#i LOVE the way the marker layeres in this

[shyhandart]

Hey I really love your artwork, it looks like it was drawn traditionally and I was wondering how you're able to achieve that aesthetic. Do you use any specific programs or is it actually drawn on paper?

Hello!!! Thank you SO much.

I use procreate!

The first step i use is to put a paper texture over the entire background, and set that layer to multiply. All other layers are drawn beneath this one.

I use the peppermint brush in the sketching category for just about everything. Its a pencil brush i with a really nice texture to it.

Ive found that the trick to getting digital art to look traditional, is to use the same techniques i use when i do traditional art. Which means i often use an eraser at a lowered opacity instead of the undo tool, and i never have my pencil size set to more than 10% (tho i fiddled with the brush size settings so that may be larger or smaller for you) and its opacity is like 67% percent

This includes coloring. insert peter griffin death pose. It really does make a difference tho. Doing tiny little circles like you would traditional colored pencil gives it little gaps of less color that really makes it look real

As for my line work, im not sure this adds to the traditional illusion, but i duplicate that layer at set it to linear burn. Gausian blur the linear burn layer 2% and clipping mask a warm and saturated color

Also, i dont actually do ink. I just clean my sketch

Also also!! Above the multiply paper texture (sorry i lied earlier) if you do a fully white overlay layer at 20-22% opacity. If you add 167-169% noise, set the setting to multi and turn off additive, it gives the texture of noise without changing your colors!!

[hexadopamine]

warm tea for cold hands

[booty-uprooter]

some tips on how to make bosses easier if youre feeling theyre too hard:

play a ranged physical dps class. that way you can hang back to keep an eye on the arena and what the boss is doing without having to worry about needing to stand still long enough to complete an induction

on that note, inductions are considered finished before the bar is full. you can usually move right before it fills and still have it go off, but it takes some trial and error to figure out how close you can cut it

move your ui around. my own life was made immeasurably easier when i put the target right above my hotbar so i wouldnt have to pay attention to both the top and bottom of the screen at the same time, but try stuff out and see what works best for you

the best time to mitigate an attack is right before the boss finishes casting it. the second best time is as soon as the mit becomes available, every time it becomes available

use addle and feint. you almost never see these used in casual content and it's a waste because they really are extremely useful skills at any level

use arm's length and surecast. there are some knockbacks they dont work on but those are rare. if you know youre gonna get pushed, use these and you probably won't get pushed

take advantage of duty support. the npcs know the mechanics. watch them and let them teach you

particle effects cant hurt you (usually). with the exception of puddles that stay on the ground for a while or layered stacks like akh morn, as long as youre not standing on the marker when it disappears (or are if it's a stack), you're in the clear. feel free to move through the animation if necessary. more and more mechanics require you to do so to be in position for the next one in time

it's usually fine to let spread markers overlap. just, yknow, make sure another person isnt in yours (though its the responsibility of anyone without a spread to keep themselves out of harms way)

when in doubt, ask your party members. it's extremely rare to match with a group of randos and have everyone be a first-timer. most players are happy to help, and the ones that know the mechanics but are bad at explaining them will usually just stick a marker on themselves (usually a triangle) for you to follow

read your tool tips. boss fights are as much a test of how well you know your class as they are your ability to read and react to mechanics. unless youre playing a healer or paladin, youre going to use your entire kit, so make sure you know what everything does

on that note, freecure is a scam. once you get cure ii/benefic ii, you will never need cure or benefic again. keep them on your hotbar for when you get synced content if you wish, but otherwise you do not need them. do not use them

if you play multiple classes, try to keep skills that do the same/similar things at the same spot on your hotbar. this isn't always possible bc despite what some may claim, not all classes of the same type are actually identical, but it will save you a lot of headaches

entirely new and unique mechanics are rare to the point of being nigh nonexistent. everything is a remix of something else and practicing in lower level content can actually be a big help

look up guides. the internet is full of them in pretty much whatever form works best for you (though they can be of admittedly variable quality)

turn down party effects. theyre on one of the tabs under character configuration > controls. if you put them on minimum you can still see heals and such but you wont have your screen constantly full of explosions

turn on target health percentage. this one is under character configuration > ui. it lets you better see how close the boss is to going down

make summons smaller. we all love titan's ass but not when it's the only thing you can see. "/petsize all small" will make this problem go away

relax and have fun. panicking leads to mistakes, which can lead to worse mistakes. if you need to take a second to breathe, do so. your party members probably wont mind waiting a minute or two between pulls

[ellieslittlewh0re]

ִ ⋆｡ °✩ ❝ 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐏𝐈𝐄 𝐋♡𝐕𝐄 ❞ ✩°｡⋆

(𝒘𝒌) 5k

〚𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒〛 ✰ rockerstar! ellie x groupie! reader ✰

〚𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒〛 ellie williams. her name was everywhere- the underground music’s next breakout star, and for a good reason too- a honeyed voice mixed with gravel, her passion, energy, the fact she was everything rock and roll should be. also, let’s not forget the sex appeal.

〚𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒〛 sex, love, drugs, and rock and roll. !!TW!! for descriptions of drug usage ( c0cain, L$D) fingering (r! receiving), oral (r! receiving), strap on usage (r! receiving) overstim kinda, dom e!, sub r!

It started with a video- a grainy, shity quality one at that, but still a video. She was center stage of some grungy bar from the looks of it, spotlights illuminating her face enough to see stands of her hair sticking to her forehead with sweat, and a chipped cherry red electric guitar hanging from her shoulder. She was magnetic, hypnotizing- not just with her performance, but her looks as well.

From that day on, you just had the desire to get closer to her in any way you could.

-

It had been two months since you started following her band while they toured across the West Coast. You had been to every show, seen every performance, and Ellie was starting to catch on.

The first time she saw you, you immediately caught Ellie's attention- I mean, how could you not? You were by far the hottest girl in the venue that night, swinging your hips so effortlessly it put the rest of the girls to shame. Ellie remembers that night vividly because she was so pissed she couldn't find you after the show to bring you back to her shitty motel room and have her way with you. But Ellie quickly forgot about you when the company of two other girls took your place that night, along with a few too many hits of whatever her drug of choice was during that time.

So, that's how you ended up here- at a run down gas station bathroom touching up your makeup in the middle of the fucking desert, and a van full of strangers that you were currently hitching a ride with waiting outside at the pumps.

And Ellie? Well, Ellie was doing what she always does before a show- drugs, and lots of them, whether it was molly, coke, weed, tabs, or maybe even a deadly concoction of all the above, she didn't care as long as it made her feel alive- claiming it made her perform better or something, but really she just liked being fucked up while fucking girls after the show.

While Ellie was living this "glamorous" rockstar lifestyle, you were on the complete opposite end- quitting your day job to follow some girl around who doesn't even know your name and catching rides from people who definitely look like they have seen the inside of a prison cell- AKA, you were a groupie.

The air was hot, stale. A thin layer of orangy, rust-colored sand coated the windows and the van's gaudy upholstery. The landscape outside flashed like an old fashioned reel movie, cacti, shrubs, Joshua trees, and repeat.

It was desolate, and if the road and occasional mile marker wasn't there to remind you, you would've thought you were on a different planet.

"Your stop is next, daisy." The man with a handle bar mustache yelled from the drivers seat, meeting your eyes in the review mirror.

Daisy. A nickname given to you by the group when they first picked you up further up north. You had a daisy tucked behind your ear, and from then on, you were daisy.

-

It was dark by the time you arrived at the venue, venue isn't really how you would describe it. It was more like a diner turned bar turned into whatever the fuck it was currently. You waved your goodbyes to the the group of not-so-strange strangers, all of them bidding you 'farewells' and 'good lucks' before you watched the red tails fade into the pitch dark of the desert.

For once, you were early. Turns out a bunch of traveling hippies and outcasts aren't on a timed schedule, who knew?

Even though you were early, the dirt patch of a parking lot was packed, cars in various stages of deterioration lining the sides of the building, and people gathering outside to avoid the cramped interior. But you weren't here to socialize or drink and get high- you just wanted to see her, dance to the strum of her guitar, and let her voice consume and overtake you.

It was 40-ish minutes past midnight, meaning Ellie and her band were late, but that's not a surprise. She had a bad habit of keeping the people waiting, but she was a busy girl- hanging out backstage or at a hotel, a room full of girls for her to pick from, and no shortage of drugs and alcohol. But tonight, she went a little too overboard. Her band mates were practically carrying her across the motel parking lot to their van, trying to get her to sober up on the way to the venue with water and motivational speeches that mostly consisted of "get your fucking shit together".

The short 30 minute drive to the venue was barely long enough to get Ellie back in the right state of mind. She was slightly unsteady on her feet, and her speech was a little slurred, but she's used to preforming under these conditions.

You waited patiently of course, babying a strong cocktail mix since you didn't dare get drunk and risk not remembering every detail of the night- every detail of her.

When the crowd shifted their attention to the back entrance of the building, silent murmurs at first before a load cheer erupting was when you knew, she was here, and she looked like heaven- a black tank top that was torn near the neckline, a studded belt loosely securing a pair of baggy, black patchwork cargo pants.

The crowd parted a pathway for her as she made her way through the room with her bandmates following behind, a cigarette tucked between her lips as she'd occasionally stop to sign whatever was thrown at her- a piece of paper, cash, a pair of tits- which she'd always happily comply, but if she saw a girl she liked, she would lick her pointer finger and index, smearing part of her signature on their cleavage while the marker was still wet to subtly let you know that she wanted your company for the night- at least, that's the rumor you've heard.

You found yourself holding your breath- she was so close, a mere body or two keeping you at arm's length from her. You could smell the cigarette smoke, and see the details of her chipped black nail polish holding the marker between her fingers.

Ellie hands the notebook and marker back into the wave of hands, looking up while blowing out a cloud of smoke, and that's when she sees you. She was about to walk off, but she stopped for a second. You don't look like you belong- you were different, sweet, and innocent-looking compared to the rest of the audience. But she doesn't let her eyes linger long, she has a show to put on after all.

She turned, and walked towards the stage stairs, and centered herself behind the mic. She shifted her weight on her feet, and took one last drag of the cigarette before suffocating the embers on a ashtray near the edge of the stage.

"How's everyone doing tonight?" She barely could make out before the crowds hollering drowned out her voice. She laughed into the mic while plugging a cord into her guitar that was connected to a beefy looking amp.

Her ego was at its biggest right now- just her mere appearance could make a group of strangers act like dogs, and she fucking loved it.

She played a few cords on the guitar, ensuring the tune was where she wanted it before looking back up into the crowd, "c'mon, you can do better than that." And even though her mouth was covered by the mic, you could tell she was smirking.

The crowd cheered louder, fists clenched high above the sea of heads, and chanted her name over and over exactly how she wanted them to.

And for you? Well, you were also chanting her name, maybe not as loud, but you were too busy squeezing your way through to get to the front.

She needed to be able to see you.

And she did see you- you were front row, playfully singing and dancing along, your bright, twinkling eyes boring into every little thing she did- from the way she'd run her hand through the front of her hairline, ridding her face of the baby hairs and bangs, down to the way her fingers curled over the frets of her guitar. She made sure to look elsewhere into the crowd, interacting with everyone, but her eyes always found themselves back on you.

-

Ellie closed out the show with an encore, most of the crowd was overly intoxicated at this point, stumbling, and starting meaningless fights with whoever was closest- aka the usual time you'd leave, but you couldn't, at least, not when Ellie was walking towards you, her eyes set on you. You glanced to your right then your left- confused, and definitely was searching for an explanation as to why she was getting closer. Surely, it was someone else who caught her attention, but it was only you nearby.

You take a step back from the stage as the tips of her dirty converse near the edge. She bends down at the knees before sitting all together, dangling her legs over the edge. She doesn't say anything, and you didn't either, maybe from intimidation mixed with confusion as to why she chose to sit here out of all places.

She reaches her tattooed arm behind, shifting her weight to pull out a pack of cigarettes, and offering the carton to you, but you shyly decline. She smirked, a dimple deepening on the one side of her cheek, "So-" She said, her voice momentarily muffled by the cigarette between her lips, "-you don't look like you're from here, where'd you come from, baby?" She ignited the end with a metal lighter, holding a free hand up to cover the flame which only amplified the warm glow of the flame on her face.

You chuckled a nervous laugh, looking down at your fingers as she blew out a puff of smoke, "M' not. I'm from up north. " Your voice trembled, leaking with submission and uncertainty which only fascinated her more, but also she was frustrated- most girls wouldn't need a conversation to know what Ellie wanted from them, and you weren't looking at her.

She grabs your hand, and pulls you closer to the space between her knees. A sharp breath gets caught in your throat as she does this, your cheeks hot, and your gut feels like it's jumping being this close to her- enough to smell the fumes of her cologne mixed with ash. You watch her fingers come up and hover over your chest, her fingers gently dancing along the skin of your clavicle to examine the charm of your necklace, but really it was just a flirtation tactic to her.

"What's a girl like you doing in the desert in the middle of the night, huh?" She asked, dropping her voice down to an almost whisper- raspy, and thick with suggestion. You shake your head side to side, a nervous tick of yours when you felt uncomfortable, but being uncomfortable isn't always a bad thing.

"I uh-" you paused, mentally wavering if you should tell the truth since it does seem a little pathetic. "-I wanted to see you play."

Ellie's eyebrows raise, her bottom lip puckering into a frown with a slight nod. "Is that so?" She hummed, rolling the edges of the charm between her fingers. Ellie was certain she had seen you before. It wasn't a trick of the light or getting your face confused with some other hot chick- you were unmistakable. But she didn't want you to know that she found you out, not yet, not now.

Ellie learned in further, your knees almost buckling out from under you, feeling her breath against your lips. She played it off like she was getting a closer look at your necklace, extending the religious symbolic charm out so the chain tugged on your neck. "Do you believe?" She asked, still looking at the damn necklace, furrowing her brows like she was in a deep philosophical thought.

You swallowed dryly, wishing you still had your drink from easier, "N-not really-" you stuttered, "it was a gift from when I was younger."

Ellie chuckled, but it wasn't lighthearted or sweet- it was dark, methodical, and a tad bit sadistic.

She released the charm from her fingers, letting it hit your bare chest with a muted thud before looking up. Her eyes were a darker shade than you remembered them being- irises blown out and framed beautifully by a thick band of dark eyelashes.

Her hand reached out and gently grabbed you by the wrist before yanking you closer so your tummy was flush with the side of the stage, leaving only a few inches between your tits and the denim of her crotch.

You inhaled a sharp, breathy yelp as she did this, your hands not knowing what to do or where to divert your eyes- her hands on you, her face so close to yours that you could count the freckles on her cheeks, even the ones that are faint enough to miss- or maybe how her thighs were drifting apart, and you were in between them.

Her hand comes up, which causes you to squeeze your eyes shut, but the wrinkles around your eyes relax as you feel her hand on your face and her lips on yours. You moaned instantly at the contact, resting your hand on her thigh where it felt most comfortable. Ellie took this opportunity to slip her tongue inside, using the muscle to work against yours. Her hand snakes down your side, squeezing the soft flesh of your hip before pulling away, leaving you breathless, and hazy.

Her eyes were intense looking into yours, her lips wet and craving a deeper satisfaction.

She only said one thing, a simple sentence that would separate you from being just some regular fan,

"Come with me tonight, and I'll show you something worth believing."

-

So that's how your night shifted- how one decision to follow some band across the state had finally paid off because now you were here- a hotel room, alone with the band's most valuable member snorting lines of a white powdery substance off of a mirror topped end table.

Ellie held the rolled 20 between her fingers, putting the end of it to her nose while the index on her other closed the opposing nostril shut. She dragged the end of the cylinder across the smuggled surface, inhaling deeply until the white line disappeared behind it.

"Fuuck-" She sighed, throwing her head back, and swipes the bottom of her nose with her thumb,

"Here-" She held out the rolled 20 for you to take, but you lean away,

"I don't do that stuff."

She looks at you curiously, a furrow between her brows that suggests she found your refusal even more entertaining.

Ellie leaned forward and turned her body to face you on the edge of the dusty duvet, "What-" She scoffed, "'think you're too good for it?"

