#i remember an artist i used to look up to somewhat bc of his character designs for rivals of aether like
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lottieratworld · 5 months ago
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i think once or twice when i used twitter some twitter artist would post "#tummytuesday !!!" and itd be closeups of their girl ocs' stick-thin waist. whats the point, theres nothing to look at. i no longer follow those artists neither on twitter nor here lmao
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pumpkinsy0 · 1 year ago
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Tim Shepard (Tv series) Head Cannons
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This is if you seen the Tv show or not its fine :P
***he really is a good artist (DID YOU SEE THE DRAWING OF CALIFORNIA HE DID LOL,,,,,HE EVEN GAVE IT TO PONY HOW SWEET OF HIM😭🙏🏻)***
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***I wanna see what you come up wit! I LOVE YOUR HCS THERE AMAZING! AND INTERESTING YOU MAKE ME LIKE THE CHARACTERS MORE JUST BY THE HCS LOL***
But take your time!! NO RUSH THANK YOU🙏🏻♥
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Sorry to ask this! Its just over seen the show and in my opinion i was a great show I loved it! I LOVES IT EVEN MORE CAUSE OF TIM. HE REALLY IS MY FAVE!🙏🏻😭 (IM OBSESSED WITH HIM! NOT IN A WEIRD WAY GOD NO😭) I KIN WITH HIM SO MUCH I RELATE WIT HIM SO MUCH🙏🏻🙏🏻😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Also your my favorite "OUTSIDERS" fanpage! Your my favorite person! (Love'ya :D )
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i havent seen the show in a while so what i remember is rusty and i dont think tim was rlly there a bunch so i only have like 3 hcs im srry BUT to make up for it i will go into depth about them kinda sorta, and by hcs i mean aspects of his character i liked in the show and just went “yea thats tim im including that in my tim most definitely” but i do have like 2 hcs
•hes a good artist
loved this part of his character in the show, i feel like he was one of those kids who would doodle on like desk n stuff like that, and maybe he was one of those kids who was into graffiti and he just liked designing things but had no real outlet, sometimes at night when he cant sleep or somethin or hes thinking of like idk gang stuff he draws cause it helps clear his mind, he also just thinks its funny to draw a lot of weiners, hes still a teen hes a lil immature, but i also hc that his artistic abilities kinda inspired angela and curly as well and they become artist in their own right
•hes close to pony
OK LOOK I LOVE THIS AS A FOIL RELATIONSHIP TO DARRY AND CURLY ITS GREAT, but HOW did they get close??? most likely after johnny and dallys deaths, pony spends more time w curly which means more time at curlys house which means seeing tim a lot more as well, at first tim would just pop in and go like “do yall want somethin to eat” and ofc pony was afraid at first but l as time went on, they just kinda clicked, maybe over art, bc each other using creativity as an outlet, or something or bc tim was like “o he is a bit fucked up actually” and took him under his wing
•hes somewhat involved w the curtis gang
mostly based off that one rumble episode, BUT i hc that after dallys death, tim became not close but definitely not a stranger to the curtis gang, he doesnt rlly hang out w them or anything like that, but he does see them quite a bit and talks to them, and especially teams up w them when they need it, think of tim as what dally was to the gang, the guy who came n went but was down w them, but in his own “yall cool but i got a gang to lead so ill help darry a bit when it comes to handlin yall” way if that makes any lick of sense
BUT FOR ACTUAL HCS OF MINE
•i hc that angela and curly werent there bc they were off w their grandma, y u ask??? man idk they love their grandma i guess who r we to judge
•perhaps it was around that time that angela and curly was gone that tim started getting closer to pony cause he kinda missed up and wanted someone to look after, he just got that “damn i need to b a guardian to a fucked up kid or else im gonna go insane my damn self” thing goin on and pony was there so
•i said it before but idc ill say it again, tims art is influenced by haitian art, maybe not like the style exactly, but the idea of it being vibrant, black ppl being shown using the actual color black, yknow that thing
•tim mostly draws ppl and landscapes, maybe he goes out of his way and draws like anatomy stuff wether its normal things or like horror
•he would never actually show his drawings to anyone, he rlly only shows pony it cause he knows pony wont judge, ofc angela and curly knows and have seen it but thats bc theyre nosey and poke around his things, he knows about it but they havent said anything so it’s whatever
thats all i could think of mb</33
and thank u im glad my acc beings some sorta joy, luv ya 2 anon🙏🏽🙏🏽
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lumilasi · 4 months ago
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yooo Idk who the blue dude is but he looks cool, I wanna know more about him
I'm guessing you mean Azul/Chester since I reblogged lot of stuff about him and Diojas last evening lol
Glad you like him, also oooof this is going to be kind of a long story, because he is one of THE og characters of mine, and I'm probably gonna start rambling a lot, so apologies in advance (I'm gonna like...split this into chapters or so to make it easier to follow: its hard for me to talk about Azul and NOT bring up his long history with me lolol)
1. HISTORY (BC being one of the OGS gives you a LOOONG origin)
Azul has kind of a long birth-story as said; his OG og version was a brother I made for my then-mascot character (She no longer exists at all) which is also where the name "Chester" comes from. He had no real personality given initially they were just meant to be my "mascots" I used for my icon and so.
(WARNING; old ass art ahead, I found I still have em lmao, prepare your eyes)
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This was drawn like.....2014ish, so 10 years ago, the girl on the left was his sister Breezy. In the end, only Chester ended up continuing along with me overtime, while Breezy was left behind. I don't remember why, maybe I just didn't like her design anymore at the time? (gotta say looking at her now, that outfit's still kinda neat, I could give it to someone....)
Chester went on to get a redesign (and a GF by the courtesy of my friend @mad-hatter-rici, a gal called Gwen at the time) and he became a tattoo artist, a trait I later gave Jurou when I created his modern version.
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IDK exactly when these were made, my laptop claims 2018 but that's not possible, given at that point I was on tumblr already, and these are all made pre-tumblr, so between 2011-2017. (Side note, I kinda like some of his old tattoos still....) His personality started to form properly here, and ironically I'd say current version kind of returned to his more relaxed/mischievous nature after being more serious and blunt for a while.
Then at some point, my friend and I decided to create a fantasy AU, where "Azul" was born properly. This was also around the time I joined this hellsite (affectionate), and he got his color-themed name/his current sibling Reuben, and more current look. His personality shifted into more serious, no-nonsense type, the kind that is powered by intensely black coffee and spite. This is also where he got the whole "Dark Mage" deal from, though it was always kind of vague what that meant? (In current version, I've tried to be more specific about what it is)
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(There was another look between modern Chess and this Azul design, but I no longer have it sadly, that chibi version has that old outfit)
The left chibi look (Well its full version that I couldn't find) was the one he had for the longest time, because in-between creating it and recent times, I had my massive fandom phase, so I barely drew them at all for years. Once I started coming back to it, I gave him that right outfit, his personality also began to shift back into a more relaxed one.
Finally, we've reached his current incarnation, which still pulls some stuff from his previous look with colors and such (and keeps his BF from the previous incarnation, Diojas). I actually planned to keep his poofy hairstyle initially, but after creating that long, straight hair for disguise purposes, I realized I kinda liked it more? So I kept it instead.
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2. CURRENT BLUE BOY
He is a Shadowcaster sorcerer, it is an ancient type of magic that no longer exists; the only reason he has it, is because he and his brother Reuben originate from times long past. They got thrown forward in time as tiny children due to a ritual their bio father, Amaros, performed going wrong somewhat. (Amaros became the Soul Eater Deity and is the origin of all Soul eater's powers) Shadowcaster is the most powerful type of darkness/shadow/night themed magic that has ever existed in his world.
His original name is "Azul" whereas Chester is the name his adoptive parents gave him as he couldn't remember his OG name back then. (Reuben is also a name given to him by their adoptive fam). His adoptive dad is a Chesire cat called Lionel who is a doctor/exorcist, and the adoptive mom is an opera singer songbird called Annabelle. He and Reuben also now have a baby brother called Adam, who is a Chesire like their dad. (Adam is around 17-19, I haven't decided exactly, Reuben and Azul are both mid thirties so there is a big age-gap. There's a story reason for this relating to Annabelle, but I'm trying not to ramble too much and focus on Azul alone lol)
Chester, before he started his origin discovery journey, was a medical student in university in his home world Ether, and he had a bit of a hostile, violent rivalry with Angus Belmont (another fave of mine), which was admittedly mainly caused by the toxic influence from Angus' then-friend Vincent DeVos. Later in life, during Azul's journey, he and Angus become good friends.
Azul/Chester's BF Diojas (used to be a prince in prev incarnation) is the heir of a mob family in the human world, though he is actually not their biological child, but was kidnapped from his birth parents by his adoptive dad. (His bio dad started working for them secretly as a bodyguard as he came looking for his son once he found out Dio is alive)
Diojas has connections in the human world that are useful for Azul's quest, hence he ended up working with the young reluctant mob boss, in exchange for protecting him from more mythical threats he seemed to attract strangely enough....(because his bio parents are from Azul's world and not human)
3. SOME MINOR FUN FACTS ABOUT BLUE BOY
Majority of his friends are women, this has always been a thing for some reason. In fact currently his only actual close male friend would be Angus. (Alexander is a friend too, but he also sees him as sort of an extra parental figure)
He's bisexual
He had a brief relationship with one of his close friends Iris, with both of them agreeing neither wanted that kind of relationship with the other at the time. Iris is still his closest friend, and she becomes an important support figure for Diojas as well.
His mum has a "Azul sass feather" which supposedly pops up when her oldest son is being sassy.
Azul has a familiar called Lasha, a snake demon. He is more unusual familiar as familiars normally aren't beings with human level intelligence for rather obvious reasons, and in fact Azul did not even know initially Lasha had a human form, as the snake hid it from him. (Lasha was asked to look after Azul by his biological father, when he found out he and his baby brother Reuben were alive)
Chester is a wanted criminal in his homeworld for stealing a very important and dangerous magical object, which he needed for his research. That's also why he's hiding out on Earth.
His sorcerer robes are reminescent of his bio dad's outfit, just instead of pure eye-theme, his has peacock feathers due to his adoptive mum's influence. (There are some minor details about it I still am not fully sold on, so it might change a bit later)
I think I'll leave it at that, or this'll get wayyyy too long lmao. The only character I still have in active use that is older than Azul or Diojas would probably be the aforementioned Alexander, his first incarnation was likely made all the way back to...maybe 2012? IDK for sure, but def before Breezy and Chester were a thing.
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sweetheartsofmidsummer · 5 months ago
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hi! I’m Jester. I recently (recently being two years ago) started cosplaying too, and for me it was just kinda a transition from dressing like a concept to dressing up as a character. I always enjoyed carnival and Halloween bc of the costumes, and I do theatre, so combing these two hobbies (crafting+dressing up for Halloween and acting the part of the character) was an easy and excellent new hobby for me. I started out with something super simple, stuff I had at home. Back then, I started out with a Toadette turned modern look, taking a pink skirt, white top and white shoes and made myself a mushroom hat. my second cosplay, the one of this and last year (there’s sadly not enough conventions or anything of the sort in my area) is a Kenku. I made most of it myself or from stuff I quite literally found. It’s all puzzled together to look good. And to be honest, to create something good, you don’t need the most high quality products there are. I used cardboard for my first mask and it was incredibly sturdy. I hot glued elastic bands together to create a support for my head, or used pins to make a jaw hinges even if I was supposed to use belt screws or something. Get creative! Someone once said: ‘Only bad artists blame their tools and materials.’
And if you really want to get started, there are tons and tons of videos on YouTube! I got all my mask crafting skills from a guy there who was kind enough to post his patterns for free! I got my painting skills from another lady on there! And even for more complicated stuff like styling wigs (haven’t done that before cuz I personally hate wigs), there’s tons of advice. Even here on Tumblr you can find good sources. The only way I figured out how to fur my mask was through a Tumblr user whose account I can’t remember right now.
Long story short: go for it. Try it out! There’ll be fails, of course, but it’s so much fun! And totally worth it, for all the pictures people take and how happy you can make others by cosplaying your favourite characters!
I hope I could help and this was somewhat clear to understand :)
Okay, so. I have another question about things that are totally not in my "I'll get to it someday and I don't have any concrete plans right now" pile, but. How do you even get into cosplaying? Looking at it from the outside, it just looks like it takes a ton of skills, such hair styling/styling a wig, sewing clothes, crafting accessories and so on. And I don't really have any ideas on how to do any of it, even though I am sort of interested in that hobby.
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ingo-ingoing-ingone · 2 years ago
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So I've been seeing a ton of submas art with the cool triangle pupils and I LOVE IT. Sometimes artists will make Emmet's white, and while I love that too bc DOPE character design, I always think "he does look a bit like he's blind."
So I guess my brain cooked up a new AU!
Blinding Radiance AU
After Ingo goes missing, Emmet does his very best to find leads. It doesn't take him too long to decide to turn to Arceus for help. Or to fistfight, he doesn't not care which. After months of trying, of being unstoppable in his research... He makes a breakthrough, somehow. Im still trying to think of how. Maybe some wild ultra beast and wormhole lore, maybe another legendary, but he finds his way to Arceus's personal realm.
Unfortunately, human eyes weren't meant to see that. Emmet is basically instantly blinded. Hence the white pupils. Arceus actually feels quite bad about this (since this is my Arceus and it actually does care about humanity and the Pokémon of the world, even if it can do surprisingly little)
As a consolation for inadvertently taking his sight, Arceus removes some of the memories of being blinded from Emmet... and leaves him with the knowledge that in a year's time, Ingo will come home.
Emmet is sent back to Gear Station, and his life continues. There is an OBVIOUS adjustment. Elesa helps a lot, but is so relieved that Emmet seems actually much more himself.
Emmet doesn't remember how he lost his sight. But he DOES remember speaking to Arceus and hearing that his brother will be back. Some people believe him. Elesa does because he speaks with such conviction about this, like he truly does KNOW something they do not. Most people who are close to Emmet believe him due to this.
The world at large is more skeptical. Some think he lost his mind a bit when he lost his sight. Buy most people are just glad he's healing and feels happy again. Maybe if he's wrong when the time comes, he'll have gained good coping mechanisms!
After adjusting, he does end up going back to work. Sure he can't drive the trains or direct them but he can still do his other boss duties and run double battles all the same! Everyone has him take it slow at first, it's a big adjustment! But he figures it out verrry quickly.
His galvantula becomes his seeing eye spider. It has six of them, it can spare two! It learns very quickly bc it's always been incredibly in tune with Emmet. Archeops and Eelektross were considered for the job, but neither really walks on the ground and thus might miss uneven footing and stuff like that. He also gets a white cane; I’ve read a few conflicting things via google (thaaaanks google really trust you for info) about color coding. Originally, I was going to have it be white with red stripes and line up with the pattern on Emmet’s coat when held upright to uphold his traffic cone vibes. But it seems that prooobably would mean he’s got hearing loss too, though some sites said ‘totally blind and/or deaf’ so I don’t actually know! Seems to also vary by country! So let’s just stick with white, at least that seems to have a consensus.
While Emmet doesn’t have hearing that functions any better than any other humans’, he’s used to listening for nuance. For using his ears rather than his eyes to pick up on his brother’s emotions. So he would be DAMN good at reading people. And his perception of touch is already somewhat heightened; time to use that to his advantage!
