#don't just brush it off either... because this is actually affecting entire communities right now

[aen-lliash]

I also just wanna address this before the queue starts running! I know it’s long, but please read this.

This (side)blog is primarily for sharing my Star Trek Online shenanigans. It’s become more of a screenshot repository as of late, but if there’s anything I’ve learned in my time here and on twitter, it’s that my content is still recognized as generally being more gaming-focused and less Star Trek-focused.

With “gaming-focused” content comes the outside expectation of Only Posting About Gaming, Not Getting Political, etc etc and so on. I don’t want this blog to contribute to that. I was a Trekkie before I was a STO player, and to me, being a Trekkie means upholding the ideals of Star Trek and getting political. That is to say, as a Trekkie (and a Political Science grad, and soon-to-be Master of Public Policy student) I cannot in good conscience be posting and acting “as normal” when what’s “normal” is harming others.

Systems in the US fail People of Color, and we’re seeing this in real-time. Police brutality occurs at disproportionately higher rates against Black people.There’s no denying this fact. George Floyd was murdered because the state continually sanctions this kind of violence against and oppression of POC. He was not the first, and it breaks my heart to say that he will not be the last. This is what we get for trying to “tolerate” intolerance. This is what we get for saying “tolerate ALL opinions, even the ones you don’t like!” and then classifying racism as an opinion. You don’t tolerate racism. You don’t tolerate nazis. Giving them a voice opens the door for violence, oppression, and genocide. And we’ve given them more than a voice here in the US; we’ve allowed them to assume positions of power and enter systems intended for the protection of citizens.

This is discussed in Star Trek -- I’m not just ascribing political stances to the show because you think I’m some ~virtue-signaling SJW,~ IT IS LITERALLY IN THE SHOW. Even TOS, with its plethora of microaggressions against minorities, tried harder than our goddamned president to send a hopeful message about anti-racism.

I want the future to be more like Star Trek, and not just for myself, but for everyone (this is actually my motivation for entering public policy!! but I won’t get into that here). I feel that actively seeking changes to the systems that oppress minorities is one of the greatest things that we can do for our society. We all need to actively work against oppressive systems, and this starts by truly listening to the voices of the oppressed.

So, tl;dr, this sideblog supports Black Lives Matter, social justice movements, and anti-fascist action. I don’t give a fuck if you think it should be otherwise. You are not welcome here if you’re a racist. This blog and its content is not for you. Delete my screenshots from your computers and cloud storage, because they are not for you. Reconsider your place in the STO and Trek communities. Unfollow me, block me, and know that any comments you might have to make against my stance only further serve to prove your shameful existence as an intolerant fool... so don’t waste your time.

To close, I’m going to provide links to ways in which we can help affect change. Please take this seriously, follow their advice, and share them with others.

→ https://medium.com/equality-includes-you/what-white-people-can-do-for-racial-justice-f2d18b0e0234

→ https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/#resources

[the-odd-job]

What is your step by step drawing process like, if you don't mind my asking?

I'll just use Sunstealer as an example since he's the most recent thing I did. Under the cut because this is horridly long. You wanted step by step, I’ll give you step by step. 

That is a threat.

And every step of the way I use a sharp pen with high pressure sensitivity and a sharp eraser with high pressure sensitivity, unless stated otherwise.

1. Alright, sketch first of all. I pick a whatever color, set a folder to multiply, and add layers in it. I start with the face/helm and take moderate care with making it look decent.

2. From there I sketch the rest of the the pic, preferably very loosely. I aim to not lift the stylus from the pad very much and instead just SCRIBBLE lines into the vague shape I'm after.

3. Set the sketch folder’s opacity real damn low, like somewhere under 10%, create a new folder, set it to multiply, and this is where the horrid amount of layers and layer folders I use comes in. But, you can see I actually did a second sketch of the arms (and legs, though that isn’t visible here) ‘cause I couldn’t make them look right based on my initial sketch.