You shook your head violently, indicating a 'no', "No- no, that's not what I meant-"

Ellie laughed, causing you to stop mid-sentence, "I'm just fucking with you, doll. I should've known." She smiles, and you return the smile in relief that you didn't actually offend her.

Your eyes divert to the wallpapered walls- a faint pattern of stripes with cream-colored baseboards, a warm yellowed lamp on the bedside being the only source of light in the room to contrast the night outside.

You felt her hand creep up your thigh, tempting the skin below the hem of your dress before it disappeared underneath the fabric altogether. She leaned in, her other hand on your face to encourage you closer, whispering a "so soft" in a raspy breath before connecting your lips with hers.

It started slow- her lips overlapping yours like a soft current on a still morning before it turned into a ranging one during a windy cast. You moaned into her- soft and delicate mews between each detachment, and it fueled her.

Ellie's body overpowered yours, using her strength to her advantage. But it's not like she needed it- you were putty in her hands, fully committing yourself to her, letting her push you into your back, and her body hovering on top of yours.

You squirmed beneath her- each bump, and drag of her knee between your legs left you feeling more desperate.

"Ellie-" you broke the kiss in a breathless euphoria, looking up at her with a needy expression. Ellie knew that face well- it's not like she had all this experience and didn't know what to do with it, so- she got up, leaving you alone on the bed, and walked over to a black duffle bag decorated with pins of miscellaneous logos and bands.

She riffled through it, pulling a small clear plastic bag out before joining you back on the bed.

She opened the baggie, pulling something out no bigger than the size of a postage stamp, and tearing it into smaller halves before looking up,

"Do you trust me?" She asked, her green eyes piercing into yours, causing a wet sensation to spill from the heat between your legs. You swallowed, not really sure what you were agreeing to, but you nodded anyway, "Yes, Ellie... I trust you."

She placed the colorfully decorated paper on her tongue and held the sides of your face, kissing you and slipping her tongue inside, transferring whatever it was into your mouth before pulling away. "Swallow." She demanded, tilting your face up by your chin, and you did it without hesitation- straining the walls of your throat as the mystery stamp slid downwards.

She smirked, and swiped her thumb over your bottom lip, "good girl."

She followed it up by doing the same, placing the tab on her tongue and swallowing, but she made it seem so much more intentional like a ritual of some sorts.

Ellie leaned away from you in the bed to rest her back against the headboard and pillows, "C'mere" she said nonchalantly, patting her thighs.

With shaky knees, you did as you were told and crawled your way up her legs until you were straddling her waist.

Her hands come up to rest on your hips, her thumbs tracing circles through the flimsy fabric of your dress, "so obedient" she said lightly, almost under her breath to herself and not at you directly. 

Her hands started to wander- first on your hips, then down to your thighs, gliding them up to the plush beneath your skirt. You felt her fingertip squeeze and caress, sending chills up your spine and a hot/cold sensation throughout your body.

Next, her lips were on yours, and her fingers were tightening the follicles on the back of your scalp as the kisses became more intense. Your back instinctively arches, and you reach a hand between your legs to soothe the ache, but she stops you with a firm grip on your wrist, "Gettin' impatient, huh?" She said in a cocky tone, smirking against your lips. You whimpered- nodding your head, and grabbed her hand, inching it closer to your core.

Ellie chucked at this- the kind of chuckle that was half way a scoff, and half way felt like an insult.

"Damn- you need me to fill you up that bad? 'thought you were one of them good girls."

She tisked her tongue against her teeth, but still let you guid her hand where you needed her.

The back of her knuckles grazed between the pillowy folds over your panties, going agonizingly slow before turning her hand over to fully palm your cunt.

You melt on top of her, resting your head against her shoulder, all the while dragging your hips against her hand.

She turns her head, her warm breath fanning against the helix of your ear, "You're so wet and I've barely touched you."

Her words echoed throughout your brain like her voice waves were sending signals to every part of your body. And her touch was magnified- each cell, fiber, and pore was experiencing a new sense of heightened, whether it be because of the drugs or not, you couldn't be sure.

"El-Ellie, please... need you."

Your words rang a siren song to Ellie's ears, creating a sticky pool between her own legs. She muttered a guttural "fuck" before she grabs you by the sides of your thighs, flipping you over so she was on top of you.

She was already yanking down your underwear, and tossing them to the side before you could comprehend what was happening. You felt her fingers stinging to the flesh of your thighs, prying them apart like she couldn't wait to see you, to taste you.

You sucked in a sharp breath as her tongue lightly traced a line down your folds before her lips met your clit where she pulsated the bud between her lips, letting out a moan as she made contact, "fuuck-" She curses before flicking her tongue over your bundle of nerves, igniting a colorful array of shapes behind your tightly closed eyes.

She was messy but precise- using her tongue along with the motion of her head to send you that much further. Your fingers tangled in her hair, tugging harder the closer you got which was the perfect time in Ellie's eyes to add a finger.

She slowly pushed her middle finger inside, stopping halfway at her knuckle to let you adjust before slamming it all the way till her knuckles were snug against your puffy lips.

You wriggled beneath her, reaching out to push her away with a palm to her shoulder, but that only makes her add a second finger.

You cry out loudly through heavy breaths, the veins on her forearm coming to the surface of her skin from how much force she was using, and her mouth putting in just as much work.

You were climbing higher and higher, the peripheral of your vision going white-

"Ellie... I'm- I'm gonna-" You don't have much time to warn her before your body starts to spaz, starting at your hips and up into your chest like volts of electricity through a highly active current.

Your knees close around her head, your back arching high off the mattress, and your eyes rolling into the back of your head. She slows her pace as you come down before pulling her fingers out and lifting her head.

With your eyes closed, and an arm draped over your face, you feel her pat the inside of your thigh before her weight leaves the bed.

She comes back a couple of minutes later, only opening your eyes when you feel her weight return to the mattress.

Your eyes go wide as you take notice of the new attachment- a black, strappy harness with buckles near her hips, and a crude shaped silicone cock bulging at her crotch.

She lowers herself over you, her hands on each side of your head before she leans down to kiss you, slipping her tongue inside. She pulled back, momentarily admiring the way you looked just from something as simple as oral and some fingering- glossy eyes, puffy lips smeared with her spit, and if she looked down- how your inner thighs glistened.

Her lips trial from yours, staring at your neck, then your chest, and finally your tits which Ellie had absolutely no problem with pulling the straps down to expose them, leaving the fabric bunched around your stomach. In her eyes, everything she wanted- no, needed was accessible this way.

Ellie looks up, placing a delicate kiss on the skin of your lower stomach, "Got one more fr' me, pretty girl?" She asked softly, tenderly, but it still managed to come off more intimidating than a question should sound.

You nodded shyly, a small whine emitting from the back of your throat, looking down at her with your breasts out for her viewing, grabbing pleasure, and your legs spread wide, ready to take her.

She lifted her upper half up, slim fingers holding the base of her cock, and lined the artificial tip with your entrance. She glided the tip up your folds, coating it with your slick, and let out a sultry exhale since she could practically see your walls clenching around nothing in preparation for her.

She teased you for a bit- only giving you a couple of inches before backing away and repeating, each time causing you to whine harder and harder out of frustration. Sure, Ellie was having her fun watching you squirm, grab for her, and fuck- how your hole gapped each time she pulled out, a clear, viscous fluid leaking from it, but she was growing just as impatient- feeling your legs wrap around her waist, pulling her closer, pleading variations of her name and "please" and who is she to deny you when you ask so nicely?

She thrusts her hips forward until her crotch was flesh with your ass, your legs in the air, and her hands pushing on the back of your thighs.

"Is this what you wanted, huh?" She gritted, pulling her hips back only to snap them forward again.

You cried out loudly, curling your fingers around the bedsheets until the blood stopped circulating, turning the skin there a lighter shade than the rest of you.

She pushed harder on the back of your thighs- your knees pressed up against your chest, and using what you can imagine is all of her strength to thrust into you. She was reaching the deepest part of your cervix- grunting and moaning on Ellie's end while you mewled high-pitched noises mixed with the wet slapping of her cock repeatedly slamming into you.

Ellie's eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly upward, and her lips parted as insufficient, short breaths seep from them. Her hips started to falter from the endless abuse her clit was suffering behind the base of her strap, her boxers now a sticky, cold mess that stuck to her cunt and thighs.

She collapses on top of you, snugging herself between your legs to connect her lips to yours in a desperate effort, overpowering all your senses with her. She continues to fill you over and over again, both of you moaning in between breathless lips.

You wrapped her arms around her as her head hung low into your neck, digging your nails into the skin of her shoulder blades.

"El... mmhm- I'm gonna-" You babbled before biting your lip to silence the cry that was bubbling in the back of your throat, and Ellie wasn't far behind.

The pistoning motions of her hips turned into a grinding one- keeping a steady pace and rolling her hips forward, "M-me too- fuck... stay with me, yeah?" She said in between soft pants, the warmth of her breath brushing against your lips as her hand came up to gently but firmly wrap around your neck.

Ellie's head goes fuzzy as you looked up at her with your half-hooded gaze and your perfectly rosette lips that are just begging to be wrapped around something, so- she released the hold she had on your neck and brought her two fingers that were previously inside of you to your mouth.

She didn't even have to say anything for you to part your lips wider, slipping her fingers inside and rolling them over your tongue.

You moan, closing your lips around her as her fingers reach further back, causing tears to fall from the corner of your eyes.

"That's it-" She coaxed, her eyes focused on the split trailing down your chin,"-such a good girl."

She motioned her fingers in and out in a vulgar manner, bitting her bottom lip before pulling her fingers out all together to fist the bed sheets beside her.

"Fuckfuckfuck-oh my god-" She grunted incoherently, dropping her head to space between your neck and shoulder. Her forehead glistened with proof of her efforts as she rushed the pace to ease the itch between her legs.

You tightened your legs around her waist, pretty little noises falling on Ellie's ears as you both peak.

She rolls her hips- making it slow and deep until your voice grows tired and quiet before pushing her upper half away from you.

You wince at her absence, feeling your walls retract back to its original shape like the sand inside of an hourglass.

She plopped down beside you with an exaggerated sigh of exhaustion, pulling up the bottom of her tank top to wipe the slick/sweat mixture from her chin and nose, giving you a few seconds to admire her hardened stomach and prominent 'v' which lead your eyes down to the fake dick still standing high between her thighs.

She catches you looking, the corner of her lips tugging into a smirk as she lets out a low chuckle.

You meet her eyes, realizing you have been caught, which causes you to look away quickly, but her hand grabs yours.

"Gettin' shy on me now after all that?" She said, pulling at your hand to silently instruct you to get on top of her, so you did.

Her hands rub up and down your thighs, and her bottom lip snug between her teeth. She eyes your body, starting from your tits down to her cock that is resting against your lower stomach.

"Wanna do me a favor?" She asked, palming the fat of your thigh that spilled over the heels of your feet. You hummed at her- a sweet, genuine hum that was full of eagerness to assist her, which almost made Ellie feel bad for what she was about to say- key word almost.

"Put that pretty little mouth of yours to use and clean me up."

[sorensolsikke]

here's some punk diy tips and ideas

[other than crusty pants and battle jacket, although we still love those greatly.]

why should you diy, when you can just find decorated items everywhere, you can ask. what if you are clumsy at painting or anything?

firstly, good questions. we diy so we don't give credit to the big companies who rule the world. we diy to get more independent from the system we dislike. we diy so to save money. to express uniqueness, recognize eachother and be recognized. and especially to have fun and feel cool. diy is not only about clothing, but anything you can set your mind on. of course, one cannot make EVERYTHING for themselves, there isn't enough time and energy. but making at least small steps are already a statement and more than nothing. also, helping small artists by buying their products is also pretty punk.

that being said, i provide you with some tips of mine, all gained from experience:

anything you drew/painted on, you will WANT TO protect. acrylic paint/markers + acrylic paint varnish/transparent nail polish/textile medium are your best friends. read after anything that's new to you.

i highly recommend working with old clothing or thrift shop finds when it comes to textiles, as it is environmentally friendly and you will stay in budget. Anyways, always make sure that the material you use isn't gonna be problematic. for example, if you want to do some patchwork, the material shouldn't decay easily (if it does, it will come off so quickly.). if you want to paint on it, it shouldn't be rugged.

you can not only draw/paint on your canvas shoes, but can also sew, embroidery (just make sure to use a thimble, plus floss instead of thread could make your work more durable), and add beads and trinkets to your shoelaces. in the case of shoes, never use glue (neither hot nor instant glue) – it will come off quickly. for some inspiration, i'll show you my shoes!

(the fake moss is literally unstoppable from falling off or getting dirty. risky idea.)

it's good to carry around water and food!! you don't even have to pay for decorative water bottles and food boxes, as you can draw on glass and plastic just fine with acrylic markers. just don't forget to paint transparent nail polish all over your drawing. in at least two layers. don't be lazy or laid-back. even posca comes off while washing the dishes. and you WANT TO save your reference pictures/final designs, as the case of emergency is likely. but after all, my water bottle is exactly fine after six months, with no accuring problem.

if your current best option to get stickers from is aliexpress or overpriced decor stores, search for local artists and shops on instagram and tiktok, as it may be their most efficent way of getting you to know them. if it seems like you have no chance, you may can still find a print shop with the option of printing on self-adhesive sheets (at least in hungary, those are pretty cheap). and if you want drawings to print out as stickers, you may use your own or –ONLY IF YOU GET PERMISSION– other artist's work. not only good for decorations for like, headphones, but for vandalism too. WAIT WAIT who said that. who said it. not me. no never

(in case that's also impossible, you can create stickers by printing out/drawing a picture, cover it up in transparent adhesive tape, and then put some two-sided adhesive tape on the white side of the pic. it won't be that durable, but it functions.)

if you want to bleach-paint clothing, get some plastic brushes!! any other brush dissolves. draw your design first with chalk!! never forget to put cardboard inside the clothing, and to wash the finished work in a washing machine before you'd put it on. prepare to be patient with the process. and it's not dangerous to touch 5%-9% household bleach, just wash your hands soon after.

if you want your crusty pants to last veryyy long, wax them. look up on youtube jeans waxing.

some more things i made for myself so to give you some inspiration: totebag with pockets, a small crystal holder cabinet, badges, and i decorated some t-shirts, button-ups, an id card case, phonecase, laptop.

theoretically speaking, there is nothing that an individual would be unable to learn how to make, when it comes to diy. you can't imagine how easy it is to bake bread at home. consuming-focused media makes people believe that it's hard to make anything. of course, everyone has to decide about their own priorities, i don't want to convince or change anyone in here. and if you have any questions, send an ask!! i hope i had been helpful.

[oniku-niku]

Inked } Suna Rintarou

Tattooed!Suna Rintarou x f!Reader Summary} Sometimes Suna gets inspirations for tattoo designs, and you just happen to be the most supportive girlfriend. Word count} 2.5k Warnings} NSFW!! This is straight up SMUT bro. PLEASE MOVE PAST IF YOU'RE UNDERAGED!! Swearing, thigh riding(brief), praise, teasing, so much teasing, SoftDom!Suna, cockwarming, clit spanking (like 3 times), pet names (doll, princess, baby), read at your own volition(Tell me if I miss anything)

Sometimes going out in public with your boyfriend, Suna, is tough. In every sense of the word because people tend to double take when they look at you, and then him, or vice versa. Both of his arms are covered in ink, the intricate details of the designs weave together to create art that continues under his shirt. 

People take time to look at his arms and trail down to where his hands are holding onto yours. It’s like he’s holding a blank canvas. Not a single speck of ink can be seen on you and it throws them off completely. Those looks don’t faze you anymore after three years of dating.

It’s your decision to not get any tattoos. Not because there’s any reason preventing you, but it just isn’t a thought that crosses your mind. Suna more than respects your decisions because he loves you too much to push you to do something so permanent, and he thinks it’s kind of funny when people gawk. There are the occasional assholes who boldly ask intrusive questions but one sharp glare shuts them up. You’re his pretty little girlfriend whether or not you have any tattoos. Besides, he’d rather the marks he left on you are hidden in places only he knows.

“Is this one gonna tickle, Rin?” You ask him as he places his hoodie neatly on the couch cushion. A small chuckle leaves him when he looks up at you. You’re seated over his lap, thighs on both sides of his, settling yourself comfortably as his hands snake from your waist down to cup your ass. If you weren’t close before, you are now with the way he squeezes and pulls you closer.

