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eyrieofsynapses · 9 months

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why Aurora's art is genius

It's break for me, and I've been meaning to sit down and read the Aurora webcomic (https://comicaurora.com/, @comicaurora on Tumblr) for quite a bit. So I did that over the last few days.

And… y'know. I can't actually say "I should've read this earlier," because otherwise I would've been up at 2:30-3am when I had responsibilities in the morning and I couldn't have properly enjoyed it, but. Holy shit guys THIS COMIC.

I intended to just do a generalized "hello this is all the things I love about this story," and I wrote a paragraph or two about art style. …and then another. And another. And I realized I needed to actually reference things so I would stop being too vague. I was reading the comic on my tablet or phone, because I wanted to stay curled up in my chair, but I type at a big monitor and so I saw more details… aaaaaand it turned into its own giant-ass post.

SO. Enjoy a few thousand words of me nerding out about this insanely cool art style and how fucking gorgeous this comic is? (There are screenshots, I promise it isn't just a wall of text.) In my defense, I just spent two semesters in graphic design classes focusing on the Adobe Suite, so… I get to be a nerd about pretty things…???

All positive feedback btw! No downers here. <3

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I cannot emphasize enough how much I love the beautiful, simple stylistic method of drawing characters and figures. It is absolutely stunning and effortless and utterly graceful—it is so hard to capture the sheer beauty and fluidity of the human form in such a fashion. Even a simple outline of a character feels dynamic! It's gorgeous!

Though I do have a love-hate relationship with this, because my artistic side looks at that lovely simplicity, goes "I CAN DO THAT!" and then I sit down and go to the paper and realize that no, in fact, I cannot do that yet, because that simplicity is born of a hell of a lot of practice and understanding of bodies and actually is really hard to do. It's a very developed style that only looks simple because the artist knows what they're doing. The human body is hard to pull off, and this comic does so beautifully and makes it look effortless.

Also: line weight line weight line weight. It's especially important in simplified shapes and figures like this, and hoo boy is it used excellently. It's especially apparent the newer the pages get—I love watching that improvement over time—but with simpler figures and lines, you get nice light lines to emphasize both smaller details, like in the draping of clothing and the curls of hair—which, hello, yes—and thicker lines to emphasize bigger and more important details and silhouettes. It's the sort of thing that's essential to most illustrations, but I wanted to make a note of it because it's so vital to this art style.

THE USE OF LAYER BLENDING MODES OH MY GODS. (...uhhh, apologies to the people who don't know what that means, it's a digital art program thing? This article explains it for beginners.)

Bear with me, I just finished my second Photoshop course, I spent months and months working on projects with this shit so I see the genius use of Screen and/or its siblings (of which there are many—if I say "Screen" here, assume I mean the entire umbrella of Screen blending modes and possibly Overlay) and go nuts, but seriously it's so clever and also fucking gorgeous:

Firstly: the use of screened-on sound effect words over an action? A "CRACK" written over a branch and then put on Screen in glowy green so that it's subtle enough that it doesn't disrupt the visual flow, but still sticks out enough to make itself heard? Little "scritches" that are transparent where they're laid on without outlines to emphasize the sound without disrupting the underlying image? FUCK YES. I haven't seen this done literally anywhere else—granted, I haven't read a massive amount of comics, but I've read enough—and it is so clever and I adore it. Examples:

Secondly: The beautiful lighting effects. The curling leaves, all the magic, the various glowing eyes, the fog, the way it's all so vividly colored but doesn't burn your eyeballs out—a balance that's way harder to achieve than you'd think—and the soft glows around them, eeeee it's so pretty so pretty SO PRETTY. Not sure if some of these are Outer/Inner Glow/Shadow layer effects or if it's entirely hand-drawn, but major kudos either way; I can see the beautiful use of blending modes and I SALUTE YOUR GENIUS.

I keep looking at some of this stuff and go "is that a layer effect or is it done by hand?" Because you can make some similar things with the Satin layer effect in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs have this? I'm gonna have to find out since I won't have access to PS for much longer ;-;) that resembles some of the swirly inner bits on some of the lit effects, but I'm not sure if it is that or not. Or you could mask over textures? There's... many ways to do it.

