken

i thought i saw the yellow portals

opening in my peripheral

i thought i heard you say

on your left

#nationalpoetrymonth #poetry #poetrycommunity #mypoetry #poetrychallenge #napowrimo #poetryloving #slampoetry #poetrylover #poetryoftheday #poetrycorner #poetryclub #streetpoetry #darkpoetry #poetryaddict #dailypoetry #poetrybooks #poetrylife #2023vb3030 #nationalpoetrymonth2023 #miseducation

[inventors-fair]

Wanting Commentary: Finding what we're Looking For

Oh, I don’t know, I like these flavor angles. I love approaching things from different sides, from getting into the depths of human perspective. I wonder, for the cards where I feel the mark was missed, whether or not my approaches are actually aligned with other people’s, or if there just happens to be preconceived opinions on what makes a good connection that sporadically hits the mark in fun ways.

Regardless, there were a few angles I understood, and a few that felt either samey or off. That’s what happens when you have a single prompt and multiple responders, sure—hence the article I wrote about choosing unusual approaches. If you haven’t read that, I recommend it, but in general, I recommend that people really dig into their favorite weird cards. What’s off the beaten path? What makes good connections, well, connected?

I don’t want to be too harsh; there’s a lot to like about a lot of these cards. People did want to make their sense of flavor strong, and I like the ways in which people added or omitted flavor text as necessary. I like the way people approached flexibility this week. I liked feeling blindsided by my own perceptions, new takes on old twists as well as old warmth in new times.

JUDGE PICKS are cards that I want to point out for one specific reason or another, cards that either did something exemplary or touched me in a unique way. Let’s follow on.

~

@0woah — Nihilistic Stupor

We’re starting in a pretty specific place, then. So, hi, welcome, thank you for a first submission. We’ll clear a couple hurdles first, then get into the nitty-gritty. Stock photos! Stock photos are fine, provided that you have proper attribution; most sites have the original photographer credited, so if you have that, check it. Watermarks are enough to at least say that it’s not your original, but we do need the photographer in question.

Mechanically, aside from needing “Enchant player” as part of the Aura text, this card’s main critique is that there’s no exit condition, as it were. There will come a point where no player has access to lands and can’t play lands. If you’re the green-black deck, that’s not a problem for you with recursion, but this is for a draftable set. What’re other players going to do? It’s a distinctly unfun card that plays against a lot of contemporary sensibilities. This kind of effect would be considered unfun even in the 90’s.

Flavorfully, I have to admit, I don’t fully understand what you’re going for here. “Nihilistic” is a philosophical take that requires cognitive impetus, and “Stupor” is a state of unconsciousness; the two are inherently incompatible concepts without the right tie. I’m afraid I don’t understand what the flavor text is trying to emulate in terms of desire, either. Who is doing the wanting? What is the object of desire? How is nihilism relate to desire? Perhaps this made sense on the drawing board, but the idea doesn’t feel conveyed properly here. Consider a clearer distinction of character and motivation as someone else would perceive it.

~

@bread-into-toast — Waterborne Wenders (JUDGE PICK)

Well, isn’t that adorable. The desire of the formless to become formed, and the impossibility of settling into oneness! Relatable. This art would be hellish to block out but very cool to see. “Fitting in everywhere, belonging nowhere.” It’s a little esoteric without the humanity, but seeing how changelings on Lorwyn occupy this almost alien niche in the hard-and-fast species distinctions found on the plane, we have to be distant from these creatures ourselves. We can’t understand the mechanism of their desire even as we observe it, and I think that that’s really neat.

The mechanics are a little odd for its cost. This feels like a big lad who’s gonna change into something, and for that cost, a pseudo-Cryptoplasm feels kind of steep. That said, I like the concept. I believe it should read: “At the beginning of your end step, you may exile ~, then return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control. You may have it enter the battlefield as a copy of another creature you control, except it has changeling and this ability.” If you make that one paragraph, you don’t need the other trigger because it’s part of the end step trigger, I believe. A fun card and a fun cost. I like the white there for the blinkiness. This is a card that I feel can be cute on its own, a draft enhancer rather than a staple.

~

@deg99 — Scatter the Ashes

The mourning returns. This card is just about what can be expected, although I’m surprised that this name hasn’t been taken before, wow. I don’t think that this needs a world necessarily, and I wouldn’t really call it Innistradian. It doesn’t feel...morbid, weird as that may seem. That said it doesn’t really strike the emotional chords in the same way. Part of that comes from the major disconnect between the flavor and mechanics. The mechanics are great! This is an awesome limited counterspell. Counterspells are by nature reflexive, though, reaction in response to action.