“Oh, it definitely will, princess. Try not to squirm, ‘kay?” He whispers close to your lips, giving it a fleeting peck before his hands move up to pull at the hem of your tank top, taking it off and settling it on the hoodie. Your tits are inches from his face and he swears he can live like this forever. 

“No bra?” He places a peck on his favorite beauty mark on the valley of your chest, his fingers ghosting the sides of your mounds, eliciting a soft sigh from you. You shake your head with a cheeky smile.

“We don’t have anywhere to be today so I didn’t bother.” A pierced eyebrow quirks up at your answer, his lips pulling into a smirk. 

“Does that mean this is the last thing I’m pulling off later?” He slips a thumb under the hem of your pajama shorts, not reaching in far enough to where you want him. Before you can voice your complaints, that hand grips your thigh and he grinds his hip up as a warning. The movement had your core dragging against his member, only two layers away, and you immediately fell quiet, opting to twirl a piece of his hair behind his head instead.

As much as Suna would love to give you that kind of attention, he knew you both can wait.

“Sit still.” You watch him pick up a black water soluble marker and uncap it with his teeth, as his other hand was filled with your ass. 

This was one of your guys’ lazy days activities. Just because you don’t have any official ink on you doesn’t mean you’re opposed to him practicing on you. It started when he was absentmindedly doodling on some napkins at his parlor. 

It was a slow day and the next appointment wouldn’t be until later. As he picked up the phone to answer a customer, his other hand continued to idle, not realizing that your bare thigh was what his pen was idling on. You could’ve told him but he was so focused that you didn’t want to break the process as he talked to the caller. By the time it ended, he was proudly looking at the piece before he looked at you to ask for an opinion but then immediately started to apologize once he realized. Needless to say, you told him you didn’t mind, in fact you welcomed it whenever he gets inspiration. Since then, his sketchbooks were seldom used. 

The tip of the marker touches the top of your sternum and his work begins. The first time he practiced with you topless, you were a blushing mess. Your hands constantly wanted to cover your breasts but he reassured you by giving occasional kisses, some teasing when you shift. Your comfort is his number one priority and he wouldn’t do anything you weren’t okay with. Which is how you’re sitting here with him dragging the marker lower and lower until it reaches above your belly button. 

Seeing Suna so focused always gets you flustered because he carefully places his hands where they need to be to stabilize your skin. He leans closer whenever he puts in small details and you get a whiff of his cologne.

“Arms up.” He instructs and you waste no time lifting and holding them behind your head. He slightly tilts his torso to view your left side, bringing the marker to continue his work. You tense when he presses a little harder, and that small movement tells him that it tickles. He chuckles before giving you a squeeze to say “My bad”. The angle allows you to admire the works that are on his arm. You’ve seen them so many times that it’s practically a clear image in your head but you never get tired of it. The way his muscles flex when it moves, it’s almost mesmerizing.

When he’s finished with your left, he moves over to your right, making sure to pepper kisses across your chest on his way. When he sees you tapping your foot on the edge of the couch, he knows you’re getting antsy holding your arms up for so long. He gives your thigh two pats when he’s finished and you lower your arms to drape over his shoulders once again, fingers threading through his hair. 

“Thatagirl..” he breathes out before capping the marker and pulling you down by the back of your neck to slot his lips against yours. You take this chance to grind your hip against his once again as he holds your head still. Your breath is heated, mind getting foggy just from him kissing you. Your hands tug at his roots and he let out a groan. Thinking you had the upper hand, your tongue tries slipping past his lips.

The hand that wasn’t holding your head moves to smack against your ass before firmly gripping it to ease the burn. The simple movement makes you moan and he shoves his tongue in your mouth to remind you who’s really in charge. Keeping his tongue playing with yours, he sits straighter up on the couch, basically making you arch your back to keep from falling. Your perky nipples brush against the fabric of his black t-shirt and you grind yourself onto him again just to feel more of him. 

If Suna focuses enough, he can faintly feel you clenching through your shorts and it only gets him harder. His hands slide down to move your hips against him, making sure you feel every inch he has for you. The small mewls coming from you only encourage him further and his hands are roaming all over you like he can’t get enough. 

“Off.” He wants your shorts gone, and though he hides it well, he’s just as impatient as you. Inked hands tug at his shirt to pull it over his head as you quickly slide from his lap to kick off your shorts. His smirk returns when he spots the damp patch where your bare core was before you’re back over his thighs. 

“Impatient, hmm?” His hands busy themselves cupping your ass cheeks again, fingers running over your folds just to tease you before going to hold your waist. His lips are back on you, trailing from your cheeks down to your neck where he takes his time finding that spot that has you whining for him. 

“Rin…please..” You moan when he thrusts up against your core and you can feel your arousal soaking into his pants.

“So cute…” He just can’t help but tease, you make the sweetest little sounds and it’s all for him. His hand goes to unzip and pull his pants down just enough for his member to spring free. It leans towards his stomach  even while hard, precum wetting the tip making you gush further on his thigh. Just when you’re able to hold the base does he grip your chin and pull you closer.

“Turn around, baby.” It’s almost too easy to tell you what to do when you’re drunk off of him. You’re spinning to turn your back to his chest, hands obediently spreading yourself for him. He can’t help but bring his thumb to stroke your folds, bringing the arousal from your clenching hole to your clit, eliciting another moan from you as you move closer to where you want. 

He takes hold of his member and slaps the tip against your clit, watching the way you drip onto him before dragging himself to where he needs to be. Your knees buckle when his head slips in, moaning out, “Ahh..Rintarou..” When he’s an inch or two inside, he takes hold of your waist to ease you back down, nicely fitting himself all the way in. 

It nearly knocks the wind out of you every time no matter how many times you do it. You can feel him pulsing deep inside as he stills. Your hands go to hold his thighs to have some grip before you’re moving to bounce.

But Suna being Suna, he holds your hips in place, leaning towards your ear.

“I just had another idea.” You hear him uncapping the marker again and your heart sinks, pussy clenching onto him at the thought of waiting.

“Can you keep me warm, doll?” Yeah, he loves it when you’re needy for him, but it’s also extremely satisfying to tease you in this state too. You groan out a “Fine.” waiting for him to resume drawing.

He actually has no motive to draw anymore. Just seeing the pout on your face makes him want to pound into you further but he has to hold out, just to test how long he can wait.

You lean forward a little, and that action has him sinking a little deeper, making this almost impossible but you’re his good girl. He almost lets out a groan but bites it back. The marker touches your back again and you clench with every move, forgetting for a moment that he can feel it every single time. His restraint is a thread being pulled.

“...Rin…” Just when your patience is slipping, you feel the way the marker moves against your back. The same strokes, over and over again and you sit up a little.

“Fuck, Rin are you just doodling hearts?” Your question makes him abandon the marker, tossing it onto the coffee table before he’s taking hold of your throat, thrusting up to finally feel your walls. The thread finally snaps.

“Sorry, princess. Here, let me make it up to you,” he growls, taking hold of your thighs and pulling it to rest over his. He leans into the back rest, taking you to lay on his chest as he’s bringing his hips up. 

His thighs prevent your legs from closing as he’s pistoling his hips faster into you. Your moans ring louder when you feel his fingers on your neglected clit. He traces circles over your bundle as you drip down his shaft.

“Such a good girl, huh?” He groans. “Bein’ so well behaved when I was drawin’ on you.” He plants kisses onto your neck, his hips not faltering when your hands grip onto his.

“Oh-fuck, keep doin’ that, baby.” He rasps when you clench at his praise, driving into you further.

“Shit, hah-can ya hear yourself?” He knows his question won’t be answered when your eyes are rolling to the back of your head and whines are coming from your throat. But, he shoves two fingers into your mouth, effectively shutting you up so the room can hear the wet noises the two are making.

He should’ve known you’d wail past his fingers, sucking on them as if they were his dick. God, you’re so perfect. His other hand rubs faster against your clit when you’re clenching gets harder and harder.

“Ya close, baby?” His question is answered by a moan and our hips moving on their own to chase your high. Your grip on his hands gets tighter and he knows it’s any second now.

“Make a mess f’me, princess.” He growls into your ear and lets your hips do the work. You’re bringing yourself nearer to the edge and with Suna sending three harsh claps to your clit, you let go.

He holds you as you’re shaking from your high. Giving you a few seconds to come down, but as stated before, he’s impatient.

“R-Rin, wait-ahh-I’m not-” You’re whining as he’s thrusting up again, thighs not letting you close your legs as he’s drilling deeper. A few more pushes and he stills himself, hands gripping onto you as he’s filling you. The warmth spreads inside you as he gives a final thrust, holding onto you to calm down.

“Fuck.” You turn back to kiss him and he’s gently returning it. The two of you sit there for a while, needing to breathe and you’re looking down to admire the drawings he did earlier.

“I like these ones..” You point to the valley of your chest to show him and he looks over your shoulder.

“That one reminded me of you actually.” He mumbles against your skin, fingers tracing the details he did.

“Maybe one of these days I’ll ask you to do it permanently.” 

“Anything for my girl.” His lips press kisses onto your clavicle, giving it a gentle suck. Your light chirp response was enough to get him going again.

“Rin.” You slowly feel him hardening inside you again, turning to look at him just to see him smirking back.

“Gotta clean my girl up right? Start the shower, I’ll be right in.” He slaps your butt once more and you’re eager to race to the bathroom, making sure none of his seed drips down your legs on the way. He’s taking his time discarding his pants to follow you.

Suna Rintarou is covered in tattoos of his and your own choosing, and you’re his pretty little girlfriend who has yet to get one. He’s too whipped and in love with you to care whether or not you have any. Sure, he’d sometimes imagine what kind of ink would suit you, but when he’s greeted with the sight of you all bare, he finds you sexy nonetheless and in those moments, he just feels like he’s the luckiest man in the world.

A/N: Congratulations on making it through this messy one shot. I literally have not written s-m-u-t in so long this felt illegal. But something happened and I was outside of my body watching my write this because tattooed Sunarin was on my brain. Anyway I'm sort of back? I hope to write more in the future.

[Blog Master List]

[thefirstknife]

So this week, huh. Some stuff and things.

The beginning is nice for a sort of official summary about what we're dealing with:

Paired with the lore tab from last week, now I think we know exactly what's going on in regards with the issue of understanding how the Conductor came to be. It's also interesting how they're not directly telling us which Maya turned into the Conductor, which is as we suspected before. We just don't know which one it is, maybe even a combination of multiple Mayas. And they're going with Maya maybe not knowing either.

I love Saint. He's so excited.

More under:

The exotic mission is largely the same, but there are some extras: new areas and new chests with a bit of new dialogue. I'll get to that in a moment. I want to mention something I didn't bring up last week, but the Subjugator and the Tormentor bosses are pledged to Yirix. This week, Ikora expands:

Yirix is a Psion and leads the Conclave, a section of Psions that does all sort of stuff. She's responsible for the attempt on Zavala's life back in Chosen when they used Light-suppressing tech to temporarily disable Targe. She also had her hand in the Presage shenanigans and then later Vox Obscura mission on Mars where we fought her Psions and Caiatl listened to the various futures she's seen, all of which have come true. It's interesting that she's leading some section of the Shadow Legion. I am hoping for this Psion stuff to be some sort of hint about stuff in the future. We might eventually have to deal with them.

And then! The lines from grabbing the new chest for this week:

Once again, back with the simulated Ishtar scientists! And once again, I am begging everyone to read Aspect. We've heard from .59 Chioma last week, that's the one from the final part of this page, a Chioma that has lost Maya.

You'd found a simulation with a city where you discovered a jewelry store, picked out a necklace, brought it home to her, and wished her a happy pseudo anniversary. Maya didn't like bracelets, said they always fouled her work. Her hair had been getting shaggy again and was due for a trim. She could never decide whether or not to grow it out. She laughed at you lifting weights to maintain simulated muscle, but she spotted for you all the same. There are other Mayas out there, layers of them, all the way up to the original, wherever she is. You hope they're doing well. But that doesn't stop you from missing this Maya, missing whatever arguments and discoveries you'd have shared in the rest of the lifetime you'd promised to one another. Shim and Duane-McNiadh pull you up from beside Maya's marker. A basalt lily rests on top of it, petals thin enough to let light through. You go on.

The same page also mentions the .33 group:

227.33 You lose Duane-McNiadh.

We don't know .27 group from Aspect. Also interesting that one of the Chiomas isn't sharing her number. I wonder what's up with that. I'm also not sure what the final two sentences would be about. About them having "a place" and figuring things out together. The whole point of Aspect was that these groups were coordinating with Praedyth about escaping, so maybe they're talking about this plan they had with him?

Next thing in the line is Maya's recording of once again messing with Chioma and this one is so normal (lie).

OKAY? How about we all die. This also connects to one of the queries in Enigma Protocol. We speculated that these might be some personal stuff for Maya and Chioma that she's search for through the Vex Network and they are!

And then new lines from the new chest puzzle:

More stuff about the simulated scientists! Same as last week, .97 are also in Aspect. Eagerly waiting to see where they'll end with this. Literally have been waiting since 2019 to get answers about Aspect. Please. Answers please.

As we get through the mission, we get treated to some devastating Osiris and Saint lines. I really like that they have quite a bit of sympathy for what's happening to Maya and Chioma. Because they relate!

On the floor. But we're not done.

Stoppp ittt. Stopppp.

I like, again, that despite everything, he seems to sympathise. Or at least he understand it because he knows how he could've ended the same so Maya didn't do this because Maya is just like that; she did this because of the circumstances. If the circumstances were any different, Osiris could've done it too. This terrifies him. Anyone could be one step away from doing the same.

The radio message continues with the horrors, with another one of Maya's logs where she's insisting that her Chioma would understand what she's doing and that Maya is a "savior" and that everything that happened in the system since the Collapse needs to be fixed and that Maya can fix it. Osiris goes on a rant against this and realises that Maya is acting selfishly and that her obsession is destroying even her love for Chioma. But at the end, he says this:

Please. I hope we do. I want this to have at least a semblance of a happy ending for Maya and Chioma. Maybe not for the Conductor ofc, but for some Maya somewhere to get what she wanted; to be with her Chioma. Kinda similar how they went about with Saint and Osiris as well, to complete the parallel between the two couples.

And then ofc the lore tab.

One more week to go. Going to be blowing myself up in the meantime.

[hansooyung]

hansooyung's coloring tutorial & ctiys: alma time! 🍒

hello everyone! though i've been meaning to for a while, i've finally gotten around to making my first manga coloring tutorial! i'll be going over cleaning panels and screentones, choosing base colors, and finally shading and lighting.

this will also be a color this in your style challenge, so if you're willing, feel free to post your colored panel and tag me in it!! i'd love to see all the results :)

find details under the cut! 🦋

DISCLAIMERS:

this is just how i personally color! i know for a fact that some of my other friends follow other methods and have such beautiful colorings <33

for colors specifically, i play around a LOT. if you don't like your color scheme for the time being, mess around with it! i don't use psds since i like to mess around by hand with color palettes, but maybe i'll look into it for the future.

i explain a lot just bear with me gang 🙏

TECHNICAL STUFF:

software: ibis paint x (on iphone). i use ibis since it is FREE for all phones and it worked on my chromebook as well.

while this tutorial is made for ibis paint x, everything works on other softwares except the brushes, which i've provided alternatives for below.

brushes: i will be using dip pen (hard) which is automatically included with ibis, and two other brushes i made myself which you can find here and here. for more brushes, @/bkdkdh was incredibly helpful and posted her awesome set here!

for other softwares, you can use similar brushes. dip pen (hard) can just be the default brush, while wet edges is just the default brush on lowered opacity (and more of a rectangle/marker shape?). watercolor pencil is a watercolor brush in the rectangle/marker shape as well. if you can't get the shape, you can always smudge your lines into shape as well, so don't fret too much! a bunch of people only use one brush for coloring everything (which is insane to me, personally, they are so talented!)

fun fact: the first brush listed that i made was originally called "aki tao watercolor smooth" 👍

ok here we go guys!!

