#i work too many hours to do as many layers of rendering as I always want to

[hinamie]

sorry if youve talked about this before, but do you have any tips relating to your coloring process? i ADOREE the way you render things and it looks soso cool and once i saw a post where you said your art typically only took a couple hours and i was in SHOCK. cuz ive been working on a yuji piece that has a similarish (not really but idk how to describe it…) coloring style and ive been working at it for. about a month now…sorry this is rambly i hope u have a good day!!!

hi!!! first of all thank you so much I'm happy you like the way I render! honestly it Is still the aspect of drawing that takes the longest for me, I've only recently started to come up with ways to streamline my process (mainly through keeping my layers/brushes limited and overall being less anal about details) . these days my average drawing does take about 2.5-4 hours I'd say, with Big Illustrations obviously being the exception

i wouldn't beat yourself up too much about taking longer to finish a drawing tho ! it took me. a While to learn how to speed up and honestly my biggest piece of advice is loosen up and let certain things look imperfect or unfinished ! and if you're like i was and want to work at getting faster then i would recommend practicing churning out sketchy/rough pieces and see what tricks and habits you can implement or adjust to save time

all that being said I realize haven't done an updated overview of my colouring/rendering process so I guess this can be that ! I'll put it under the cut because i too like to ramble and this Will get long

lineart and base colour/underpainting

my lineart is nearly Always on multiply. it helps the lines stand out less starkly against the colours and makes it so that I don't have to change the colour of as many sections of lines later on

the base colour layer is honestly completely optional, tbh i sometimes skip it so you don't Have to have one but i like it for a few reasons: - I like to keep all my colours on the same layer so if i'm going for a painterly style this serves as an underpaint layer of sorts . having this means that when i paint, whatever colour i have here will blend with all the other colours i use and help them look cohesive - even if I'm not painting, i still like to work with all my colours on the same layer and it helps me make sure I'm not missing any spots, which helps when it comes time to section individual areas off in the next steps

2. flats

lock transparency button my beloved . this makes it so that you're only able to paint on areas where there is Already colour (which is where having an underpaint layer comes in handy)

not much else to say about this step, just choosing colours rly !

3. shading

here's where the fun starts ! since i'm working all on one layer, i use the wand or lasso tool to section off whatever area I want to work on, then go in with (usually) one of the three brushes below: from left to right 1. my favourite dry brush that i use to cover large areas, it has an amazing dry paint stroke-y texture and i use it in everything. great for skin/clothes/hair/fur/organic material...she does it all 2. smaller, blendier/smoother brush that I use to soften out the rougher edges left by the first brush. I find it's really good for hair and small clothing creases 3. rough pen brush that I use to add little bits of flavour in the form of crosshatches or stray lines, usually to hint at individual hair strands! I also use it to line sometimes but I'm using it less for that recently

also, since the lineart layer is set to multiply, it's super easy to colour directly under the lines on my colour layer and use that as a way to make certain lines Darker . it's most obvious at the eyelashes and under the jaw but I do it everywhere

4. finishing touches and texture overlay

here I add another layer above the multiply/lineart layer and use it to add highlights and other details! this is also the layer i use to paint directly on top of any areas that got messy or need extra definition

my texture overlay of choice is just a rough monochrome static file that I got on the csp assets page but use whatever you'd like tbh ! set the layer mode to overlay and adjust the opacity to your liking (I also like to rasterize the layer to make it easier to work with but it's not too consequential if you skip that step since you're basically done by this point anyway)

And done ! slap a signature on that bad boy and send it <3

[by-izz]

I saw your Minthara drawings and just wanted to say WOW, you're talented! Do you have any tips for digital drawing, and especially getting facial features so accurate?

Hello there, MischievousSeagull.

Thank you for the ask and for the compliment. I really appreciate it. Minthara is just too gorgeous not to draw her (every day, for the rest of my life).

To answer your question, I must say I am very much an amateur and self-taught as well so my advice my not be what professional artists would always agree with. I personally regret not studying art and doing character and object studies when I was younger because I believed 'drawing from references was cheating' so I never did. Now I know that in order to draw a character and make it look like themselves you will need:

1. Start with high quality references:

I aim for a few different ones from different angles, with good light but not flat light as this washes out facial features. I usually find something I like and then wing the rest of it. I recommend checking out and supporting Baldurs Gate 3 community in game photographers, they are amazing! The bigger the resolution, the better, so you can see the the details clearly and avoid ending guessing 'is this a shadow or a dimple or a smudge?'. Also, studying the references will help you recognise the characters features. And Minthara has a few!

It helps me to keep the reference in grey scale for and even with slightly more contrast to better understand the structure of the face, especially if I am just learning to draw a new character.

2. Make the features match:

There are so many different ways of approaching the form here and I ended up trying out a few ones. I personally need to have some kind of guide for the relative position of eyes, mouth and middle of the face as it can save from making massive errors. But I am becoming more and more impatient and mostly just wing it and spend hours correcting it later.

Doesn't matter how you do it: using the Loomis method, Asaro Head/planes of the head model (I love it, it helps a lot, especially if you are planning to have more detailed shading in your art!), Reilly method or the thirds method, colour blocking shapes method that they teach in art schools (I do that chaotically sometimes) or just mark the positions of features from references or just trace it, this is 50% of success. It doesn't matter how you get there, especially if you are a beginner.

What I have been doing with Minthara is trying different faces, sometimes just the reference, with my chosen body position and choosing the one that looks 'least off' and then sketching it. I remember to mark the features of the face as it's crucial at this stage, whether you stylise your art a lot or just stick to the character proportions: thin lips, deep/almost hooded eyes, the way her buccal pads are shaped, the more pronounced nasal dorsum and the adorable angry look of concern with furrowed brows. And obviously the ears. However, I will make the ears longer and the eyes slightly bigger as it looks better for my style.

The structure is very important because and you gave to trust the process. The ugly phase can be torture and if the drawing has no redeemable features, I will never come back to it. However, the next step can lift it all up.

3. Shape it with darknesss and light:

Choosing the way you render can make a big difference in how the drawing turns out. What helps me at this stage, after I have my base colour established and filled my shapes with it, is to have a layer with shadows (copy the base colour and just change layer properties to multiply and time it dial it down to 50%) and a layer with light (the same but use a different mode like Add or Screen) and that's the base for shading on which I build my colours. But to be fair, I am not great at this and I still refuse to aim for a higher contrast in my drawings. This is something I'd like to improve in this srea. I learned to avoid airbrush and work with blending brushes.

I usually play with these light and dark layers until it looks okayish, then proceed with adding extra light and some details. If I keep forgetting where they light is coming from, I draw a little sun to remind me.

4. Ok, now crisis control:

Sometimes, even if I have the most perfect reference the more I render, the less it looks like the person I intended for it to look like. This is why I keep doing these things throughout the process:

A) Mirroring: canvas>flip horizontal every now and then. Our brains lie to us and if you look at your art long enough,you will not be able to see mistakes. Sometimes, when I want to finish something quickly, I end up not checking for errors (wrong eye position, nonsensical anatomy, etc), and seeing the final version after sometime, it can make me feel like a rubbish artist. Having breaks and coming back to unfinished art is a good way to keeping it a little bit more objective as well.

B) Levels in grey scale: Rendering is hard and with little understanding how colours work it can ruin the best lineart more sketch. It helps to have a grey layer set to Colour on top of your art to check if the dark and light balance is there and if shapes look the way you wanted them to look. My brain likes bright colours and sometimes they don't go well with the rest of the composition, this is where grey scale helps with planning it all.

C) Check what went wrong with the reference: If I mess up badly and nothing is improving my drawing, I will go back to the original reference. Mirroring both helps to look at the structure with fresh eyes but if that fails, I will try to redo the base form or marked features in the reference. If it's hopeless, I'll trace the features until the drawing looks right to me.

I used to draw by looking at reference on a (in)famous okeaki platforms and I learned many things from just going back to the form over and over using guidelines on both the drawing and the reference as one couldn't import a picture in that software like we can do in Procreate. I recommend just studying forms and shapes and simplifying complex structures. I'd be a much better artist if I wasn't feeling like it was cheating back them. Going to various exhibitions and learning that my favourite artists traced their own photos and built the composition around them blew my mind and encouraged me to explore more ways of creating art.

I hope this answers your questions and I hope to see your work in the near future and the planned animatics! I'm learning Procreate Dreams and hoping to create a few short animations, once I get the hang of it.

This was a bit long but it was a really good question and one that I often ask myself in the process. Thanks for asking! I almost ended up doing a tutorial on Minthara's features but that'd be overdoing it, haha!

Cheers to creativity!

Izzy

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Devotional Hours Within the Bible by James Russell Miller

The Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-9;18-23)

Jesus was always teaching. On this particular day His pulpit was a fishing boat, from which He spoke to the multitudes standing on the shore. Perhaps there was a sower somewhere in sight, walking on his field, carrying his bag of grain and slinging his seed broadcast. The sight may have suggested the parable.

“Behold, a sower went forth to sow.” Christ Himself is the great Sower but we all are sowers sowers of something. Not all who sow, scatter good seed; there are sowers of evil as well as of good. We should take heed what we sow, for we shall gather the harvest into our own bosom at the last. “ Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap” that, and not something else (Galatians 6:7).

In the parable the seed is good it is the Word of God. The soil likewise is good it is all alike, in the same field. The difference is in the condition of the soil .

The first thing that strikes us in reading the parable, is the great amount of waste of good there seems to be in the world. On three parts of the soil nothing came to harvest. We think of the enormous waste there is in the Lord’s work, in the precious seed of Divine truth which is scattered in the world. What comes of all the sermons, of all good teaching, of the wholesome words spoken in people’s ears in conversation, of wise sayings in books? What waste of effort there is whenever ever men and women try to do good! Yet we must not be discouraged or hindered in our sowing. We should go on scattering the good seek everywhere, whether it all grows to ripeness or not. Even the seed that seems to fail may do good in some way other than we intended and thus not be altogether lost.

The wayside is too hard to take in the seed that falls upon it. There are many lives that are rendered incapable of fruitfulness in the same way. They are trodden down by passing feet. Too many people let their hearts become like an open common. They have no fence about them. They shut nothing out. They read all sorts of books, have all kinds of companions, and allow all manner of vagrant thoughts to troop over the fields. The result is that the hearts, once tender and sensitive to every good influence, become impervious to spiritual impressions. They feel nothing. They sit in church, and the hymns, the Scripture Word and exhortations, the appeals and the prayers fall upon their ears but are not even heard! Or, of they are heard, they are not taken into the mind or heart but lie on the surface.

