#i thought about using just this palette on my current painting

[504py]

A day in a life with Ivan. [ONESHOT]

Warnings below the cut 。。。

⚠️ NSFW, yandere content, alcoholism, reader got tradwifed, stockholm syndrome, domestic violence, Ivan is very blatantly sadistic, size difference, dacryphilia, vague breeding kink, no use of Y/N, forced feminization(?), gender neutral reader.

hey yawll!! i drew this since i wanted to play more with the painting style and color palette i did in my last post, but since i hit 800 followers recently, i decided to write something to go along with it too!

thank you guys so so much for putting up with my bs and enjoying the slop i create LOL. hopefully this will be enough to thank you all and to satiate you guys till i come back from hibernation again 🩵🙏

also!! while this is a gender neutral reader, ivan still refers to you as a housewife. this is pretty much an extension of the headcanon post i did on him.

MAN I NEED TO RECONNECT WITH NATURE AFTER THIS 😭😭😭

┊͙✧˖*°࿐

The average heart rate of a rabbit is a hundred and eighty beats per minute. Much, much faster than a human's at only a hundred, the little hearts of rabbits pump virile blood into their vulnerable bodies in order to outrun the cursed life of a prey animal they have no choice but to live.

Living with Ivan feels the exact same way. You, a human, were reduced to nothing but a prey animal whose only line of defense was either freeze or flight. Ivan prefers the freeze response. Tries to squeeze it out of you as much as he can.

The morning begins normally. You wake up next to his large, minimally clothed body, while you're bundled up as much as physically possible. You don't understand how he's so comfortable in the cold, but you've learned not to liken him to humans. You gently wake him up before you leave the bed– you learned that he doesn't like waking up to an empty bed without any prior notice. It takes a while for Ivan to wake up, he's a heavy sleeper, but when his violet eyes finally open and dilate at the sight of you, the first thing he does is smile and pull you in to trap you in a strong bear hug. Don't struggle, he'll just tighten his grip. Then he kisses your cheek, and just holds you there without saying anything. He'll grumble a little when you tell him you have to leave bed to make breakfast, but he eventually will let you go.

It's a little sick how your current living situation makes chores the best part of your day, given how it allows the most proximity between you and Ivan. Cooking in the early morning is your favorite, since it takes Ivan a long time to recover from his hibernation. Thinking about what to cook is a bit of a meditative process as well, allows you to think thoroughly about anything other than your way of life and the man keeping you here.

Today, you decided to make something simple and similar to something you ate growing up. Luckily, Ivan is not a picky eater, even though he rather obviously prefers Slavic food. He'll eat whatever you make happily, but he'll be in even better spirits if you make something familiar to him.

You do not cook in silence. Silence has quickly become one of your biggest pet peeves since your captivity, and you do anything to drown it out. This damn empty mansion, the way Ivan is so terrible with his words and chooses instead to crush you with his actions, the bleak snowy landscape that greets you if you dare try and find any solace outside of this cage and your captor– It's enough to drive anyone insane. So, you pass the days by drowning out your thoughts with music and movies.

Ivan doesn't allow you a cellphone, or anything remotely modern at all. His home has a terrifying dedication to being so analog, you'd think you'd been transported to the 90's if not for the TV with a few streaming services on it, the only modern piece of technology he allows. He likes to collect cameras, radios, and old phones. Ivan's menagerie of antique goods is so expansive that it earned itself its own room. It's almost like a small museum, and you're very glad he allows you to look at and touch them as you pleased– with care, of course. He can actually be rather charming when he acts as your "museum guide" in this room. One of the few times you find yourself thinking anything remotely positive about him.

Ivan's voice is soft, it always is, but when he talks about these things he's so passionate about and so engrossed in, it takes on a bit more of a stern, confident tone that is easier for you to listen to. And when he's looking at the objects he's explaining, you can admire his side profile more openly. He's caught you multiple times (he has surprisingly sharp senses), and you're met with a flustered smile instead of the usual so-sweet-to-the-point-it-looks-fake type of smile.

"What are you looking at?" He'd ask, his voice quieting back down to that syrupy tone.

"Just you." You'd reply, which makes him pause in surprise for a second, before it earns a soft giggle from the towering man.

"Why? Is something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Vanya." The nickname makes him melt. "You just looked pretty."

The smile falls from his face, and his cheeks redden even more than you thought possible, before his grin returns tenfold. He laughs and looks away.

The memory of such interactions make you feel like buttering up to the man instead of rejecting him so much, then you realize you're just describing stockholm syndrome. As crazy as it is, it feels like, at this point, it'd be better to let it happen than to be aware and hateful every day you live here.

As if your thoughts had alerted him, you hear Ivan's deceptively soft footsteps descend the stairs. He doesn't say anything, and just makes his way to the kitchen to watch you.

He's dressed in more clothing now, a dark blue sweater and gray sweatpants. His neck is left bare around you. When you first met him, his clothing that purposefully covers his neck always went unnoticed by you, because such clothes fit him so well, like they were always meant to be there. It was only after your capture, when he took off his scarf and you saw the bandages around his pale neck did you start to question it.

You've never outright asked him, you worry the subject is too volatile. He just... decided to stop hiding it one day. It was after a shower when you first saw it, the ligature marks around his neck and a few faded pink scars on the front of his adam's apple. Ivan noticed you staring, and you've never seen him look so small and insecure before.

"Is it bad?"

"No." You shake your head. "Does it hurt?"

"Not anymore."

And that was that.

You finish plating up two dishes, one with a significantly heftier portion than yours considering how much he eats. You quickly place the chopping board and all the pans you used in the sink to wash later, and you bring the dishes to the table.

Ivan yawns, rubs at his eyes, and without much event, just picks up a knife and a fork and starts eating. You do the same only after fetching some tea from the samovar.

Breakfast is always quiet besides the background noise of whatever media you chose to play.

"Mm. Ёжик в тумaне?"

"Yeah. I like this one."

"A little somber, isn't it?"

"The hedgehog is cute. I relate to it a little bit."

Ivan takes his eyes off of the television to look at you, and ponders what you said a little more. He doesn't say anything, and continues eating.

"What will you be doing today?" You ask, in case you needed to iron some clothing or prepare extra food for guests.

He hums in thought for a moment. "I'll be going out in the evening to drink with the other nations."

"What will you be wearing?"

"What I usually do."

You nod, "I'll have it ready soon."

"What about you?" He asks.

"Hmm... I'll wash the dishes, then iron and press your clothing. After that, I'll think of what to cook for lunch while cleaning the house, and I'll prepare a meal for you before you leave. Then while you're away, I'll clean up some more and prepare dinner. And if I have some time, I'll sit and watch some more movies."

Ivan hums in satisfaction. He enjoys how strict to routine your lives were. Familiarity and stability are what he desires most, and he believes you're the only one who can grant him that wish.

"Perfect." He smiles, petting the crown of your head with a large, broad hand.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

You adjust the dusty pink scarf around his thick neck after finishing wrapping the scars on his throat with bandages. You do it neatly and comfortably, as opposed to how Ivan does, quickly and efficiently, learned from decades of routine, yet it's still so much more uncomfortable compared to when you do it.

"How is it?" You ask. Ivan replies by taking your smaller hands in his and leaning in to press a kiss to the corner of your mouth.

"You do it perfectly, любовь моя." He sighs, before pouting slightly. "I wish I could just stay home."

"You'll be alright, Vanya. Alcohol is like water to you anyways."

He snickers and rolls his eyes. "That just means it'll be boring for me, then."

"Just try to have fun and relax. I'll be safe and quiet here."

A mousy smile appears on his pink lips. You've said exactly what he wants to hear. "Alright. I'll just get it over with." He presses one last kiss to the top of your hair before leaving.

"Don't cause any trouble!" Ivan sings, before exiting the living room and closing the door behind him. You get a glimpse of the blindingly white outside world, and a gust of stinging cold air brushes against your skin like a warning.

You let out a taut breath, finally feeling like you're able to breathe without his crushing presence. You dust off your hands, from nothing in particular, before going off to do just as you said to him earlier. It bothers you how much he still affects you without even being around.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

The sky is dark, and all that is heard is the droning of soft music and the burbling of something boiling on the stove. Its tranquility is broken by the door opening with more aggression than usual.

"Vanya?" You call out, hoping the sweet usage of his nickname would quell whatever spawned this roughness within him.

All you hear is something vaguely resembling a groan and a sigh, and his heavy, thudding footsteps. Your heart starts to race a little.

"Is something wrong, Vanya?" You ask meekly, approaching him with caution. He reeks of alcohol, and his movements seem all sluggish. Jesus, how much did Russia of all people need to drink in order to get this wasted?

"I'm alright." He huffs, taking off his gloves and his coat with slight difficulty. You step in closer to help him undress, taking off his scarf. You don't miss how he tenses up, so you freeze and meet his constantly intense stare to gauge his expression. His eyelids are low, pupils contracted, eyes darker than usual, and cheeks flushed like they always are. He seems to be pouting a bit. He doesn't do much else, so you continue, stripping him of his large overcoat. All he's left in now is a black sweater and thick brown slacks.

"I've made dinner. You can just sit wherever you want and I'll bring it to you–"

Ivan leans in so quickly, you couldn't even register it in order to dodge or deflect his kiss in time. This time, it lands on your lips. He doesn't do this usually at all, unless he was planning something. The blood drains from your face when his large hand finds the back of your neck, and holds it stiff, preventing any chance of backing out.

His skin and the inside of his mouth are impossibly warm, and the bitter, sterile taste of vodka is the only damn thing invading your senses. You grip the fabric of his knitted sweater, it makes him part from your lips to pant like a dog and take said piece of clothing off, now left in a dark gray shirt.

"V-Va– You taste like alcohol–"

"Get drunk off of me." He whispers, before grabbing the sides of your arms and kissing you tongue first, lapping at your lips, and at this point, you learned better than to deny him. With all the mental fortitude you could muster, you rigidly part your lips. Despite all your efforts to be as pliant as possible to try and guarantee your safety, you can't help the shiver of revulsion when his tongue invades your mouth like a parasite and rubs against yours.

It feels like time slows down, you can feel the milliseconds before your instincts kick in, and each millisecond feels like a year of dread. Unable to stop raw instinct, you bite down.

Your heart stops when you hear him grunt, and feel his grip around your arms tighten before he shoves you away. He gasps, cursing under his breath in his mother tongue before setting his sights back on you.

Doe-eyed and trembling like a leaf in a hurricane, you begin to plead.

"N-No, no, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. Vanya, please–"

He approaches, kicks the back of your knees, before you are grabbed by the scruff of your shirt. The collar of your blouse is yanked back and presses the fabric tightly against your throat as he drags you to the front door. You're coughing and struggling to regain your footing, and the moment you can breathe, you beg.

"Please! Nonono– Vanya please don't do this I'll be good–" The words tumble out like unorganized clutter using the one short breath you were able to catch.

With one more harsh tug, you fall to your knees again, and the door opens. The sight of the snow immediately triggers something within you, and you begin sobbing.

Ivan takes a peak at you, seemingly taking pity.

"Only for a few minutes."

You shake your head in a frenzy, not believing a word he says. Even if he was saying the truth, you'd much rather continue to humiliate yourself over being outside for even a few seconds. What if he forgets about you? What if that door never opens again? What if you die a miserable death, separated from your survival by just a few inches of wood?

That's why, the moment he throws you out, you scramble to your feet and shove that damned door open before he can fully close it. You know you're in deeper shit when you hear the door slam against him, and the deep yelp that follows it. You run for your life into the confines of his house.

You quickly make way to one of the bathrooms, the only rooms in the house you're still able to lock from the inside. You knew even that meant nothing, since you're sure Ivan could and would break them down without a second thought. Yet, it was still your best shot.