STEP ONE: CLEANING THE PANEL

i think of this part as setting up the panel for coloring! usually it's pretty exhausting cuz it's all b&w but it's all worth it i swear. the panel i'll be coloring is this beautiful one of alma from chapter 2:

imgur link here (x)

a lot of people redraw their lines to avoid screentones, which is extremely helpful. however, i work on a phone and my fingers are not steady even with the stabilizer turned all the way up T~T. i do it this way, but a different (possibly easier) way may work for you!!!

your first step will be to remove all the white, giving us a transparent background to work with. THIS IS THE NUMBER ONE REASON WHY I USE IBIS PAINT X.

when you upload the image to ibis, a popup comes asking if you would like to "extract line drawing". this creates a lineart of your image. click yes, and your work is like 90% done.

if you're not on ibis, you can redraw your panel, put lineart layer on screen, etc. or you can just extract line drawing from ibis and upload to software of your choice

for those of you not on ibis, i've included the line drawing here (x) if it looks black, don't worry and set your background to white.

omg i was not kidding when i said i explained a lot. ok now onto the three main steps of cleaning the panel:

cleaning background

removing screentones

repainting black lines

for cleaning the background, we're going to clear off all the extraneous stuff. this includes the text in the speech bubble, the gradient screentones behind alma, and the panel line on the left side. just use your eraser tool and go crazy! (i forgot to save the panel at this point of the coloring OTL)

for removing screentones, we're going to remove all those "dots" that mangakas use for shading. these are used to show value for b&w art, but since we're coloring we don't need them—a lot of people have really cool ways of incorporating screentones in their colorings though, and it looks amazing! i used it on nana's hand in my bnha coloring.

remove the screentones from alma's hair and jacket with your eraser tool. this will take time, but it's worth it in the end!

for portions with a bunch of lines, you can create A NEW LAYER and redraw some of the lines. that way, you can erase indiscriminately from the original layer but the lines you drew are still there. again, like i said, my hand is really shaky so i don't do it a lot, but it's extremely helpful for smaller parts where i have control! i used this on alma's jacket, and here's a screenshot of the process:

(i made his jacket purple so i could distinguish between layers easily).

it should look like this when you're done:

for the final step of cleaning, i like to erase all the things colored black (the collar and strings of the jacket, along with the back part of his hair). that way, i can color them in with dark colors and it adds to the whole look of the coloring.

i've circled the parts i'm going to erase below:

and it should look like this when you're done!

ok everyone cheer we're ready to color now!!!!

STEP TWO: BASE COLORS

CROWD CHEERS ok lets go!

this part is the most important to me, because it sets the tone for the whole coloring. i like to use three-four main colors in my colorings, and it's usually background, skintone, hair, and the secret fourth color. the secret fourth color is usually whatever color fits the character's vibe, or if the character's color is the bg, it'll be an accent color.

for example, with my nagi coloring, i used white for the hair, i had my skintone, i had blue as the main coloring vibe (as nagi's color), and black as the accent color.

for alma, i chose his main color to be red! it's the color of his hair and his jacket, so i wanted it to be vibrant and stand out. since blue contrasts red, i went for a greyish-blue shade for the background. (i went for grey rather than solely blue because then it would clash rather than complement).

disclaimer please please please take your device off night mode warm mode f.lux whatever you have. this has screwed me over more times than you may think :(

i like to make my vibrant colors closer to the right end of the color square. for alma's hair, i chose this color:

i dragged it down from the corner a bit but kept the saturation since his hair is kind of dark. we can use vibrant colors to shade it though, so don't worry!

here's his hair and the background together:

now from here, play around with skintones until you find one that matches the hair!

i usually drag around the wheel to the orange-red intersection, and have it on the lighter, more saturated side. here's the color i chose for alma's skintone.

i thought his original skintone looked a bit too orange, so i pulled the saturation back a little bit (moved closer to the left side of the square).

after that, color in his jacket with a bit darker red than hair, choose a gold color for the accents on his jacket, and color in the black parts with a grey-ish color (we will change that later).

here's the base colors!

if it looks a bit bright, don't worry! we can change that with shading. or you might just have to. accept the light.

STEP THREE: SHADING AND LIGHTING

wooo we made it!!!!!!! ok now i lied, we have a bit more of base colors to go. on a layer above the skin, color in your teeth and tongue. for pieces that have a more red feel (like this one), i like to make the teeth and the shading a more vibrant blue color. (for blue pieces, i make it a purple!).

IMPORTANT NOTE: ALL SHADING AND ALL COLORS SHOULD BE DONE ON NEW, CLIPPED LAYER.

i'll then go in and do some light shading with my wet edges brush. i'll use a darker color for hard shadows and then a lighter, more vibrant color to accentuate it.

next up we have blush! a lot of people do this in very different ways but i like to do it directly under the eyes, in a vibrant red shade. make a new layer above the skin and clip it on. color pick alma's hair and drag it to the most saturated shade (red corner). then using the watercolor pencil brush, lower the opacity of the brush and drag a line under the eyes on both sides.

make sure to erase the portion of blush that goes above the eyeline. i also added some lips for alma as you can see, and then added a red line under the eyes! this was back to the regular dip pen (hard) brush on 100% opacity. it may take a few tries to get your blush to the way you want it, so don't worry too much.

now we can start our actual shading!

i break this part up into three steps: skin shading, blue shading, and light shading (highlights?)

for all of them, think about where the light is falling and how it will look on alma.

quick interlude about brushes: i use the watercolor pencil brush for softer, bouncy looks (like blush and noses) and i use the wet edges brush for more hard lines in shading.

again, make a new layer above the skin and clip it on. (i like to have it below the blush, so it doesn't cover it). for skin shading, i take the vibrant red and lower the opacity of the wet edges brush by a significant amount (specifics don't really matter, as long as you're happy with it). i'll trace his neck, from the shadow of his face, shadows of his hair falling on his face, ears, and nose. (for the nose i used the watercolor pencil brush for a softer look).

this is what i have once i'm done!

next we have skin shading part two, where we basically make a new layer on top of our first shading, lower the opacity further, and trace outside whatever we just did to blend it in more.

i used the watercolor pencil brush since it's more softer shading meant for blending! i also added it around the eyebrows for depth.

next up we have our blue shading! this is a technique that i learned from @/bkdkdh's colorings, but adding blue as a shadow really adds to the whole coloring. using the watercolor pencil brush, select a light-ish blue shade (a bit more saturated than background color) and use it to shadow a few more areas than your skin shading. i always make sure to hit the underside of the nose, cuz i think it adds depth!

finally, to wrap up our skin shading we have our lights. i use an orange-ish yellow color, which i set pretty light to not blend into the skin. using the watercolor pencil brush, i'll basically highlight any areas opposite to where the blue was, and highlight different parts. i always highlight one side of the nose as well.

i erased the line around the nose since we now have shading there, and added a darker shade to the teeth since i felt it wasn't shaded enough.

now onto the hair!!! (guys we're almost done bear with me, skin and hair are the two main things and then you can half-ass the clothes)

color pick alma's hair color, then drag the red a bit further down to get a darker yet still saturated color. here's mine:

then, using the wet edges brush, draw lines of shadow wherever clumps of his hair fall or overlap with each other. you can have the opacity set to whatever level you want, i just went with around 90. just try to follow the natural lines and patterns of the original line drawing, and everything should work out fine.

here's how mine looks! then, just like we did for skin shading, place a layer on top and lower the opacity to around 50%. place some more shading to blend it in. you can also shade more parts with this shade for some softer shading. i actually forgot to take a screenshot of this step but you'll see it in the next one!

for our (almost) last part of hair shading, take a layer and place it below both of your shading layers. this is going to be our highlight layer! you can see it below, labeled 49%.

remember how we set alma's hair a bit darker from the corner color? now select that corner color and draw highlights in the center of each hair clump.

lightly visible but it's there!

now here i skipped around a bit bc i was having fun and forgot i was doing a tutorial, but repeat the shading (not highlighting) steps with darker colors for alma's jacket. you should have your base layer, a dark shading, and a softer shading for blending.

we're almost there guys!!!

for the pretty much final step of shading, select a light blue color and do some blue shading with the watercolor pencil brush opposite to wherever your darker shading falls (just like we did on the face). make sure to do it to both your hair and your jacket! here's mine:

now for the black portions, we're going to color the whole thing in a dark blue color. just alpha lock your layer and make a big stroke of dark blue, almost black. for our black shading, we're actually going to go lighter.

select a lighter (but still dark) color and place highlights on the base layer, then take an even more vibrant, lighter blue and place it on the very outside for highlights. a better example of this would be nagi's legs in his blue lock uniform here. then, choose a shade to apply shading to the gold accents on alma's jacket and we're done!

CROWD CHEERS!!!!!

STEP FOUR: FINISHING TOUCHES

we made it guys!!!! for finishing touches, i'll usually do background effects or text or that kind of stuff.

step one is coloring your lines. you can add a new layer and clip it to your lineart, or simply alpha lock your lineart and color directly on top. for hair i like to add vibrant blue/purple lines, along with a few red ones. for skin lines i try to do dark brownish purples, but leaving some black is good too bc it adds flavor!

i colored in the text boxes and added shadows using the wet edge feature, then added some text. for the glitch effect, i duplicated the lineart, dragged the layer below all of my colors (including speech bubbles) and then used the glitch effect with height full from ibis. if you don't have ibis, you can look into features on your software, or you can also just drag your lineart layer a bit to either side and color it in. i also applied just the tiniest bit of noise on top of everything

and there we go!!!!! we made it to the end :)

if you've read all the way til here, thank you so much! if you decide to color this panel of alma (or any other panels!) don't be afraid to post them and tag me for a color this in your style type of thing! (you can also put it in my tracked tag, #user.roy) i'd love to see everyone's works :)

here's the full timelapse: (it stalls for a bit at some times but hey we can't have everything)

[robinsno1lesbian]

Okay, I LOVE me some bold, confident Robin...

...but what about shy, blushy, I-live-in-a-small-town-so getting-it-on-with-another-girl-is-impossible-I'm-still-amazed-this-is-happening Robin's first time with an equally excited and inexperienced reader? It's sweet and cute and awkward, but then holy shit you get to be each other's first experience getting touched by someone other than yourself 🫣🫣🫣 I'm WEAK

𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋𝐒, 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋𝐒, 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋𝐒 - 𝐑.𝐁.

robin buckley x fem!reader 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 4730

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 18+ mature content (MDNI), maybe a bit of internalized as well as period typical homophobia, is soft smut a thing?, first time, virginity loss, inexperienced!robin x inexperienced!reader, thigh riding, fingering (fem!receiving obviously), let me know if i missed anything <3

𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: no because you're so right anon! here's my take on that, i hope you like it! also thank you so much for 300 followers!! i'm so thankful for your support on here so have a 4k word robin x reader smut in return lmao

you can't help yourself but watch her from the corner of your eye. her bangs are falling into her eyes, it is something that has caught your attention a lot lately: the way she always tries to get them out of her face and the way her hair is way too stubborn with her. there are a lot of things that have caught your attention lately, especially when it comes to robin buckley. you do those silly little things: catch yourself daydreaming about her in class or sketching her features on the side of your worksheet rather than working on them. hell, you've been counting her freckles the other day and only stopped because she had snapped you out of it herself. if you didn't know any better, you'd say you're hopelessly in love with her. except that can't be...right? because she's a woman and you can't be in love with a woman. you're not supposed to be in love with a woman. and yet this is what it is supposed to feel like, from what you've heard: the way your stomach twists in a way that tickles through your whole body whenever she looks at you or is already staring whenever you turn back during your shared shifts simply can't be anything other than that. regardless of what you've heard, the things you feel whenever she is around are allconsuming. you try to think of the things people on TV claim. you really try to get yourself together, to keep your eyes glued on a bunch of boys that walk by in the hallway just like all of your friends do. but all of this is forgotten the minute you lay eyes on her. love, you sometimes (in rare moments of clarity) find yourself thinking, isn't supposed to be what oppresses you or chains you down. it's supposed to be free and you've only ever felt free, truly free, around robin. maybe that's why you can't stop watching her now. summer has chosen to come early this year and the heat is already on the verge of being unbearable in late may. she's sitting on your bed, legs crossed and back bent over a book that's open on her leg. she's using a bright yellow marker to highlight important paragraphs, her lip tugged between her front teeth as she works in concentration.

yet again, you can't stop yourself from watching, admiring her from afar like you always do.

she is in a pair of shorts and a tank top she has taken from your closet. it's not her style, white and lacy, and yet it still looks great on her. usual, maybe, but breathtaking nonetheless, emphasizing the curves of her body that are normally hidden from the view underneath a layer of baggy clothing. you're grateful that you get to see her like this. "you're doing it again" her raspy voice snaps you back to reality and she speaks without even looking up from the text. "huh?" you raise a brow and tilt your head "what?" robin looks up from her book and drums the pen against her thigh a couple of times before she answers. "you're staring" she doesn't say it as if it was something that bothers her. she sounds so...sweet, maybe? "oh uhm-" your mind is racing with possible things to answer in return. you always have plenty to say, but right now, your normally busy and loud brain fails you when you need it the most. "i was just thinking" you mumble eventually. robin thinks about this for a second, shrugs, and focuses on her book again. "you do that a lot lately, don't you?" "there's a lot to think about" you say and she grins. "like what?" "dunno..." you shake your head and laugh softly "i guess my mind has been really full of thoughts lately" that catches robin's attention. she closes the book and turns so that she's facing you. her leg almost brushes yours. almost. you find yourself longing for that brief brush of skin, wishing she would lean in just a tiny bit more, just enough for that. "you know you can talk to me, right y/n?" as if she's been reading your mind, robin reaches out and puts a palm to your knee. your breath hitches in your throat and you fake a cough to cover it. you don't know what has gotten into you or why you choose to do what you do. but something in you finally gives you the strength to speak.

"robin have you ever...felt like, i don't know, genuinely, fundamentally different?" a smirk creeps up her cheeks. "all the time" she says.

"no but- i mean- not just in a way that you don't...i don't know..." you do know. what you really want to ask her is if she has ever felt the way you do every single day. if she ever wanted to kiss another woman, if she ever wanted to do more than just that too. "hey" she traces circles over your damp skin "is there something you want to talk about y/n?" you look up and her eyes meet yours. it almost seems like her pupils blow just a little bit wider at the sudden eye contact. you've never seen the ocean, have lived your whole life in this tiny town of hawkins, but you're certain that that's the colors of the waves that meet the shore.

perhaps another time you would've looked away and blushed. but robin is tilting her head sideways and has this sweet look on her entire face that has made you want to kiss her a hundred times before. only this time it is different. you know you're running out of time; it is only a matter of time until you will go separate ways, robin to europe and you to some god-forsaken college your parents have picked out for you. you know that if you don't do it now, you won't ever. and so you do it, against all odds. slowly, you reach out and place a strand of hair -one that's been bothering her all this time- behind her ear. her skin feels so soft under your touch that you can't help yourself but exhale slowly. just when you want to withdraw your hand, your touch already lingering for a bit too long, robin grabs your wrist and holds it there. "don't" she whispers. your palm meets her cheek and suddenly you're holding her face and she's leaning into your hand.

robin turns her face in your palm in a way that allows her lips to brush over it. your heartbeat picks up its pace when she starts kissing the heel of your hand, leaving you completely breathless. you watch her in complete awe and bite your lip at the sight in front of you. "robin..." you murmur and gently pull her a little bit closer, not enough for her to actually move forward, but just enough for her to feel your suggestive movement. she follows suit immediately and starts leaning in closer. closer and closer until her lips are almost touching yours. her breath meets your skin in short, hot puffs that send shivers down your spine. robin's eyes are fixated on your lips and you let all fear fall away. instead, you say "can i kiss you?". robin doesn't answer. instead, she grabs your face in a desperate manner and closes the little bit of distance that is left between you. her lips feel soft, that's the first thing you notice. and then your other senses start picking up on it too: she smells like summer; of the layer of sunscreen she must've applied in the morning and of the hawkins summer air that surrounds you. she tastes like chapstick and shared lemonade. robin leans back faster than you want her too, doesn't stay for more than one quick kiss. "h-holy shit y/n i'm- did you- i mean- was that okay?" you smile. "more than okay robin but...can we...can we do that again?" the excitement practically sparks in her eyes when you ask that but she nods immediately. "i would love nothing more" she scrambles up and bumps into you in the process of getting closer so that she's pressing you further into the pillows on your bed. you gasp but it turns into laughter against her lips when she pretends it never happens and puts her lips on yours again. she misses your lips though, kissing your front teeth due to your laughing. "stop laughing" she chuckles against your mouth "i'm trying to kiss you" "my bad" you grin and wrap your arms around her, caging her in like that "try again". this time she doesn't miss and you're not a giddy mess either. this time, she really kisses you. one arm remains around her shoulder while your other hand holds her cheek and robin kisses you deeper. you stay like this for a while. she tilts her head experimentally every now and then and moves your face with her index too. it's much more than an awkward peck; you can feel the length of her body on yours, your legs dangling together on your bed despite the heat, and just when you think it couldn't possibly get any better, robin parts her lips and licks along your bottom lip, waiting for you to let her in. you gasp, slightly surprised but thrilled to see where this might go. you gladly allow her to lick into your mouth, parting your lips like she has done before. it's a new sensation, one that neither of you is really used to. the velvet of her tongue against your own tickles past your lips and into your mouth. that's when you feel it for the very first time: the tingling sensation that starts somewhere in your lower belly and pools between your thighs. hungry for more, you arch your back up and try to press her further against you. robin groans and the noise has the exact same effect on you as your current makeout session.  "robin" you manage when she leans back to take a breath in.  her brows narrow and she looks down at you. "are you okay? is this okay? do you want to stop?"  "no!" you exclaim, maybe a bit too fast but robin just grins at that. "i mean- no. i just...touch me, please" "touch you?" she raises a brow "are you sure? i mean are you sure that you want this? i've never-"  you shake your head gently "i haven't either robin...but i am sure. i want this. i want you"  she gives you the sweetest smile and nods slowly.  "but, just so we're clear" she runs a hand through her hair, giving you time to admire just how pretty she looks like this: slightly golden in the sunlight and lips plump from the previous kisses. "we can stop anytime, okay?" 