“The birds came.” The birds always follow the sower, and when a seed lies within sight they pick it up. The wicked one “snatches away that which has been sown.” So nothing comes of the seed which falls on the trodden wayside.

The lesson at this point is very practical. It teaches our responsibility for the receiving of the truth which touches our life, in whatever way it is brought to us. When we read or listen we should let the word into our heart. We should give attention to it. We should see that it is fixed in our memory. “Your word have I hid in my heart,” said an old psalm writer (Psalms 119:11).

The next kind of soil on which the seed fell was stony only a thin layer of soil over a hard rock. There is none of the fault of the trodden wayside here. The seed is readily received and at once begins to grow. But it never comes to anything. The soil is too shallow. The roots get no chance to strike down. The grain starts finely but the hot sun burns up the tender growths because they lack depth of rooting .

There are many shallow lives. They are very impressionable. They attend a revival service and straightway they are moved emotionally and begin with great earnestness. But in a few days the effect is all worn off. Life is full of this impulsive zeal or piety which starts off with great glow but soon tires. Many people begin a holy book, read a few chapters, and then drop it and turn to another. They are quick friends, loving at first but it is soon over.

One of the pictures of the crucifixion represents the scene of Calvary after the body of Jesus had been taken down and laid away in the grave. The crowd is gone. Only the ghastly memorials of the terrible day remain. Off to one side of the picture is a donkey nibbling at some withered palm branches. Thus the artist pictures the fickleness of human fame. Only five days before, palms were waved in wild exultation as Jesus rode into the city.

The goodness of too many people lacks root. The resolves of too many lack purpose. The intentions of too many lack life and energy. There are many shallow lives in which nothing good grows to ripeness. What this soil needs is the breaking up of the rock. What these shallow lives need is a thorough work of penitence, heart-searching and heart-breaking, the deepening of the spiritual life.

The third piece of soil in which the seed fell was preoccupied by thorns whose roots never had been altogether extirpated. The soil was neither hard nor shallow but it was too full. The seed began to grow but other things were growing alongside of it, and these, being more rank than the wheat and growing faster, choked it out.

Jesus tells us what these thorns of the parable stand for. They are the cares, riches and pleasures of this world. CARES are worries, frets, and distractions. Many people seem almost to enjoy worrying. But worries are among the thorns which crowd out the good. Martha is an illustration of the danger of care (see Luke 10:40, Luke 10:41). There are plenty of modern examples, however, and we scarcely need to recall such an ancient case as hers.

RICHES, too, are thorns which often choke out the good in people’s lives. One may be rich and his heart yet remain tender and full of the sweetest and best things. But when the love of money gets into a heart it crowds out the love of God, and the love of man, and all beautiful things. Judas is a fearful example. The story of Demas also illustrates the same danger. A godly man said to a friend: “If you ever see me beginning to get rich, pray for my soul.”

The PLEASURES of the world are also thorns which crowd out the good. It is well to have amusements but we must guard lest they come to possess our heart. We are not to live to have pleasures; we are to have pleasures, only to help us to live.

The fourth piece of soil was altogether good. It was neither trodden down, nor shallow, nor thorny; it was deep plowed and clean. Into it the seed fell and sank and grew without hindrance. By and by a great harvest waved on the field.

This is the ideal for all good farming. The farmer must have his field in condition to receive the seed and to give it a chance to grow. That is all the good seed needs. This is the ideal, too, for all hearing of the Word of God. If only we give it a fair chance in our life it will yield rich blessing.

[mindfogs]

Ok I'm very curious about your thoughts on the features for dreams do please say

kissing you on the mouth anon thank you i love giving my opinion on stuff so

DISCLAIMER

If you like the app, if you find it easy to use, if it's more accessible to you for any reason at all (INCLUDING THE CHEAP PRICE) i'm so happy for that, more power to you! if it makes it easier for people to approach animation that's great! i just think there are some really really awful features and limitations maybe especially if you never animated some thy in your life. for reference i studied animation using toon boom so maybe it's just too different from what i use, maybe in a week of getting to know it better, dreams will be my best friend and i'll feel stupid for this post, but also i animated stuff in the supposed "professional way", even complete, rendered stuff (specializing in storyboard and rough animation) so here's my first impressions after using it for less that 24 hours with no visual tutorials only the written ones. if i say something wrong or missed something or if any of the things i say below has an easy solution PLEASE LET ME KNOW i'm. plenty happy to be proven wrong :)

ok now, time to be a bitch

Startin with the biggest offence imo:

WORKING WITH FREE FRAME TIMING IS HELL

in animation you got your frames right? 24 each second yall know the gig. once upon a time, in disney golden era you used to do one drawing for each frame but nowdays you hardly do that. most people just put a drawing when needed which means one drawing could last 2 frames, one 4, one 8 up til as many you could need. more often than not you'll change the duration of each frame many times as you are doing your animation, making them longer or shorter and adjusting each frame before or after based on that. most programs will let you make a drawing shorter or longer and automatically adjust the frames around it, meaning it'll move them as needed.

procreate dreams doesn't do that. if you shorten a drawing it'll leave a space between the one you shortened and the one after. if you elongate a drawing..... you can't do that. yes. you. can't. do. that. to be more precise, you can't do that if there's a drawing right after because it'll just won't let you move past it..... "but that's fine" i hear you say "just move the damn frame blocking it", great idea! you can't do that either. you can only move one frame at a time. even if you select more of them you can only move one at a time (WHY). to move more of them you need to group them and ungroup them all the times. hope you understand how tedious that is.

tied to this point: THE TIMELINE OCCUPIES HALF THE SCREEN you'll see why in a minute

you can zoom in and out of the timeline as you please but it occupies half the screen regardless. you can't possibly shorten it to occupy less space even if you have only one track. "you can go into *whatever i don't remember the name* mode-" NO YOU CAN'T. whatever mode let's you draw full screen, with a supposed "timeline" limited in a corner. this timeline only offers you 3 frames to flip from: the one you're working on, the one before and the one after. if you paid attention you noticed i said frames and not drawings. this means that if your drawing occupies more that one frame you'll have to flip through all of them. no, you can't enlarge them. can you imagine what could be like storyboarding like this? where a panel of a rough board usually last around 2 seconds? can you imagine flipping through 48 frames til you reach the next panel?

so the choices of interface are: timeline where you can see more frames at a time but it occupies half the screen or full drawing but only one frame at a time... ok

YOU CAN'T MOVE LAYERS UP AND DOWN

with layers i don't mean tracks, i mean layers, the ones procreate has. this program treats each frame as a drawing with layers but you can't move the layers up and down from each other. the first layer you make is always going to end up on the bottom because it creates the next layer on top so good luck if you want to color your lineart. (you could i guess prepare each drawing beforehand with multiple frames but i think i'd go insane)

"just make the color/shadow/whatever on another track" if you have frames for each drawing it's an ok solution, but again, if you work in anything other that one drawing each frame it'll be hell matching the timing.

so, in conclusion and also TL;DR: you either are a master animator that does one frame per second, animates without sketching (you also can't lower opacity on tracks, only layers in drawings), keyframes (adding in-betweens seems equally tedious as moving a frame for the points said before), and never makes mistakes or you'll find it extremely difficult i think to do frame by frame animation.

it could maybe be a good program for motion grafic and video editing. make those animation after effect style? not my field so can't really make a statement on that.

i know it just came out and they'll probably fix some stuff in the future, but for now? looks extremely tedious and user unfriendly. i'm extremely grateful for the procreate team to try and make animation more cheaper/accessible and i'm aware it can't have all the features toon boom has for obvious reasons. they surely had their limitations but for something that (if i recal correctly) was supposed to revolution the animation industry and was supposed to be a program where you could do ANYTHING from pre, to post production i was extremely disappointed... will probably continue to try and make it work while i wait for updates!

thank you for coming to my ted talk, please don't hate me. this is mostly coming from sadness rather than rage

EDIT: WHERE IS THE SELECTION TOOL I'M GOING INSANE

[wothmzn]

BUCKLE IN: I'M TIRED.

Wayyyy back in 2nd grade, it was just small stuff like having a friend teach me how to draw those cursed "cute" eyes that's just a black dot with two white circles inside. But dispite that being small and all, I think it started to shape me as an artist.

I think digital would be better if I had the right stuff (just like a tablet or something), so currently I find traditional funner (and easier).

Big

Sometimes I draw little guys, they're just faces and all. I also like to draw poses (using the S trick is funner 4 me lol)

TWEAKING.... I lowkey can't draw side profiles. It's not in my vocabulary. It looks so baddd *crys into palms with sad misery and sadness*

All of them. Ibis paint keeps bugging I think it might be because I have like 200+ project that all have like 30+ layers and their all over 2000x2000 pixels.

Teeth, be it human or not. Usually when I do non-human teeth it evolves into a skull. I have a lot of deer and wolf skull drawings because of this.

I think drawing my own characters just makes things easier for me. I am usually very inconsistent in my art, so using my own characters gives me a sense of freedom.

Warm. I've never been the hugest fan of cool colors, so I tend to, by default, draw with warm colors.

Usually just my recent likes (on Spotify) I think it gives a nice mix of genres, so my art isn't too influenced (too edgy, or too upbeat. I like to manage my art)

Don't have one :). I tought myself to use both lol

Swirlies or sharp ones :)))) they're both just so fun to draw!!! I don't care what you uppers have to say >:v

Not in the slightest 😭

Sometimes. I have many styles, some of which tend to look like me. It only makes sense. As an artist, your biggest muse will always be yourself. Whether you notice or not, you know what you look like, and that gets implemented into your creations.

Maybe once or twice a day. If I have school I usually just spend all my time doodling in class, then sometimes I draw at home. But over the summer and just all breaks in general, I draw for a few hours once a day. Unfortunately, I pour a lot of time into art.

I tend to get more frustrated at night, though I think it turns out better at that time. I've kind of built like a graph of how well my art is at different times of day. I peak at 3 am

I don't post my art :P. I used to (not on tumblr, usually just on things like diviant art, tt, twitter, ect. Really just everywhere BUT here) but I don't really anymore. I don't for a lot of reasons, mostly due to the fact that I just don't finish art works. I haven't finished a piece in far over a year. I just don't have the motivation. This is one of my biggest pains as a person who likes to create. I just can't.

rendered. I don't quite know how to render, this is really just due to a lack of practice. I do know how to do all of it, it just doesn't match. Like I can render eyes but the style just doesn't match how I render skin. Theirs more too but idk

Hair. I know 2 (TWO) hairstyles, and both of them are for MEN. 🎵 Howww do you draw haiirr 🎵

🌼Artist Ask meme!🌼

There’s probably a lotta these out there but I wanted to make one of my own! Hopefully these are fun<3 

Send an emoji for each question!