You lock the bathroom door and sit on the flooring right next to it. You try to calm down your heartrate and your heaving so you could try and listen in on whatever was going on outside this room.

Eerie silence is what greets you. You hate it, hate it so much. Shuddering, you hold your breath and strain your ears just a little more.

And that's when you hear it.

Soft footsteps.

You have to bite back a scream from how much raw fear that little sound sends shooting through your nervous system. Makes your skin crawl so bad that it almost hurts.

Ivan's clearly not in any rush, but FUCK did you wish he'd just get it over with and sprint right at you. You're sure he knows where you are, he just likes to freak you out, you can tell. That sweet smile he always puts on is nothing short of sadistic, constantly has this look in his eyes, some kinda weird sparkle that tells you he enjoys watching you struggle beneath him. Knowing you'll be face to face with those very eyes shortly makes your ribs squeeze around your quaking lungs and heart.

The footsteps approach. You brace yourself for a rough kick to the door or a pipe slamming through it.

Instead, he knocks. This was wrong, what was happening? Oh, god, this was so much worse.

"I won't ask again."

Scrambling to the door, not even sparing any time to actually stand up, you open it. You wince when you strain your neck to look up and see the damage done to him by your outburst. A nasty, bloody bruise on the bridge of his tall nose and that same crimson liquid streaming down his nostril. Your chest shakes like a dying sparrow's.

"I-I'm sorry. Please."

And he smiles.

Ivan is actually, genuinely, extremely pleased right now. He's wanted this all along, for you to fear the outside world so much you'd do anything in the world to stay here, right by his side. He doesn't give a single shit about the injuries you've caused him now and in the past, he's strong, he can take it, and he'll always forgive you over and over again. Of course, it makes him annoyed, because what good housewife would beat their husband like that? But he understands that your circumstances aren't exactly normal, so he'll endure it with irritation. At the rate he's breaking you in, though, you'll soon be as pliant and obedient as he expects you to be. Perhaps you'll even start to love him back. Just the thought of it raises goosebumps on his porcelain skin and makes his hands tremble in excitement.

You don't understand why he's giggling right now.

He sighs your name, and crouches down to meet your stare. You flinch as a droplet of blood hits the tiles. Ivan's grin only widens when your shaking hands reach for his face and try to wipe the blood away.

"O-Oh, Ivan," You whine uselessly, getting up on boneless legs to grab the first-aid kit. He watches with bright, amused eyes. He knows you won't try anything anymore. He's confident in your compliance to him.

As carefully as you can, you wipe off the blood with paper towels, crying harder when it smears instead of going away completely like you'd hoped. It felt like your mistakes were going to be impossible to fix.

Ivan's cheery gaze never falters. Maybe this is the happiest you've ever seen him, despite the blood streaming into the gaps of his teeth and forming a grotesque image. Dusty eyelashes frame his smiley crescent moon eyes, cheeks ruddy as little alcohol-stained puffs of air pollute the cold atmosphere. You jolt when he chuckles throatily.

"What's wrong?" His voice is as sickly sweet as it always is.

"Y-You're mad– I made you mad. I'm sorry." You choke on your own words, trying your best not to drop the bottle of disinfectant in your weak hand.

"What did you do?"

"I–" You hiccup, "I d-didn't– I didn't listen to you. I wasn't good."

Unable to hide his pleasure, he laughs and leans in to give you a chaste, bloody kiss.

"It will be okay. I love you."

You're glad your crying masks the gag reflex that almost makes itself apparent when you know what you have to say next. You steel your nerves and dryly swallow the taste of Ivan's blood.

"I love– I love you too."

He gives you a pleased, closed-mouth smile, and presses a kiss to the top of your head before taking the bottle of disinfectant from you. He begins to tend to his own wounds.

"This does not mean I forgive you, though."

Just as you felt your whole world crashing down around you, Ivan saves you.

He breathes out a laugh, "No, I won't throw you outside again. It's much better staying inside with me, yes?"

You nod in a frenzy. "Yes! Y-Yes, much better. Please don't."

"Well," Ivan prefaces, disinfecting the cut on his nose before placing a bandaid on it. He turns his head to the side and spits out the blood left in his mouth. "You will have to tend to this wound. Kiss it better." And before you could even wonder what he meant by that, his tongue lolls out, brandishing the red bite mark from earlier.

Disgust registers for only a second.

Like an automaton made solely to serve, you lean forward, grasp onto his biceps, and press a needy, desperate kiss to his drooling tongue. He laughs while you lap at his tongue like a wounded dog, warm, alcoholic breaths brushing against your face.

After relishing in the feeling of your worship for a little longer, he gently pushes you to the ground and crawls over your jittery body, placing a hand against the small of your back to hold you up and closer to him, with the other gripping the outside of your thigh.

"You will not bite me this time?"

Nodding fearfully, praying the conviction in your eyes will be enough to warrant his forgiveness, you wrap your arms around his neck.

Sighing happily, he presses his cold lips against yours, taking the lead happily as he moans into the kiss. The sound was more out of the satisfaction of establishing his dominance rather than the actual physical pleasure.

Ivan doesn't usually indulge in sexual fantasies or acts, which surprises you considering how touchy the man is. His mind usually favors daydreams of a stable, domestic life with you. Ivan prioritizes establishing your relationship over anything else, so he doesn't really find the time to lull over menial things like sex. Marriage is one thing, but your total submission is another.

Then again, this doesn't mean that he fully doesn't have any carnal desires when it comes to you. It's you, for christ's sake. When his fantasies of dominance come into play, it seems only obvious that sometimes his thoughts wander into the bedroom.

Ivan fantasizes a lot about having you desire him as much as he does you. He wants you to need him like air. Wants to have you mewling his name and clinging to him like your life depended on it, which would quite literally be the case right now. Wants to see your pretty, pretty tears reserved only for him. Wants to see you fall apart in his arms over and over again while comforting you so meanly and kissing your crying face.

Ivan tries his best to not let these thoughts make themselves apparent, but fuck, do you make it so hard sometimes. How could any man not be affected by the sight of their adorable little housewife in an apron? Takes so much for him to not just grab you by your hair and bend you over the counter. Whenever you cry for whatever reason, he almost feels guilty over how instantly horny it makes him. Almost feels guilty when all he can think about is licking those tears off of your face and making himself the cause of them. God, he wants to play the role of a nice doting husband so bad, but he can't help but feel you up and breathe down your neck when you try on the dresses and lingerie he buys for you. He can't help grabbing your waist and pressing his erection against your ass– not on purpose, he just wanted to be close to you.

While aggressive in his approach, Ivan never forces any sexual acts that you refuse. Even if he's left high and breathing heavy, he still wants to be someone you don't completely hate. Be a good husband, be a good husband. He always chants to himself. All his prayers proved fruitful when he quite literally cried tears of joy during your first time together.

Ivan doesn't know what was different that day, he didn't expect anything, just to make out and have you reject him after a bit, but you just... kept going, until he was ramming into you, hands tight around your sweaty waist and fucking into you like you were just a fleshlight. He's never seen himself like this, moaning and gasping like a girl and feeling so fucking good that all that he wanted– all that he could think of was breeding you like a bull and how beautiful your family would be. God, the memory of you struggling, doing your best to take his thick cock and crying so cutely just trying to bottom out is engraved into the grooves of his brain. It makes his stomach feel all warm whenever he thinks of it. He wants to carve it under his eyelids so he can see it every time he blinks.

Ivan laughs a lot during sex, call him creepy, it's genuinely because he is just so damn happy that he can't hide it. Why should he hide it from you? He wants to show you just how much he loves you and how good you make him feel. You make him feel so damn happy and complete that all he could do was chant IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou– while whimpering, giggling, his tears dripping onto your face.

Maybe he'll get lucky again.

Without parting, Ivan carefully lowers your back to the tiled floor, straddling your body and snaking his long fingers under your blouse, resting them against your heated abdomen. He smiles into the kiss when you jolt away, tickled by how frigid they are.

The ends of his feathered gray hair tickles your wet face, your body shivering at all the different sensations attacking you simultaneously. The cold tiles, his freezing hands, his hot tongue, the faint taste of blood, the warm drool seeping out the side of your mouth, his arid breathing, the smell of alcohol–

Your hands, still by the back of his neck, reach up to ever-so-slightly tug at his hair to signal you needed a breather. Ivan makes a small noise of surprise, before pulling away.

He looks absolutely dazed, lips shiny with remnants of a spit trail, and lavender eyes heavy and glazed over with a feral lust. His breathing is labored, muscular chest rising and falling as he intently watches every minute expression your face makes. Despite the blatant lack of nudity, this might be the most erotic sight you've ever seen. Fuck, why does he have to look so good when you're supposed to hate him?

Right now, you were so exhausted you couldn't even remember what reason you'd have to hate him, despite there being enough that you could spend the rest of your life listing all of them down.

And just when you try to refuse by backing up, your thigh brushes against his boner and he lets out the most heated, breathy, shivery moan you've ever heard. The vocalization sounded like it was tailor-made to tantalize you, to tempt you into biting the fruit. And you know what? You were a sinner anyways.

"Bed– B-Bedroom."

A toothy grin appears on Ivan's face, and he exhales a breathy laugh. He looks absolutely delighted, and starved.

Without a second thought, he picks you up, and carries you to the closest one.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

The next morning begins normally. Your body is sore, and covered in bite marks. That was one of the best sleeps you've had in recent memory. Ivan seems to think so, too, with his arms cradling your torso and a hand resting over your lower abdomen. The ache reminds you about what happened yesterday, you can still feel him in there somehow.

You woke up a little later in the morning compared to usual. Since you're still a little too exhausted to get up and begin cooking, you lay there for a while, listening to the quiet howling of the wind outside. You wonder when was the last time you heard any birds chirping.

Thinking of the outside world brings you a bit of dread, don't really like doing it. But when your life is so isolated and so alone, misery can become a form of entertainment.

The more and more days go by, the more and more do you forget what your life was like before meeting the Russian. The longer you live with Ivan, the more does it feel that he was just always there, and that your life before meeting him was a falsified memory. You're not even sure how much time has passed since, it's always snowing outside, every day feels the same.

That's the one thing you remember from before this life, the feeling of warmth. You're not sure you remember the feeling of it, really, but you're well aware of the absence it leaves behind. Maybe when spring finally comes around, you can open that door, and...

Eyebrows furrowing as a migraine starts to set in, you shake your head weakly. You didn't like thinking about the outside.

Turning over to face Ivan, you gently wake him up before you leave the bed– you learned that he doesn't like waking up to an empty bed without any prior notice. He eventually stirs from his sleep, hugs you, and you do not struggle.

┊͙✧˖*°࿐

[arcanesea]

colors

PAIRING: hwang hyunjin x reader GENRE: fluff, established relationship WC: 558 WARNINGS: none

"There are only 3 primary colors, right?" you ask mindlessly as you watch Hyunjin's brush glide across the canvas. You heard a low hum from him before asking, "Who named the colors?"

he rolls his eyes, and a thin smile creeps on his face.

"What's on your mind pretty?" he asks softly, still focusing on the canvas in front of him. You had agreed to be his muse today. Though a very basic muse, you must say. He doesn't even let you hold any props, so you just sit there with a flower slipped in your ear.

"Well, orange comes from mixing red and yellow, so why not call it yed?" you propose.

Hyunjin stops to look at you with his confused face. "Yed?"

"Yes? well, you mix yellow and red? Yed? Or should it be redow?"

"You're absurd," he laughs, continuing his sweep of brush. You're cute, was what he was actually thinking. Since you sat on that chair, you hadn't stopped talking about everything, from the workplace stress you're currently experiencing, to stories of stray cats in your apartment complex. Your voice was a better substitute for the music he put on every time he started painting.

"Green should be called yellue," you push forward. Laughing when the words repeated itself in your head. "Isn't that cute, Hyune, yellue?" you ask.