If done by hand: oh my gods the patience, how. If done with layer effects: really clever work that knows how to stop said effects from looking wonky, because ugh those things get temperamental. If done with a layer of texture that's been masked over: very, very good masking work. No matter the method, pretty shimmers and swirly bits inside the bigger pretty swirls!

Next: The way color contrast is used! I will never be over the glowy green-on-black Primordial Life vibes when Alinua gets dropped into that… unconscious space?? with Life, for example, and the sharp contrast of vines and crack and branches and leaves against pitch black is just visually stunning. The way the roots sink into the ground and the three-dimensional sensation of it is particularly badass here:

Friggin. How does this imply depth like that. HOW. IT'S SO FREAKING COOL.

A huge point here is also color language and use! Everybody has their own particular shade, generally matching their eyes, magic, and personality, and I adore how this is used to make it clear who's talking or who's doing an action. That was especially apparent to me with Dainix and Falst in the caves—their colors are both fairly warm, but quite distinct, and I love how this clarifies who's doing what in panels with a lot of action from both of them. There is a particular bit that stuck out to me, so I dug up the panels (see this page and the following one https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-30/):

(Gods it looks even prettier now that I put it against a plain background. Also, appreciation to Falst for managing a bridal-carry midair, damn.)

The way that their colors MERGE here! And the immense attention to detail in doing so—Dainix is higher up than Falst is in the first panel, so Dainix's orange fades into Falst's orange at the base. The next panel has gold up top and orange on bottom; we can't really tell in that panel where each of them are, but that's carried over to the next panel—

—where we now see that Falst's position is raised above Dainix's due to the way he's carrying him. (Points for continuity!) And, of course, we see the little "huffs" flowing from orange to yellow over their heads (where Dainix's head is higher than Falst's) to merge the sound of their breathing, which is absurdly clever because it emphasizes to the viewer how we hear two sets of huffing overlaying each other, not one. Absolutely brilliant.

(A few other notes of appreciation to that panel: beautiful glows around them, the sparks, the jagged silhouette of the spider legs, the lovely colors that have no right to make the area around a spider corpse that pretty, the excellent texturing on the cave walls plus perspective, the way Falst's movements imply Dainix's hefty weight, the natural posing of the characters, their on-point expressions that convey exactly how fuckin terrifying everything is right now, the slight glows to their eyes, and also they're just handsome boys <3)

Next up: Rain!!!! So well done! It's subtle enough that it never ever disrupts the impact of the focal point, but evident enough you can tell! And more importantly: THE MIST OFF THE CHARACTERS. Rain does this irl, it has that little vapor that comes off you and makes that little misty effect that plays with lighting, it's so cool-looking and here it's used to such pretty effect!

One of the panel captions says something about it blurring out all the injuries on the characters but like THAT AIN'T TOO BIG OF A PROBLEM when it gets across the environmental vibes, and also that'd be how it would look in real life too so like… outside viewer's angle is the same as the characters', mostly? my point is: that's the environment!!! that's the vibes, that's the feel! It gets it across and it does so in the most pretty way possible!

And another thing re: rain, the use of it to establish perspective, particularly in panels like this—

—where we can tell we're looking down at Tynan due to the perspective on the rain and where it's pointing. Excellent. (Also, kudos for looking down and emphasizing how Tynan's losing his advantage—lovely use of visual storytelling.)

Additionally, the misting here:

We see it most heavily in the leftmost panel, where it's quite foggy as you would expect in a rainstorm, especially in an environment with a lot of heat, but it's also lightly powdered on in the following two panels and tends to follow light sources, which makes complete sense given how light bounces off particles in the air.

A major point of strength in these too is a thorough understanding of lighting, like rim lighting, the various hues and shades, and an intricate understanding of how light bounces off surfaces even when they're in shadow (we'll see a faint glow in spots where characters are half in shadow, but that's how it would work in real life, because of how light bounces around).

Bringing some of these points together: the fluidity of the lines in magic, and the way simple glowing lines are used to emphasize motion and the magic itself, is deeply clever. I'm basically pulling at random from panels and there's definitely even better examples, but here's one (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-16-33/):

First panel, listed in numbers because these build on each other:

The tension of the lines in Tess's magic here. This works on a couple levels: first, the way she's holding her fists, as if she's pulling a rope taut.

