#found a new brush to use for line art while working on this and it’s GREAT

[lorebird]

Commission for @seaoreos, with characters from to @princeinsomniavoid and @corvoattanobignaturals!! These guys were a treat to draw <3

[kozachenko]

[Click for better quality]

Ok yay I'm back from my vacation yipeeeeeee. I started this drawing of Keiki before I left and I was half considering just giving up on it.... until I did a short study of facial planes and then got motivated to work on this again! I'm glad I didn't give up on it though, as I'm actually really happy with this one!

Artist's Notes;

So as I mentioned in my last post about Touhou 17, I wanted to finish this by the game's five year anniversary but with how progress was going I didn't want to rush this so I decided to take a long break from it. Mainly because of the face. For a while now I was kind of feeling like I was stagnating with my drawings, not really in the clothing but in the bodies. There was something about the way I was rendering them that I just wasn't happy with, and after talking with someone else about this issue, I realized that the reason I felt this way was because the faces were too flat and didn't match the rest of the drawing and that I needed to find a way to make the rendering of the face feel consistent with everything else. So after doing a short study of the plains of the face (I used this 3D head model from art station as a reference for my short study, please go give this person some love as they are a lifesaver) I went back into this drawing and applied what I learned here. It was only after that that I finally became motivated to finish the piece, and while it started off as just a simple character sketch like Saki and Yachie's were, the moment I added in Keiki's little fire dragon I knew I had gotten in too deep and now here we are with a full on background. OK it's not super crazy or anything, but it gets the job done and it's better than there just being an empty void behind her. It's rare moments like this when I use brushes other than the Clip Studio Default Charcoal Brush and use the Clip Studio Default Paint Brushes as well (god bless the oil paint and dry gouache clip studio brushes, they were amazing). I don't know why but painting fire has always been really fun for me, there's something oddly satisfying about it y'know? I do think that another reason for this problem was because I was drawing faces like I would in my more sketchy style that didn't mesh well with my lineless style, so I'm glad I've started remedying that.

After adding in the fire dragon I had an idea to kinda make it feel like splash art in the way the composition works... probably because I have been playing Reverse 1999 again and it has taken over my brain. I do feel like Keiki's tools get a little lost in the composition, and I didn't fully render the metal parts of them mainly because I didn't feel like they needed it, but that's just something for me to improve on later down the line.

If you guys are wondering where I went for my vacation, I went to New York and got to go to the MET and the Museum of Natural History. In both places I found Kofun period stuff and I was so happy to see it you have no idea. I remember one of the Haniwa I saw had some neat face paint under the eyes that I tried to replicate with the makeup under Keiki's eyes in my drawing, though I think I'll gave to figure out how to draw makeup on characters because this reads more like blush to me than anything. While drawing this I also looked up some references of Kofun period jewelry and really liked the stuff I found, which also meant that now she has proper Kofun earrings instead of earrings shaped like Kofun tombs. I put some of the things I referenced with a closeup of Keiki's face as well down below. I made her outfit more reminiscent of the outfit I gave her at the beginning of the year with the buttons and all, though I do want to try and draw her in some more period accurate clothing like the Haniwa I took a picture of at the Museum of Natural History. I wish I could find a way to make her handercheif look better though as I wish I made it a little bit bigger, though I think I'm saying this because I've looked at this drawing for too long lmao. Once again something to work on for when I next draw her. Also want to get better at rendering hair, as some details (like the little strands in front of her ears) kinda got unreadable due to the similarities in colour lol.

Now you may have also noticed the little cracks I added onto Keiki's face, and that's because I have fallen in love with the idea of Keiki's body being made from ceramic and that she crafted her body herself. While they aren't very visible I also tried to add some doll joints to her body, which is an idea I played around with in the past but never went to far with. I also want to get better at rendering cracks in ceramic, porcelain, etc, as I'm not sure how those read in the drawing. I also have a headcanon where the cracks in Keiki's face show up because of heightened emotions, and while Keiki is aware of this and does her best to make sure her face doesn't break off.... she will still end up with at least a few cracks during any given day, and she can often forget to repair her own body quite frequently so Mayumi has to remind her quite a lot. Mayumi even taught herself some basic sculpting techniques to help repair parts of her body that are so badly damaged to the point where Keiki can't repair them herself, i.e. if both her arms broke off, Mayumi would put them back together for her so Keiki can at least have something to repair herself with rather than nothing. I also like to imagine that if Keiki created her own body, if you took a look at Keiki from the beginning of her life she would look completely different compared to now.

BTW If you guys are wondering what a very very angry Keiki looks like....ok in order for this to make sense have any of you read volume 11 of Land of The Lustrous? Am I bringing back some memories for those of you that have? Ok good, glad we all got that mental image brewing in our minds, I'll probably draw a version of Keiki that is somewhat inspired by that one day as it's an idea I've had for a little while now. And to those who haven't gotten to that volume yet and are confused.... don't worry about it, just keep reading :)

[solidagotea]

when the vegetable

yayy tutorial for how to make your art look sorta like this? perhaps??

aka the way i render when wanting to make a doodle look more interesting without following any principles of light and color

yippee

draw the lineart and the flat colors of your character. i’m drawing @chrometheraptor ‘s oc because silly, and using the syrup brush for everything but gradient overlays . (usually i use something more textured but this works for now probably maybe)

on the same layer as your coloring, use a darker color to add some basic shading to the more flat-looking areas of the design. bbut. not the whole character because i am lazy.

dots are good when you’re using a flat brush and don’t have the option of adding smooth painterly shading. they help to break up the planes to make everything look a little more natural

on the same layer, add minor highlights on places where the light would probably hit the character a little harder, like for here, the frilly edges of the moss. on moss. moss’ moss.

then, if there are parts of the character that would probably be smoother or more shiny, add lighter dots for highlights on top of the darker highlights. like on the horns. you can never have enough highlights.

you can also imply some texture while making the shading more complex. here, i put down some Gay Lines to make the moss texture look rougher, as well as the leafy v-looking shapes.

now, go to your lineart layer and set it to alpha lock. ignore the fact that the stuff i told you to put on the base layer is actually on a clipping mask

set it to multiply too. this way, you don’t actually have to bother with hue-shifting to make a darker color look decent

use the colors within the design to subtly color your lineart. i usually keep more important features like the eyes and horns black, and only lighten lesser details

make a new clipping mask layer over your base colors. with a gradient or any soft brush, pick a side of your character where you want to pretend to have a light source, then add a gradual fade into a brighter version of a color found in the character’s design. (heheh. yellowe) set the new layer to like 30-50 percent

from the opposite direction, add a new clipping mask layer and make a gradient with a darker color found in the design. set it to 20 percent ish

make a new layer above everything else. with a really light color, in this case muted yellow, add more highlights. too many. this is a great stage to outline more important features, as well as imply more texture with extra v’s and Gay Lines.

since the highlights looked a little too gaudy, i muted them in the darker areas around the spine by setting the layer to alpha lock and coloring over it with the soft brush from earlier

because this clearly isn’t textured enough, you can optionally add random markings with any textured brush. (i used a facet brush from my personal brushpack. might share that too if people want)

set it to color burn or overlay, or really anything that looks alright, and lower the opacity until it’s no longer stabbing your eyeballs out with contrast

wow look it’s a vegetable

@nevermore-ramblings hope this helps with. something

a

[starlightguh]

An Artist Always Signs His Work

Word Count: 1,879

Tags: inappropriate uses of paint, Oral f!receiving

AN: 18+ Smut !MDNI¡ I started working on this before the Rafayel banner announcement and wanted to finish and post this before the new card dropped! I’ve truthfully not been the biggest Rafayel girly but lately he’s shown up in some spicy dreams of mine so I hope this does him justice 💕

I was taking my time doing my hair for a little outing with Tara that I had planned, when my phone started buzzing. I pause my hair routine and see Rafayel’s picture with his contact name: My Sushi <3 light up my screen.

I answer with a cutesy ‘Hellooo’ and am met with a disgruntled groan from the other end.

“I can’t do it! I won’t do it! I simply cannot draw anymore no matter how much Thomas threatens me!”

“Woah, slow down what happened?” I stifle a laugh at his dramatics.

“They expect me to have a new painting for that gallery by the end of this week and I just can’t! No matter how much I’ve painted nothing is giving that inspiration I need….You have to come help,” his voice sobbed on the other line.

“Rafayel I can’t, I have other engagements today I can’t just drop everything to help you with your art,” I sigh at his drama.

“Oh so you hate me. I get it. Well I see how much you care about me and my dying wishes, so I’m hanging up now,” his voice was full of sass as he then hung up on me.

I let out a long exasperated groan and gave Tara a phone call, “hey girl I might have to rain check on our tea date.”

“Oh that’s funny you called first! I actually ran into Dr.Greyson and am kinda caught up with him right now…We’ll definitely touch base and reschedule when I see you at work! Bye girly!”

