#i don’t sculpt i don’t i’ve used clay since like middle school

[sonic-adventure-3]

augh i’m attempting to sculpt a tails figurine for myself. making a little wire and foil and tape thing is fun but now i gotta add clay to this thing don’t i. scary

[viktorfm]

(MAXENCE DANET-FAUVEL, NONBINARY) - Have you seen VIKTOR SAMUELS? VIKTOR is in HIS/THEIR SENIOR year. The VISUAL ARTS MAJOR is 24 years old & is a CAPRICORN. People say HE/THEY are OBSERVANT, INGENIOUS, RETICENT and DEPENDENT. Rumors say they’re a member of KINCAID. I heard from the gossip blog that THEY'RE HAVING AN AFFAIR WITH THEIR THERAPIST. (JAMES. 21. EST. THEY/THEM.)

dont. look at me. i know. anyways if it wasnt obvs i abandoned cupid (n darrow) in order 2 bring the two ocs tht he ws inspired by n ws a combination of bt. theyre better as different ppl methinks.

DEATH, HEAVY GRIEF, OVERDOSE / DRUG ADDICTION, HOSPITALIZATION, HYPERSEXUALITY, RELIGION MENTIONS TW

aesthetic.

old tvs and their static, worn tapes, horror movie screams, spilled ink, a sculptor’s hands, clay-stained, chicken scratch handwriting, messy notes, messy hair, scoffs and eye-rolls, bruised knuckles, sore throats, funeral homes and a crying preacher, shattered ceramics, knife fights, high ledges, vertically-striped pants, red lights, the moon shrouded in clouds, cigarette butts, graveyards and half-empty wine bottles, sitting there for hours and talking to nothing, about nothing, a god complex, gold rings adorning both hands, barbwire baseball bats, having never played baseball in your life, deep eyebags and broken mirrors, a permanent chip on one’s shoulder, yearning, longing, wishing.

basics.

full name: viktor phillip samuels

nickname(s): icky vicky :/

b.o.d. - january 2nd, 1996

label(s): the black hole, the crepehanger, the impious, the opaque, the tempest, etc.

height: 6′1″

hometown: preaker, vermont

sexuality: pansexual uwu

pinterest

stats

favorite song: disorder, joy division / it’s getting faster, moving faster / now it’s getting out of hand / on the tenth floor, down the back stairs / it’s a no man’s land / lights are flashing, cars are crashing / getting frequent now / i’ve got the spirit, lose the feeling / let it out somehow

background.

born to mama and papa (preacher) samuels in preaker, vermont - fifteen minutes after his twin sister, tatiana samuels. years later, rosa samuels joined the gang.

was an awkward, quiet kid growing up, he didn’t interact well with others and preferred being left alone to dig up worms and draw on the walls of their childhood home. the only exception was his twin, really.

as he got older he grew out of this, but instead became like … sort of an asshole? maybe to compensate for years of childhood awkwardness. he’s the sort of person who will bite the hand that feeds him & developed into a full time nuisance by middle school, unlike tatiana who was much more subtle about her conniving manners.

always has been a fan of ‘darker’ materials. grim & creepy morbid shit. probably the biggest tim burton fan, ever since he was a kid … not a good look for a preacher’s son, but he never really felt ‘in’ with the rest of his family to begin with. classic black sheep syndrome.

drew disturbing pictures as a kid that probably prompted one or two or five phone calls home to assure everything was fine.

just really had a knack for art at a young age, from drawing to painting to playing with clay. it’s always been his thing and probably is the only thing he’s good at.

being twins with tatiana was hard. they were near opposite besides both being quite mean-spirited. tatiana handled being in public better, left a better image behind - but viktor had talent, more than she did. they loved each other deeply - y’know, those unbreakable twin bonds as cliche as it sounds - but found each other as competition for their parents’ attention. a rivalry for affection.

in high school is when viktor really started to act out. it started extreme, like losing his virginity in their church and vandalism around the neighborhoods. faked being possessed in the middle of sunday service & almost had an exorcism performed on him.

his only redeemable trait was like … just his sheer talent in the arts. was in a 3d art ap course and specialized in sculptures. he could pretty much create anything he wanted with enough dedication.

because he was the problem child, the one who deserved to be disciplined for all his antics, tatiana could sneak away and get away with whatever she wanted much easier. on the bright-side, for her, i guess.

not a very motivated person - wasn’t planning on going to college, much less going to yates but his parents literally wrote & sent his college application for him because they weren’t going to house a deadbeat but had too much heart to kick him out onto the streets. cool!

he’s actually pretty smart but he just doesn’t apply himself. has a minor in english because he didn’t care for an extra course-load, but he’s good at writing & analyzing literature. is going to use it to write and illustrate his own series of children books with a style similar to tim burton’s. not for the kids, but because he likes to leave a trail of terror in whatever he does.

has been experimenting with himself since high school but college is where he really had started to crack down on himself. was out as pansexual & nonbinary by his sophomore year of college just … not to his parents, who don’t really need to know.

if you asked him if he believed in twins having a psychic connection with each other - he’d tell you he wouldn’t know. it felt believable at times, but sometimes he had no idea what was going on inside of tatiana’as head. on the other hand - viktor had always felt oddly transparent to her, like she knew all of his moves before he did. the only person who could predict him accurately.

( tw death, grief, overdose / hospitalization beyond this point )

when tatiana disappeared, viktor knew something was up. it was a twist in his gut, pure instinct that something wasn’t right. and it wasn’t right - and when she was proclaimed missing, they couldn’t find her.

and when tatiana died - viktor knew. it felt wrong, something cut so severely in him he could pinpoint her death to the second. he didn’t know how, or why, but he knew it. knew it before anybody else had.

afterwards he went on a sort of bender. he’d begun to struggle with a mild drug addiction late senior year of high school / early college, but he was managing it up until this point.

his mental health had also sunk to an all-time low, when it’d never been great to begin with. (manic & depressive episodes. once fixated on a sculpting project for six months and then knocked it off the table and destroyed it as soon as he finished it for no apparent reason.)

tatiana’s body wasn’t found immediately, and when it was … viktor went off the rails. ended up overdosing & being hospitalized. spent six months in & out of psychiatric care after that.

came back to yates to finish his senior year because … for the reasons above, he hadn’t been able to complete it. just wants to get his credits and get out of here.

is still dealing with a lot of trauma & grief - causes him to spiral and be unpredictable in regards of his mental health. he stopped taking his medication, so. :/ some days are alright, other days are pretty bad.

personality & facts.

the human embodiment of a gremlin that was fed after midnight. a goblin, if you will. one of those cats with a narrow head and really big ears … that’s them!

a big horror & halloween enthusiast. loves the old campy horror movies & probably has an abundance of masks from different movies. dresses like a grimy millennial beetlejuice more than they should because they just … love those black & white vertical-striped pants.

can appreciate the ~urban legends~ at yates and likes to feed into the fear that surrounds them. is probably the cause of a few ‘anomalies’ and ‘paranormal sightings’ because they’re just … a jerk.

fashion alternates between e-boy (they would be tiktok famous if they were 17 & didn’t think that a majorly minor based app was weird.), millennial beetlejuice, and goth in a crop top & sweatpants. big fan of crop tops and a big fan of sweatpants.

they can be really fucking mean? petty, aggressive, a major instigator. will literally spit in your face for little to no reason, you could just look at them the wrong way. the kind of person who will stick their gum into someone else’s hair. other than that? they’re like … sort of okay. they’re not always mean, just a dick about 90% of the time lmao

like okay yeah they’ll call someone a stinky bitch for no reason except they feel like it and believes it. it’s fine, they’re fine, we’re fine.

despite the fact that they’re probably getting into a fight whenever, considers themself to be a lover and not a fighter but that’a primarily because they fuck a lot. uses it as a coping mechanism, like they’re this big fancy carnival show that’s like ‘come one, come all! fuck the dead girl’s twin brother!’ and it’s … a lot. might have a problem with hypsersexuality but they’re not fully aware of it.

the preacher’s whore son, basically :)

pansexual & nonbinary, switches between he & they pronouns often and without a pattern, but they have such a fragile grip on their identity that you could call them ‘dog-faced bitch’ and they’d turn around like. sup.

vastly impulsive … like i said, they destroy their own creations for the fun of it. spends all their money on useless shit, will cheat on someone because they feel like it & likes the thrill, screams into the night sky frequently like a cat in heat.

will also spend months creating useless shit for no reason too. spent six of them sculpting a hollowed out tree the size of them & then took a sledgehammer to it.

they’re very super dramatic. would play the organ at church when nobody was looking after them and service was about to start. would just churn out these super haunting, creepy melodies like they were phantom of the opera. would do the same exact thing at home on their keyboard with the pipe organ setting whenever they got grounded until their parents took it away hbdsjfngkh

will absolutely not talk about their ‘time away’ because it’s not anyone’s business, not even their own younger sister. still refuses to talk about tatiana’s death, or their mental health, or their addiction (fallen back into it but it hasn’t gotten severe … yet :/), or anything involving their own emotions.

will just change the topic abruptly, no warning. asks about the jonas brothers instead and they fucking hate the jonas brothers.

that being said they’re absolutely not over tatiana’s death & it’s to the point of obsession over it. like there’s some kind of secret that needs to be uncovered, even though there just. isn’t. tatiana was their rock and they were pretty much dependent on her. kept them grounded. could control them when nobody else could, got into their head easier than others. it’s sort of like rosa lost two siblings that day because viktor hasn’t been the same since.

emotionally unavailable while also crying twice a day. cries during their brawls but still wins. is stony-faced when they tell you they cheated on you with your much hotter best friend.

will tell you straight up what they want from you, no bullshit & no beating around the bush. just blunt. if they want to fuck, nothing else, then that’s it. if they feel deviation or developing feelings then they’ll ghost in less than a second. is awful like that but feels no shame.

but also emotional as shit and it’s confusing. will cry on a whim and then flip you off if you try to console them or ask them what’s up. will bite you.

they go to therapy but they just fuck around and wastes their therapists’ time … also is fucking their therapist, but that’s neither here nor there. so they’re not really getting the help they need.

likes to be intimidating but not … with their body or anything because they’re a twig but uses their love & knowledge of horror and creepy shit to their advantage. has an abundance of fake blood. has channeled the energy of jack nicholson and used it on tatiana’s boyfriends before (also is a big fan of sfx makeup & has dabbled in it)

probably chases kids around with a chainsaw without the chain on halloween every year.

generally never doing good, both mental health wise & morally. would probably steal candy from a baby for funsies.

i don’t know if there’s a good to them somewhere deep down, but they don’t see any issues with themself either. nothing really breaks through to them anymore because the only person who ever made them stop and think about their actions was tatiana, and well, y’know. :/

an introverted reclusive type who doesn’t like most people or going out, but does so anyway if it means a quick high & a cheap thrill.

pretty observant and likes to analyze people even though they’re often like … partially wrong. judgmental because they like to make people feel bad, not because they’re a righteous mighty person. because they’re not. so like, a hypocrite!

wanted connections.

religious trauma? oh worm ;; three cheers fr <3 guilt <3 anyways uh. just people tht viktor hs known thru the church in some way even tho hes a fkn. freak now. maybe even family friends. 

the horror of our love :/ ;; hmm. any romance tht cld b toxic i think this cld fit. just rly a bad fit. viktor doesnt rly know hw to love so nothing rly lasts bt. maybe they try n try n nothing works bt they keep trying. cld also just be anything unrequited.

little fkn gremlins ;; theyre all evil n mean. bt theyre all friends. <3 

you are nothing ;; uuh. enemy plots. spicy enemies. rly bad enemies. rivals. they r brutal towards each other bcos nothing viktor does is ever soft.

fuck u dont pity me ;; uh. people who try to get close to viktor n he just. bites at them. he’s like no. bc he assumes ppl who r kind in response 2 his vileness r. theres smth wrong w them. n it might hv to do with pity. n he hates pity.

ugh. locals x ;; ppl who also grew up around preaker, vermont. the samuels r <3 well known folks n the uh. hm. the murder is an ongoing case. so they cld know abt it <3

dont tell anybody x ;; this is for soft plots. i dont know much about soft plots but. 

maybe i am part of the problem ;; the problem is chlamydiagate. this is a hook-ups connection. fwbs n one night stands. ppl viktor hs brutally ghosted. he doesnt acknowledge their existence outside of these events, perhaps. 

dont u just wna go apeshit ;; this is where viktor becomes a bad influence.

bt uh. anything. pelase

[viktcrr-alt]

MAXENCE DANET FAUVAL / NONBINARY — don’t look now, but is that viktor samuels i see? the 24 year old visual arts student is in their senior year and he/they are a rochester alum. i hear they can be observant, ingenious, reticent and dependent, so maybe keep that in mind. i bet he/they will make a name for themselves living in garcia row. ( james. 20. est. she/they. )

LAST INTRO WOOOO !! u know what to mf DO !!