"Sure, my love," he answered. "Tell me everything on that pretty head of yours."

"I think, you don't need me to sit here," you said softly. Hyunjin laughs again. If he's being honest, it's his first time drawing the muse directly. He could have snapped a picture of you and used it as a reference, that's what he always does. But who he is to say no when you're the one offering to be his muse for a day?

"Weren't you the one offering yourself?" He asks, not paying much attention to you who had started to stand. You stopped in your tracks, thinking to yourself.

"Right..." you shyly said. You walked behind him, leaning down to rest your chin on his left shoulder. You are the muse, but you're certain that the scene doesn't look anything like his painting. Not in a bad way, just in a very hyperbole way that the background colors seem to be muted while he gives you the spotlight with all the vibrant colors.

Hyunjin turned his head, pressing a kiss on your cheek. "What do you think?"

"I don't think there's any word that can describe the elegance of that painting, Hyune," you answered. "I think you're a great artist, I'm pretty sure I'm not as beautiful as the person in the canvas."

Hyunjin puts down his palette on the little table next to the canvas before standing up. He grabs your shoulder, just looking at you. No matter how many times he memorized your features, he can't stop admiring your angelic nature.

It's true that an artist's eyes see colors in a spectrum that's never existed before, but you're different. Hyunjin had always thought that he already saw all the colors of life, but your existence in his life gives him a taste of a new kind of rainbow. And he wished for nothing more than you to see yourself from his point of view.

"Believe me, my love, no colors can do justice to paint you."

a/n. Ramadhan Kareem everyone! We're well fed this month by the amount of skz record the kids released and some said we're getting cb announcement at fanmeeting😃 can't wait!!!!!!

[nythtak]

Thought it'd be fun to do a little drabble soooo-

Cattonquick Oxford Days - the first cigarette

(This is based in the Maneater AU - unless I change my mind on details later - but can be read as in canon universe)

The lighter fails to catch the first couple of times Felix tries it. But after a final, despairing shake of the crappy thing, the flame sputters to life.

“Thank fuck,” he mumbles around the ciggie, and hurriedly brings the lighter up. April’s swung in with far too much chill, because fuck England, right? No spring for them, nooope. Just horrible grey rainy days, where even brief lulls like this evening are tarnished by cold winds.

He’s regretting not grabbing a jacket when he had chance to, and he eyes Oliver’s long-sleeves jealously. They’re on their way back from the pub, and it’s still early enough that most streetlights feel unnecessary. After a of couple hours there Felix realised he just wasn’t feeling it tonight, that stickiness of going through the motions and not enjoying himself like usual, where even a few pints couldn’t soften it up.

So when Oliver gave him a nudge, mentioned he has an essay he really needs to work on, Felix leapt at the chance to head out. He has his own pile of coursework to dive into before the Easter holidays start. Maybe speed through a chunk of it tonight, get that late night focus on, and then he can decide how much is usable tomorrow.

He’s glad he decided to stick it out at Oxford over the coming break. Originally it was more about keeping his word on staying at university all year, rather than nipping home every holiday - or even every other weekend, like some silly sods do. He went as far as to swear off a trip abroad this school year, fully committed to the uni life, which means no fluttering off to sunnier skies.

He aims a glower up at the dark clouds far above them. Curse thy existence.

“Felix?”

Felix’s head snaps down, and down, and he has to grin. Oliver is so short. Like, okay, so he’s not actually super-duper short. A bit below average, perhaps, and around the height of most girls. But he’s a lot shorter than Felix, which is what really matters.

It means he’s the perfect height - practically made for it - for Felix to sling an arm around his shoulders and drag him into his side. Oliver runs a bit cool, but he’s still a damn sight warmer than the nippy evening air.

“Yeah, mate?” Felix takes a pull from the ciggie, careful not to blow it all in Oliver’s face. Would be awfully rude. But that does get him thinking about how Oliver doesn’t smoke, and he frowns at him. “You know, I don’t think you ever said why you don’t smoke.”

Could it be something to do with his family? Cigarettes are a huge leap from heroin and meth and whatever else, but traumas can be multi-layered, can’t they? A full-on aversion to anything even related. But Oliver is clearly battling through it, going to the pub and clubs where alcohol abounds, not even flinching at all the casual drug use their group gets up to.

“Just not keen.” Oliver shrugs slightly, and it’s interesting to feel the motion of it under his arm. Makes him want to squeeze Oliver a bit. His hand slides down to cup Oliver’s bicep rather than hanging loosely, but he holds off on the full grabby. For now.

“So you’ve tried one before?”

Oliver hesitates, but shakes his head. He’s looking ahead rather than at Felix, and while he does have lovely thick hair, that isn’t quite the view Felix wants currently.

So he brings them to a stop, Oliver stumbling into him a bit and looking up questioningly. There it is. Christ, Oliver’s eyes seem to get bluer every time Felix catches a glimpse. Like, with each additional second he knows Oliver, he’s able to see more of him. Another droplet of paint on the colour palette, swirled in with patient brush strokes.

“If you’ve never tried it…” Felix puts the ciggie between his lips, just so he can flip his hand and pluck it out again. Holding it filter-first toward Oliver with an inviting smile. “How can you know you won’t like it?”

Now, Felix would never pressure anyone into doing something they don’t want to. That would be terrible manners. All he’s doing here is giving Oliver the chance to expand his horizons. Indulge in a little fun, like he’s clearly not had chance to- well, probably in his whole life.

Felix has been making up for that. He’s fully embraced showing Oliver the highlights of uni life, and it’s been an absolute blast so far. Letting Oliver have a go at smoking is just another part of that.

“I dunno, mate.” The corner of Oliver’s mouth ticks up as he looks from the ciggie to Felix. “They’re not great for your health, right?”

The little right? at the end softens what might’ve been an annoying admonishment, to something that makes Felix smirk. “All part of the appeal. If we only did what was healthy, we’d be a proper dull lot.” He raises his eyebrows and tips the cigarette closer to Oliver’s lips, his pinky finger grazing Oliver’s chin. “You’re not dull, are you, Ollie?”

He knows most of his friends think Oliver is boring. That he outlived any novelty within the first week; Felix’s unlikely saviour from a tutorial scolding, the scholarship boy with the funny accent. Farleigh has certainly made his opinion clear, his pissy attitude the real bore around here.

They just don’t get Oliver. None of them.

Nah, Felix is the only one who gets the real Ollie, the one Oliver trusts and opens up to. They’re already best mates, fitting together like two puzzle pieces. And the way Oliver looks at him - yeah, it can get a bit much at times, but it’s all part of Oliver’s charm, really. He’s completely genuine and clearly thinks the world of Felix, so obviously he can’t filter that intensity down. Felix would never ask him to. He accepts Oliver exactly as he is.

Oliver takes the cigarette, pinched between his thumb and forefinger as he eyes it like it might bite him. Or give him lung cancer.

Felix would give him a drumroll if he could. He settles for an encouraging shake and cheering, “Go oooooon, Oll-aaaaay!”

And Oliver does.

Not that there was ever any doubt. But it’s still satisfying in a warm, buzzy way to watch Oliver take a drag, lips pursed and the shadows on his cheeks deepening a little. Takes it like a pro, his Ollie, and it’s only once Oliver’s eyes close that Felix realises they’ve been locked in a staredown.

Then Oliver breathes out, and Felix is hit by a faceful of smoke.

The moment his coughing fit is done, he grabs a hastily apologising Oliver by the shoulder, snatches the ciggie back, and gets revenge.

[phanbeats]

🦉Positivity owl reporting for duty! This was sent by a friend who wants you to smile as much as you make them smile. Please feel free to respond to this ask by listing some of your happiest memories, favorite qualities about yourself, or discussing something you are super passionate about. You may send the owl to those who you feel deserve to smile (but no pressure).🦉

ahh hello!! you've caught me in a yappy mood and you've handed me an excuse to yap about ANYTHING I WANT so i shall!!!

we're going to talk about painting today bc that's what I'm doing rn. remember that one time Phil attempted to do a Bob Ross painting? well, i love him dearly, but he was not holding anything correctly. the paint palette should never be held vertically, bc that leads to the paint sliding right off onto you and every surface in the vicinity. the palette knife should be held carefully, like a pencil or perhaps a fork, with the tip of the blade parallel to the canvas and angled upwards so that when you apply it to the canvas in a downward diagonal stroke, the paint slides off of the knife smoothly and evenly. also, that easel Phil was using was worse than garbage, you need a sturdy surface to work on. And the paint brushes- pay attention to the way Bob Ross holds them through each step, because Phil was not doing that and it is in fact possible to achieve different effects with the paint based solely on the way you are holding your brush (or your palette knife, or any other tool you might use).

now, i personally have never tried oil painting, because oil paints are expensive and they take a long time to dry. i use acrylics instead. but i will say that Phil did the right thing by making sure his canvas was wet before he started! unfortunately, he used too much paint when he started on the clouds, and not enough when it came time to paint the mountains. Between that and the way he held the tools it really is no wonder it started to go wrong! And then, of course, he started panicking, which made things worse overall <3

i love that video, and i love pointing out all of the little mistakes Phil made as a novice, because those mistakes help me better understand how a beginner might approach painting. I've been doing it for so long that i no longer remember the mistakes I made personally, so it's very refreshing to be able to look at Phil's work and say "Oh, that's what went wrong!" I feel like it helps me better understand how the medium works from a technical perspective, because I often work intuitively and don't really know how to explain my thought process while working.

At this point I feel the need to share some of my work, because while this is just a hobby of mine, I do know what I'm talking about. I mostly paint landscapes, so that's what I will display here.

It should be noted that the last piece is my current work in progress; I haven't finished with the clouds yet at all (truly I've barely begun with the clouds) and I'm sure I'll find a few other things to fiddle with as well along the way, but I figured I ought to include it anyway as I used the same palette knife technique for the volcano that Bob Ross uses for the mountains in Phil's video.

The other paintings I've shared are older; the waterspout I finished about two years ago and the other two were each completed four or five years ago now. I don't keep the majority of my work, as I simply don't have enough wall space for it, but consequently I also don't have a ton of examples for my more recent work on hand.

Anyway, I hope this little rant has been entertaining! I'm going to get back to painting now. :)

[naruto-ol-protags]

You know, those desolate sand costumes really reminded me that I really want to see MC outfits released representing different villages. Where is my Sunagakure Breeze Dancer… I need her so bad…

I’m not sure if you’ve gotten a question like this or not, but what villages would you assign all of the MCs outside of Konaha? I personally think there’s room to mix and match depending on what skills you equip your MCs with. Just wanna hear your thoughts!

I love this question, and for real, Suna Breeze would be so cool and even current canon-adjacent. I must say I haven't thought about this before, which is why it took me so long to answer. I had to re-read the wiki to see if I could come up with anything. It's long so I'm putting the answers under the [read more]!

The easiest answer based on their main and/or secondary elements would be: Azure - Kirigakure, Breeze - Sunagakure, Crimson - Iwagakure, Midnight - Kumogakure, and Scarlet (secondary Earth element) - Iwagakure. I remember some fanworks implementing this system (while Scarlet was usually left to be from Konoha), and always enjoyed the chaos following having so many differently raised teenagers interact with each other.

The other answer would be a mix of Orichara-era choices and some canon? In the cases of Azure and Breeze who were listed as from Konoha I had to find other hints to follow - for Azure it was her main work material, for Breeze her powers and origin. In the cases of Crimson (suspected Orichara origin, beta design) and Midnight I worked with their beta designs.

Azure from Kusagakure - (through Orichara) associated with cotton, she's listed as also preferring to use genjutsu. She is portrayed as rather kind and cheery, thus the choice from a less violence-prone village. Being from Kusa also makes her an ally to Konoha and possibly supplies her main material of choice.