Well that was easy. I continue to finish getting ready to go see my dying artist…

~~~~~~~~~

Im buzzed into Mo art studio with no problem. I didn’t bother calling Rafayel back since I knew where he would be whether I showed up or not.

“Knock, knock,” I call out as I open the doors to his studio space.

“Studio’s closed, I'm busy passing away…” Rafayel, whose clothes were covered in various paint colors, was laying on the floor with his arm covering his eyes.

“But I came to revive you.”

He lifts his arm away from his face and he lets in a sharp little gasp as he takes in my appearance.

I was a bit dressier than usual in my shiny short white dress and my hair and makeup done. I smiled down at his stunned expression as the pupils of his eyes darken.

“I think I’ve found my inspiration,” he says with a bit of a confident smirk.

He slowly lifts up his torso and smiles up at me before holding out his index fingers and thumbs to create a frame of me in his vision.

“Oh so that’s why you wanted me to come here, you needed a muse?”

He stands up and his taller height makes me lean my head back a bit to glance into his deep sea blueish eyes. Rafayel placed his hand under my chin and moved my face from side to side, appraising my facial features.

“Not necessarily, but your beauty has striked my inspiration. Come here while I paint,” he takes my hand and drags me to the center of his studio.

He has me sit on top of a stool in front of the background of his flowing white curtains as he sets up a canva and easel in front of me.

I sit a bit awkwardly, unsure of what to do with myself. So I kick my feet a bit as Rafayel is pouring the paints he wants to use on his wooden pallet.

His eyes are scanning the scene before him as a mischievous smirk crosses his face, “I think the subject needs more color.”

I look down at my white dress and frown, “Well I didn’t exactly bring anything else.”

He wordlessly strides over to me, and with a paint brush he slashes a stroke of blue paint on my bare arm.

“Hey! Rafayel! What are you doing?!” I shout as he laughs while splashing my skin with more paint.

“I'm just painting on my lovely canvas,” he smirks and then dips his hand in some of the paint on the pallet.

He places his forehead against mine while letting out a shaky breath as his paint covered hand slowly and sensually caresses down my bust to my waist. As his hand is the paint brush that has now ruined my dress, he stops at my waist and grips it.

“Raf,” I whisper as I glance at his plush lips. His eyes were now dark and intimate as he no longer stared at me like his muse, but rather his meal.

He lets out a huff and leans his head down to place a soft kiss at my pulse point in my neck. The only sounds I could hear was the smacking of his lip’s against my skin and the shakiness of my own breath.

I felt his nose drag up against my neck as he then brought his lips to my ear to whisper to me, “You know, when I paint, I prefer to paint subjects in their most natural state…”

He purred in my ear and pulled away a bit as he dipped his hand in his pallet and proceeded to set it down as he covered both hands in colors.

“Rafayel,” I said in a warning tone as he now has both of his hands on my body and ruined my dress with shades of blues and purples. “You owe me a new dress.”

He looks down at the paint covering my arms and seeing his hand prints on the dress he hums and nods, “You’re right….Let’s get this canvas to her natural state then.”

Before I could process what he meant by that, he had unzipped my dress and removed it off my body. I let out a yelp as the cold air touched my now exposed skin.

“This too,” he grumbled and popped my bra off immediately.

As I sat on this stool naked in nothing but my panties with wet paint covering my arms, I looked at him annoyed as my face with hot with embarrassment, “Shouldn’t you stop fooling around and actually work on your painting?” My eyes glance to the now abandoned easel he had set up.

His hands were all over my skin, his soft fingertips gently tracing paths around my breasts and sternum, leaving color in its wake. “But I am working on my painting dearest, it’s already beautiful,” he says in a whisper before leaning down to capture one of my plump mounds in his mouth.

I wrap my legs around him and let out whimpers as his tongue swirls around my sensitive bud. His face is now getting paint on it from the trails his fingers left behind earlier.

As he pulls away from my breast with a smack he stares up at me as he goes to give the other one attention. My face contorts as the feeling of his lips breaks my composure. His deep eyes are drinking in my expression as his mouth works on me and I close my eyes and turn my head away to hide from his intense gaze.

Rafayel pulls away and moves my head to face him, leaving more stains of paint as he does, “Look at me.” His voice sounds deeper than his usual teasing tone and is full of command.

I open my eyes and as I do he leans in and kisses me with a fierce intensity. His hands cup my jaw and I wrap my arms around him as his tongue parts my lips and dances in my mouth.

I drag my fingers into his purple hair as he groans into my mouth. When he pulls away I’m panting as our lips are still connected by a strand of saliva. He licks his lips with a smirk and he bites his bottom lip as he takes in my panting and flushed form.

“This is almost the vision I have,” he says as he crouches down to get more paint on his hand. He slides his hands that are wet with fresh colors up my legs as he parts them to have me sit in a straddle pose on the stool. “Beautiful.”

His hands grip my thighs as he stares at the small wet patch that’s dampened my teal cotton panties. Rafayel, like a man possessed, slides his hands underneath both sides of my underwear to slide them off me. My legs follow his path as the cotton is now cast aside and his hands are holding my painted thighs apart to expose my wet center to his vision.

“Now that I’ve painted my canvas, it’s only right that I sign my work,” his voice rumbles as he gets closer and closer to my center and he gives a lick on my slit.

“Raf-“ I pant and go to grab the back of his head, but he stops my movement with a grip on my wrist, “Don’t move or you’ll ruin the portrait.”

He lets my wrist go and dives into my center, drinking in my dripping essence with his thirsty lips. I can’t help but grip the sides of the stool and lean my head back with a moan.

The contrast of his hot mouth on me in comparison to my cold body covered in wet paint made my mind melt. I was drowning in pleasure as I could hear the lewd squelching and smacking of his mouth on my dripping pussy.

I could feel more than hear him growl as I placed my legs on his shoulders and my toes dug into the fabric of his white shirt.

“Gods Rafayel…I’m gonna,” I squeal as I close my eyes and feel his tongue on my clit.

As I focus on my breathing I can feel his tongue make what feels like the shape of an R on my slit, followed by an A then F….

I could feel my lower body tighten and heat up as I was close, “Rafayel please I’m-I…” I sputtered out as he made it to Y in his name.

He pulled away for a moment and his voice was filled with lust, “Come. Let go for me.”

When he went back to my clit and quickly finished spelling his name he then slid his tongue inside my needy hole and I instantly came undone on his mouth with a high pitched moan.

As I was breathing heavily from my orgasm, Rafayel pulled away with half of his face dripping in my juices. He smiled and licked his lips, “Perfect stay like that.”

He stood and rushed over to the actual canvas and quickly began trying to immortalize my pleasure in a painting on his canvas.

Needless to say he had to repose his muse with a few more orgasms to ‘get my expression just right.’

The finished product was me covered in paints of blues and purples and completely fucked out of my mind, while his actual portrait depicted a naked woman being swallowed up by the sea. I was too embarrassed to acknowledge that her pleasured face was what Rafayel saw as he expertly pulled out of me over and over again that day.

~fin~

[feebisart]

The Door You Don’t Knock On (1/4)

I feel like writing down the fic idea that spawned from talking with @caffeine-at-3am on Discord.

It began with a door.

A strange and curious wooden door appeared misplaced in the apartment.

It had faded yellow paint cracked, fraying edges. Parts of the wood were chipped, fragments spread across the floor. The inviting golden bronze handle gleamed in the room's incandescent light with a warm glow.

The child with black unruly hair and shining blue curious eyes gazed at the door in the wardrobe. It was tall enough for a child to open. Faint spirals were etched in the wood's grain, different from the long vertical lines he was used to seeing.

He tilted his head to the side as he brushed aside the hangers of red sweaters, white shirts, and similar shades of jeans. He hesitated but curiosity won over as he felt the spiral patterns etched onto the wooden surface.

As his sky blue eyes focused on the handle, his hands moved unconsciously towards it. A quick, sharp jerk of his head and he pulled himself back. He moved the hangers back to their original position and closed the door. Darkness enclosed the small yellow door, coated with harsh rejection.

Billy Batson, a normal seven-year-old boy, found himself with a trivial issue. Fawcett City was already a strange place—a city so full of magic and topsy-turvy Wonderland rules, 1940s art Deco, and buildings that defied gravity.

So, a yellow door stalking a young kid wasn't out of the ordinary.

It materialized out of nowhere or perhaps everywhere. In everything. Apparently, many things can count as a 'door,' from what Billy discovered.

As he walked from his home to WHIZ radio for his shift, he saw the overpass he usually walks beneath take on an off cream color. The boy let out an irritated groan before taking the long way to work. Mr. Morris was very kind and understanding. After all, the way to work varies every day due to the eccentricities of the city. Mr. Morris said it gave Fawcett a unique kind of character.

He woke up one morning and went to the restroom to do his morning ritual. His eyes narrowed at the cap of his toothpaste which was a dark chartreuse color. With a sigh, he opened a new tube remarking what a waste as he tossed the previous cylinder.

The Door took other forms as well—e-mails, cup lids, welcome mats, crossing signals, and Broadway openings. He wanted to watch the Beetlejuice musical. However, he couldn't even stay since the maroon stage curtains changed into washed-out, sickly lemon-colored curtains during the opening act.

Billy could handle adversity. He had dealt with the death of his parents, living with Ebenezer, and being a homeless part-time superhero, but this?

This was torture.

The boy could endure outrageous nonsensical rules and avoid eerie traps every day if he needs to. Billy draws the line at being unable to watch a musical he saved up with his meager pay. He only heard the audience's screams and laughs as he gave the curtains a stink eye.

Fine.

Two can play at that game.

Billy goes home with a stop for groceries. It takes him a while to head home because he took the long way for certain stalker reasons.