 🖍️ When did you start drawing? Do you remember?  

 ✏️ Do you prefer traditional art or digital to relax?   

📏 What’s your go-to canvas size?

☕ Do you do warmup sketches before drawing? (Bonus: do you have any to share?)

🙃 Which is easier: faces facing left, right, or front view?

📚 How many layers do you typically use?

🐻 Your go-to things to draw when you need comfort?

🎁 Do you prefer drawing fandom stuff or your own characters?

🌈 Do you use more warm or cold colors?

🎼 Your favorite music to draw to right now?

🙌 Draw a doodle with your non-dominant hand

📐 Whats your favorite kinds of lines to draw?

💐 Do your drawing suit your aesthetics?

🦋 Do your drawings resemble you?

✨ How often do you draw?

🌗 Is night or day better for drawing?

🍭 What’s your main art blog / what do you tag your art with?

🍀 You wish your art was more..(fill in the blank)

🌊 What’s the hardest thing for you to draw? 

🙊 Share your latest silly doodle with no context

[declawedwildcat]

I can’t believe it’s been 7 years since the last time I drew my boys. I think a lot of quirks in my art style to this day can be directly traced back to the amount of time I spent drawing Free in high school

[goron-king-darunia]

Eggtober 12 Avocado Toast (Featuring Tomato and, of course, Fried Egg.) Clip Studio Paint, Gouache Brush, Dry Gouache Brush, Airbrush (for the barely visible bread texture) and Freckle Pen (for the pepper.) 20 colors, 1 hour 30 minutes. Took a little longer on this one because I spent an inordinate amount of time lovingly rendering the tomato that I knew no one was going to get to see in the final product. (Don’t worry, I saved it to another layer since @quezify said last time that he appreciated the peek behind the curtain.) This was another request by a friend. I must say, I wake up every day excited to choose an egg from the many options I have available and just... have fun putting it down on (digital) paper. I’ve got some yammering about that, but since I’m already going to post a “behind the scenes” under the cut, I’ll shove the musings down there too. As always, big thanks to the Egg Master Supreme, @quezify​ for organizing this. It’s wonderful to see so many people getting into art again or branching out and drawing eggs for the first time, all because one zany dude said to Tumblr “You know what? Let’s paint eggs for a month.” And enough of us said “Hell yeah” that I get to see so many different styles and mediums. Loving every moment of it!

(Art first, because LOOK AT THOSE TOMATOES! I love how they came out, I want to shove them in my mouth! AAAH!) Now for the rambling musings. I’m starting to get really comfortable with the gouache brush, a tool which I previously never used, and I’m also getting more comfortable with art in general. My usual process from childhood, when I did much more art, was to slap down pencil work on real life sheets of paper, line it in pen or photograph/scan it and upload it to my computer to line with the pen tool, and then just do everything with pen for bright, solid colors. Most of my other techniques were one off flukes, like the fire I did in my icon’s background. And my newer process, as an adult who just started learning Clip Studio Paint, was fairly similar. (I just started with CSP recently because it came free with my newest tablet and my old standard, Photoshop Elements [I dunno the version, 7 maybe?], was too old and would resize on my new rig so all the buttons were SO GODDAMN SMALL it was a pain to use.) The only difference is that, as an adult who’s home more often than not, I skipped the paper. Sketch, linework with the pen tool, then color under the line art with pen. Or, for a certain other project, I color under the line art with the watercolor brush. I’ve always wanted to try gouache because I’ve seen it worked with IRL and it’s got such pretty results! Opaque like acrylics and oils but flows like watercolor. I suppose it never occurred to me to look for it in the toolset. The last time I even used brushes meant to represent real media before CSP was when Corel Painter was a thing and I had it with my very first drawing tablet. And even then I didn’t use it often. I mostly used the watercolors because that was my favored medium IRL. But I quickly started to prefer Photoshop Elements which also came with my first tablet. And slowly I stopped using anything resembling traditional mediums. But I figured, hey, Eggtober is already a time for me to learn some new tricks and get some practice in, watercolor will look too translucent and it has a paper texture to it that I’m not sure I want. Let’s see if this thing has Gouache. And it did. And now it’s my favorite brush. The way it blends naturally, the ease of pressure controls so the opacity is easy to alter stroke by stroke. It feels like laying down real paints. Once I got used to how it behaved it just... clicked. So yeah, now that I know how to work with it and now that I had the brain explosion necessary to figure out my new process of laying down the darkest colors first and working my way up, it was all too easy to go “Oh. I like laying down these colors. And instead of trying to predict where I’m going to put the avocado, I’m just going to draw the full tomatoes for fun and practice and then figure out the avocado slice placement.” And then I spent roughly 45 minutes just... adding detail to tomatoes. Because it was a genuine joy and I was smiling the whole time and I could just look at those juicy tomatoes forever. So yeah, I know I say it every time, but I for real owe quezify everything for giving me a reason to pick up a new tool and learn and just have fun with it. Kicking my depression’s ass, my ADHD’s ass, my artblock’s ass, and my (lack of) motivation’s ass, all with the power of “Egg fun, draw egg.”

[servicetopkaradanvers]

Do you have any tips for coloring/shading? I always love how your colors look cause they're really nicely saturated but still well balanced

oh boy do I have some very strong opinions about color lmao

First, I’m morally obligated to mention that there are 8 million ways to approach digital color, so these are really just the Thots going through my head when I’m working on a given thing. For the sake of this rant, I’m gonna use this scribble of Kara and Lena from last fall, because it’s simple enough that I can easily illustrate some key points.

Most of the ideas I’ve outlined are about shorthand techniques that can easily and quickly use color to your advantage when you’re trying to sell the environment your characters are in. I’m not a painter, and painting is absurdly difficult, but we can use digital software to our advantage and consider how a painter would approach when lighting a figure/object/environment. Too many shortcuts are >:( but a few quick and simple habits can go a long way in finishing and posting a quick drawing you don’t want to spend hours rendering.

1. Pure black almost never exists in nature, and similarly, you will almost never need it.

Most illustration aims to “sell” a perceivable, believable space. While this is not everyone’s goal, most of what I draw is finished with an at least semiconscious goal of appearing touchable. Pure black is a guaranteed way to take away from that, because we almost never see it in nature. The darkest point in this particular drawing is Lena’s (terrified, dead) eyes, and it is only about 80% black and has some red/orange in it to help unify with the rest of the darks in the piece.

Here, locking my drawing layer and scribbling in some browns, blues, and even whites goes a long way to mesh the figures with their environment, especially because the background is lineless.

Here’s what this same drawing looks like with pure black lines. I would argue that this version does a disservice to the steps I’ve taken to light the figures, and it’s flattening the brightly lit outdoor space I’m trying to imply. There’s a whole additional essay about how lines play into this as well, so that’s a pretentious argument for another day.

2. Local color will rarely reach above 50% saturation.

Here’s the drawing with all the lighting work I’ve done removed (barring a few highlights I’m too lazy to turn off). In illustration, “local color” is referring to the color of a given object at the most neutral lighting possible.

The most heavily saturated element here is the artificial red on Kara’s cup, which makes sense! Printed logos, light up colored signs, things that are generally hard-sided and man-made will be more saturated. The next most saturated object here, and the only other local color exceeding 50% is Lena’s coat.

The rest of the clothing, skin, and hair falls between 10% and 35%. A neutral base gives you a lot of room to work with when you start lighting. It’s easier to go richer in digital than it is to accurately reel your colors in. Like any other kind of contrast, saturation can be used to pop points of interest, and if your entire canvas is TURBO SATURATED, none of it actually is. Also you’re hurting my eyes.

3. Natural light is cool, artificial is warm.

As humans, we spend 99% of our time either seeing the world lit by the sun, or by a lightbulb. Light from the sun is cool and generally diffused because it has passed through our atmosphere. Interior lighting tends to be warm and direct, casting clear shadows that come from a very specific light source.

Even if we remove the background, you would probably assume that Kara and Lena are outside based on the light temperature. Blue and orange are opposites on the color wheel, so an orange-tinted shadow (warm) will by effect make all the lighter colors look blue-ish (cool)! Pretty much all the shadows on these figures are just a faint orange Multiply layer. You’ll also notice a faint blue gradient over Kara’s shoulder to emphasize the approximate point where the sun is in the sky.

In short, cooler light and warmer shadow will imply that the setting is outdoors. Warmer light and cooler shadow will imply that the setting is indoors. It’s a fast and easy way to communicate character location.

4. Skin is weird.

If I’m just slapping some flat colors down and don’t plan to do much painting, facial features and skin have a lot of complex undertones, so if I don’t want to get into too much detail, a splash of red on the nose and around the eyes, a bit of color on the lips, translucent ears, can all go a long way to making flesh look more like flesh and less like barbie plastic.

5. Atmospheric perspective is much more important than grid (1/2/3 point) perspective.

This is relevant to color because color is the best way to easily portray atmosphere and the passage of space. Especially when your setting is outdoors, objects’ colors should become cooler and less saturated as they recede in space. The closer an object is to the camera, the more contrast you’re going to see in hue (position on the rainbow), saturation (richness of the color), and value (light vs dark).

[idanit]

possibly underappreciated Good Omens fics I enjoyed once upon a time

Indirectly inspired by a video series about fanfiction I watched, I decided to pull together a list of Good Omens fics I have bookmarked as stories I enjoyed, but which have less than 250-300 kudos at the time I’m writing this. No particular order. They’re accompanied by short excerpts from my private fic reading notes (not originally intended to be read by anyone but me, mind), sometimes slightly edited for clarity—and, sometimes, the comments I left on the fics.

This list sat in my drafts for a long time and the recent S2 announcement reminded me of it. I’d love it if it inspired you to do something similar! Spread the love.

And mind the tags, please.

△ = general and teen ▲ = mature and explicit 

thermodynamic equilibrium ▲ 7K the author has such an ear for dialogue and is unapologetic about what they want to write the characters like. They think of the characters as a mix of TV and book canon, but they feel like a homemade blend to me. (...) It’s very funny.

such dear follies ▲ 6K I can really picture this Aziraphale—Crowley as well, but her especially. She’s rather distinct. (...) Nice writing.