"i won't want to stop" you whisper and she looks down at you in what looks like slight surprise but also amazement.  "well we don't have to" she shrugs and earns a giggle from you.  "just come here and kiss me already"  that she'll gladly do. she leans down again and kisses your lips. this time, she slips her tongue past your lips immediately, but it is soft and passionate nonetheless.  she kisses you slowly, just like you need it right now and her fingers link with yours so that she is holding both of your hands with her own while she is kissing you.  you smile against her and you can feel her returning the gesture, you don't even have to open your eyes to know.  "take off my clothes" you breathe into her open mouth.  so her fingers run up your body until they reach the collar of your shirt, where she starts fumbling with the buttons.  her kisses grow uncoordinated and you lean back.  "damn it" she curses, struggling to undo the very first button.  "hey" you reach out and wrap your fingers around her wrists "hey it's okay, let me help"  robin looks into your eyes as you help her and open the shirt for her. she sits up slowly, eyes filled with disbelief that this sight is really revealing to her.  she runs a hand through her hair once more and her jaw drops when you finish the final button.  "like what you see?" you chuckle and watch robin through heavy lashes. 

"god you could say that" she groans and shifts her weight back onto your thighs. 

you sit up against your many pillows and push the fabric off of your shoulder, leaving you in nothing but a soft, lacy bra.  you blush under her watchful eye and fight back to urge to hide from her. she must notice the way you look away from her because she gently brushes a finger over your cheek and down to your chin, lifting your gaze upon her.  "you're so beautiful, y/n" she murmurs. "so beautiful" 

you bring your own hands to her waist, squeezing the dip just above her hips slightly before you tug on the top that belongs to you.  "can i...?"  robin bites her lips and reaches out herself, pulls it over her head and then throws it over her shoulder carelessly.  she is wearing a black bra and her chest is covered in freckles. you've always wondered whether the thin layer of freckles would continue below the collar of each of her shirts but you would've never expected that you would actually get to see it.  you lean your head back and she gets the sign.  robin leans down and kisses you softly, her hands roaming your sides. you start exploring her body too, shily at first.  you move your palms over the swell of her breasts, just the ghost of a touch before you let them wander lower.  she shudders when you touch her there and you gasp softly in return. your hands run up her back again and stumble upon the clasp of her bra.  you look up from her chest and she is nodding already, giving you an answer to the unspoken questions.  you unclasp it slowly, making sure she has time to comprehend it, before you pull it off of her entirely.  and, god, she is beautiful.  your breath hitches in your throat and you shamelessly gape at her chest.  "like what you see?" robin grins, stealing the line you've used on her before.  "oh shut up robin, you're- you're gorgeous"  you keep looking at her and take your own bra off as well, getting you into an equal state of undressing.  she inhales sharply and strokes over your bare shoulders, her thumbs pressing into your skin softly.  "can i touch you?" when you nod, she brings both of her hands up to hold your breasts. you exhale shakily, feeling this new kind of touch on yourself.  this is all so new, so sweet.  a mix of shy touches and soft noises of approval.  you're so happy that you get this with robin. that she is the one out of all people that does this for you. with you.  her thumbs brush over your nipples and you arch your back forward involuntarily, a quiet moan drawn from your lips by her.  "oh you like that?"  your eyes fall shut and you nod, your lips forming a silent 'o'. she repeats the motion applying just the right amount of pressure that it feels even better than before.  "j-just like that robin" you moan. robin smiles, obviously pleased with the reaction she got out of you.  she leans forward again, her hips jerking against your leg as she moves.  "fuck-"  "what?" your eyes snap open, slightly alarmed. but robin's expression doesn't look like one to be alarmed about. her eyes have fallen shut and her mouth is agape.  that is when you realize that your thigh sits right against her center.  "oh" you breathe out and she opens a single eye to look at you.  she looks absolutely heavenly like this and, to test something, you flex the muscles in your thigh against her, eager to get a reaction out of her.  robin's lashes flutter and her lips part at the same time as her head drops back in pleasure.  "oh my god" she rasps "oh my god"  "does that- feel good?" you ask her and put both of your hands on her hips.  she nods to confirm it and gives her hips a couple of experimentally rolls forward, dragging them over the length of your leg. you watch in awe when the first actual moans fall from her lips. her normally low and raspy voice has this new, high-pitched tone to it that you've never heard before but from which you know that you need more of it.  after some time, robin leans her forehead down against yours. she brings a hand to the back of your head to keep you close to her and her open mouth is brushing over your own, parted lips. her hot breathing and the quiet, shy moans that occasionally erupt from her send the same tingling sensation down your body.  this is great already, better than you would've ever imagined, but you know you need more.  and robin does too.  "robin" you whisper and she stops her movements immediately.  "yeah?" she breathes "are you okay?"  you smile at how considerate she is with you, how attentive. 

"more than okay i just- i wanna see you"  "oh"  "yeah, oh" you bite your lip "is that okay?" robin grins and shifts backward, away from your legs so that she can get herself out of the shorts she's wearing.  you laugh softly when she struggles with the zipper and tries to kick them off her long legs.  eventually, she gets out of them and throws them down the bed to kneel in front of you.  "can we- uh- try something?" she asks, a shy blush on her cheeks.  when you nod, she takes your hand in hers and pulls you up so that you're both kneeling in front of each other.  you don't miss the way her eyes fall upon your chest, as if she still can't fully believe that all of this is really happening.  her hand is still locked with yours when she holds it against the valley between her breasts.  you gasp when you feel her heartbeat against your palm.  "i want you to touch me" she speaks carefully and tilts her head to search your eyes for any doubts. "and i want to touch you too"  you bite your lip at the thought of this and nod your head. "please" her fingers find the hem of your skirt and, while her eyes are still on yours, she pushes it down your legs so that it is pooling around your knees. she leaves it there before her fingers trace up your thighs slowly.  you involuntarily spread your legs wider for her, which robin can only smile about.  when her index reaches your clothed center, you watch her attentively: her mouth falls open when she feels the patch of arousal that has formed on your panties from her previous actions.  "fuck, you're wet" she gasps.  at those words, you feel yourself clenching around nothing and your facial expression because a reflection of robin's own: lips parting and eyes heavy with a kind of lust you've never felt before.  judging by the look on her face, she has felt it against her fingertips.  "touch me" she says and you do as you're told.  you try to copy robin's movements, a hand between her thighs when you cup her through the fabric.  that is when you get what she has meant by that: you can feel her wetness, damp through the underwear.  you can also feel her against each of your fingers that are firmly pressing against her. 

"y/n" robin moans softly and her head falls back slightly.  you feel her pushing your panties aside slowly and you do the exact same for her, removing the last bits of clothing out of the way that is separating you from touching her the way you desperately want to.  the moan she draws from your lips when she starts circling your clit is something you should probably feel embarrassed about, but robin's eyes are beaming at the noise.  she doesn't want you to hide, she wants to hear you.  robin tilts her head again, as if she's asking something from you, and then presses down against your clit slightly harder.  "god, robin" you moan and your head falls forward against her shoulder.  "it's okay" she whispers and runs her free hand into your hair "it's o- oh"  regardless of how turned on your are, you can't help but grin when she moans at the sudden touch of your index and middle finger on either side of her clit, rubbing over it how you would do it if you were touching yourself. it seems to be working for her too.  she starts picking up the pace of her own fingers in sync with your movements, rubbing gentle, clockwise circles around your clit.  your legs are shaking already and you keep your head against robin's shoulder, muffling the soft moans in her hair and neck.  you can feel how wet she is against your digits, proof that you really are making her feel good like this.  occasionally, you dip your fingers down lower, where all of her wetness if pooling. you consider taking it one step further, but you find yourself being too shy to ask. instead, you gather her slick on your fingers and draw it back up to her clit.  at one particular good stroke, robin reaches for your chin and moves your head away from its hiding spot so that you're looking at her.  she's taller than you, even like this, and you have to look up slightly.  she looks gorgeous, even more than she normally does: her eyelids are heavy, mouth agape and her chest is rising and falling rapidly.  "y/n..."  "hm?"  her fingers wander lower and you gasp.  "can...can i?"  you smile softly and copy her motions, a singular finger toying at her entrance. her eyes widen slightly and somewhat of a whine comes past her lips.  "please"  you're both staring into the other's eye when she pushes her middle finger into you at the same time as you do the same for her.  the moans that fall from your lips mix with hers, creating a sweet noise that echoes through the room. thank god you're home alone.  "oh fuck, robin...robin..." you babble, your hips jerking forward over and over to chase the delicious feeling "more".  robin withdraws her finger slowly, until only the very tip of it is still inside of your aching cunt and then pushes it right back inside you, adding a second one along.  "oh my god" you cry out. you've never made such a noise when you were touching yourself. this is s much better than anything you have ever felt.  robin's own walls seem to somehow tighten around your finger, which reminds you that you have that same effect on her.  you curl your middle finger forward slightly and robin's eyes roll back in her head.  "please" she whimpers "god- just like that- feels so so good fuck-"  you thrust into her a couple of times until you add a second finger as well.  robin, regardless of the fact that she is getting fucked this good by you, never stops the movements of her own fingers inside of your cunt.  her fingers are longer than yours, just slightly but enough for you to feel the difference; she is reaching depths that you were never able to reach on your own.  when she mirrors your motion and curls them up against that certain spot, you moan out her name loudly.  the thrusts alone feel incredible but when she begins hitting your g-spot, it takes things to a whole new level of pleasure. 

"k-kiss me" you mutter between moan and whimpers caused by her fingers.  robin does as you asked her to, pulls you in so that your chests are bumping together and smashes her mouth of yours.  the shyness from earlier is gone, replaced by want and lust for you.  soon enough, your tongues are moving together in sync, lips meeting over and over again until they feel almost sore. 

the combination of all of these things causes a knot to form in your lower abdomen. you know exactly what'll happen once this knot snaps and, truth be told, you can't wait to cum all over robin's fingers.  but you also know it'll take just the slightest bit more for you to actually cum.  "r-robin" you shudder when she leans back slightly. there's a string of saliva connecting your lips. part of you wants to be disgusted, but instead, it only turns you on. "can you- oh god, fuck-" it feels so good, you can hardly get the words out. "can you...rub my clit? please? i think- ah- i think i'm close"  she listens to everything with a half-curious, half-lustfilled expression and nods. robin doesn't stop with the wonders, that her fingers are working inside of you though. she uses her thumb to find your clit, all while she is pumping her index- and middle finger into you, and rubs it gently, just like you asked her to.  "holy shit- right there! right there!" you manage and your head falls back.  your breathing becomes high-pitched and rapid and every muscle in your body is focused on what she is doing, on moving against her to chase your orgasm.  robin seems to understand and starts rubbing your clit faster, adding pressure at the right points too.  with that and the fact that she pulls you in again to squeeze your breast, robin pushes you closer and closer to the edge.  you manage to find robin's clit with your thumb too, though it takes you slightly longer to do so but robin doesn't seem to mind, way too caught up in the way your digits curl up inside of her.  "robin...fuck i- oh-"  you can't even finish what you were gonna say, your whole body tenses up in pleasure and you feel your orgasm in each and every nerve.  you sob out a moan that dies in your throat when everything becomes hot and you see stars from the pleasure.  robin reaches her height shortly after and her body tenses up against yours, her eyes roll back and her fingers tighten in your skin.  both of your thighs shake around the other's hand and you cum around her fingers, coating them in your release.  when the wave of pleasure slowly fades, you open your eyes.  robin is still recovering herself, but she has come down enough to watch you. a smile is toying along her lips.  "holy shit" she breathes eventually.  "yeah" you say with a lighthearted laugh.  "did you- i mean- was that okay?" and you can hardly believe your own eyes but she blushes as if she hasn't just made you cum better and harder than ever.  "that was more than okay robin, fuck"  regardless of that fact, she sighs as if in relief.  "would you- would you mind if- i- would you like to go out...? sometime?"  despite your situation, you can't help yourself but laugh breathlessly.  "robin buckley" you exclaim "are you asking me out on a date while you're still inside of me?"  her eyes widen slightly, as if that part has already been forgotten and you laugh a little bit more.  once you have both fully recovered, you lay her down on your bed and put your head on her shoulder and she links your fingers together.  somehow, it is not odd at all. it's almost like it was always supposed to be like this.  "so" she says after some time.  "so" you repeat.  "about earlier...i would really, really like to take you out on a date"  you smile and tilt your head so you can look at her properly.  "i would really, really like that too"

[littlemissthunderstorms]

just some lover pt.2

alex turner x reader

aaah its definitely been awaited, here it is, i hope you enjoy! read part one if you haven’t.

p.s. i added two songs for this story, i also included markers near the end of where to start them. it’s obviously optional but i highly recommend listening to them at the right moments because i feel it adds to the emotion

———

‘alex was the one who recommended you’

“what?” you were in a state of disbelief for a moment, brows furrowed. it took you a beat to even grasp and process what it meant, what it could mean. you weren’t quite sure where to start.

you stared nick down. even though the situation was shocking, you believed him. o’malley wasn’t much for pranks like this. your palms gathered a thin layer of sweat, fingers fidgeting with your rings. you stuttered, “why would he do that?”

nick flashed you a knowing look, you know why. your face softened, eyes shimmering under the ember lighting the streetlamp emitted. oh.

the possibilities of his simple request left you all too hopeful, it was the first true glimmer of hope since you and alex separated, sparking in you like a match in a room that had been dark for much too long. your heart soared as your mind raced.

why would alex purposefully recommend you to follow them around on tour if he was over you? doubtfully, you tried to scan your mind for any reason he would’ve wanted you around that doesn’t involve him wanting you back. “wha- what if he did it because he just wants me to make good money? what if he just wants to be friends?”

nick shrugged. “it’s a possibility. but not a high one.” noticing how doubtful you looked, he took a step closer to you. “look, i’m not saying this indefinitely means something, but i’ve seen the way he’s been acting ever since you two have been apart, it’s just not right. it felt like the right thing to tell you.”

a small gust of wind blew through the quiet sidewalk. you shivered in your jacket. noticing your silence, nick spoke up again. “one of our friends is hosting a party later. you should come, we’ve all missed ya.” you returned his soft smile.