The way there's one primary line, emphasizing the rope feeling, accompanied by smaller ones.

The additional lines starbursting around her hands, to indicate the energy crackling in her hands and how she's doing a good bit more than just holding it. (That combined with the fists suggests some tension to the magic, too.) Also the variations in brightness, a feature you'll find in actual lightning. :D Additional kudos for how the lightning sparks and breaks off the metal of the sword.

A handful of miscellaneous notes on the second panel:

The reflection of the flames in Erin's typically dark blue eyes (which bears a remarkable resemblance to Dainix, incidentally—almost a thematic sort of parallel given Erin's using the same magic Dainix specializes in?)

The flowing of fabric in the wind and associated variation in the lineart

The way Erin's tattoos interact with the fire he's pulling to his hand

The way the rain overlays some of the fainter areas of fire (attention! to! detail! hell yeah!)

I could go on. I won't because this is a lot of writing already.

Third panel gets paragraphs, not bullets:

Erin's giant-ass "FWOOM" of fire there, and the way the outline of the word is puffy-edged and gradated to feel almost three-dimensional, plus once again using Screen or a variation on it so that the stars show up in the background. All this against that stunning plume of fire, which ripples and sparks so gorgeously, and the ending "om" of the onomatopoeia is emphasized incredibly brightly against that, adding to the punch of it and making the plume feel even brighter.

Also, once again, rain helping establish perspective, especially in how it's very angular in the left side of the panel and then slowly becomes more like a point to the right to indicate it's falling directly down on the viewer. Add in the bright, beautiful glow effects, fainter but no less important black lines beneath them to emphasize the sky and smoke and the like, and the stunningly beautiful lighting and gradated glows surrounding Erin plus the lightning jagging up at him from below, and you get one hell of an impactful panel right there. (And there is definitely more in there I could break down, this is just a lot already.)

And in general: The colors in this? Incredible. The blues and purples and oranges and golds compliment so well, and it's all so rich.

Like, seriously, just throughout the whole comic, the use of gradients, blending modes, color balance and hues, all the things, all the things, it makes for the most beautiful effects and glows and such a rich environment. There's a very distinct style to this comic in its simplified backgrounds (which I recognize are done partly because it's way easier and also backgrounds are so time-consuming dear gods but lemme say this) and vivid, smoothly drawn characters; the simplicity lets them come to the front and gives room for those beautiful, richly saturated focal points, letting the stylized designs of the magic and characters shine. The use of distinct silhouettes is insanely good. Honestly, complex backgrounds might run the risk of making everything too visually busy in this case. It's just, augh, so GORGEOUS.

Another bit, take a look at this page (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-15-28/):

It's not quite as evident here as it is in the next page, but this one does some other fun things so I'm grabbing it. Points:

Once again, using different colors to represent different character actions. The "WHAM" of Kendal hitting the ground is caused by Dainix's force, so it's orange (and kudos for doubling the word over to add a shake effect). But we see blue layered underneath, which could be an environmental choice, but might also be because it's Kendal, whose color is blue.

And speaking off, take a look at the right-most panel on top, where Kendal grabs the spear: his motion is, again, illustrated in bright blue, versus the atmospheric screened-on orange lines that point toward him around the whole panel (I'm sure these have a name, I think they might be more of a manga thing though and the only experience I have in manga is reading a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist). Those lines emphasize the weight of the spear being shoved at him, and their color tells us Dainix is responsible for it.

One of my all-time favorite effects in this comic is the way cracks manifest across Dainix's body to represent when he starts to lose control; it is utterly gorgeous and wonderfully thematic. These are more evident in the page before and after this one, but you get a decent idea here. I love the way they glow softly, the way the fire juuuust flickers through at the start and then becomes more evident over time, and the cracks feel so realistic, like his skin is made of pottery. Additional points for how fire begins to creep into his hair.