Breeze from Kirigakure - Orichara gave her water/ice powers (based on her Tsurara (yōkai) origin - it's actually super interesting to see where most of her traits started off from) and so Kiri (thinking back to Haku's powers) seems like a decent match.

Crimson from Iwagakure - the suspected Orichara paints Crimson as an apprentice of an architect master. That combined with the contrast between their ages (16 vs 92) somewhat brings up an image of an Iwagakure shinobi (I'm thinking here of the Akatsuchi and Ōnoki team up). On the other hand, based on his beta design, Crimson's clothes (color palette, style) and appearance pretty much align with Kumogakure's. I like how he was given a more serious air, with his neutral expression and a scar over his left eye.

Midnight from Kumogakure - his old sword looks somewhat like Darui's Cleaver Sword (and in one of the images you could also argue that he looks a bit like him?). It's also interesting to note just how consistent his design is with the lightning element. My second pick would be Kirigakure since the sword loosely matches the village's weapon designs. Midnight also has his Bloodthirsty Demon skill, which plays well with his bounty hunter profession if taken in the context of “death matches for Kirigakure Academy graduation”.

Scarlet from Amegakure - another Orichara choice, and a peculiar one with him defecting. I like this pitch because despite being from Ame (which does suit his later-given genjutsu abilities), his main element is wind (also uses water and earth releases). He's also described as longing to join the Akatsuki, how interesting.

And then the synthesis of the above mixed with just some fun choices and other biased canon picks for my maximum enjoyment:

Azure from Kirigakure - a kind character from an infamously not kind land; I really like thinking of Azure as kind despite the circumstances, as in making her caring and curious personality an active choice instead of sth that just happens to her. She is also known for loving fish (fish dishes?), and after skimming through "ideal conditions for growing cotton" maps the choice (baring Konoha) was between Suna and Kiri, so... I'm making this list alphabetically, but this choice is also fuelled by the interest in seeing the contrast between how she turned out vs Midnight.

Breeze from Sunagakure turned Otogakure and defecting (and going back to Suna?) - see, I'm such a ride or die for the headcanon that Breeze did work with Orochimaru at some point in her life (whether voluntarily is a different matter but I do like all answers to this). It makes her traveling the world thing have more flavor, and her ending up in canon in Konoha is also soo conflict-inducing. This way, her strong personality and intelligence would be crucial to her forming alliances. Also after so many changes, I think her canon judgment of good and evil is sth quite worthy of careful dissection.

Crimson from Land of Flowers - he is so incredibly kind and loves plant cultivation. Since Land of Flowers was caught in conflict with Iwagakure and saved by Kumogakure it also puts Crimson in a nice intersection of possible skills and appearances (his darker skin is similar in appearance to other Kumo shinobi, his earth release skills - Iwa's, his drive and need to protect others born from the conflict?). But generally I just really love the image of Crimson cultivating flowers ;w;

Midnight from Kirigakure - I like it when someone's main elemental release doesn't match the Village's majority and Midnight's bloodlust and skills are more compelling to me than his other traits, I guess. The fact that Village of the Bloody Mist's reputation would line up well with his personality of a loner and not much of a talker is also fun. There are also some thoughts on how lightning powers would be amplified by an environment rich in water.

Scarlet from Ame (defected) - the whole setup made from Orichara is just so good. It gives him a motive, gives him freedom (something he seems to be struggling with a lot in canon - loyalty vs personal beliefs), and so many directions to grow into. And I love how he's good with drawing and scrolls, and how it's probably the happiest and (arguably) least burdened Scarlet we've ever seen (he's described as having many interests and being able to solve conflicts with his smile).

[evelmiina]

Hi Eva,

I have a fee questions regarding your wonderful work. I'm currently working on my visdev portfolio, but going a bit insane thinking about keeping my artstyle consistent if i'd ever be hired. I just looked through your background paintings and wondered how you keep your backgrounds in a consistent style. I love your nature studies too, and they look so different from your work pieces... More free and explorational. Is it difficult to keep up the habit of learning new techniques and exploring styles once you're on a job? I'm so full of ideas and feel like sometimes the idea would require a certain style/technique to be pulled off in the best way. Do you feel that too sometimes and is it restricting in a way to then keep the style of the paintings the same.

Would love to hear your thoughts on that!! :)

Hi Eekonis!

First off: don't worry! I don't think consistency is an issue... I feel like any artist no matter the level, feels like their work is all over the place. I think of consistency more like per project, rather than overall my work. 

If you're interested in vis dev, a good way to showcase your work in a portfolio and not feel overwhelmed and all over the place, is to create just one project. I saw in your portfolio the bat story exploration, that's great! Just pick one of the ideas you have. Truth is we never feel ready to do something and we postpone and ruminate, but you have to start somewhere. My friend always says, "vain tee se" (just do it) and that's really all there is. Imagine your story as a film/TV (or game, or comic, but you have to choose one), and make designs and paintings of how you imagine it. You can try searching for visual development portfolios and see what other professional artists have included in theirs, there's so many ways to go about it. From the top of my head I'm thinking Aurelien Predal, Marie Thorhauge, Scott Watanabe, Kevin Roualland, Sylvain Marc. Also art books of movies or shows you like are really useful. There's a lot of art of movies and artists, tutorials etc collected in character design references website, from all around the world.

If your own idea feels too vague or the story is not set and you get stuck on it, you could also choose an existing story like a fairytale or a novel. Try to be intentional with your pictures - you want to be clear and tell a story after all, you want people to feel like they get to know the characters and the world from just one picture, and they really want to know the full story. In your portfolio, I like your bat story explorations and it seems cool, but it's currently missing some characterization and story. It would be a good idea to illustrate story moments or character design that really shows the personality, gesture, acting. And when you create environments, make them feel lived and inhabited, give them just as strong mood and character as you would to characters. 

Consistency within a project is just about setting rules and limitations, some of them come from the ability and skill. Others are more like, what brushes to use, what are the visual goals, influences and references. You can go pretty far in breaking down how pictures are made and what makes a style. For example, why do Ghibli movies look like Ghibli? What kind of color palettes, compositions, camera angles, tools were used? How realistic/cartoony is it? There’s internal logic to everything designed, and with practise it becomes more visible.

I don't know if I intentionally try to learn new styles all the time. I'm generally just motivated by doing what I think is fun or what I want some piece to say about story, character or my own feelings and trying to do it best I can. It sounds simple but... if the goal is to do something really well, then I just do my best to learn it. There are some styles that I really love and think are amazing, but would probably take decades to pull off and I just accept that I don't really want to go that way, and I focus on things that I really want to keep at. It's always possible to switch directions, but to get good at something you have to commit to one thing at a time. 

So yes, I face my limitations all the time. I'm very familiar with feeling like, so and so would do better job, someone is always better than me for sure. Sometimes it is painful to not be able to draw or paint in a way I want. I think this probably never changes, it's just human nature. But I dunno, some people get satisfaction from making AI do their project in the style they want, but if I was able to do something in a snap of fingers, like just get the perfect style for my project, it wouldn't feel good to me. I guess I want the full experience of suffering and joy of figuring things out myself. Sometimes it will suck and hurt, but you learn more about yourself and it'll get easier to recognize what you really want to make. Then, you can always do a little bit better next time.

[tryingtimi]

Author Questionnaire Tag Game

Thank you for the tag @tc-doherty, this is going to be fun <3 Apologies in advance because I tend to ramble about random stuff besides the answer when I get personal questions, so it might get long.

About Me

When did you start writing?

If we count the bad horror story we created with my cousin then since I was 6 years old, lol. On and off mostly, though I dreamed about being a writer when I was around 8 or 10, so around 2005. After that I kind of strayed to painting and drawing more, but got back to writing at the age of 16. Then a little gap again, and around 19 I took up writing again and never stopped since (just turned 27 this may, so a while now).

Are there genres/themes you enjoy reading different to the ones you write?

Literary fiction for sure. I wasn't the person who started reading very early, though my family is full of bookworms and always thought me weird when I said I don't like reading. Then, I found the perfect book (The Man With The Golden Touch, a hungarian classic we needed to read for school), read it in one sitting almost, and fell in love eventually. My teenage years books were satires and serious family dramas alongside the heaviest stuff that connected to real life and you could find it on the market. I just realised recently (when I finished a litfic book in two days again, after not reading any for years) that litfic is probably my go to, or palette cleanser if you will. But I wouldn't be able to write in it for the life of me. Otherwise I'm an omnivore genre-wise, reading what gives me inspo for current projects plus trying out every genre I haven't read yet.

Is there an author you want to emulate, or one to whom you're often compared?

Usually I would get compared to an author who's work I'm currently reading, because I'm too naturally absorbing style when I'm invested. Not always, but frequently enough. Once a friend said my writing is a bit Brandon Sanderson-like and that made me happy because he's one of my favourite authors and writing icons. (another gigantic praise would be telling me it reminds them of Fonda Lee’s writing hehe)

Can you tell me a little about your writing space?

It's literally anywhere, lol. I live in a very small space (two half rooms), so I have a small desk and an armchair (yes, not an office chair or anything, no it's not comfortable even though you'd think so) where I sometimes write. If I can steal my partner's gaming chair, I use that space, but most times I write on the bed, lying on my stomach and putting something under my chin to keep my head higher lmfao. Also going to cafés if I really can't focus at home or using our foldable bed when it's in sofa shape. Our space is always insanely dusty because of it’s size, so that annoys the hell out of me and makes me incapable of focusing on writing so I can't start working on anything at the desk before I cleaned it thoroughly.

What's your most effective way to muster up some muse?

Going through my pinterest boards. I have separate boards for could-be characters, weapons, items, places etc. But it's really rare that I need to find a muse or inspiration. If I can't write it's mostly because of burn out or irl stuff that take up my emotional and creative energy, not the lack of ideas, haha. That, I have way too many.

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

Yes, definitely. Even when I thought they didn't, I needed to realise they do, very much so. Since then, I try to do it consiously enough. I love realising stuff about real life people or our dynamics and whatnot throughout my writing. Plus learning about places, workings of our world help me build up mine coherently. And I’m a sucker for family dynamics so I put a lot of “Easter eggs” in it that was inspired by my family/ childhood.

Are there any recurring themes of your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

Giving dead parents to the protagonists count as a theme? Because that is what I noticed once, and suprised me for sure. Since then, they get parents but then the whole story is more like a family drama than anything else. Plus emotionally distant/unavailable parents (especially mothers), finding your place in the world and found family are definitely topics that will appear in all my stories.

My Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favourite character?

Given that I'm neck deep in Project Sasin, my east asian-inspired urban fantasy mafia story, I could go with all of the main family members. They're all favourites, but if I really need to choose one, then it would be always Grey Fang, who is the head warrior woman of the clan, and the clan leader's right hand. She's a gigantic woman, a true amazon, bestest fighter of the clan, and great at managing the lower ranked warriors. She's blunt, confident, charistmatic and always have a harsh but helpful advice for the main kids. Most of the clan look up at her (not only because she's 190 cm), admire her skill and recite her achivements, and even the enemy clans whisper her name a bit warily. For the main kids though, she's also a fun aunt. As much as she is serious, and can be outright dangerous, she is easy to deal with if you're not acting too shy around her (she believes being shy is always either poor parenting, or a straight up act to gain something, therefore not honest and trustworthy), or breaking any tradition openly. As the clan, she is very fond of traditions and the way of life their ansestors have lived for hundreds of years, but she can be convinced that development is necessary, if someone is determined enough or a master at persuasion. Her first and foremost goal in life is to preserve the clan's good reputation, and prevent corruption or downfall – at all costs. Therefore she would break traditions, or go behind anyone's back if that would achieve it.

Which of your characters do you think you'd be friends with in real life?