In the morning, Billy avoided opening the wrong packet of flour, clearly the gold trim was the mimic here. It was like playing the world's worst game of Spot the Difference except every scene was a waking nightmare of a Hidden Object game.

He had a plan.

Finally, the child had finished preparing and plating. There were strawberry shortcake scones with a light dash of powdered sugar, shortbread cookies with a chocolate drizzle, and freshly brewed oolong tea with a porcelain teapot set.

Tawky Tawny had told him that the best way to come to a compromise is when you negotiate with a meal.

He cleared his closet looking for that nauseous underripe citrus shade of a door and... Yup, there it was. With a disarming smile, Billy Batson knocked on the door three times and waited.

There was silence and only the faint trail of steam flowing into the air from the spout. Gradually, the handle turned, a cacophonous creak of nails against the chalkboard as the door slid open.

Fingers, if it could even be called that, splayed and curled and twisted as a voice croaked out on a saccharine, static-filled voice, "why don't we have tea inside?"

Billy could make out shapes and fractals converging and diverging at the same and different times. Angles sharp enough to hurt then rounded and curled to offer a false sense of comfort. The eyes ever changing revealed the truth, though. Hunger, a meal, and a trap.

"Why not." Billy stated with a cordial smile while carrying the large tray, stepping over the boundary. Behind him, the door creaked shut and the monster grinned with unspooling lips lined with jagged glass teeth.

︵‿︵‿୨𖦹୧‿︵‿︵

Next

[breakfastatmiles]

Your art is wonderful!!!

A constant inspiration to my own creativity and art work. Could you explain some of your art style to me? I’m interested in looking at a bunch of different ones to try and finally find one for me.

Goodnight!!🌙

Thank you so much! That means the world to me! I’d be happy to share some of my process with you 😄

Keep in mind I’m completely self-taught, so this is just the process of how I make my drawings and not any sort of professional advice 😅 apologies for the long post ahead 😪

Starting with the basics, my biggest influences are Jin Kim and Ami Thompson. Both are amazing character designers and I really admire their stylization and expressions. Whenever I feel stuck on something, I always go back to their drawings for inspiration.

I typically start in Procreate with a canvas size of 3300px x 4200px or 11” x 14” with a DPI of 300.

I put my reference in the corner of the canvas (in this case it’s a screenshot from the movie She’s the Man) and I start my rough sketch (emphasis on rough). Sketching is probably the longest part in my drawing process because I’m focusing on expression, composition, proportions, etc. This usually has about two to three passes before I move on.

Then I lower the opacity of the sketch and clean it up with some lineart on a new layer. Lineart doesn’t play a huge part in my style, but I still like to play around with line weight. Since I knew this was going to be a fully rendered piece, I didn’t spend much time on lines that I knew were going to be removed later in the process.

Underneath all of that, I use the skin tone and color the base of the character. I make sure that I color ever so slightly past the lineart, for reasons that will be important later. This part can be tedious, especially because I use a textured brush, so there are a lot of gaps that I fill in later.

Then using new layers with clipping masks, I start the flat colors. Nothing too crazy here.

I’ve made color palettes for characters and backgrounds that I typically draw, so this way it speeds up the process and maintains style consistency. If I need a color that I don’t normally use, I’ll just play around with the colors until I find something that fits well with everything else.

Next, on a multiply layer, I add some basic shading (with the skin tone color) and blush (with an orange-pink color). I also move onto the background. Some are more complex than others. If I’m going for a more cinematic look, I’ll fill the background in with some basic shapes and blur it slightly. Thankfully the background was pretty simple in this reference.

I start checking proportions now that everything has basic colors. Then I duplicate my lineart layer and change it to a pinkish-red and put it on multiply mode and turn down the opacity. This is why the base color layer needs to line up with the lineart, otherwise there’d just be gaps underneath. Instead of erasing my black lineart layer, I put a mask on it and just keep the eyes and eyebrows.

Then I start working on the shading and hair, which is an entire process in itself. Maybe I’ll make a tutorial on that one day 😅

I also use some vivid light and soft light layers and put in some subtle colors for extra pizzazz.



Then I add a hard light layer to the eyes for that glossy look and on a normal layer add some white details just to make some things pop more (like the nose, lips, eyes, sometimes hair, etc.)

I did make an eye tutorial a while back, but my process is still the same!

Lastly, I spend a lot of time playing with different blending modes (multiply, add, soft light, vivid light layers) and really focus on the lighting. I used to focus on adding a lot more details and make the coloring more realistic, but I found that the more simplistic coloring was easier for me to do and fit my style better. Sometimes I still tend to go too far with the details and realize that it looks better when I tone it down a bit.

That’s pretty much it! Let me know if you have any questions! Hope this helps. Have fun making art!

[princeoferror]

Ashei x Shad

Any other Shad x ashei shippers out there?!

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

Progress pics below!

Sketch:

Oki so first up I found a reference I liked off Pinterest which had some interesting vibes I wanted in my piece. While drawing the two in these poses I realized just how many oocca faces Shad has on his design, it's actually awful. Shad I love you but this is disturbing.

Line art:

For the line art Ive tried adding more detail here just as I'm still playing around with what I want my art style to be. I think this part turned out rly well, I got the line weights down nice and the details really work.

Flats:

The flat colours do look a bit strange on their own, if I was planning to leave this piece at this stage I would move the colours over to be warme. I planned to do a lot with the rendering so it's not an issue here.

Finished render:

I didn't initially plan to return to my more painterly style, I was going to cel shade it like the pieces in my recent posts, but I'm so glad I randomly decide to. The high contrast of shadow, especially the cast shadow Ashei is making, really adds some depth I think my art hasn't had for a while. The details of the brush strokes add more visual interest to the piece and can imply more form than just flat cel shadows. The background also turned out really nicely being lineless I think that helped to not steal any attention with unnecessary line art.

This is my new favorite piece I think this shows some really nice progress in my artistic journey. I can't wait to immediately use this style for putting master kohga in a banana dress but unfortunately you will have to wait til next Saturday for that so make sure you're following as to not miss it.

Thank you so much for reading if you did! If you'd like to buy this as a print it'll be up on my inprnt, I also have commissions open if that's something you're interested in

Oki bye!

[the-froschamethyst4]

It’s a Pinterest Idea

𖤐Pairing: Husband! Alejandro x Wife F! Reader

𖤐Pronouns: She/Her

𖤐Warnings: fluff, wholesome, language, kissing, married couple

Y/n is a very creative person, she has her own home art studio that she’s in almost 24/7 coming up with new ideas

Her husband Alejandro comes home from work and sees her painting and also making it look 3D

He loved it and wanted to know how creative his wife can be

——————

——————

9:25AM

Y/n was heading to her home art studio. She put on an old t-shirt and some old shorts; she wore when painted. They were already covered in paint and spray paint from previous art projects.

She put her hair up into a messy bun and opened the glass door that led to her studio. She turned on the bright white lights and she also opened the window and balcony door to lighten up the room and let any paint fumes leave her studio.

Y/n's art studio is what you'd normally see, paint all over the place, pencils, markers, paint brushes and paint sets covered her desks.

She had a big blank canvas set up and ready to be painted on, now she just needed to know what is she going to paint?

She went to her computer that was her 'inspiration computer' she liked to call it. She would just look at other paintings and get an idea from that or looking at old paintings.

"Ummm~?" She hummed. She sat in her chair and swung her legs back and forth looking at inspiration.

She then found a painting and had some inspo, she smiled when it was a romantic painting a man holding his lover in her arms, and she seemed so sane and safe in his arms.

She grabbed a pencil and went to the canvas and started to do the outline.

Alejandro, Y/n's husband of 6 years came in the house. He rubbed his tired eyes and grabbed a glass cup from the kitchen filling it up with whiskey. He took a sip from the whiskey, he ran his fingers through his hair and now was trying to find his wife, which he knew where she was.

He went into her art studio and saw her mixing paints; he saw the canvas and saw the outline. He smiled seeing that it was a lover portrait.

"So, what's todays inspiration?" He asks, she stops mixing and looked up at her husband.

"Love...I haven't done a lover one in a while, so, that was todays inspo," she said. Alejandro hummed as a response.

"When was the last love painting?"

"Like...a year ago, I think..." she smiles and starts painting the canvas. Alejandro grabbed a chair and pulled it out from under her desk and sat there watching her paint.

Alejandro loved watching her paint, it was also like therapy for him, seeing her go in the lines with no problem, it was so satisfying to watch her paint.

He watched her start with the male's hair, it was a dark chocolate brown color almost like his. He leaned back and watched her put so much detail into the painting.

he untied his tie and removed his blazer; he placed his blazer on the back of his chair and rolled up his sleeves. He leaned back in the chair and looked at her painting, his eyes wondered the outlines...he realized that the portrait was on him and her.

"Ohhh~ I get it...that's us," he said, Y/n turned and smiled up him.

"Yeah~ when it's done...could we hanging it up in the living room over the fireplace."

"Of course, mi amor, we could do that," he said, getting out of his chair and walking to her and kissing her lips. "Anything for you," he said.

He walked out of the studio and was going to the bedroom to change into comfortable clothes. Before he went back into Y/n's studio, he poured himself another glass of whiskey and even brought Y/n a bottle of water.