———

thirty minutes later and you and nick were making your way through the door, music thumping as the crowd chatted and danced, small fairy lights twinkling across the walls. nicks offer left you hesitant, but you decided it was good to get out of the house for something other than work.

you usually weren’t much for parties when you were younger. you preferred staying home painting or reading, and while you still felt the same from time to time, parties were for the most part nicer in your adulthood.

when you met alex, he introduced you to people who genuinely liked you for who you were, and loved talking to you. this made gatherings much more enjoyable, being able to talk and party with genuinely cool people was much better than being ignored at highschool parties by people your friends talked to.

immediately upon walking through the door, you didn’t recognize anyone there. one of nicks friends pulled him into conversation, offering him drinks and such, which left you alone. you wandered into the crowd some more, hoping to find someone you knew.

as your gaze wandered across the crowd, your heart sunk. you definitely knew the man your eyes laid upon. there, up against the far back wall was alex. it wasn’t necessarily him that made your heart drop, but the girl next to him. your stomach twisted as you watched how she batted her eyes, her palm resting on his chest as she leaned a little too close to his face when she spoke. you couldn’t quite read alex’s face for cigarette smoke had clouded the corner.

nauseated, you turned around and started making your way out through the crowd. it was clear you didn’t belong here anymore. you just wanted to leave. there must’ve been some misunderstanding, it’d left you all too hopeful. no more of this, you thought.

———

two or so weeks had passed. spring was becoming ever so present in the way the leaves started to adorn the trees in vibrant greens, the air now humid and warm. rain pattered on the large, foggy cafe window next to you as your face knitted in concentration at your laptop screen, your friend across from you not ceasing her rambling.

“are you alright?” she questioned mid sentence, taking another sip of her coffee. you sighed, back thumping against the chair as you slumped into it. “yeah, i’m just.. stressed. the bands tour manager emailed me again, i’ve got less than a week to decide if i want to take the offer.” you stared at the email in your inbox, as if staring at it for long enough would help you make a decision.

“well… let’s look at the pros and cons.” she started. “pros, it pays a lot more than your current job and you would have the

opportunity to travel more.”

you crossed your arms. “con, i would see my ex everyday.”

“pros, your ex is the one who recommended you for the job, which has to mean something.”

“cons, it was probably some grand misunderstanding, and it would be insanely awkward seeing him almost everyday.” your friend looked even more annoyed.

“but the money.”

you slumped your head down onto the table.

there were plenty of reasons in your over anxious mind you shouldn’t take the job, but all of them somehow tied back to alex, which you thought was stupid. i mean, why not accept a job that’s ultimately much more suitable for you, and offers more money? besides, the mystery of the boys recommendation lingered, you were aching to see what unfolded upon the acceptance of the offer.

redirecting your attention to your laptop, you clicked ‘new email’, flashing a grin at your friend.

———

it was now a month later, spring was in full bloom and it was the first show of the tour in your hometown. since you took the job, you had only met with the tour manager as well as a few of the other crew members. nick, being one of your good friends, had known you took the job, and was much too ecstatic. knowing he knew, you assumed the rest of the band did too.

even with this in mind, it still felt so stalker-ish knowing you hadn’t spoken a word to alex since the breakup and you were now bound to follow his band around the world on their tour. though you were still mindful of the fact that he had originally put in the request for you to practically follow him around. so, you were in fact, not a stalker.

as this storm of anxiety and reasoning swirled your mind, you wandered backstage, gathering your equipment for the show that took place in an hour or so. the area was desolate, most of the crew was unpacking vans outside and getting things organized for the openers.

as you set down the hefty bag of photography equipment, one of the rather sharp rods sticking out scraped your arm, sending crimson seeping out of a small, but deep wound.

shit. what a fucking stupid way to get hurt.

you held your arm, cheeks flushed as you hissed in pain. “are you alright?” a familiar voice boomed behind you.

you whipped your head around. of course, alex fucking turner. it was almost comedic, like it was out of a movie. of all people, it had to be alex who rounded that corner and saw you hurt. you almost laughed, then you felt like crying, then maybe throwing up.

he looked good, too good standing there in his crisp black t-shirt that hugged his arms ever so deliciously. his hair was all gelled, the sides slicked back with a messy curly quiff laying atop.

you started to get quite flustered, gulping before you spoke. you definitely stared much too long. “no- i um, no.” the boy seemed almost equally flustered, trying to keep his demeanor calm as he neared you. he chuckled. “yeah, doesn’t look like it.”

you were dumbfounded, unsure how to speak. “yikes, looks painful.” you nodded, afraid to speak in worries that you would stutter, or even worse, say something stupid like ‘hey remember when we were lovers and we broke up but now i’m the photographer for your band?’

you took a deep breath, really trying not to think thoughts. the tension was palpable, dodging unspoken words and feelings. alex’s eyes were cautious not to meet with yours. “i’m gonna go get the first aid kit, i saw it earlier.” he flashed you a smile and darted off, leaving you a flustered mess.

one thing led to another and you were now sat down in a fold out chair with alex on his knees in front of you. his brows knitted in concentration as he cradled your arm, gently tending to the wound and wrapping gauze around it. “getting your med degree?” you joked, smiling down at him.

a slight blush creeped upon his cheeks. alex noticed how nervous and giggly you were, finding it a bit adorable as he rolled his eyes, smiling as he shook his head. “nope, i just know my way around a basic first aid kit.” his smile lingered long after, ember eyes flashing up at you in a second, quickly darting back down.

his little comment evoked a similar bittersweet memory. this time, the roles were reversed, you were tending to alex, for one of his guitar strings had snapped and popped out of the bridge pin, leaving a rather deep scratch on his hand. you remembered how he teased you for wrapping his whole hand in gauze, all for a scratch. you’d told him that if he really wanted professional care, he should’ve gone to the hospital. you remembered him shaking his head, telling you he wouldn’t want it any other way.

the flashback left your heart a bit heavy, your hands shaky as alex finished up. the silence was almost bitter, tense. the boy noticed your tremors, subtly sliding his hand down your arm as to brush your fingers with his ever so softly when he pulled away. it was so discrete you could’ve missed it in a blink but sure enough, he’d done it, whether purposefully or not you weren’t sure.

“all done,” he nodded to the bandage. you mustered a grateful smile, fingertips grazing the gauze as so to examine it. once you looked back at alex, his gaze was much darker, more complex, like the sky before a storm. his demeanor shifted, mouth opening and chest rising as to speak but a voice interrupted.

“alex! we need to make sure the earpieces are working, cmon,” a member from the crew called out. he looked back to you, nodding and flashing you a sweet little smile before scrambling off.

you exhaled, noticing how your fingers still tingled from his touch.

———

it was about halfway into the show, all was well. you were having a good time chatting a bit with the other photographers and getting to know more of the crew. the show was electric, the lighting and atmosphere making for the coolest shots. alex even flashed you a little smile when he saw you in front of the stage, making your stomach swirl.

after a quick break, you joined one of your good friends from the crew on the side of the stage with your camera. you clicked a few cool shots of jamie during pretty visitors, loving how the stage lights bathed him in an eerie red.

someone nudged you, catching you a bit off guard. you turned, stomach dropping. it was the girl from the party, the one who’d been all over alex. she only looked at you once she felt your gaze. “sorry,” she shrugged, not a drop of sympathy, or really any emotion at all as she apologized. ‘i bet you are,’ you thought. you didn’t even respond, flashing her a quick smile before you immediately refocused your attention on your camera.

was she his girlfriend? i mean, she was all touchy with him at the party and now she’s backstage at his show? it would be a crazy coincidence for her not to be romantically affiliated with him in any way. this plagued your mood for the rest of the show. you hated the jealousy that coursed through you, it made you feel pathetic. alex wasn’t yours anymore, you kept reminding yourself.

———

two weeks had passed in quite a whirlwind. nothing too eventful had happened, the interactions from your old lover had been sparse. you’d bump into him talking to matt or someone, greet them, and then scurry off. you weren’t getting any answers, any hints from alex. being quite shy yourself, you weren’t confrontational enough to ask him yourself, leaving you longing for any clue from him whatsoever.

what annoyed you even more was his supposed ‘girlfriend.’ catching a mere glimpse of her made you forget what the word feminism even meant. a few nights ago, you’d accidentally bumped into her backstage, being nice and mumbling a genuine apology despite your emotions towards her. the girl glanced at you with the most utterly dissatisfied expression, ignoring you and strutting off, her white heels clacking on the ground. it made your blood boil, clearly she wasn’t much for kindness.

nick didn’t seem to like her much either, says alex’s publicist set them up to ‘promote the album’ or some bullshit. he’d also informed you she was some model from california who co hosted a gossip talk show, which is why she’d be leaving tomorrow, to go back to la. thank god.

now, you and the band resided in london for a week or so, playing three shows throughout that time. nick had invited you to a quaint little jazz bar that wasn’t far from the hotel, apparently the band and a few other friends were going.

different this time- cornelia murr

as you walked in, your senses were immediately delighted. the ever so melodic symphony of jazz filled the cozy atmosphere, warm lamps casting soft, dim light throughout the space. it was adorable, a perfect contrast to the foggy downpour. you eventually caught eye of the boys, eyes shimmering in the light as you walked over to greet them.

everyone looked pleased to see you, even alex, you noticed. his dark gaze lingered, melting over you like honey. he sat on the end of the circle booth, leaving the only free spot next to him. a bit flustered, you slid in right beside the boy, thighs brushing ever so slightly. he looked absolutely to die for, clad in a black turtleneck, his quiff so perfectly messy. he smelled divine too, like musk with notes of amber and wood.

you felt so warm sitting next to him, butterflies swirling your stomach. as the night went on, they didn’t cease. a soft ‘accidental’ brush of the hand, a lingering touch on the waist when he moved to get past you at the bar, it wasn’t enough. you wanted his hands in your hair, his warm body pressed against yours, yet you weren’t willing to admit that to yourself. so when he smiled at you and whispered, “you look nice,” you could no longer ignore the immense need you had for him, the way his ember eyes were all soft, strands of hair falling over his forehead. still, you remained composed, thanking him and redirecting your attention to your drink.

a mixture of emotions muddled your mind. you were lovesick, all over again. just like the first time you’d met him, his hair all short and face all flustered when he tried to flirt with you at that party years ago. now, you gripped your martini glass, looking back at him with the same gaze, that same eager, loving gaze he once adored you with. that same gaze he held when you gave him his number, the way he smiled at you while he added your contact into his phone almost immediately. he was so sweet that night, so eager to get to know you and it made you feel so warm inside, so appreciated. your heart sank, tears threatening to gloss your eyes.

you could barely handle the way your heart tugged, the warmth of the bar suddenly becoming stuffy and claustrophobic. you pressed your tongue against the inside of your cheek, fiddling with the napkin before you. you thought about how devastated you would be if just a year ago you knew the situation you were in with alex now. the glimmer of hope that resided in your eager heart now dulled. you were starting to believe this would go nowhere. god, you couldn’t believe how foolish you were.

noticing a tear drop onto the napkin directly below you, you quickly excused yourself, sniffling and mumbling something about needing some fresh air. once outside, you slumped against the bricks and let the tears trickle down your face in steady streams. the weather fit your mood, london fog settling over the tops of buildings, light, crisp rain falling in tandem with your tears.

you sighed, almost laughing at how absurd it all was. you felt so stupid, thinking he truly wanted you back, thinking he was calling you back to him. no, surely dreams and hopes plagued your mind, sickening your poor heart with optimism.

you wiped your tears, noticing how mascara stained your fingertips in streaks and flakes of ivory black. the door to the bar suddenly swung open, startling you a bit. alex peeked out, worrisome eyes gazing back at your teary ones. he made his way over to you, hands stuffed in his pockets. “i just wanted to see if you were okay,” he stated, voice soft as he studied your face.

talk by hozier

you weren’t quite sure how to respond, the tears a dead giveaway to your emotions. you just shrugged. his eyes looked dark, complex. if you could see beyond them you might see a ship struggling amidst a stormy sea, thunder booming down across the choppy cerulean waves. if he was the ship in the storm, you were standing at the shore, waiting for a note in a glass bottle, something, anything.

“i guess i just confused myself,” you uttered, voice wavering. alex looked hurt, as if the words spoken were a hit toward him, a dagger shoved in his heart. “how so?” he questioned.

“it’s stupid.”

“please, you can tell me.”

you shook your head. “i guess-“ you looked down, studying the old cobblestones you stood upon. “i think i just got too hopeful.” you felt sick to your stomach, gulping to put your shaky voice at ease.

he stepped towards you, whispering your name. “look at me, please.” you did so, his eyes twinkling back at yours, strands of damp hair sticking to his forehead. “i’m confused too.” you furrowed your eyebrows. he continued. “i’m confused to why i just lost the love of my life.” his face was now mere inches away from yours. he spoke like he was almost mad, voice laced with emotion, barely above a whisper.

your heart hammered in your ears, the tumultuous swirl of thoughts being ignored momentarily, focusing on nothing but his voice, his eyes, the way his hand now lightly held your chin. “i’m confused to why she’s been in front of me all this time and i haven’t fucking done a thing. i’m confused to why i’m looking at her crying before me right now, how i let this happen.”

your breath hitched. he continued to speak. “i’m confused to why i haven’t told her i still love her, that i never once stopped.” he laced his fingertips in your hair, warm hand cradling your face. you were at a loss for words, no ability to string words together in a sentence that could possibly begin to convey how you felt.

so instead, you pressed your lips to his.

———

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH FOR READING!! this is the last part, but i’ll probably write a little epilogue type thingy. hope you enjoyed my loves, sleep tight.

taglist (let me know if you want to be added/removed)- @ultragirrl @inmyownfantasywrld @almluv @raven-ql @ohladymoon @yourstartreatment @missbabyjay @andulina567 @blair-s-world @rentsturner @indierockgirrl @kittyrob0t @kennedy-brooke

[horseshoegirl]

Set Me Alight - Part 5: I Can't Go On Without You

📜.... I'm sorry... it's getting angsty in here... you guys aren't going to like someone after this...

❗️+18, Minors DNI, Strong Language, Enemies to Lovers, Original Female Character (s), Short OFC, Bradley Bradshaw x Natasha Trace, Verbal fights, bullying, camping, and pranks.

#4.8 k words

Part 4 | Masterlist | Part 6

Remember that tiny feeling of guilt building in the pit of your stomach? For doing something as simple as switching sugar for salt for Jake's coffee? 

Yeah. It got worse. 

Worse, as in it was eating your stomach alive. Worse, as in, your heart was leaping out of your chest. Worse, as in you wondered what the rest of the group thought about you or if they had caught on, such as Nat and Cora had done.

All because that asshole stayed silent the entire time you were leading the group to the waterfall.

It's not as if he didn't try to approach you - He did, or at least tried to. Every time you saw him coming, you'd either take Nat or Cora by the arm to start a conversation. Or you'd engage Bob in a talk about what artifact or item he was currently working on at the museum. The man loved to talk about his work, and you were all too happy to indulge him, regardless of whether it got you out of a confrontation with Seresin.

I guess you could say it was your guilt that wanted to keep you away from him.

But with the lack of heckling or hollering you've come to suspect from him, you honestly thought he'd at least try to keep up that facade. Hassle you over the map or something to do with the compass. Maybe even cause a fight when it came time to switch to a new trail marker.

You did it to him. You could only assume he'd do it to you. Even with his view at the back of the pack, the same spot you had taken to the past two days, he didn't. He only spoke when he was spoken to.

It was making everything that much worse.

As the group rounded the final bend on the trail, all of you could hear the sound of rushing water. Everyone perked up, seemingly finding a new energy and pace, eager now more than ever to finally see one of the sights that made this place so popular.

The moment the falls came into view, a collective gasp swept through the group.

Despite the clouds above, heavy with the promise of rain, the two twin waterfalls were breathtaking, one higher up than the other lower, both situated on their own angles. The water itself shimmered, cascading down the rocky cliffside into the pool below into a thousand shades of blue, and the sound was enough to mute the conversations of the other hikers. The surrounding forest was lush and green, making it a scene of pure, unspoiled wilderness.

You wanted to paint this place. The way the water fell over the rocks and how the two falls shone the light—the green in the trees - even the dirt and mud—the fact you couldn't hurt more than you could fathom.

You flexed your hand, the bandage tightening around your wrist. 

If you couldn't experience why you wanted to be here, you'd at least try to find joy in how happy your friends were to be here instead.