4. On top of my second sketch I draw the rest of the clean lines. The lines were drawn with this purplish color, btw. I use something akin to it pretty often in my lineart.

5. After all that I use the Auto Select tool to select everything outside my lineart, e.g. everything I don’t want to have color. I then invert the selection and lay down my flats. At this point I used the gold as my base color, but then added separate folders for each following color, clipping them to the gold base layer below. In the case of black, its folder has a whole bunch of layers while I tried to figure out what parts to color black. With layers for the different parts, I can just click them on and off to see what things look like with or without them.

6. Okay, now to the meat of things. I use a correction layer (hue/saturation/luminosity in this case) to change the base gold to a far darker color that I can easily edit later without losing my initial color choice, and create a new layer on top of all my colors, set it on multiply, and in this case used a sort of peachy color to add my first shadows on top of the whole entire picture. At this point the exact colors in use don’t matter one bit, though, as long as you see what you’re doing.

7. I create a second multiply layer on top of the last one, and go over the whole thing again, adding deeper shadows, this time using bright red. But again, color doesn’t matter yet. I like contrast too, so you can see some areas turn almost black.

8. Shinies! We add our first Add (Glow) layer (that can be named differently in other programs, in SAI it was just “Luminosity”). Once again, color doesn’t matter, just as long as you see what you’re doing, but I was working with about the same peach I used on my first multiply layer. And how I add the shines is basically just color the glow over the whole area, then use the eraser in sweeping and circling motions to remove parts of it. I don’t treat each plate/portion separated by lines individually, because then you’ll just end up with mismatched areas that don’t communicate with each other at all and just fight. (Remember to erase the shine from over your shadows too. Auto Selecting the shadows and erasing the glow from the selected area is a good trick.)

9. More shinies! This time we want it to show up as a bit lighter/brighter than our previous shiny. Using a brighter color or higher opacity does the trick. I do the same thing of coloring large areas and erasing shapes out of them afterwards, but this time I make it argue with my first glow layer a bit. Some overlap is good, but I also want them to live their own lives. (I included a view of the second glow layer alone, but I worked with both glow layers visible.)

10. We now have two multiply layers and two glow layers. What we also have, is a base color (gold) and separate folders for every subsequent color (black, face, insignia in this case. And optic, but let’s not touch that yet). We now copy our two multiply layers and two glow layers, and move copies of them into each folder (sans optic) and clip them to the base layer in that folder. We move copies of the multiply and glow layers right over our base layer too, below our other color folders. (I deleted the glow layers from the “face” folder because I don’t want the face to be as shiny, and the multiply layers from the “insignia” folder because there’s actually no shadow over the insignia.) We can make our original multiply and glow layers invisible so they’re not messing things up, and what we should have is... The same exact thing as in step 9. Wow.

11. Now we actually make it look good! Though let’s just color the optic while we’re at it so it’s not all empty. Anyway, this is the stage where we really start to think about color and opacity. I want a neutral lighting to showcase his colors best, so let’s see how we get that. The thing we’ll just do is use Tonal Correction > Hue/Saturation/Luminosity to change our multiply and glow layers one by one, starting from our first multiply layer. I turn the other multiply and glow layers off so I can see what I’m doing and and tweak the colors until I get something that doesn’t scream “interesting lighting”, because I want neutral lighting. 

12. Then I go through all of the layers one by one and do the same thing to each of them. The reason I have them each on separate layers is exactly this, that I can affect all of the drawing’s colors individually and make them look just as I want to and always have the option of just going back and easily editing things. I also add a glow layer to the face, but with a brush rather than a pen so I get a softer look, buuut then add a second glow layer with a low opacity to add just a little bit of sharp light in there. And now we have a thing! But it looks pretty flat, doesn’t it? We don’t want that.

13. First of all, let’s add some soft glow to the gold. New glow layer below our multiply and other glow layers, choosing a soft color to accentuate the gold, and then using either a brush or airbrush we add just a bit of color in there. Arrows point to the spots where I added it, because we want the effect to be subtle and easy to miss.