So yeah! Emmet gets along just fine! And he is happy, because he knows his brother is safe and will return to him. He just has to be patient.
...
Ingo does come home, just when Arceus said he would. Safe and sound, he’s deposited in Gear Station. He finds it strange, that he recognizes Emmet before Emmet recognizes him. He approaches, unable to form words around the lump in his throat, and his brother (because that is his twin brother!) doesn’t react...?
He only gets a reaction when he finally reaches him and hugs him, and even then it’s just a jolt. To Emmet, this is stress inducing. No one had done this to him because they KNEW not to... But then he hears the voice, and he can hardly dare hope...
“Ingo?” he asks, and it’s then that Ingo sees Emmet’s face and realizes that he can’t see. “Has it been a year? No, this can’t be real.” Even after hearing Arceus itself, Emmet did hold some doubts...
But all of that vanishes when Ingo takes Emmet’s hands in his and puts them on either side of his face. A moment, a bright recognition from Emmet, and then 
“You are Ingo. No one else would have such a stupid hairstyle.”
And immediately as if on instinct “we are IDENTICAL!!”
Cue laughing and tears and the usual sibling squabbles. Emmet patting his brother’s hat and shoulders and discovering the rips in his uniform like “what did you do to your hat and coat?!” and just. General bullshittery!
I have no clue what would happen after that! They’d probably just go back to being the subway master duo, happy and good at their jobs lol
Whew that was a lot of typing. Take a sketch of Emmet in this AU that gave me a lot of trouble!!
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shotorozu · 3 years ago
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doing your makeup
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character(s) : multiple characters (bnha)
legend : [Y/N = your name] gender neutral reader (reader likes makeup), quirk’s not mentioned. bold = this character can also apply to this situation
headcanon type : fluff, crack-ish (x reader)
note(s) : quite similar to the eyeliner post i made a while back— but reversed, and they do a full face of makeup on you, and not just eyeliner. there’s not that much nuances
(reader owns a blush that suits their skin type, i have done research🧎‍♂️ but if it REALLY doesn’t apply to you, then don’t worry! i’m not very descriptive)
also there’s no proofread in this bc this is long as hell and im tired 🗿 will edit later
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asking them about said task 。
replies with a simple “okay” looks unphased, is actually the very opposite. they are either glad that they’re given the opportunity, or— they’re nervous. they’re still glad, don’t get it twisted— but more so on the nervous side.
—♡ shouto, denki, fumikage, sero, tamaki, kyouka
replies with a simple “okay” looks unphased, because they really are. putting makeup on you doesn’t sound difficult, or intimidating. compared to other things they needed to do before (like.. fighting for their lives, to name an instance.)
—♡ shouta (when he finally says yes), dabi, hitoshi, hawks, tsuyu
is delighted, enthusiastic. somewhat has knowledge of makeup, and you won’t ask why— assures you that you could count on them, and that they will not let you down. (this doesn’t mean that they’re not nervous though)
—♡ izuku, eijirou, mirio, hawks, mina, momo, ochako
says no, at first— was planning on saying yes to begin with, since they do trust their own skills, and it makes you happy. just wanted to see how you’d convince them. it was quite entertaining, almost funny— but they did given in.
—♡ katsuki, shouta, neito
little individual hcs about this (before we get started fr)
—♡ shouto and katsuki definitely warms up liquid/cream products with their quirks before application (shouto heard it from somewhere that doing that was good, and katsuki heard that from you specifically— so why not?”)
—♡ but you had to yank your precious products from katsuki— because he, at some point, almost blew up your liquid blush 💀
—♡ shouta almost forgot about the entire makeup thing at some point. almost fell asleep— but remembered the task he was given, and immediately went to work.
—♡ tamaki was oddly compliant when he gets over his nervousness, because he helped around with nejire’s makeup during that entire beauty pageant thing (from season 4)
—♡ katsuki, neito, hawks, dabi, hitoshi
—♡ shouto, kyouka, sero, tamaki, shouta, hitoshi (when he actually starts rubbing the product into your face), fumikage, tsuyu
—♡ shouto, kyouka, sero, tamaki, shouta, hitoshi (when he actually starts rubbing the product into your face), fumikage, tsuyu
doesn’t care where they put it— just does it, harshness may or may not be there 💀 laughs when you look at him like 😐 “really?” when the product finally absorbs on your skin, he kisses your cheek to make up for the brashness <3
—♡ denki, mirio, neito, hawks, dabi (but he pinches your cheek instead 💀), mina
talks about the product. says how nice it feels on their hands, and how your skin will be all ready after this step. knows at least a bit of your skin type, and comments on how the primer seems to be getting along with your skin.
—♡ izuku, sero, mirio, eijirou, mina, momo, ochako
complexion stuff 。
drops the applicator (example: beauty blender, brush) and almost uses it on your skin. you stop them just in time. now, whenever you squirm or dare to move even an inch, they threaten you with the use of the dirty item 😎 (don’t worry, they actually apply product with something clean. ex: a spare brush/beauty blender)
—♡ katsuki, dabi, neito, mina
uses a brush, and feels like an artist. your skin is their canvas, your fate is in their hands. probably doesn’t blend enough, and has to use their fingers (or a beauty blender, if you think the use of fingers is just icky 😟) only to make sure it’s all blended.
—♡ denki, dabi, mirio, hawks, ochako, mina, momo, dark shadow (when fumikage’s preparing for the next step 💀)
uses a beauty blender because those things interest them. has seen them everywhere and doesn’t know why— but it makes more sense now. smiles the entire time he (lowkey) beats your face up with a sponge.
—♡ shouto, sero, hitoshi, eijirou, tsuyu, kyouka
who wets the sponge for foundation:: eijirou, shouto, tsuyu, kyouka
who leaves it dry, and says “oh well, there’s no backing out”:: hitoshi, sero
fingers because they heard those blend in product better than any type of blending tool. makes sure to wash their hands, and smooths out the product with gentle, circular motions. isn’t afraid of getting their hands dirty— in fact, they won’t care, as long as they could touch your face.
—♡ izuku, tamaki (but pls don’t comment on it), shouto, katsuki, mirio, mina (the beauty blender slips out of their hands, and they switch to hands)
eyeshadow 。
does something neutral or earthy (browns, basically.) like.. your natural shadow or something similar. sticks with that because they’re either afraid of making you look like a children’s coloring book gone wrong— or they just like neutrals/earthy tones the best on you
—♡ tamaki, izuku, momo
when you show him your eyeshadow palette, he immediately goes for the darkest/boldest shade— and goes to town on your eyelid (results may vary.) they ends up using their fingers for blending because the brush kept making the color darker (well— maybe it’s because there’s product on it 💀) has to bite back a smile when all you do is look at him in admiration.
—♡ fumikage + dark shadow, dabi, hitoshi, kyouka
adds color to it. they pick whatever suits your skintone the most. actually knows what buildup is— and adds more color and saturation to your eyelids slowly. you’re impressed so far. it could either turn out really good because they know when to stop— or the complete opposite
—♡ eijirou, sero, shouta, hawks, ochako, mirio
does neutral/earthy tones with a pop of color. adds color to the corners of your eyelids (like that one kylie jenner makeup look 💀) likes how it looks— says they could now probably see the makeup from a mile away 😃
—♡ shouto, katsuki, neito, mina, tsuyu, izuku (who changed his mind mid-way)
eyeliner 。
does it in one swipe. you are impressed that it’s all that it took— then again, it’s probably because they wear eyeliner on a regular. it just needs a little more retouches, and you’re good to go.
—♡ fumikage, katsuki, hawks, kyouka, mina, hitoshi
has steady hands— you wonder if they’ve ever considered becoming a surgeon because of this. is extremely focused. tells YOU not to move, or they’ll just cry (or scream, in katsuki��s case) a little bit (due to frustration. and they mean internally screaming)
—♡ shouto, katsuki, tamaki, shouta, sero, momo, tsuyu, hitoshi
completely messes up, but we can all blame their shaky hands. apologizes over and over again— says it’s because they’re nervous about poking you (but they’re also excited that they could see you up close)
—♡ izuku, ochako, denki, eijirou, mirio
makes you look like a raccoon 💀 laughs when you nearly shriek at your own reflection. hugs you and whispers that you’re still very pretty as an apology. you accept, only because they said you still look nice (but you’re unsure if they’re bullshitting you or nah)
—♡ neito, dabi, mirio (but this sly ass bitch pretends it looks good like “oh well look at that, i think i did a pretty good job 🤩☝️‼️” also you : 🐼)
lash curler + mascara 。
is TERRIFIED. literally throws themselves across the room when you show them the device (even though they’re not using it this time around 💀) is literally so scared of cutting off your precious lashes, that you end up curling them yourself. does the mascara part just fine though.
—♡ izuku, tamaki, fumikage, denki, neito, kyouka, ochako, hitoshi
uses heat to curl your lashes, it’s very convenient. is oddly very pumped about doing your mascara, but just ends up doing 2 coats only.
—♡ shouto, katsuki (laughs when he (somewhat gently) holds onto your lashes for 3 seconds, and sees that you’re just 👁👄👁) momo (because she literally whips out a heated stick for this. you don’t panic because she assures you that it’s not SUPER DUPER heated)
surprisingly, knows how to use this.. torture device. is very careful about it, because they could accidentally pinch your eyelid (and it looks like it hurts). does mascara quite well, because again— poking your lover’s eyeballs out is a no-no💀😟☝️
—♡ eijirou, hawks, sero, hitoshi (when he gets over the fact that it looks like a torture device), shouta, mirio, dabi,(surprisingly. because he doesn’t want karma to bite his ass), tsuyu, momo (waits for 15 seconds. does this bc she wants your lashes to be curled to the fullest)
lash extensions 。
doesn’t see why you need them when they’ve put mascara on you. thinks you look spectacular as is, but once they’ve put the lashes on you— they like how it looks. thinks it puts the look together. putting on the false lashes was definitely heart fluttering.
—♡ shouta, dabi, sero, mirio, fumikage, kyouka, tsuyu, hitoshi
stares at them like 😀❓❓ “that looks like a caterpillar, are you sure?” attaches it to your lashline a little loosely than what’s standard, but ends up PINCHING them together with their fingers (apologizes afterwards 💀)
—♡ katsuki (if you MIRACULOUSLY managed to get him to put fake lashes on you), eijirou, izuku, hawks, mirio, denki, dabi (minus the apology part, just smiles and pats your cheek)
skips the lash step all together. thinks it is not needed and will not be convinced that it is— plus, they’re actually looking forward to the lipstick part more, and they just casually ignore you (you’ll be there like hello?? you forgot the lashes! and they’re like “what was that 🧐❓ anyways, it is time for the lips 🤩☝️‼️”)
—♡ shouto, katsuki
lipstick 。
uses one of those small lip brushes, like a makeup artist. puts some product at the back of their hand, and applies it to your lips with the brush. creates a nice gradient in the process. forgets to wash the back of their hand, which leads to people asking them about the mysterious blotch of color at the back of their hand. “it’s lipstick.” is all they say (with a smile that’d be lowkey kind of sus.)
—♡ shouta, fumikage, tsuyu, momo (who wanted to get it off with a makeup remover, but went nvm. this is a flex for her 😎), denki (has always wanted to put on lipstick on you with a brush— only does the top lip successfully)
uses the applicator directly on your lips. you’re not really mad about that, considering that it is YOUR makeup (you’d probably never allow them to do that with a tester, or somebody else’s stuff though) holds it in a very particular way, you have to gather all the mental courage to just NOT laugh, or you’ll make them mess up 💀
—♡ izuku, eijirou, mirio, hawks, sero, mina, ochako, neito, hitoshi (he gives up midway because you looked like you were about to burst into tears of laughter at any moment 😭)
uses their fingers. this was either an artistic choice on their behalf or— they just got lazy with their first method of application. smears it carelessly, or alternatively— taps your lips gently with product coated on their finger(s). likes touching your lips anyway, so this isn’t an issue for them. (anyway, they’ll have a tinted pointer finger by the end of it. but hey! they touched your lips 🤩)
—♡ katsuki, hitoshi, shouto, dabi, hawks (this hoe probably broke your lip product, thats why he’s using his fingers now 😐), kyouka, mina (gave up mid-way)
overall 。
absolute perfection. you’d totally walk out of the room completely satisfied. you could take pictures, and even go to a party like this. they did so good! and you should definitely get them to do your makeup more. they should— and probably are— very proud of themselves.
—♡ momo, fumikage, tsuyu, hitoshi, katsuki (because the way he puts on eyeliner is SO good) shouta, (but let’s see if you could even convince him to even do your makeup again 💀)
a dumpster fire. what even happened here 😭 did they do the blindfolded makeup challenge on you? you do not know— however, it does not look like something you should ever step outside with. it looks like a billion other things happened on your face. they could really try again, since practice is welcomed. but if this doesn’t discourage them 💀
—♡ neito, denki, dabi (he is NOT guilty about it 😭), hawks (only the eyeliner and eyebrows looks good. the rest is.. not so great), eijirou (he’s too sweet. you couldn’t immediately tell him about the things he did incorrectly), neito (again, because you don’t know how he messed up this badly)
a 50/50– could use some work, and there could be some things they could’ve done differently— but it’s not absolute garbage. you could still walk outside, without having people on the streets gawk at you, like you’ve gone completely mad 💀 it’s a great first try though! you’re confident that the next attempt’s going to be spectacular
—♡ ochako, sero, izuku, mirio, kyouka (the eyeliner was so good though), shouto (you didn’t have the heart to tell him about the wrong things he did— YET)
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likes and reblogs are appreciated, thanks for reading!
i do not own bnha/mha and it’s characters. boku no hero academia/my hero academia belongs to horikoshi kohei, i only own the writing and i do not profit off of my hobby
do not plagiarize, reupload, translate, or use my works for audio readings without permission :))
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TAGLIST (bold couldn’t be tagged😔) : @baku6o @kmbnoir @anactualfuckingnerd @kitsuji @tamewkii @astridismissing @sweethcnvy @why-couldnt-it-be @kioyoki @t0ra-kazu @givingeraserhead @uxavity @snowymaltese @escapenightmare @taurus852 @han-the-fanboy @crack-squirrels @keisukeist @vdoesthings @gravity-gacha @blxck-hxney @electricpainterwobblergoop @nopenotallie @mhasimp666 @shelteredheart @lovingshoto @lxislxis @luluwiie @avengs
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fantasticallyfoolishidea · 5 years ago
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So, what’s “Her Sweet Kiss” actually about?
There are a lot of posts about “Her Sweet Kiss” going around already. I might be kinda late to the party but hear me out. By now, plenty of people have started interpreting it as Jaskier’s song about his heartbreak over Geralt sending him and you know what? That’s great. Love it. Amazing. Superb.
But you know what’s also hella damn sexy?
Cold, hard, textual evidence. And damn, does the text deliver.
(Actual analysis starts underneath the line break bc this got longer than anticipated.)
edit 12/01/20: The whole thing’s now available in Brazilian Portuguese, courtesy of the extremely kind @sunshine-any.
So, just or a minute, I want you to forget all about Jaskier, and Geralt, and Yennefer, the events of “Rare Species”… Actually, I’d like you to just forget about the entirety of The Witcher until I get to the point. We’ll get back to them later. For now, let’s just pretend that “Her Sweet Kiss” is like any other song you might hear on the radio by an artist you’ve never heard of before.