Not many lol. Most characters I write are fun to work with and explore but mostly because I wouldn't even go near them irl. I think I would be on friends term with Kil, the main borther who wants to be like Fang, and maybe Yune who's a fairly anxious and talented healer with little confidence yet. Plus, Fang herself, obviously. But both Kil and Fang are extroverted like hell so they would adopt my introverted ass, which I don't kow if counts. I have other works where are some characters I could be truly friends with (Avelyn from Metalsea for example but she's a similar category like Yune). I could probabyl go to those lengths only with my fellow introverted characters whom are the MC's usually, but not the majority of the characters lol.

Which of your characters would you dislike most if you met them?

Every living mother, uh. It sounds horrible, but it's true. All the mothers who were likeable or fair at being mothers are dead in my stories. Plus most of the men too, maybe. I have a sci-fi story where the MC (Dane) is a scientist with a very ambitious but definitely arrogant and sharp tongue, whom I would probably hate if I met him. (Though it takes a lot for me to truly dislike or hate someone.)

Tell me more about the process of coming up with your characters.

I usually come up with one key visual trait for them lol. I kind of go backwards, because I first figure out how they look, and vaguely know why they look like that, then create their personality, their story, the world. My mind craves visualisation, therefore I revolve my characters' personalites around visible marks of their experiences.

Do you notice any recurring themes/traits among your characters?

What would be a recurring theme is that they’re emotionally closed up most of the time. There’s also hidden but constant anger inside them. Not many likes to talk about themselves and if something is too personal they just shut down and either go away, or stay silent until the conversation strays to somewhere else. There are also the very open, very easy but dangerous and madly loyal person too who is there for these previously mentioned ones. I also tend to give a dynamic to love intrests that is the "silent understanding" type. They just know each other enough, I guess.

How do you picture your characters?

Fairly clearly. I need visuals to keep working on my stories, so that's why I have so many stuff on my pinterest. Also sometimes I try to draw them, paint them, but I don't have the skill YET to completely bring them to life. But I will one day.

My Writing

What's your reason for writing?

I just love it. I can't picture myself not writing, and I also recently realised that how all my mental health and overall life improved since I accepted that this is what I need to and will always do.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating coming from your readers?

Look, I'm already owing you my life if you've read anything I've written. I'm very grateful and happy from that simple thing. Though, keysmashes and caps shouts are one of the bests, and if someone throws a little analysis or theory of why the character does, says what they did my way, then I'll propose them on the spot. That's a rare one, but a treasure for me for sure.

How do you want to be thought of by those who read your work?

I don't want to, lol. Please don't keep me on the same page as my work, because as much as my heart is in it, it's still my work, my baby, but not my life or personality. It has it's own value without me, and it should be.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Creating atmosphere and showing emotions. Since my ideas are very vague and mostly feelings during my process, I think these also intangible concepts I can thrive in. I can't tell you a city's political standing but I can tell you how it smells, tastes, sounds, how your dreams will change if you move there, how people swear and look at you, and how it feels to have a bad and a good day there.

What have you been frequently told by others is your greatest strength as a writer?

I got more than a few times now that I write fight scenes well, haha. They said it's exciting and well paced. I'm glad because I love them (big martial arts enthusiast here), but also friends said that I can create atmosphere well too. What stayed with me was when they said that they felt like they were at that place I wrote about.

How do you feel about your own writing?

Depending on the day. I'm my bigget critique too, as I imagine all of us, so when my mood is a bit low, I feel that it's gods awful. Sometimes it is, and that's okay. But most of the time (especially recently) I really like the results. I write what I want to read, after all.

If you were the last person on earth and knew your writing would never be read by another human, would you still write?

Without question. As I mentioned before, it's just something I'm not able to abandon. Probably because I'm bad at articulating my feelings and thoughts so writing is just essential for me to communicate, even if only with myself. Personally, though, without anyone reading it, it would be so much easier to be honest, lol.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? if it’s a mix of the two, which holds the most influence?

Tricky question for a recovering-people-pleaser. Recovering because I grew a lot the last two years thanks to some bad but valuable experiences, so I was way worse earlier in my life. I got back to writing by writing fanfiction for a friend because she ran out of the stuff she liked, so I offered to create stories tailored especially for her taste. And as more people started reading my stories (because of course I shared them after a while), I tried to appease for the most enthusiastic readers to show my immense gratitude. External validation is a dangerous thing for me, so yes, if someone seems to enjoy my work very much, I will unintentionally go directions that they seem to enjoy. However, readers are readers, they are not entitled to finish a story or like it, so they disappear at some point (which is fine), so when there was no one left reading my stuff, I learnt to continue for myself instead. That's why I'm less and less online, or sharing specifics about my writing, because I want to write purely what I enjoy. Be a tiny bit more private with it. So now, I'd say I do that, but external validation is a bitch that will hold on to you with tooth and nail, so I will probably still go directions people enjoy if I get any input. But I'll manage it better, because now I can catch myself before I form a fully different story just for others.

Tagging @bloodlessheirbyjacques, @the-void-writes, @aninkwellofnectar, @dyrewrites, @aalinaaaaaa, @forthesanityofstorytellers, @bebewrites, @barbex, @circa-specturgia, @odysseywritings, @italiangothicwriteblr,

No pressure, though I love these questionnaires so would love to see anyone's and everyone's.

[elairi]

I had this scene stuck in my head even after writing it, so I had to paint it.

-------------------------- “You didn’t tell me you were an artist.” 

Tav wasn’t. Her specialty was hitting things very very hard. Which didn’t particularly work well with a canvas and paint brush.

Tav’s darkvision didn’t help much either. Each tube of paint only appeared a different shade of gray in the dark. Intending to fix the problem, Tav cast the one spell she knew. Light. Instead of a ball of light, hundreds of sparkling butterflies exploded from her hand, fluttering about the tent and illuminating everywhere they flew.

Tav could practically hear Astarion’s complaint before it left his mouth. She stopped him from speaking by talking first.

“This isn’t a concern right now.” 

She didn’t have the mental energy to figure out why her minimal magic had gone rogue and unleashed butterflies instead of the intended spell. She had enough to worry about as is.

“Tav, does anything normal ever happen around you?” 

Tav hushed Astarion, focusing on the canvas in front of her. Using the brush, she carefully dipped the brush into the colors of the palette she’d prepared. She continued to work to attempt to capture Astarion’s likeness.

Her hands didn’t understand her vision. The face had become lopsided and his red eyes were looking particularly silly. To finish the painting off, Tav put a large circle of yellow in the corner. Leaning back to inspect her work. 

It was awful. 

The painting looked nothing like Astarion, just several messy strokes that made a strange face. Tav gave up. She’d just have to pay for a professional to paint him instead. Astarion left the stool coming over to inspect her work.

“Gods this is ugly Tav, I hope this isn’t how you see me. And what even is that yellow blob in the corner?”

“Hey I tried my best, okay? And it’s the sun.” 

Astarion laughed, grabbing the paintbrush from her hands. He added dark brushstrokes to her sun, creating a face on top of it.

“What is that?”

“You.” 

“Oh, so you’re making fun of my art and my appearance.” Tav tried to take back the paintbrush to fix his horrible impression of her as Astarion danced out of reach. 

“You, my love, are a work of art. Your painting on the other hand…Anyways, I think it’s time to call it a night.”

Astarion was right on both accounts of her art skills and her current state. She was exhausted. Tav gave her painting one last glance before placing a coin down for the use of paints. Astarion took the coin, stopping when Tav shook her head.

“What? We practically did all the work anyway.” 

Tav didn’t budge on her stance. Astarion gave up and returned the coin. He inspected the painting one more time, chuckling under his breath at the insult to art itself. Taking dagger from its sheath he focused on cutting canvas free from its frame.

“I thought you said it was ugly?” Tav teased. 

“Oh, it is exceptionally hideous. I would be offended if I didn’t already know how handsome I am.” 

Astarion reined his laughter in just enough to kiss Tav and lead her out of the tent. After exiting, he rolled up the painting of himself and Tav and gently placed it in his bag.  Read the whole story here

[ap-art-hell]

My 2nd art piece but the first in my concentration! Again bad at naming things so I've been calling this one piece 2/robotic organs

These where my 2 starting sketches. The 1st one is just getting everything in order with what I want in this painting, what pose I want the guy in the middle doing, and what he'll look like. The 2nd sketch is everything placed out on paper before I put it on my water color paper.

This is it halfway done. I decided that I wanted a limited color palette using green (this is the worst idea that I have ever had) other then that at this time I was getting real sick of the color green, I think I wrote down that I now hate the color green and that I remember that I don't like drawing backgrounds. I know I was procrastinating really bad with this painting because I was so sick of it (again, this was a bad decision, and I wan currently paying for it)

This is the finish piece. I used ink for the TV's and the guy in the middle, with glitter in the smaller TV's. I changed the pose slightly towards the end to try to make it look better. (I'm not sure what else to say about this piece bc Tumblr erased what I wrote before /: )

For things I like, I do like the ink and how I shaded the dude. I didn't know I could use ink like that, but I did (: . I also like the color palette (even if I'm sick of green know). I know I did it for a reason, and it was a good reason.

For things I don't like, how streaky it is. That's really one of the only qualms I have with it. I mean it works for the aesthetic, but I wish it was smoother. (I actually got better with watercolor for my next piece and it's not streaky). And the 2nd thing I don't like about it, is the guy's pose. I think I could've done better on it. It feels too stiff.

Do you have any thought? They would be much appreciated (:

[tea-cat-arts]

Ranking the “mostly white + 1 main color and maybe gold” designs because I’m trying to collect my thoughts and see which I want to redesign. Also, I’m only going to ranking ones that are currently in game (both because I’m taking how the gameplay interacts with the design into account and because I think lore + execution of lore should be taken into account when judging designs), so no Susannah.

Disclaimer: I’m trying my best to look at these objectively, but this is still art and my subjective biases will probably factor in. I’m not trying to convince anyone to feel the same way as me about these designs. Feel free to argue why you think something should be placed higher or lower. Also, spoilers lie ahead

S tier (excellent, wouldn’t change a thing)-

Strategic placement of black, more battle suit like parts saves all the parts from blending together

Keeps bits of the more mech-like armor seen earlier in game. Helps her look thematically consistent with the rest of Kiana’s designs

Nice range of values. The strong red cape really helps the white dress (?) stand out, while the little splashes of orange help keep it feel unified

Lovely evolution of the Void Drifter design

In actual battle, her mostly white outfit saved her from getting lost in all the glowy fire

I think having most of the colors being reflected off her is a fun application of her moon motif

Lines up well with the lore

Free pass on just wearing a regular dress since in lore, she was never a fighter

White dress with splashes of paint on it plays into the “Griseo is like a blank canvas that takes on other people’s colors” motif nicely

The dark blues and black are eye catching and contrast nicely with her dress and hair

A tier (good design, minor changes could make it a great design)

So the thing about white is though it is used as a wedding color in the west, in a lot of East Asian countries, it’s actually used as a funeral color. Idk if that was hoyo’s intention here, but the double meaning is fun none the less

The purple of the dress and pink of the hair keep the suit looking vibrant and colorful

Same thing with Flamescion where all her skills are very bright and colorful (mostly in origin form? I think that’s what it’s called?), so I think the white keeps her stand out

There is very little variation in tone between the pink and purple. One of them needs to be more saturated

I feel like it could use more variation in fabric texture

B Tier (good design, muddled lore)

Would be ranked higher if I didn’t have to google why this battlesuit exists. Her in game intro was messy

Has the unfortunate timing of being introduced in the middle of a bunch of other lore dumps and buried underneath the more important to the plot ones. I think it’s introduction would be much more powerful if it was just Rita becoming the Herrscher of domination (I am willing to elaborate via asks)

Like, imagine if she got some sort of a string weapon instead of the sword? I think that’d be neat

So basically I was just confused by the space theme till I googled it (and based on my Reddit findings, I wasn’t the only one)

Beginning of the not looking like a battle suit era, but the inclusion of gold bits and a couple under layers keep it from being a full departure from the usual motifs, but it does lack the mech bits

I think there’s more Rita battle suits that lack the mech bits than actually have the, so I’m fine with them being missing here

Good tone variation, clear segmentation

Elegant design for an elegant lady

C tier (saved by the gameplay)-

Her knight for straight up looks like lingerie, but her guardian form looks great

Having her armor switch to black in guardian form was a good call

Unlike Rita, most of Durandal’s battlesuits look like armor, so it’s weird this one doesn’t.