The Words Were With - △ 1.2K post-Blitz vignette, Aziraphale realizes what he feels and wonders if they're human enough for this. I liked it, and I liked the tag "transhumanism, but in reverse?", too—what an interesting idea. I'd say it's a vignette in a dire need of a follow-up, but, well, there's the show. The show is the follow-up. It fits very nicely within the canon and I totally believe it could have happened, like a deleted scene.

Gossip and Good Counsel △ 19K/? I love their companionship and how they're set up to be opposites by the management even though they get on pretty well. It feels very in keeping with the canon, but I feel like the fact that it's an F/F set in this particular time period adds a meaningful layer to the situation. It's women supporting each other in the world of men, working with the personas that are created for them, but, privately, being normal, well-rounded people. (...) and of course your writing is always a pleasure to read. (...) SDHDGDHDHDG Maisie is truly an Aziraphale.

Crowley Went Down to Georgia (he was looking for a soul to steal) △ 6K This was nice. Based on a song I didn’t know. Crowley goes to a funeral in the USA, one of a fiddler he knew and lost a bet to once. (...) The fic has not one but two songs composed for it and embedded inside it and that makes it even better. I really enjoyed the experience.

The Thing With Feathers △ 18K WARLOCK you'rE HORRIBLE AND I LOVE IT I would read an entire novel-length fic just of Crowley fighting his battles with Warlock. Written like this? It would be a blast. (...) The OCs are believably characterized and well-loved by the story. (...) Everyone seems to need a friend in this house. (...) This was so fun, and at the same time, their mission has weight here (...) We wonder about what the future holds even though we know it.

Here Quiet Find △ 11K This fic aimed for my head and the aim was sure precise. It was a story of Crowley sensing Aziraphale's distress and finding him in a self-quarantined English village in the seventeenth century, tired and anxious. It's hurt/comfort, so there was washing and bedsharing and I had to love it, so I did.

outside of time △ 2K Post-Almostgeddon, (...) nicely-written, short, but strung with a soft kind of tension and unspoken words. There's no drama, just "can we really", and "do you really" of sudden freedom. They fall into being inseparable. Book canon, which I like for this story (sitting on a tarmac). I liked the footnotes. There's a mention of Eliot. All in all, very much yes.

She'asani Yisrael △ 2K It’s Crowley going through a two-hour service and drinking blessed wine. He also keeps an eye on a boy he was asked to. It’s 1946. It was pretty good, so far the best Jewish GO fic, I think, from the ones I’ve read.

To Guard The Eastern Gate △ 11K  I loved it. You really made Sodom feel lived-in; the description of Keret, Hurriya and Yassib's house and relationship were great. I got attached to both them and the city (...) Aziraphale and Crawley’s interactions were generally very entertaining. I laughed (...) Your rendering of their voices just lands so well (...) But then oh, the entire ending (...) hurt, hurt a lot, and your descriptions are so vivid.

If you’ve been waiting (for falling in love) △ 14K AAAAA a good ending line. The whole paragraph, in fact. I love a good smattering of philosophy in my fics, and this was really nice. I can get behind Thomas Aequinus's and Crowley's view on eternity. It's (...) a pretty simple fic (...) - the courage to express yourself and take a risk is awarded with winning what was at stake by the virtue of reciprocity - but the way it was intertwined with a study of how they would experience a forever was done well. 

Holy unnecessary ▲ 2.2K It's well-written. (...) this is my type of sexual humour if I have any. So subtle. Blink and you'll miss it. Lovely.

The Parting Glass △ 17K Through the ages, they're dancing around their relationship until after the Armageddoff. (...) Wow, this was really, really nice. Very simple in its concept and nothing I haven't read before, but very well-executed. (...) AAAAH I LOVED the first chapter. I always like abbeys as settings, that's a given, but the banter, the good writing, the moral ambiguity!

Name The Sky △ 33K This Crowley is different, but very intriguing. Without his sarcastic talk, and much more animalistic. (...) I love how expressive Crowley is. (...) This fic has a very nice balance of drama and levity. I don't love Crowley-before-the-Fall stories very much, but with this execution I can read about it. (...) Okay I've read Crowley offering fruits, and even Aziraphale biting fruits, but the two of them sharing the apple? Outstanding. Ingenious. What a take.

A Flame in Your Heart △ 5K post-Blitz (why are so many dance fics post-Blitz?), they go to the bookshop and have an actually believable conversation. Then they dance the gavotte. It was really nice! Believable writing, emotions, the dancing! (...) Of course it's too early for them, (...) but the author's note? yeah.

Put down the apple, Adam, and come away with me ▲ 32K At this point it's just reading original stories with characters with names and some personality traits that I recognize. (...) I really enjoy this, the careful dance, the opposition between their views. (...) This is well-written, wow. (...) it's not an easy read (...) this story feels very believably 50s, but also reaches out to the present time. 

Liebestraum ▲ 10K/? It really is like music. I'm enjoying the writing a lot. (...) oh my actual god. This, this? Wow, uh. This came for my throat. (...) THE MUSICAL COMPOSITION, THE MOTIF RETURNING, THE AUTHOR KNOWS WHERE IT'S AT (...) Excellent. This hits the right beats so precisely, (...) and with feeling, too.

Down Comforter △ 2.4K and they lay down in angeldown, a soft rug ‘neath their heads– alright. Well, Crowley lies under Aziraphale's wing on a Persian rug after the Apocalypse, and they talk (...). It was sweet.

The Corsair of Carcosa △ 5K Crowley wakes up from a nap, visits Aziraphale for some drinking, and they read The King in Yellow that he happens to own. Good writing, so I'm bought. Aziraphale mentions Beardsley, so I'm bought twice over. My god, a discussion of etheral/occult madness? Caused by some wrong/true reading? Yes.

Very Good, Omens! △ 6K It's rather well-written, well-pastiched. People don't do that too often, nowadays - try to write in the style of a particular writer. (...) I love wordplay like this.

Reviving Robin Hood: The Complicated Process of Crème Brûlée △ 30K it's well-written (...), has a rhythm to it, and quiet humour. (...) Finally some nice, good, light writing. The attention to detail! (...) I'm still reading most of it aloud, the rhythm of it compels me to. (...) okay this does sound like Pratchett&Gaiman, the Good Omens itself (...) The fic is meandering, hilarious, sensitive in all the right places, and overall lovely.

my dear acquaintance △ 1K Oh. Oh. Yes, yes! Aziraphale in Russia, Russia I've never been in, but I can feel the snow and the evening of. Very real, and the bar, too. Attention to detail - vodka flavoured with dill, what on earth? Yes. He would totally have a distinct taste in operas and he would totally complain about a subpar one. I'm glad Tchaikovsky's there.

there is a crack in everything △ 1.8K This was good! Ah. Inspired by a comment (...), I went looking for Mr. Harrison and Mr. Cortese fics—really, what a big brain moment someone had and why have I never thought to look for them? This is Crowley getting suddenly anxious and Aziraphale going out of his way, through all his layers of not-thinking and denial, to console him. I also really liked how the Arrangement is a carefully unacknowledged partnership-marriage.

Scales And Gold And Wings And Scars △ 6K  No conflict, no plot, one tiny arc like a ripple on the surface of water on a calm sunny day - of Aziraphale discovering Crowley’s scars. It's the South Downs and it's early summer. They bask and swim in a spring. Non-sexual nudity, love in the air like a scent. Nice.

Nineteen Footnotes In Search Of A Story △ 0.4K This is a Good Omens story told only through footnotes. Your mind can fill in the gaps. Fascinating (...). Also, it’s an experiment so apt for this particular fandom.

Hell on Earth △ 6.5K Oh, I loved it! How could I not love it: it's Beelzebub-centric, it's historical, it has classical painting, and even a hilarious scene with a cuneiform phrase, as if I didn't enjoy this story enough already. There are so few Beelzebub fics out there and I find searching for them very difficult (I accept recs if anyone has any), and it's such a shame, so this was really like a gift to the fandom. I absolutely adore the way you portrayed them, small, frightening, powerful, and confident. Also, it was super fun to see how different Crowley seems when we're not in his POV or in a story about him and Aziraphale. (...)

Go Up to Ramoth-Gilead and Triumph △ 24K Daegaer is... pure class. (...) hdhdhdh what pfttt why you so funny (...) I love this Crowley. (...) This got unexpectedly intense. (...) I love the little nods to the fact that Israelites, especially the poorer ones, still believe in other gods. I also really like that they sleep on roofs. It's just the kind of detail that grounds the story and shows that the author is, in fact, a historian. 

[blush-and-books]

The End of Julie and the Phantoms - A [very long] Theory

The core of this theory was inspired by many posts that I have seen saying that Julie’s “everything was a dream” shirt may have insinuated that nothing happening on the show is actually reality. I brought my series finale pitch to my dear friend @willexx who then helped me develop this headcanon into something I cried about during lunch. 

It starts out pretty heavy, but there are some little light things here and there because it’s what the himbos would have wanted.

We start here:

In the last episode, the boys are ready too cross over. It’s an emotional moment for everyone, they’re crying, Julie is sobbing, and we as an audience have definitely seen better days. With one last “we love you, Julie,” a flash of light overtakes the garage space, blinding our screens. 

The scene flashes to Julie lying in bed, waking up from her ringing alarm. 

She is visibly confused, clearly wondering how she got to bed when the last thing that she remembers is the boys’ painful departure. When she reaches for her phone to turn off her alarm -- it’s a school day -- she quickly notices the date:

It’s the same day in 2020 that she met the boys, that she was going to clean out her mom’s garage, and that she had to perform to keep her spot in the music program. 

So, none of it was real?

Not exactly. 

The experience was a sort of dream-like saga that was designed for her to be able to grieve on her own, and rediscover her voice in her own way. But just as the panic sets in that it was a complete figment of her imagination, the feeling of cold metal on her left hand becomes too hard to ignore: One of Luke’s rings. 

Reggie’s leather jacket is hanging in her closet.

Alex’s fanny pack is slung across the back of a chair. 

But when she runs downstairs, clad in her dinosaur slippers, rushing to the garage to see if the guys were there -- they aren’t. They have crossed over. 

As she moves through the day, she’s a new Julie, but everything else is the same. Instead of a baseball cap and low ponytail, Julie throws on her black jeans and Reggie’s leather and lets her hair run wild. She’s displaying a confidence that Flynn hasn’t seen in a long time, that seemed to have hit Julie overnight. 