TW DEATH, HEAVY GRIEF, OVERDOSE / DRUG ADDICTION, HOSPITALIZATION, HYPERSEXUALITY, RELIGION MENTIONS, MENTAL ILLNESS

a e s t h e t i c s

old tvs and their static, worn tapes, horror movie screams, spilled ink, a sculptor’s hands, clay-stained, chicken scratch handwriting, messy notes, messy hair, scoffs and eye-rolls, bruised knuckles, sore throats, funeral homes and a crying preacher, shattered ceramics, knife fights, high ledges, vertically-striped pants, red lights, the moon shrouded in clouds, cigarette butts.

general info !!

full name: viktor phillip samuels

nickname(s): icky vicky :/

b.o.d. - jan 2nd

label(s): the black hole, the crepehanger, the impious, the opaque, the tempest, etc.

height: 6′0″

hometown: rochester, new york

sexuality: uuuhhh god … probably pan tbh

pinterest

stats

biography !!

okay so … born and raised in rochester, new york to the well known samuels family. preacher father, a mother, a twin sister born 15 minutes before him - aka tatiana samuels, who died back in january.

kinda … grew up as a really awkward, quiet kid? like … just didn’t really interact with other kids super well, preferred being alone and like … digging up bugs in the dirt. only friend was like … his own sister.

grew out of this as they got older, instead sort of … becoming a bit of a dick? to compensate for years of awkwardness? will bite the hand that feeds him. was a full on nuisance by middle school. tatiana was not, at least, noticeably.

has always been a fan of darker materials, y’know - grim and creepy, morbid shit. big fan of tim burton ever since he was a kid, which isn’t … a good look for a preacher’s son, but he’s never really felt ~in~ with the rest of his family, anyway.

drew disturbing pictures as a kid probably tbh that prompted one or two or five phone calls home 2 assure everything was fine.

has always been really … good at art, in general - from drawing to painting to playing with clay, that’s always been viktor’s Thing.

aNyWaYs. being tatiana’s twin brother was kinda hard sometimes. tatiana and him were near opposites besides their same mean-spirited trait. she was better in the public than he was, but viktor was arguably more talented than tatiana. they both loved each other deeply and found each other as competition for their parents’ attention - a rivalry, of sorts.

high school is when viktor really started to act out - started extreme, like losing his virginity in their church and vandalism around the neighborhoods. faked being possessed in the middle of sunday service. almost had an exorcism performed on him, probably.

the only redeemable trait was like … his sheer talent with art. was in a 3d art AP course, specialized in sculpting - could pretty much create anything he wanted with enough dedication.

because his parents would be focused on disciplining him for his antics, tatiana could sneak away and get away with stuff easier. so like, y’know, that’s on the bright-side of things.

never been particularly motivated to do much - wasn’t planning on attending lockwood but his parents kinda … did and sent in his application for him b/c they were Not on board with him Wasting Away (wanted him out of the house asap)

actually pretty smart !! just doesn’t like … want to apply himself ever. double majoring in english and visual arts because they’re like … two of his only interests :/ plus he wants to write and illustrate his own series of children books with a style similar to tim burton’s

he’d been experimenting since high school but college is where he really started to like … crack down on himself and figure himself out. was out as pan & nonbinary by his sophomore year of college, just … not to his family, necessarily. thinks tatiana always knew, but didn’t … really use it against him, blessedly enough

always felt like the whole twin - connection thing was … both wack and also not-wack? sometimes it felt believable but sometimes he had no idea what was going on in tatiana’s head. but he felt oddly transparent to her, always - like he was predictable to no one but her.

( TW DEATH, GRIEF, OVERDOSE / HOSPITALIZATION BEYOND THIS POINT )

but when tatiana disappeared - it was like, like viktor knew. the moment she had been kidnapped - felt something deeply wrong in his gut. and when tatiana died - viktor felt something cut so severely in him. he knew, he always knew exactly when. he couldn’t put his finger on how - but he knew. even when everybody else held out hope for her to be found - he knew.

went on a bender around the same time, had always struggled w/ drug addiction but it got worse the longer tatiana went without being found.

( also struggled heavily with his mental health, too ?? has manic and depressive episodes. will fixate on a sculpting project for six months and then purposely knock it off the table and destroy it in the matter of seconds once it’s finished for. no fucking reason. impulse spends A Lot. )

when her body was found, viktor went off the rails. ended up overdosing and being hospitalized where he spent the next like … however long months … until they deemed him better.

has been back since the beginning of fall semester in an attempt to finish his senior year - mostly out of his parents’ insistence that he did, because he very much did not want to. 

is still dealing with a lot of trauma & grief, which was only amplified with dean lockwood’s death - causing him to spiral and be unpredictable with his mental health. some days are good, and some days are very bad.

personality !!

the human embodiment of a gremlin, fed after midnight. a goblin, if u will. one of those cats with a narrow head and big ass ears. that’s him.

b i g horror & halloween enthusiast. loves the old campy horror movies. probably has an abundance of masks from different movies. dresses like a grimy millennial beetlejuice more than he should. love those vertically striped pants!

fashion alternates between e-boy (would b tik tok famous if he were like … 17), millennial beetlejuice, and like … goth in a crop top and sweatpants. big fan of crop tops. big fan of sweatpants.

he can be fucking mean. petty, aggressive, instigator. will literally spit in ur face or no reason. kind of person who’ll stick his gum into other ppl’s hair. other than that he’s like … pretty okay. he’s not always mean, he’s just a dick like … 70% of the time lmao

i mean yeah okay he’ll call someone a stinky bitch for no reason except He Feels Like It And Believes It. it’s fine he’s fine, we’re fine.

despite the fact tht he’s probably getting into fights whenever - considers himself 2 be a lover n not a fighter but that’s just because he Fucks a lot. kind of uses it like a coping mechanism, like he’s this big fancy carnival show that’s like ‘come one, come all! fuck the dead girl’s twin brother!’ may have a problem w/ hypersexuality but it’s nothing he’s fully. aware of.

the preacher’s whore son, basically

like i said he’s pan & nb, switches between he and they pronouns but like … he has such a fragile grip on his identity that u could call him ‘dog-faced bitch’ and he’d turn like hey wassup :)

vastly impulsive, like i’ve mentioned … destroys his own creations 4 the fun of it, spends all his money on useless shit, will cheat on someone bc he feels like it. screams into the night sky frequently, like a cat in heat.

i mean he also creates useless shit for no reason too. spent six months sculpting a hollowed out tree the size of him and then took a sledgehammer to it.

dramatic fuck. used to play the organ at the church like … when no one was looking after him and service was about to start. just these creepy as melodies. would do the same thing at home on his keyboard w/ the organ setting whenever he got grounded until his parents took away his keyboard sadjfkg

won’t talk about his time away b/c it’s not rly anybody’s business but ofc nothing is sacred to the watershed app, y’know, nothing’s private.

still like - he absolutely refuses to talk about tatiana’s death and like, his mental health or his addiction (he’s fallen back into it tbh but it hasn’t gotten bad again … yet) or like … anything involving his own emotions

will literally just change the topic! abruptly, no warning, asks about the jonas brothers instead.

that being said he’s obsessed with tatiana’s death. tatiana was very much a rock for him, kinda dependent on her in a way? just … being there, y’know, kept him grounded.

so he obv became a shepherd bc he wants to know Everything there is abt the app, wants to be deep inside it, wanted to know Who Exactly Killed Tatiana and like … not saying he wants 2 commit murder but :/ yknow. he’s very upset.

emotionally unavailable while also like crying twice a day.

will tell you straight up what he wants from you, no bullshit, no beating around the bush - just blunt. if he wants to just fuck, nothing else, then that’s that. if he feels deviation he’ll ghost in like. less than a second. kinda awful like that! feels no shame.

but like … also is emotional ?? as shit ?? it’s confusing. he’ll cry on a whim and then flip u off if u try to console him or like. ask him anything. will bite you.

he goes to therapy but he generally fucks around and wastes most of the time until the therapist threatens to like … idk what therapists r allowed to threaten. to send him off to another therapist? idk.

likes being intimidating but like … not with his body or nothing ‘cos he’s a TWIG, but like … uses his love for horror n creepy shit to his advantage. has an abundance of fake blood. has channeled the energy of jack nicholson and used it on tatiana’s boyfriends before.

( also a big fan of sfx makeup, has dabbled in it)

probably chases kids with a chainsaw (w/o the like … chain … or w/e … so it’s not actually Dangerous) around halloween

he’s generally never doing good, both mental health wise and morally.

would probably steal candy from a baby for the fun of it.

i don’t know if there’s a good to him, deep down, and i don’t know if he sees any issues with himself either !! nothing really breaks through to him anymore, the only person who ever really made him stop and Think about his actions was tatiana.

kinda introverted, recluse type who doesn’t rly like most people or going out, but he’ll go to parties if it means he’ll be high as shit.

pretty observant. likes to analyze people even though he’s probably not … fully right.

wanted connections !!

he lives alone currently but like … ex - roommates where viktor was just. a nightmare to live with.

feel like a lot of enemies is also a possibility !! viktor’s messy.

people that like … knew tatiana. dated tatiana, even, and viktor would pretty much try to intimidate / scare them at any given chance :/

close friends of tatiana too

people who hated tatiana but liked viktor. people who hated viktor but liked tatiana

people who take pity on him and he Hates it viciously and vocally.

a band of hooligan gremlin kids who do drugs and fuck shit up around town like they’re edgy teenagers even though they’re all early to mid 20s.

the girl he lost his virginity 2 in high school lmao … a distant memory

fellow rochester locals, from church or school or whatever

exes from the past !! good terms and bad terms, but i love bad terms a whole lot mainly b/c viktor’s a jackass.

don’t know if he’s soft towards anybody but we can try. we can Try.

friends, old friends, new friends, bad friends, good friends, close friends, frenemies, etc. etc. all of it

hookups !! so many hookups. fwbs, one night stands, whatever.

uuhhhh god. i don’t know. im so sleepy rn. people in the same major or similar majors.

maybe a ride or die.

people he’s a bad influence on / an enabler towards / all around toxic for them / each other.

people he’s fought !! people who’ve seen him get into random fights and were like ‘uh wtf’

fellow shepherds !!

literally anything im not picky.

[ilytuan]

Legend Of The Painted 「jaehyun」

genre › art to life!au ︱ fluff ︱ angst 

pairing › reader ︱ jaehyun ft. taeyong

word count › 8,327

warning › character death

The sun rose its way up to the highest point in the sky, illuminating the entire space you liked to call your home. It wasn’t the largest or grandest place, but you lived here with Taeyong and the prism glass windows which bordered along one huge wall in the living room from floor to ceiling, offered the brightest sunlight on any day and kept you warm, which was more than enough. Rent was reasonably cheap too, and for struggling college students like you and Taeyong, it was the finest you could get. It was midday, and the clock in the kitchen was ticking obnoxiously, telling you to get a move on before you would risk being late.  

“You don’t mean to tell me that you’re blowing me off for what? An art museum?”

Taeyong had never been a fan of your interest in art or even the topic itself. He much preferred for you to fawn over his music or even music in general or divulge yourself in a book; but you would prefer to sit in obscene silence and you couldn’t seem to sit still or concentrate enough on a book for long before all the words start to blur together into one big incomprehensible bubble. Art didn’t need words or a sound to be what it was, which was what you loved most about it. You could find yourself immersed in a painting in complete silence because it wasn’t telling you what to feel. Taeyong simply didn’t know what made you so fascinated by the topic and found it a rather boring thing to be desirous of.

It wasn’t just a mere topic to you though. It was a form of life.

“I am, and I’m going to continue doing it until you learn how to deal with it, or God forbid, join me.” You spoke out, not even sparing him a glance though you could tell there was a look of betrayal on his handsome features. There always seemed to be one on his face whenever you spoke of art, as if one day you would pack your bags and leave him for it. But there was slim to impossible chances of that happening, for you loved him entirely too much for that.

“Are you coming back for dinner at least?” Taeyong asked, which made you turn to finally spare him a look.

The tote bag which you held in your right hand fell out of your grasp and onto the couch when you saw the jilted look on his face and rushed to throw yourself into his arms, offering comfort the only way you knew how. He gladly welcomed you and breathed in your familiar scent of neroli and oranges, telling himself that he was overreacting because art couldn’t magically come to life and steal you away from him.

“I can’t promise anything. You know what I get like, but I’ll try babe.” You offered a smile, pulling back to look deeply into his chocolate brown eyes. The pleaded look he gave almost made you want to stay home and cuddle with him for the rest of the day, but the newly opened museum was beckoning your name and somehow, your heart too.

Taeyong bit his lip and nodded in affirmation, knowing there was no way he could stop you even if he so desperately tried. Sometimes he wondered if he had your heart, or if art did.  

Whenever you visited an art museum or saw a new painting that had recently been hung up on the pristine white walls of the Seoul Museum of Art, or even a local exhibition held by members of your community and high school students, you often found yourself completely immersed in the art for hours on end – you’d only be pulled out of the trance when a security guard came to inform you of the closing hours, or when you’d finish sketching an imitation of the painting for references that you’d put to use later when you got home.

“Eat without me if I’m not back by seven. I love you, Taeyong.”

“I love you too, Y/N.”

Taeyong parted with you after placing a chaste kiss on your cherry red tinted lips, wiping the stain off when he realised after your sly chuckle. You blew him a kiss in return, walking backwards until you reached the door and slipped on your dirty white sneakers.