Y/n mixed paint to now do her hair color. She placed it on the canvas and started to put detail into her hair too. He placed the water bottle on her desk, and he watched her rub paint onto her forehead by accident.

He laughed and leaned forward wiping the paint off her forehead with a clean rag. Alejandro tosses it over his shoulder and took a sip from his whiskey.

---------

2:30PM

Alejandro was now in the living room and Y/n was taking a small break from painting. She cuddled up to Alejandro's side, her eyes closed, and Alejandro had the TV playing in the background.

He was watching some Netflix series, the volume down, and he looked down to his right to look at his wife. Her knees to her chest and her hand placed close to his heart.

He placed his hand on hers and kissed the top of her head, and he rubbed her side.

"Mi amor? Are you done with your break?"

"No, not yet..." she yawns. Alejandro just smiled at her.

Y/n then sat up rubbing her eyes and leaned against him to watch the series as well.

"What even is this?"

"I don't know, I was watching it yesterday, but I got bored with it 3 episodes in but now I just turned it on," he said, rubbing her shoulder.

Alejandro then just looked around the house, he realized how filled the house was with Y/n's art pieces. He smiled glad that she has a hobby that she is proud of doing.

"Amor, have you ever thought about selling some of your pieces?"

"What do you mean...selling? By getting rid of them, are they ugly, do you not like them?"

"Huh? Amor no, I mean like making paintings and just selling them, they might fit peoples taste and may want to buy them from you," Alejandro said.

"I have thought about it, but I thought maybe people might not like my style, so I've just never done it," she said, playing with the jaw strings of his black sweatpants.

"No way, amor, people will love it, I love it, others will too...just...think about it, amor," he kissed her temple.

"I guess, I will," she said, smiling up at him.

---------

7:40PM

Y/n went back to her art studio, her phone in hand and started to download the Ebay app, she already posted 5 of her art pieces to see what people may want it.

She placed her phone on her desk and went back to the painting, she started with Alejandro's skin tone and put detail into it, to the veins of his hands, to some of his beard hairs.

She was so focused on her painting that she didn't notice that people were already bidding on her pieces. Soon she stopped and could hear the ping of her phone.

She looked at her phone and saw one of her pieces was going up to $50,000.

"HOLY SHIT!!" Y/n yelled. Alejandro jumped from his spot on the couch and ran to Y/n's studio.

"WHAT!? WHAT'S WRONG?!!" Alejandro yelled.

"My piece, my koi fish piece, is going up to 50 grand with 10 minutes," she said, with her jaw dropped and Alejandro's did too.

"THAT'S INSANE!!" Alejandro yelled.

"I know! What should I do?"

"Close the bid on the 50 grand," Alejandro said as she did and now will be giving her first piece away.

"Let that person know that you closed the bid, and they will get the piece you just need their info to deliver the painting," Alejandro said. Alejandro was excited that Y/n already have her first painting sold.

He watched her get excited and kissed her lips when she came close to him excited. His hands landed on her waist and smiled with her as she was so excited that she had made 50 grand on her first painting.

"Thank you for suggesting doing this Alejandro."

"Of course, mi amor," he kissed her lips again.

[smile-files]

still trying to wrap my head around the unvitational committee. what do they want? the general theme seems to be "mephone is an immoral host so we have to take him down", but not all of the members' motives seem to line up with that...

walkie talkie has been working with(?) mephone this whole time, goading him into making the season run longer and longer with more rejoins. in a way, she's been enabling mephone's scummy hosting practices, including abandoning an entire season and all the people in it, as well as wanting this season to go on forever. why is she suddenly criticizing him for being a bad host? was she not complicit in that?

dr. fizz had to deal with box's horrible injury which, while not technically mephone's fault, is a sign that the show isn't very safe and that mephone doesn't care that much about the well-being of his contestants. i think it makes sense for him to be here.

the cameras came to interview mephone about some touchy subjects, including hosting two seasons at once, bow apparently being alive, and there possibly not being a prize; they get pissed when mephone brushes them and their concerns off. they know some of the shady stuff mephone's been doing as host, as well as his unwillingness to address it, so i suppose they have their place in taking him down.

tyler bombard had his whole ecosystem destroyed by a stupid challenge mishap. yeah, he has the right to be pissed.

sprinkles was going to be forced to compete in a fighting ring of other inani-mates which would almost inevitably lead to her death; almost all of the contestants mistreated their inani-mate companion, her owner (yinyang) included. it makes sense for her to be here too.

springy? they wanted mephone to completely commercialize his show, including selling off the likeness of one of its contestants; he got pissed off when mephone changed his mind and ultimately didn't do that. if anything, that's a sign that mephone isn't quite so morally corrupt! springy has personal reasons to want to take down mephone, but those reasons don't align with the supposed motivation of the whole committee.

zoetrope gave mephone the animation machine to use in his challenges! he was the one who fed mephone the idea that creating a show isn't an art, that using what's essentially ai to do so is perfectly permissible! what right does he have to be angry at mephone for doing exactly what he said? how does that make mephone as a host any worse than zoetrope is as an artist?

i'm tied about groscer; as the apparent owner of a prestigious award organization, it makes sense that she should take her craft seriously and not appreciate those who try to disrespectfully milk it for fame. mephone's show was in the running because what existed genuinely looked good, but he lied about the number of episodes and ultimately sent a ridiculous amount of ai slop to make up for it. she has the right to be annoyed by that, but i don't think one guy making a fool out of himself in the submissions completely discredits your entire award -- certainly not to the point where you personally go after him.

walkie talkie and springy, being the leaders of this group, talk about how ii3 could've been a perfect show -- but by their logic, that would include the season being unending and highly commercialized. at the same time, though, they make out mephone to be this horrible host mistreating his contestants, as if making his show what they want wouldn't make him worse. and as it is, it's strange that they should put the show on such a pedestal anyway, for them to feel they must take it from mephone to save it -- all of this was him! what are you talking about? and you helped him! all of this stuff you say is bad, you helped him do!!

and like... the whole 4th season thing... for one thing, walkie talkie wanted him to keep the show going, so i don't know why she's pissed... but also, you just found that when you got here! that couldn't have been your motivation before you came!

in other news though, silver's whole thing with candle is so fun. he acts like he's so above it all, but her not supporting him shakes his ego so much that he straight up kills her?? insane. in a good way. he got all this way just because he thought candle believed in him...

[hopelessromantic423]

Where or When

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x f!Reader

Summary: You and Bucky were best friends, until the day you up and left. Over the course of one meal, all is forgiven and new relationships are formed.

Warning: Angst. Some happy ending fluff. Pet name: sweetheart. Two stinky bad words. Love confessions. If there are any flaws, let a girl know.

*Based off the song where or when from the When Harry Met Sally soundtrack*

The clinking of glasses and silverware hitting nice white plates filled the room with generic jazz music covering the majority of the overhead speakers. The light was dim enough to see the table and the person across from you. Crisp white linens brushed against the knees of diners as they talked and ate.

You and Bucky sat at a booth near the corner of the restaurant, just looking at each other not sure who should start talking first. It felt like deja vu. You had sat in this exact seat in the same spot before. You even had on the same black skirt you had worn time and time again and Bucky had his favorite brown boots on because they never left him.

To Bucky, it felt like the first time the two of you were sitting together, though you've sat across from each other hundreds of times. It was strange, yet exciting. The two of you were together. That's what he wanted for the past year, and so did you.

“Um… it’s great to see you. You look absolutely beautiful (Y/N),” Bucky muttered nervously. His eyes were full of care and concern like if he made one bad move you would walk away again.

“Thanks Buck, I really am glad you asked me to dinner.” You fiddled with the napkin in your lap while looking across at him.

You and Bucky were best friends. Keyword were. Once you started dating his childhood best friend Steve, things got weird. You and Bucky still had this amazing chemistry but jealousy ruined every inch of it. You realized after a few months, you weren’t in love with Steve at all. You were just finding the closest version to Bucky Barnes you could reach. By the time your realization came to fruition, Bucky was deeply in love with Sharon Carter, at least that’s what it looked like.

“So, what’s living in Manhattan like?”

You sighed thinking of how lonely your new apartment was. The air wasn’t as crisp as you would hope and the colors of the wall were dull, no matter how many photos and art you hung up. It was like the color was completely missing from your life.

“It’s nice,” you lied right out of your ass. You knew Bucky could tell. “The neighborhoods are trendy and my apartment is only a few blocks from my office. It’s.. quiet.”

You took a sip of your drink as you watched Bucky’s thoughts wind in his brain. That’s one thing you love about him, his facial expressions can tell you a lot about his thoughts.

“Are you still at the compound?” The bustling noises from the restaurant had now quieted down, making conversation much more awkward.

“No,” Bucky shook his head, more relieved you picked up the conversation. “I’m in a small apartment in Brooklyn. It’s nice, I feel like a real citizen,” he chuckled. The little lines that formed at the outer rims of his eyes showed as he smiled, highlighting his deep blue eyes the way you pictured them in your mind for the last year.

“The team misses you every day. Well, I miss you most of all,” Bucky tried to cover up his confession, looking at you timidly. “Steve can’t seem to work the comms system as much as you could,” he muttered with a soft smile.