I’m ok with the mostly white color palette since it contrasts nicely with the horse

Speaking of the horse- I have no idea where he came from, but it looks sick so I’m completely fine with it being here

Though for a rewrite, I think a potentially fun explanation would be “unlocking both of her stigmata allowed her to use a divine key at its full potential and said key just so happens to have a horse/armor mode” (cuz if you need weird shit to happen, Vill-V is always a valid excuse)

It’s inconsistency in comparison to Durandal’s other designs + my very mixed feelings about her being the original Kiana and that process of awakening the Kaslana stigmata are mostly why I put her bellow Rita. I don’t really have any huge problems with this design

D tier (even great gameplay can’t save this)-

So for the design where Kiana is “no longer just reflecting others light, and instead becoming the sun itself” (or something like that), the decided to give Kiana the coolest color palette we’ve ever seen her in, take away her signature orange and Himeko’s red, and have her primary colors be Mei’s purple and Brongo’s blue… ok

Yes, I know blue stars exist and that they’re very hot. Honkai is a story set on earth though so it’d make more sense if she was becoming like our sun, not some one billions of light years away

The inclusion of HoV’s magenta accents is kinda nice though

That is a junior prom dress, not battle suit (the Fanny packs are based though). Where’d her mech parts go?

Instead of the skirt and wings by legs, I think it may of looked like a cleaner transition if the put wings it the same shape/area as HoF’s cape

After seeing how brights and glowy her abilities are, I’m ok with this design being mostly white

This designs just a whole lot of “ok, but what does that have to do with Kiana?” Why the junior prom dress? Why the flowers? Why she so urple?

F tier (the only one on this list I actively dislike)-

Since I’ve been pretty vocal about my dislike of Dr.MEI, I just want to start by making this clear: I like Raiden Mei. She’s cool. I don’t just have some anti-Mei bias. She’s at the bottom of this list though because she deserved so much better than this design and story (and I’ve been using her a lot in ER lately, so I’ve had a lot of time staring at her design)

Designs like these are why I have the “wait till it’s introduced in story” rule. I was sorta just “meh” on this design until I saw it in game

I hate this designs introduction. It’s just another case of the writers retconning the PE and glorifying the flame chasers/ forgetting why they existed in the first place

Mihoyo, Elysia’s been dead for 50,000 years! You can stop shooting her now!

Also another instance of Mihoyo forgetting Mei is an independent person and centering her narrative around her relationship to another character. Why’s it gotta be about becoming like Elysia and the other flame chasers instead of acknowledging their mistakes and learning from them so Mei can avoid their pitfalls and forge her own ideal future

Mei is so much fun to watch when she’s thinking for herself and forging her own path, so it’s frustrating to watch the narrative force her to walk down the path Elysia laid.

If I keep talking about this point I’m gonna go into rewrite/fanfic territory, so on to the design from a more technical standpoint:

There is next to no variation in tone (aside from her hair). Everything is just incredibly light. Her abilities in game are also incredibly pale, so she ends up getting lost in all the flashy lights

There’s so much texture throughout the outfit that there doesn’t really end up being a place for the eyes to rest

Though I understand why she’s blue, I think it’s inclusion was incredibly clunky. Including it as gems on the outfit or the underside of the skirt(?) may have helped the distribution look more even

If I went with the underside of the skirt being blue, I’d probably also say make her boots black (or just give her black tights or leggings with white ankle boots)

Orange (or at least Kiana’s shade of orange), blue, and purple are admittedly hard colors to make look good together, but there really needs some orange in there. Maybe sort of a deeper rose gold could’ve worked

I’m thinking like edae98 or fbbc93 (two on the top right)

^These things just need to go. The white skirt(?) over white boots just causes the whole bottom half to bleed together. Having so much weight on the bottom of the outfit also causes her movements to look incredibly clunky. Removing these parts would help to streamline it a bit

I like the idea of Mei sorta becoming Kiana’s dragon, but the wings and tail in the skirt get lost due to all the overlapping textures, and the wing sword doesn’t do anything. Girl has 3 swords but only uses 1. Why

Rather than basing her off a western dragon, I think they should’ve made her an eastern dragon. (Turn her HoT hands into Claws instead of wings, keep the “tail” of the skirt streamlined with a little flair at the bottom, turn her HoT horns into antlers). This way, they could keep the iconic elements of HoT while reframing them into something positive (for those who don’t know: it’s a lot more nuanced and complicated than I can really explain here, but eastern dragons are generally associated with good fortune)

So, ya- that’s all I got for now. If I left anyone off the list, they’re ranked lower than HoO for being that forgettable just let me know and I’ll add them on. Again, this post is mostly just me trying to collect my thoughts

[rococospade]

Have some Letho attempts, in oil paints(!)

Art, life and cat updates under the cut.

Art update:

I’ve opened commissions again for the next two months (October-November 2023). The last one in my queue is nearly finished, and I’m excited to share it — though I’ll have to crop the tumblr version substantially. I’ve also been working on tutorial content for digital painting. Monie’s been poking me for years to do one on sheer fabric, and I’m trying to edit that between other tasks. I’ve thought about doing one for scars as well — is there anything you struggle with that you’d be interested to see a tutorial or tip-sheet for?

In terms of personal work I’ve struggled to connect with my digital painting in the last few months, so I’ve been working more with traditional mediums. I love watercolour, I’ve been fiddling with my oil pastels since I don’t want them to go bad (they keep for about 3 years past opening, apparently) and I’ve wanted to try oil painting for years. Last week I finally took the leap and bought some water soluble oil paints: pictured above is my first attempt with them.

Oil paints are slippery little bastards — I had a teacher tell me “it’s like painting with colourful mud” over a decade ago when discussing them, and that sort of prepared me. I finally get it. They move constantly, even if it looks dry it’s likely not, I have no idea what I’m doing, disposal is a pain, I am wrong at every step, and I love them. Oil painting looks so cool! It’s so much easier to rework than acrylics! This is not always a good thing! I’m having a great time :)

Naturally, upon getting a new and notoriously difficult medium, I dispensed with looking up guides (surely things I watched or read months and years ago are sufficient for right now?) and sat down to screw around with the paints a few evenings ago. This resulted in a muddy mess even with a limited palette, but I’m a toxic goblin who doesn’t learn, so I shrugged and started working with the muddy tones to try and fix it.

@silverscalestudios was kind enough to give me a quick and dirty explanation on workflow when they found out what I was doing. Thank you again for that! I spent a while last night reading about various forms of underpainting because of you, and will give brunaille a try. I knew underpaintings were a thing but I didn’t know *why* or how important they really are — it didn’t occur to me the oil colours would be so transparent. Hopefully the next picture will be a little bit neater as a result of your intervention — thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me about it!

I found some useful videos on YouTube as well, but I’m struggling with colour temperature shifts. Some studies might be in order.

As usual I’m not satisfied with anything I do for long. My current goals are to learn more of the body’s simplified muscle groups, simplify my compositions more, and make more illustrations with character interaction as the focus. Also, I guess, to gain some competence with the mediums I’m playing with — but that’s a bonus more than a goal. Oil pastels especially are just so pleasant to work with that even if I hate the result, the process is too enjoyable to complain. And failure is how we learn.

Potentially useful tip, buried for anyone who read this far: assign yourself studies for the projects you’re currently working on. This took me far too long to learn, but if you struggle with doing general studies for the sake of them, do them to prep for a specific painting instead. If you suspect something will be difficult (the hand gesture, the colour scheme, lighting, expression, whatever) grab or make some ref and doing a couple of studies, so you can fail quickly and make ugly versions. It’s a huge timesaver when it comes to the final piece. My big, detailed paintings usually take 10-20 hours, so I’d like to get any difficult elements sorted before I start whenever possible.

For an example of studies for a painting: the four roughly scribbled Letho’s in coloured pencil on this post — those were done after I had my composition sketched onto the canvas, to figure out what I wanted to do for colours. And I’m glad I did! I tried the analogous scheme on a whim, and if I hadn’t done this study, I’d have played it safe and gone with a mostly neutral palette. Next time I’ll also do some lighting studies so I have a detailed plan for those before I start painting. Traditional media in general involves a lot more concrete planning than digital, and working with it is underscoring how many bad habits I have — especially with massively reworking paintings mid-process.

I did have a photo reference I was using for this painting (one of the images from the rogue warrior reference pack by Noah Bradley) with the lighting and hair modified to try to resemble something I’d seen another digital artist do, and by awkwardly tilting an asaro head in my kitchen to figure out how the lighting would work. There’s a relatively common lighting scheme in anime-esque art where just the tip of the nose is lit. It’s cute, but playing with the asaro head, I found that the top half of the area around the mouth should also catch at least a bit of light. The lighting ended up being repainted into something more standard for this, but you can see the triangle of light on the upper mouth area in the wips.

Life update:

Well, it was a nice run, but spouse and I finally caught corona last month >< that was horrible. I got lucky, in that I only had for a week or so and it was a mild case. Now I’ve mostly recovered except for a cough. “Mild” is still probably the sickest I’ve been in my life. Do not recommend. Will be going for the booster as soon as I’m able to, I do not want that shit ever again.

I’ve been doing a bunch of new things like sashiko (satisfying), trying to make pie crust (hard! But delicious, and the ingredients are cheap enough that I don’t cry over failure. Please give making pie crust a try, if you haven’t, it’s really not that complicated — the recipe I’m using only calls for 3-4 ingredients, and it’s so versatile. We’ve had like four quiches in the last week and a half) and trying to cook more. Adulting is hard. I’m also considering more decorative embroidery attempts, because I’m reentering my goth phase and want to customise my clothes with little mushrooms and skulls :) it would be cute.

About the cats:

Cloud is cancer-free! She has to get rechecks every three months, but the little monster made it. She celebrates by trying to sleep with her butthole on my face, which is terrible. I love her dearly. I wish she would stop with the butthole thing though.

Sheik is currently taking her turn as the cat with medical problems. She couldn’t eat for a few days and the vet rushed us in when we called. The vet came in and informed me that she wasn’t eating… because she had gas. It’s in her small intestine, which isn’t supposed to have gas in it for cats? Good job, you little weirdo. She’s getting further checks or it this month.

We also adopted an adolescent cat. He’s bonded very well with Tez, whom our other cats — well, they don’t hate him, but they’re a bit aloof. Tez is very big and a bit like a bowling ball with teeth, and most of our cats are old (or Jetta, who is full of bitter hate) and do not appreciate being tackled by said bowling ball. The kitten loves him, and Tez seems much happier for the company. He’s more gentle with kittens than adults. Not all of the cats are thrilled, but our oldest queens have accepted the kitten, so it should be smoother sailing from here. Unfortunately they like to play at 8am, so I am suddenly on an adult sleep schedule for the first time since working from home. Nothing like a teenage cat launching himself onto your abdomen to get the day started :) They were yelling at each other as I typed this, but now he’s laying beside me like a prince. … and attacking my cardigan. Nevermind.

Currently trying to find more ways to install cat climbs and enrichment, since we’re running out of corners for cat trees. Debating the merits of a cat run — we have very tall walls, which is neat but also I don’t trust these guys not to fall off. If we could spring for a modular system that would be neat.