14. We can do better than that, though. Let’s add a multiply layer and do the same thing, adding juuuust hints of darker color here and there. It adds a touch more depth, but again, we want it to be easy to miss.

15. Let’s have a look at the black, next. You may have noticed I turned off the second glow layer on it entirely, and that’s because it was decided that the black shouldn’t be as shiny as the gold. We still want to add some life to it though, and because Sunstealer’s black tints towards blue, let’s make some blue happen by adding a glow layer, and again, very softly with a brush or airbrush, add just hints of color in there. 

16. It still doesn’t really good though, does it? It’s pretty boring and lifeless despite our efforts. More layers, then! Some fucking edges, this time. A glow layer above all of our existing layers and folders to affect all of them (except optic, ‘cause optic doesn’t need it), take good ol’ bright white, turn the opacity down a bit, and add sharp light to the edges. Like, all the edges that are touched by light. Seams, everything. We want this motherfucker to shine.

17. Okay, now do the same, except this time on the shadows. The layer is on lower opacity and I didn’t use white but desaturated blue instead. Just add a bit of reflected light in there.

18. Slowly getting there, but let’s do a couple more things. First of all, warm color. Basically, I just like to slap a random color on top of the whole damn thing when I’m finishing a drawing, using either a color, a glow, or a normal layer, depending which one gets me the best results that time. Or, all three, if that’s what I feel like. This time I used a color layer with briiiiiight neon orange. I switched the layer to normal and opacity to 100% so you can see where it’s actually applied, which is, again, on top of all the layers. A pretty large area, but even on 100% opacity with a normal layer you can see it’s pretty transparent. If I had wanted to do a more interesting lighting, I would’ve left it more visible and maybe added another similar layer in a different color, but I wanted neutral lighting so we leave it as just a tiny, tiny hint in there. 

19. Still not done. Colors reflect other colors, so let’s make that happen on the black and have it reflect our gold some.

20. Almost there. What are we missing? Color correction, that’s what. I didn’t do much of it for this piece, but with some I really play around with correction layers and layers set to overlay and whatnot. But let’s see what we have here. First of all, there’s one brightness/contrast correction layer affecting the gold only, increasing the contrast so things look a bit brighter. 

21. There’s also a second brightness/contrast correction layer, this one simply increasing the brightness a bit. It’s mostly for the sake of the black, because I wanted to make it look a bit more blue by making it lighter, but it worked to make the whole image a little brighter along with it. Aside from the optic, that’s still on top of everything else. But like said, how many corrective layers I have going on depends entirely on what I’m doing. In some cases I can have around a dozen in effect, not all of them always affecting the entire image, but split around to do their thing on different layers.

22. But speaking of the optic! It glows, so let’s make it glow with two layers on top of both of the “color” and “lines” folders. One layer is for the blurred red glow, the second is for the sharply reflected light.

23. And for things like these I like a simple background, which I generally do by just using a couple of gradients and altering their color to whatever looks decent. I also often add an outline to the entire character in pieces like this to make the character pop a bit more, by just copying my base color layer and performing gaussian blur on it.

WHEEZE. That’s that, though. Finished product can be viewed here. 

Oh, and ctrl+shift and tap will jump you straight to the layer you tapped on. Makes moving between layers and finding the damn layer you wanted to edit a hell of a lot easier.

Annnnnd obsessively naming layers and layer folders so you can tell what the heck they actually are when you have way, way many layers to work with.

*thumbs up*

[reasonsilovemywife]

Buckle up, I've got something to say

Most of you will ignore this post. I hope that you take time to read it, especially my white friends and colleagues...

I've hesitated to really speak my mind on the murder of Armaud Arbery, the murder of George Floyd, and the aftermath of these murders. I opted to not watch the videos of their murders, of their last breaths. I opted not to watch because it will only piss me off even more. I know the outcome without watching. I've seen it over and over again. I don't need to see it over and over again, again. I've hesitated because I feel helpless. I've spoken against racism almost my whole life, at least since high school. And what has that changed? Have I really made things better? Have I done all I can to end racism? I've felt outnumbered, I've felt intimidated, I remember feeling what my heart tells me is right being contrary to what others tell me is right.