And now, only now, without any of the show’s baggage, let’s have a look at what’s going on in this son(g) of a bitch, starting out with the first couple of lines:
The fairer sex, they often call it But her love’s as unfair as a crook It steals all my reason Commits every treason Of logic, with naught but a look A storm breaking on the horizon Of longing and heartache and lust
Okay so, you’ve got a narrator figure (whom, for simplicity’s sake, I’ll be using he/him pronouns for) and you’ve got a nameless woman he’s singing about. The song’s about love, but not the happy kind. Love robbing someone of all logic and reason is a staple of love poetry, but in this case the narrator frames it as a betrayal. The woman’s love feels “unfair” to the narrator, and he blames her for his loss of logic and reason. A single glance of hers and the narrator is overcome with a whirlwind of emotions – longing, heartache and lust. However, “a storm breaking on the horizon” suggests a sense of distance coupled with these emotions rather than a sense of immediacy.
She’s always bad news It’s always lose, lose So tell me love, tell me love How is that just?
These lines expand on the idea of unfairness. Her mere presence pains the narrator and “it’s always lose, lose”. In other words, there’s nothing he can do that will lead to a favourable outcome for him. A third party which the narrator addresses as “love” is introduced and he asks them “How is that just?”. It’s quite apparent that he feels wronged. At this point, the “love” he’s addressing could refer to a number of things. For example, he could be addressing the woman (think, “Why do you do this to me, my love?”); he could be addressing the concept of love, yet another staple of love poetry, (think, “Love, why do torment us humans like this?”). I don’t think it’s either of them, for reasons I’ll be getting to in a minute.
But the story is this She’ll destroy with her sweet kiss
The refrain is rather straight-forward, so I’ll spare you the repetition. By going out of his way to state “But the story is this” the narrator solidifies his position as a narrator figure, telling a story. You could take this as a suggestion that he’s not quite in the midst of things. He sings about how “She’ll destroy with her sweet kiss” but he’s vague about it. There’s no concrete mention of what she’s destroying. It could be their relationship, the narrator could be the narrator’s heart, let your imagination run wild, for now, because the second stanza clears all of that right up. Kind of.
Her current is pulling you closer And charging the hot humid night The red sky at dawn is giving a warning, you fool Better stay out of sight
Now would you look at that. Our narrator isn’t singing to himself, nor is he simply singing to a nondescript audience. There’s a third party (whom i’ll be using they/them pronouns for. Remember you don’t know anything outside of what’s written in the lyrics) he is addressing, who is captivated by the woman, and the narrator claims they are missing distinct warning signs. The narrator’d rather they stayed away from the woman.
I’m weak my love, and I am wanting
And this is where we start to get the whole picture. The narrator addresses the third person as “my love”. Which bears a lot of significant because it turns everything we’ve established so far on its head. (For one, it implies that when he asks “tell me love / how is that just?” it’s this “love” he’s talking to, not the concept of love, and certainly not the woman). He’s realised that “his love” is falling for the woman. The reason he feels the woman’s love is “unfair as a crook” and why it’s causing him so much pain isn’t because they’re involved in some ill-fated romance; it’s because the one he calls “his love” is the object of the woman’s love and he feels like no matter what he does, he’s bound to lose them one way or another. He’s pushed into the role of an observer while the woman and “his love” were getting entangled, hence his assumption of the role of a narrating figure rather than a figure with agency. Looking at “I’m weak my love, and I am wanting” and the following lines as a whole is kinda tricky because there’s a number of ways you could read that. It could be that the narrator is admitting that he’s tired of fighting the inevitable, hence feeling weak and wanting. However, the narrator could also be admitting to his shortcomings – as in “I know I’m weak and that I’m lacking [as a companion, perhaps? just one example]”.
If this is the path I must trudge I welcome my sentence Give to you my penance Garroter, jury and judge
Essentially, what’s happening is that the narrator is giving up. He’s accepted the way things are (or the way “his love” thinks things should be, as “sentence” suggests that some sort of judgement has been passed or a decision been made) and assumes responsibility for what wrongs he might have done his lover. By uniting the roles of “garroter, jury and judge” in “his love” he’s basically giving them (and them only) free reign over his fate. Cue the refrain.
But the story is this She’ll destroy with her sweet kiss
Now for the fun part. Because this isn’t just some random song created in a vacuum. Remember how it is a song sung and composed by Jaskier? And remember the episode it appeared in? There are some minor differences, of course. I won’t start guessing about how this might relate to Jaskier, Geralt and Yennefer’s relationship because then we’d be bridging over into speculative territory and I only wanted to try and figure out what’s going on with the lyrics. Some have pointed out that, in the episode, Jaskier originally debated making the line either “gorgeous” or “lovely garroter, jury and judge” before eventually using neither. Others have pointed out that, in-universe, Marilka also acknowledged that “Geralt” and “Garroter” sound somewhat similar, which could be interpreted as an intentional parallel from the actual writers’ side.
In conclusion, I’m shamelessly stealing someone else’s observation that “Her Sweet Kiss” totally is the “Jolene” of the Witcher-Verse.
Make of that what you will.
edit 06/01/20: Tiny caveat. I was too lazy to get into the whole thing about "real author” vs. “implied author” vs. “narrator” vs. “characters who just so happen to be writers”. Just, keep in mind, Jaskier is a bard who makes a living off his art. Writing songs is his job, and oftentimes a good song is one that makes people emotional. A lot of stuff in ep. 6 can be used to support the interpretation that HSK’s about Jaskier’s actual heartbreak over Geralt and Yennerfer’s relationship. But, I also cited “cold, hard, textual evidence” which, at the end of the day, boils down to “HSK is about a love triangle” and “Jaskier was working on Her Sweet Kiss around the time he and Geralt parted ways”. It’s a conspicuous parallel that may yet affect future episodes but, please, don’t misunderstand me as treating it as a foregone conclusion. What I was trying to say is, “here’s what we can gather from the lyrics themselves” and it can mean as little or as much as you want it to mean for Geralt and Jaskier’s relationship.
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cosmosrival · 4 years ago
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Rico besides Kama what do you think about the other indian servants?????
AHHHHHHHHHH THIS IS GOING TO GET SOOOO LONG!!!! i have a different view of the indo fam as a whole. i call them the indo fam but i mean the found family trope!!!! theyre like a group of college students sharing a dorm if that makes sense, since their servant selves are obviously different from their initial myths/human vessels!!!
OK SO. RECENTLY, i have an oomf that found books about arjuna that summarize his exploits in the mahabharata(I DONT HAVE THE STRENGTH TO READ IT ALL IM SO SORRY) and also talk about him in a more philosphical manner such as his states of mind during each event etc and i’ve been meaning to read said book because im genuinely interested in arjuna now!!! and i’d like to know more about this indo prince because from what i’ve seen, he is portrayed in a rather bad light(?) in FGO which i find extremely !!!!!!!!!!! and incrdibley !!!!!!! strange !!!!!!! the mahabharata’s conflicts can be put in a mostly grey area where there’s no good nor bad, its not black and white. so seeing arjuna get bashed because of the way his conflict with karna was written is... hm. let’s say that im REALLY starting to understand arjuna fans that dislike seeing him get mischaracterized so much. OTHER THAN THAT, his design is adorable, his travel outfit is my favourite because he deserves to relax and have some fun!!! fgo making him a chuuni is cute and his VAs little moans are cute cute cute!!!!!!!!!!! (mash grabs my shoulder and forces me to sit down) i think that arjuna deserves better and im really happy to see him have fun in his travel costume voicelines. i think we should take arjun on a date!!! he’s a great lover, we’d have the best time!! OH ALSO, kama seeing him as the student council president in their interlude makes me SOOOOOOO HAPPY its unreal, i think it fits him very very well, the seitokaichou who was elected because of everyone’s hopes and recommended by teachers because he’s suuuch a good student but because of that, the pressure to be good is constantly towering over his head and everytime he looks out the window he wishes he could ditch class and skip a day just because he felt like going to the arcade and be a bad student.......just this once........i think hes very very cute...... i want him to cook for me. HAVE YO U READ HIS BOND 4 VOICELINE ?mmmmmggg i want him to get embarrassed everytime i praise him for having such a muscular waistline. AUG
ANEWAYS i also have quite the thoughts about karna, his characterization in the game is linked to arjuna’s and thats fine but i think that forgetting how much of a little sassy bastard he can get was a mistake! did you know that in apocrypha’s german dub on netflix, when jeanne calls his name like “You’re Karna, aren’t you ? The son of the Indian Sun God !” HES LIKE “So ?” AND THAT WAS SOOOO BITCHY OF HIM, i think that karna is a good boy in fgo but the fact that he was such a fighty old man in the mahabharata shouldnt be forgotten and is a charm trait. I MEAN ???? HE THREW HANDS WITH AN 18 YEAR OLD(ARJUN) WHILE BEIN LIKE... THIRTY TWO. WHATS WITH THIS ANNOYING OLD MAN !!!!! knowing these little facts about him made me like him so much more actually !! i think karna being so nice is adorable!! but the little bitchy energy u can find in his voicelines is also very charming!! i think karna looking at me emotionless as i ask him to lend me his notes for the nth time that week and then saying “...Mn.” when i thank him is cute!!! his voiceline towards things he dislikes is interesting to me. karna seeming aloof and mean bc he doesnt know how to communicate but is actually nice underneath...... hey... thats a little delinquentcore........ i wouldnt say yankii but hes like... hes like... u know hes the handsome quiet one of the group of yankiis... u know the one...? hey where are you going
ganesha is also a character im deeply interested in but i havent played CCC so i dont know that many details about jinako herself !! my brain goes HMMMMMM it seems lord ganesha is trans in fgo ! (since kama used to be a male god originally as well!!) ganesha uses all pronouns!!! and ganesha is also special to me because they share similar traits with kama when it comes to their characterization AND mischaracterizations. ganesha isnt JUST jinako. theres a part of a god in the servant mix!!! and jinako HERSELF is actually a pretty sad character imo. the whole otaku/neet thing is obviously a facade and her true wish being that she wants to redo her whole life is also proof of how much she hates what shes become, yet at the same time, she doesnt know what else she could do. but anyways, i prefer looking at servants from a lore POV so i think that ganesha should still be considered a god and be adressed as such!! i like seeing people portray ganesha as jinako but i prefer it when a certain lavish more godly side of them is put forward. a side of jinako that managed to move on a little bit if that makes sense ? that got more serious. and became someone else entierly despite sharing similarities. needless to say their bond with karna makes me happy since he shows them respect as you should towards a god!! its a bit different from their bond in CCC... like they matured somewhat!! anyway ganesha is the one who taught everyone else in the indo fam about video games and technology and i will NEVER shut up.
ashwatthama..... MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM %_’(’ç_”’è_ç(è_’”545656455456545453£¨¨µ¨µMµ¨++°=)=)°+ goodness. jesus christ on earth. my love story with him makes me so embarrassed. when he got revealed i instantly fell in love with him despite knowing JACK SHIT ABOUT HIM but since i was the only one in my friend group who was hardcore into fgo at the time, i kept my love for him to myself and just... (looks away)(i drop my wallet full of picturses of him) quietly adored his everything in silence. WELL, ree having an intense crush on yankii type characters isnt new, its been my favourite trope for ages (gyarus go in hand with them!!) and im still very attached to it so thats what made me love him in the first place!!!! BUT THEN. I GOT INTO HIS MAHABHARATAN LORE. And OHHHHHHHHH BABY.......... (im twirling my hair) so theres this 7ft tall war criminal..........<3<33<3(mash leans in and informs me that the convention of geneva didnt exist at the time) SO THERES THIS 7 FTTALL IMMORTALMAN.......<233 gOD he makes me absolutely CRAZY9909840385%£%%£%%µ%µ%µ the love i have for this character is immense and whenever im sad i remember that pako exists and has a tablet and can draw and i suddenly feel so much better. ok im gonna stop horny posting a little bit. but hes my wife. AND WHAT I LOVE ABOUT HIS PORTRAYAL IN FGO IS THAT, they actually made him a good boy despite his initial roughness and misdeeds ???!!! HELLO?? ashwatthama wishing for a redemption ark is my favourite thing and his righteousness that was born because of his regrets is a very interesting drivepoint to me !!! hes a gorgeous character and im buying a ticket plane as we speak right now so i can go find him in northern india. i’ll find him. GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME !!!!!GET OFF ME !!!
miss lakshimi makes me very sad! because every female servant in the indo fam is an already known face. (... would sita count.) and lakshi being a jeanneface is a waste. well, she’s still very pretty and her lore is also quite interesting!! i havent looked into it fully yet but i think she should be kissed on the mouth. her bad luck makes me slip on a banana peel whenevr i get close to her to kiss her and i hit my head on the pavement and pass away- 
parvati is on a tough spot for me atm. i genuinely love thinking of her as the way the indian goddess herself is portrayed because thats where the fun lies for me in her character. especially when shes involved with other indian servants, thats a given!! i would like to see parvati grow, suffer and heal. because branding her as an “all-knowing mom” is easy, but every single parent makes mistakes if you follow that logic. also, since shes the sakura servant “thats closest to her initial personality”, she’s got some of the most Repulsive fans ive Ever witnessed in fandom spaces and lets say that im trying to work my way out of this hellhole and find things to like about parvati without the fandom’s influence. needless to say, im going to keep looking into her mythos and her lore by myself at my own pace and keep doing my own thing in my little corner. 
rama shouldve been a jock. THE RAMAYANA IS OLDER THAN THE MAHABHARATA, WHY IS.....Hrm well him being summoned as his baby version gives me hope for a future rama alt perhaps??? but i think that he shouldve been a total jock and he shouldve been huge with a huge red lion-like mane for his hair and a teethy grin and big biceps and intense love for his wife. SPEAKING OF SITA, her charm point is her purity but i wish.... that their artist still hadnt drawn them like That, im not a fan of lily servants and i think purity = being young is a bit of an annoying excuse!!! rama and sita looking similar is because of their shared history which is fine but... rolls my eyes............. rama shouldve been 6ft tall and sita shouldve been a milf to match...... anyways i doubt ravana would be added as a servant but i’d love to have a ramayana centric event!! where all indo servants have their own lore centric role to play!!! oh thatd be a dream.... but i have learned to not expect much from a fanservice game so im jus gonna draw my own stuff! (strikes a pose!) (mashu claps!)
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guardianofjunmyeon · 5 years ago
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Finding Atlantis (part 6)
Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader
Genre: Action/Adventure, Enemies to Lovers, PirateAU
Description:   20 years ago the seas became angry. Unruly and unkind to any sailor,  to  any ship that dared venture too far out in her waters. Many a man  has  heard the tales of Atlantis, the lost city, the key the ocean. But  fewer  men know the tale of it’s missing child. The key to the ocean,  the key  to Atlantis but a lost little one. The power one would hold  should they  find this child would be nearly that of Poseidon himself.  Thus, the hunt  began.    
A/N: I meant to update last week but my VPN wasn’t working! I couldn’t access tumblr bc it’s blocked here in china but i finally got it fixed lol. This one is long! WARNING(s): Smut + Character Death (??)
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18
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After hours of discussion and blindly heading southeast, you all were finally able to somewhat crack the code of the rhyme and the map.
“Follow the sound of your soul, she’ll call out to you to bring you back to your shoal. That’s clearly about the Atlantis return song. It’s the most important part of all of this. If we don’t get a better handle of when it appears and when it doesn’t we won’t get through the rest of the trails.”