Julie sings Wake Up in music, and keeps her spot in the program. She doesn’t oogle Nick in the halls and she tells Carrie off when there’s an attempt at an insult made. 

Real or not, the boys helped her. They did their job. 

When she gets home, and Ray irks her about cleaning the garage or selling the house, she is quick to insist that she doesn’t want to move and that if he needs her for the rest of the night, she’ll be in her mother’s studio.

There aren’t any instruments except for the piano, and the space has the original layer of dust that it had before her and the guys started using the space again. Julie feels empty. But she reminds herself that the ring on her finger is real, extremely real, so she retraces her steps that she had taken in the first episode and tracks down the Sunset Curve demo CD, puts it in the stereo, and plays it. 

Nothing happens. Or, at least -- nothing that she could see.

The camera pans up as Julie is hard at work to organize the garage, and we see the boys in the chairs on the ceiling, watching over her fondly. 

~This is where @willexx started to throw in some epic ideas~

The boys are real, and they have crossed over, which renders Julie unable to see them. However, in her reset reality without them, no one remembers Julie and the Phantoms or the fact that the boys existed in the first place. The boys, while she can’t see them, visit her and try to make contact with her as much as they can, even though their times with her are limited since they are supposed to be on the other side.

She’ll feel a ghost of a touch on her hand or her hair, and know that Luke is there. When she’s in the car and the radio is on a country station, she knows that it’s Reggie. In a journal for school, a small “okay” will be written in the corner of a page, and it is Alex. These little notes keep her going, and she’ll just sigh and say “my boys,” and leave everyone around her confused. 

Sometimes, when she wakes up in the morning, the demo tape can be heard playing in the garage. Somehow she’ll get filled with hope that if she runs into the garage, the boys will be there rocking out without her like she used to scold them for left and right -- but no one is there. Ray comments that the stereo is broken and Julie has no choice but to nod along. 

One day she finds Luke’s songbook that had been buried in the plastic garbage bags of the boys’ belongings. She still brings Unsaid Emily to his parents, and she cries herself to sleep that night. 

When Julie blows up as a solo artist, she actually records Unsaid Emily, and she records Bright, and all of the other songs that her and Luke wrote together. Luke Patterson is in the writing credits for many of the songs, where Trevor never bothered to list him, and a part of Luke is at piece. 

On the two year anniversary of Rose’s passing, Julie finds Luke’s “angst flannel.” Ray asks where she got it; she tells him a thrift store. But it feels warm, like all of the guys are there, hugging her. 

Another morning, she could swear that Luke and Reggie are strumming out Flying Solo on level one volume, and once again finds herself darting to the garage with no good excuse except to keep her hopes up. They, unsurprisingly, aren’t there -- but a note is, that says “you’re a star, Jules. We love you.”

The handwriting is messy. She knows it’s from Luke, who probably fought the boys to even write the note because he just wanted to talk to her even though they need to move on and his handwriting is awful. The note gets tucked into the pocket of the flannel, and when she needs to be reminded that she’ll be okay, she pulls it out of the pocket and holds it tight. 

Before every show, she reads the note, and mumbles a little prayer to them wherever they are -- even if no one else believes they are real. 

When Luke’s flannel starts to lose it’s original sweet scent of Emily and Mitch’s house, Julie spends an hour crying on the floor of her bathroom. A faded orange beanie appears in her room the next day. 

Little notes from Luke appear here and there, but never from any of the guys. In the shadows where she can’t see them, Alex tells Luke that in order for both themselves and Julie to move on, Luke needs to stop leaving her notes -- so most of the ones that Julie finds are even more messy than usual, like Luke was trying to write them without the guys noticing. 

During one of their forbidden conversations, Julie says to Luke: “hey, I never told you this before... But I’m so glad you’re here. I don’t know what I would do without knowing that you guys were still around. I think I would have lost my mind, and would have been convinced that I went crazy.”

Luke could have ran to Alex, repeated Julie’s tearful words, and given the drummer a fat “I told you so.” But he doesn’t. Julie’s validation is the only validation that he needs. 

Whenever her and Carlos and Ray make an extra seat at their dinner table for Rose, Julie imagines, deep in her mind, that it is for Reggie too. Reggie deserved a seat at their table; deserved to be a part of their family. A family that would have loved him.  And when a fork falls off of the table, Julie knows he’s there. One day, Julie asks Ray how he would have felt about having another son. He responds confused, and Julie gets tears in her eyes, and neither of them bring it up again.

When Julie and Flynn go to Pride together, Julie wears Alex’s fanny pack even though she hadn’t gotten any signs from him since they had all moved on. He still doesn’t reach out afterwards, too overwhelmed by her gesture to think of a way to properly extend his gratitude and love for the girl who is keeping his spirit alive -- but Luke lets her know that he was grateful. 

Luke still visits Julie like he visits Emily and Mitch. And on Luke’s birthday every year, Julie goes to a little bakery after school and buys herself a cupcake; sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night to light a candle and sing happy birthday. When she lights the candle, the candle gets blown out. Every year after that first year, she gets candles that you have to turn on and off so that Luke can’t ruin the moment. 

(He ends up throwing the fake candle on the ground out of retaliation.)

Julie is so emotionally stable for the most part that the complete change is a shock to Ray. He tries to ask her what happened, but she always acts like nothing happened and then hides in her room for hours. Sometimes, she makes random little comments out of the blew and Ray has many conversations with Victoria on whether or not he should have Julie seeing Dr. Turner again. 

At her first solo concert, Julie walks into the dressing room to find “Stand Tall” written three times, in three different handwriting styles, in red, pink, and blue. The message in blue is the messiest by far, and is followed up with a heart. 

The name of Julie’s first album is Phantoms. 

[hoe-doroki]

first snow

pairing: Shouto x reader

genre: fluff

wc: 2.2k

summary: sequel to “Siberia” (can be read alone). Just fluff, a year after the events in the previous story. You and Shouto are happily together, and it’s the first snow of the year.

a/n: This is my gift to the lovely @unlasting​ for the @bnhabookclub​ secret santa gift exchange!!! I was so happy I got you, darling, because I already love you so much! I do hope that you like this fic. You said you wanted fluff, so it is fluffy. For you and anyone else who just wants some simple, wintery fluff, but maybe don’t want to read the 13.8k prequel to this fic (or can’t, because it’s 18+), I took the liberty of making a “Cheat Sheet” post summarizing the events of “Siberia” so that this one is easier to enjoy. And thank you to @some-kindofgnome​ for reading this and hyping me up! <3

edit: I no longer write x reader but here’s my old masterlist - mobile | desktop

“First snow, first snow, first snow!”

You’d just glanced out the window, as you had been compulsively doing ever since you’d seen the weather report sporting the first good chance at snow for the season. Only a couple of flakes danced past the sill, but your quirk was tingling too, telling you that they were there and more were coming, just outside the apartment walls. In an instant, you were sprinting for the door, tugging boots on over your too-thin leggings, scrabbling for your keys, and running out the door without another word.

There was no time for the elevator. You were on the seventh floor, but you were a pro hero; you could run up that many flights of stairs at a moment’s notice, so running down would be no problem.

Each half flight you took the first three or four steps and then jumped the rest, landing with an echoing thud in the artificial light of the cold, brick stairwell. It was as though you were trying to make it to the ground floor before those first two flakes you’d seen, nebulous and carefree in their descent, hit the ground themselves. You wanted to see them, to catch them on your tongue and eyelashes before they met the pavement and turned to liquid.

You burst through the lobby, not sparing a glance for the concierge. You’d have to give him a smile and apologize when you came back in—you always made sure to greet whoever was staffing the desk when you were coming and going, especially during the holiday season.

Then you were outside, skin instantly pricking at the freezing air, but your quirk spread out and felt lush as you sensed all the tiny flakes floating down from above as though they were waiting for you. You grasped them, each snowflake in your quirk’s reach, and sent them funneling down toward you. It was still barely a flurry, as the snow was only just beginning to fall, but you reveled in it as you spun around. You were transported back, feeling like a little kid again.

It couldn’t last, though. You’d left your hero license upstairs and could get in trouble for using your quirk like this—even if you were a recognizable enough hero that no one would question your status upon seeing you. So before you got dizzy from twirling, you slowed down and released your hold on the little particles of ice, letting them fall as nature called them to.

The sky looked like a snow bank itself, gray like the ones you’d hopefully get to see around here in the city. The clouds hung low to the sky, heavy enough that you wondered if you’d gone for the roof instead of the front stoop you could have pulled at some of the water droplets, creating the snow yourself before the freezing air sent them tumbling with the wind. Your quirk was still getting stronger, so maybe you’d have the reach someday.

You heard footsteps behind you but paid no mind until you felt two hands putting a puffer coat on your shoulders. You reflexively put your arms through the sleeves before turning around, an unshakeable smile on your face.

“First snow,” you said again, calmer than before as you grinned at the man in front of you.

Shouto had a small smile on his face, but it was enough to crinkle his eyes, all of the fondness he held for you shining out of them. “I heard,” he said, his voice dry enough in tone that he could have been making fun of you. More realistically, he was just telling a simple truth.

He was bundled in his own puffer coat as well as gloves, a hat, and a scarf. In his hands, he held the same for you, but with earmuffs rather than the hat.

You smiled sheepishly as you took the soft knits one by one, putting on the scarf, then the earmuffs, and finishing with the gloves. A shiver rumbled out of you as your body tried to forget the cold and create enough warmth to insulate you in the new layers.

Wordlessly, Shouto took you in his left side and you felt the whispers of warmth wrapping around you, heating you up until even your toes had a little bit of hot blood back in them. You nuzzled into him, enjoying the contact even more then the warmth, and then shifted your gaze back up.

“So pretty,” you said, watching the little specks of pure white fall from the dove gray comforter above.

“Why are you so awestruck?” Shouto asked. “You can make it with your quirk. Snow is literally your hero name.”

“I don’t know,” you said, putting your left hand out and catching little snowflakes in your hand, bouncing them like circus fleas. Your favorite party trick. “It’s different when the Earth does it for me. Instead of work, it’s a gift. Just like when I manipulate your ice instead of making it.”

Shouto didn’t say anything, just let out a soft hum as he slid his arm from where it was slung around your shoulder down to your waist and pulled you in even more. The both of you watched the cars passing by on the street just in front of you, barely obscured by the air’s thin lace of snow. Their drivers were probably hoping for quick commutes, getting them home before the snow really started coming down, if it ever did.