Maybe I could've communicated better, but lacked the ability or lacked the information that would be more persuasive. Maybe I could have organized better, but lacked the commitment or the access or knowledge. Or maybe they just lacked the empathy for their fellow man. I still, vividly, remember the first time I saw racism play out in front of my very eyes. Innocence lost. It's still painful to this day. I've said in the past, as long as racist parents raise racist children, racism will never go away. But even worse, racism isn't just anecdotal, it isn't just individual-based. It is systemic. It has been woven into our institutions and structures over such a long period of time that it is subtle to someone who is not directly affected by it.

I feel helpless because of "all the progress that's been made", at times it feels like no progress has been made. In the 50s and 60s, it was Emmett Till, four little girls (Addie May Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, and Carole Rosamond Robertson), Willie Edwards, Jr., Cpl. Roman Ducksworth, Jr., Jimmie Lee Jackson and many others. In this past decade, it's been Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, the Charleston Nine (Clementa Pinckney, Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Myra Thompson), Philando Castille, Armaud Arbery, George Floyd, and once again, many others. So when we continually see these killings play out, the progress that has been made can feel hollow and inadequate.

Just like my words on a Facebook and Tumblr post can feel. And that's mostly all I have to offer, words. I can post and opine on Facebook / Tumblr all day, but is that really going to change anything? That's why I feel helpless. During my career at UPS I was hopeful to get involved in the community, to help underprivileged children, to help the homeless, and to get involved with anti-racist organizations in order to contribute to a better, more equitable and more harmonious community. But the truth is, I just worked. I just worked 70+ hours per week for a corporation that pays me for 50 hours per week, but expects me to do more and work longer if needed. But I digress. Yet, this leads to a lack of time and a lack of energy, and that's why I feel helpless.

I feel helpless because too many white people are dismissive on the issues of race. It doesn't negatively affect white people, so there's no need to get involved, right? This is one of the most obvious proofs of white privelege. And that's precisely the reason you should fight for social justice for minorities. If you don't want to be considered a racist, then stop looking the other way, stop benefiting from white privilege then deny that white privilege exists, stop acting as if "reverse racism" is equal to or worse than racism against minorities. If you don't want to be considered a racist, then care, act and live as if you're not a racist.

If you're response to "Black Lives Matter" is "All Lives Matter" instead of "Yes, They Do", then you are part of the problem and are clearly missing the point. Stop dismissing racism as a problem Black people (and other minorities) have to deal with. It's our responsibility as White people to end racism, not theirs. They're the victims of racism in America, not the perpetrators. So fix your damn self. Stop being tolerant. Stop being complacent. Stop being dismissive. Stop acting as if it's not your problem, because it is 100% your problem. My problem. Our problem. The problem is you've benefited from it, I've benefited from it. We've benefited from white supremacy our entire lives, and usually don't even recognize it. How could we, it's normal to us - although it should be abnormal. If you don't believe racism in America is systemic and intentional, study up on redlining, study up on the inception of policing in the South, study up on the educational, financial, and even medical care disparities during segregation and how it still affects us today.

Also, stop with all the generalizations. That goes for everyone. Stop painting everything and everyone with such a broad brush just because you're too lazy or too simple to actually learn and discern. Humanity is not a monolith. People groups are not a monolith. All Black people are not the same, all white people are not the same, all law enforcement are not the same, all protesters are not the same, etc., etc. There are good and bad in all things, including humanity. I know for a fact that there are good, moral, heroic police officers out there, because I have family and friends who are those good police officers. I also know for a fact that there are crooked, corrupt, criminal police officers out there. Those are the ones that I am against, those are the ones we all should be against, especially the good cops out there. You can be fully supportive of LE and also be fully supportive of the arrest and conviction of dirty cops. It's not mutually exclusive. Also, don't confuse the peaceful protesters with the looters, they are not the same people. People marching, holding up signs are not the same people as the ones damaging property.