Dropping your bags down against a nearby tree after everyone else did the same, like a silent observer, you hung back on the outskirts of the group, trying to find some semblance of joy as everyone had their moment.

Cora, Grace and Nat laughed as they shed their clothing and jumped into the water. Mickey followed soon after, canon balling close enough to the girls so they might get splashed. Bob was trying to spot the fish and the rocks, hoping to find a mineral or two. Bradley merely stood still, watching Nat with loving eyes, and Rueben and Javy took the chance to sit and stretch their legs.

But Jessica and Veronica, in particular, stood out the most. With their faces full of makeup, seemingly more prepared for a photoshoot than a peaceful day at a waterfall. They spent that entire last break applying layer after layer, pluckering their lips with lip gloss into the screens of their phones. They were posed and preened by the water's edge, a view that had a complementary angle to both falls in the background.

Only you would notice the stark contrast between their carefully curated appearances and the natural beauty that surrounded them.

It's not worth something unless someone can get a photo out of it, right?

As you wandered away from your spot, you caught snippets of a video the two were filming. They spoke loud enough to cover the roar of the water, but it also appeared as if the two were trying to rally the attention of the other hikers and campers - as if, by some miracle, whatever they were doing or clearly saying would gather some attention.

They didn't mention names, not that you heard yet, but with the explicit references to 'someone's antics and attitude' at a campsite, you knew it only had to be you. 

"I mean, it's just so petty, right? But I'm the bigger person, and I wouldn't stoop to that level. Moving on and forgetting is better, right?" Jessica explained to her phone.

You rolled your eyes. They thrived on drama and the need for attention. And no matter what story they chose to share, they could have taken shit, disguised it as pecan pie, and people they had ever met before in person would still eat it and call it great. 

 While it hurt on some level, you didn't value their opinion. Never had or will. It's what made you so carefree in levelling their attacks with remarks of your own. 

The sun would still set, and you would still go on about your life long after this trip, without either of them ever having touched one influence of your life, should you have any real control over the matter.

No matter what, people like Jessica and Veronica would always find something to criticize or mock.

And standing here, in a beautiful park, they were on their phones, too wrapped up in their superficial social media world, informing people on the internet about every facet of their lives to experience what life had to offer.

There's more to life than the two-faced nature that is the internet.

Having felt dumb for even watching them, your gaze finally landed on Jake. He was kneeling, staring down at his own reflection in the water, lost to the rest of the world around him.

Why did he try to approach you? Why did he stay quiet? Why did he defend you against Jessica's words? Could you go as far as to say it was guilt-shadowing his usual cocky confidence?

In your mind, Jake was still the quintessential jock, the privileged rich kid with an air of frat-boy arrogance, someone who found amusement in driving you up the wall. 

He didn't deserve your sympathy, nor did he deserve to feel guilty—if indeed he did—because, in your eyes, he had always been the one taking pleasure in causing pain, not the other way around. If guilt was indeed the cause of his actions, a part of you fiercely rejected the idea that he deserved to feel that way. Despite everything, you couldn't reconcile the boy who had once hurt you with the man reflecting on his reflection, showing hints of vulnerability.

Shoving your hand into your pocket, you let out a hiss when something sharp poked your skin. You pulled the object out, looking down into the palm of your hand to see the stowaway fish hook from Jake's bag.

Grace let out a scream as Mickey splashed some water in her direction and Cora's faces. You lifted your head at the sound. You watched them for a few seconds as your hand closed over the piece of metal. That was until your eyes drifted to rather large clumps of algae floating nearby.

Toying with the hook, a horrible, terrible idea began to take shape.

The urge to draw Jake out of his silence, to elicit some sort of reaction from him, became almost irresistible. You wanted to draw him out. You wanted to break through this silence. It wasn't like Jake to be this quiet, and honestly, it irked you more than his usual antics ever could.

He didn't deserve to feel guilty. Not when he didn't back then. 

You just hoped the asshole was afraid of snakes.

The task was slightly more challenging with your bandaged wrist, but you were determined. You scouted the area carefully and soon found what you needed – a flexible, skinny-looking stick. Making sure nobody was looking, you dipped one end into the water, collecting the green stuff before pulling it out, trying to resist the urge to gag.  After racing over to where you had left your bags, you dug through them to find the other object you had taken from Jake's fishing supplies that morning.  

After making sure the close was clear, and with one hand doing most of the work and the other providing clumsy support, you crafted your gathered materials into a makeshift but realistic-looking snake.

The trick was to make it move believably. You hastily attached one end of the fishing wire to the stick, creating a simple rig that would allow the faux snake to slither when tugged. The other end of the wire, now knotted to the fishing hook, was kept ready to be discreetly hooked onto your unsuspecting victim.

By the time you stood up and returned to your observation point, your prank hidden at your side, Veronica and Jessica had roped Jake into taking a group photo. Nat had been called into the fray, now out of the water and dressed, and then suddenly, she was shouting for you, Cora and Grace to join them.

With a casual smile, you approached the group, keenly aware of Jessica's subtle maneuvering with the camera, likely intending to edge you out of the frame. You didn't mind one bit, purposely settling next to Jake. It made for what you were about to do that much easier.

While pretending to adjust your position for the photo, you discreetly reached out with the wire and hook. It caught on to the edge of his sweater, and you let go, your grin widening as the girls counted down.

 Or, so you thought.

Once the photo had been taken and everyone had been satisfied with the result, Veronica stepped forward.

Then, she screamed.

You could only watch as she bolted forward, the fake snake you had rigged for Jake chasing her with each stride. In her panic, she didn't see the edge of the bank leading to the water, and she tumbled in with a loud, heavy splash.

The group erupted in a mix of shocked gasps and then laughter as Veronica finally emerged, wretched head to toe and makeup running down her face.  Even the rest of the tourists couldn't help but laugh, a few wondering a lot loud what happened. 

You watched, horrified she'd catch on to what you did, but you sighed in relief when Javy helped her from the water. The wire had come loose in the fall, effectively freeing you from the immediate blame that was surely meant to follow.

As everyone tried to convince her there wasn't a snake, you shot Cora a glance. Of course, she was already watching you with suspicious eyes, and of course, she had seen what you did, knowing just who exactly that prank was meant for. You could only give her a sheepish shrug, somehow acknowledging the unintended target of your prank.

But were you sorry for how that turned out?

Nope, absolutely not. Not one bit.

Basking in the relief of not being caught, you are blissfully unaware of Nat and her hardening expression, solely directed at you. Her eyes are narrowing with each breath, and her displeasure is evident to any on-looker brave enough to see.

She stepped forward, ready to call you out on your bullshit promise of not trying to pull anything else, when Jake suddenly looped his arm through hers, pulling her away and over to Rueben. 

It is then Bradley suddenly jumps and grabs you by the arm.

Using Veronica and the commotion as a distraction signals Jake and Rueben, who give him a hidden thumbs up in return. When you ask him what's wrong, Bradley only sushs you and pulls you away to a path nearby.

You let him guide you, following it down and then up a slight hill, one that stops at a mid-over look of both of the falls. It's surrounded by lush greenery and trees, and even on an edge, you couldn't see the rest of the tourists below.

It's perfect for what you suspect Bradley is about to do. After all, you and Nat were the ones who purposely picked this spot for him to take a hint and pop the question. And your thought is only confirmed when he lets go of your arm to reach into his pocket and pull out that tiny blue box.

"I'm going to do it," he blurts out, running his hand through his hair. "Right now. Jake and Reuben are leading her here."

You can't help but feel utter joy, smiling so wide your cheeks start to hurt. "Bradley, she's going to be so happy!"

Bradley, however, looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack. "I just... I need this to go right, Midge. I can't mess this up," he stammered, his hand trembling slightly as he lowered it down to his side. His eyes shot up to the path, and you could hear Nat's voice laughing at something as she unknowingly approached the two of you.

You took his hand into yours, letting it curve over his grip on the box, offering a reassuring squeeze. "Bradley, you've got this. Just remember to breathe, okay? Nat loves you, and this will be perfect because it's coming from you. Nothing else matters. Not the place, not everyone else. Just the two of you."

He forced himself to take a deep breath, closing his eyes and letting his shoulders sag. When he finally seemed to regain his composure, he offered you a nod. "You're right... I just need to keep it together."

Letting go of his hand, you gave him a gentle pat on the back of his shoulder. "Go get her, you big chicken."

He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, motioning for you to hide. You squealed in delight, running to take cover in a thick, overgrown bush. Natasha emerged from the path, Ruben and Jake trailing close behind and you crouched down in the overly dense bush and hidden from plain sight.

Reaching into your pants to grab your phone, you turned it on. You had been saving your remaining battery life for this, both you and Bradley knowing Nat would want pictures to remember the day, hence why he came and got you.

Once it was booted up, you unlocked it, peering over the bush as Bradley greeted Nat with a hesitant smile. Jake and Rueben side their arms out from where they had been looped against hers and sent her on her way. 

She went willingly, a soft and warm smile on her face as she pressed herself deep into Bradley's chest. As much as he tried to calm himself down, and as much as your words had somewhat helped, nothing could have helped him more than a hug from the person he loved the most. You could see the second the stress, the tension, and the worry seemed to evaporate from his body. He fell into her, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead.

Sliding forward, you held your phone between a gap in the brush. Watching them through the screen, you attempted to use your bad hand to try and zoom in for the right angle, the right depth of the two of them with the waterfalls in the back.

As they shared a soft laugh about something, you felt a surge of affection for the two of them. It was obvious there was no better couple and nobody else in the world better suited for either of them than each other.

All you've ever wanted was to see Nat happy, and in Bradley, she's found that happiness. It's a comforting, reassuring thought that brings a sense of peace to your heart amidst all the utter disaster that was this fucking trip.

"I know it was you who swapped my sugar this morning."

God, Fucking Damnit, Jake!

Titling your head back, there he was in all his fucking glory, standing above you with his hands on his hips like some middle-aged, snarky woman being cut out of line in a grocery store.

You want to scream. Nat and Bradley would merely have to twist back to see him standing there, in plain sight, in the middle of the forest, glaring down at you from behind the bush.

He was either denser than a fucking brick wall or simply decided, in a stroke of questionable judgment, this was the perfect moment to confront you over a petty prank.

"Get the fuck down, you idiot!" you whispered harshly. "They are going to see you!"

Swapping your phone into your injured hand and biting down on your lip as your wrist aches, you find a solid grip on his shirt, yanking him down toward the ground. Jake falls with a severe lack of grace, and you grimace, wondering if Nat or Bradley heard him.

You check through the gap, sighing in relief when you see they are standing with their backs towards the two of you, off admiring the waterfall. But with the relief came the turmoil, and the reality of your current predicament is blatantly obvious.

Jake is kneeling next to you in the dirt, the both of you behind a very small bush, while your best friends are getting engaged just on the other side. He's so close you can feel him breathing down your neck, and his eyes are pinning you down with his stare. Every visible piece of your skin is simply burning from his presence alone.

And the fact you can't leave. Neither can he. Not until Bradley has gotten down on one knee and Nat has answered that famous question with nothing but a joyful, happy yes.

"You've been avoiding me all day."

You could only roll your eyes and snort. "You don't say? I can only wonder why."

As you're unlocking your phone again and placing your phone back inside the bush, Jake leans forward to mummer in your ear. "I know that 'snake' on the fishing wire trick was supposed to be for me, too. You did a shit job of covering up your robbery heist."

Out of the corner of your eye, you can see Jake trace his fingers over the palm of his other hand. Had you looked, you would have seen faint, red scratch marks marring his skin. 

You can't help but snicker at the memory of Veronica falling into the water and of her climbing out, looking like a drenched raccoon. "Can't say I'm disappointed it didn't happen to you."

News flash - You're not.

"Good to know I'm not the only one on your hit list."

"You are the list, asshole," you grumble under your breath.

Thinking he'd have some common sense and leave it at that, you lean forward, observing through your screen as Bradley discreetly reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and pulls out the box.

It's a stupidly optimistic thought.

"Can you just talk to me for once in your life?"

He never learns when to shut his trap, does he?

"Can you just shut up for two seconds?" you snap, not taking your eyes off your phone. "Bradley's purposing!"

"I'm sorry, Midge, Okay? I'm sorry for the bear trick. It wasn't supposed to go like that. I'm sorry you hurt your wrist. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

You shake your head. "Jake! Shut the fuck up!"

He frowned. "Why won't you let me apologize?!"

"Turn your fucking head and look Jackass." You gesture with your bandaged hand. "This isn't the time!"

He shifts in the dirt, drawing closer to you. "When is the time? Cause you've been running from me since we set out this morning. Actually, the entire trip so far."

"We're hiding in a bush, watching our two best friends get engaged. Of course, it's not the right fucking time!" you rush out in a single whispered breath.

"They are over there and can't hear us... I just need you to hear me out, Midge. I didn't mean for any of this to—"

"Seriously, Jake?" you hiss, finally taking your eyes off your phone as your patience wears thin. "Now is not the time."

But Jake is too caught up in his own need to clear the air to stop. And his voice grows louder despite the need for the utmost discretion.

"I just want to fix this, Midge! I hate that we're like this. I've always hated this! This thing we have going on, and I have no idea why!"

You couldn't help it when your voice suddenly boomed out, "You don't know why? Really? Let's start with that fucking mouth of yours!"

"Seriously?! You two couldn't can it for one fucking minute for this?!"

You slammed your eyes shut, wincing hard.

Fuck.

Nat's voice cut sharply through the air, her words laced with anger. "Get the fucking hell out here, the two of you! Now!"

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

Reluctantly, Jake and you unfolded from your crouched positions. Your movements were hesitant as you both stepped out from the relative safety of the bush to face the weight of Nat's furious gaze.

Standing tall and with her shoulders squared, Nat was the epitome of fury. Her eyes could have melted steel, and each breath she took was measured, controlled, and laced with the increasing difficulty of maintaining her composure. She had yet to speak another word, but you knew.

She was barely holding it together, holding off the inevitable bomb that had been building up since she pulled you aside this morning.

But the worst thing you could have seen in this very moment? Bradley, still frozen mid-kneel, the expression on his face equal parts a mix of shock and heartbreak. And in his hand, grasped between two fingers, is Nat's ring - the one you helped to pick out.

You half expected him to shoot you a hateful glare, but he was only staring at Jake, coming to a stand and placing Nat's ring safely back within its box.

"What's so fucking wrong with the two of you?!"

You drew in a sharp, shaky breath. Nat continued to yell, first setting her wrath onto Jake as he let out an awkward cough.

"Jake, don't think you're innocent in all this!" she snapped. "Always egging her on, playing these stupid games. It's like you're both in some twisted competition to see who can be the most infuriating."

Her eyes bore into him, Jake obviously scared of her. She took a step forward and pointed to the ground. Bradley swung his arm out in front of her in fear she was on the verge of violence.

You were grateful. Nat would be capable of murder at this point.

"You could've been the bigger person, walked away, but no, you just had to keep it going. It's like you enjoy this drama. Well, congratulations, it's ruined a moment that was supposed to be about Bradley and me, not your petty feud!"

Jake ducked his head like a child getting scolded by a parent, his Adam's apple bobbing with his harsh swallow.

"And you!" she spun, now pointing her finger at you. You reeled back, scared at her snarl and the sheer rage she was projecting onto you, something you've never been on the receiving end of since you met her.

"I don't know what stick he's metaphorically shoved up your ass, Midge," she mocks your nickname in a deliberate tone, "but you need to get the fuck over it. How long has it been?!"

Your heart snaps. You are pretty sure it's been shattered, too.

"It's like one day you just woke up and decided he wasn't worthy of your attention! That he was too good for you!" Nat spins in frustration, running her fingers through the roots of her hair before she's back to unleashing her wrath onto you.

"Do you know we can't have proper get-togethers without the two of you causing some sort of scene?" she shrieks. "Here we were thinking that maybe, just maybe, forcing the two of you together for once in your life would get you to be fucking nice to him? Maybe they can communicate and figure their shit out. Maybe she won't run away every single time she fucking sees him."

"Nat..." Bradley tries to reason, turning to face her and trying to place his hand on her hip. She slaps his hand away, too far gone to care.