If you’re getting two cats, pro tip: get two with similar coat patterns but different sizes. You will hate yourself. It’s very funny, and you can disorient any house guests!

[intercal]

post to collect my thoughts on small computing constraints

I have 4kb of RAM available. I want to have 1kb of it available for the running game (stack, static allocation, etc), and the other 3kb for video memory.

The LCD screen that we're painting to has its own controller so we don't have to keep track of the current frame - just what we intend to send to it next.

I have 240x240 pixels to draw to, which is 57600 pixels - even if we're using 1 bit per pixel (monochrome), that's 8 pixels per bit, or 7200 bytes, way over our RAM limit.

Instead, we will change the screen via a list of changes we intend to make (delta), rather than rendering what the whole screen should be in memory at any given time (double buffering).

We need to keep track of each position that changes - X position, Y position, and the new color it should be set to (R, G, B) - that's 5 bytes per pixel. Given 3072 bytes of memory, we can change 614 pixels per tick, or about 1% of the screen.

Instead, let's use a color palette. Since arcblip is pretty simple, it only needs 4 colors maximum (black, white, red, ???). So we can use 2 bits per color, instead of 24. So, for a pixel, we need 16 (position) + 2 (color) = 18 bits for a single pixel.

18 bits is awkward. Let's update 8 locations (2 bits * 8 bits/byte) = 16 bits for colors. So each delta covers 8 pixels, starting at location X, Y

With 16 bits of color data alongside 16 bits of the position, we're getting about 32 bits, or 4 bytes for 8 pixels, or 1 byte for 2 pixels. With 3072 bytes, that's 1536 bytes that we can manipulate per frame. That's uhhh... 2.6% of the frame.

Wait! Since we're only using the X axis, we only ever set the X value to a multiple of 8. So we can shave off 3 bits for the position, so we're down to 29 bits...

I'm too drunk for this

someone do the work for me to show that some square of X by X dimensions is optimal citing some insane assembly on the NES is why this works and how it's trivial

[xxxjayexxx]

A/N: Hello this my @nagamas gift for @simikae . I hope you like it and I enjoyed writing this!!

Summary: Forde paints a portrait of the twins.

   It was a peaceful day in Renais. The sun was out and there was not one cloud in the sky. Not to mention the weather was absolutely perfect. It was warm out with a nice cool breeze that would come through every so often.

   A good day in Forde’s mind to relax and be lazy for a change. With there being no skirmishes against Grado’s army or any duties to perform that day he thought it best to just laze around all day and do absolutely nothing, and that he did.

   Having just woken up from a very rejuvenating nap, the blonde man had first set his gaze upon the sun's rays peeking through the tree he was currently under. He wondered if this would make a good painting, but after a moment of thought he decided against it. He needed something that was more of a rare sight to see. Anyone could go outside and paint the sun shining through the trees. His eyes trailed upon the perfect subject of his painting or rather the perfect portrait. His subject happened to be Ephraim and Eirika. They sat on a log as the sun enveloped them with its warmth in an almost ethereal manner.

 “Ah yes, what a masterpiece!” He thought to himself as he laid out his art supplies that he secured that day. An easel, several bottles of paint, a canvas, a wooden palette, and a whole lot of brushes were purchased earlier in a town they were passing by. Each utensil was delicately wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. To others they would label them as expensive, but to Forde they weren't. That's just how hobbies are, expensive to some, but not to others. 

  Forde, humming a song that he didn't know but heard the others sing a dozen of times, set about setting up his station. First, he started by putting the canvas on the easel. Then he spread out his brushes and put his paints on his palette. Forde suddenly realized that he had no spare water other than what he was going to drink. He stared briefly at his cup of water. “Yeah, it'll do.” He mumbled to himself. He mixed a green and a yellow together and then proceeded to use his biggest brush to paint the top of the canvas. Using a darker green, Forde painted the grass and the shadows on the beginnings of the trees. Forde used a thin brush to add in the sun rays that bounced off the grass. For the logs and trees, he used a dark brown for the base and light brown for the closer to where the light danced upon them. Forde carefully painted the silhouettes of the royal twins by using a peach color. He dabbed on small, delicate blobs of turquoise and light teal for Eirika and Ephraim’s hair, respectively. For their outfits, he used reds, dark blues with hints of dark green, a light pistachio, golds, light brown, and silver. The finishing touches to his portrait was a blue and lilac butterfly as well as a family of four birds flying by. He gazed at his work, eyeing every little detail, to make sure nothing was missing. The portrait showed the twins cheerily chatting away. Ephraim was in the middle of talking, while Eirika held her hand up to cover her mouth as a laugh flew into the air. Forde had decided that he'd give his masterpiece to them when the war was over.

[summerlimeismethebrony]

In light of recent news, I'm polishing and sharing some aai2 snippets, bc once we get the new translation I'll have a whole new script to play with

Takes place during aai2-2, in my AA HDM AU

"If you can't understand how the best prosecutor thinks, it simply shows how inculpable you are."

(It seems he doesn't know what "inculpable" even means…)

"...That's right, Sebatian. Prosecutor Edgeworth is quite "incapable"," Judge Courtney said with a sideways glance toward Prosecutor Debeste.

"Umm. Yes! He's incapable!"

"...She just nonchalantly corrected him," Kay said blankly.

"Don't underestimate my intelligence gathering skills! I just came from the infirmary and asked the doctor there…" Debeste paused, as if for dramatic effect, "...about the cause of the poison gas!"

"...And what was the cause?" Miles asked.

"Err." Debeste froze, then started waving his baton nervously. "Some "normal" substance… What was its name again?" The question was directed at his daemon, once more a moth on his shoulder. The daemon whispered something back.

"H-hold on a second. I'll call the doctor to make sure."

(At least he's not so cocky as to lie…?)

"Since Sebatian is on the phone, I'll answer for him," Judge Courtney said after he'd left the room.

Alethea grumbled disapprovingly under her breath. "If you know, then why let him go on a useless errand, you…"

It seemed Kay had a similar thought, saying, "...In that case, why didn't you tell us before he called?"

"The poison gas was caused by the mixing of two different types of chemicals," Judge Courtney continued, as if Kay hadn't spoken. "Their names are Normallium and Fatallium."

"So, what are those chemicals exactly?" Kay asked.

"Normallium is a red liquid that's commonly used in everyday products. It can be found in paint and detergent, among other things, but it is not toxic by itself."

"...So you're saying that it's a substance readily available to anyone," Miles concluded.

"Yes. But Fatallium, on the other hand, is not so easy to obtain."

"Its name sure sounds dangerous," Kay said, "What's it used for?"

"It is the active ingredient of a white pesticide known as Megatoxin X. Fatallium itself also has a thick white color. It's not readily sold in stores, and is nearly impossible to obtain domestically. We are currently looking into how this chemical was obtained."

Miles noted the information down in his organizer for future reference.

"O.K.!" Debeste waltzed back into the room. "I've finally found out the names of those chemicals!"

"...Judge Courtney has already told us," Miles said, "We don't need to hear it again."

Debeste made a pained sound, and his daemon briefly became a slug before he regained his composure. "...Fine, then. I'll cut to the chase!"

He was back to that confident smirk, his daemon a large frog on his shoulder. "You know that Normallium from the poison gas is also used in paint, right? Today, out of everyone who visited the art gallery, the only one carrying paint…" He pointed his baton at Larry. "...was that artist!"

"You're treating me as the culprit just because of that?!"

"I object… to the red paint on the palette you're carrying." Debeste's baton dipped, nearly poking the aforementioned paint.

"Hey, Edgey…" Larry said in a tone probably meant to be a whisper, "Don't you think this prosecutor is kind of an idiot?"

"Indeed." Miles heard Alethea huff in frustration at that. "Although I've only known him for a short time, his logic is always absurd."

"Hey! Don't ignore me!"

"It's alright, Sebatian," Judge Courtney said with a patronizing smile, "They're only doing it because they're afraid of you.

"Like the first star to appear at night, show us reasoning that shines the best."

"The first star shines best… Not bad." Debeste's genuine smile at the reassurance was quickly replaced by that smirk of his. "Hey, you guys better listen up too!"

Debeste began his argument. "That artist was the first to "discover" the victim, so naturally he's the best suspect!

"The poison gas was caused by Normallium, a chemical found in paint, right?

"As he was carrying paint near the victim, he would've had the best chance.

"The paint, along with being the first witness…That pretty much proves he's the culprit!"

Debeste turned eagerly to Judge Courtney. "So! What do you think, Justine?"

"...We cannot ignore the possibility," she replied gracefully. "Well then, Mr. Artist. Please, tell us the truth. Did you leave red paint at the crime scene? Or else… Did you cause the poison gas to go off?"

"The only thing I leave behind is my "bond of love" with you…" Larry said, to which his daemon, Millie, nipped him in the hand.

"...Please watch what you say. My gavel is already prepared to declare you guilty."

Miles sighed. "Please pay no heed to this man's statements."

"Hey, hey, you guys!" Debeste said, "Ignoring my reasoning just because it's flawless won't do you any good. Mr. Edgeworth, if you've already admitted defeat, you should take your leave!"

"Hmph. Even though I don't really have time to deal with your ridiculous reasoning, it seems I have no choice."

Debeste repeated his argument. And didn't mention Fatallium once.

"Mr. Debeste," Miles said, "Your logic is more akin to a shooting star than a shining one."

"He heh. It shines the best, right?"

"...It may shine brightly for a brief moment, but then it burns itself out.

"The poison gas originated from inside the glass case of the Pisces Sculpture—"

"Exactly! So that's where the artist set off the gas, right? He used the Normallium in the red paint!"

"As your senior, let me give you one piece of advice: listen to the explanations of others." Miles could feel his own annoyance growing. "The poison gas was caused by mixing both Normallium and Fatallium together. The Normallium contained in the red paint is not enough by itself."

".....Really? But I thought I heard "Normallium caused the fatality"..."

Miles could not believe this. "Don't tell me you just misheard the forensics report!"

"D-Darn it!"

"By the time Larry discovered the victim, the room was already filled with poison gas. It's time for you to realize how incapable you really are!"

"Hey!" Debeste's mouse-formed daemon scrambled to hide under his jacket. "What do you mean by "incapable"!?"

"You tried to use that word earlier, and you still don't know what it means…" Kay said in disbelief.

"He means to say… you are lacking in ability," Judge Courtney told Debeste.

"Incidentally, "inculpable" has a completely different meaning," Miles added.

"…I get it! You're making fun of me again, aren't you!"

"I am merely saying you were incapable in your investigation."

[silverstarfics]

The prompt for today’s @thunder-pride was ‘express yourself’ for which I had so many different ideas but ended up picking this one, in which Virgil tries a new look, Penelope is a supportive friend and Scott is just randomly there at the end for some reason??  

AO3 link

As with most situations, Virgil had no idea how he’d gotten himself into this. It had started with some casual, offhand comment which Penelope had then latched onto and refused to let go until he agreed to her scheme. History had taught him that it was better to simply give into her demands than try to evade her because Penelope Creighton-Ward was a force to be reckoned with. That being said, he had many comments to make about her music taste because her current choice of playlist left a lot to be desired.

“Oh, hush,” Penelope declared when he voiced these thoughts. She swatted his bicep with a makeup brush, leaving a dash of rouge on his previously clean shirt. “It’s montage music.”

Virgil took a moment to process that. Yeah, no, he still had no idea what she was on about.

“Montage music?” he echoed slowly.

Penelope arched a brow. “Yes, montage music. You know, the kind which plays in films when the main character has a makeover?”

“Okay, this?” Virgil gestured vaguely to the spread of colourful palettes. “This is not a makeover. That’s not what’s happening here.”

Penelope shot him a wicked smile. “Whatever you say.”

“Penny.”

“Yes, darling?”

“I mean it.”