“Trials?”
“Yes, there are three different trials masked in the lyrics of the song. The way back isn’t easy. If you leave Atlantis, you have to prove that you truly want to return,” Yeri replies.
You squint at the map now covered in writing.
“She’ll fight you to prove that your heart is true, to crush you and build you back stronger in her darkest shade of blue,” Sehun reads. “It’s about a storm. A very big one by the sound of it.” He points to an area of the map with nothing but water. “You see this area? It’s known for its unruly currents and unnatural weather patterns. It ranges from snow to thunderstorms large enough to wipe out entire islands.”
Junmyeon grazes his fingers over the map, passing the spot Sehun mentioned and further southeast. “Beautiful songs will call out to confuse the path, to distract you, but remembering your heart will get you through…if we continue beyond the location of the storm we’ll be set to approach Isla de Sirena within a week.”
“Shit,” Baekhyun murmurs.
Yeri looks on in confusion. “Why shit?”
“Isla de Sirena is an island known for luring ships underwater. They crash ships among the rocks with song. They appear as the most beautiful creature that you can imagine; whatever you subconsciously find the most alluring. I don’t know how they do it. Different people can look at the same one and see different things; they trick you that way. Mermaids…sirens, whatever you want to call them. Freaky little bitches.”
“Baekhyun,” Junmyeon admonishes.
“What? They are!”
“So we’ve got to face…beautiful singing women? Oh no the horror,” you gasp jokingly.
Baekhyun pinches the bridge of his nose. “You are so horny, and so stupid all the fucking time.”
“You’re one to fucking talk-”
“Children!” Junmyeon scolds. “Can we please hold off on the flirting until this is over?”
“We aren’t flirting-”
“Anyway!” You and Baekhyun close your mouths in embarrassment. “We’ve gone near Isla de Sirena, once,” Sehun adds grimly, eyebrows pitching angrily. “If you’re able to ignore their voices then you can see them for they are. They’re the ugliest creatures I’ve ever seen in my life.” He shivers.
“So what’s the final trial?” Baekhyun asks, back to contributing to the conversation and not being a pain in your ass.
“She’ll finally take you in her arms again, cradled and safe where all life began…” Yeri reads. A sigh. “We aren’t completely sure. It’s something about a rebirth?”
You scratch your chin.
“Maybe it’s about being drowned.”
Everyone turns their eyes to you.
“What?” you ask; your wide eyes look back at everyone staring at you as if you said something crazy. You point to the map in the general area where you think you all may end up. “There’s no land anywhere near here, and the city is underwater. Born from water, taken away from water, and then reclaimed by the water. If you leave, you must be drowned and reborn into an Atlantian again right? Why else would you forget your memories and connection to the sea the longer you’re away?”
“You are reborn in the place where life began…” Baekhyun mumbles. “You might be right. The final trial is a drowning of some kind. There’s a reason only Atlantian’s are the only people who can reach the city.” Baekhyun smacks you on the shoulder. “You’re not completely useless!”
You frown and hold your shoulder.
Bastard.
~~~
Candles cover the deck of the ship as the sun sets on the horizon. You watch somberly as each member of your crew places an object that reminds them of Taemin, of Amber, of Kun, and of Jaehyun in each of the four caskets meant to sail them to the other side.
Their bodies are wrapped in cloth to save everyone the trauma of facing their decomposing faces. Flowers, candies, articles of clothes surround each body with the things that made them who they were in life.
And will hopefully comfort them in the land of death.
Your most artistically inclined deckhand, Ten, places a portrait of each of them in their respective boat. An image to match the body.
“Jaehyun was always smiling; he worked hard as a gunner. He’d hoped one day to be master gunner of the ship.” Mark stands over the casket. “He uh, he never said much but he had the most imaginative mind of any person I ever met,” he says with a sad smile. “When the cannon backfired and killed him, it was quick, so at least he didn’t suffer for long. Farewell friend. I’ll see you on the other side.”
Luna takes over where Mark left off, standing in front of Amber’s casket. “I’ve known Amber since we were kids. She was a strange one,” she laughs. “She was very head strong and opinionated even when she was wrong. We both knew that working in the artillery was going to be rough, that it would be dangerous, but I know that she loved this job more than anything. She had a family with us, and she died where she would have wanted, I think.” Tears fill her eyes as she sits back down in the circle of crewmen.
“Kun…was like an older brother to me. He would tell me that I was getting on his nerves, but he would always take care of me…uh…take care of all of us in the best way he could. Every meal he served, every wound he healed, was done with care. Unfortunately, sickness isn’t as kind. He tended to Taemin with his last breath, tried to heal with all he had until he had nothing else to give. I’m going to miss him and his cheesy magic tricks.” Ten takes in a deep breath to keep his voice from wavering. “I hope he’s taken care of with as much love as he gave us.”
You can hear people holding back their tears. Sniffles and soft sobs escaping into the air every few seconds.
This time you stand as the representative to send off Taemin. You avoid everyone’s eyes and focus your gaze on his wrapped body and the trinkets around him. “Taemin was one of my earliest crewmen. I may have owned the ship, but Taemin was the one who knew best how she moved. He piloted with a grace and confidence I have still yet to achieve. I don’t have a single doubt that he’ll be able to guide himself to the other side without issue. He had a natural skill for movement.” You focus on an object nestled snuggly at his side. “I just hope he doesn't lose any of the things we’re sending with him the way he always loses his money pouches.” You manage a smile.
A couple of people chuckle softly, sadly.
“As Captain of the Storm Chaser, I release the four of you from duty.” You raise your gun in the air. “I couldn’t have asked for braver, hardworking, and loyal men.” You fire a single shot into the air.
It rings through the night.
Everyone stands, begins to close the wooden coffins, and Junmyeon soaks them in gunpowder and oil.
You watch the coffins get lowered into the water one by one. As they begin to float away, you, Mark, Luna, and Ten line up along the edge of the ship.
“Ready,” you all cock your guns. “Aim.”
“Fire.”
The coffins alight with flames. Yixing lights a single firework and it shoots into the air and covers the sky in bright yellow sparks.
May these lights guide them on their future paths.
No one moves until the coffins are far out of sight, their flames no longer visible. Until nothing but darkness rests in the distance. With heavy eyes, and heavier hearts, you all pull away from the railing.
Those who were close to the ones sent away cry openly and you allow everyone the rest of the night to rest and mourn as they see fit. Crying, shaking, screaming.
People cope in different ways.
As everyone disperses below deck you see Yixing rubbing Jongin’s back as the two of them cry clinging tightly to the other.
You know that Yixing grew up with Taemin. Yixing had been the one to recommend him for the crew because of their shared history. Knowing now that Yixing knew Jongin at the same time, you realize that Jongin must have known Taemin closely as well.
Leaving them to console one another, you walk away.
The stories of their deaths, of their lives, makes your heart a bit less heavy. Knowing that they died doing what they wanted, and not because life was stolen from them in situations counter to their personality eases a bit of the pain.
Minutely.
It still hurts, but the anger is no longer there. Just sadness.
This is the life of pirates after all.
Junmyeon has hidden himself away somewhere on the ship, as he always does when he wants to cry without being found, so you make your way towards the food storage for a drink. You need it after today.
People cope in different ways.
The stairs creak as you descend. One of the lanterns is already on, bright near the liquor storage. It shouldn’t surprise you. You wouldn’t be the only person who wants to drink to numb a bit of the pain.
What does surprise you is who you find hunched over with his face in his hands.
“Baekhyun?”
His head lifts and you immediately take notice of the red in his visible eye and face in the dim lighting. He seems alarmed to have been caught. He looks away in shame.
You sit down in front of him.
The bottle of whiskey at his side is half empty; you reach for it and take a sip.
For your men.
Silence shrouds you both.
You feel the need to speak. To clear the air. Whether you are doing it for him or for yourself you aren’t sure. “No one blames you, you know,” you say so softly that it almost blends into the silence. You hope he doesn’t hear.
But of course he does.
He looks over with anger. “I never said it was my fault.”
“You didn’t have to. You’re down here drinking alone after a funeral. This screams ‘this is all my fault’ you emo fucker.”
He snatches the bottle from your hands.
“Look, okay. No one thinks it’s your fault. You heard the stories. Yeah, you guys shot my ship, but their deaths weren’t directly a result of that. Things went wrong; I will accept that it was just a shot to immobilize us. If any of us thought you a murderer, in this case, we would have hung you by your neck long ago.” You forcefully grab the bottle back with a frown. “There’s plenty of other shit for you to feel guilty over. Like the time you shot me…or stabbed me…or left me on that island for dead.”
“I swear to the Gods-”
“The point is…this one isn’t on you. You don’t need to carry this guilt. Not this time.” You take a quick drink. “If however,” you point your finger at him menacingly, “this was on purpose, then I take all that back and I will kill you right fucking here I swear to the Gods.”
The bottle is taken back. “It wasn’t,” he admits, softly, angry. A swig. “It wasn’t on purpose,” he says again tiredly.
His honesty takes you by surprise. Baekhyun has killed just as many people as you have in your life. If he had tried to kill them, well that would be expected. But for him to be this affected by the accidental deaths? That’s surprising.
“What are you doing down here anyway?” he asks.
“Do you really think you’re the only person on this ship who hides down here drinking? You’re talking to the master!” you boast. “And it’s my ship you ungrateful wrench.” You finish off what’s left of the whiskey and reach for a bottle of golden rum tucked securely on a shelf. Uncorking it with your teeth, you hold it in the air between you. “To Taemin, Kun, Amber, and Jaehyun!”
It burns like hell itself going down.
You hold it out for Baekhyun with an expectant eyebrow raise. You wait.
He grabs it gently. “To Taemin, Kun, Amber, and Jaehyun,” he repeats in a murmur. He makes a noise of pain as the alcohol burns its way down his throat. “What the fuck is this?”
You shiver as the alcohol settles uncomfortably in your stomach. “It's the bad rum I think.” You cough violently. “Oh fuck I think I’m going to die,” you say clutching your stomach.
His wild laugh echoes in the dark space. A bit of the gloom lifts.
You let your hands fall from your stomach while you take in the relaxed happiness on his candlelit face. His eye crinkled in a crescent, shining with mirth. You don’t think you’ve seen him laugh like that since the first time you met him.
He’s pretty. You’d have to be stupid not to admit it. From his soft and shiny hair, to his cheeks that bunch up when he smiles. From his big dumb ears to all of the little moles that dot his body.
The bottle goes back up to his ridiculously pink lips and he laughs as it hurts his throat just as bad as the first sip.
All it takes is a second of thoughtless, drunken courage for you to lean forward and quickly press your lips against his, cutting off his giggles.
When you pull pack, the happiness on his face has made way for shock and then once more to nothing.
“Don’t kiss me,” he says tonelessly. His voice is serious, but you see the spark of challenge in his eye.
Ignoring the part of you that always tells you that jumping headfirst into him is a bad idea, you lean in again, slower. You brace your hands on his thighs and feel them tense beneath your palms. He stares at your lips and you watch enrapt as his tongue pokes out to wet his bottom lip.
You can feel your skin vibrating from the proximity to him, and you freeze; a breath away from meeting skin with skin. Your eyes glance up to meet his and you can see the want, the restlessness, and something else you can’t quite place in the dark.
As if waiting any longer would be torturous, he leans forward impatiently to press his lips against yours. The bottle of rum falls to the ground and spills onto the floorboards of the storage room.
You don’t care.
You push harder; open your mouth to let his tongue slide against yours in a way that sends tingles through every nerve in your body. Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the touch of sadness, but something feels different about this time.
You crawl onto his lap, driven purely by instinct and press every inch of your body against his. Heat seeps through your clothes and you pant longingly as he pulls you closer by your neck, his other hand grabbing you roughly by your ass. A wanton moan escapes your mouth and he pulls you closer, rougher. Breaths puff into each other’s mouths as you messily connect your lips over and over again. It’s uncoordinated. It’s wet. It’s exactly what you need.
You thread your fingers in his hair and yank his head back; diving to lick and suck along the column of his neck, to the sensitive spot behind his ear that you know drives him crazy. His grip on your body tightens as he releases a shaky groan and rolls his hips up against yours. Anticipation thrums through your body. To every noise, to every touch your body responds in earnest.
This is nothing but a distraction. For you. For the both of you, you don’t care. Neither of you have to think as clothes are removed. The sadness can be ignored as you claw against his skin and coax his tongue into your mouth. It’s all movement. All feeling. All lust.
People cope in different ways.
It always happens like this. You argue. You fight. You threaten each other. You fuck until you’re both exhausted and too tired to care about the years of hatred between you. For these few moments all you are, are bodies. Bodies moving in tandem, kissing the right places, touching the right spots, connecting at the right angle. Like this things are easy, wordless.
You each just understand how the other works.
Every movement is matched in urgency, in desperation. Touch for touch. Kiss for kiss. Sound for sound. Push for pull. Gasps, moans, whimpers are muted as best you can in the quiet of the storage. You don’t realize that you’re subconsciously avoiding aggravating the stitches that lie there, still fresh, in his side as your hands leave burning paths along his skin.
Just for now, you can allow yourselves to feel that maybe you don’t hate each other as much as you let on.
~~~
“Get your own fucking telescope!”
“Where am I going to get one? We’re in the middle of the god forsaken ocean; do you expect me to pull it out of my ass?”
“You should have brought yours with you if you wanted to use one so bad! That doesn’t give you permission to just take my shit whenever you feel like it. You aren’t Captain here.”
“Oh, bite me.”
“I’ll do worse than that. Seulgi, get me my pistol.”
“Captain I don’t think-”
“You think you’re going to shoot me? Chanyeol where’s my gun?!”
“I’m gonna shoot you right in your last fucking working eye you dirty fucking son of a-”
A hand covers your mouth before you can finish your curse. “Baekhyun, you’re needed in the kitchen. Kyungsoo is asking for you.” You and Baekhyun share one last deadly glare before he stalks off and you’re released.
“What the hell Minseok?” You turn on your gunner, anger from your argument with Baekhyun being projected instead onto him. It has to go somewhere.
He crosses his arms over his chest, unbothered.
“So you’re in love with him right? That's why you’re acting like this?”
Your eyes bulge out of your skull. “I’m sorry, what did you just ask me?”
He sighs, grabs you by your arm and drags you all the way to the infirmary. You’re forced to sit down stupefied as Minseok stares at you expectantly. “The two of you are exhausting to watch. If you weren’t two of our most capable men we would have tied you both up and put you in the brig until we found Atlantis days ago,” he says evenly.
You scoff, mouth agape.
“I would tell you to fuck and move on, but seeing as that seems to be what triggers a fresh round of arguments, I’m going to ask that you two refrain from ever having sex on the ship again in the future.”
You splutter embarrassed. Your skin heats at having been called out so boldly. “W-what?! How- Wh- How’d you find out?”
“Any time the two of you have sex, you spend the next month or so telling all of us how much you hate him, how you’re going to kill him, blah blah blah. After a while you stop being as vocal about it, but then we make port, usually at Arae, and he happens to be there, then BAM we're back where we started. You’re obsessed with each other.”
You flush. “We are not,” you try to deny. His face is unimpressed. “I don't know where you got the idea that either of us feel anything but pure hatred for the other. Okay yeah, we’ve had sex a couple of times. So what? It doesn’t mean anything. I’ve had sex with half of Arae.” You cross your arms defiantly.