Speaking of protesting, if you've never protested, please stop telling other people how to protest. How would you know the right way to protest, you've never needed to. Although I wasn't a huge fan of Kaepernick, his peaceful protest was just, but it made "us" uncomfortable so "we" hated him for it. He literally stated that he was protesting police brutality and racial injustice and literally stated that he was not protesting the military, not protesting the flag, but you hated him for it and, with the assistance of this ignorant ass president of ours, Kaep's mission was tainted, blurred, misconstrued.

Now, a lot of us our finally opening our eyes that he was right all along.

Speaking of Trump, can we get him off Twitter, at least until we can get him out of the White House. This dude has quoted white supremacists multiple times, then when questioned about it, acts as if he had no idea. Multiple times. He takes no responsibility for his actions. It would take less than two minutes for him to Google before posting. He's blatantly ignorant at the least. And don't come at me about the economy, the economy has been steadily improving since 2010 but y'all didn't want to acknowledge that until Orangina got in office. But let me get off politics because I'm not supporting Biden's stupid ass either. It would be nice if we had a worthy candidate, a dream deferred.

Although I feel helpless at times, I won't give up. I still have hope for the future. But the future starts now, it starts with us. Have empathy, be sincere, treat people as you would have them treat you. That's a good starting point, but remember, that's just the starting point.

#WeveGotWorkToDo

#BlackLivesMatter

[winnipegpatty]

Tell Me Something I Don't Already Know

Fandom: Eyewitness 

Pairing: Philkas 

For: @andromeda---galaxy 1 million plus years late, thank for waiting on me babe. 

SUMMARY: Post-Finale Philkas Fluff, literally thats all you need to know. Very little like actual plot just a cute fun one shot thing. 