A small detail that's generally consistent across the comic, but which I want to make note of here because you can see it pretty well: Kendal's eyes glow about the same as the jewel in his sword, mirroring his connection to said sword and calling back to how the jewel became Vash's eye temporarily and thus was once Kendal's eye. You can always see this connection (though there might be some spots where this also changes in a symbolic manner; I went through it quickly on the first time around, so I'll pay more attention when I inevitably reread this), where Kendal's always got that little shine of blue in his eyes the same as the jewel. It's a beautiful visual parallel that encourages the reader to subconsciously link them together, especially since the lines used to illustrate character movements typically mirror their eye color. It's an extension of Kendal.

Did I mention how ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL the colors in this are?

Also, the mythological/legend-type scenes are illustrated in familiar style often used for that type of story, a simple and heavily symbolic two-dimensional cave-painting-like look. They are absolutely beautiful on many levels, employing simple, lovely gradients, slightly rougher and thicker lineart that is nonetheless smoothly beautiful, and working with clear silhouettes (a major strength of this art style, but also a strength in the comic overall). But in particular, I wanted to call attention to a particular thing (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-12-4/):

The flowing symbolic lineart surrounding each character. This is actually quite consistent across characters—see also Life's typical lines and how they curl:

What's particularly interesting here is how these symbols are often similar, but not the same. Vash's lines are always smooth, clean curls, often playing off each other and echoing one another like ripples in a pond. You'd think they'd look too similar to Life's—but they don't. Life's curl like vines, and they remain connected; where one curve might echo another but exist entirely detached from each other in Vash's, Life's lines still remain wound together, because vines are continuous and don't float around. :P

Tahraim's are less continuous, often breaking up with significantly smaller bits and pieces floating around like—of course—sparks, and come to sharper points. These are also constants: we see the vines repeated over and over in Alinua's dreams of Life, and the echoing ripples of Vash are consistent wherever we encounter him. Kendal's dream of the ghost citizens of the city of Vash in the last few chapters is filled with these rippling, echoing patterns, to beautiful effect (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-14/):

They ripple and spiral, often in long, sinuous curves, with smooth elegance. It reminds me a great deal of images of space and sine waves and the like. This establishes a definite feel to these different characters and their magic. And the thing is, that's not something that had to be done—the colors are good at emphasizing who's who. But it was done, and it adds a whole other dimension to the story. Whenever you're in a deity's domain, you know whose it is no matter the color.

Regarding that shape language, I wanted to make another note, too—Vash is sometimes described as chaotic and doing what he likes, which is interesting to me, because smooth, elegant curves and the color blue aren't generally associated with chaos. So while Vash might behave like that on the surface, I'm guessing he's got a lot more going on underneath; he's probably much more intentional in his actions than you'd think at a glance, and he is certainly quite caring with his city. The other thing is that this suits Kendal perfectly. He's a paragon character; he is kind, virtuous, and self-sacrificing, and often we see him aiming to calm others and keep them safe. Blue is such a good color for him. There is… probably more to this, but I'm not deep enough in yet to say.

And here's the thing: I'm only scratching the surface. There is so much more here I'm not covering (color palettes! outfits! character design! environment! the deities! so much more!) and a lot more I can't cover, because I don't have the experience; this is me as a hobbyist artist who happened to take a couple design classes because I wanted to. The art style to this comic is so clever and creative and beautiful, though, I just had to go off about it. <3

...brownie points for getting all the way down here? Have a cookie.

#aurora comic #aurora webcomic #comicaurora #art analysis #...I hope those are the right tags???#new fandom new tagging practices to learn ig #much thanks for something to read while I try to rest my wrists. carpal tunnel BAD. (ignore that I wrote this I've got braces ok it's fine)#anyway! I HAVE. MANY MORE THOUGHTS. ON THE STORY ITSELF. THIS LOVELY STORY #also a collection of reactions to a chunk of the comic before I hit the point where I was too busy reading to write anything down #idk how to format those tho #...yeet them into one post...???#eh I usually don't go off this much these days but this seems like a smaller tight-knit fandom so... might as well help build it?#and I have a little more time thanks to break so #oh yes also shoutout to my insanely awesome professor for teaching me all the technical stuff from this he is LOVELY #made an incredibly complex program into something comprehensible <3 #synapse talks

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becca-e-barnes · 1 year

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I’m literally drooling over the thought of sensitive Bucky whimpering and whining while fucking your tits and thighs he’s so pathetic and needy all he wants is to make you feel good and to fill you with his cum even if it overstimulates him

Okay, tit fucking is great and all but thigh fucking is SO underrated in my humble opinion. Could just be the fact I've got a small chest though lmao

It's so fun when you're already really into it and the insides of your thighs are all slick. I feel like Bucky would lose it, getting to see your face and look in your eyes and enjoy your body.