“As soon as this is all over, we’ll part ways...in 6 months we’ll go to Arae for a bit, as we always do, you’ll have ‘angry hate sex’ yet again and then spend the next month being pissy over his existence. No one who genuinely hates someone spends so much time a) around them willingly and b) obsessing over them when they aren’t around,” Minseok says matter-of-factly. “I think you should both admit you’re in love with each other so we can all move on.”
“Minseok!”
“I agree,” Jongin’s head pops up from behind the singular bed in the room.
“What are you doing here?” you ask, heat again filling your cheeks at the extra witness to this interrogation.
“I work here?”
“I mean hiding behind the bed!”
“Oh…I uh tripped and then the door opened and you guys started talking and I was too afraid to get up and interrupt,” he says quickly.
You squint in judgment.
“This whole…” Minseok waves his hand around as he searches for the word, “…archenemies thing is getting old, Captain. If you really wanted to kill him, you would have done it already. And I’m sure the same goes for Byun. Right Jongin?” he turns to face the younger.
“Yeah,” Jongin agrees with a shrug.
You can’t believe your ears. “He just…hasn’t done anything worth actually killing him over yet. He’s useful sometimes…for information…” you murmur lamely. The excuse is weak even to you.
“You are both dumb and annoying…and also super transparent. Whenever you injure the other, it’s always in a place that won’t kill or do permanent damage. Don’t act like it’s just been luck that you’ve both managed to miss any kind of serious blow from the other. You’re both deadly fighters, you know how to kill someone if you want them dead.”
“He ditched me in cuffs on that island-”
“You had the key to the cuffs,” Jongin chimes in unhelpfully.
Minseok rolls his eyes at your words. “Yes, and again, in a survivable situation. Was there not food and shit on that island?”
You open and close your mouth pathetically.
“Exactly. It’s not like you’re an incompetent dumbass. You would be able to find your way off even if you hadn’t been found. He didn’t blow the ship to bits like he could have a month ago, you haven’t slit his throat like you could have many months ago. You both dance around injuring each other, making the other’s life difficult, and fucking. You’re in love, please just accept it. I don’t care if you’re into BDSM and blood play or whatever freaky shit gets you guys off, but I would at least appreciate it if you kept it in your bedroom.”
Jongin nods from the back. “I just think it’s obvious,” he adds simply.
“Pff…Psh…Tch…I’m-I am appalled that you would talk to your Captain like this.”
“I know, I know. You could have us hanged, shot, thrown in the ocean, whatever…but the fact of the matter is that you aren’t going to do any of that, and you know that we’re right. Now, I’m going to go make sure Chanyeol hasn’t shot any of my men with any of my valuable pistols, and I’ll leave you to your duties, Captain.” Minseok nods his head with finality and exits the room.
Mutineer…
You glare at Jongin for ganging up on you. He flushes timidly. “I’m uh…gonna go see if Kyungsoo needs any help…Captain.” With a nervous smile he dashes from the room.
This is mutiny…
~~~
The ship sails southeast for days before anything alerts you all of the impeding first trial. The weather is normal, the water is normal, and then all of a sudden, the winds become violent.
“Captain, I think we’re getting close to whatever the first test is…” Yixing says tremulously.
The wind whips around you and the sails of the ship flap violently. There’s no way to tell which way the wind is blowing from as it whips from what feels like every side simultaneously. The ship tilts dangerously to one side.
“Junmyeon…that song telling you anything right about now?” You ask anxiously.
Your first mate looks out on the horizon with worried eyes. “We’re going the right way…” is all he says.
“Helpful,” Yixing murmurs sarcastically.
There is no visible sign of a storm; nothing seems out of the ordinary outside of the unnatural winds. The crew is already reefing your regular sails and raising the storm jib and trysail. If the winds get any stronger, which they will, they’ll catch your regular sails and capsize your ship before the waves even begin to hit.
“Who can man the helm? Who’s the best pilot on board right now?” you ask Yixing.
Yixing looks around a bit panicked. “I don’t know… I don’t know Captain.” The ship lurches to the side.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck…” you scan the ship. Most of the men are working on preparing the proper sails, securing any moving parts, and making sure the wind alone won’t turn the ship on her side. You see Baekhyun working with Wendy on securing lose lines. You haven’t talked to him since your lecture from Minseok all those days ago. “Junmyeon, go check to make sure we have enough ballast in the hold. We’re going to be rocking and we need to pray that we have enough weight to keep us as stable as possible.”
He rushes away; you try to think of what else you can do to prepare. There’s no way to tell how long this storm is going to last, how bad it’s going to be, and you would rather prepare for the worst.
A sea anchor.
“Johnny!” The boatswain is immediately at your side. “Take whoever you need and deploy the sea anchor. We should have one somewhere in the hold. I need you to work fast, but be thorough.”
The ship is going to have to sail against the wind and against the waves. The wind will push the ship off course, but to survive a storm like this the ship needs to keep its bow to the waves. If a wave catches the ship on her side or back, there’s no chance for survival. You’ll have to use your sea anchor and just pray that the Gods are feeling merciful.
“Baekhyun!” you shout. He turns immediately at the sound of your voice. “How good are you at the wheel?”
“I’m decent.”
“How’s your tracking? Your jibbing? Can you keep the ship from capsizing in this storm?”
He looks up in the sky when the sound of thunder shakes the floorboards. “My jibbing isn't the best, but I think I can keep her afloat,” he promises.
The feeling of static fills the air. The hair on your body rises to attention. Another rumble of thunder rolls across the ocean, louder than before. The sky is darker than it was 5 minutes ago.
There isn’t much longer until the storm hits.
“I need you at the wheel. I’m trusting my ship to you. Don’t let me down.” With a determined nod, Baekhyun is off. You see your first strike of lighting. Bright blue and not far off.
Chanyeol runs up to you to assure you that all of the cannons, ammunition, and artillery are properly secured. “Tell Minseok to get all his men below deck in the storm rooms. Secure any hatch and pray to the Gods that we make it through this,” you instruct. He nods and runs off.
When a storm hits, it hurts more than it helps to have people above deck. Three people would do the job just as well as all 20. Half of weathering a storm is the training and skill of the crew; and the other half is just pure luck.
The beginning patters of rain begin to pelt the ship. You run back up to the helm where Baekhyun has stationed himself.
The ocean gets choppy, picks up ferocity. The ship leans starboard. Baekhyun has never steered your ship, and truthfully, you have no idea whether or not he can actually steer through a storm. You’ve never seen him at the wheel of any ship in all the years you’ve known him.
“Do you think we’ll make it through this?” you ask.
“Honestly…I don’t know,” he admits. “We have enough sea room; we won’t crash into anything this far out. I just hope we can pick up enough speed before the waves start to grow.”
Junmyeon reappears, with Kyungsoo at his side, both out of breath. “We’ve prepared all that we can. The sea anchor is deployed, we’ve got a decent amount of ballast, the jib is ready to be backwinded, and the crew is all prepared for the rocking. What’s the plan?”
“Heaving to,” Baekhyun says simply. He swipes at his bangs, heavy with water and clinging to this forehead. “We keep the bow to the waves, keep close to the wind, and then lock the helm in place.”
“Won’t we broadside?!”
“No, if we were to lie ahull, we would broadside,” Kyungsoo supplies, blocking his eyes from the rain picking up in ferocity. “By heaving to, we can keep the ship from going parallel to the waves and capsizing. We’ll have to stay above deck to correct it if the wind or waves suddenly change. Since you’ve got a sea anchor we’ve got more chance of keeping the ship sailing straight into the waves rather than along them.”
“If heaving to doesn’t work, we try to run off downwind. As the wind increases we’ll have to slow down the ship as much as we can so that we don’t dive straight into the wave in front of us.” A bolt of lightning hits the waves. The rain gets harder.
“We would die…” You say unhelpfully. Lighting blasts in front of you and the waves crash angrily against the ship’s sides.
“Exactly. So if we run off, we’re going to need more than the four of us to throw whatever heavy lines you have off the stern,” Baekhyun’s voice rises to be heard over the increasingly loud winds and waves.
“As a last result, we’ll lie ahull and just fucking pray that when we capsize the ship holds for long enough to keep all of us alive,” Kyungsoo shouts.
You exhale shakily as another three bolts of lightning flash across the sky.
Poseidon be kind to us all.
You leave Baekhyun with the job of steering the ship against the waves that grow in size and power by the second.
At Kyungsoo’s instruction, Junmyeon is in charge of keeping the jib backwinded, and you reef the trysail as soon as it becomes clear that it’s going to be a hindrance in the grand scheme of things. Kyungsoo stands at Baekhyun’s side correcting course when he gets thrown off balance. Baekhyun does the same as Kyungsoo is knocked to the side in turn.
The waves become brutal, rocking the ship so hard that it’s nearly impossible to keep on your feet for more than 10 seconds at a time.
The wind finally sets in a single direction, fiercer than anything you’ve faced, and the general direction of the waves becomes apparent. The ship rocks violently from side to side and then immediately forward and back. You’re thrown into the foremast by the unexpected direction change with enough force to knock the wind out of your body. You gasp in pain. You get up on wobbling legs and try to breathe even as the water falls so fast and heavy around you that it feels equivalent to drowning.
You can’t see more than two feet ahead of yourself.
Think. Think.
There is rope at your feet, secured to the mainmast of the ship. You untie it with cold, wet fingers and hold it tight as you walk to the helm. The ship crashes into another large wave and you fall to your knees as water washes over the bow of the hull, covers the deck in freezing water and pitches the ship forwards. You stand up, shivering but determined. You tie the rope around your own waist to help you keep note of where you’ve come from.
Getting to the helm is a challenge, but you make it. Junmyeon is helping Baekhyun and Kyungsoo lock it in place.
“We should head below deck!” You shout as loud as you can. Thunder and lightning work in tandem to drown out your voice. To remind you of who is louder. Who has more power. You’re soaked to the bone.
Each man above deck is in a similar state. “We’re going below deck!” Junmyeon shouts. “We think heaving to may work.” The ship lurches dangerously to the right.
“Quick! Let’s go,” Kyungsoo screams, hair clinging to his forehead in inky black tendrils.
You use the rope to guide you. It feels as though you’re swimming through the air with the amount of resistance the winds and rain are putting up. Kyungsoo makes it to the hatch that leads below first. You follow behind, climbing down the ladder with shaking limbs. Water leaks through the boards, but it’s a welcome change from the brutality of facing Mother Nature directly.
You gasp for breath, finally able to breathe without also inhaling water, and look around the space for the ship’s emergency supplies. The ship dips, your stomach lurches.
Freezing water streams into the room from the open hatch above. You realize belatedly that there are only two of you in the compartment. Baekhyun and Junmyeon haven’t made it down.
You’re thrown to the ground when the ship dips without warning.
Clattering catches your attention as Junmyeon is swept into the room with a fresh rush of water. “Baekhyun fell overboard!” Junmyeon screams. He crashes against the ground. The sky screams.
What?
Kyungsoo turns away from opening the hatch down to a lower level of the ship to gape at Junmyeon’s words in horror.
Gasping, soaked, Junmyeon looks around the compartment frantically.
You’re moving before you have a chance to think.
You vaguely hear your name being called out from behind, but you don’t turn around. Rope still secured around your waist, you run, slip, stumble, over to the closest life boat. As fast as your shaking hands can work, you cut yourself free of the mainmast and tie the end of the rope not tied to your body to the dinghy.
You slice through the thick ropes holding the dinghy to the side of the ship with an urgency you’ve never felt. Water hits you head on, chilling you to the bone.
The final rope snaps and you and the dighy fall into the water with the force of landing on cement. Something is broken, but your adrenaline is pumping so violently that you can’t feel the pain. It doesn’t register.
Doesn’t matter.
You look around frenzied. The water is pitch black and moving too fast. The rain pelts your skin. It stings, burns, blurs your vision.
The waves are too big for him to survive out here on his own.
They’re too big for you to survive in your search for him.
The sky roars.
The waves crash, flip your boat once, twice.
You settle upright for the second time when, by the grace of the Gods, you see his white shirt illuminated against the dark water by a strike of lightning. You row frantically as a wave begins to swell. You nearly scream in relief when you reach him, but the sound dies as your heart sinks.
He’s not moving.
And he’s face down.
With all the energy you can muster, you pull him into your little boat. You take a few seconds you catch your breath, then you realize the height at which the wave has lifted you. It begins to cascade down; instinctively, you wrap your arms around Baekhyun’s unmoving form and brace yourself for the crash.
It’s dizzying.
It hurts.
It’s terrifying.
You hold your breath, close your eyes, hold onto the man in your arms with all you have, and wait for the water to stop jostling you around so violently. The water seems to calm slightly, so you open your eyes.
The water is dark, and then bright. Black, and then illuminated by lighting.
Your chest tightens as your need for oxygen reaches desperation. You maneuver yourself beneath the water enough to hold Baekhyun with one arm and swim to the top with the other.
You break the surface and gasp for air desperately.
You pull your rope and the boat appears at your side, thankfully upright. You lift Baekhyun aboard first, and then with heavy limbs, you topple on top of him. You don’t give yourself a chance to catch your breath before you’re leaning over him checking for signs of life.
You lower your ear to his chest. You can’t tell if he’s breathing. If his heart is beating.
“Come on Byun. Don’t die on me like this,” you beg. You repeatedly push against his chest, the way you were taught to restart a heart. After a few beats you press your ear to his chest again to listen for a change.
Nothing.
“Fuck. Come on…come on,” you pant.
You pinch his nose and lean down to cover his mouth with yours, filling his lungs with the air that he’s unable to take in on his own. His chest rises each time you exhale into his mouth. You go back to pumping your locked hands against his chest. A wave knocks you on your side. The boat stays upright.
You exhale into his mouth again, once, twice. You beg the rain to let up. You beg the waves to grow smaller.
You beg his heart to start beating.
He jerks and water spurts from his mouth. Relief hits you so hard that all the energy left in your body is expelled and you sag forward and land directly onto his chest.
You can finally hear the dull thumping of his heart. You can feel the shallow rise and fall of his chest.
At last, you can take a second to just breathe.
The small boat continues to jerk around, but it’s clear that the worst of the storm has passed. The waves now are shallow and choppy. The rain has lessened to nothing but a drizzle. The thunder rumbles farther and farther in the distance.
And Baekhyun’s heartbeat gets stronger.
You close your eyes, and let exhaustion overcome you, lulled into sleep by the beat of his heart and the rocking of the boat.