 The idea had sprung up pretty quickly after the school had found out that Lukas was with Philip, but it had mostly been a joke. Like a dumb offhanded comment that Philip had made after filming one of Lukas’s bike videos. He’d bumped Lukas’s shoulder and threw it out not even really realizing what he was saying, “Maybe you should start a blog.” They had both laughed about it then, but only a couple days later Lukas had asked. He was on the his back lying in the barn, and Philip was laying with his head on Lukas’s chest. Lukas was playing with Philip’s hair when he’d blurted out, “What did you mean a blog? Like a youtube channel? One of those social media things?” Philip had been shocked, but he’d always been more smooth with his words and emotions, “Well, I just figure you already put all your stuff out there with your biking, but like,” he rolled his head to look up at Lukas, “I mean, why not put stuff out there other than just your bike videos?” “What kinda stuff though?” His hand stilled in Philip’s hair. Philip shrugged, “I dunno, we could do it together. I don’t know like vlog together or something. I mean like, bike sponsors even, more than anything...they want to know your personality, ya know? Like who is Lukas, really? It’s stupid, whatever.” Lukas hummed, but didn’t respond. And Philip had thought that was the end of it. Their senior trip was coming up in the next month, and since (as Lukas had informed Philip) Tivoli was such a small rural town, most of their classmates had never been to the city. So they’d spent their year raising money through banquets, fundraisers, dances and car washes to make it to the city. They would be spending four days in New York City doing plenty of tourist things, which Philip would gag at the whole time. But four days away from Tivoli were four days of heaven to Philip. New York City used to be home. Lukas was just home now. Small town, rural, farm grind life was not up Philip's ally. The lights, the hustle and bustle, the sky risers of the city was living, breathing life. He thrived in the city, and he’d made sure (with permission of course) to take Lukas as much as possible since they’d been out. Lukas enjoyed the city as much as Philip, but always seemed to sigh a breath of relief once back in Tivoli. He’d kiss his bike that he hadn’t rode in days and the ground that it sat on. One day, they’d find a middle ground life together. Less rural for Philip’s taste, but still with fields and hills for riding. That was in the future though, nothing he and Lukas had actually discussed of course. But also, plenty of what Philip had thought about almost every day that he woke up knowing Lukas was with him. As the senior trip had approached though, Lukas was acting funny-- odd really. He’d asked Philip an unordinary amount of questions about his photography. What cameras he preferred, what kind of lens’ you needed for different shots, how much each camera cost, if they shot video or just still picture. It wasn’t that Philip didn’t like having Lukas show interest in his hobby, but it was just, well frankly it was weird. He’d thought about confronting Lukas about it, but decided it really wasn’t that big of a deal. Maybe he was looking for a present for Philip and fishing for ideas, or perhaps he was wanting to take up photography for himself. Philip didn’t know but it just didn’t really matter anyways. If Lukas wanted to talk about it he would. It wasn’t until Lukas had mysteriously disappeared to the city for an entire day that Philip became suspicious if not slightly concerned. When he’d offered to come with Lukas, he had flat out refused, no forbidden really, Philip from trailing along. Whatever he was doing in New York City he was clearly hiding it. Philip hadn’t decided if he thought it was a surprise that he’d eventually be told about or if it was actually just a blatant lie. He was concerned, but he still didn’t want to press. Didn’t feel it was his place, really. Later that evening, after he’d returned, Lukas pulled Philip into the barn out back hastily. It all felt wrong to boy who was being tugged back into the barn, like he was a secret again. Like he had to speak in hushed tones again, hide his affections, and press his soft giggles into Lukas’ soft flannel so Gabe couldn’t hear them. Lukas dropped his arm once they were a good way into the barn, though. He moved behind a bale of hay. Philip could hear a good amount of rustling, bags it sounded like. “I took,” Lukas popped up from behind the hay, hands still out of view, “your advice.” He smiled brightly before lifting his hands above the hay. A GoPro camera stared back at a baffled Philip. His mouth hung open, his confusion evident. “I don’t understand.” “The blog!” Lukas sprang excitedly out from behind the hay and came closer to Philip. I got a camera, and I want us to document, or whatever you call it, our senior trip!” Philip’s face must be a sight to see because Lukas laughed lightly at him. “Yeah, well...okay.” Philip stuttered. He didn’t think he’d actually listened. Truly. Philip had thought Lukas had completely pushed the idea aside as just one of those stupid things that Philip had mentioned off handedly, but apparently it had caught Lukas’s attention. “Listen,” Lukas said softly. His hand not holding the camera softly brushed at Philip’s wrist, “I spent some time, like, uh, watching?” Philip tilted his head, “Watching?” “Yeah, uh, researching, I guess. I watched a bunch of popular people doing their blogs.” Lukas huffed out an annoyed sigh and started at the barn roof, “Look