There was a new museum opening up today near your crummy apartment, and you had been anticipating it with high expectations ever since you found a notice posted through your door informing you of its building hours and how it might get quite polluted and noisy at times. The months of fine dust and drilling noises were hardly a bother when you could look forward to the opening of the gallery and have even more artwork to marvel at.

In the entire Seoul metropolitan and maybe even the whole of Korea, there wasn’t a painting or sculpture that hadn’t been visited by you. While Taeyong spent most of his time in a recording room or dance studio to create and ameliorate his music and choreographies, you were almost always out in search of a painting or sculpture to glower at. When you got home, you’d dive into your art studio that you dedicated the vacant guest bedroom to, and waste the night away, painting and sketching what you saw earlier in the day in finer details, though you would never come even close to getting it to look as magnificent.

Jung Arts Gallery was opened by a couple who were art patrons popularly known amongst art students in your prestigious university. There wasn’t a soul in the art department who didn’t know of their names and reputation, thanks to the countless times they have donated and funded different exhibitions and gifted you with an enormous amount of supplies. They never showed up in person to deliver the goods themselves, but the bundles of paints, papers, marbles, canvases and clays that were delivered always contained a heartfelt, handwritten message from them, overflowing with their kind words and earnest wishes for you all to do well and excel at artistry.

To say you were excited to see their museum today was an understatement of the century. On other days, you might’ve reconsidered going to spend more time with Taeyong, but you felt something telling you that you must go today, no matter what. And there was always the possibility that the Jungs would be there to greet their visitors, since it was the opening day and quite a special and memorable one for them to celebrate. You could only dream about being able to meet them and send your sincere thanks for everything they’ve done for your school. Without their donations, there was no way your school would’ve been able to come close of building a reputation for itself and allow a chance for students to thrive in their talents and hone their skills.

There was a rumour that went around once, about how their alleged son had attended your school and was an art major who dedicated his entire life to painting and sculpting masterpieces, but who had passed away in an unfortunate accident that was never disclosed to the public for it being much too heart wrenching. People say that’s the reason why the Jungs donate so much to your school – as a way to give what they were never able to give their son while he was alive. But you never listened long enough to hear the full gossip. They were merely rumours after all.

–

“Welcome. Please take your time in having a look around.”

A middle aged woman was standing near the entrance of a grand and pristine building, made entirely out of the finest quality of oak wood and glass windows. Her hair was tied back professionally in a low bun and it was a flattering shade of brown in contrast to her milky white skin. She wore a white turtleneck and a pair of crisp beige slacks that matched the oak floors of the building. She wore a warm smile and greeted every person who was entering through the large glass doors that towered over her nearly twice her height. She shivered after a particularly cold gust of wind passed, at the same time that a man who looked slightly older than her walked out and put his arms around her in an attempt to warm her up.

You bounded over just as he was urging her inside to keep her protected from the cold, yet she still greeted you with a friendly and welcoming smile. “Welcome to Jung Arts Gallery. Take your time to look at the art and feel free to help yourself to any of the refreshments.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Jung. I’m Y/N, an art major at Seoul Arts University.”

You weren’t usually an assertive or very talkative person but you wanted to introduce yourself to her and thank her for all of the donations she’s given your school. The way she carried herself and stood at the door welcoming people was a dead giveaway of who she was, even if she wasn’t wearing a nametag or had a flag over her head bearing her name. Mrs. Jung was graceful and elegant, and she aura exuded told you that she was a highly respectable and professional woman. That much was obvious, and the spectacular building behind her was just an added bonus to her endowment.

“Ah, yes. It’s lovely to meet you too. Are you here to see the art?” She asked, the gentle smile still on her face and if it was anyone else, you would’ve thought it to be fake, but she was truly genuine.

“I am. I’ve been looking forward to this day for months.”

“I see. Will you be here for long?”

“Probably until the closing hours. I tend to get lost in the art sometimes.” You smiled sheepishly as you scratched your head. Mrs. Jung nodded to herself, allowing her husband to pull her into the building. “Feel free to stay as long as you’d like. We can talk over a cup of tea afterwards.”

Nodding, you bowed respectfully to her and thanked her for her kindness before making your way into the first area of the building which was brightly lit by the sun’s rays and LED lights and had high ceilings windows, similar to the ones in your home. Paintings of sceneries and mountains were in this room, and it looked to be the most popular. Although you haven’t seen the other ones yet, more than half of the room was filled with observers and a small circle around each of the eight paintings, so you gave each one a brief glance and made a mental note to come back when it was less crowded. Regardless, they looked amazing from what little bits you saw and you were highly looking forward to coming here again.

The next room was similar, but there was only one window and five paintings. They were portraits. You recognised one to be of Mrs. Jung, another of Mr. Jung, and the three others you didn’t recognise. One of them was a painting of a young man though, pictured to be around your age and he looked breath taking. There was only three other people in this room, all absorbed in the other paintings and leaving you to stare at the young man in peace and solidity. You were almost sure that you let out an involuntary gasp, mesmerised by his handsome features and the detail of the painting, so much so that it rivalled Taeyong’s looks.

Getting reminded of Taeyong, you looked away from the painting to grab your phone and shoot  Taeyong a text that you wouldn’t be home for dinner, almost completely sure that you would be joining Mrs. Jung for that cup of tea which she offered. It would be a delight and absolute honour if you could chat with her and learn about all of the art pieces in this gallery and you’d be a fool to pass up the once in a lifetime opportunity.

When you slipped your phone back into your bag and switched it off to avoid Taeyong’s bombarding messages that were almost guaranteed to come with his protective and sappy side that was missing you dearly, you looked back up to marvel at the painting again only, it was gone. Disappeared, as if it had never been there in the first place. You rubbed your eyes and blinked a few times, thinking that you were just seeing things from lack of nutrition or sleep but it was to of no avail. There wasn’t even a painting in its spot to replace what you had seen, or a plaque stating what the painting was of, of who it was.

“Excuse me, but are you okay? You’ve been staring at the wall for quite a while.” A gravelly and considerably deep voice spoke, and you turned around to answer only for your breath to completely hitch and die in your throat, leaving you speechless. He was the man in the painting.

His hair was styled the exact same way as in the painting – gelled up and parted to the side slightly, with wisps of hair falling down in front of his forehead. It was a light brown colour, and his skin was milky white and crystal smooth, not even a speck of a blemish aside from the dots of freckles that were scattered from his nose and across to his cheeks. They weren’t blemishes, but somehow added to his ethereal look, making you briefly wonder if he was real. His lips were red and plump and when he smiled unsurely at you, dimples appeared on the sides of his mouth in a magical manner, again, adding to his surreal and stunning look. His eyes were a warm brown colour, similar to Mrs. Jung and somehow, the sunlight was shining in directly from the sole window in that moment, illuminating his orbs and making them the prettiest golden colour that was utterly indescribable.

“Do I have something on my face? That’s why you’ve been staring for so long, right?” He spoke, and you held your breath, too dazed by his beauty to speak a word.

“Are you real?” You blurted, eyes blowing wide when you realised what you said aloud and getting embarrassed. The young man laughed, and you found yourself marvelling at him yet again. There was no way he was real.

“I’d hope so.” He amused, grinning at you as he shuffled awkwardly on his feet. He scratched the back of his head, and you noticed how pretty his hands were too – adorned with silver rings on almost every finger, which were slender and thin, with perfect nails too, not a trace of a bad habit to be seen such as picking on the skin around the edges or biting his nails.

Taeyong often bit his nails as a nasty habit and it was probably the only thing you hated about him. The thought of anyone biting their nails and leaving it ragged and unruly was unimaginable and revolting to you. Yet this man standing in front of you had nothing you wanted to hate. Physically, there was nothing possible about him that anyone could detest; envy, yes, but despise, definitely not.

“Am I interesting? Do I look like a phantom creature?” He spoke up again and raised his eyebrows slightly in mirth at your current dazed state. His eyebrows were tinted a brown colour to match his hair and were groomed to perfection, yet another thing to add to his list of perfections. This man was the human embodiment of perfection.

“It’s just that…weren’t you in the painting? On the wall?” You admitted, but as soon as the words left your mouth you realised how dim-witted you sounded. Of course he wasn’t in the painting. There was no possible way he could have been in the painting from just now. You convinced yourself that you were just tired and hallucinating today.

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t come from a painting. Although I know my looks are out of this world.”

He laughed, and your heart sped up just from the sound of it. His voice, similar to his laugh, was of a gravelly and deep, baritone pitch – it was calming and peaceful to listen to, just the right tone of deep but not too deep and easily captured your heart. It wasn’t too excessive or fake. His laugh was genuine and intense, making you want to laugh and feel happy too.

“There’s no way you’re real.” You stated in disbelief, closing your eyes and wishing for him to disappear so you could stop feeling so out of your head. You opened them again and he was standing even closer to you, eyes almost in line with yours but his height wouldn’t allow him to be any closer unless he wanted to practically fold himself in half.

He was tall. Insanely tall. His legs were long and his torso was long too. His body was clearly built and well-defined, if the muscles bulging out the arms and chest of his white shirt had any say, and his thighs which were almost straining against the skin tight black skinny jeans he had on. If he was real, then he had to be a model or an actor, or maybe even both professions. Every detail about him screamed illusionary and if there was someone else in the room, you would’ve asked them to confirm his presence but it was only the two of you.

“Hmm, if you don’t want to believe that I’m real, how about this. We walk around the rest of this gallery together and you can decide by the end of it. Deal?”

“Deal. But I’m not going to change my mind.”

He laughed heartily, throwing his head back and his eyes crinkled slightly. There was no way he was real.

–

“So, what’s your name? Or will I just call you angel boy from the painting?”

“That works. Whatever you’d like, baby.”

“Okay no. My name’s Y/N. And just to be clear, I have a boyfriend. So what’s your actual name?”

“You can call me Jeffery.”

Jeffery frowned at the mention of Taeyong, looking mildly unpleased but you chose to ignore it and move on, looking at the paintings which were hung up flatteringly in a straight row across the room. They were still-life paintings, mostly of different kinds of food and you found yourself growing hungry, completely forgetting about the fact that you skipped breakfast and lunch to make it here to the opening on time without being tardy. And you were way too excited to be able to stomach anything regardless.

“Do you like art?” Jeffery asked in curiosity after a few moments of silence. He had never been one to keep quiet and preferred to talk, unlike you.

“I do but painting especially. I’m an art major too, but I’m not great at many aspects, just enjoy it.”

“I’m sure you’re amazing. It just takes some time to find the right mediums.”

You snorted, “if it takes my whole life then sure. Guess I can live with the ‘if I’m trying, one day it’ll work out’ mindset. Do you?”

“Hmm, I wouldn’t say I’m horrible at art but my paintings are somewhere between bordering on being boring and just right. I love painting the most too.”

“Is there anything you’re not good at?”

“Sketching.” He stated simply. There was no reason to elaborate, and you didn’t push because you couldn’t sketch anything for the life of you either.

You wandered into the next room, where a single grand piano was placed in the centre and there was no windows. A painting of the piano was framed and placed on top strategically, but the rest of the room was empty and the walls were bare, as if to draw attention and focus to the instrument as the centrepiece. It was shining and glossy, reflecting the bright light that was above and in the ceiling, and the keys were cleaned to be flawless, not a speck of dust or fingerprint to be seen.

“Do you know how to play piano?” Jeffery asked you, to which you shook your head.

He gestured for you to sit in the leather stool and reassured you that it was completely okay to do so. Reluctantly, you sat down on the plush leather and placed your hands on your lap in a shy manner, but he wasn’t having any of it.

“Put your hands on the keys, I’ll teach you how to play.”

You shot him an apprehensive look, not believing that it was appropriate to do this in the middle of an art museum and if he even really knew how to play. But then again, you haven’t found a single flaw or shortcoming on his body and probably even in his talents so trusting him on this couldn’t hurt.

“Trust me. I’m close with the owners and they put this here for people to enjoy some classical music. I was a top class pianist back in the day, baby.”

You snickered, laughing at the way he smirked and cocked an eyebrow in an attempt to feign confidence. “Sure you were. Show me what you’ve got, Jeffery.”

He stood behind you, hands ghosting over your arms just above your elbows as he moved them up to rest on the grandeur black and white keys. Your nimble fingers pressed down on a key experimentally, startling yourself when a low, resonant note played, echoing around the entire room and you were thankful no one else was around. If locals saw you with another man in this position, it wouldn’t be your brightest of days and Taeyong definitely wouldn’t be the happiest. Jeffery placed his hands over yours eloquently, his large hands almost twice the size of yours.

His hands cupped over yours slightly, as if moulding them together and they fit splendidly with each other, like they were made to be together and intertwined. Taeyong never really liked holding hands.

“The note you just played is a low E. Any songs you want to try or shall I just go for it?” He mused, waiting patiently for your response, although never taking his hands off of yours. They were warm and shielding yours from the cold air that travelled around the room, and you were glad because you can never quite do anything with cold and stiff hands.

“It’s up to you.”

Jeffery’s hands carried yours fluently across the different keys, as if he knew this piano like the back of his hand and was familiar with each and every note that your finger came into contact with. The melody that the instrument produced as his hands glided with yours across the keys was harmonious and one of the most angelic sounds you’ve ever heard – as expected of an angel boy.