87 notes · View notes
free-pancakes · 4 years ago
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hi, maybe you're tired about this kind of convie regarding hange's gender but i really need your opinion. is it that wrong if i consider hange as a she? istg i'm not anythingphobic, i'm just still stuck with female hange in anime. i stan aot since 2013 and felt just fine to open up about my preference in hange's gender but lately, considering hange as a she is like the most sinful thing in the whole planet and even being attacked and i don't know what to feel about it. ���
i believe there are a lot of great posts on tumblr that can probably answer this better and more eloquently than me. but i do believe i read that isayama officially said hange’s gender was up to interpretation. but anyway, my thoughts are this:
i think something important to remember here is that aot/snk is a story—an art medium. And art is something that conveys an artists thoughts and feelings, and in an equally important way, gives us fans to interpret what that creation means to us. that’s the whole point of art, right?
since i’m just your run-of-the-mill hetero female, i cant speak for our lgbtq friends, but i can imagine that being able to interpret hange as non-binary is really important and meaningful for some.
to give an example of something similar I can better verbalize myself upon—the movie, Crazy Rich Asians, was something really important to me and a lot of my friends. Maybe it’s not super important to other people and maybe it was just another entertaining movie to watch, but as an Asian-American, being able to see a FULL Asian cast on the big screen affected me more than i thought it would and it low key brought me to tears. These were people, who looked like me, understood the struggles of being a first gen kid, who understood what it meant to be a minority and conform to majority to fit in, who understood what a “lunchbox moment” was in the grade school cafeteria, who made it in an industry that stereotypes Asians all the time that make us all seem the same and as if there aren’t several different asian cultures—just...wow. It meant everything to me, and all of my Asian-American friends, that our existence was reflected on a screen where being Asian-American, being who they are, was portrayed as the norm and were not simply characters reduced to filling a diversity role or just the asian math nerd to laugh at.
so i can only imagine the feeling it can create for people who identify as non-binary to get that kind of representation! i’m sure it gives these people the same exhilarating happiness i felt watching CRA for the first time.
so back to snk/aot—at the same time, i liken my personality to hange in a lot of ways, and with combination of that and being a preferred anime watcher (i only read the manga bc i just had to know what happened past season 3 lol) and being female myself, i personally interpreted hange as female, bc it was nice for me personally to see so many strong female characters in anime that don’t get nerfed like in so many other animes. so interpreting hange as female was important for me in this sense, personally. but it’s important to remember that this view isn’t the same for all fans!
so TLDR basically i’m saying, representation matters, and i think everyone should have the freedom to interpret hange’s gender in a way that represents what the character means to them because again—the interpretation of art is supposed to be meaningful to us as consumers of it—it’s supposed evoke feelings within us, and help find meaning in our lives through the themes and arcs of a character/story that are significant to us, right?
so, no one should be putting you down for what hange means to u in your eyes. we should be respecting everyone’s interpretation bc that’s how they found meaning in hange’s character
and anyways beyond all of this, we can all come together and agree that hange is the badass beautiful character we all love, right?
thus concludes my apparent chaotic ted talk LOL my b i think i got carried away. i hope this was somewhat helpful tho, anon. thank you for dropping in my ask! :)
and if u were crazy enough to make it to the end here and read all of my chaotic ramblings, yay here have some imaginary confetti in celebration *throws confetti at u*
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gguktarts · 5 years ago
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decathect | jjk (1)
1. to withdraw one’s feelings of attachment from (a person, idea, or object), as in anticipation of a future loss
summary: if one thing was clear to you when you first met Jeon Jungkook, it was that he would never love you. at least, not the way you wanted him to.
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pairing: jjk x reader genre: unrequited love au? || angst || little fluff if u Squint || drabble series word count: 2.7k parts:  1 / ? | next » cw: uhh kinda unhealthy depictions of a crush, & jk is a fuckboy w lots of tatts and long hair so that deserves a warning on its Own i say
note: so,,, this was supposed to be a short fic bc i wanted my heart broken but it turned into a drabble series……………….we’ll see how that goes!!! rip
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You’ve heard of him from your friends, and from their friends: about the infamous Jeon Jungkook and the reputation that precedes him. He’s, first and foremost, an art major — and an excelling one at that. In the short three years he’s been an undergrad, his work has been featured, so far, in a total of 4 major art exhibitions. His displayed work apparently sells rather quickly, too, which surely earns him more than enough money to successfully continue his various artistic endeavors and out-of-uni activities. You’ve heard he’s also into tattoos, boxing, and photography on the side, for example. Whether it was true or not was not something you focused on, but considering his friends were they ones telling the tales, you didn’t doubt it. Not that you thought of it often, or at all, really.
What you did question was why exactly he felt the need to stop by Taehyung’s very own, very private, and very expensive Goghrik’s Vancrylics paint collection to use instead of his own. You didn’t want to think him as cheap because, quite frankly, you knew nothing more than those whispered rumors and offhanded comments Jimin and Yoongi perpetrated on occasion. So, you settled for thinking nothing until you could get concrete answers. 
For a long time Jungkook remained a simple ghost, until finally one day he just existed. Everywhere, and then, always. As if meeting him once meant he’d open the door to your home to welcome himself as an indefinite guest, you suddenly had no week free of his presence or his trace. Like a growing avalanche you learned about him with repeated increase, sometimes by choice, and sometimes by mere coincidence. Maybe it was pure coincidence, too, how you came to fall for him — for Jeon Jungkook, the artist, the fuckboy. With time though, you came to a different understanding.
Liking Jungkook was no coincidence.  It was a curse – a long, and tediously everlasting hex you’d so far failed to get rid of.  
And it all started, you begrudgingly admit sometimes, with some paint and very little luck.
Being in one of the most prestigious Universities in the country naturally means you consistently face the demon of a huge – nay, an enormous campus. A wide lake rests between dispersed buildings while Hi-Q food marts border each cluster of separate dorms, connected all entirely by desire paths and concrete roads. It's no surprise then that a map is the standard gift given to all entrance students, though by now you’ve memorized practically all zones you inhabit (i.e. the Natural Sciences’ Atrium, the Physics Department, and your own dorm). Most people still use theirs, along with the mandatory transportation fare card Admissions urges all newcomers to get. More than anything it’s a must-have for anyone who wants to actually make it on time to class — more so when they’re not blessed with taking courses on a near-by group of Departments.
And it just so happened you’re amongst those ill-fated few.
For four years now you’ve been a resident of Dorm C, exactly the furthest of the dorms from the NS Atrium. Instead you’re — uselessly — at a walking distance from the Plastic Arts department, a place you’ve ventured to for only a single semester back in your second year. Back then you had decided that taking Pottery was a great way to fill in some of your electives, an idea which mostly Taehyung, an art major himself, cemented in your head. You remember nothing of your treks to the department, nor of the lessons you received, but your memory often recalls it happened whenever you visit him. Your final project, a 2-piece set of misshapen cups of tea, still rests atop one of his many bookshelves to this day. Taehyung calls them “endearing”, something about them “truly reflecting a purpose beyond what their ‘perfect brethren’ are subjected to”. Which, really, is code for “they could be used as mugs, but I like them better as vases for Namjoon’s succulents,” and you’re okay with that.
Namjoon, an English Lit major, is Tae’s roommate and the other occupant of their two-bedroom flat. As luck would have it they stay on the floor above your own, right atop your much smaller and much lonelier dorm room. It’s actually one of the shared excuses you all use for your constant visits.
Half of the time you spend on their flat includes being tucked away on their couch, reading astronomy journals or watching documentaries Joon frequently sits through alongside you, or sleeping under Tae’s covers simply because he enjoys the company and can’t seem to sleep otherwise. The rest of the time the boys, sometimes with you in tow on an off day, migrate to Jimin and Yoongi’s shared flat in Dorm D. They share their space with Jungkook, if Yoongi’s complaints about late-night water-fests were anything to go by, though you’ve never seen him there.
No, ironically, the first time you crossed paths with him was in the lobby of Dorm C — your dorm. You remember he was shifting and wandering around like a lost puppy, his eyes restlessly searching for something or someone. It was him, you knew, because he’s often featured in your shared friend’s Instagram posts, and because he’s very hard to miss.
He was — is big, towering over you easily, and was then dressed all in black. A mix of comfy and effortlessly put together in perfect execution, the rolled-up sleeves of his sweater did nothing to hide the ink covering his veiny forearms. You were instantly thankful — you’ve always been drawn to tattoos. They’re admirable on others and on yourself, and you instantly had to push down the desire to keep marking your body for reasons only pertinent to the feeling of the needle on your skin or the aesthetics of the design. Your poor ass couldn’t afford another so soon, anyway.
The other thing that gave him away was his signature dark hair, long and parted in the middle to fall over his round, soft eyes. It covered his multiple piercings but did nothing to take away from the sweet persona that settled over him. Despite the dark and the goth, he seemed… cute. Very cute, and very confused. The way his eyebrows furrowed at his phone screen just before he searched through the scattered students was a dead giveaway. He was likely lost, but that wasn’t very surprising. For all the time Tae and Joon spend on Dorm D, the same couldn’t be said otherwise. Visits to Dorm C were seldom for the rest.
And a lost Jungkook… wasn’t your problem. A simple look at his boyish features was enough to ignite some sort of weird somersaults in your chest, and you wanted nothing more than to ignore it and run far away. So, you tried.
Blinking away the staring he had thankfully not noticed, you made for your own room as embarrassment coursed through your jittery limbs.
You didn’t make it very far before your plan backfired. You had to go near him to reach the elevator, and it apparently didn’t matter that you were practically hiding inside your bag, your hand rummaging through it for your room cardkey.
“Hey—uh, Y/N right?” you heard, and your body froze.
A look up, and there he was. Jeon Jungkook, calling your name. It was weird hearing your mesh of letters on his tongue, foreign to his palette yet pronounced to perfection. Equally confused as he looked before, and even further more embarrassed (you couldn’t help but think, amongst all the chaos in your mind, that his voice was ridiculously soothing and fitting for his physicality), your throat only let out a very intellectual “huh?”
“Um,” Jungkook’s eyes went wide, his head cocked to the side at your reaction. His feet shifted under him, and you tried ignoring the way his cheeks grew a lovely shade of pink when he spoke again.
“I’m Jungkook, and hyung—Taehyung mentioned you before. He isn’t answering and I’m a bit lost, so I was wondering if you could give me directions? Unless you’re not… Y/N?”
You’re often a recurrent character in Tae’s stories, so it shouldn’t have surprised you he’s spoken of you before. But it did.
“I am Y/N,” you relented, maybe a bit more bitterly than you intended. You couldn’t help but pout at the sudden reminder of Tae’s love for recording you during your most… inopportune moments. “Where is it you want to go?”
The boy in question rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, a bunny-like smile making a sudden appearance. His teeth seemed to jut out a bit, and his upper lip disappeared almost entirely, but you were sure of one thing instantly: his smile was the prettiest one you’d ever seen.
You felt your chest constrict at the sight without any sense of permission, your ears going up in flames. Clearly, you were bonkers. You continued your walk towards the elevator, praying he’d keep up somewhere a bit farther from you.  But he followed without question, easily settling besides you and offering glances from the corner of his eye. You pressed the up button and pretended not to notice, playing around with your cardkey while you both waited.
“To hyung’s dorm — I haven’t ever been there, as strange as it sounds, and I need to borrow some paint.”
“Borrow some paint?” you hummed, the notion seeming somewhat silly to you. “After you’ve used it you can’t return it, so would it really be borrowing?”
You moved to look at him questioningly, curiosity getting the best of you, and the feeling you were hit with was far too paralyzing for you to carry. It was a sudden storm of affection, a wave of currents that spread and tightened, tickling and burning your stomach each second you saw his crinkled eyes, his teeth fully bared into a humorous grin. It made your feet stick to the ground even after the doors of the elevator greeted you open.
“You’re a weird one aren’t you?” he muttered airily, more to himself than anything, before shrugging and prompting you to follow him inside the confined space. “Technically, you’re right, but saying I’m borrowing stuff sounds nicer, doesn’t it? It’s all about semantics. Don’t worry though, hyung lets me take some of his whenever I run out.”
“Okay.”
Neither of you said much after that, but you did take him all the way to Tae’s and Joon’s front door. He thanked you softly before you left, with a smile sincere and gentle in ways you hadn’t expected. You remember nodding along and, possibly, wishing him good luck on his art project, but you weren’t sure by the time you reached your room.
You remember skipping your assignments that night, choosing instead a hot shower and the comforts of your recently cleaned bed. It was the first attempt at forgetting the whole event, a new mission for your mind to complete before a crush settled its anchor.
You were used to six handsome guys. You drew the line at seven.
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Meeting Jungkook for the first time was disastrous for the days that followed. Maybe you were being a bit dramatic, but it was rightfully warranted. Your brain had vaguely memorized what he looked like outside of pictures, and now you saw him everywhere. It was the frequency bias all over again, and it had no escape, just like that one time you wanted to dye your hair and suddenly half the population seemed to be dying it that very color. Similarly, interacting with Jungkook meant noticing him in your peripheral when he wasn’t front and center, knowing it was him in the distance. It only worsened when your paths began to regularly cross.
It happened and continuous to happen mostly in the presence of Tae or Joon, or any of Jungkook’s roommates. 
Whenever you’d spend some time on the couch with Joon, he was there. Whenever you woke up midday and decide it was high time to cook brunch for three (four then), he was already there. When Yoongi invited you over to hear some of the pieces he’s been working on, Jungkook was miraculously in the apartment. Oh, you wanted to steal some of Tae’s shirts? Jungkook catches you red handed, some stolen paints of his own right in his treacherous hold.
It’s absolutely maddening.
You wouldn’t mind it so much if it weren’t for the fact that each new stare, each new smile, leaves your stomach in complete shambles.
Who could take you back to the time when you hadn’t heard his loud laugh? To when he hadn’t seen you loafing around in your onesie after a killer test and stayed to comfort you? He even called you cute, shared some of his milk and made sure to leave only after he’d seen you smile. Sometimes he’d even notice you watch your documentaries only to pop a random question about space, or even about the science behind Star Trek or Star Wars when “Clearly FTL travel isn’t possible?” (To which you’d answer: “Not yet it isn’t, you non-believer”) before falling quiet and leaving you be. They were small conversations with no more than 3 lines exchanged, but they were more than enough for the butterflies seeping through your ribcage to go on a frenzy.
And despite everything you heard and everything you began to know, Jungkook was possibly the softest, sweetest, and most annoying person you knew. At least superficially. 
You still knew nothing personal about him, with your interactions being limited to shared spaces, but you didn’t think much of it until you began to see all kinds of things: his cute habits, his quirks, and even the way his tattoo collection grows.
You’ve silently noticed the way he wiggles his toes when he sits to watch a series, how he blinks a lot when he’s confused. You’ve seen the way he scratches the back of his head when he’s not confident about something, and how his eyes smile before his lips do, and the way his laugh resonates all around the room in the most euphoric melodies. All of this you come to know as unequivocally Jungkook. And you know, you know you’re so whipped for him that you can’t stop being in-tuned with it, with his little things.
But you’re also aware of your situation, and it doesn’t surprise you when your chest starts to hurt over it — over him, because you see his other things: the way each week curls a different girl around his waist, the way his eyes turn cold when he says he doesn’t do relationships, and the way he looks at you.
It’s never with disgust or anything of the sort. It’s just that you’ve seen the way he looks at the girls he fucks with, the girls he finds attractive, the girls he likes for a single night to then discard them.
And he’s never looked at you like that. You suppose that’s good, but... then again, you guess it means you’re nothing. After all, Jeon Jungkook never offers you any hope, he never shows any interest. Technically you’re not even his friend — not really. You’re Taehyung’s other best friend, an outside addition to his usual friend group, and now to his life. You’re okay with that, you have to be. You haven’t sought him out, haven’t done anything to close the gap between you. Water and care is something you never wanted to give your unjustified feelings. You never wanted them to grow, even now.
You just failed to take note of the rain pouring over the earth and pooling beneath your feet, and you don’t notice you’re drowning until you see him at the end of the day.
The girl attached to him is a stranger to you, just like the rest you’ve seen, yet you can’t seem to shake the thought that something must be different. Whatever she has seems to be enough for the tattooed man to shatter his distaste for PDA, at least for the time being.