It probably wouldn’t. Snow wasn’t that common in December in this prefecture, much less snow that would stick. You probably just had a few more minutes of this—hours if you were lucky. And then tomorrow it would be nothing more than a memory. By all odds, you’d have to make do with creating it yourself until January.

Shouto nudged you forward, moving to sit on the single step that separated the first landing of your building’s lobby from the sidewalk. He guided you to sit between his legs and you rested your arms on them. Those gangly legs reached most of the way up your ribs at the knee, but you slid back so that your back was flush to Shouto’s front. Then both of his arms were wrapped around your middle, cheek pressed against cheek.

“Things feel so quiet in the snow,” you whispered, watching the flakes falling from hundreds of feet up only to land silently, melting humbly against the sidewalk.

“Mm, peaceful,” Shouto agreed.

The two of you lived in the middle of the city, so the peace only carried so far. There were occasional passersby on the sidewalk, some with bags, some walking dogs. Drivers and cyclists continued rolling up and down the street either hurried by the snow or delayed. But the storm also kept people in, rendering the streets just a bit less bustling than usual. The world spun a bit slower, enjoying a bit of repose as the easy storm blurred the harsh lines and angles of the city block.

Your breath came to match Shouto’s, the only movement between the two of you being that of your ribs and your diaphragm. It created a push and pull into each other where you couldn’t tell if you were following Shouto or if he was following you. Your nose began to burn from the cold despite Shouto’s heat, but you didn’t mind. It was a rare day off from yours and Shouto’s work as a hero duo; you would stay out here until the snow stopped or night fell—whichever came first.

You tracked the snowflakes as they descended, watching the heavier ones sink as if tied with stones while others fluttered like aimless butterflies. Most of the flakes were small, portending a quick, transient storm. Or maybe the flakes really were like butterflies, migrating west until they came to rest out in the Pacific. You wanted to catch them while you could, so you stuck your gloved hand out and watched them collect, turning to droplets slower and slower the more you collected.

Eventually, you shook them off and let off a contented sigh, snuggling back against Shouto and turning your face up to the sky with a smile. The building’s overhang just missed where you were sitting, so the snow fell freely onto your skin, chilling you gently. It was a caring touch. It was the sugar dusted over the darkness and drudgery of winter.

“Marry me.”

The words were carried to your ear with such serenity that they must have been a trick of the snow. You’d misheard—if you’d heard anything at all. Wasn’t that question supposed to be preceded by a moment of anxiety, a moment of fear? But Shouto’s breath still had the even time of a slow drum being hit by the softest mallet.

“What did you say?” you whispered, gripping your gloved hands tighter around the slick material of one of his sleeves.

“I said, marry me,” Shouto said, his breath warm in your ear, unmistakable.

You looked down and saw a small box in one of his hands and the shock only buried itself deeper into the veins of your heart. This wasn’t spontaneous?

“You’re serious,” you whispered, tears pooling at the corners of your eyes, one of your hands leaving his arm to come up to your mouth, your humid breath moistening the wool of your glove.

“I was going to wait until our anniversary,” he said into your cheek, “but I think this is a little more exciting to you that that will be.”

Your anniversary was days away, and your mind turned back to the similar hushed snowstorm from the night you’d gotten together. Maybe it had been the first snow of the season, maybe not. You’d been out of the country until that afternoon, and come home to find Shouto waiting for you.

“But it’s only been a year,” you said, not so much arguing as in disbelief.

“And we’ve only been living together a little over a month,” Shouto said into your neck. You turned around, leaning into his leg instead of his back, dying to see his eyes. To read the one part of his face you could always trust to give you his full expression, his every feeling. “But we’ve been partners for four years. That’s more than enough for me to know. What about you?”

You gave a nod, your joints slow either from the cold or the shock. “It’s enough for me too.”

“Is that a yes?”

Your hand came back to your mouth as your nodding became more vigorous. “Yes.”

Shouto reached around you with his second hand to open the box, revealing a dazzling ring.

“It’s six-sided,” you breathed, looking at the perfect hexagonal cut.

You felt Shouto’s nod against you. “Like a snowflake.”

“I thought you didn’t understand why I like snow so much?”

“I don’t,” Shouto said simply, his voice blunt in its honesty, but never reckless. It held you carefully. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t care that you love it. I love that you do.” He then nodded to the ring. “Do you want to put it on?”

You hummed in affirmation, pulling off your left glove and allowing for Shouto to help you slide the ring over your finger. The ring wouldn’t sparkle, the quickly setting December sun keeping the world dim for the time being. Instead, the sheer crystal of the diamond reflected back the light gray saturation of the clouds.

“I love you,” you said, jerking your eyes back to Shouto’s urgently. He already knew, of course—both of you had been impatiently quick in your relationship to say it—but you were desperate that he know in this moment. That there be no doubt. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Shouto said, and he bent in to catch your lips. Despite the awkward angle, your neck torqued nearly behind you in order to catch Shouto’s lower lip between yours, it was the sweetest kiss you could remember in ages. You leaned back even further, the curve of your spine leaning safely against Shouto’s thigh as you put your gloved hand to his cheek.

When your eyes opened again, the world had fallen into soft focus, the streetlights having flicked on. Their light was refracted by the snow that had quickly doubled in volume, frosting the sidewalk’s skeletal trees and just starting to fill the cracks on the sidewalks with piles of white.

“Now I’m always going to love the first snow too,” Shouto said, looking down at your bare hand and taking it in his warm one. His glove dispersed the heat he produced so that it felt inviting, comforting. Loving.

“I didn’t think I could love it more,” you mused as the snow continued to pick up, dusting the fronts of your boots and the shoulders of your coat.

Shouto pulled you back against his chest again, and you felt a big sigh ripple through his chest. He pulled you in close and whether you were against his right side or left, you felt nothing but warmth.

“I know the feeling.”

[dokifluffs]

Migraines | Bokuto, Tendo,  Ushijima, Sakusa

Pairing: Bokuto X Reader (gender neutral), Tendo X Reader (gender neutral), Ushijima X Reader (gender neutral), and Sakusa X Reader (gender neutral)

Genre: comfort fluff 🥺💛 

Request: “hello i hope all is well!! could i please request something about how bokuto, sakusa, tendou and ushijima would help take care of their gf (or gender neutral s/o, whatever you’re more comfortable with!!) who gets really bad frequent migraines? also, i love your writing for free! there’s not a lot out there that i can find i might have read all of your works for it and loved them all 👉👈” - @pleasantlyplantiful​

Author’s Note: you’re so sweet bb 🥺🥺 and thank you so so much for requesting and being patient, sorry this took awhile to be posted. But also thank you sm for reading and enjoying my free! imagines. I’ll for sure be posting and making more free! content. I also also hope tendo’s/ this entire hc is okay akjshdasj sorry if it’s not 🥺👉👈 

Bokuto: 

Everything felt like it was on blast all around you, the sounds were so excruciating. The bright flashes of lightning, the low, heavy booms of thunder, the winds blowing through the branches of trees, making them bang against the side of the house

It sounded so loud, you wanted to mute everything until your migraine passed

You curled yourself up in bed on top of the blankets, holding pillows to both sides of your head. The sharp searing pain in your head made it feel like it froze your body, rendering you immobile

You squeezed your eyes shut, wanting it to stop, wanting the feeling of someone repeatedly and forcefully squeezing your head to stop

The storm was predicted to be one of the strongest ones of the season and it unfortunately lined up around the time you had your migraines

It was terrible

The spacious room was dark and dim from the gloomy clouds that rolled over the sky, concealing the warm sun behind it

The power was blown out not too long ago but Bokuto still showered

He didn’t really care much about the storm outside, not thinking too much of it. In the moment, all he could feel was how good the hot water felt as it washed over his body, relieving his tight muscles from practice

You massaged your temples the best you could, making sure the pillow resting on top of your head wouldn’t fall off. You did the best you could and took deep breaths, your breaths shaky as you grit your teeth through the pain

Rubbing his head with a towel, his upper half was bare while he wore a pairof his many shorts for practice

Seeing your figure curled up in bed, he was beside you in a heart beat

“Y/N?” He asked just a bit too loudly, realizing when you let out a little grown, waving your foot to him. “Oh sorry,” he whispered

“I’ll go get you some water,” he whispered yell, giving you a quick rub on your leg as he left the room but you didn’t really hear him

He was still new to your frequent migraines but he was going to make sure he did his best. Akaashi even gave him advice after mentioning it in conversation

He wanted to do more for you, so he did

From what he was able to gather, your migraines mostly came from loud noises. He didn’t think the storm was too loud but it must have been for you

He poured a warm glass of water and brought up honey and water, knowing how you would sometimes ask him to get some later on

The bed shifted to his weight as he sat beside you, pulling a corner of a pillow slowly upwards

You covered your ears with your hands, your eyes firmly shut, trying to focus on the sound of your heart, breathing as steadily as you could

“Y/N,” his usual roaring voice diminished to almost nothing for you. He rubbed your hand, making your eyes slowly peek open to him

He helped you sit up but you refused to move your hands, not yet at least

“Honey?” He mouthed, holding up the bottle to which you shook your head. He brought the warm mug to your mouth and helped you drink

A few gulps later, you could feel like your mind was being released from the visions grasp

When your head was tolerable enough to endure, you slowly removed your hands, hovering them over your ears in case you had to cover them immediately

“You okay, bun?” He whispered, his hand cupping your neck and cheek right below your ear, his voice low and just above the sound of the rain. The thunder and lightning moved on into the distance, leaving behind only the soft putterings of rain tapping the roof

Your heart released a warm spread through your chest hearing the nickname he gave you, unsure of where it came from in the first place, your head dizzy from your migraine

“I think so... can we lay down?” You asked, bringing your hand to his arm, his skin and body still hot from the shower

Without even answering, he didn’t even you to ask. He lifted your body into his arms, laying down in the center of the bed with you on top of him

He wrapped his legs around you, squeezing you close to him but not tight enough where it bothered you

Your head was pressed close to his body, hearing the beating sound of his big heart

Tendo: 

It felt like the room was spinning and nothing was going to stop it

You could hear the faintest sounds of rain tapping on the roof of the house, the room dim with little to no light

Your head was throbbing inside and you just wanted it to stop

Your body felt so drained and empty as you sat up in bed but the thing was, the last thing you could think of was the way you were sleep deprived on the couch

College was beating your ass and there was little to no fight left in you

Trying your best to stand from bed, your knees buckled beneath you, your legs unable to suddenly hold your weight