You know what, I was wrong! I was fucking wrong!” She threw her hands up in the air, letting them slap hard against her thighs as she let them fall. “You just can get your head out of your ass to realize this isn’t about you and your feelings and some selfish vendetta. It’s downright selfish, Midge!”

This is the reason why you've never told Nat - told any of them. Because what Jake said that faithful night is smacking you back in the face. Not that they didn't ever ask about it - they did - but because nobody would truly understand it.

They'd tell you it wasn't true. To not judge him for something he said in his youth. To grow up. To get over it. To give him a second chance or deep down, he secretly had a crush on you - as fucking if.

Or worse... Someone would confirm it.

Nat is confirming it. And for the four years you've been fighting against Jake, against the words he uttered to that girl in the bathroom of your college apartment, they meant nothing in this very moment.

The idea, Jake, was right after all struck like a blow to your chest, the weight, the force, sucking all the air from your lungs and replacing it with a heavy, undeniable truth.

"Having the both of you on this trip was a mistake," she mumbled angrily under her breath, shaking her head. With a swift, frustrated turn, she stormed off, each step pounding hard on the dirt trail.

You could no longer fight it. Tears overwhelmed the corners of your eyes, and you let them fall after years of running, finally allowing Jake the privilege of seeing the damage he caused and the death glare he damn well deserved.

"None of this," you seethed, pointing to Nat's retreating form, "would have happened had you not shut up the first time I told you to, Seresin."

Jake was visibly stunned, the shock in his eyes clear. "You can't honestly believe I wanted this to happen?!"

"You'd be pleased anyway it went regardless," You seeth. It's nothing but pure venom spilling from your lips, and Jake even finds himself taking a step back at the pure anger you're aiming toward him, only matched by Nat's previous rage.

You retreated towards a nearby tree, wiping the tears from your eyes as you laid your forehead against the bark, taking long, deep breaths. With sad eyes, Jake watched you go until there was shuffling in the dirt, and he spun, intercepting Bradley with an outstretched arm.

"Bradley... I didn't..."

"Just save it, man," Bradley replied dejectedly, slapping his arm out of the way as he dodged past. "There's nothing you could say that would make this better than what it already is."

He took off after Nat, his hand tightly clasped around the tiny blue box, and Jake couldn't do anything but grow roots into the ground, wondering how things went so incredibly wrong so incredibly fast.

Bradley had been coaching him on how to approach you. He thought last night, before those two showed up, there had been some progress. But now, standing amidst the aftermath of a failed proposal, Jake felt more lost than ever.

He knew he shouldn't have approached you while Bradley was down on one knee. The guilt he felt, even knowing how nervous he was about fucking it up, was incomparable. But you... you rebuffed him. Every single time he tried to approach you, you played the same damn game, and he felt like he was left without any other choice.

He just wanted to apologize to you before things got worse. Worse than you falling and hurting yourself because he couldn't man up and ask Jessica and Veronica to leave him alone.

There you were, crouching behind that bush, and he had the overwhelming urge to ask. And to say sorry that you had been hurt when he never intended for that in the first place. He just wanted to know why. Why did you so desperately hate him? Why, with every word, do you find fault with everything he did or would do?

But when Jake turned around to ask, you were already long gone, and he was left with nothing but the remnants of a failed proposal, Natasha's disappointment in the two of you, and the lasting impact of your anger.

Long may he rejoice in his ever-lasting ability to fuck things up further, especially when it came to you.  

So... who do we hate? Let me know 😅 (Not the writer, please not the writer)

Taglist:

@desert-fern @startrekfangirl2233 @sarahsmi13s @kmc1989 @fanficfandomlove @hookslove1592 @dakotakazansky

@teacupsandtopgun @lynnevanss @dizzybee03 @keyrani

@shanimallina87 @wildxwidow @dempy @stargazer-88 @alldaysdreamer @the-dark-and-mystery @bookchik15

@atarmychick007 @tinytotontheoversizedpony @buckysteveloki-me @wretchedmo

@redbarn1995 @a-court-of-roscoe-and-baby @yuckosworld @wren5650 @mrsevans90 @bellaireland1981 @tgmreader

@halibshepherd @essie1876 @formulafun @memoriesat30

Part 6 - Running up that hill - In progress

[amuseoffyre]

Was thinking about accents in OFMD today and how it works out well that Stede doesn't have the English accent he was originally meant to have. The original actors they were looking at for him were all English, if I recall right but the fact Rhys is from Aotearoa New Zealand actually adds another layer into Stede's social position/class within the story.

His father has an English accent and his father clearly was the one who made them the money (and is very bitter about the fact it'll just pass directly to his flower-loving soft son), which would make Stede a first-gen of the family to be born in Barbados. Since thousands of families flocked to the British colonies to make their fortune, it tracks that Stede's dad did exactly that.

Thing is that Stede's family may have a fortune, but in terms of class and position, that's all they have. Mary's mother says "he's not a derelict, he has money" and his father fully admits "she has acreage". He's buying Mary for her land and they both know it, because if you have land, you can gentrify yourself and move up that slippery ladder.

Sending Stede to get an education at an upper-class boarding school is another bit of Stede's dad's attempt to socially climb, but from the way the Badmintons treat him at school and in adulthood, he was never going to fit. He was the butt of the jokes, the jolly-jump-up who was never going to be good enough since his father was in trade, not to mention Stede's personality was at odds with everything that was expected and demanded of him.

With all that in mind, him having an accent that very clearly identifies him as not just gentry but gentry from one of the colonies? He would slide even further down the social pecking order. Accents are such a big thing in the British class system and it would be an immediate marker of him being Othered again.

brb, going to go and gnaw some more on class divides and social structures and how Mary is higher-ranking than Stede but had to defer to him as her husband \o/

[possessedpasm]

i just found your account and i'm so so so so so in love with your ocs and your artstyle and it's all just so AMAZING!!!! leave some swag for the rest of us fr!!

i've seen some of your traditional stuff and wanted to ask what pens/pencils you use to sketch?? and have you ever tried coloring/making finished illustrations traditionally?

i'm a traditional artist (i just fill sketchbooks and never make anything finished) and everytime i see tutorials for comicbook/misprint/vintage-y art it's always digital (probably because of the aging and editing possibilities). so I'm curious if you've ever tried it (or if it's even possible lol)

thank you so much for sharing your art with us!!

Oh thank you so much!! 😭

I do make lots of traditional art, and I looove working with ink. I gravitate towards Pilot fine points and Speedball for making comics, but really just experimenting with different ones on different media is the best :]

And it is totally possible to make hand-drawn misprints! Once you got your linework, get yourself some alcohol markers (preferably in cmyk colors) and lay them down individually in layers, staggering each color to one side/outside the lines a little! Also tracing over your lines with a different color pen gives you a chromatic aberration appearance, too!

Also, even if you do a little ink wash/water color over your work, it can really make it pop! You can even add "stains" to the art that way...

Also, lastly, solid blocks of color and linework over it reflecta the UPA style, which is SUPER fun to do with paint and pens!

So there's tons of ways to get your traditional art to look vintage :D I'm glad you asked, thank you!

[moralesmilesanhour]

I saw your requests were open! I've seen in some concept art that Miles is trying out watercolor, can you (when you have the time and if you want to, ofc) please write a reader (Gn or fem) who is really good at watercolor and is a artist and teaches him? Either romantic or platonic work :D thank you, I love your work so much!!!

omg wait I used to do watercolor I still have the paints at home...hold my beer (I went with platonic)

Miles sucked his teeth as the pinks, blues, and green he had just put down ran together and formed a puddle in the middle of the paper.

No matter how many YouTube videos he sped through, he couldn't seem to grasp how the disembodied hand on his screen could lay down all that color (without the paper shriveling up like a raisin) and manage to sculpt it into something...comprehensible.

Just then, he remembered the scanned painting you had sent him the other day. It was a vibrant forest, dotted with bright neon flowers and birds dozing off in high branches. He couldn't for the life of him figure out how you managed to capture beams of sunlight in your heavy sketchbook and needed to learn your secrets, so he'd borrowed some leftover paints.

Miles had already mastered sketching, and knew his way around a box of markers. He could even command a messy can of spray paint. What's a bit of watery paint?

...A lot, it turns out. At any rate, he knew just who to call.

After a few beeps, your face appeared onscreen.

You were still in bed, surrounded by an army of stuffed animals with a sleeping mask pushed up to your forehead. Miles made a 'tsk' sound. It was two o'clock in the afternoon.

"Rise and shine, bestie!" he announced loudly into his phone speaker.

"What do you want?" you grumbled, rubbing your eyes.

"This watercolor shit is blowing my mind right now, and I need your expertise. Look!"

Miles flipped the camera to show you the blob of what was now a bright indigo pooled in the middle of his would-be masterpiece.

You squinted. "Jesus. Is that in your regular sketchbook, where you do the markers and shit?"

"Yup."

"Well, there's your first problem. You're using the wrong kinda paper."

"So that's why no one in those videos fucks it up? Noted,"

He reversed the camera again.

"What about the colors? Mine keep running together when I don't want 'em to."

This made you laugh, imagining Miles slapping a ton of different colors on top of a sketch like a child learning to paint in kindergarten for the first time, thinking that he knew what he was doing. He was never the patient type, preferring fast and loose marks with sharp edges. No piece of his was ever allowed an "ugly stage"; it either worked immediately or it would end up crumpled into a ball in the trash.

Oh boy, was he was gonna learn today.

You could see Miles pouting through the camera.

"What's so funny?"

"Miles," you snorted, "did you let the first layer dry before adding more colors?"

His eyes widened in realization, triggering more peals of laughter.

"I just wet the whole page, then started coloring! How was I supposed to know?"

"It's water, dumbass! It's not like your lil' Copic markers--"

"Prismacolor--"

"Whatever. Anyways, gimme fifteen minutes, I'm coming over to save you before you flood your entire room."

[zahri-melitor]

I read two more issues, to get past the Robins fight, and...still so conflicted.

I can see exactly how, if Damian is your ultimate blorbo and you read for Damian, this story is doing exactly what you want it to do and reflecting back beloved stories.

Issue 5 is explicitly set up as a parallel to War of the Robins from Batman and Robin 2011, and even ends with Damian getting an 'I love you and here have a trophy' speech from Dick, to tie Damian back to Alfred and Dick and the layers of care in the family.

It acknowledges Damian's menagerie and comments that the last thing Damian did before leaving was check in on them. It has Goliath show up and save Damian's life.

It has intense Robin: Son of Batman vibes and the whole repeat of the 'finding yourself on an isolated tropical island and redeeming yourself'.

(I expect the whole Respawn thing to play out with very much the exact themes of how R:SOB dealt with Damian's clones once Damian clues in)

But I keep waiting for payoffs that just aren't happening.

Rose slopes off to call for help for Damian, and then Dick, Jason, Tim and Steph turn up and I'm like "oh! Rose went and called Dick, because she's looking out for Damian on the island in the same way that Dick looked out for Rose while he was training her as Ravager and in a bad place where she was hanging on every one of Slade's words and determined she needed to prove herself as worthy of her father...oh. She called Jason".

And look, I know that there's an underlying push for decades now that Jason and Rose do have a bunch of things in common and would work well together (and also hinting at whether or not they're romantically involved), but a lot of that is inferred off panel stuff while Dick was literally Rose's teacher. If you want themes of 'you don't have to be what your family expect of you' why on earth wouldn't you openly reference that?!?

In terms of who is on this island and is one of Dick's rogue's gallery:

Raptor

Double Dare (both Margot and Aliki)

Lady Vic

Brutale

Nite-Wing (seriously why is Tad here)

Blue Shrike is apparently Shrike's brother???

Is this going to get acknowledged? That a solid chunk of Dick's enemies are here and fighting Damian? That's like half the competition!

Also while I was looking all of this up apparently the Richard Dragon they're talking about is the son of actual Richard Dragon, who apparently got killed in a flashback or something in Green Arrow #32 during n52 and who apparently in that universe worked for the League of Assassins (oh god I am now tearing my hair out, RICHARD IS NOT LINKED TO THE LEAGUE. HE WAS TRAINED BY THE O-SENSEI. STOP DOING THIS TO ALL THE MARTIAL ARTISTS). Huh. Bet that doesn't stick. Richard's too important thematically any time someone wants to write a Question book to be left randomly dead.

And then there's the whole situation that there is a Tengu on this island. I just went down the rabbit hole and this is an import of the Titans villain who is just a Japanese goblin, NOT the Tengu mask that Shiva hands out to people who are trained by her and fighting somewhat under her banner (as seen in Knightsend and in the Circle of Six in Richard Dragon). Which is honestly a waste; if I were going to resurrect a Tengu for this plot, the Shiva and Richard Dragon aligned mask is far more thematic!

And plus, Silver Monkey? Silver Monkey is heavily linked to both Connor's Green Arrow stories, and Shiva (as Paper Monkey), and Deathstroke. It's War of the Dragons and Cult of the Monkey Fist and Brotherhood of the Fist. It's about death and resurrection (as Shiva almost kills Connor and Tim uses his marker with Shiva to save Connor’s life from the time he saved HER life). Is this going to be acknowledged? Because that's where I'd be playing the references by bringing in Silver Monkey.

And look I haven't seen what payoffs we get for Connor yet and there are definitely a bunch of opportunities built in; on top of Silver Monkey you have Constantine Drakon, who's defeated Connor before. Plus there's Artemis Crock, who in DC Comics comics terms isn't linked at all to Connor (she's JSA and Infinity Inc and was in the YJ98 Zandian Olympics team) but obviously has been used for archer purposes in tv and cartoon adaptions.

I keep seeing all these potential stories set up and wondering if there is going to be any pay off on them. I hope so. But also so far the story has slipped around those payoffs unless it's a direct reference to a Damian story.

Also Ra's al Ghul playing the hermit sensei meditating and in touch with the universe on a nearby island is the funniest nonsense possible. Ra's? RA'S? Taking time out to go meditate on the state of the universe? Just so he's conveniently in a place to give Sage Advice to Damian about what personal values he should work on? Pull the other one.

[shadowfreak98]

PART 1 of ART TRADE

I am doing a trade with my buddy @tepidti and I decided to do a little more for him than just a simple exchange of oc x canon digital drawing(s). I decided to make Shrinky Dink keychain charms for him as a little extra bc he is my oldest online buddy, and he deserves a lot of nice things uwu

Disclaimer: Plz do NOT request art trades with me. Trades are exclusive to my friends. If you would like art from me then plz check out my pinned post for commissions. That would be greatly appreciated :')

DETAILS / PROCESS

Sooo, I was there for the conception of Dragonsteel (OC featured above), thus he holds a very special place in my heart. I LOVE how beautifully disastrous MegaSteel is... I cannot get enough... They are just SO CUTE and HILARIOUS.

As for the process, I am gonna make posts about each one I do, that way everyone can see the WIP... this is also so my buddy knows my process without me text dumping on him in our DM LOL

Redesign - I tried not to change too much on him. All I really changed was the positioning of his horns slightly, as well as some details on the helm itself, but other than that, I wanted the silhouette to be roughly the same. Dragon's art is a pretty simplistic style already so he was really easy to adapt into another style.

Color - I leaned closer to a more purple primary on Dragonsteel. I added some blue in and blended it to give it a more cool undertone, as well as to better shade the piece (dunno bout you guys but shrinky dinks are really hard to shade with pencils on qwq). I also opted to make the glass on his chest pink like his optics to balance and diverse the colors a bit more. I think the touch of yellow in the pink optic really help balance the look too. (I actually hadn't noticed the yellow in his ref sheet until I started to REALLY analyze his design and colors. I worked so seamlessly o.o)

Technique! Technique! - So I basically just started on normal printer paper for the sketch, and then transferred it to tracing paper, and lined/traced that onto the Shrinky Dink sheet.

NOTE: You can technically line with permanent marker on the slick/glossy side of the shrinky dink sheet, and it gives you a really NEAT look of 3D when it comes out cleanly, but it's such a risky process bc even the perm. marker wipes off/smears too damn easy. Doing it on that side will likely ruin the design altogether, so I suggest lining on the rough side.

Colored pencils grip to the rough side excellently, but once you start adding layers of color, it proves to be quite challenging because of how smooth the surface gets. It's easy to erase the colored pencil on them though, so mistakes are easily remedied in that regard.