The finality of your intended flavor is in response, as far as I can perceive, to the previous actions of the caster. The woman is deciding to release the ashes and move on, a self-contained series of events. What’s she countering? What’s being taken away but a concept she herself created? The sense of moving on is a rational want, and a strong emotional choice. It doesn’t make sense on a counterspell like this. Good ideas, fair execution on both, but the mesh isn’t happening. I recommend reworking the flavor text to be... Well, not more “exciting,” but more than what it is right now. Substantial and specific.

~

@dimestoretajic — Tyrant’s Scepter (JUDGE PICK)

I agonized over this card a little bit, as much as agony compelled me this week, because if a whole bunch of other cards didn’t exist, this card would be absolutely fantastic and really silly. Perhaps there are some safeguards to ensure that Commander players wouldn’t abuse it, but someone’s gonna Do The Thing and I guess Hellkite Tyrant on a literal stick—turned into a literal stick?—is a bit different. The sacrifice is nice, and the five mana barrier is super cool. Flavorfully, you’re all-in on the despot’s desire, so that all checks out, no notes.

Look me in the eyes, captain. You and I both know that there’s a cEDH Breya player who would use this card to make people want to start a revolution. There’s no way around that. Limited-wise, I mean, this card’s awesome. I want to get away from my grousing and focus on the fact that this card’s still really good. It does exactly what it says it wants to do. Hm, is the Liquimetal Destruction deck too... Hm. I wonder if that permanence will affect playability elsewhere, actually. Probably not, but one never knows. I’m a Karn Prison guy, hence. There are enough answers in the world, and that’s all fine. Gah! Maybe I’m just chewing on my fingernails for no good reason here. I want to like this card more than I worry about it. Perhaps costs can be adjusted and/or I’ll get over myself.

~

@halfsilveredmirror — Endless Regret

A consistent draw spell is nice. Literally replacing itself is pretty cool, and I don’t think playability would be affected by it. The ability for infinite discard with a single card in your library might fuel some weird engines, even more so than a Four Horseman kind of deck. Do I remember what the deck does? Nope. Anyway, this card. I really don’t feel that playability would be affected but I also don’t know. In limited, probably not. It would make decks significantly more powerful, especially if you get the sealed deck and really go nuts, but that’s unrelated.

The sticking point for me is the fact that the mechanics and flavor really don’t have anything to do with one another, and the flavor itself is so esoteric that I don’t know what the speaker (if indeed there is a speaker) is regretting or implying. The art depicting a reunion or a reflection of loss is interesting. Ultimately, still, it’s just not landing for me. There’s a line where subtlety becomes too abstract to convey intention.

~

@helloijustreadyourpost — Sole Concern (JUDGE PICK)

...oh it’s ONE SIDED. Jeez. Okay, wow, for some reason I thought this affected all players on my first readthrough. Some minor things still stand but okay, that changes a lot of things. Wow. This does indeed level the playing field a ton and that’s awesome. Reminds me of a movie but I don’t remember which one. I might be losing my mind. Anyway, boardwipes! This card’s a necessity and I think it’s pretty much great. I won’t call it the most complex and I don’t think it needs to me. It’s got the exact right flavor, with the art direction putting a newer twist on it that makes it feel...cinematic, really. What’s a right decision, after all?

I do find it a little silly that there’s “sacrifice” in the flavor text as well; on-the-nose, as it were. That witch down there does indeed have some history, and that’s a great callback. I think the directness between the flavor text and the mechanics is, as a whole, a bit wink-nudge-y for the really gruesome image being depicted here. Still, I like the implied story behind it, and I like how you made the opponent the one to enact their desire, the one that becomes their damnation. Fantastic angle. We didn’t see a whole lot of that this week, I feel.

~

@hypexion — Desire

This Desire is in the unfortunate position of being naturally compared to the other Desires this week, and like I said, I do like them all, and this card is no exception. It feels a lot like a Horizons kind of card, and you know what, that’s okay. What makes this one unique is the fact that it’s a universal desire with a black bend, not a strictly red one. Multicolor Incarnations are... Well, honestly, if there was an incarnation for these colors, I get how it would be “Desire”—focused wanting, doing anything to get it, slightly selfish, not really insidious but getting there, etc.