You both played together like that for a few fleeting moments and you found yourself wishing it would never end, but like all good things, it must come to a breaking point.

“Are you sure you’ve never played before? That sounded great.” He expressed animatedly, eyes blown wide in amazement because he had never been able to play that well, even when he was a young student who was claimed to be a prodigy. Or maybe it was the emotion and soul in the music that he lacked, but either way, it sounded better by tenfold when he played it with you just there.

“One hundred and ten percent sure. I don’t even have enough money to afford a keyboard, let alone a piano or lessons.”

“There’s a piano right here.”

You groaned at him. “You expect me to learn how to play and practice here?”

He nodded back innocently and you chose to ignore it with a shake of your head, though you couldn’t disguise the smile that masked your face. You took his hand and pulled him into the next room, which was painted black and had no windows – a severe difference from the previous rooms you had just been in. Another thing you noticed too, was the difference of art works which had switched from paintings to unique and resplendent sculptures made with finest blocks of marble and moulds of clay, painted, sculpted and chiselled to utter perfection.

Sculpting wasn’t your strong suit and had never quite peaked your interest either, but there as something resonating with you from the different chiselled and carved faces of men and women alike. But there was a strange face on each of them, embodied entirely as different people and that was very apparent, but their facial expressions were all that of sadness and longing. Frowns and downturned lips, hazed eyes and even some had visible tears in their pupils which made your heart speed up from how genuine and realistic they were, and somehow even their body language looked sad – hunched shoulders, titled heads, slumped body and as if they were caving in on themselves in sadness.

“Are you crying?” Jeffery paused to round the corner that was your body and inspect you closer, but you avoided his gaze and moved your head away from him, in a similar structure to the sculptures. “You are crying. Is it because of the sculptures?”

“No, dumbass. I have an something in my eye. I may be emotionless half the time, but I don’t cry at art pieces.”

“The tears would beg to differ.”

“Are you saying I’m lying?” You asked incredulously, frantically wiping away the tears when he looked away to think.

“Not exactly, but you’re not being truthful either, are you?”

“They’re sculptures and not living people,” you admitted, glancing around at each of them, lingering for a moment longer on the large, white marble statue in the far corner or the room. It was the furthest away from all the rest, as if separated intentionally to draw less attention, but it intrigued you the most. The features were similar to the painting of the man you saw earlier that disappeared, and similar to Jeffery’s build – large and tall, well proportioned frame that had bulky arms and equally as bulky thighs, hair styled into wisps and locks atop of his crown, and the facial features were too small to make out from where you were but they would’ve been undoubtedly striking aswell.

“They were real people.”

You turned to give him a look full of swivvet, judging the words that just came out of his perfect mouth. “And how would you know that?”

“I’m close friends with the sculptor of these statues. He was inspired by the people around him who were always happy, and he wanted to add a twist by making them look sad.”

“And would he happen to have a name?”

“He wishes to remain anonymous.”

You huffed but said nothing in return.

–

“You’ve got to be kidding me. No way am I going to believe that.” You snorted, eyes staring into Jeffery’s as you both challenged each other, playful smiles on your face in mock anger.

“It’s true,” he snorted. “All the girls loved me in high school. I grew up in America for four years, and it did me wonders in getting all the ladies when I came back to Korea.” He raised his eyebrows in confidence, as if was an attractive action but it only served to make you double over in laughter.

“What, did girls chase you around the school and bombard you with chocolates on White Day?”

“They did!” He exclaimed, mirroring your laughter and adding in his own gravelly sound that was like music from the heavens. “I received a love confession too.”

You bit your lip to contain your laughter, examining his features that were almost bursting with joy to gauge if he was lying or not. How the topic even came into discussion was a wonder to you, but you enjoyed it nonetheless. You figured it was from the sculpture you just passed which was a broken heart made out of complicated and intricate paper designs to weave in and out of each other as it flowed whenever the strings it was attached to move to create a full heart. It briefly reminded you of Taeyong, but you chose not to dwell on him because you weren’t doing anything explicitly wrong with Jeffery; you were just gaining a new companion who you’d probably never see again after you disembarked at the end of the gallery’s trail.

“So, you have a boyfriend?” Jeffery inquired, shuffling his feet as he looked around at each of the paintings that were now of animals though they were mostly pet dogs or those fish and marine animals that you find in tourist aquariums. You hummed in response, immersed in one painting of a koi fish which was swimming majestically and was of the prettiest shades of oranges, reds and whites which made the whole thing look piebald and delineate. The way the water was coloured too created a surreal feeling and made the fish look like it was jumping out rather than just swimming beneath the surface.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” You tore your gaze away from the painting for a brief moment to shoot him a look, raising an eyebrow quizzically when he laughed softly.

“Nope. Never have, never will.”

You cocked your head to the side. How was someone so stunning, not taken? And he didn’t even have plans of getting with someone. If it wasn’t for his vulnerable expression right now, you would’ve pushed for reasons but it didn’t look like he really wanted to talk about himself. You coughed to gather his attention away from the paintings and to you, wearing a soft smile on your face. “Busy with work huh. Gets to the best of us.” You joked.

He nodded as if he was diffident and pursed his lips, “is it fun? Dating, I mean.”

“As fun as life can get. Makes you see the world in a whole new light I guess, because you have someone to share it with.” You proclaimed, happy with just the thought of Taeyong.

The rapper had come into your life unexpectedly, but they say that love comes when you least expect it. And there were more good than bad times with him in your entire two-year relationship, so there was nothing to really complain about. Like the man standing before you, Taeyong was too good for words and sometimes you found yourself doubting if he was even real.

“Do you love him?” Jeffery probed, and you turned around to face him yet again after you had rotated away to lightly sketch the koi fish. He was looking at you intently this time though, and his eyes held some sort of desire, as if he really needed your truthful answer.

With a proud nod of your head and a halcyon smile dancing on your lips, you confirmed. “I do.”

He turned away without another word, walking briskly into the next destination and leaving you to scramble after him.

–

The sun was finally setting and night was creeping up the country, the moon rising slowly to illuminate and bring a soft glow into each room of the gallery. Most visitors had already departed, and you saw Mrs. Jung standing by the entrance again, thanking everyone for making the time to visit and that they were welcome to come again anytime. She looked the same as earlier, not a hint of fatigue or weariness to her which you greatly admired, because truthfully, you looked like you just went to sleep and woke up again – hair in a frizzy mess and makeup smudged from earlier when you were crying at the sculptures.

There wasn’t a single room or artwork in this entire gallery that didn’t charm and entice you beyond comprehension. Each painting and sculpture was of such a high quality and skill level that you couldn’t believe the artist wanted to remain anonymous. When such skills are put out to show to the world and for people to gaze at, you’d want your name to be plastered everywhere and for everyone to know who you were, but not everyone thinks alike.

You wished you could buy a souvenir or steal away one of the paintings for your own personal benefit, but that was undoubtedly illegal and there wasn’t even a gift store built to facilitate you desires. This whole gallery was truly only for admiring and appreciating art – not a single thing costed anything and you knew it cost a fortune to build because of the grandeur demeanour of the upscale building in your expensive Gangnam metropolitan.

“So, what did you think of everything?”

You almost forgot that Jeffery was still with you after staring at Mrs. Jung for so long. But he didn’t startle you, because his voice was soft and careful as if he knew that you were in a trance from all of the new art pieces you’ve seen today. It was almost pitch black outside, but you didn’t get nearly as enough done as you would’ve liked, thanks to his numerous distractions that pulled you in and out of a daze and you’re pretty sure you talked more today than you had in an entire month with Taeyong. You really didn’t see each other too often, which was why he got so upset whenever you left him to visit an art museum. You would say it’s completely worth it this time round though.

“Everything was so magnificent and beautiful. I loved everything, but I’ll have to come back before to really take in everything, because you talk so much.”

He laughed throatily, throwing his head back. “Do you have a favourite piece?”

You bit your tongue to prevent yourself from saying, ‘the painting I saw you in’, instead choosing to say, “the koi fish painting was resplendent. The colours were blended unbelievably well and I could get lost in those water ripples for hours. If it wasn’t for your blabbering.”

“I love that painting too.” He trailed off, and you followed his gaze to see him staring at Mrs. Jung, who was still smiling happily and bidding farewells, with the addition of Mr. Jung since the last time you were looking at her. Jeffery looked melancholic, like those sculptures you saw earlier. He wasn’t quite frowning, but his eyes held a sort of sorrow that the statues also had and you had to stop looking at him in order not to burst into tears like an overflowing water dam.

“I’d love to stay with you for hours, but I recall us making a deal. Have you decided whether I’m real or do I still look like a God to you?”

He sounded like he was amused by the whole situation, a smile parading around on his face as his eyes brightened and sparkled, making the sad look from earlier completely disappear into thin air, almost as if it never existed.

If you were being quite honest, the whole day had been so much fun and a totally new experience for you. There had never been someone you wanted to discuss art with, let alone allow them into your personal safety bubble and walk around a museum with you. They were like your sacred places and no one had ever dared to enter, but Jeffery seemed to make you want to start doing otherwise. The course of the day made the deal from this morning completely slip from your mind and you didn’t even take any time to contemplate your answer.

“I never said you’re a God, but you’re real I guess.”

“I promise I’ll make you completely sure of my existence the next time we meet, but I’m afraid this is where we part today baby.”  

You shouldn’t have felt sad at the thought of departing with him, but you did. He said you’d see each other again and he promised, so you wanted to believe him and trust his words. But words are just that.

“Are you not going to leave through the door?” You shot him a questionable look when he shoved his hands into his pockets and stalked off in the direction of the first room with the scenery paintings.

“I’m gonna take one last look around. You head on off though.”

“I’ve got a tea date with the owner. See you around, Jeffery.”

“See you around, baby.”

He turned his back to you first, walking slowly to the first room of the Jung Arts Gallery for one last tour and you briefly wondered if he would wind up getting locked in as it was getting increasingly late, but shook it off when Mrs. Jung approached you with the same friendly and warm smile she had given you this morning, unwavering and completely confident.

“Are we still up for some tea?” She asked you sweetly, and you nodded with enthusiasm, allowing her to show you the way but not before you turned your head back to where he had gone to possibly catch a glimpse of him again.

Somehow, you felt like you had answered wrongly about him being real.

–

Rose tea was quickly becoming your favourite fragrance and taste – it was subtle and sweet but you could taste some of the floral and fruity flavours it infused into the boiling hot water that Mrs. Jung poured into your clear mug. The deep, hibiscus pink colour of the tea was esthetical to look at and you desperately wanted to capture a photo of the glass and the tea, because you have never tried it before, but Mrs. Jung was staring at you expectantly, although she wasn’t saying anything.

“Did you enjoy the art?” She calmly asked, wisps of her hair finally falling loose from the bun she had it in earlier, and she looked eerily similar to the man you had seen in the painting, and the more you thought about it, one of the melancholic statues.

“I loved everything. They’re all fascinating to look at.”

“Would you like to know who created all of the pieces?”

You nodded eagerly and watched as she stood up and wandered off to a shelf in the corner of the room that you hadn’t noticed before. She crouched down to be level with the bottom shelf, fingers and eyes scanning over each book that was on it before she landed on the thickest one present, “aha.”

She flickered through a few pages as she walked back over the table where you were seated, smiling triumphantly when she paused on the one she was looking for.

“My son created all of the artworks you saw today. We left them anonymous as it was something he would’ve preferred; he never really enjoyed being in the spotlight and would have favoured people appreciating his talents more than his looks or name.” She explained, smiling fondly at the baby photos she had in the photo album she was bearing in her frail hands.

“I know someone like that too. What’s your son’s name?”

She glanced up at you, tearing her gaze away from the photos she was clearly fond of and smiled nostalgically, “Jaehyun.”

You were pretty sure that your breath hitched audibly in your throat and no words didn’t manage to escape, but you concealed it as best as you could. Maybe the rumours around your school might’ve been true all along.

“He attended the same university as you. Are you a second year?” She asked, leaving the book open and astray on the table as she gave you her full and undivided attention. You nodded, not sure how to speak without stuttering with your newfound revelation.

“Jaehyun was a second year before he passed away. He would’ve been graduating this year if he was still here.”

“Are all of the pieces, his?” You managed to say, eyes pleading for confirmation.

“He created one every month and gifted them to my husband and I. Our whole house was filled to the brim with his artworks, but we kept every single one. Who knew that we’d end up opening a gallery like this with all of them.” She trailed off, glancing down at the photobook again. “Would you like to see a photo of him?”

You nodded again, craning your neck slightly to share a look at the photobook with her. “This was him as a child. He lived in America for four years and we lost most of the photos in the move back, but we salvaged this one.”

It was a photograph of a young boy in a playground, wearing a striped t-shirt and denim overalls with an adorable red cap atop of his head. He had prominent dimples on the sides of his mouth, and he was chubby but undeniably one of the cutest and purest children you’ve ever seen.

“This is him a few years after we came back and he first started painting. Jaehyun was always an active child and his friends nicknamed him Jeffery when he came back from the States as he was so energetic but then he began straying from them and painting more and more.”