“James, you know I can’t go back there.”

“But you can,” Bucky contradicted in a breathy tone, his hands resting on the table towards you. “Stark said he’d give nothing to have you back.”

“Is this really about the team wanting me back, or is this about us?” Your tone was sharp but there was a tinge of sadness in your words. You bit on your bottom lip trying to gather your emotions while carefully watching the man you missed so much across from you.

Bucky took a second to himself, pulling his hands into his lap. The little line you always found intriguing formed in between his eyebrows as he found the words to say.

“Why did you leave?” Bucky’s voice was soft as he spoke, timid hoping he didn’t just ruin everything.

“I couldn’t watch you love someone that wasn’t me. You looked happy Buck, so damn happy. I couldn’t ruin anything.”

“You didn’t have to leave without saying goodbye?!” Bucky’s gloved hand was balled into a fist as it sat on the table. His voice was full of hurt and desperation was clear in his eyes. He let out a shaky breath while averting his eyes.

“I couldn’t have left if I did,” you squeaked, trying your best to hold down the tears rising in your system.

“I’ve loved you since the moment I met you (Y/N). That’s why I didn’t kiss you that night at New Year's or how I told Steve he could take you on a date because I didn’t want to lose you. I love you so much it hurts.”

You had always hoped Bucky loved you like that. You dreamed of it during the day and at night when you fell asleep. You had been making up this exact scenario in your brain for a whole year, why now are you so shocked all you could do was sit there with a slack jaw?

“I have to go,” you mumbled staring at Bucky in pure shock while grabbing your bag and eyeing the exit door of the restaurant. You did what you did best which is to run in hard scenarios.

It was pouring rain as you stepped outside, trying to catch your breath as tears streaked down your cheeks. You didn’t know what to do. How could you have let something so good out of your life? How could someone still love you even after you abandoned them? Maybe you weren’t riddled with shock but with guilt.

"I wish you had stayed," Bucky yelled in a last-ditch effort. His short brunette hair flattened by the second as more rain drenched him.

"I wish I had too," you called back, the rain now completely soaking every inch of your hair and clothing. Your tears mixed right in with the freshwater.

Bucky met you where you were, wrapping you in his arms as you cried. “It’s okay (Y/N),” he whispered into your hair, simultaneously placing kisses on the top of your head. Finally, you peered up at the man you’ve loved since you met him with a timid smile.

“Please sweetheart, just come back,” he said sweetly while placing a hand on your cheek. “You can stay with me in Brooklyn, we’ll get that cat you always dreamed about.”

“We can be happy (Y/N). For once, let yourself be happy.”

Ironic that Bucky Barnes was telling you to be happy. He deserved every inch of happiness the world could give him. The both of you could be happy, really happy.

“I love you too James,” you blurted over the pouring rain. “I’m sorry it took me so long to say it.”

The two of you couldn’t help but laugh as you realized your situation. Love confession in the rain, it was right out of one of the romance movies you forced him to watch at your apartment every month.

Your lips met like two puzzle pieces fitting together. His strong arms pulled you flush to him as he deepened the kiss. Your arms wrapped around his shoulders. It was everything you dreamed of and more. You and Bucky were finally going to be happy.

You pulled away abruptly which took Bucky out of his trance and into a confused expression.“Did you ever pay the bill?”

“That can wait sweetheart, I want to enjoy this a little while longer,” Bucky chuckled pulling you back into a kiss.

[dailycharacteroption]

Lion Blade (Pathfinder Second Edition Archetype)

(art by madspartan013 on DeviantArt)

When one thinks of espionage and crowded city streets, one imagines sneaky enemy agents vanishing into the crowd, befuddling or even outright escaping the heroes. (or alternatively, heroic agents using the crowd to hide from villainous authorities.)

However, there are those that would use those very crowds to undo the sneaks instead of the other way around, such as the spies and secret peacekeepers of Taldor, the Lion Blades.

While Taldor is not the picture of a perfect empire by any means, the Lion Blades are not an oppressive secret police, but rather hidden agents that root out assassins, saboteurs, spies, and the like by being unnoticed by their prey until it is too late and the crowds they sought to hide in feel more like walls closing in, leaving nowhere to hide.

Traditionally, Lion Blades are drawn from bardic training (In keeping with how the original First Edition prestige class, which I haven’t covered yet, worked), but they also draw upon many different backgrounds. As such, the Second Edition archetype has more broad, general abilities, letting their original training shine through and make for a truly unique agent.

The base dedication of being a Lion Blade provides training in disguise and stealth, as well as advanced disguise techniques to make it easier to appear as other ancestries as long as there is no extreme differences in size.

Many in the organization learn to disappear into crowds just as easily as their quarry, becoming unnoticed among the masses.

The press of the crowd can be inhibiting, and many Lion Blades take advantage of this, striking for a foe’s vulnerable points when they are surrounded.

Some Lion Blades are especially athletic runners, able to move much more quickly in the pursuit of their targets.

Just as their contemporaries may use magic to detect malicious intent, so too may assassins and spies use similar magic to notice when they’ve been found. As such, some Lion Blades learn to deceive divinatory magic as long as they can resist the initial detection.

Whether they take advantages of mundane things like disguise shifts and blind spots, or they use minor magics to distort other’s perception, some of these counter-spies can partially conceal their actions in a fight, making it hard to target them accurately.

Aside from their knack for using crowds against their foes, this archetype holds little in common with it’s First Edition namesake, but you can still emulate that legacy by combining this archetype with bardic magics and roguish tricks, no matter what base class you use. Beyond that, being sneaky and perceptive are major boons here, so classes that work well with those are very useful, but don’t be afraid to try more combat or spellcasting-oriented builds as well.

Whether you use this in the Lost Omens setting or as a basis for another counter-spy organization, this archetype is just one way to explore the complexities of intrigue and espionage. Definitely brush up on your detective and spy fiction to get some inspiration here.

The King’s Vanguard, a collection of spies working to protect the nation and the royal line, have been tracking a smuggling ring that has suddenly become more bold and well-funded recently. What they do not realize is that their new funding comes from a mad wizard seeking to smuggle a monstrous cursed sword into the city, one which he hopes to use to turn the King into a blood-hungry monster.

Espionage is, ostensibly, not the orcish way, and yet every warrior-king that has ever been close to actually uniting the various clans under one banner has made use of spies and guards to keep the influx of challengers in check, even going so far as to assassinate them in public.

Revered by the nomadic peoples up north, Thunderbirds are normally not seen in the southern Qotl Empire, but one has appeared, drawn her as if by some calling. Fearing for the nation’s safety, the king has commanded the Stalking Panthers, his elite guardians, to discover the source of this calling before the constant storms bring his people to ruin.

[mizunoyouni]

ੈ♡₊˚•. Just the Essentials

➳❥ Pairing - Hwei x gn! Reader

₊˚♡⋆˚ Summary - After Hwei has worked himself to the bone, you managed to convince him to join you on a weekend escape to the coast. It's while gazing at the sunset together that he finally manages to relax and be swept away in his love for you.

.°˖✧˚ Content - 1.5k words of flowery rambling. Established relationship. References to art techniques and colour relationships in notes below.

“How about a vacation to the coast for a few days? Doesn’t that sound refreshing?” is what you asked him once he had finally emerged from the colourful depths of his studio.

It had been a few days since Hwei found himself horribly engrossed by a fleeting idea for a new painting— an idea that soon consumed his every waking moment to the point that he was left with only dark circles under his eyes as his badge of honor. The exhaustion was so terribly evident in his tired azure eyes that blinked owlishly at you as he stood there, mulling over your words quietly, almost ghost-like.

“It would be a great time to relax and unwind, especially after you’ve been working so hard on all your artwork lately,” you said, gently coaxing him into joining you on your little weekend escape, hoping that he would agree to put a pause on his artistic endeavors for the time being before he let himself fall prey to them again.

Your hands had found their way up to his face, your thumb brushing against the colourful smudge on his brow bone to rub the paint away, and he could already feel himself crumbling under your gentle touch— soft as down and warm as the first day of spring. "No" was something he seldom ever told you, and this moment was certainly not one where he would.

“Alright then, I’ll start packing my supplies,” he nodded, but you only wryly smiled at him before pulling him back with a slight shake of your head.

“No art supplies. Just us.”

Hwei, who despite your insistence that he not pack a whole case of art supplies for the vacation, managed to slip in a few fountain pens, a leather bound sketchbook, and a tiny portable gouache painting set into his bag. Art is his passion, his motivation, but also his downfall and his ghost. Without art, he would be so lost, though despite it all, he would try to do his best to focus just on this little vacation with you.

And for the most part, Hwei did well trying to resist each and every itch he got to quickly pull out his sketchbook and capture each scene that spoke to his heart, but it's so terribly hard for him.

Because how could he not put his pen to paper the moment you fell asleep on his shoulder during the carriage ride to the glittering beach? The way the sunlight peeked through the window curtains of the carriage, hit your skin, and held you in its heavenly embrace had his breath catching in his throat because of how ethereal it made you look in his eyes. The soft flutter of your eyelashes, your slightly parted lips, the way your hair fell a bit messily around your face— how could he let such a moment go to waste without committing it to memory with all the warmth and love that he felt in his chest for you?