Perhaps the main question I have is about the Evoke part. One ETB here doesn’t necessarily advance the game in the expected manner. For the MH2 evokers, their reactive evocation is designed to work during different parts of the turn, cheaply or late-game. Judgment Incarnations have the graveyard clause. The question is: what would be the gameplay advantage of evoking this card? It doesn’t feel any more powerful and/or necessary to do it earlier or later, because you could absolutely whiff. The attack trigger is excellent there, so I do like that. And again, this card is fine for what it wants to be, and I can clearly picture what you were going for. Small note: “Treasure” should be capitalized.

~

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Eager Defender

I want to see the sketch for this art direction, because I don’t really know how you wanted to block this shot out. There’s a plain, and a cave, and these characters walking around...where? Sorry to judge this part of it, but I actually don’t fully grasp this depiction. It feels as busy as the mood. The mood’s understandable, and of all thing I’m getting an Adventure Time kind of vibe from this card. If that’s intended, well, congrats, and if not, yeah, that’s a testament to the business. This card really didn’t need flavor text with these three abilities, and the flavor text isn’t adding enough to justify itself here.

Mechanics are pretty awesome, though. I think that provoke isn’t going to be seeing its time in the sun, but that’s more me being sad than a critique of this card. I like provoke! It works really well here, with this creature swinging in and getting bigger. Oh, small notes: the Sengir effect says you need to say that the +1/+1 counter goes on Eager Defender and not the creature that died (lol Skullbriar), the “4” should be “four,” and Warrior should be capitalized. No, yeah, with a fair amount of equipment, this card could be pretty monstrous in limited, and that’s a fine uncommon for the archetype. The name, direction, and flavor are all still...sketchy to me? What’s eager about revenge? Eagerness implies positive creation, not regret. The mashup of moods ultimately glorps up what’s otherwise a decently solid RW beater.

~

@izzet-always-r-versus-u — A Chance to Say Goodbye

Solid stuff. I like how you don’t get priority to prevent population. It makes for some pretty weird effects overall. I would personally say “sacrifice that token” to prevent some weird arguments, but whatever, I deal with the pedant that lives in my head, and YOU are free to ignore him. Anyway, I would give anything to say goodbye to my Worldspine Wurm once more, so thank you for the opportunity. I think this card’s doing exactly what it wants to and those sorts of effects can be cool depending on the environment. Seance tried to do something similar but didn’t quite get there. Maybe this is enough? I’m actually not sure about not having priority there. ETBs would get weird. Ah, what am I saying, token doubling is... Hm. Also weird here. But, hey, corner cases don’t happen as much in limited. I don’t see this card taking off in any decks, though, and it’s a wee bit not-broken-enough to be impactful.

The flavor text is one of those ones where I’m so on the fence. I want to really dig in and talk about the nuances but I don’t want to be a jerk about it on accident. What I like is the specificity. This card is about everything it wants to be about, and it’s depicting this single thing, and boom, this cool reanimation effect is framed around an intense motion. I do feel that there are cuts to be made, or at least places to tighten it up. Maybe a comma after “Then” and you could even end on “wind” there. “Gentle” can be cut, IMO. If you want, lean into the notion of negative space. What’s there left on the wind, or what does the wind feel like now, if not the space where the embrace is no longer. Y’know? You have a lot of options. This moment was a good choice overall. Honorary JP for that alone.

~

@misterstingyjack — Homesickness

Flavor-wise, “It is unclear whether the sun is rising or setting” goes hard for me. That would be a really cool point of contention for people, and I think that the flavor text would really come to a head when there’s a long game happening with lots of returning and triggering and no haste and having to hold open cards and yadda yadda yadda. It’s a pretty general sense but it’s done really well. The depiction of a journeying event checks out and your mood is what really sells it, an impending, almost horror-like sense of uncertainty if we’ll ever get there.

Mechanically, was this supposed to be like Sunken Hope? Aside from the sacrifice clause and one blue pip, it’s exactly the same. And...that’s literally all I can say about it, isn’t it? I hope that this was unintentional and you accidentally struck gold before the realization that you’re not in a mine and you’re in fact in a history museum, sir, I’ll have to ask you to leave and put down that pickaxe. If it WAS intentional, I’m just gonna stand here with my hands on my hips and give you a look. I have no idea at this point in time! But, well, what else can I say about it. Do your research, folks.

~

@nine-effing-hells — Mul Daya Homeseeker

I think that the subtitle and flavor aren’t doing any favors to a card that’s otherwise really fascinating to me. This might be, considering our most recent visit to Zendikar in the story, the saddest trampling creature I’ve ever seen. Emotionally, I mean. I’m gonna stop before I browse through ten pages of trampling creatures on Scryfall, though. So! Yeah, no, perhaps “Homeseeker” is a fine enough title, but I wish there was more for the flavor text to really sell me.