Penelope sat back on her heels and rested her hands in her lap. She levelled him with an expectant look.

“Well then?” she prompted after a few moments of continued silence. “How would you describe it?”

“I…” Virgil flopped onto his back and bit back a sarcastic comment. “Anything other than a makeover,” he grumbled, muffled by the arm he’d flung across his face.

The mattress dipped as Penelope shuffled closer.

“Sorry.” She caught his wrist and lifted his arm to glimpse his expression. “Virgil? I promise I won’t joke about this again.” She let go of his wrist and summoned a forlorn, wide-eyed look. “I really do want to help. I’ll even turn off the music if you absolutely insist.”

“Oh, thank God.”

Penelope pointed a mascara wand at him threateningly. “That sounded concerningly as if you were judging my music taste.”

“Your taste in music? No. Your taste in men however…”

“What did Gordon do to annoy you this time?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

Penelope’s pointed silence implied that she very much did want to know, but mercifully let the subject drop. After all, there was a far more important matter at hand. She clapped her hands with a gleeful grin concerningly reminiscent of a certain aquanaut, spreading a selection of eyeshadow palettes across the bed for inspection.

“So?”

Virgil rolled onto his stomach and propped his chin in his hands as he examined the colours. Penelope mostly opted for neutral shades but had been known to try more flamboyant looks depending on the occasion, and as such he had practically the entire colour spectrum to choose from. It seemed ridiculous that he could make split-second decisions without hesitation when lives were on the line, but picking a single eyeshadow shade left him frozen like a deer in headlights.

Actually, now that he thought about it, this entire scenario seemed ridiculous. He hadn’t actually intended Penelope to go along with it. He’d just made a casual remark on how pretty her makeup was today and she’d offered to recreate a look on him.

The conversation had then spiralled into a slight confession that maybe he’d wanted to try something like that for quite a while but had never felt as though he could. Which was a dumb thought and he knew it. It wasn’t as if he was insecure in his masculinity, so why did the idea of wearing makeup fill him with terror and excitement in equal measures? It wasn’t as if he hadn’t done so in the past, although painting his face as a theatre kid for a show was very different to putting on eyeliner for casual, everyday use.

Penelope tucked her chin over his shoulder to examine the palettes. “Would you like me to choose?”

“Yes.” Virgil cleared his throat and repeated more steadily, “Yeah, thanks.”

“Too many options can be overwhelming,” Penelope commented, sweeping several palettes back into the giant box she had brought into the guest bedroom where he was staying. "Hmm.” She gripped his chin and tilted his head into the light. “A warmer shade will do your eyes justice. Maybe a gold.”

“Uh, okay?”

Penelope ducked her head to hide her smile. “This part should be more familiar to you. Knowledge of colour theory comes in handy.” She held up two nearly identical shades of gold. “Which one?”

Virgil frowned. “Is there a difference?”

“This is slightly more metallic whereas the other is glittery.”

“Metallic.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Penelope discarded the glitter and reached for a smaller brush. “Close your eyes.” She lowered the brush with an exasperated laugh. “Honestly, Virgil, I’m not going to stab you. Just wait until we get to the mascara.”

“No mascara.”

“Eyeliner?”

“Fine.”

“I love you.”

Virgil opened one eye. “Oh, really? Can I tell Gordon you said that?”

“With no context, I presume?” Penelope dabbed more gold powder onto the brush. “Only if you secretly record his reaction.”

“Deal.”

The actual makeup application was surprisingly relaxing. He stuffed a pillow behind his back and leant against the headboard. For some unknown reason, he kept wanting to laugh. Penelope tilted her head, considering, before adding a final dash of gold shimmer. Various tubes and bottles rattled as she rifled through the box, retrieving a dark pencil and glittery powder with a triumphant smile.

Virgil ducked away from her hands. “What is that?”

“Eyeliner.”

“I thought that stuff came in a little bottle! That’s a pencil, Penny, an actual pencil. I thought you said you weren’t going to stab my eye out.”

Penelope clasped a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle. “You’re so dramatic. I thought John was bad, but you’re arguably worse.”

Virgil plucked the pencil from her hands. “Look at this thing. It’s meant for drawing, not eyes.”

“It can be intended for both if you’re talented enough.” Penelope snatched it back. “It’s kohl liner.” She patted his cheek. “Trust me, it’ll complete the look.”

“I am so scared right now.”

“You flew into the heart of a wildfire yesterday.”

“Yet somehow this is so much worse.”

“See? Dramatic.” Penelope raised his chin with two fingers. “Look up for me?”

Virgil examined the ceiling, trying not to focus on the instinct to flinch away from the sharp object. Penelope planted a hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she leant closer, impossibly gentle, pausing occasionally because he kept holding his breath. It took a great deal of concentration to keep from sneezing as her hair fell across his face to tickle his nose. Mercifully, she declared the ordeal to be over after a few moments, studying her work with a satisfied gleam in her eyes.

“Hmm.”

“Hmm?” Virgil pushed himself to sit upright, trying to glimpse his reflection in the mirror. Penelope shifted to block his view. “What does hmm mean?”

“Nothing bad,” she assured him. “It just makes you seem sharper, that’s all.”

“Sharper?”

“I’m not sure how else to describe it.”

Virgil exhaled in a rush. Nervous energy crackled beneath his skin like electricity and he wasn’t sure how to handle it. He tucked his hands under his knees to keep from fidgeting, voice humiliatingly small as he whispered, “But do I still look like me? Because I… I feel stupid. Like a kid trying to play dress up in clothes which aren’t designed for me.”

“It’s not stupid,” Penelope chided softly. “It’s just learning another way to express yourself.”

He dropped his head onto her shoulder with a groan. “So why do I still feel like I’m doing something wrong?”

“Because society is still deeply flawed and has led you to feel that way.” Penelope petted his hair until he raised his chin to meet her searching look. “Believe me, I have many strong opinions about makeup and its associations, but now isn’t the time for them. The point is that it has no gender. If you like it, continue wearing it until you feel more comfortable. If you don’t, we’ll wipe it off and forget about it.”

Virgil took a deep breath. “So.” He lifted the shimmery powder and injected an upbeat note into his voice. “Do I really need more glitter?”

“It’s highlighter and absolutely. Just a little.” Penelope beamed at him. “Trust me.”

“I don’t know, you’ve been spending a lot of time around my brother lately. You might be learning his tricks…”

“Oh, hush.” Penelope blended the highlighter across his cheekbones. “There, all done.” She shuffled backwards to examine the finished product. “I am very talented.”

“Humble, too.”

“Shh, just look in the mirror.”

“That’s…” Virgil trailed off, gingerly lifting a hand to his face as if his reflection were somehow a trick, but no, that was definitely him. He couldn’t fight his smile. Penelope gave a delighted laugh, tucking her chin over his shoulder again.

“Do you like it?”

“I love it.”

“I knew you would!”

“Um…” They both spun around like a pair of startled meerkats at the sound of a knock on the open door. Scott leant against the doorframe, looking highly amused. “Am I interrupting something?”

Virgil momentarily forgot how to breathe. “We, uh…”

“We were trying a new look,” Penelope interjected smoothly. “What do you think?”

“I like it. It’s cool. Sort of… Oh, man. What’s the word?”

“Sharp?” Penelope suggested.

“Not what I was looking for, but honestly? Yeah. That works.” Scott grinned. “Seriously, Virg, the eyeliner looks great.”

Virgil fumbled to find his voice. “Thanks.”

“Hey, Scott?” Penelope held up a pot of silver glitter. “I think this has potential. Would you like to try it?”

“Sure. Why not?”

[crosseyedcricketart]

New Year, 2024.

website post here.

Happy New Year everyone! 

For this upcoming year, I intend on growing what I started last year. I’ve already started the new year with a family trip, to extend the Christmas holidays, and I have intentions of growing my art portfolio. I already have subjects in mind for what I’d like to create and do. 

My art is going to be a large focus of this year; I fully intend to continue my education and get my bachelors and maybe even masters, but I also want to be able to jump on growing my footprint in the art world if I’m given that opportunity. I have a grasp on tumblr and it being an area where I can grow my name in art. I’ve been thinking about the thought of selling art prints of my art, and I’ve been looking into that since then. That way, I could have acrylic, watercolor, and my oil paintings available. I am not ignorant to myself, I am very aware that I get attached to paintings, so this way I could still sell my art while keeping the original for myself. I also think that would workout well for larger works, such as Two Sturgeons, which is 24” x 24”, and that would be terrible to mail to a customer. But, if I could downscale that to a 8” x 8”, 12” x 12”, or 16” x 16”, it’s much more manageable to ship. Plus, prints are much cheaper to purchase than originals. I feel like I personally have a disconnect from the “buy art as an investment collectable” area of the art world. I had professors who whined and griped about how prints or smaller works would reduce the price of my name, and mess like that. But honestly, I don’t view it like that. I don’t view art like a stock. I’m too sentimental for that. Art is a lot of things, but it’s not a financial investment in my opinion. So I want to make prints, so that whoever wants them has a more financially accessible way to experience that art. Art takes money. Original art takes a lot of money. But prints take less than originals. Plus, I can still sign them and write any information about the painting on the back of a print. So I’ve been dancing that thought around my head recently. 

This recent trip has once again ignited my desire to paint. I feel like most creative avenues take the ebbs and flows of highly creative and impassioned, creating a work, then needing to recharge after completing the work. So I’m in that recharging stage currently. I’ve been dabbling in digital art, but I don’t particularly want that to be my focus. This area always ignites me. It just does. I don’t think I could explain it if I tried. Granted, this trip was not nearly as relaxing as any previous trips have been. I would never claim that. Externally, the water and area has been peaceful. Within the trip, it’s been stressful. Aside from that, I’ve been enjoying the shoals. I love winter. I just do. I know some people aren’t the biggest fans of winter, but I certainly find it to be wonderful. At the same time, though, I love layering my clothes and my fashion of choice is sweaters. So. That tends to lend itself to winter. 

The south normally doesn’t have intense winters, but these last few years have been more and more intense it seems. I’ve been having to wear actual winter clothing for once. While we were in the Shoals, it was quite obvious how certain parts of the community were not prepared for 30 degree days. Which is certainly understandable. Personally, I’ve been expanding this area of my wardrobe with nicer pieces from Quince. I’ve been loving their cotton items. I also got one of their cashmere pieces, the cashmere skirt, and it is wonderful in this colder weather. I love it. I think that for the price, with the materials being used, it is a very good purchase.

On the thought of my trip to the Shoals, I feel like it should be noted that I, obviously, had to pack, and I actually used the Glossier “the Makeup Bag” for my makeup. Now, I took the organizational insert out of the bag and used that main area. I brought my Pat McGrath Labs palette, two 9-pan Colourpop palettes, one 12-pan Colourpop palette, six lipglosses, a concealer, a lot of brushes, mascara, highlighter, powder, liquid blush, and an eyelash curler, all in that bag. Plus, I put my little bracelets and hair ties in the outer pocket. And honestly… I really liked it. I really liked how it was packed, I liked how it laid in my luggage, it kept everything intact and sound. I actually dropped my luggage down the stairs and it landed on my arm (oops), the luggage had to sit on top of a collapsed dog kennel, and I opened my luggage a bit aggressively, and through all of that, everything in that bag stayed safe and sound. So I would like to redact my review on the Glossier bag and revise it here; It is a very good bag, however, it is a bit expensive. If you have the money and really want it, then I think you would love it. I think you can find comparable for a lower price, but I don’t think this is a bad bag. I think if you want it you’ll enjoy it. 

I really hope to be able to travel more this year. I want to be able to paint more and create more paintings, I want to be able to share more of my travels through that, and I hope that I’ll be able to grow into that. I hope to do more than I did last year, and I hope to grow as I do it. I hope this blog will be able to grow with me, too.