It's a nice one to do while laid on your side, facing each other. Although the angle isn't quite right for him to slip inside you, it's fun to explore the other ways your bodies can steal pleasure from one another.

"This isn't going to work, sweetheart." You can't help but laugh, having already tried everything you can think of to make the height difference work. There's no way to keep this romantic and intimate in that position because there's just no chance of aligning your bodies properly to allow him to press inside you.

"Maybe not. But it feels nice anyway." His eyes flutter shut, gliding his dick over the smooth, soft, warm insides of your thighs, encouraged by how slick and easy your arousal makes the movement.

You adjust yourself to bring your other thigh on top of his length, closing him in on both sides.

You're wet enough that friction doesn't impede his movement too much and there's something oddly romantic about it. Maybe it's his hand smoothing the back of your head or his other hand up your back, pulling your body closer to his.

It's so intimate, watching his face as he whines your name, rutting senselessly against your thighs. The little flush to his cheeks is beautiful and you can't resist kissing the thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. The thick duvet on top of you both, coupled with your combined body heat means the room is far hotter than you'd planned.

You take a second to reach between your bodies, spreading your wet folds and readjusting his length, letting him drag his cock against your neglected clit with each stroke and oh, that's pretty mind-blowing.

"O-oh my God." He whines, desperately fucking himself against your wet cunt, rather than into it. It's a different kind of pleasure to being inside you and while they're not comparable sensations, it doesn't stop this from feeling fantastic.

"Fuck, that's good." You groan, rolling your hips to meet his. Your fingers dip between you once more, gathering some of your slick arousal, using it to glide your fingertips over the underside of his shaft and over his balls.

"Holy shit, that's - fuck." Bucky's hardly got a coherent thought left in his head. He's closed in on both sides by your wet, soft thighs and now your fingers are giving him a different sensation underneath while pressing him against your soaked sex.

"I know, baby. Feels good, doesn't it?" Your fingertips trail lightly back and forth over the underside of his shaft, focusing on the inch or so beneath the tip.

"I can't... I need to cum." He groans, thrusting frantically, clinging to your body to keep you close. Within a few seconds, you feel his dick pulse under your fingertips, his cum coating the inside of your thighs in hot, thick, messy spurts.

He doesn't waste a second, kissing your forehead before kissing your neck and whispering "Good girl. Now let me watch you get yourself off with my cum on your fingertips."

#asks answered <3 #becca writes spice #anon #needy!bucky #Bucky Barnes x reader smut #bucky barnes smut #sub!bucky #was this one something I've been fortunate enough to try? Absolutely.#and has it bounced around in my head ever since?? yep #I've got so many 💦sports asks #and I've been really hesitant to answer them bc I have people I know irl on here now #but honestly if my interests so far haven't freaked you out #those probably won't either #I made the best overnight oats last night I've been thinking about them all day #white chocolate chunks with raspberries and peanut butter #with oat milk #and I'm using that to distract me from the fact I'm locked out of my work emails and I can't do my Sunday evening email clear up #it's freaking me out that I can't get into them #that'll mean I have so much to do tomorrow morning #I'll probably lose my hour home on the train tomorrow trying to catch up #I love my hour to work and my hour home from work on the train #that's my me time #where I read my silly little book and chill

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ninyard · 3 months

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I would absolutely love to see something about Betsy and Andrew post Easthaven!

a lil snippet of bee and andrews first session after easthaven that i dont want to get long as hell but will probably end up that way anyway??? (tw drake/thanksgiving/easthaven you know the drill)

It was a Wednesday, as it had been a thousand times before, and at ten to the hour Betsy thought about her first session with Andrew.

She thought about his humourless laugh, and how he'd dramatically left the room less than twenty minutes into the session. She remembered how he smelled like stale tobacco and smoke, how he smiled at her, and pushed her limits.