If you’re drafting this card, though, I wonder what on earth you’re doing. You can run one of each other basic and actually ramp in a super roundabout way, splashing the weirdness, or this is a set with a number of odd nonbasics like how Zendikar had, and that’s pretty awesome. In a constructed event you can do some amazing things and I love how variable you can make it. Maybe it’s not good enough for Legacy Lands. It doesn’t have to be! This card can do some pretty slick stuff and I like the way you balanced a strong effect with a deckbuilding constraint asked of it. The feeling of soured perseverance is strongly present.

~

@piccadilly-blue — Issac Astralion, Haunted Physicist/The Singularity

Well, that’s a mouthful! Lots of things going on here, okay, phew. You clearly had a strong direction for this card, and I actually love the commander-esque approach to experience counters eventually transforming something. We’re designing (per the usuals) for standard/limited by default, but there’s nothing to say you can’t get experience counters there, too. I think that it’s almost like the City’s Blessing, or it could be! How experience transforms you. Very slick.

The Singularity, as I’ve mentioned about another card on here, is a non-exit-claused card whose sole purpose is kind of miserable. There are cards that sink the board, but they eventually go away, like Pestilence. It’s unfortunately just not fun to be sitting on the board with nothing to do until you happen to get your removal which may eventually get countered. Seeing as this is your character, as mentioned, I won’t claim to know the story, so that part of it I won’t press on about; their goals are pretty abundantly clear. The flavor text on both sides is...a lot. The LotR reference on the back certainly raises an eyebrow, as does the long first name. Honestly, though, there’s the what-I-like and the what-needs-work, and the little polish/presentation tweaks aren’t anything new to custom cards, so don’t sweat it.

~

@reaperfromtheabyss — Heatgrasper (JUDGE PICK)

You know, I was a bit down on this card at first until I realized that she died of hypothermia. Then it was all upside! You absolutely need to shorten this flavor text. “trapped in her final moments” needs to come out, and I would replace “some warmth” with “a fire.” Do whatever you need to, though. Anyway! Yay, here we are, some kind of not-exactly-great ending here. But it’s okay, because I can envision what you were going for and I like the way it happened. For a while, I thought she drowned, and then I put my head on straight.

Stunning creatures is super cool. Depending on if this is a world with spirit bonuses, the ability to beef up or protect her would be awesome. She doesn’t need that necessarily, but she does indeed need some friends around her to stall the game. And that’s cool! What a cheap use of stun counters, really mean. I can see this card having an application solely in limited and nowhere else and I can see it being a massive pain in the butt to deal with as your opponent stalls you out. Good stuff.

~

Tune in tomorrow! You might learn a thing or two.

@abelzumi

[collector-of-dust]

this is actually not it at all. so you're used to making shapes on something like a piece of paper, you can draw lines and make say a triangle or a square. you can make a triangle with 3 60 degree angles, and a square with 4 90 degree angles. these shapes are flat, they have no curvature. now if you where to have positive curvature you would be in "spherical" space. geometry works a little differently here than what you're used to. all "straight" lines that you draw on the sphere will appear curved, because to us they are, but geometrically from the perspective of the sphere they are straight. if you made a triangle or square all the lines would be bowed outward, this would make your triangle have 3 90 degree angles (as opposed to 60). like if you were to go the equator in south America, walk to Africa, turn 90 degrees, walk to the north pole, turn 90, and walk you would be back in south America.

on the other hand there is negative curvature or hyperbolic space which is a little weirder. all lines diverge from each other (also forgot to mention that you can't have parallel lines in spherical or hyperbolic space, spherical always converges and hyperbolic diverges). that means if you try to make a regular shape again all your lines will be "bent" inward, despite them being "straight" so if you do the 90 degree walking thing until you end up where you started you will form a pentagon. hyperbolic surfaces don't really form regular shapes like spheres or obloids, but instead because the outer surfaces are exponentially larger than the inner surfaces, it ends up kindof folding in on itself.

this is the simplest hyperbolic 3d shape I'm pretty sure, it's a hyperbolic paraboloid. you'll notice it looks like a pringle. this next one's more interesting though.

this is a more exaggerated hyperbolic plane that really gets across that the edges grow way faster than the area (as opposed to spheres/circles, they're their area/ volume grows faster than the outer surface, in fact they have the highest volume to surface area ratio of any shape). funny thing about this hyperbolic plane though is that it's technically 2d, but since (as far as we can tell) space time is Euclidean, so the only way to fully view the hyperbolic shape is to bring it up a dimension because of its folds.