It only takes him a few minutes for him to give in and let his pen scurry across the paper as he does his best to only draw from only his fingers in order to avoid waking up the angel resting against his shoulder. The lines were stiff from the awkward position, and if any of his old masters could see him and his excuse of messy little scratchings of black ink staining his sketchbook page, they would surely reprimand him for such a heinous crime. But just for you, he would gladly plead guilty.

Come time for you both to deboard the carriage, Hwei finds himself hastily tucking away his sketchbook and pen from your tired eyes as he distracts you with hurried words. Of course he took a little nap and just stared out the window admiring the passing landscape, why do you ask?

After you’ve both checked into your inn room and head down to the beach, that’s when he starts to grow a little bit uneasy. This beach is bright, calm, and glittering in the afternoon sun. It’s nothing like the dark and murky depths of the ocean that haunts his dreams and poisons his subconsciousness. And for a few moments, he thinks that the picturesque scene before him almost looks too beautiful. Soulless even.

But it’s your laughter that brings him back to reality as you quickly let go of his hand and run towards the water, almost falling over as a small wave crashes into you, soaking you in warm water. And soon enough, the painter quickly finds himself running after you into the waves, gingerly welcoming the overwhelming scent of brine and joining you whilst little droplets of seawater kisses both of your faces.

“Just a quick walk along the beach,” he promises himself, but now the rolled up hems of his pants were drenched in sea water and your voice was calling for him to wade deeper into the playful tide. His feet followed yours of course, because who was he to deny the melodic voice of a siren?

Orange— that’s the colour of the setting sun as it reflects in your eyes, and he can’t stop himself from staring at it while you dreamily sigh about how beautiful the horizon looks. It’s a warm colour—  bright, full of passion, and nothing like those dark hues of blue that haunt him, whispering lowly in his ears, feeding off anything and everything they can get their ghostly hands on.

After that failed attempt to paint the depths of the Ionian sea for his old masters, Hwei thought that in more ways than one, he himself was too much like the dark paints that stained his palette that day. Too shadowy, too dark, too deep, too cold, too restless. And yet it is that same dark water that can be so beautifully tainted with the warmth from the sun as it hangs in the sky, so dazzlingly hot, almost burning to the touch.

How could it be that only the tiniest drop of orange could calm such turbulent waters? And yet here he was bearing witness to it before his very eyes. Orange hues bleeding into deep blue, softly fanning against the unrelenting abyss, wrapping it in a warm blanket while quietly whispering sweet nothings as if there was not a single other living soul for as far as the eye could see.

For a while, it’s just the two of them in his eyes. The two of them and nobody else in the world. Just the very thought of it made his heart skip a beat out of tune and his throat run dry before a voice spoke and soothed the worry building up in his veins.

“Hwei, you’re not lost in thought thinking about painting this sunset, are you?” You ask with a nudge to his shoulder. “You’ve been staring at it for so long now.”

There you stand, your fingers interlaced with his as seagulls call from above, desperately yelling for him to answer you. Your smile was so soft, almost teasing as your gaze washed over him, offering him the sun, the sky and the stars as though they were mere gifts in the grand scheme of the world. It was as if the universe had collectively chosen to bend to you, to bathe your skin in sunlight and ruffle your hair in the sea breeze while he did everything except tear his gaze away. 

Amber eyes blink at you, smiling sheepishly in the golden glow that had begun to creep into his skin. His shoulders were more relaxed now, his face less tense, and his hands a little bit more selfish as the pads of his fingers brushed against your knuckles, his touch lingering, refusing to let go as he let himself drown softly in the orange of your eyes.

He's now suddenly so aware of how breathless he is in such a moment where his heart sings and swoons, filling him with emotions that words can't truly describe. In some ways, it frightens him— the way it floods his mind, pushing everything else out, overwhelming any last bit of sense left in him— just as the murky depths of the Ionian sea had swallowed him whole and became his shadow.

But at the same time, it’s the complete opposite of the dark turmoil that clings to him, claws at his back, and presses poisoned promises to his lips in the dead of night as it plagues his sleep deprived mind. It’s a ghostly light that guides him back to the surface and back to living instead of just existing. It breathes air back into his watery lungs, and sets his heart ablaze, but makes his throat close up as he bites back the urge to let a choice three words fall from his lips.

Not now, he can’t let it slip now. He promised himself he would save it for a more fitting time. So instead, a different declaration takes to the stage, one that all but screams of the unsaid words buried in his heart as it hangs in the air, dancing in the same sea breeze that intertwines your fingers together.

“Why would I paint another sunset when mine is right in front of me?”

୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆ Author's note - I wrote this instead of finishing the three pieces I need to submit for an art gallery tomorrow (；・∀・)

1 . About drawing from the fingers only: there are 3 main points on the arm that artists usually draw from (fingers, wrist, shoulder). To prevent wrist/arm strain and to achieve smooth, flowing lines, it's encouraged to use a combination of all three points when drawing and to avoid only using one.

2. About blue and orange: complimentary colours that are considered the opposite of each other seemed like something that would suit Hwei and his partner because of the colour motifs and relationship to each other. You can interpret blue and orange as the other half of one another, or the component that balances each other since when mixed together, it creates a "neutral" colour tone.

[winniethewife]

You Can’t Always Save Everybody

One shot: I wouldn't mind spending it by your side

A/N: Art by @elizuart_ , this writing is a part of the Art trade for my new pretty tumblr aesthetic with @silver-night-m

Words:512

It was a bright summer’s day, Valentine and Miguel had spent most of the morning getting ready for the music festival Scarlet’s Web was playing at that afternoon. As Valentine finished putting on her black Lipstick, she looked up from the mirror to see her Husband sanding in the doorway, Eyeliner in hand.

“Need a hand Tiger?” She asked with a smile

“You just do it better than I can Chiquita.” He says with a smile. She laughs.

“I think you just like it when I do it.” She smiles, she turns to hop up the counter motioning him to come to her. He obliges and gets in front of her, kneeling down so she can reach him. She cups his face in her hand as she steadily drags the tip of the pencil along his under eye. Entirely focused on the task, she hardly notices as his large hands rest on her thighs squeezing gently.

“Alright now close” She instructs. He closes his eyes and hums softly as he feels the gentle drag of the pencil over them. Valentine tsks. “I knew you just like it when I do it.”

“Is that a bad thing?” He asks while trying to stay as still as possible.

“No, you’re just silly.” She says as she finishes the line. She reaches and grabs her setting powder and a brush. She uses a small amount to cover her work, blowing the excess away gently.  “There, all set.”

“Gracias Chiquita.” He opens his eyes and looks into hers. “Te ves Hermosa…��� he leans in and kisses her forehead softly. She smiles.

“Thank you. Now come on, we don’t want to be late.” She motions for him to move out of her way and he stands as she hops off the counter. They grab the last of their stuff before heading to the venue for sound check.

That night after their set Miguel found Valentine and they decided to stick around to see the other acts. They stood in the darkened corner of the venue. Miguel’s hands on her hips and her arms around his neck as they sway to the song that plays in the background. A song about sticking side by side forever. As they gaze into each other’s eyes they feel the music flowing through them. Miguel smiles at his wife in his arms. He couldn’t be happier to have married her, to have her for the rest of his life. As she gazes up at him, she saw for a split second, it looked like his eyes went crimson, a weird feeling of Déjà vu shivers down her sine. She blinks and things are back to normal. Miguel tilts his head slightly.

“todo bien?” he asks

“Yeah, just the lights” She says, shaking the feeling. He leans in closer and their lips meet, a soft kiss filled with love, attention, longing. All her worries wash away on the dance floor. She isn’t worried anymore. She has no reason to worry. She was in the arms of the man she will love, forever.

~

Translations:

Te ves Hermosa: you look beautiful

todo bien?: everything okay?

Masterlist

Tag: @femmeanonymelives

[genericpuff]

Alright, update on the tablet situation, I do NOT have good news but there are some silver linings.

First off, thank you all so much for your patience. That one week I took off to relax seemed to be an invitation for the universe to fuck with my shit because my tablet literally chose the worst time to get on my nerves ( This is totally not something I'm gonna bring up with my therapist as proof that I'm not allowed to rest /s) I've tried just about everything to get it working again, I got a replacement 3-in-1 cable and even that didn't do anything, so I've ordered in a new pen, but that's not due to show up for another week or two.

However, I do not want to wait a week or two on the off chance that a new pen even solves the problem.

So the GOOD NEWS in all this is that I do still have my iPad. It wasn't setup with Clip Studio Paint because I own a perpetual license for my PC, but seeing as how now I can't use it on my PC (at least not with my tablet pen) I've gone ahead and setup the mobile version on my tablet, thankfully I got a discount because I already own a perpetual license but it's still gonna cost me $10/month so that's yet another subscription to slap on the 'ole credit card.

Now that does mean I have to go through the painstaking efforts of moving everything from my PC onto my tablet, but thankfully that issue is easily solved with cloud backups and transferring. Really all I need to be able to do is draw, I can still do speech bubbles and text input and texture overlays and all that post-production stuff on my PC, but anything that requires actual drawing I'm gonna be using my iPad for. So please, don't mind if you notice some weird little art differences between Episode 30 and 29, I'm adjusting to a new workflow! It shouldn't be too bad because I'll still be using the exact same brushes and textures and all that fun stuff that I do on my PC, it just comes with the adjustment of drawing primarily on iPad, which I don't normally do (I usually only draw on my iPad for tattooing and that's in Procreate which I still suck at using outside of lineart LMAO)