Betsy thought about the second time she met Andrew, the third time, the fourth time. How he'd slowly started to crack himself open and let her in, how he'd allowed himself to trust again.

Betsy thought about their last session before the holidays.

Talking about his family had always been a sore spot for Andrew, uncharted territory most of the time, with far too many boundaries and ‘do-not-talk-about’s to be worth exploring further. They had dipped their toes in on a handful of occasions, tense discussions more often than not shut down as soon as Andrew felt the conversation becoming too close.

They’d made progress, that being said - they’d spent that last session before the holidays speaking about one of the last times Andrew had seen his cousin’s family in person. How interested he was in seeing how their dinner would pan out, about how he couldn’t wait to see the look on Neil’s face when he realised what he’d gotten them into.

(Betsy would not forget Neil’s face for quite some time; stoic, unbothered, with blood on his clothes and no emotions other than Andrew, Andrew, Andrew.)

At five minutes to the hour, Andrew swung open the door with a room-shaking bang. Betsy waited for him to sit down, but he stood there for a moment too long, watching her, and only when Betsy fixed her glasses did she see why.

Betsy had never met this Andrew before.

His eyes did not have much behind them, and it startled her to read his emotionless expression. This didn’t even look like him - it looked more like Aaron, the brother who did not speak, who did not sport the same medicated smile that Andrew had for over a year. It didn't take long for her to realise it was the absence of that medicated smile that made him look so wrong; it was as natural on Andrew's face as the clouds were in the sky. Him stepping into her office without it was as if he'd stepped through the door with a new hair colour, or piercing, or a bizarrely colourful outfit he'd never worn before.

“Andrew,” Betsy smiled. At her voice, he shut the door to her office behind him, and made his way over to the couch at the back end of the room. “We’re overdue a few formalities - happy New Year, for a start.”

He didn’t respond while she made their usual cocoas, and so she filled the silence with meaningless chatter, things that she knew he didn’t care about, but were words nonetheless. She got a better look at him as she placed his mug down, and caught his eyes, glued to her, waiting, watching. Perhaps the light was playing tricks on her, but he had subtle yellow marks on the skin of his face where bruises had faded to almost nothing.

“I don’t think it’s what you want to hear but I’ll ask it anyway,” Betsy checked her seat was clear before sitting down. “How are you feeling? It’s really great to see you.”

It was impossible to tell if the pause that followed was Andrew’s hesitation or reluctance. Was he not speaking because he had nothing to say, or because he didn’t know what to say at all? It was not Betsy’s place to fill that silence, either. If any session were important to hand him the reigns, this was it. He had to do this himself.

It was ten minutes, or an hour later before he spoke. “They shouldn’t have called you.”

“When?” Betsy asked after a pause. When he didn’t answer, she continued cautiously, “In Columbia?”

His lack of a response was response enough. His dead stare, his tired eyes emphasised by un-creased cheeks, his smile nothing more than a hard line across his lips.

“They had no choice,” she said, calm and measured. “You know they had to. You know why they had to."

"They shouldn't have."

Betsy had spent over a year trying to understand Andrew, to figure out whether his smile was genuine or chemically manufactured, trying to figure out what he meant when he spoke in riddles. They'd reached a point of understanding, a point in their therapeutic relationship where she could read him well enough to know what he needed her to say. This felt like square one again. This felt like trying to read a completely new patient.

"Why?" Betsy asked, and she tilted her head ever so gently when he looked her way. "What would you have preferred them to do?"

Andrew paused, and was slow to look away before he spoke.

"I don't know."

It was quiet, and there was something else in the room, something in his voice. Something that told Betsy he meant it. He didn't know. He didn't know what had really happened to him, he didn't know who he was anymore, he didn't know why he didn't want them to call the only person who truly understood, because all of it was far too real. Betsy being there only made it official.

"Talk to me," She said, careful not to change her tone, careful to avoid falling back into the typical therapist mode that Andrew had always despised. "Tell me what you're thinking."

Andrew stared at the wall for a moment before finally moving himself into a more comfortable position, taking off his shoes slower than he usually would, tucking them up beneath him on the couch. He shut his eyes for just a second, and then turned his gaze on Betsy.