You reached your arms out only to feel the plush fabric and cool smoothness of the wall against the palms of your hand

Your body made a loud thud as you collapsed to your knees on the ground beside the bed, half of the blanket pooled around your form as you leaned your body on the bed

A warm touch held your arm and wrists not a moment later

Tendo knelt before you, panting and heart racing in his chest from sprinting up the stairs from the kitchen when he heard the thud

His hair was down but pushed back with a little headband, his hand reaching up to hold your face. Even despite all the spinning and occasional blur of your senses, you could see the hints of concern glistening in his eyes

A light layer of sweat beaded your hair line and all the color was drained from your face as you breastfed jaggedly. You wore one of his shirts but you couldn’t even remember if you were wearing this last night or not

But none of that mattered

Doing the best he could, he lifted you back into your spot in bed, bringing up the blanket up to your waist. The smell of him was all over the bed and pillows, surrounding you but it didn’t make your migraine worse thankfully

“Drink this,” he spoke quietly, bringing a water bottle to your lips, pouring it gently into your mouth

The cool liquid was able to ease your head just a little but the room still spun. The lights remained off and you did your best to ground yourself, staying hydrated, focusing on the feeling of the bed pressed to your body, the sound of the gentle rain on the roof, the warmth his hand emitted holding yours

“I’ll bring the soup up,” he said as he stood when you were able to hold the bottle on your own

“So-soup?” Your voice croaked as you spoke, doing your best to focus on tendo’s face in the dim room but you spoke too soon. The bitter, acidic taste of bile rose from your stomach and up your throat, burning the back of it. It made you clench your jaw to stifle the urge to vomit

He sat back down on the edge of the bed beside you, rubbing his hand down your back. It wasn’t the first time he had seen you suffer through a migraine, but deep inside, it twisted his heart to see you suffer like this- he could imagine the pain your body must’ve been going through each time

“You didn’t eat anything at all yesterday,” he gave you a playful glare, lightly poking his finger into your cheek. This fact of course didn’t go unnoticed by him

then it hit you. You really didn’t eat at all yesterday and you barely drank anything too 

The late hours and hectic schedule you made for yourself, trying to get as many credits as you could in your early years of uni so you could have an easy last year with him, but unfortunately, you bit off more than you could chew

you mentally cursed yourself for bringing this upon yourself 

With your eyes squeezed shut, focused on the darkness, you didn’t even notice him slipping away, only realizing he did when the aromatic scent of chicken noodle soup was brought up with a side bowl of rice and small side dishes

He made sure you ate as much as you could without making you feel worse, making sure the foods weren’t too heavily scented with the smells of oil or anything of the sort that could’ve triggered your migraine worse

Tendo adapted to the times you began to get too stressed, migraines occurring every so often. He looked up on his phone or during his free time while you were out at class and he was back home to research, but not too deeply. He wanted to adjust to you and he did

He was known as miracle boy for a reason

Ushi: 

You had seen all the signs, especially the biggest sign that always told you a migraine was coming: more frequent yawning but when it came to sleeping at night, you couldn’t even fall asleep until the night was halfway over and just a few hours later, you would feel Ushi shifting in bed, waking up

Your head was the biggest pain in your life and you hated it. The way one half of your head would throb and go through surges of sharp pain, it made you see stars but this time was a bit different

It was worse

You pressed your pillow over your head, pressing the soft and silky fabric into your face, biting your lip down to stifle your cries to not wake Ushi beside you

You already felt like you were a burden to him since he was new to being in the relationship scene but he was willing to learn if it meant he could be with you since he felt some sort of gravitational pull toward you from the beginning

You felt so sick and your eyes burned whenever you closed them, tears glided down your face and into your hair as you laid in the dark, suffering alone, silently

The feeling of pins and needles began to prickle in your hands as you continued to press the pillow into your face, a small yelp escaping you but into the plush pillow

You shut yourself up as fast as you could, essentially holding your breath to hear if he had woken up or if he stirred

But then you felt it. You felt a first grasp from a kind hand loosely wrap around your wrist in the dark, tugging it gently

“Y/N? Is it another migraine?” Ushi’s voice was deep and rich with sleep. You gathered yourself and carefully lifted the pillow, revealing yourself

The gentle light of the lamp post shined in through the window through the blinds, the dim white light revealing your teary eyes to him

“What happened?” He woke up a bit more, bringing his hand to your face, using the back of his middle and index finger to brush away remaining tears

“It… it hurts and I can’t sleep,” your voice was so weak and frail, just above a whisper. You just wanted to sleep deeply, being washed away by the dreams of the sand man, to be overtaken by any dreams he could show you tonight but you saw nothing

Careful not to make things worse for you, he lifted the blanket and opened his arms, inviting you in

You inched closer until you were laid beside his body, your feet tangled with his legs. He closed his arm around you and turned just the slightest so he laid on his back, your head on his shoulder beside his chest

With one hand, he held yours, resting them on his stomach while the other that wrapped around you from behind reached up to your head, massaging your scalp

He could remember the first time when the two of you became a couple, how “awkward” as others said he was around you but he could care less. He knew he had feelings for you and cared about you in a way that was different from family, friends, and volleyball and it was enough for him

He was very unsure of what to do when you had your first migraine around him, not knowing what to do or who to call until you were able to instruct him a bit after easing yourself temporarily

You were able to bring him out of a shell he didn’t even realize he was in himself and he yearned to grow with you, so learning how to help you when you had your migraines was a step out of many others he was willing to take

He laid awake, quietly hushing your cries away, continuing his ministrations until you were asleep, not sleeping a blink until you were first

Even if it took you all night to sleep, he was willing to stay up all night for you

Sakusa: 

Sundays were bittersweet days to you- they were the days Sakusa was home all the time, unless he had a rest day on other days of the week too, but they were also the day he deep cleaned the house

This meant dusting, vacuuming, washing sheets and clothes, doing the dishes, washing and cleaning every inch of the house and car inside and out (though only washing his car ever few months than every week)

But the thing was, this meant every Sunday of the week, you were prone to migraines cause of the heavy smell of chemicals

Sakusa was very aware of your frequent migraines and did his best to air out the house without letting germs in, buying and using non scented/ less heavy chemical scented cleaning products

He was pretty busy during the week so he didn’t even notice that he was running low on the non-scented/ lightly scented cleaning products so when Sunday, today, came, he had to use the heavy smelling one

He warned you before hand when he realized this, mentally cursing himself

You were already feeling a little sick yourself since your body was used to feeling a little dizzy every Sunday from the smells

He turned on the cleaned and dusted fans as he cleaned throughout the ground level of the house while you were out to pick up some groceries, hopefully it would be enough

But he was wrong

When you came home, the house was wafted all over with the heavy smells of chemicals, it burned your eyes a little

The smell was so sharp but it didn’t compare to the sharp pain as if someone was slowly torturing you

You weakly brought to the groceries to the kitchen and poured yourself some water as Sakusa busied himself vacuuming in the living room, the cleaning materials he needed to wipe and dust every surface and corner he could see

The fans over the stove were on, set on the highest settings and so were the various stand fans in the living room. From what you could hear and see, he turned on all the fans he could to air out the house the best

But the smells were still too strong

The water helped but you quickly concealed your mask over your mouth and nose, bringing up the collar of your shirt over your mask

You pressed your shirt and mask over your face, getting rid of the smells and Troyes to ground yourself back down to the smell of yourself, going upstairs

The house was bright and of course everything was spotless, he wouldn’t have it any other way

Sakusa didn’t even notice you were home or you going upstairs, too engrossed in what he was doing

Going upstairs, the smell was thankfully a lot less potent and more fans blew all through the rooms and halls of upstairs

Your shared bedroom was brightly lit with the sun shining in, glowing off the white walls, warm against your skin

The pain was bearable, you were grateful you kept your mask on and he had fans on but wish you got a heads up

The bathroom had little to no scent at all to your relief after you cautiously lowered your shirt and mask, smelling nothing

But even though there was no strong smell, you still felt very nauseous and sick

Your shower wasn’t too long but I twas enough for you. All you wanted to do was lie down and rest so this was your current mission

Drying off, you wrapped the towel around yourself and went into the closet, dressing yourself into one of Sakusa’s jumpers

You could already hear the hissy fit he would probably throw since he wasn’t the fondest of having others wearing his clothes but you figured it would make things equal

You crawled into the crisp fresh sheets of the wide bed. You surrounded yourself with his scent- a clean one but not like any of the cleaning products

You fell asleep, hugging one of his pillows close to you, your face nuzzled into the plush thing when you felt the bed shift, stirring you from your sleep

Arms slowly wrapped around you, pulling you closer after a moment

“Sorry about the smells, are you okay?” He asked, resisting the urge to snatch his pillow back but he pushed it aside, his attention on you