it’s probably stupid, but I don’t know...I thought maybe I could do -- we could do -- a boyfriend tag video?” A slow smile of realization spread over the other boy’s face. “That’s not stupid,” he spoke softly. “Uh…” Lukas fidgeted at the point where his fingers met Philip’s wrist. “Could we maybe do it now? Here?” Philip placed a sweet kiss on Lukas’ cheek. “Of course, L.” It took some time to get the camera set up, even with Philip’s knowledge of cameras. They rested their backed up against a bale of hay, the camera situated just so, pointing towards them. Lukas had the questions pulled up on his phone. “Okay, so I just start by introducing us, and then I’ll ask the questions okay?” Philip nodded, allowing Lukas to take the lead as he saw fit. The camera came on, and Philip was shocked to say the least. It was a whole new Lukas. Bright and focused, tall posture, light hand on Philip’s knee where his legs were crossed. “Well, hey guys!” Lukas’ voice seeped into Philip’s bones. “I’m Lukas and this is my boyfriend Philip. We’re going to do the boyfriend tag as our first ever video! I’m really excited.” Lukas looked at Philip brightly, “Okay, first question. Starting easy, simple, ya know. When and where did we meet?” “Well, we first saw each other in the halls, really. Junior year. I saw you outside in the parking lot, on your bike. I think you took notice of the camera I was holding, and we kind of just set up a time to record your bike jumps. That first jump is when we really like, talked though.” Lukas nodded along with the story, “True. We did have a class together too, but we never really talked in that. Okay question two, doing good so far,” Lukas chuckled. “Where was our first kiss?” “The cabin.” Philip answered quickly. “Right, yeah. Moving on.” Not exactly something either of them wanted to remember, after all. “Who said I love you first?” “Pretty sure that was me, and you slapped me.” A slow smiled creeped up on Lukas’ face. He placed a soft kiss on Philip's cheek before whispering a sorry and accompanying I love you that only Philip could hear. “Where does my family come from?” Philip laughed, “Good ‘ole Tivoli.” “When did you meet my parents?” Philip laughed, “Officially or unofficially?” “Both.” Philip thought a moment, “Well I came by once while you were fixing up your bike and your dad came into the barn. You shoved me away and told me to leave before your dad saw, but that was really the first time I’d seen him. Officially we met, I suppose, when y’all came over for dinner and told us we couldn’t be friends.” Lukas looked at the camera, “We had a rough get going, but that’s a story for another time. What is the one thing you wish I didn’t do?” “Run away to the city and not take me with you, you fucking jerk.” Philip shoved Lukas’ shoulder, “Fuck, can I say fuck on YouTube?” “I think it’s fine,” Lukas laughed. “Okay, what is my shoe size?” “13.” “Yeah?” Lukas slipped back from Philip for a moment, “That’s weird.” “Mmm.” Philip shrugged. “Well, okay…Next?” He glanced at his phone in his lap, scrolling quietly, “Okay, what’s a food I don’t like?” “Sushi.” Philip laughed, “You spit it out when I took you to that sushi place in the city.” “Raw fish should not be eaten, folks. Okay, who’s my best friend?” Philip looked at Lukas. As their eyes met a bit, a silent communication of sorts, his lips twisted a bit in thought. His hand came up to pick at his lip a bit, “Well, I mean, I would probably say….me? I don’t know though…” “Of course.” Lukas’ lip quirked up on the left corner. He did that when he was sweetly surprised. Philip knew that, knew everything really. Every small detail, every gesture Lukas made. Knew exactly what it meant. Knew what he was saying just be looking into his eyes, breathing his air. Knew that look in his eyes right this very second meant he’d be leaning in to kiss him within seconds. Surely enough, Lukas did lean in. Their lips met in a sweet embrace. Philip let out a breath against his lips. It was his home. Lukas was his home now. With a soft break, Philip whispered, barely audible even to Lukas’ own ears, “You’re my best friend too.” Philip knew if he said it any louder, thought any longer about, he’d cry. He couldn’t think too much on it. The fact that that used to be his mom, his best friend. Think too much on how she wasn’t here any longer to be his best friend. To talk too. To have comfort him when he was hurting. To think of Ryan who had killed her. Ryan who had killed lots of people. Ryan who ruined so many things. Ryan….who brought him and Lukas together, even in the most twisted way possible. Yeah, Philip really couldn’t dwell on that too long. Lukas pecked Philip two more times in quick succession before looking back at his phone, “Okay, maybe just a couple more? What film always makes me cry?” Philip burst into laughter, “Bambi!” “Okay, fine. Last one. What am I most afraid of?” Philip paused. There had been so many things they were both afraid of. Dying being a big one at times. “Well, Lukas. I think you were always most afraid of me…” Lukas nodded. “Yeah, I think you’re right.” He reached for Philip’s hand that was picking at hay on the ground. “But you’re the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.” Philip’s face was the sun, Lukas was sure of it. He could illuminate the entire world if the sun ceased to exist. Could light up everyone's life, he was sure of it. Knew it. Without a doubt. Because he did it every day from him. Wasn’t that how it always had been though? Lukas living in the dark, until Philip came around?