"Why did you do it?" He asked, and Betsy felt her stomach bottom out. "Why Easthaven?"

"We agreed on it." She said slowly, trying to hide the defensiveness in her voice, trying to hide the fear that an unmedicated Andrew had started to regret his decision to come off them. "I told you why-"

"That's not what I'm asking." He interrupted with a gentle shake of his head.

When they'd spoken about it, it'd been a messy scrapbook page of pasted reasonings and a scribbled out pros and cons list. There were several different truths as to why Betsy pushed for it, a truth that had been hard for others to understand, but a truth that Neil seemed to understand the best.

"Tell me why." She offered. "Why is that something you want me to answer, when you already know?"

"Because I need to hear it without all the noise."

Easthaven had always been the plan - it was difficult to concisely explain the choice as to pull forward Andrew's timeline of events, but it was something Betsy had had to explain over and over again. To her superiors, to the boards in Easthaven, the courts and parole officers that didn't understand it at all. It had been almost hardest to explain it to Andrew himself, bruised and bloody after a night of retraumatisation and a concussion that left him barely able to focus, who's only coping mechanism was to make jokes to cover the fear that he hadn't even been allowed to feel.

Betsy took a deep breath and took off her glasses before saying, "Do you remember laughing?"

Andrew looked away as quickly as the words had left her mouth. She couldn't read his face well enough to tell if he was remembering, or if he couldn't remember at all. It was a silly question though, she thought, knowing how crystal clear Andrew's memory had always been, but perhaps she wondered whether between the haze of withdrawals and events of that night had led his reaction to become somehow buried amongst it all.

Andrew had kept his past a secret for so long, even to her, that he'd nearly given it his own statute of limitations in a way - nothing can be done about it now. Betsy had promised not to pursue any legal action, perhaps against the protocols she was required to follow, for the sake of his honesty way back in the beginning. For the sake of his openness, Betsy was willing to do anything. Andrew had allowed enough time and distance to pass before he handed over even the tiniest of details about the abuse he'd faced as a child. Enough time had passed that he felt as though they were nothing more than stories. Drake would never be in his life again, whether it be for justice or for some sort of closure, so, to him it felt safe to talk about. Any time he'd found his way into a conversation, the son of the mother that could've been, it was obvious how much it bothered Andrew to talk about it; the way his eyes glazed over recounting the details, the way even the mention of his name stilled him as if he were a mannequin on display. But Drake alone was far enough away from the Andrew that sat in her office months beforehand, and he felt like it was okay to divulge the truth.

But against all odds, Drake had come back.

He'd found Andrew, he'd put his hands on him, an adult now, more capable of fighting back, but still in Andrew's eyes he'd won again. It had been funny to him, the night of, that after so many years he'd finally, naively, stupidly allowed himself to feel safe. He had stopped looking over his shoulder each and every night before he got into bed. He had spoken Drake's name freely in a therapeutic setting without fear of repercussion. Yet he had looked him in the eyes again. Yet he'd felt like that child all over again, and years and years of progress were destroyed in an instant.

And Andrew laughed.

A terrible sound, a joke in the face of shock and trauma, a flick of his wrist as if the bruises that circled it were not enough to tell him that this was not to be brushed away. Betsy remembered sitting across from him that night as if it had been only the night before. She remembered the awful sound of his hoarse laugh as well as she remembered the painfully long drive from her sisters home to Columbia. She remembered it almost as well as the foggy conversation she'd had with Abby over the phone.

She looked across that room at him now, his demeanor that of a stranger, and sighed.

Why had she done it?

For him. Anything else was irrelevant - the season, the courts and their mandated recovery timeline, the opinions of anyone who thought they understood. All of it had been for him.

To keep him alive.

To keep him safe.

"I'll tell you," Betsy lifted up the cocoa she'd sat on the table between them, to rest her lips on the warm ceramic. Andrew watched her as she spoke, and she watched his chest rise and fall after a purposeful deep breath. "But Andrew, I need you to let me finish."

#if i dont find somewhere to end this it will become a Novel #so #here's a chunk of it <3 #mine #andrew minyard #betsy dobson #aftg #all for the game #ask

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