You stilled at the mention of the familiar name, memories of Jeffery who had led you around the gallery flashing through your mind but you brushed it off as a simple coincidence. Surely there was no way he was the same person as Jaehyun.

“And this is him when he was presented a scholarship at Seoul Arts University. He opened a letter in the morning stating his admission and he ran to us crying happy tears, claiming it was the best day of his life. I still remember all of us cheering and crying happy tears together.”

The photo showed a young college student, wearing the signature School of Performing Arts yellow blazer, white dress shirt and black trousers. His skin was milky and smooth, hair a tinted black colour and the same dimples as the one from his baby photo. Your gaze flicked between Mrs. Jung and the photo, finding an almost identical appearance and it made a fond smile bloom on your face, before the realisation dawned on you. Jaehyun graduating from high school looked uncannily similar to Jeffery, and you felt a shiver run down your spine the more you looked into it.

Mrs. Jung shut the book after a moment of awkward silence, deciding there was nothing else to show and more than likely sensing the sudden tension you created.

She peered at you with interest, but you were avoiding her gaze and looking anywhere but at her. You gulped down the rest of the rose tea that had gone cold from when you were looking at the photos, picking up your tote bag and slinging it over your shoulder hastily. Mrs. Jung followed your movements, standing up when you did. You knew she sensed that something was wrong, but chose not to pry, instead letting you go with a motherly smile and a promise for you to come and meet her again because it was a pleasure to her. She didn’t disclose the fact that you reminded her of her son.

“Thank you for today. I really enjoyed the tea and chatting with you.”

“Come again anytime, we’re always open.”

You gulped, still avoiding her gaze as you bowed respectfully, shaking her hand firmly in farewell. You turned to walk away after you accidentally met her eyes which looked melancholic and somewhat mournful. She was smiling at you, but there was a tinge of sadness that you really couldn’t bear.

But you turned back after retreating back a few steps, eyes wide and almost bulging out of their sockets. “Would you mind if I take one last look around the gallery? I’ll be as quick as I can.”

She nodded assuredly, “take your time. I’m in no rush to get home.”

–

You walked straight to the room full of the portraits, scanning around the area for a sighting of the damned painting you saw this morning that had magically disappeared right before your eyes. You wondered how you could’ve been so clueless this whole time – from a strange guy appearing out of nowhere, walking around with you through the whole gallery, teaching and playing piano with you, talking with you as if you were childhood friends to asking you if he was real. He evidently wasn’t, and you were a fool to have fallen for his charms and tricks.

As expected, the painting wasn’t there and you sighed in disappointment. There was no one else around as it was past the closing hours but you wanted to walk through and see if you could find him. Or conjure Jaehyun up in your mind again since that’s what you did from the start anyway.  You thought you were simply hallucinating and seeing things the whole time while Jaehyun was haunting the gallery, remnants of his legacy all over the gallery which he clearly wanted to be close to. Tears sprung to your eyes as you pictured the sad looks on his face whenever he talked about the art pieces or about himself, as if he was longing to live again.

The room full of the mosaics was poignantly sadder now that you didn’t have the company of Jaehyun’s ghost and spirit with you. The statues’ frowns were deepened and you found yourself mirroring their looks, remembering how distant Jaehyun sounded when he was talking about how happy his muses were, and how he wanted to add a twist to them.

You realised it was all because he was seeing his artworks again after a presumably long time and being reunited with them. Mrs. Jung mentioned how it’s been two years since his passing, so you figured he was wandering around the area for the past while until the opening and he’s going to spend his afterlife here, revelling in his art and picturing what could’ve been if he was still alive. He sounded as if he really missed working on his art, and the look he had given his mom before you parted ways was just another example of what he deeply missed.

Your heart twisted and shattered itself as you pieced it all together, and the longer you stared at the freestanding statues in all of their majestic glory, you recalled the one who was isolated from the majority in the corner – the one who looked like the painting, and who you now knew to be the infamous Jaehyun, or Jeffery as he wanted you to call him. You didn’t understand anything anymore.

With slow footsteps, you approached it with caution, afraid of it coming to life and jumping at you like the painting version of Jaehyun. It towered over you significantly, dazzling in the light and shining with a manner of sadness. You closed your eyes tightly and stretched out a hand to touch the marble, coming into contact with the cold, hard stone and not the rock-hard abs you had hoped for. If you could see Jaehyun one last time before you bid your exit, you’d be more than relieved, because even if he was only a ghost in your imagination, you couldn’t bear to leave him heartbroken and conflicted like he did earlier. Like he would every time he looked back on his works or at his loving parents who were still grieving over him.

But Jaehyun didn’t come back; because he was dead and because he was never there in the first place. The pained look of anguish and misery that were permanently etched into your mind and would surely come back to haunt you in your nightmares, was just that – a look you had conjured up.

In all the times and visits you’ve been on to hundreds of art museums and galleries all across the Republic and even its neighbouring islands, you had never been so emotionally invested in anything to conjure up your own person and imitation of a mock story. Never had you ever felt or seen something so vividly and unequivocally to tug on your heartstrings and bring real tears to your eyes. Even without Jaehyun being here, his mere presence and arts had such a significant impact.

His art would live on forever, as would this gallery. Walking through each of the rooms that had been so symbiotically designed and structured, you knew his life and his emotions would live on forever too. You had felt it first hand, and you wouldn’t know if anyone else did too, or if you would ever experience it again, but you were eternally grateful to have felt Jaehyun today.

The emotions, sentiments and passions that he poured into each and every piece of work in this building would show and tell the story of his life, and how beautifully he lived up until the very end. He wasn’t actually with you today, you realised, but you had imagined him and was able to go through his story that was revealed through his pieces of art.

Jaehyun’s name wouldn’t be spoken often, and the true meaning and intention behind each piece would never be revealed or described by its origin, but you could feel everything just from looking at each of his creations and attaching your own special meaning to them. You felt his life today, through the masterpieces he left behind.

His spirit would always be in this gallery, and in your heart. Jungs Art Gallery wasn’t just a place for pieces of artwork, but a place where Jaehyun could live on happily and in anonymity, without the fear of having to leave or having to run for the rest of eternity.

“I’ll remember you, Jaehyun.”

[skeletonscribbles]

At Least It’s Not Sports (Part Two: Sophomore Year)

continued by popular demand :)

Title: At Least It’s Not Sports (High School Drama Club AU)

Pairings: Reddie, Stanlon, Benverly, some blip on the radar Billverly

Rating: we’re in T territory still because they’re only sophomores

Summary: “Things will work out,” Ben continued, sweet and reassuring. “For both of us.”

“I hope you’re right, Ben,” Eddie sighed. “I’m going off headset now.”

“Fair enough,” Ben said. “Talk to you when Stan freaks out midway through the act one closer.”

“I can hear both of you,” Stan said flatly.

Warnings: some almost sexual situations, the pacing is shit, and I made myself sad :( oh well

Part One - Freshman Year / Part Three - Junior Year / Part Four - Senior Year pt. 1 / Part Five - Senior Year pt. 2

Read on Ao3!

Sure enough, as soon as Eddie got the e-mail about drama club starting up again, he marched over to his calendar and circled the date of the first workshop in red sharpie. He had been cooped up with his mother watching Jeopardy virtually all summer, and he was more than ready to see his friends again. Bi-weekly trips to the diner or the park were fun, but not enough.

He was so desperate for their company, he was almost ready to overlook the dread he felt at the thought of seeing Richie.

He’d been careful during the summer to only attend group hangouts that he knew Richie wouldn’t go to. The idea behind this was that not seeing Richie would help his crush subside before he went back to school, and that everything would subsequently go back to normal. Of course, Eddie’s life being how it was, things couldn’t be that simple. Absence was unfortunately only making the heart grow fonder, and Eddie found himself daydreaming about Richie during the moments that his mind wasn’t occupied with anything important...which was most moments, in the summertime.

Eddie’s last and only hope, then, was that Richie had miraculously either grown ugly or adjusted his personality severely over the last three months. It was a long shot, but barring that, Eddie was going to have to suck it up and deal with his feelings, so he held out hope for it.

Said hope was, of course, in vain.

“Spaghetti, thank God.” It was the first day of school, and too early in the morning for Eddie to be properly prepared to see Richie. God fucking damn it. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been asking after you all summer.”

Eddie looked at him, and immediately wished he hadn't. Richie had grown several inches since Eddie had last seen him, and his freckles had gone dark from the summer sun. He was wearing a tye-dyed Ben and Jerry’s t-shirt, his hair was pulled back in a sloppy, low ponytail, and there were a few bristly hairs around his upper lip and chin. His glasses were, somehow, thicker than ever. The combination of all of those things should have been absolutely horrifying, but for whatever reason, Richie’s new eyesore status was making Eddie’s heart do jumping jacks. What the hell.

“Take a hint, asshole,” he said, biting his lip and going back to hanging up flyers for the first drama workshop.

“You can’t escape me that easily, Eds.” Richie cornered him, putting his hands on either side of the wall around Eddie so that he was trapped. Eddie clenched his fists and looked at the floor, trying to pretend that he wasn’t affected by their new position. “I thought we were friends. I missed you.”

“You’ll see me,” Eddie muttered, waving the flyers in his hand for emphasis. “I know you’re going.”

“Of course,” Richie grinned, still boxing him in with his arms. “And probably in English, and maybe some other classes, too. Es muy emocionante, si?”

“I don’t take Spanish,” Eddie said, frowning.

“Exciting,” Richie explained. “Eeez veddy exciting, Señor Spaghetti.”

“Go to class, nerd.” Eddie could feel a blush creeping up his neck. If he spent any more time with Richie, his whole face would be red, and he absolutely could not have Richie see that. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

“It’s a date,” Richie winked and pulled himself away from the wall, moving to adjust his backpack. “Nice tan, by the way. Brings out your scowl.”

“See, I went out and got the tan to emphasize this, so...” Eddie held out his middle finger threateningly, but Richie was already walking away.

Fuck. Eddie had expected things to be awkward, but that was a whole new level of emotional badness.

Maybe his ticket to getting out of this whole feelings nonsense was to push Richie away. He was going to have to step it up with the insults.

----

Insults worked, but only kind of.

The first workshop was much like Eddie had remembered it being the year before, only this time he didn’t have to participate. Instead, he sat smugly with Stan on the sidelines.

Richie was in rare form; he was obviously trying to show off for the freshmen, and he kept glancing back at Eddie excitedly. Eddie returned his excitement with scowls and rude gestures, trying to keep the butterflies in his stomach at bay.

“I take it you haven’t discussed your feelings,” Stan said, watching Eddie disapprovingly.

“What feelings?” Eddie lied, tightening his shoulders. “I don’t have those anymore.”

“Don’t be absurd.” Stan turned in his chair a little bit so that Eddie could better see the exasperated expression on his face. “It’s not healthy to bottle your feelings up. You’ll explode.”

“What feelings?” Eddie asked again, wishing that Stan weren’t so goddamn observant.

Stan watched him for another minute, and then turned back to the stage. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Hey Eds!” Richie was waving at him from the stage. “This is a partner game that requires a lot of touching. Wanna team up?”

“If I was actually an artist and you were the clay I was supposed to sculpt with, I would change professions,” Eddie snapped.

Richie looked back at him blankly. “So...no?”

“Leave me alone, Richie,” Eddie all but yelled, sliding down in his chair.

That seemed to sting more for Richie than the insult. He went back to the group of acting hopefuls, shoulders a little more slumped than they were before.

“And now you’ve embarrassed him.” Stan rolled his eyes. “Very nice, Eddie. Great rapport with the actors.”

“Everyone else likes me just fine,” Eddie muttered. “I know what I’m doing.”

“You better,” Stan warned. “My job is yours next year, and I don’t want to find out that I chose the wrong fucking kid to mentor.”

“You didn’t,” Eddie said stubbornly. “It’ll be good.”

It wasn’t as good as he imagined it would be.

Because tactically avoiding Richie seemed to work better than insulting him outright, Eddie tried his best to steer clear of his bespectacled crush for the first month and a half of school. He could tell that Richie was pretty hurt by his behavior, but Eddie figured he’d get over it after a while and move on to annoying someone else...so that was fine.

What was less fine was the fact that his rift with Richie was affecting their friend group. Bev and Bill didn’t really understand what was going on, but felt a little bit like they were being forced to take sides...and so instead of doing that, they chose to isolate themselves, becoming closer to each other and spending less time with the other members of the drama club. Richie didn’t really know what to do, and so was apparently biding his time with upperclassmen, and Eddie...Eddie was alone, which really pissed him off. The whole point of getting over his crush was to not ruin the friendships he’d made last year, damn it - and not only was this process actively tearing those friendships apart, but he still couldn’t shake the fucking crush. Un-fucking-fair.

Stan was the person that paid him the most attention on any given day, but Eddie knew that he was disappointed in him, too. Stage managers were supposed to be building trust with the actors, and Eddie was effectively doing the opposite of that. Letting Stan down hurt just as much if not more than losing friends, and by mid-October, when the fall play was going into tech, he was considering quitting the drama club, just so he could escape the scrutinizing gaze of Stanley Uris.

That was when Stan gave him The Assignment.