anyway yeah I just think it's neat. if you want some really awesome visuals and better explanations I recommend checking out the game Hyperbolica as well as checking out it's dev logs because it's really neat. I didn't even touch on what it would be like to live in these funny spaces. highly recommend it.

also, this isn't even close to all of what non Euclidean geometry is. I believe you can actually have curvature defined by functions and imaginary numbers, but that's way beyond my knowledge honestly so don't quote me on that. if you wanna see less we'll defined geometric spaces, look up on YouTube a game called "No! Euclid!" that's also really cool and arguably mathematically where things really get weird and interesting

whoops I mentioned non euclidean geometry and I'm the only one who has any idea what it is.

[prettierthanurbf]

So What?

Y/n walked down the halls to find her best friend, getting the overwhelming feeling she’d be stuck walking into class alone, when she finally bumped into someone she knew. “Oh, great.” She mumbled irritably.

He turned around with a grin. “Well, hello, y/n.”

She rolled her eyes at his cocky grin. “Where’s your brother?”

The question just made his grin grow wider, making your patience even thinner. “Wouldn’t you like to know.” He teased.

She let her eyes wander around the halls to avoid eye contact when her eyes landed on him, sighing in relief, she pushed past his brother and hurried off to Tom. “Hey.” She said happily.

He looked up from his book. “Nice of you to wake up early for once.” He teased.

She laughed. “My parents are going to cut me off if I miss school to sleep in.” She explained.

He looked over her head, his eyes stopping on something that made his eyebrows furrow. “Mattheo’s staring at you again.” He whispered.

She quickly spun around to meet Mattheo’s eyes, turning back around so quick she almost fell over.

Tom helped her stand. “You alright?” He asked concerned.

She put a hand to her head. “I swear if he hexed me I’ll burn the little bastard.”

Tom chuckled. “Now I might just help you with that.”

Before y/n could say anything else, the teacher opened the doors for everyone in the class to walk in.

The whole class was a blur, mostly because y/n was asleep through half of it and hurrying to copy off of To ‘a notes during the other half, paying no attention to the teacher whatsoever.

Tom had to talk to one of his teachers before the next class started, which left y/n waiting outside on a bench alone with a book until class started.

Mattheo, who had grown bored of his friend group, walked off to bug y/n, sliding onto the bench and taking the spot a little too close to y/n.

She didn’t glance up from her book or move. “What?” She asked calmly.

He raised a brow. “No snarky comment? Hm.” He hummed. “Are you feeling alright?”

She rolled her eyes. “What do you want, Mattheo?”

“Ah, there’s the tone I was looking for.” He grinned. “What’re you reading?”

She clicked her tongue. “You could check the cover, you know.”

He shrugged. “It would sound so much better coming from your lips than mine.”

She shut her book, her finger holding the page she was on, snapping her head to look at him. “What do you want, Mattheo?” She repeated, this time a little less calm.

He smirked. “Maybe I want to help with your anger issues.”

“Maybe you should work on yours first.” She said back.

He laughed. “We could work on it together.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’d rather burn. Over and over. For eternity.”

He shrugged. “I could make it worth your while.”

She raised a brow. “What’s your angle, Riddle?”

He looked away with a small grin. “There’s no angle. I just think we could help each other out.”

“Have fun finding someone for that because I’m not your girl.” She slipped a small piece of paper into her book before getting up.

“But you could be.” Mattheo mumbled, but y/n had already walked off with all her things.

His shoulders slumped. “Great.”

Tom walked over to him laughing. “Did you seriously think whatever you were planning would work?”

Mattheo scowled at his brother. “It’s not like you’ve tried getting with her. Why is she so difficult.”

“She’s not into like that.” Tom said in a ‘duh’ tone.

Mattheo scoffed. “All the girls are into me like that.”

Tom shook his head and laughed a little more. “Not the one you like like that.”

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t like her like that, Tommy.”

“Then stop going after her, because I swear on my life and hers I will make yours a living hell if you break her heart or mess around with her for kicks. Got it?” Tom said sternly.

Mattheo put his hands up, a familiar teasing grin growing on his face. “It’s not that deep, brother.” And with that he walked off, another grinning glance at Tom before going straight ahead to see if he could find y/n.

He didn’t see her until school was over, when the clouds were making weird shapes up and the colors were changing from the sun going down, the black lake always looked prettiest at this time of day, which is why Mattheo chose to walk alongside it, also in hopes he’d find a weird creature in the water and draw it.