Your legs hesitate to unceremoniously halt in the middle of the hall. Your eyes battle not to widen and not to stare, for a second desperate to make sure that what you’re seeing is real, that you’re seeing Jungkook kiss for the first time in forever as if you hadn’t known all this time that he fucks and loves behind closed doors. 
And it doesn’t matter that the kiss isn’t gentle, that he’s kissing her as if she were the very air he needed to breathe. No, what makes you sick is how he notices, how he sees you, and how he does nothing but pull her closer in response.
You push yourself to move as soon as his eyes drift away again, unwilling to tremble before him and unwilling to make any more mistakes.
Class would have to wait. You needed coffee, even if it meant being late. And you absolutely hate being late to Astrophysics, but you definitely hated seeing him more.
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tfw-no-tennis · 4 years ago
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mtmte liveblog issue 22
oooh man, its time to feel some EMOTIONS!
I'm BACK after a hiatus, which was due in part to me getting my 1st dose of the covid vaccine! woohoo!
anyways, starting here w/issue 22....we have a great cover w/thunderclash, the legend himself
oof. the covers made me forget how much I don't like the art this issue...I hate to be mean to the artists but this art style just isn't doin it for me chief
god I love this issue though. the framing device of rewind’s movie is so so fantastic
tailgate listing off all his fake awards/accomplishments....ily 
rodimus my boy, you're a prime in my heart
the ‘not a decepticon’ label for cyclonus is so much hvbhkjfbskjf
I literally wanna comment on every single panel bc I love all the characters so much but then id be here forever...that being said whirl ily sm 
hvbjdfbhsfjhdfshja BRAINSTORM ‘according to perceptor - ships genius’ hvhdkjhbfhjs ily dumb gay idiot
and then the cut to perceptor after brainstorm like, blew up his lab vjbkdsfnbksjf dude
GODDDDDD drift ‘your name...defines you. it’s your soul expressed in syllables. hm? oh, yes, sorry. it’s drift.’ GOD he’s so fucking funny. I love early story hippy drift
god I cant stop thinking about how good this whole issue would be as an animated show...like, specifically rewinds film, it would be SO FUCKING GOOOOOOD mtmte show WHEN
rewiiiiind ;_; I fuckgin love rewind god. fellow video editing enthusiast....
ohhhh rodimus being embarrassed about his big speech at the beginning of mtmte....my boy I love u so much
gjhnbgehjsrkfbjksf magnus being suspicious of rewind oh my god. magnus ily but please, look at the lil guy, he’s a good boy, most of the time
the fuckgin footage that magnus removed hbvhakjbfhskf god. wasn't that intended to be footage of magnus dancing? I love him
minibot squad.....
and here it begins, the mystery stick rung question...
poor rung oh my god he’s just trying to polish his lil spaceship and people r throwing shit at him. taking Ls as per usual it seems
hand grenade tag hvbfjksdnfbkjdf love that callback
noooo rungs ship :( 
magnus’s censorship vhbhadkjfhdbhjsakjhfn
oh man I forgot about how they met that race of Transformers But More 
the one-upsmanship hbvkajsbehfjks
whirrrrrl lmao I love whirl sm
goddddd whirl just killing that other alien and ending the 16 million yr long civil war bvkjsdbfhjjkafs so fucking much
oh god oh god the ‘are you happy’ page, I'm not emotionally equipped to handle this like, ever
but I will say I feel like it would be EVEN MORE oof if it were milne or someone drawing it bc I feel like this art style takes away from some of the impact bc the expressions aren't really that...expressive? idk how to put it
anyways. every single answer destroys me!!! like even the happy ones, like chromedome and rewind and tailgate - well, in present time, none of those three are doing so hot, so that makes this just hurt 
and rung....that is so fucking depressing. jesus. this guy is so fuckng sad, somebody get him a friend stat
and swerve...ouch. this readthru I've really noticed how much early-mtmte swerve is not-so-subtly like, crying out for help bc he’s so alone and shit. jesus 
also brainstorms response is just plain ole sad w/context, but at this point in the story without context, it just seems very foreboding lmao. I'm realizing this readthru that brainstorm is very sketchy and ominous in a particular ‘is he evil?’ mad scientist sorta way in early mtmte
and then everyone else is also just so OOF in their own unique sad ways, but I think the worst out of everyone is drift....GODDDDDD. especially considering that at this point in the story, drift is this kinda goofy hippy guy, so seeing him just sit there with his face in his hand, not even answering the question...AND knowing that shortly after this he’ll end up banished...IT FUCKING HURTS M8!
meanwhile, the more upbeat ‘quest to see rungs alt mode’ continues...with an ‘alt mode party’ vhbadkjsdfnabskjf it looks so silly with a bunch of cars just sitting around a table lmao
I cant even tell who everyone is bc they so rarely turn into cars n shit lmaoooooo 
rodimus with the bucket on his head hbvhakjbfskjf I CANT
everyone’s reactions to thunderclash...i fucking love it
the fact that TAILGATE doesn't hate him, even though we’ve seen that tailgate tends to dislike people who are universally liked/who have achieved a lot of impressive things
rodimus you petty thot vbdkjbfdjhsakjdf ily
RODIMUS IS SO FUNNYYYYYY ‘I'm not making all these sacrifices and leading these guys into battle and being inspirational - I'm not doing that because it makes me look good’ RODIMUS VBHSKJDFNBKSJF
thunderclash talking about magnus’s article on typefaces....hdbksjfsdbkjgfb bro
AND THEN MAGNUS HUGS HIM....HGBSKJFDSHFKD I CANT
POOR DRIFT bvhajkdfbhjkjsfd rodimus saying he ‘rehabilitated him’ oh my god
the whole spectralism thing...im sorry I cant get over how funny all this is vbakdjfbksjf thunderclash rlly b out here charming rodimus’s entire crew
and then ratchet comes in, calling tc ‘thunders,’ and tc immediately notices ratchets new hands (somehow) hvbkjfhbskjf truly amazing
it cracks me up that rodimus is all 😒😒 at thunderclash, even though as we come to find out, tc really IS That Perfect, and him complimenting rodimus isn't sarcasm at all lmao
AND THEYRE LOOKING FOR THE KNIGHTS OF CYBERTRON TOO HVSDHFJBSHKHDFJS OF COURSE
the vis vitalis being a life support machine spaceship is a really cool concept tho
‘rescuing some orphans from an exploding sun’ I fucking cant
evil guy: [holds a gun to thunderclash’s head] 
rodimus: :D finally something doesn't go his way!
he’s so petty I’m..........dkdjhfdabhduifadijgl
and its the aliens from earlier! oooh
GODDD I forgot that swerve used rung in mystery stick mode to SCHWACK the guy
rung casually dropping the fact that the functionists like, experimented on him...there's a lot of implications there, and that'll certainly be explored more later...
the fact that his ID card says ‘rong’ hvbhjakhdsbfakhsjfn 
oughufadkfujbsfk the circle of light throwing wrenches n shit at skids...guys cmon vbhsdjkfnslfd
the circle of light is like ‘wtf you all have trauma and a bunch of weird unhealthy coping mechanisms this is wack byeeeee’ lmao
skids calling the lost light his home is rlly sweet tho
cant believe the religious space hippy cult is being so rude about a film made by a guy who died like a week ago. unreal 
cd finally figured out how to make the pffft sound, good for him
AUGHHHHH the fact that rewind used ‘little victories’ as the title of the film and that's something that chromedome said in the video ;_; I'm fucking inconsolable 
rodimus, despite his obvious posturing for the camera during the whole issue, comes off as surprisingly genuine when he says that he hasn't thought about his own future much, but wants the crew to have a happy ending....im gonna cry
‘who knows what's around the corner?’ tailgate, PLEASE don't say that, oh my god, 
OUGHHHH GROUP SHOT 
OHHH mannnnNNNNN i love this issue SO MUCH. what a good fun emotional rollercoaster wrap-up to mtmte s1. god. 
like, this issue has it all - humor, drama, crippling sadness, intrigue, worldbuilding...it’s so excellent 
and getting to see rewind again hurts so bad but also I love him
ok quick mtmte s1 retrospective...god s1 is so fucking good. I'm gonna have to read more to say which chunk of mtmte I liked best but s1 is so fucking excellent that it might be my favorite. though its hard to pick bc there's so much good stuff later on too...whatever, the point is s1 is so so good
the plotlines and characters are fucking stellar. like I cant even believe how well Everything works, its very impressive. I cant really think of anything major that made me go ‘yeah could've done without that plotline/character’
I love how dedicated jro is to connecting everything. I've mentioned it before but basically every single moment in the series has payoff - what you initially think is just a funny moment, or a fluffy character establishment bit, ends up ALSO being an important plot point later, in some way
an example would be here w/rung and his alt mode - it just seems like a fun little B-plot for this issue, and seems to pretty neatly conclude with the reveal that rung was eventually classified as an ‘ornament’ (lmao)...but we later on get to see a lot more about this, both here and in the functionist universe 
and like, stuff like tailgate’s autobot lessons w/magnus - at first that can be seen as purely character establishment stuff, showing that magnus is a strict rule-lover and tg is a loveable try-hard good boy - but that becomes plot relevant in remain in light, with tailgate saving the day due to his knowledge of the autobot code (and its also character relevant, with magnus’s arc in remain in light). 
and I know this is like. a normal regular thing in writing, but I'm just very impressed about how cleanly jro pulls it off, and how many things he’s juggling at once, especially in early mtmte - it’s very ambitious!
and we gotta remember, this is a comic book. I've read a lot of comic books, and the quality is all over the place. a lot of writers bite off more than they can chew, and the story ends up kinda scattered as a result. 
another thing I see a lot in franchise writing like this is a lack of strong early character establishing due to the author assuming the readers are at least somewhat familiar with the characters already - which can be totally fair depending on where it is in the continuity, but other times it can come off as lazy
in mtmte, the cast is extremely well fleshed out, and not only that, the cast itself is unique in that there are a lot of relative unknowns (franchise-wise) - which I think was an absolutely brilliant move, because then jro was able to essentially create The Definitive Version of these characters - characters like swerve, brainstorm, chromedome, rewind, tailgate...mtmte is their baseline characterization, because they haven't really appeared in much else
this also allows for deviation from the franchise norms - again, a comic book classic is good writing being stifled by a need to stick to a certain status quo regard the characters, the world, the powers, relationships, etc
(I've mostly read DC comics, and some marvel, so I'm thinking superheroes w/all these comic comparisons)
so mtmte had a good recipe for genuine creativity in that the characters were relative unknowns, the plot was basically ‘space road trip,’ the status quo of ‘autobot vs decepticon war’ had been demolished throughout the entire franchise...so jro was able to take all that and run, and it turned out so fantastic
and luckily it isn't over yet! so many comics suffer from premature cancellation...and sadly mtmte/ll isn't exempt from this, as we’ll see later, but I've seen some awful ones, where comics are forced to wrap up in like 2 issues while in the middle of an arc. yikes. 
but another comic staple...one of my least favorite things about comics books in general...something that was basically responsible for driving me away from comics after reading a bunch...the dreaded crossover event
yep, even mtmte isn't immune to this unfortunate plague on the comic industry. crossover events are the absolute worst, and I'm saying this as somebody who adores crossovers (in concept more than execution usually). they SHOULD be my favorite, but unfortunately they p much always completely suck
they're essentially a ploy to get you to read the other ongoing titles, but they usually only serve to bog down whatever story you're reading to the point where you don't even wanna read that one anymore, let alone read all the other ongoings. at least, that’s been my experience 
it doesn't help that reading orders tend to be hard to find/keep track of, and that you need to go read the other series to know what's going on. I just hate it, like, I came here to read THIS series, I don't want a bunch of other series showing up too - even if I was reading two series, I wouldn't want them crossed over, because they're separate stories! augh!
I'm totally losing my focus here but my point is...crossover events suck, and mtmte unfortunately is involved in one. I have not read dark cybertron, and I'm not about to. I've heard nothing but bad things so I have no desire to inflict that upon myself 
soooo ill be reading through the tfwiki articles for those issues to give myself a better understanding of what went on - which is more than I've ever done in the past - and maybe ill even make a single post summarizing my thoughts on what I read in the wiki, lmao
but yea ill be skipping to the mtmte s2 stuff next 
phew ok I'm super tired, my vision keeps blurring out and stuff lmao. its time for bed, I probably have more thoughts but ill save them for later. for now...peace out!
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abri-chan · 4 years ago
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great blog btw, weird question but I think your the best to answer it maybe, what is the deal with Gio's age,he is 15 during Vento but a lot of girls I know who are Jojo fans(mostly manga based ones if that makes a difference) are absolutely horny for him and get angry when I bring up him being 15 during Vento or say well in current day he would be legal now so it doesnt matter or he is drawn older looking, but they are still kinda lusting after him at 15, what are you thoughts on this?
If I remember correctly Giorno does look younger in the way, and everyone is kinda twinkier in it than in the anime, but by the end of the manga he looks a lot like Dio in part 6. Especially that panel where he’s holding the arrow after defeating Diavolo I think?
I think this is not an easy ask to answer, because there are several things to consider.
The important thing is that it’s okay to you feel uncomfortable with them lusting after Giorno. You don’t need an excuse to be uncomfortable and if you feel something is not right, it’s okay to express your dislike or disagreement. I know there has been a lot of pushback against antis but I want to reiterate that being uncomfortable with certain things doesn’t make you an anti. The word is unfortunate because you can be against age-up content (and although I am fine with aged-up, I respect your right to be uncomfortable), but that doesn’t make you an anti in the fandom sense. In the fandom sense of the word, an anti is someone that not only dislikes certain content or wishes the content didn’t exist, but they actively go and harass real people over fictional content. The second part is the critical ingredient to make an anti. As long as you don’t harass others over what they like or dislike, it’s your right to speak against certain content or avoid it.
I understand your discomfort, because I cannot say that fiction never affects reality. I know antis love to use this argument, and the problem is they’re not even wrong. The issue is that they take the relationship between the two to be very simple, when in fact there are academic books and papers dedicated to exploring the relationship. Some things can have a direct and easily measurable correlation: for example diverse fiction representation affects marginalized groups positively. Also the way women are portrayed in the media has a direct effect on how men can view women IRL. But it gets complicated because we have to consider who controls the mainstream narrative: for example pornhub will have more effect on normalizing incest than jonadio fanfiction. Then you also have to consider the purpose of a piece of work or media. For example, I believe writers should be allowed to explore certain topics for the sake of exploring, just as artists can do with colors. So are dead-dove topics used by a writer to explore, cope, instant gratification, shock, pushback? How much power does this writer truly have with regards to their position ins society?
Then there are times where fiction doesn’t really translate into reality: for example, are horror writers out there murdering people? Is thinking of a murder the same as murdering someone irl, is murdering someone in the fiction the same as murder irl? We can get violent and inhibited in videogames bc we know there are not real consequences; but wouldn’t IRL because we know you can’t just hurt someone and reset the game. So while fiction affects reality, and reality affect fictions, it’s not always easy to measure how, and it’s not always linear. Also why banning all taboos or trying to police what people like is doomed to fail bc it takes a very simplistic view on human imagination or psychology.