This is a very stressful situation that I'm hoping will only be temporary until I get that new tablet pen, and if THAT doesn't solve the issue, then I'm gonna have to start shopping for a new tablet entirely, and that's not something I can do immediately because I'm already starting to struggle financially due to the slow season creeping in at work and I'm still paying off that new PC I put down on layaway (which I'm regretting already). All that said, if you want to help a pal out, please consider tossing a dollar or two at me on my Ko-Fi, it's all gonna go towards a new drawing tablet if I need it (and if the pen solves the issue, then you'll be helping me stay afloat so I can keep bringing you guys the good shit LOL)

What's wild is that in all my Google searching, I found a thread from two months ago with literally the EXACT same issue, under the exact same conditions, in which OP's tablet pen unexpectedly stopped registering with their Huion Kamvas 22 Plus that they had owned for two years. According to them, it did start working again, after resetting the PC and re-installing the driver over and over again, but I've already done that myself a ton of times and I'm tired of being let down and that doesn't seem like a "real" solution beyond luck, so I'm gonna take a break from doing that while I get my iPad set up. I have the sneaking suspicion this might have to do with some recent Windows updates that just rolled out, my PC had definitely gone through a couple leading up to the malfunction. This wouldn't be the first time Microsoft has fucked with my tablet functionality so I literally wouldn't be surprised if it was something like that. Either that, or the '2' in Kamvas 22 stands for "will only last for 2 years before stopping entirely" LOL

Anyways, that's all for now. Thank you all so much for your patience and understanding through all this. While I don't want to have to reduce the quality or frequency of what I put out for you guys due to technical issues, I also don't want the comic to stop entirely, so if this turns into one of those desperate situations where I'm delivering you guys episodes of Rekindled drawn on a Nintendo DS, so be it. I'm not gonna let this beat me.

[barbex]

happy friday!! From the emotionally charged sentence starters, how about: ❝ why do you stick around? what is it you think you see in me? ❞

For @dadrunkwriting, thank you for this prompt! It's only fitting that this is a continuation from your last prompt, for which I wrote the Amnesia ficlet (https://barbex.tumblr.com/post/728915573761785856/happy-friday-from-the-emotionally-charged). Someone teach me how to write short because this is 2500 unedited words. I could say I'm sorry, but I'm not 😂😂😂.

Another fenders ficlet, of course.

---

Fenris' life in Kirkwall is not busy. Unless Hawke calls on him for a job, he has an astonishing amount of free time every day, something he never experienced as a slave. When he told Varric that he practises dance routines in the mansion's hall, it was only half of a lie. It's not dance movements, but stretches and martial arts forms. As a slave, every moment of his life had a purpose, even if it just meant to watch his master for mood changes. The first few weeks in the mansion, he didn't know what to do with himself, the walls closing in, the rotten corpses staring at him. 

Training, focussing on his fighting forms, saved his sanity.

Reading is a new way of spending his time, ever since Hawke taught him how. He discovered that he can spend a lot of time in a book, not even noticing the hours passing by, except for his legs cramping and a pinch in his neck. Sometimes he catches himself looking over his shoulder, as if someone would punish him for doing this. Reading. Him, a slave. 

But he seems to have found another pastime, recently. Taking off his sword, he steps into Anders' clinic, and leans it against the armor stand next to Lirene's desk. She placed it there just for his sword.

"Hello, Fenris," Lirene says, smiling at him. It took her a while to relax around him, but by now, he seems to have become a normal sight at the clinic. He washes his hands in a basin, looking over the line of people. It's a busy day once again, people of all kinds and races waiting in line for Lirene to write them into the book. One of the assistants takes the patients into the next room, sorting them by urgency with a well trained eye. Fenris does not feel comfortable doing that, he doesn't know enough about injuries and illnesses, but he knows how to help someone onto a cot, how to hold them down, and he knows how to clean and wash. 

Currently he washes bandages, or scraps of fabric being used as bandages. His finger are cold as he rinses them out, and he sighs with relief when he can move to the heated water to scrub them with soap. It's simple work, but nothing he has ever done before, at least in what he remembers from his life. It is kind of soothing, to use ones hands like this, while his thoughts wander elsewhere.

Currently — and annoyingly — his thoughts tend to wander to the one man in the clinic he always claims to hate and distrust. And — annoyingly again — if he is honest with himself, it is not true. Not anymore. Not since he had to accept that they had been so much closer while he had forgotten his fear of magic. He still has no memory of that time and Anders doesn't talk about what happened between them, but even with his limited experience, he can guess from his behaviour. They were friends. Maybe even more than that.

Anders kneels in front of a crying elven girl, speaking gently, while his hand brushes over her sprained wrist. Soon, the girl stops crying and smiles at Anders. He smiles back, so soft and caring, his eyes twinkling as he whispers something to her. The girl giggles and runs over to Lirene, who takes a piece of candy from a glass and hands it to her. Her parent wants to follow her but Anders holds them back, all softness gone from his face, glaring at the elven father. 

"How did that happen?" he hisses out.

"I don't... I don't know what you mean," the young man stutters.

Anders grabs the elf's wrist and twists it. "Someone did this to her, only worse. That kind of injury doesn't just happen." 

The man tries to pull his arm away, looking at Fenris as if asking for help. But seeing that no help is coming, he finally turns back to Anders and crumbles. "I work as a gardener for a family in Hightown, and Pirrina came around to go home with me and she got in the way... a cup broke. The master was very angry." 

Anders looks about ready to murder someone. "The name."

"Please, Healer, I need that job."

"I understand." His gaze falls on Fenris, who only now realises that he has been staring at Anders. "Nothing will fall back on you or your family. Give me the name, please."

"The Verdalens."

Anders nods. "Take Pirrina home. Everything will be alright."

Fenris throws another bundle of soiled bandages into the pot and stirs them in the soapy water. He recognizes the expression in Anders' face, that determined crease around his mouth. Anders is ready to go into battle. 

For a few hours, everything continues on as usual, the stream of patients a constant. The later it gets, the more the stream changes from Lowtown families to foundry workers, hacking up their lungs as they come in. Injured from the various gang wars show up in between, and Anders treats everyone the same way, with the same calm patience, his hands glowing with healing or handing out potions. 

Fenris doesn't flinch anymore when Anders uses his magic. He has seen it too often by now. The mage works himself to exhaustion every night, and Fenris would be a fool if he'd still compared him to power crazy magisters. 

At last, it's quiet, Anders sits down on a chair and shakes out his hands. Tiredness wavers around him like a dark cloud. Fenris watches him, waiting for that determined crease to reappear. 

Lirene hands a plate with two sandwiches to Fenris and gestures towards Anders. "Make sure he eats his." She leaves with a wave, before Fenris can ask how feeding the mage has become his job. 

Holding the sandwich out to Anders, Fenris waits for the mage to acknowledge it. "Eat, mage."

"Ordering me around, huh?" Anders looks at the sandwich and shakes his head. "Not hungry."

"Stop being annoying," Fenris says. "You need your strength."

"If I'm so annoying, why do you stick around? Why do you care about my strength?" He takes the sandwich and takes a bite. "Fuck me, this is good." The sandwich is gone in three more bites.

Fenris holds out his own sandwich. 

"That's yours," Anders says, staring at him.

"I had lunch, you didn't. You need it more." 

After a short hesitation, Anders takes the sandwich and inhales it like the other one. He keeps glancing at Fenris as he chews. When he's done eating, he keeps looking at Fenris, a soft expression on his face. "Thank you, I didn't realise..." He licks his lips and his eyes widen as he quickly turns away. 

Fenris can't deny that he has been staring at those lips. He could touch them, with his fingertip, or with his lips. But he won't. He stands up, walking to the armor stand to pick up his sword. Not because he cannot stay this close to Anders and his gentle eyes and soft lips, and his golden hair he wants to touch... He shakes himself, willing these strange thoughts away. "What will you do now?"

"About what?"

"The Verdalens, where the little girl got hurt."

"Oh that." Anders grins like a cat. "I'm just going to spook them a bit."

"But you can't risk the father losing this job." 

"Don't worry, I won't do that." Anders puts on his coat and stuffs a small leather bag and two potion vials into the pockets. Picking up his 'walking stick' from behind a curtain, he lets Fenris step out of the clinic and locks the door behind them. "It's a bit of a walk to the Verdalens, if you want to come along."

"Yes, I'm going with you." 

"I thought so." Anders dances down the stairs, more energetic than Fenris has seen him before.

Fenris frowns as he catches up with Anders. "You knew I would come along?" 

"You've been watching over me for weeks now, frowning and growling." Anders' voice is strangely neutral. "I'm not sure what you expect to see. Maybe you're waiting for me to explode, or transform into a demon, or — oh, I know." He looks directly at Fenris, making it hard to breathe. "You're waiting for me to do bloodmagic and mindfuck someone. Of course." Anders turns back to the path and walks faster. "It's not going to happen, but I guess you can never be too careful."

The assessment is painful but correct. He used to be like that. When he learned that Anders let himself be possessed, he watched the mage, fearing and waiting for the moment when he would give in to his demon. And seeing a mage with such power at his hands, more powerful than any magister he has ever known, Fenris naturally assumed that he would hunger for more and turn to bloodmagic at any moment. 