He came across y/n when he was walking back to the school, she was laying on her back, her head rested on her book bag, with a different book in her hands than she was reading hours prior. He walked over to her confidently.

“Hey, gorgeous.”

She sighed. “What?”

He sat down beside her. “So this is what you do after school?”

She rolled her eyes. “Quidditch practice was canceled today.”

He nodded. “Totally forgot you were on the team.”

She glanced at him. “Is there any reason you’re here or what?”

He shrugged. “Just wanted to know how you were doing.”

She pulled a piece of paper put of her robe, handing it to Mattheo without looking away from her book. “You read that and tell me how you think I’m feeling.”

His eyes scanned over the paper. “An animagus? Seriously?”

She shrugged. “Now I’ve got to wait for my uncle Newt to come down here and talk to me about everything.”

Mattheo handed the paper back. “So you can’t go home?”

She shook her head. “Apparently my brothers tore up the place pretty bad and they’re trying to get it under control.”

“So why don’t you just stay with me and Tom?”

She snorted. “Because it’s you and Tom. I swear both of you don’t know how to not argue, especially when you’re trying to do something ‘important’.”

Matthe scoffed. “We do not!”

She raised a brow. “So we’re just gonna play that game now?”

He shrugged. “I mean…”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re an idiot if you think you don’t argue with your brother a lot.”

“Just stay with us.” It came out more as a plead than a suggestion, which was not Mattheo’s intention at all.

Y/n laughed. “Beg me.” She joked.

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, ha ha, very funny.” He said sarcastically. “Just stay with us.”

She glanced at him from her book. “If I do will you go away?”

“Maybe.” He said.

She shrugged. “Fine. Just let your brother know so it’s not a surprise or anything.”

“Okay.” Mattheo got up. “Did you finish the other book?” He asked, stopping himself from running off to find his brother so he could talk to y/n some more.

She looked up at him. “Yes. I had most of my classes to read through it.”

“How long have you had this one?”

“Since lunch. Why?”

He grinned. “No reason, no reason.”

“Why?” She repeated, this time sternly.

Mattheo looked down at her. “You’ll find out.” He winked at her before running off to find Tom.

When Spring break rolled around, y/n, Tom, and Mattheo went to Tom and Mattheo’s mansion they inherited when their dad mysteriously passed away.

Y/n explored a little since it was a bit of an upgrade from where the Riddle brothers were staying when she last stayed with them.

She stepped into a dark ish bedroom with lots of books. She walked over to the blinds and pushed them open so she could get a better look in the room.

“I usually like the curtains closed.” Mattheo said, scaring the shit out of y/n.

She turned to him with a hand over her heart. “Warn a girl next time, Mattheo!”

He laughed. “Sorry, sorry.”

She continued to look around. “You know, your room is the darkest one in this whole house. And the most gloomy.” Her eyes landed on the bookshelves. “Except for the books. They’re gorgeous.”

He chuckled. “You can go ahead and take some if you want. I’ve read all of them so I don’t really care.”

She raised a brow before laughing. “You’ve read all these? Like actually, actually? You’re not screwing with me?”

He shook his head. “Is that a surprise?”

“Yes! In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you open a book.”

“You don’t spend any time in the library.” He stated. “That’s where I am during my free time.”

“When you’re not walking around the lake.” She said.

He laughed. “You stalking me?”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself, Mattheo. I’ve seen you walking around like a loner because I spend most of my time by the lake. It’s where some of the hot guys at our school swim so it’s a pretty good view.”

Mattheo clenched his jaw before letting out a forced laugh. “I forgot you like staring at strangers who are half naked.”

She shrugged. “If they’re hot, they’re hot. I gotta stare.”

“You’re not like… staring at them like that, are you?” He laughed. “Cause that would be weird.”

“Oh, like how you look at me?” She said, raising a brow as a grin pulled at her lips.

He chuckled. “Now, darling, I think you’re just seeing things.”

“Oh?” She asked, walking over to him. “So if I were to take my sweater off you’d keep looking at my eyes?”

He laughed awkwardly. “Well, I think a lot of people would look, honestly…”

She raised a brow. “If your brother was changing you’d look at his chest?”

He rolled his eyes. “No. Obviously not.”

She nodded. “But you’d have a problem looking in my eyes instead of at my chest?”

“Well you’re not my sister so I can look.”

“Well now you just sound like a creep.” Y/n teased.

Mattheo scowled. “Well now you’re not being fair.”

“Oh no?” She grinned, unzipping her hoodie and sliding it off her arms. “My eyes are up here, Mattheo.”