Stage management was technically not supposed to do stage crew work; they had enough responsibility in making sure that the actors, the lights, and the microphones were all doing what they were supposed to. This show was meant to be no different...except that there weren’t really enough crew members to cover all of the menial things like prop resetting. Stan really had no choice but to give Eddie a task.

“Eddie,” Stan came up to Eddie and pointed to a place in his heavily annotated script. It was about halfway through the first Saturday of tech weekend, and the entire crew was stressed beyond belief. “You’re not supervising anything during this stretch of Act One, so I need you to do me a favor.”

“What?” Eddie asked, pulling out his own script to make a note.

“Richie has a quick change here that he can’t make by himself.” Stan indicated a specific line on the page. “I need you to help him.”

Eddie felt like Stan had thrown a bucket of ice water on him. “Me? It has to be me?”

“It has to be you,” Stan confirmed. “There’s a scene switch there, too. I need the rest of my crew on stage.”

“I--” Eddie started to protest, but Stan held up a finger.

“I don’t care about your self-destructive feelings, Eddie. I care about the show. Get over it.”

Eddie swallowed, nodded, and tried in vain to silence his singing nerves.

An hour later, Richie sprinted offstage to change costumes, and all of Eddie’s “progress” in getting rid of his crush was undone.

“Eds?” Richie asked, confused and out of breath. “What--”

“You need a dresser for this, dumbass.” Eddie flushed and held out a pair of pants, already unbuttoned and ready for Richie to step into. “Strip.”

“Well, shit.” All the bravado seemed to drain from Richie’s face. He stared at Eddie, seemingly frozen to the spot. “Uh.”

“Now,” Eddie hissed, brandishing the pants again.

“Right, okay.” Richie made quick work of his suit jacket and pants, and was left in his boxers and a collared shirt. He started in on the buttons, which gave Eddie a couple of seconds to take in the sight of Richie before him, semi-undressed.

It fucking sucked to be fifteen and hormonal. Eddie was grateful for the dark as he discreetly reached down to adjust himself in his jeans.

Fortunately, Richie didn’t seem to notice. He got the shirt off, and stepped towards Eddie cautiously. “Uh.”

Shit. They were already almost out of time. “Okay, that took too long, I’m gonna have to help you with it next time.” Eddie shivered at the thought. “Now, pants.”

Richie folded his hands over his almost naked body, seemingly...embarrassed? “As much as I wish I were that tall, Eds, you’re, uh….gonna have to kneel down for this.”

Fuck.

Quickly, Eddie sank to his knees, holding out the pants and trying desperately to think of anything but his proximity to Richie’s crotch. Richie all but leapt into them, apparently also hoping to get the moment over with as soon as he possibly could. He reached his hands down to get the button, but Eddie swatted him away. “Put your shirt on instead. I got it.”

“You really don’t have to,” Richie said quickly, voice cracking a little on the last word.

“It’s fine.” Richie’s aversion to Eddie’s hands around that area soon became apparent; to Eddie’s surprise, Richie was noticeably half-hard himself. It wasn’t weird, though - in fact, it was kind of a relief to see that he wasn’t the only horny idiot around. Eddie chalked it up to puberty, and used his deft hands to do up the button and zipper swiftly and neatly.

“Fine?” Richie asked warily, with his t-shirt half over his head.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Eddie stood up and helped him pull the shirt down. They didn’t have to talk about it. There was nothing to say.

“No reason.” Richie took half a second to look at him curiously, and then turned to the stage. “Gotta blast.”

“Break a leg,” Eddie whispered after him, watching fondly as Richie’s face lit back up as soon as he was under the stage lights.

He’d been an idiot, hadn’t he?

He could live with keeping his stupid crush to himself if it meant that he could have his friends - have Richie.

Why did it take being inches from Richie’s dick to bring him to that stupid conclusion? Christ, being fifteen was the fucking worst.

The rest of the week saw things veering closer and closer to normal. Richie realized after about two days that Eddie wasn’t flinching away anymore (from his boner or otherwise) and slowly but surely, their banter resurfaced, as well as Richie’s flirting and casual touches. This drew Bev and Bill back in, and by the time the show rolled around, the group of them were sitting together after rehearsal again, trading jokes and insults like nothing had happened.

Most friends wouldn’t be so forgiving, Eddie knew. He was lucky.

Stan told him as much before the first curtain. “I see you took your head out of your ass, Kaspbrak.”

Eddie nodded, sliding his headset off of his ears and around his neck. “I was being a moron. But you know that.”

“I do.” Stan adjusted a newspaper on the prop table. “That’s why I gave you the task of changing Richie’s pants.”

Eddie groaned. “Stan, that’s hazing.”

“No, it’s strategic.” Stan was having trouble hiding his smile. “And nobody else around here has as much of a vested interest in Richie’s penis as you, so it made sense.”

Eddie pulled the hood of his black sweatshirt up and over his head in horror. “Stop talking, oh my god.”

Stan smiled, satisfied that the prop table was in order, and turned to Eddie. “I don’t care about your terrible taste in men, Eddie. I’m just glad you got your priorities sorted.”

“Did you ever have to dress Mike?” Eddie asked, changing the subject.

Stan scoffed as he exited towards the dressing rooms. “Have to? I volunteered, every time. Eventually he got the hint.” He paused before he left, looking back at Eddie. “It’s a legitimate strategy. Just a thought.”

“I’m done with pants duty after Saturday,” Eddie said hotly. “Mike probably didn’t subject you to Smurf pattern underwear.”

Stan didn’t stop laughing until he was all the way down the hall. Eddie listened to it echo, and felt warm.

He did end up volunteering to dress Richie for both the winter play and the musical, to Stan’s great amusement. It was less and less awkward for Eddie with every show, but Richie never really stopped being flustered about it - and for whatever reason, he’d become increasingly flustered around Eddie in general as the months went by. It was so out of character for him that for the musical, Bill and Bev came around to watch the ritual clothes change.

“Having fun, Rich?” Bev called, leaning on the prop table in amusement as Eddie tugged Richie’s belt through the belt loops of his jeans. “Haven’t you had this exact same fantasy the last few times you went into the bathroom to--”

“Shove it, Marsh.” Richie gritted his teeth. “You and Denbrough get up to kinkier shit, I’m sure.”

Bill wrinkled his nose. “Is that what you thuh-think about when you’re jacking it, Rich?”

“Your stutter’s getting better,” Richie commented, ignoring Bill’s remark.

Bill and Bev had announced in January that they were dating. Nobody was surprised; they’d spent virtually all fall together in an attempt to ride out the wave of Richie and Eddie’s rough patch. They were sort of a strange couple, though, in that they didn’t really have anything in common - they just sort of drifted together, connecting but not really connecting. Eddie imagined they’d be finished by the time the drama awards came around.

“I’ve had some help,” said Bill, giving Bev a small smile.

“Richie!” April, the junior girl Richie was playing opposite (they were the B-plot romance, which was pretty impressive, given that Richie was only a sophomore) ran over, clearly frazzled. “They’re like, three lines away from our cue.”

“Gimme my hat, gimme my hat!” Richie grabbed for the ridiculous straw cowboy hat in a hurry, abnormally eager to escape his friends. Eddie watched him, concerned.

“Richie?”

“C’mon, April!” Richie said, ignoring Eddie and taking April’s hand to pull her over and around to the back entrance of the set.

Eddie looked back over at Bill and Ben. “Was that weird?”

Bev shrugged. “Kinda. But she and Richie are close now, or whatever. They’ve been spending all kinds of time together.”

Eddie had noticed that, too, and it didn’t make him very happy. Bev bringing it up was really just the cherry on his paranoia sundae, and it led him to check in with a third, more honest source.

“Yeah, something’s up with Richie.” Mike Hanlon’s character had a break during the ballet in act two, and so Eddie was able to catch up with him quickly and easily. “He’s been like...agitated...since whatever happened between you guys in the fall.”

“Is he mad at me?” Eddie asked, trusting Mike to tell him the truth.

“He might be,” Mike admitted, adjusting his plaid costume shirt. “I don’t think he realizes if he is, though.”

Eddie sighed miserably. “I’m not ignoring him this time, though. I’m even trying to be nice.”

“Yeah, well.” Mike looked up at Eddie, shrugging. “That might be the issue, actually.”

“What does that mean?” Stan was saying something to Ben Hanscom, the new lights guy, over the headset. Eddie willed himself to ignore it.

“I don’t think Richie ever expected you to flirt back,” Mike said softly, “and he’s probably kind of scared of it, you know?”

Eddie didn’t understand, and told Mike as much.

“Well,” Mike tried, “fantasy and reality are really different, right? Like, when I had a crush on Stan, I was totally freaked when Stan started showing interest, because it was just...my mind hadn’t actually let me think that positively about it. I didn’t know what to do. I’m not the type to run from stuff, though. Richie...I don’t know.”

“What about April?” Eddie asked, wringing his hands.

“I don’t know about April,” Mike admitted. “She likes him, that’s obvious, but I can’t read Richie well enough to say.”

“Eddie,” Stan’s voice yelled through the headset, “stop flirting with my boyfriend backstage and get to your goddamn station.”

“Fuck you too, Stan,” Eddie called, rolling his eyes. “Thanks, Mike. Sorry to drag you into all this.”

Mike smiled, and Eddie fleetingly wished he had fallen for somebody with the kind of gentle countenance Mike had. “Happy to help, Eddie. Come back anytime.”

“Eddie!” Stan yelled, and Eddie hightailed it backstage.

He spent the next week trying to dial back his kindness to Richie, but it seemed the damage was done. Richie was barely interacting with him at all; instead, he was spending most all of his free time with April. Any suspicions Eddie had before were well on their way to being confirmed.

“Why her?” he asked himself quietly during the first night of the show, watching the two of them onstage and feeling a little bit like throwing up.

“You know your headset’s on, right?” Ben Hanscom called. Eddie groaned, mortified.

“No. Sorry, Ben.”

“It’s okay,” Ben said softly. “I know how you feel.”

That was new. Eddie hadn’t paid Ben much mind over the course of the last year (which he felt bad about, but it was hard to pay attention to anyone but Richie most of the time), but from what he had seen, he hadn’t picked up on Ben having a crush.

“Things will work out,” Ben continued, sweet and reassuring. “For both of us.”

“I hope you’re right, Ben,” Eddie sighed. “I’m going off headset now.”

“Fair enough,” Ben said. “Talk to you when Stan freaks out midway through the act one closer.”

“I can hear both of you,” Stan said flatly.

“Bye,” Eddie said, switching off his headset and returning to wallowing alone in his feelings.

When the end of year awards rolled around, Eddie hadn’t talked to Richie in three weeks, and it hadn’t been his prerogative. Richie hadn’t been talking to anyone but April. Needless to say, his feelings were hurt, and watching Richie win award after award after award wasn’t helping. Stan was really the only thing keeping him grounded - and this was Stan’s last night in the program. He was a graduating senior, and that fucking hurt, too.

“I’m sorry,” Stan whispered, after the ceremony concluded and all of the awards were passed out. Eddie had won a fair amount of them himself, but he still felt shitty, and Stan’s leaving was pushing him over the edge a little bit.

“Don’t be,” Eddie whispered back, pulling him into a hug. “Thanks for everything, Stan.”

“You make it sound like we won’t see each other over the summer,” Stan mumbled, voice uncharacteristically shaky.

“Also, I have your number,” Eddie said, blinking back tears, “so really, you’re never getting rid of me.”

Stan pulled back and looked seriously at him. “You’re coming back to this next year, right?”

Eddie didn’t have to ask why Stan was asking. He could see Richie and April laughing together in his peripheral vision.

“I’m not gonna like it,” Eddie said honestly, “but I promise you that you didn’t waste your time with me.”

Stan smiled, eyes watery. “I know I didn’t.”

“Go suck face with your stupid boyfriend,” Eddie smiled back weakly, patting Stan on the arm.

“I will.” Slowly, Stan turned on his heel and departed in search of Mike. Eddie watched him leave, feeling heavy with the knowledge that a chapter of his life was ending. Things wouldn’t be the same without Stan and Mike.

“Eddie?” Eddie heard Bill and Bev walking up behind him. He turned to find that they had their coats on, and were looking at him piteously, for whatever reason. Ben Hanscom was also with them; he was not looking at Eddie, though, preoccupied instead by staring wistfully at Bev.

Oh. Oh, oh, oh.

“Let’s go get pizza,” Bev suggested softly, taking Bill’s hand. Ben looked away sharply.

“Why?” Eddie looked back at the three of them, suspicious. “Why are you being so--”

They stared at the ground, uncomfortable, and Eddie’s heart sank. He turned around.

Richie and April were tucked away in a corner of the auditorium lobby...and they were kissing.

“Yeah,” Eddie said softly, unable to tear his eyes away from them, “pizza sounds good.”

“Let’s go,” Bill suggested, guiding Eddie towards the doors. Bev came around his other side to wrap an arm around Eddie’s waist, and Ben followed the three of them out.

It was a good thing he had such good friends, Eddie figured, because there was no way he was going to survive junior year otherwise.

Theatre was great, except when it wasn’t.