Returning to Giorno being 15 in the series, the aged-up argument is the easiest one to defend IMO, and one I don’t get why people have problems with. We have aged-up examples of characters in JoJo: Jonathan, Jotaro, and so on. If someone can imagine adult Giorno (and I’ve seen some amazing art of Don Giovanna), they are not lusting after a child... Despite what his canon age is, you can’t argue they’re pedophiles bc they are clearly into an art piece that depicts him as adult. Why would someone think of adult Giorno when seeing teen Giorno? Idk why is Araki concerned with making a handsome man out of teen Jotaro (his words, he’s actually very particular about his characters being attractive)? We have to measure the mangaka and the fans by the same ruler, else we are hypocrites. Sometimes imagination takes you there... but once you see adult Giorno, it’s adult Giorno.
Another thing is that in the anime, and later parts of the manga, the characters do act and look older than their canon age. If no one told me what the ages where in Vento, I’d think the teens were young adults, and the adults were late 20s, early 30s. So while Araki slapped an age onto them; as a viewer it’s hard to detach your experience of seeing characters that look and act like adults from some number that seems to have no grounding in the world. I read somewhere that age in manga is used a lot for marketing: if it’s published in shonen jump and it will be mostly teens reading, you slap a teen age on the characters. But maybe as adults, mangakas have a hard time to imagine actual teens (it’s hard to actually write good children characters, and I suppose it’s hard to write teens too). So they end up with adults, but have to somewhat label the characters as teens to get teenagers to read the story. Let’s take someone that we can all agree looks adult, Risotto. Imagine someone told you that’s a 14 year old boy. You have this abstract information of age, but your eyes tell you that is the face and body of a grown man. So what will be easier to process for your brain?
Sure IRL if you knew Giorno was 15 but he looked adult, you clearly don’t get involved. But since this is fiction, it is possible to detach the concept of Giorno acting and looking like an adult from his actual age, because there are no consequences. The age is very abstract in this case... and I feel that’s why some of these fans are doing. They see someone that acts and looks adult, and it’s silly to claim they are 15, because it doesn’t add up. The reverse is when mainstream anime draws lolis and calls them 100 years old adults... you feel uncomfortable bc even though you are given an age, the visceral aspect it’s that of a child...
Now if these fans really lusted for someone that looks 15, that’s another question. And it’s not the same as people writing underage content... bc we have to consider how it fits within the narrative (anyone remember Game of Thrones?).
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cornerstonc · 4 years ago
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For the song meme; Baron, Douxie, and/or Akira/Joker (Persona 5)?
Character Songs | Accepting || i did baron and douxie, bc i know literally Nothing about persona rip sorry for that ;; 
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Wriggle -- Cosmo Sheldrake
But where will we go When the bell, it tolls for me? Both you and I know When it tolls, well, it tolls for thee But where will we go When the bell, it tolls for me? Both you and I know When it tolls, well, it tolls for thee
according to the artist himself, this song is meant to be about ‘celebrating life in the hope that it was one well lived’ which. feels very baron-ish to me jfjfie;a
this might also be here bc his voice just slightly reminds me of baron’s dub voice lmao i’ve brought it up before on the old blog, but i don’t think anyone actually saw it, aha. also kinda makes me think of him questioning to himself if his own life will have an end someday, and where that will take him once it’s over
Gib acht auf dein Herz, Margarete -- ...i have no idea who this is
i’m sorry, i have no clue what the words to this song are in either german or english, but i do know the title is something like ‘look out for your heart, Margarete?’ the important part is just that the sound reminds me of him aha lies down 
granted, i think the reigning fandom opinion is probably that he’s a classical kinda guy, and i don’t disagree with that, but i also really like the idea of him also liking these old tangos and such :v actually that’s a small headcanon of mine that while both of them like this Old music, the difference in his and natori’s music preferences are that natori prefers vocal performances and baron leans more toward instrumentals but. that’s. only barely related lmao
Огонёк -- Mark Bernes
Since then, a lot of days have passed How our happiness passed But the light in your window It burns today, as it used to I forgot the way long ago to that distant threshold [...] As this street is familiar Though I don't remember the house number But the light in your window again, again reminded me of our tender spring
ok so this is clearly a translation but stILL i. kinda feel like it’s somewhat self-explanatory, but i do imagine it’s either his thoughts toward the baroness (i’m not sure what your own headcanons are regarding her) or maybe haru, years down the line
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Existentialism on Prom Night -- Straylight Run
Sing like you think no one's listening You would kill for this Just a little bit, just a little bit You would, you would... Sing me something soft Sad and delicate Or loud and out of key Sing me anything, we're glad for what we've got Done with what we've lost Our whole lives laid out right in front of us 
hey so fun fact, i downloaded this song off of like frickn bearshare or limewire as a teen three hundred years ago and still have that version, which i’ve only just recently (like. in the last year) learned is not the official one
Step On Inside -- Vietnam
and. this is mostly here bc The Sound reminds me of him, aha lies down i’ve seen enough clips and such to know he likes rock music laughs and the sound of this one is very. uh. idk, classic 60sish or something. at least to me orz
sort of dream pop. uh. i don’t remember the name for-- shoegazing?? i think that might be it
Swing Life Away -- Rise Against
Am I loud and clear, or am I breaking up? Am I still your charm, or am I just bad luck? Are we getting closer, or are we just getting more lost? I'll show you mine if you show me yours first Let's compare scars, I'll tell you whose is worse Let's unwrite these pages and replace them with our own words We live on front porches and swing life away We get by just fine here on minimum wage If love is a labor I'll slave till the end
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iobottle · 6 years ago
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atissi
replied to your post
“it kinda makes me sad when artists giving out tutorials on character...”
oh could you talk more about this? :o
ABSOLUTELY thank u for enabling me to go off about designs i love this shit this may get a bit long so its going under a readmore (sorry if ur on mobile i hope it works)
gonna start this off with im no expert Nor have i taken any sort of official art class this is me just analyzing characters from what i found that makes them memorable to ppl (most of these examples are going to be from games sorry i got them on my mind)
ok so basically making a memorable revolves around personality and appearance now theres different ways to go about showing these things and i think from consuming media you like will help narrow down how you wanna go about it, basically thinking about your character inside and out!
SO shapes and hyperstylization is a good way to get a fun appearance across in a cartoon esp media and is often what a lot of artists stress on an example of using shapes and a good silhouette to make a memorable character is sonic!(specifically comic sonic)
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(had to google idw sonic for a non...u know image)
but not only do they use lots of triangles for this hedgehog they also made him blue! you’d be more likely to remember a blue headgehog over a realistically colored one!(also almost all of the sonic characters have a combination of fun shape + unusual color to help you remember them! the designs werent afraid to use color to make a bold statement)(he’s also segas mascot so of course they put a lot of work in his design)
now sonics appearance is not the only reason why people like him or remember him so much he’s also got personality! he’s cocky, fast, always getting into trouble, “you’re too slow!”, accompanied by shitty butt rock and a cool guy persona ie he’s got personality! and they weren’t afraid to give him some weird interests(see the butt rock) and he’s not perfect( see arrogance) if youve ever played a sonic game you have almost always remembered the crush 40 theme that went with it
all in all to go with his unusual appearance he’s got some unusual traits! it helps make him believable! admittedly he’s not the most embarrassing of the sonic crew (see knuckles or shadow) but he’s definitely rounded and not boring from an objective standpoint(you can not like sonic or his games i dont care)
(another example of something that requires good shapes is pokemon altho they arent really like very depthy since there are 600+ and some only have like a pokedex entry worth of info but still they have good and memorable designs)
NOW something that doesnt have the most “good shapes” design off the top of my head is link
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now in the most recent zelda game his most memoriable physical attribute is that he’s on the androgynous side w his longer hair and smaller build but in his older designs he looked something like this
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(art for a loz:link to the past)
not really that much of a striking silhouette, but what do we look at and kinda leaves an impression on us? his hair and hat! its very silly to see someone in such a big green hat with that big of bangs/mullet, the hat at least became so ridiculous of a look that in botw nintendo didnt include his hat in links main outfit bc it was too hard to make look good, its silly! thats good! its fine to have a normal human looking characters because sometimes stories are about humans, but if you want us to remember them include something that will strike us as strange for them
also probably a good thing to note is the noises link makes when he swings his sword, jumps, pushes something, ie any action they have always been something that has stuck with me
(another example similar to this is in mgs solid snake in mgs is this cool super spy but is rocking a full on mullet which is considered a joke hairstyle. this leaves an impression on us. a spy with a mullet! how ridiculous! another example is raiden who was specifically made bc a woman wrote that she didnt want to play as an “old man” so the protagonist of the super spy game is a longer haired pretty boy (with a huge ass))
now ive explained a little on a character with good shapes and personality and a character with a more “boring” shape design that makes up for it with almost quirky design choices but i feel like theres another series thats what originally got me thinking about how even a memorable silhouette doesnt need hyperstylization
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ace attorney! (which is out on switch now if u havent played it i would def recommend it)
if you dont know the protagonist is the guy in the blue suit(phoenix), which well he looks like just a guy...with ridiculously spikey hair enough so that in his silhouette you can recognize him but also his posture (the pointing) makes for a sticking recognizable image bc if you’ve played the games you can practically hear objection just from looking at phoenix’s silhouette
which is another thing id like to talk about! not only are a good shape a way to have a good silhouette but posture is also important! how the character holds themselves can say alot about them just from a glance! such as meekness, arrogance, confidence, sadness, anger, happiness its a very important too especially when you arent relying on stylization
now onto the characters of ace attorney ive gone over phoenix's design a bit but theres a few others id like to look at with some Weird style choices that make us remember them(just going to glance over them since this post is so long)
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now, this woman, franziska von karma, she dresses kind of strange for a prosecutor but her outfit is not too out there and her silhouette is not striking
but you see that whip? remember how i said she was a prosecutor? yeah she will strike people in court for getting off topic and will even hit phoenix when he starts breaking down her witnesses testimonies, which what literally strikes up about her
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another prosecutor, godot, now his hair could provide a somewhat memorable shape but what we first notice is the strange mask on his face which is weird, but not the Same weird as franziska bringing a whip to court thus having both of these prosecutors being Weirdly memorable for different things (another note is his liking of coffee that he does not give up even in court ha ha)
now onto the other protag for the aa games
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apollo! who also has weirdly spikey hair, but even if you put a silhouette of him next to phoenix you could tell there some was a difference between the two! its showing a pattern with the protags while also keeping them distinct enough to be able to tell who is who! although you cant say the pointy haired guy from ace attorney and not get just One answer unlike saying the prosecutor who has a whip but still they are distinct to people who have little experience with the series
sorry i dont have any sort of conclusion on this this was just sort of me rambling on about character design, but my main point is if you are discouraged bc all your characters dont have wildly different silhouettes thats ok! there are other ways to establish a good memorable character! dont be afraid to make them a little weird! give your character pink hair in a medieval setting, have them be ridiculously in love with tigers they have a striped shirt and pants, let them love childrens tv shows and have them never miss an episode, give them wacky hair or an extreme love of gum, show us some personality!! but dont forget about how they act and their values and dont forget that posture can go a long way for establishing a first impression
there are also many other methods to making a good character! like colors and dress!
silly is the way to go! have fun with it!!
there isnt just one way to make a good character!! theres plenty of more series that have good character design that i didnt mention pay attention to why you like the characters you like! also watch this video bc its really good
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askhamotzi · 5 years ago
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Hi Sammy! Sorry if this has been asked before, but I'm trying to work on my first digital comic and I was wondering if you have any tips to share? Your work is so beautiful and the composition is amazing and so inspiring! I usually work in CSP when I draw, and I've done some paper drafts, I'm just starting the digital process now :) thank you so much! And I hope that mine will come out to be even remotely as incredible as yours!
hi there, omg thank you so much!!
for me, the process i’ve usually been doing for digital comics goes like this:
1. planning/research - this can go on throughout the entire process of making the comic, but it’s a good idea to get a big chunk of it done before you start so you have ideas and know what you’re doing! grab ref photos if you need, look stuff up on the internet, do whatever
2. write script and create characters (usually i write scripts in microsoft word, but for “dream” i worked off of an account i wrote up on the notes app of my phone after i woke up from the dream, and improvised the script page by page) - i frequently make up characters before i even have a story, but if i do have a story in mind i tend to do the characters at the same time as the script
3. sketch comic, insert placeholder text - i do all of my comics in FireAlpaca! i use the box/shape tool to lay out where i think i want panels to go and what size they should be. i usually work at the same size i would be printing at, but you could work bigger! i usually combine the sketch stage with the thumbnail stage because it’s easier for me to layout panels on the actual page so i can see how they fit instead of tiny thumbnails. here i sketch out placement of objects and poses, and make sure perspective makes some kind of sense, and any other important things i don’t want to forget in the lining stage (or coloring, like lines where i want certain shading to go). i also include placeholder text that may or may not be final, but i highly recommend laying out words as early as possible bc they can take up a lot of space you need to account for 
4.  draw comic - i go right into ink/lines! i don’t do a pencil stage (the pencil stage is the same as my sketch stage). to start i always draw the panels by hand (i don’t use a tool because i like an organic line, but to make sure they’re somewhat straight i use the boxes from before as a guide). i also do the word balloons by hand, and then i do figures/backgrounds. sometimes i leave out details that i will include in the coloring stage, like certain textures (texture of trees or grass, for example)
5. color - i start with flat color and then shade! usually i hand pick the colors i want to shade with instead of using a multiply layer or something like that, but for really complicated things i do tend to use different kinds of special layers. 
6. (this is throughout the process) but sometimes i will take the FireAlpaca file and put it into photoshop to use their guide tools to adjust things, or use a textured brush for something, or to insert text. for “dream” i went back and forth regularly with FireAlpaca and photoshop 
TIPS
- for composition, i like to consider mood and keeping the eye interested. lately, i don’t tend to break the mold of the grid without a reason (this is just me, you can do whatever you want!! tons of people don’t adhere to the grid and do other really cool stuff. i’m still learning!). the reason for breaking it could really be that i just need more room for words or to show something and i’ll extend the panel into the margins or bleed area. or maybe the shape of a panel needs to be changed bc it’s a dream or a flashback, or maybe you need to go into the bleed area bc something dramatic is happening! you can also mess with the colors of your panels, and the colors of the margin space. consider too, if you like the look of the page overall as an individual piece! 
- if you plan on printing your comics, make sure you print out your sketched pages/layouts at actual size so you can make sure the panel sizes and font sizes are legible when a person is going to read it! this can take a lot of attempts, but once you find what you like hopefully you won’t have to do it a million times again
- for longer comics, i recommend creating a palette of colors that include all the ones you use most frequently so you don’t have to constantly eyedrop them from other pages
- don’t get too hung up on any 1 panel, remember that the average person spends something like 6 seconds (probably less) looking at one panel before moving on 
- i work at a very high dpi, like 400, which has always been fine (so far), i always recommend working higher bc i think it’s safer, even tho it does make bigger files
- remember to save your work, and save it in MULTIPLE places!! back it up!
- this is just a taste thing but i love comics with custom type/handwritten type styles! you could try out doing a handwritten font or something! i used Calligraphr for mine, and i’ll prob use it again to make more
- i think it’s important to try and best recreate how your audience will experience reading your comic! since it’s impossible as the author/artist to see your own work for the first time as a finished piece, make sure that before you call it done, you give it a couple days without looking at it, and then come back to read it with fresh eyes. see if you think you’re getting the effect you want and if you like the flow! sometimes this can be hard to see/feel though, so you’ll have to just trust your gut sometimes haha!
that’s all i can think of for now but you can always ask me if you have more specific questions!! good luck with your comics!!
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