“Screw this.” Mattheo mumbled annoyed. He cupped y/n’s face gently before pulling her in and pressing his lips against hers.

She pulled away for air after what felt like a short time period. “You do that to all the girls who try to take their sweater off?” She asked dumbfounded.

He shook his head and laughed, his hands still cupping her face. “You’re so blind sometimes, y/n.”

She raised a brow. “And you’re not?”

His eyebrows furrowed. “No?”

“You sound unsure.” She teased. “But you are.”

He rolled his eyes, pulling his hands away. “You are more than I am.”

“I’ve been in love with you since I met you.” She said quietly. “And you never noticed.”

He grinned. “So the flirting was getting to you?” He teased.

“I’ll cut your throat.” She said quickly.

He chuckled. “I’ll take my chances.” He pulled her in for another kiss, pulling away when he heard footsteps getting closer to his room.

She quickly pulled back and stood by the bookshelf, getting a book off the shelf quickly. “What’s this one about?” She asked calmly.

Matthe cleared his throat. “Uh, uhm… werewolves.” He said after clearing his throat.

Tom knocked on the door frame. “Hey, there’s hot water on the stove right now. I’ve got to stop by the market to get some more stuff for dinner. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

Mattheo grinned at y/n as Tom walked off to get his shoes on and leave for the market.

[my-darling-boy]

how do you do your photo sessions? is it just you and your camera or is someone else taking photos ? theyre all so cool and im rlly curious as to how you do it !!!!!!

I’m so glad someone finally asked this, I was just talking about this with someone and honestly it is SO funny.

The trick is: as long as you’ve got a camera, luck, and at least one tripod—along with understanding of some basic photography and a good imagination—you can do a LOT. I’m known for having whacky set ups! My sister helps me with them when I can’t do them all myself and let me tell you, we’ve come up with some weird things. I’ve been teaching my sister what I know about photography and film over the years, so she’s been a big help getting my own photos done, and in return I do ones for her.

In most of my photos, I’m in the bathroom. I don’t care what you think you see, I’m probably in the bathroom. Bathrooms have great lighting most of the time, and our bathroom has a skylight which is great natural lighting. If you don’t have access to a lot of professional lighting, setting up rigs in front of windows is great. I love using everyday objects and making them look ambiguous to suit my needs for a different object. My “halo” is literally a paper plate. I’m wearing a pillowcase. I set up the camera, my sister just had to check my positioning and lighting and click the button since I don’t have a remote.

Again, I am in the bathroom. I’m still sitting on top of a counter. This one, we stacked some boxes haphazardly and put our lighting on top, which is usually this really bright survivalist lantern. I also taped a clip lamp to a tripod. My sister was standing on the opposite bathroom counter. It was so hot in there so I was in shorts and thigh highs, but you wouldn’t know that just by the photo

I was in my bedroom for this one! A couple of tripods, an edited background, and a suggestive expression was all I needed to make this look like the Lieutenant and I were having a Good Time in his trench lodgings. If you don’t have an actual historical object like a swagger stick, a wooden spoon with a thimble on the end works too (as I found out). If you get creative enough, there are tons of objects and clothing you can fake. And yes my phone mount for the tripod is literally a macaron box I fashioned to hold my phone

This is a great example of knowing how to frame your subject. We loved the treeline in the back garden because it resembled being out in nature, but we have a rather unattractive space out there surrounding it. To solve this, I got up on a high stool and my sister knelt down below and shot the photo from the nearer the ground. You would never know just out of frame was a garage, a trash heap, a shed, a truck, and other suburban houses.

I’ll let you take a guess as to where I’m at for this one.... yes it’s the bathroom again. This time I’m by this awkward corner on the floor near the tub. We stacked a hamper on top of the tub and rolled some foam into a cone to direct lighting from a phone and lantern at my face. There was no angle to take the photo without running into the tub or shower so my sister had to take it in the tub. My knees and abs were killing me cos I had to half-kneel for the position, and strain my eyes to look up. There was also a low tripod behind me to drape my “mantle” over to keep it from falling flat against my back.

I don’t even know how to explain this one and I couldn’t even fit it all in the drawing. We got in front of the downstairs window, hung the same white bedsheet I use so much from the ceiling, I knelt on a chair, and I set up the tripod just out of frame in that drawing. We basically gathered every lamp we could reasonably put in the window sill and took the shades off two tall lamps or optimal lighting. I taped bee magnets to my skin. The “clouds” are actually just pulled apart cotton balls taped to a straw and held in various positions in front of the lens. Perfect perspective play.