Tag List: (this is everyone who liked my tag list post. lmk if you want off.) @nymphadora @sun-nugget @reddieaddict @peonyromance @should-i-gay-or-should-i-go @its-stranger-than-you-think @forever-a-lonely-valentine

[mpalarea-blog]

Artist: Diana Yesenia Alvarado

Exhibition: Magic Touch

Media: Ceramics

Gallery: LBSU School of Art, Gatov Gallery East

Website: N/A

Instagram:deealvarado

Diana Alvarado is in her final year at CSULB finishing her BFA in ceramics, she is a Los Angeles based artist and mostly finds inspiration from that. Alvarado spends most of her time making ceramics and spending time with her partner. She emerges herself in art most of the time and decided to take a chance on ceramics. Alvarado felt that ceramics was a white dominated field; therefore in order for her to have a safe space to create she needed to be the one to make that space for her. Being creative dominates her life and it also has a big chunk of her heart, she loves to style herself with her clothing and curate art shows with her partner. In the future she hopes to be able to continue curating shows and make a living off that, but as long as she is being creative and working on her art she is happy.

Alvarado’s show Magic Touch, was her senior show, which showcased all of her work from the present and the past. These pieces don’t necessarily all go together but they are all deeply rooted in Alvarado’s life experiences. The gated fence with bunnies is very subtle and once you walk into the room, you hardly notice it but to me its what stood out the most. You notice the straight lines of the fence but also the detail of the curved metal that helps create the design in the middle. The design in the middle reminds me of hearts, which is very fitting because the piece itself gives off a feeling of love. The piece itself is of medium height, it’s not necessarily small where you can’t see it but it also is not large where it takes up the whole gallery. The bunnies in the piece have a very soft rounded shape to make them seem cuddly and cute. And although the piece itself seems new, the color palette is very muted and neutral with pops of red and subtle hints of blue. Alvarado doesn’t sculpt the bunnies to look smooth but rather with some texture on their bodies to show a difference between the front and backs of their body.

Diana states that she loves ceramics because of how far she is able to push it, before she works with any new material she likes to research it and focus on that materials history and what she can do with it. She loves to work with clay because of how malleable it is and she likes the color it gives off. The process of making a ceramic piece usually takes weeks to make but it mostly depends on the piece itself. However, the process is always the same, first you build it, then it needs time dry, fit it into the kiln, and finally it takes up to three days to dry. Not only does she create for herself but also she creates in order to give a space for others, she feels that she is able to finally by creative all thanks to her parents. Alvarado thanks her parents because they endured the struggles for her but because they took the entire struggle, she is able to be creative and her explore whatever that may mean. Since Alvarado is a Los Angeles native, that’s where most of her inspiration comes from, she feels that since LA is very chaotic people don’t notice the little things. However, by focusing on the little things and putting them on pedestals, it makes it easier for the viewer to digest. Diana says that her overall messages she hopes to bring to the viewer is that all moments are precious and should be captured as such. All of her pieces are influenced by her culture and upbringing and all tough most of her pieces are very interpretive, she wants to create a certain setting for her viewers.

I feel that I connected with the art especially because of the fact that it reminded me so much of LA because the art itself is not cookie cutter and that it was very interpretive. The artist was very genuine and answered all of my questions, she is very sweet but also kind of outspoken; her style is unique and her use of clay is nothing that I’ve ever seen. Her piece with the bunnies and the fence remind me so much of my grandmother’s house, because she had those fencing on her windows. Also because of the fact that bunnies look so weathered it gives a feeling of home and safeness, it makes me feel like I am loved and that everything will be okay. I really enjoy the fact that she is creating a safe space for herself because the Latino art community is very small, especially at CSULB so it is ideal that she creates a community for herself and others. I feel her struggles as far as being able to be herself because of her parents, I am also thankful for everything my parents have done for me in order to get me where I am today. Her pieces focus on the good and bad that life has to offer and that resonates especially with me because I am learning how to deal and even appreciate the bad due to the fact that it allows me to grow as a person.

[sammisincostumeagain]

Fanime: Then vs. Now (2017)

I’ve been going to Fanime since my junior year in high school back in 2009, and a lot has changed--much of it for the better.

So, this year at Fanime was almost a completely new experience for me. I’ve been steadily improving as a cosplayer each year, adding onto my costumes and learning new crafts and techniques. I have been a huge fan of the Legend of Zelda for years, and every time a new game releases I try to make the best costume I can for the new release. Usually I have one or two other costumes for the other days of the con, but the Legend of Zelda was always a constant.

I’m not going to go on about why I identify with Link and why I feel so at home in Hyrule, because that could have its own post. What I do want to talk about is the huge shift in cosplay culture and my own experiences since I first started attending.

Before I ever went to Fanime, I attended tiny cons at my local college or in San Francisco. Anime started gaining serious traction with youth when I was in middle school, and the first series I ever saw was InuYasha. It inspired me to draw, and I’ve always loved dressing up. For two straight weeks in high school my senior year, I wore a different costume every single day despite my stepmother picking on me for being a ‘weirdo’. Hey, I may be a weirdo, but at least I’m nice.

I started learning to sew my junior year, but I wasn’t good enough to make my own costumes yet. I was a thrifter, and I got a green tee shirt from my boyfriend (because he’s a long and tall, it was a tunic on me), a pair of cargo shorts and a huge buckle belt from Goodwill, and I made myself an attempt at a hat. I did not have a sword, and that year when I went to Fanime I didn’t have any fun. I was from a poor family and had begged for money for a ticket, and I realized while there that the people with really good costumes were having the most fun. It made me nervous to talk to them because I was embarrassed at my costume. I almost didn’t go back, but I got into Chobits and thought I could make a really cute Chi because even though I don’t have amber eyes, mine are hazel.

Two years later I went back to Fanime on my second college grant and didn’t go as Link. I went as Chii, which was pretty cute, but only one person took a picture and I didn’t have a good camera. The picture you see above is the only memory I have of the cosplay. I also went as Sailor Jupiter that year, and had used a white one-piece bathing suit, sewn a cute capelet with a ruffled trim and a couple of satin bows, ordered shoes online and sewn white lacing to them, and ordered some cat’s eye cabochons to use as crystals. I even made an awkward-but-almost-good wire wrapped tiara. That year a lot of people took pictures, but I didn’t remember to ask for contact information or business cards and I lost out on all of that costume. I learned a lesson that year.

The following year I got really serious. I went to Joann and bought some thin, olive-green suit lining and decided to make a real tunic and do a Twilight Princess Link. At that time, that was my favorite Legend of Zelda game. I was in a ceramics class in college and had sculpted and painted my own Majora’s mask and a Deku Mask, which I still proudly own, and I was excited to show it off. This was around the time my boyfriend and his family moved to a bigger property too, and they had a workshop that we were able to use. My boyfriend was getting into leather and wood working, and we made the shield together. I reused my pants, boots, and belt and made the tunic and hat from scratch, and then ordered a plastic sword online which was similar in shape to the Master Sword and painted it to look like it. I got a ridiculous amount of attention that year, got countless pictures taken and this time remembered to take a lot myself, but I still forgot to ask for contact information from those who photographed me. I was not very good at posing either. I was so excited, I was like a kid in a candy store; every picture had me wearing a stupid grin like a little kid, but I loved it. People thought I was adorable.

Then I got a Real Job™ and decided to kick it up a notch. I wore TP Link I think for two years before Hyrule Warriors was released. I knew if I did that costume so soon after the release it would be popular, and I craved the attention because I didn’t have a ton of friends who had this interest in common with me at the time. I wanted to do something impressive, and the new Link had new items I would have to make from scratch. I was already disappointed that I couldn’t go the year Skyward Sword came out, so I swore I would do this one. I reused my belt, cargo pants, and boots and made a tunic and scarf. I used outdoor acrylics (FolkArt makes the best) to paint the gold and green trim and the details on the scarf, and then I made the hat. I also got a decent foam sword and reused the shield. Next was the pauldron, and back then I wasn’t familiar with foam or worbla work and didn’t want to use cardboard, but I found inspiration in polymer clay sculptures on Etsy. I bought a pound of polymer clay and some spray on paint and hand sculpted the thing at my desk at work on my breaks, using a stencil I had sketched out myself. That year, there were barely any cosplayers from the game and few people cared that I was there. Maybe 10 pictures were taken. But I loved the way I looked and felt in the costume. I was still motivated and wore the same costume again the next year, and wasn’t bothered by the lack of photos because people still wanted to chat with me.

This year, I had less than 4 months to make this costume. My now-husband is an established leatherworker and has picked up a lot of techniques in foam working and even electrical over the last couple of years. Starting at the Breath of the Wild US release I got a crash course in all of these as we desperately tried to craft multiple props and accessories, all while battling depression and anxiety and trying to escape our abusive families. We had limited time to work and limited money as we were trying to move out, but couldn’t find any suitable roommates. Still, we worked up until 6:30 am the Friday of the convention and were on the road 4 hours later.

This year was a wildly new experience for me. For the first time, 90% of my costume was completely handmade. I had more detailed props than I could carry, and my reception was so different from any other year. I lost count of the number of people who wanted pictures of or with me, including several adorable children, and I even had four professional photo shoots. I had a good phone camera this time as well, and I had learned a couple of things in previous years. First, I had learned what the difference between “costuming” and “cosplaying” was and tried to act more like Link. Less smiling, don’t always look directly at the camera, and practice poses. Second, remember to get business cards and contact information from people when they take pictures. Finally, friend everybody and tag everything because we all like to be appreciated. I had every single part of the costume, and I had the bow and Ancient Arrow so I could do poses from the posters--something that was recognizable. JC pretty much made everything and I sort of just painted and tried stuff out. We made something more original and impressive: the light-up Ancient Shield.

Not only did a massive number of people want pictures and give me compliments, but four separate photographers wanted to do professional shoots with me where they requested action poses, natural poses, took panoramic photos of the whole costume, took photos in photogenic locations (like near trees and flowers), and happily handed me business cards. I was stunned. I don’t consider myself a pro by any means, so I was flattered. I had almost decided to go blonde for the costume since my hair is so hard to stuff int a wig, but I would have either had to pay $200+ or chop all my hair off and so I just stayed brunette like in the previous years. I’m also not a blue-eyed girl; I have hazel eyes, so that’s not exactly a match and I don’t know how to get ahold of a good set of contacts yet. Despite that major lack of accuracy, I was wildly popular and people consistently asked me about the construction of my costume and props and I was so excited to answer questions. Early on in my cosplay “career” I had known somebody I considered to be a friend who was very good, and youhave probably met her; however, when i asked her for help she would ignore me and I had to learn everything myself. I didn’t like how that felt, so I resolved not to be like that. I openly give information on costume construction.

Normally I only go to Fanime, and that’s just one time a year. I used to be too broke to attend more events than that, but since I got promoted last year and I’ve gotten more and more into art and crafting I’ve decided to try and dedicate more time to it, even in my turbulent life. JC and I are far from stable at the moment and have to scrounge for opportunities to practice our art, but I never thought I would ever be this good. So I think that’s the moral of the story; you might start out just assembling pieces and think you’re never going to be as good as the best cosplayers you encounter, but as long as you keep trying new things and challenging yourself then you’re almost guaranteed to get there eventually. Don’t lose your motivation.

I met a bunch of Breath of the Wild cosplayers, and one other Link stuck out to me in particular. In general her cosplay was a lot more accurate than mine, but she didn’t really have any props. She didn’t feel that confident about the costume, but then a photographer caught us after the meetup and asked her to take a picture with my bow and ancient arrow, not realizing that they were mine. I handed them to her excitedly and was like, “Go, go do it!” and she was like, “Are you sure?” But she took it and had her first serious photoshoot right there with the pro photographers. I got another photoshoot out of it too, but the best part was that it had been the highlight of her weekend, which also made it mine. I made a ton of friends this year, and that was the best part of the weekend and it really brought me closer to the character I was portraying.

Anyway, sorry for this enormous feelings dump! If you read it this far, I just want you to know I appreciate you and keep working at it! Tutorials are coming soon and I’m always happy to answer questions. I hope you enjoy every con you attend as much as I enjoyed this one.

[voxplusherizes]

I’ve made a big mistake

So, for those of you who don’t know, I love ball joint dolls. I love them, i think they're such beautiful pieces of artwork and i admire every one of them for their craftsmanship. Ever since i first discovered them in a little magazine thing my middle school handed out sometimes, I've wanted my own. I wanted one of those big, 70 cm ones, to make my character ZYT.fuck, i tried to make one with polymer clay once (it failed spectacularly) That desire hasn't really faded, i don't think, although i'd prolly be more inclined to make Erasii or XaE if i had the opportunity today.

I think that's why i eventually began to dabble in sewn dolls; if i couldn't have BJDs of my characters, I'd make my own the only way i knew how.

I do, technically, ""own"" a BJD. a 45-ish cm female from Dollzone. I bought her used from someone selling her, and i jumped at this opportunity because it was the cheapest i knew of to get a doll at the time (she was $300, the price the person had original paid for the doll, which i hadn't minded forking over since the doll was worth it.) and it landed right on my doorstep, practically.

Its because of this pre-ownership, however, that she never really felt like she was mine. I hadn't touched her to remove her clothing or wig or change her eyes for the longest time because i felt i was ruining her. Despite the fact that i now 100% owned this doll. when my attempts to give her an outfit failed bc i was a dumb child who couldn't sow worth shit, i put her back in her box, and she was eventually shoved into the attic. for years.