Fenris hurries to catch up with Anders. "I know you are not a bloodmage." He stares at his feet. "And I know you're not going to explode."

Two fingers touch his chin and lift his head. He recoils from the touch, his markings glowing. 

Anders rips his hand away. "Sorry, I shouldn't, fuck. I know I shouldn't touch you." He stops and waits for Fenris to look at him. "Please, forgive me, it won't happen again." 

Fenris calms his markings, taking a step closer to Anders. "Explain."

"The way you look down when you speak..." Anders fidgets, looking anywhere but at Fenris. "I've seen that before. The elves in the alienage act like that when one of the guards asks them something. Mages speak like that to templars in the Circle." He finally looks at Fenris. "Slaves speak like that, keeping their heads down. For safety." 

It is hard to breathe. Fenris feels like he has been stripped of his armor, defenceless in front of this mage, who sees him like nobody else. 

"It's just a habit," Anders says easily. "You're not a slave anymore, you'll get over it, like with everything you set your mind to."

A storm churns in Fenris' mind, too many thoughts at once. Anders obviously knows him well and for the hundredth times he wonders what happened between them in that stretch of time he doesn't remember. The sense of loss settles over him again, the feeling that he is missing something he doesn't even remember having. 

"Here we are, this is the backyard of their mansion." 

Fenris needs a moment to come back to the present. "Are you planning of storming in and —"

"No, nothing like that. These people wouldn't care anyway, but with one thing, all these noble gits are the same. They're superstitious." Anders grins at him, mischievousness twinkling in his eyes. "They're all obsessed about dalish ghosts and such nonsense, so we're going to shake them up a bit." 

Anders creeps up to the backdoor opens one of the vials from his pocket and twitches his finger over the opening. Smoke wafts from the small bottle, disappearing through the keyhole. He gestures for Fenris to follow him and walks around the corner of the building, ducking under the windows, until he comes up to one where bright light spills out into the garden. Peeking over the edge, he nods. "There they are, master and mistress. Now let's set that ghost to work."

Somehow, with the combination of the smoke wafting into the room, a screaming grenade thrown into the room, and sparkling powder blown through a gap in the window frame, Anders' magic forms a ghostly figure floating through the room. He sings some sort of incantation with a distorted, throaty voice, sounding vaguely elven. Anders somehow projects his voice to the smoke ghost, his face contorting as he promises a terrible destiny to those who anger the dalish ghosts and Fenris has to press his hand to his mouth to not give their position away with his laughter. Anders looks at him, a boyish grin on his face as he projects a gravely laugh to the ghost.

Inside, the woman screams and the man tries to fight the ghost with a candlestick, burning himself with hot wax. Among the screams, somewhere a door claps and Anders grabs Fenris' hand and runs back the way they came, through the backyard and out into the backroads. Still giggling, he runs, pulling Fenris behind him, until a dark alley opens at their side. In the darkness, Anders lets go of his hand, leans against the wall and laughs out once more. "Oh, that was fun. Did you see their faces? They were so shocked." 

Fenris joins in his laughter, wondering when the last time was he laughed this much. "Do you think they'll treat their staff better now?" 

"I don't know, maybe." Anders wipes at his eyes and chuckles to himself. He glances at Fenris through his hair. It has fallen out of its tie, a golden curtain in front of his face. He wipes it back, pushing the strains behind his ears. "Did you have fun?"

Fenris breathes out with another giggle, rasing his head to look at Anders. He steps forward, taking Anders' hand back in his. "Yes, I had fun." He doesn't quite know what he is doing, but holding Anders' hand, stepping closer to him, close enough to feel the heat of his body — it feels right. 

"Fenris?" Anders looks from his hand to Fenris' lips and back. 

"I wondered... when I had that amnesia..." He steps closer, his breastplate touching Anders' chest. "Did we kiss?"

Anders' expression darkens. "Don't ask me that."

"That is answer enough." Fenris stretches up on his toes, feeling brave. "Can we do it again?"

"Only if..." Anders bites his lips, taking a shuddering breath. "Only if you don't hate me afterwards." 

Fenris' heart beats faster. There is a draw to Anders, a feeling of familiarity that assures him that he has done this before. A hole in his mind he needs to fill. Now, he wants to remember. "I promise." He stretches up and catches Anders' lips. 

For a moment, they just stand there, lips carefully touching, but then Anders lets out a sigh and surges forward, his arms wrapping around Fenris' shoulders. "Fen," he whispers and it sounds like a prayer.

Fenris may not remember their kisses, but he knows in his heart that this is a real one. They devour each other as if they have to sate a terrible hunger, lips smacking, tongues touching, sharing each others breath. Pleasure and desire runs down his back like electric sparks, his body pressing harder against Anders, as if he craved this closeness without realising. His hands find their way under Anders' shirt, brushing over his chest. 

"Fen, Fen, love." Anders kisses along his jaw, until he reaches the curve of his throat. Fenris shudders at the touch, his whole body reacting to the pleasure. He didn't even know. "I've missed you," Anders mumbles against his throat.

"I'm here." Fenris slides his hands into Anders' hair. "I was here the whole time."

"Not like this." Anders stops kissing him, breathing hard. "You were there, like an image but not..." 

"I am sorry," Fenris says, touching his finger to Anders' lips. "I'm sorry for hurting you so."

"It's alright. Just..." Anders takes his hand and presses it to his chest. "Just take me home, love."

"Home?" 

Anders nods. "Your place."

Home. His mansion. Fenris breathes against the sudden tightness in his chest. "Come then. This time, I want to remember."

[invisibleicewands]

Hello! I really love your film/series reviews! Could you provide your insightful look into "A Very Royal Scandal"?

Hi, Anonymous!

Well, thank you in advance for your trust, I'm not sure I can provide an interesting opinion to be honest, but since I've managed to watch it I'll try to tell you my random thoughts.

Honestly, when last year I first read the news of a movie with MS about Prince Andrew I was very skeptical. Not only for the topic, of course, but for the fear it could be a product like Vardy v Rooney.

Now, although I’ve found the movie not so essential (especially after another similar one at the beginning of this year), I think it's one of his best movies of the last decade. Maybe worthy of an award (finally!) with a bit of luck.

I had already seen the Netflix version “Scoop” months ago and I had found it good, well made, catchy. But compared to A Very Royal Scandal, I can say that Emily Maitlis was right saying that the Amazon version is 'another beast'. Not just because Scoop was more focused on Sam McAlister's research of infos about Prince Andrew's scandal than on the interview itself, but because in the Amazon version there is a deeper analysis of the main people involved in this interview, of their thoughts, of their worries, of their mindsets. Let's say that Scoop was more a kind of glossy "Working Girl", while AVRS is a mix of Frost/Nixon in The Crown environment, a real drama.

I really liked the suspence, the storytelling, the photography, the attention to the details. The story is never boring and goes forward flawless, with rythm, wisely built, even if the subject is delicate to handle, and this is not something that is so obvious nowadays. Then, the actors. All impeccable, not just Michael and Ruth but the supporting ones too. If I have to find a fault, I would say that Netflix probably chose actors more aesthetically resembling to the original characters (Keeley Hawes was a better choice for Amanda Thirsk for example), but fortunately this time the talent of the cast managed to compensate that part. Ruth really captured the essence of Emily, her grit, her spirit, her dedication to the work, more than what Gillian had done I think. She was really great, she gave a powerful performance not just as Emily but as a woman in general, brilliantly managing the responsibility of sending a strong message to the audience in the end.

And Michael. A professional as usual, never doubted. He played the role at 360 degrees, unsparingly, using all his art, his tricks and his experience, you can see it. He handled the part masterfully, with confidence, without wavering or shame. He portrayed the character brushing him with all those shades that only him can give. And here lays the problem, for me. The shades. Because even if it was necessary to give a certain meaning to the story, I think his character, Prince Andrew, didn’t deserve or own a so profound introspection (I know, he said he didn’t want to show his judgement about him, but I’m not so merciful, sorry). From this point of view, I found Rufus’ impersonation more suitable to describe the character attitude. Cold, superficial, creepy, rude, arrogant, egomaniac, frustrated, vapid, childish, stubborn and opportunist all at the same time. Maybe it’s because of his cute nose (a prosthetic would have been useful here, more than the weight he gained, true or false it can be…) but honestly Michael gave him a sense of compassion and a frailty that Prince Andrew doesn’t seem to have. The result is that I saw more Michael Sheen than Prince Andrew in this movie. I saw parts of his previous Bill Masters/Brian Clough/Roland Blum/David Frost/Aziraphale there (also a bit of Nye, though I didn’t really watch it) mixed together. Even parts of himself in real life, like during Staged. I could imagine him saying some of those lines in his real life, living some of those reactions for real. He felt so ‘transparent’ in some moments, and this is not a good feeling when you watch an actor in a story like this (funny, because, on the contrary, he said “the more different you look, it really does help psychologically”, so this means that he felt he looked different from himself here, which is not the case to me). I suppose it’s because I’ve seen too much of him now that I’m not able to separate him from the character anymore. Don’t know.

I don’t deny it, his performance was great, brave, perfect and everything, especially considering the effort to make a movie like this while he was preparing for a 4 months long stage tour on theatre. But I can’t say it was a part that left me mouth open, like the one in Dirty Filthy Love, Fantabulosa, Frost/Nixon or MoS, for example.

Anyway, I still hope he gets some recognition (and that Amazon decides to show the series also in Europe), because it’s a crime that international audience can’t see what an amazing quality actor Michael is.

P.S.: There are some lines that looked like easter eggs, specifically chosen by MS. "Wait and see", "Nixon"... Coincidences?