An honourable mention was my audio set up for my October ghost video.

I don’t have professional audio equipment aside from a Yeti mic, so we had to get creative with how we would get the mic close enough to the subject. Yes, that is a tripod duct taped to another tripod and counter weighted by a bag of books. My mic is literally screwed into a socket it’s not supposed to even be in on the end of the tripod and the cord for it wouldn’t reach the couch to my laptop so I had to stack a stool on a chair next to this incredible contraption with the laptop on top so it could reach. How this entire thing did not collapse at any point is beyond me. (Can you tell I love tape and lamps?)

For photo editing programs, I hate editing on the computer and I will eat my own shoes before I give Adobe any of my money, so I use Enlight and Afterlight 2 from the App Store on my phone, and also FaceTune for certain face corrections. Afterlight 2 has a filter called “Himalaya” which is VERY similar to how 1880s-1920s photos looked and the app has plenty of dust overlays to make your photo look old. Enlight I use for broader ranges of image correction and background editing. Some examples of old photos I’ve done with a combination of those apps:

My sister and I are very resourceful and creative whenever we do these things. I don’t have any formal training in photography, I just have a vision of what I want and I try to do what I can to achieve it. I’ve had photographers with masters degrees in photography tell me it’s astounding I’ve been able to achieve photo results that rival their own with what limited resources I had while they had access to everything under the sun at their uni.

In short, all I really do is pull out my camera and some tripods and other makeshift items with a photoset in my mind, and sometimes I burst into my sister’s room standing like “hi welcome to chili’s” if I need some assistance

[broodlords]

DANG WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT! i can draw for you! more info + transcriptions under the cut 🕺

slots are 2/5 at the minute. you can check my blog description to see whether or not comms are full! the maximum amount of characters i’ll do is 2 and prices will vary depending on what sort of style you’re looking for. dm me for my discord or shoot me an email at broodlordrush@gmail.com

i’m not in the US so keep timezones in mind! i’ll be posting commissions online with credit unless you specify otherwise, if you want more examples of art just let me know payment is half upfront and half upon completion!

WILL DRAW: Original characters, fanart, armour, furries, monster designs NO porn, hateful content, complex backgrounds

All prices are GBP (£). Subject to change depending on complexity. Sketch: - Bust: £10 - Torso: £15 - Full body: £25 Lineart: - Bust: £15 - Torso: £25 - Full body: £50 Flat colours: - Bust: £20 - Torso: £35 - Full body: £60 Complex colours (shading in any style you’d like!) - Bust: £30 - Torso: £50 - Full: £75

Cool? Cool!

HOW DOES IT WORK?

1. Contact me! Either on Discord (ask over dms) or email (broodlordrush@gmail.com) with your request. Be extremely clear here. Send me all the references and information you can- pieces about your character, poses, everything you want to see. If possible (and if you don’t want a transparent background), tell me what size image you’re looking for! Whether it’s cropped as a portrait or in a square frame is up to you. I take payment through Ko-fi and will send my link to you!

2. I send over some sketches! As an update to prove that the commission is underway and for more discussion. If you’re unhappy with the positioning or have changed your mind about something, I can make large changes here. I’ll continue updating you from this point.

3. I send the nearly complete image! Again, as proof that things are underway. I can only make minor changes at this stage. I can’t re-work the image, you can only ask for slight adjustments. The image will be watermarked and at a lower quality.

4. The final image is sent over! And you send me the rest of the money! If you don’t want it posted on social media, or if you don’t want to be credited, this is your chance to say so.

A FEW OTHER THINGS!

I can turn down a commission for any reason. If what you want me to draw makes me uncomfortable, I won’t be taking your commission. This includes drawing things like SP characters.

You’re welcome to use the art as an icon, but if it’s just an icon you’re looking for, please specify! It can be used for social media, livestreams, anything free.

That being said, this art is not for commercial use. It isn’t to be monetised.

Reference sheets will cost more depending on complexity (and if you’d like the same character at different angles or in different outfits), but I’m open to discussing them! If you want a reference sheet for a character, be as specific as you can when we’re discussing things!

I’m a lot more comfortable drawing monsters and weird beasts than humans. If you want a monster design, you’re welcome to be loose with the description. So long as you give me something to work with!

When I say provide information for your request, send it! If it’s an OC, this means reference sheets, quirks about their character- please don’t assume that I’ll guess everything right. Picrew examples or sketches you’ve done are incredibly helpful.

I have a spreadsheet for tracking commissions. I’ll send it right at the beginning so you know what your status is!

That should be everything! Thank you for taking the time to read this!