Recently, this feeling has faded enough for me to feel comfortable (albeit still really bad) removing her faceup. This doll i'm talking about is Zazanna, whom was recently renamed and redesigned. however, despite all of this....

she still doesn't feel like she's mine.

and this makes my heart ache because i should be content to have her, i wanted a ball joint doll and i have one so why can't i just be happy with that?

When i was attempting to figure out what model she was, i stumbled onto a distributor site for BJDs. they didn't have any of the type of doll i was looking for, so i don't know why i stayed, but i did, and....like a moron, i looked through the dolls.

And fell in love with one.

one that i can't have. because it's expensive for my literal broke ass.

I don't think i can describe how agonizing this love i have for this doll is. I've wanted things with all my soul before, yes, I've felt like i needed something "with all my heart and soul" but damn do i regret tossing around such words so carelessly now. I've "desperately wanted" gaming consoles. I've "desperately needed" certain games. I've "needed" art supplies like fabric, clay, resin, paints. Fuck, i used all of those exact terms when begging for my snek baby, Raspberry (to be fair, i think i wanted raspberry more than this doll, at the time. I fell in love with him instantly too.)

But this desire for this doll is different. its obsessive. the tab for its page is permanently open in my browser and has been for weeks, and i check it daily for no reason besides to see if it randomly decided to become free of charge. i admire the pictures of it constantly. i looked up reviews of it on youtube, google image searched it, picked out a name to give it if, by some miracle, someone decides they want to spend over a hundred dolls on me for a gift.

This doll is different from Zazanna. I don't love Zazanna. she doesn't have an identity. shes not "mine". but i feel like i need to own this doll, that I've already given him his own identity, his own soul. i feel like I've already claimed him, that he's mine and he's precious and he's a thing that I'll treasure. that i want to spend time, energy, and money bringing who i want him to be into reality.

Dolls are special to me. I believe they should be loved and cared for and respected, because they're unique and a lot of effort goes into making them. They're valuable, and deserve to be treated as such. This is why i never bought another BJD besides Zazanna, whom was a fortunate opportunity: i never fell in love with one.

but now i have, and its pain incarnate.

I get obsessive with things. things and hobbies. Because I suffer from depression, very little brings me pleasure or happiness. And so when i find things that i think will make me feel good, I fall for them and i fall hard. it becomes a need, a desperate, selfish need to cling onto anything, any kind of hope, that perhaps this thing will magically cure me and i can feel again. or that doing this hobby will breathe the life back in me. Its a constant, always bouncing from thing to thing yet never staying long enough to actually get good at it or even learn it properly.

Drawing. Writing. Painting. Sculpting. Knitting. Watercolor. Woodburning. Game design. Coding. 3D modeling. Esperanto. Video Games. voice acting. video editing.

Doll customizing is the most recent on a very, very long list. I'm running into, blind and at full steam. and just when I'm halfway through, i know i will crash. and yet i'm doing it anyway. I can't tell if that’s inspiring or just foolish.

Sewing is the only skill that I've stuck with long enough to actually have a visible change in the quality of my work, and I'm proud of that.

The point of this tangent is thus: i can't tell if I've truly fallen in love with a doll for it being a doll and something i simply adore. or if i love it because i think it'll artificially boost my mood for a couple of days if i have it.

....Does it even matter?

[nightmareonfilmstreet]

[Exclusive Interview] CHUCK STEEL: NIGHT OF THE TRAMPIRES IS a Teenage Fantasy Come True For Director Mike Mort

Many of us have spent most of our school years daydreaming and scribbling in our math books. Hell, most of us still daydream and doodle at our office job. But few of us have actually followed our dreams. Mike Mort has finally produced his passion project; a stop-motion feature-length film featuring a character he came up with as a teenager. Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires is the product of four years of hard, repetitive work. Mort is credited as the writer, director, sculptor and voice of the primary characters, including Chuck Steel. I caught up with Mort at the Fantasia Film Festival to talk about the long process of crafting his masterpiece.

    Chris Aitkens of Nightmare on Film Street: How are you feeling after the screening? 

Mike Mort: Great. It went down very well. I was trying to listen to see whether some of the jokes were working. There seemed to be laughter all the way through so I think it worked.

  NOFS: Has the cut changed since its world premiere?

MM: No, all we’ve done is we beefed up the sound slightly. It need just a little tweak and I think it’s working perfectly now. I was very happy with the screening.

  “When I first came up with him, he was just a square-jawed action hero-type scribble in my school book.”

  NOFS: I was very surprised to hear that you came up with Chuck Steel when you were 15. How has the character developed over the years?

MM: When I first came up with him, he was just a square-jawed action hero-type scribble in my school book. I started to just draw him over and over again in different scenarios. At some point, he was in a post-apocalyptic world, another time he was in a fantasy world. Over the years, I’ve made a number of scripts and story ideas around him, but the “trampires” idea came from joining up two ideas. The Night of the Trampires came to me as an idea for a low-budget horror which would be live action. And then I ended up joining that with the Chuck Steel storyline. This is the result, but it’s taken a long time just to get to this point, probably because I learned things over the years about writing and story structure. When I was 15, I didn’t know anything about that stuff, I was just drawing and sculpting. It’s probably good that it’s taken me so long, otherwise if I made it years ago, it probably wouldn’t be as good.

  NOFS: When I was watching the original short [Chuck Steel: Raging Balls of Steel Justice], the premise seemed a bit more realistic. There are still elements that are completely zany, but why did you want to go for a more fantastical approach for the feature-length?

MM: Just because I wanted to put as many things in this film that I wanted. There are things that I wanted to do in animation for a long time like karate fighting, car chases, monsters, meltdowns, explosions, all those things that I wanted to try to find a way to make. And I thought, this is my one opportunity to do this, I’m going to put everything in this film and construct a story around these things I wanted to see in animation.

    NOFS: What was the reaction to the original short film?

MM: I didn’t attend Fantasia that year when it was shown. We didn’t do a huge amount of festivals because we went straight into making the feature film so we didn’t need to push it. One thing we would like is to get the views up on Youtube, it’s run up to about 250,000 views, but we would like it to be more than that so more people are aware of Chuck Steel as a character. The reaction to it was good, everyone liked it and my backers who backed the short film wanted to go straight into the feature film. 

    NOFS: Would you mind describing to me the pain-staking animation process?

 MM: Where do I start? Can you be a bit more specific?

    NOFS: All I know is that you have to make a different mouth for every syllable, you have to make different characters for all the crowd scenes…

MM: Yeah, we had a lot of crowd scenes in this film and a lot of villains in the crowd of Trampires. I wanted to make sure that they were all different and all look unique. The common thing with stop-motion films is, with background characters, change a head or change a hat, and you think it’s a new character. We wanted to make them all look completely different so that when you’re watching the film, it’s a visual overload, but not to the point where you don’t know what’s going on, but it feels like a real crowd because everyone is different. So it was hard to construct those things. It’s not hard to design those things, you just sit down and draw. It’s was hard on the budget we were on to actually create the stuff but we found ways around it. We made four or five different body shapes that we dressed differently. That was the only time where we standardized things for easy construction, and then all the heads and hands were unique to the characters. And we did that for all the humans and Trampires as well, that was probably one of the biggest challenges.

As for the lip-sync for the characters when they talk was the other big challenge where we stuck with the approach of hand-sculpting the lips every frame so the animator would take the head off, sculpt it, clean it up, put it back on. It’s crazy really but it has a nice look to it. That’s the technique we used on the short film, I didn’t want it to veer off wildly from the look of the short, so we stuck with that.

  NOFS: Were there particular scenes in the movie that were difficult to animate? 

MM: The fighting scene at the end with the clowns and all that was quite time-consuming because of the amount of characters running around. The foreground action would be the primary shot, but for everyone of those shots, we would have to shoot a background plate which had this crowd running around in the circus as well. And we could only do so much reuse of those background plates because we kept changing angles, we didn’t want to standardize it to one angle and then repeat the background. We did a little bit of that, but it’s very minimal. So the crowd were probably the trickiest.

    NOFS: You’ve been animating for quite a while, what were some of the first projects you worked on?

MM: Years ago, back in ’92, I did a TV series called the Gogs, which was of a family of cavemen. It’s all on Youtube now, it was an idiot cavemen clay-mation. That took a few years to shoot, it was a half-hour special. I then did a few short films and most of my work has been doing commercials as a director or animator or model maker, whatever jobs turn up. But I was always chasing this project in the back of my mind because I wanted to make an action movie in stop-motion. People have tried to do stop-motion action on Youtube, but I wanted to do something slick and impressive. Took a while but we got there.

  NOFS: You also briefly worked at Aardman studios as a director for Shaun the Sheep. I noticed you slipped in a small tribute to Wallace & Gromit in the short film. Is there anything you tried to sneak into the feature film? 

MM: I did have conversations around this about whether we should do a little nod again, but we already did that in the short film, so we decided to leave it. Everyone knows Aardman and they do great stuff, but that thing in the short film was just a little gag. It’s not like we’re trying to wind each other up or anything.

  NOFS: Have you heard any feedback from the Aardman people about Chuck Steel? 

MM: I think Peter Lord [Producer of Chicken Run and Curse of the Were-Rabbit] saw it at Annecy and he said he liked it. I’d like to screen it for all those guys over there at some point, so they can see what we’ve been up to. And a lot of the animators who worked there worked on the film, so this is the pool of talent that we shared.

  NOFS: What’s next for the film?

MM: We got more festival screenings coming up. We got FrightFest in London and Sitges in Spain, and a few other ones as well. Running parallel to that we are talking to distributors, trying to get a good distribution deal for it, theatrically hopefully, that’s the plan. 

  NOFS: Is there anything you would like to do with Chuck Steel in the future? 

MM: I have two ideas for sequels. I haven’t started writing them out properly yet because I don’t want to count my chickens, I want to get this one out and hopefully it does well enough to allow us to do another one.

  NOFS: Any last thing you want our readers to know?

MM: If they’re aware of Chuck Steel, the short film especially because that’s out there, then it would be good for people to like it, to share it as much as possible, get the word of mouth out about this character. Making an independent film at this level—because we’re not a $100 million film nor are we a $1 million film, we’re in that tricky part in the middle. We do need people to find us and follow us.

  If you want to find out more about Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires, you can visit the official movie website. Don’t forget to follow Chuck Steel on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram! And be sure to tell all your friends!

The post [Exclusive Interview] CHUCK STEEL: NIGHT OF THE TRAMPIRES IS a Teenage Fantasy Come True For Director Mike Mort appeared first on Nightmare on Film Street - Horror Movie Podcast, News and Reviews.

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[astralmouseart]

I’m not feeling well lately. Mostly crushing despair, alienation and anxiety. 

I’m undersleeping lately and all the problems - both with the Nazis and the contract just kill my motivation and ability to study. To make things worse, I got myself into beta testing a wargame.

I wasn’t able to do any learning today. Actually, haven’t done almost anything since Friday - 3 days wasted.

Literally the only thing I’ve done today during internship is colouring another mouse graphic which reflects my mood. It took me 22 minutes.

That and doing some cleaning. I started cleaning the middle shelf of my most solid bookshelf today. I removed some really old stuff like a can of Citadel spray paint and spilled basing sand.

I’ve seen some really ancient stuff. Like a drawer with pens and pencils that I think I’ve opened last time about 14-15 years ago.

I’ve found the only evidence of my old attempts to sculpt with polymer clay there. I think it was from 2002.

Besides that I there was a drawer with old stuff I had in primary school.

I also found some extremely old Citadel paints from before I got a Citadel Mega Paint set - around 2002 or 2003 - holy shit, there are two pots from late mid 90s and one from mid 90s! I think I bought it somewhere around when Quake demo was released which I think was 1996.

I also found some really old BFG ships from 1999 or 2000. All of them have broken stems. I haven’t even got to paint the battleship as the base literally crumbled under its own weight without me dropping it or anything! Which doesn’t really matter because I use counters for ships because the ships aren’t so big. A cruiser is, like 5km long and the base is 3000km across. So, the real size of the ship on map is, like 1/20mm.

BFG was one of the few expensive gifts that my father gave me in my life - it costed a work-equivalent of nowaday’s 486$. Another of which was a Commodore C-64 computer which was much more expensive. It was after my father has renewed contact with me, stopped dodging child support, started giving me pocket money, which was a pretty big sum back then a work-equivalent of nowadays 134$ per month, buying me clothes,  etc. which started when I was 13-14 and was gradually decreasing and ended in 2003 as it turned out I’m disabled and won’t be successful in life.

Actually, what I wanted to do is getting my BGF counters and dices which were in another drawer and I ended up doing the cleaning because they were behind some books.

After the cleaning I decided to remove all that stuff and use that shelf for keeping big books there.

I ended up putting two big expensive miltiary history books that arrived yesterday which I bought for my part of the first internship scholarship I received and some more that I’ve recently bought. The blue one is a doctor’s thesis of a retired tank officer. Also the Annais Nin diaries and stories and web design/development books. The shelf is very deep so I’ve put a lot of other stuff which I don’t need to be immediately accessible there.

The last productive day I had was Thursday.