“Mmhm,” you hummed softly, turning in your sleep and released the pillow, nuzzling your face into his cleanly washed shirt and chest instead

~~~~~ Thanks for reading! Masterlist for more! Please do not repost anywhere else!

Tags (let me know if you wanna be tagged for all my haikyuu posts): @yams046  @mazey-chan  @sunboikyo00  @kara-grayson04​  @fortheloveofbakugo​ @tsumtsumsemi​

[mandoalorian]

Sugar and Spice [Maxwell Lord x Reader] - Chapter 1

Summary: When you are evicted from your apartment by your toxic ex boyfriend and have no place to go, who do you turn to? Alone in the city as the countdown to Christmas begins, you find yourself applying for a job as the assistant of the world’s biggest entrepreneur; Maxwell Lord. Little do you know, he has other intentions for you. No doubt about it, this Christmas will truly be like no other.

Word count: 4k

Warnings: Eventual smut, mentions of a previous verbally abusive relationship, typical 80s misogyny (but very little of it), mentions of food and drink, alcohol consumption. This is a sugardaddy x sugarbaby fic soooo... a daddy k!nk too oops.

But in this chapter - mentions of a verbally abusive relationship

Author’s note: Happy November 1st! Here is chapter one of December Magic. I am so so grateful for how many people have asked to be part of a taglist/enjoyed the prologue. It makes me so happy. If you want to be tagged in future parts please let me know! Enjoy x

MASTERLIST | SUBMIT REQUESTS

PREVIOUS - CHAPTER ONE - NEXT

Waking up on December 1st, you had no idea what was in store for you. You had no idea how the coming month would change your life forever.

It was that time of the year again. Your favourite time of year, and boy were you a sucker for tradition. Any excuse to light your cinnamon and pinecone scented candles and wear the cosiest wooliest sweaters you could find. The time of year where you would search around in storage for your favourite cashmere gloves, tartan scarf and faux fur hat. It was the time of year where you had to have your car defrosted every morning. The thought of your peppermint mocha warming your hands as you did your Christmas shopping was something to look forward to all year round.

The crisp cool air hung above your shoulders. Washington DC felt bigger than life when you were amongst the bustling December crowds, city life filled with people running around trying to get sorted in time for Christmas. The whole city was painted in thick layers of white snow and an abundance of glittering fairy lights. WHAM’s new Christmas song was a number one hit and the catchy melody filled up the department store on every main street corner. But this year was different to any other.

“You can’t pay, you can’t live here. You have three days to box up your stuff before you’re evicted.” Your landlord, Tristan, said sternly, his voice completely monotone and with no empathy whatsoever. You knew it was coming. You had determined that this was your karma.

“Please, it’s Christmas and I’ve just been laid off from my job. You know my family don’t live in the state and-”

“Not my problem,” Tristan snapped back, a small smirk playing on his lips. He had a habit of interrupting you, but doing so at this very moment irked you like no other time. “You’re a big girl. Figure it out.” And with that, he slammed his door in your face.

You stood there momentarily trying to process the confrontation that had just occurred between not only your landlord, but also ex-boyfriend, Tristan. You consider yourself lucky to have a place as nice as your apartment. It was located right in the centre of Washington DC, a two bedroom, one bathroom, with an outstanding view of the city. You always admired how it looked at night, with eccentric tall buildings lighting up the skyline. But now you were essentially made homeless, and you knew for a fact that Tristan was getting a rise out of making you suffer like this.

That’s exactly why you broke up with him. He liked to have power over you, and everyone else he met. He wanted to be the top man. He wanted to be feared; and by the rest of the people in the building? He was. But by you, not so much. His attempts to make you scared were foolish and you wouldn’t stand for it. You’d think for someone who made a living from robbing people of their hard earned money, they would be able to afford a better anniversary dinner than Pizza Hut— but no. The two of you sat in the restaurant and you were lazily dipping your nachos into the cheese sauce when he came out with something preposterous. 

“I’m thinking about upping rent,” Tristan informed you with his signature smile. “By forty percent.”

You almost choked on your food. “Forty percent?!” you gasped, covering your mouth as you coughed slightly. “You can’t do that!” You knew that you could get out of paying it because, girlfriend privilege. But you were also aware of the financial status of your neighbours. The family of five who could barely afford to put food on the table, and the teenage boy who had to drop out of school to work and make an earning so he could provide medication for his sick mother. They were already struggling and with a rent rise, you just knew they wouldn't be able to take it.

“And why not?” Tristan raised an eyebrow quizzically, taking a bite of the floppy slice of pizza. You scrunch your nose up as you watched him eat with his mouth open, bits of cheese falling out and onto the table.

“Because it’s not fair,” You told him. “It’s greedy. If you need extra cash you could always look for another job. Even if it’s just part time! I heard Black Gold Cooperative are hiring and you just know the pay will be good-”

Tristan slammed his fists on the table, making you jump at his sudden movement. A few heads turned to face you both and you felt your cheeks heat up in embarrassment. “Black Gold Cooperative?” He snarled. “And work for that self righteous asshole Maxwell Lord? I don’t think so, sweetie.”

You sighed at his audacity to call anyone else self righteous before giving the chance to check his own behaviour.

“It was just a suggestion.” You mumbled, avoiding eye contact with him.

“Right, because you don’t think being a landlord is a real job.” Tristan said nastily. His tone of voice sent a shiver down your spine. He was doing it again. He was speaking down to you because it was the only way he could exert power over you. “Says the girl who pours coffee all day and only works twenty hours a week and barely makes enough to avoid a goddamn bowl of pasta from Pizza Hut.” He pointed at your bowl of nachos that you had selected from the Starters menu.

You were getting really sick of his attitude. “It’s dishonest work.” You growled back at him. “You overcharge families and people who can barely get by just so they can have a roof over their head! Don’t you see how immoral that is?”

“Someone has to do it.” He shrugged cooly, taking a sip of his red wine.

“But you’re going about it the wrong way!”

“Right.” Tristan stood up and grabbed your arm. He pulled you out of your chair and dragged you outside of the restaurant. 

“Let go of me!” You cried out, yanking your arm out of his hard grip. You rubbed where his fingers had dug into your skin and had no doubt it would leave a bruise.

“Oh, I’m sorry, is the broke ass barista telling me how to do my job? You’re the one to talk. You’re nothing. And you’d be nothing without me. Look at yourself,” Tristan scoffed, and suddenly he was making you feel very self conscious. “You were foolish enough to think you could move to DC and make something of yourself. You have ambition but you don’t know how to use it. And the way you tried to embarrass me during our anniversary dinner…” He was doing what he always did. Villainsing you.

“I never want to see you again.” You spat, tears threatening to spill from your eyes. Your voice was shaky but you didn't want to break down in front of him. You didn't want to give him that satisfaction.

“That’ll be hard since we live in the same building,” he rolled his eyes and tried grabbing your hand again but you flinched away, fear prevailing in your eyes. “Oh come on baby.”

“Don’t call me that.” You said through gritted teeth. “I’m calling a cab. And don’t bother calling me. See you around Tristan.” 

And that was the last time you had seen Tristan, until today— talk about bad break-ups. 

You shuffled upstairs back to your apartment and slumped against the door trying to figure out how you were going to find a new place to live in three days. Maybe if you found a job you could persuade Tristan to let you stay a little longer. You knew that's what he wanted. Everything he had done, everything he said, was to scare you. But Tristan was attached and despite threatening to evict you, he didn't want to see you leave.

You wanted out. Your apartment was filled with bad memories and maybe this was your opportunity to start fresh. This could be your calling. But judging from your current situation and the time of year, you figured you’d be lucky just finding a roadside motel to spend Christmas day in— and you really didn't want that. You grabbed the phone book from under your coffee table and walked over to the dial up phone hung by the kitchen door. Locating one of the most popular property marketplaces in central DC, you dialled up and found your fingers twirling in the telephone wire.

“Hey,” you greeted.

“Hello!” an older sounding lady chirped on the other end of the line. “How can I be of service?”

“I um, I gotta find a place to live— and fast. I’m getting evicted and my budget, well, I don’t have a lot-” your eyes scanned the living room as you weighed up possible things you could sell for just a little more cash.

“Oh, I’m sorry dear. We’re shut for the holidays and there's no place in DC that will help you find a place before new year,” She said sadly and you couldn't believe your bad luck. No place at all? “It really is a shame that you're being evicted, but if you drop into our store after the new year, I’d love to help you find a place that is suitable for you and your budget!”

You were left rendered speechless. “I- I’m going to be homeless.” you said to yourself, the fact finally dawning on you. You knew that you wouldn't ever be truly homeless and that Tristan would be more than happy to let you stay with him during the holiday season but the thought of having to go back to him knocked you sick. You’d rather freeze on a street corner than feel his embrace once more. You wondered if you could travel back home to see your family. “Hey, are there any train trips or flights to Oregon?” you asked.

“Nope,” the lady popped her p and she sounded far too cheery for your liking. “Tickets have been sold out for months. I could get you a flight for January 12th?”

“No.” you mumbled. “My car broke down… but what are the chances I could get a cabbie to Oregon?”

“You want to get a cab to Oregon?” The woman on the other end laughed in disbelief, and you supposed that could be justified. “You can't be serious. Besides, Astoria bridge has been closed down due to last week's snow storm and I can't see it reopening until after the snow has cleared. Heaven knows when that will be.”

Tristan had really caught you in a loop. “So there is no way I can find a place to stay, nor travel to Oregon, at all, this month?”

“I’m sorry dear.”

“Okay, well thank you for your help.” You said wistfully, feeling dread forming in the pit of your stomach.

“Merry Christmas and have a hap-” You hung up on her.

You weren't ready to give up hope just yet. If there was one thing you always clung on to, it was faith. Your belief that everything happens for a reason and everything is sure to work out for the best in the end. You figured you could go job hunting and then tell Tristan you would be able to pay him double once you got your first paycheck. No, it wasn't ideal but what other choice did you have?

You grabbed your jacket and purse before leaving your apartment. Did you have a plan? No. You didn't even have your resumé with you.

You plodged your feet through the snow, your socks dampening even through your boots but finally made it to the bustling main street. You looked in the windows of all the different department stores and in desperate search for hiring signs, even going inside and inquiring with members of staff— but there were no positions available.

Just then, you found yourself outside of Black Gold Cooperative and you remembered that they were hiring. Granted, you didn't know what the position was, and figured you almost certainly didn't have the qualifications to work for such a prestigious business.

You looked up at the tall building, always feeling like an overwhelmed tiny insect when you stood next to it. It sparkled a sleek black and in a large, gold, cursive font BGC was displayed so high it looked over the whole city. It was certainly the tallest skyscraper you had ever seen with your own pair of eyes. In that moment, you almost backed down. But this wasn't a choice anymore and you had to shoot your shot. Just roll with it. You told yourself.

You were able to take a peek at the lobby in the double door entrance. Everything was marble with gold embellishments. If you hadn't known any better, you would've thought it was a palace. Trodding over the red carpet, you were stopped by a man’s arm, not allowing you to enter. “Name and business?" He asked, his voice rough. You looked up at him. Tall and broad, no hair and dressed in all black. A doorman that looked like a nightclub bodyguard. If you weren't intimidated you would've laughed.

“Sorry?” you asked, trying your best to sound as innocent and polite as could be.

“Name and business.” He repeated, his tone of voice the same. He didn't budge— still standing there with his arms folded against his chest. You weren't even sure if he was looking at you, with his black sunglasses hiding his face.

“Uhm,” you stood on your tip toes and took a glance at the clipboard which was pressed between his forearm and chest. Names that had been typewritten were printed on the page and most of them had been crossed out— bar one. You read out the name. “Barbara Minerva.” you said confidently. He looked at you for sure this time and pulled his glasses off, narrowing his eyes. He took the clipboard and checked for your fake name and sure enough, there it was.

“You’re Barbara Minerva?” he beckoned, raising an eyebrow.

“The one and only.” you lied with a charming smile. “And my business is…. actually I'm here for a job interview.”

“Oh!” the man grinned, like something had clicked in his mind. He scribbled out Barbara's name on your clipboard and ushered you inside. “Mr Lord’s office is on the top floor. Best of luck Ms Minerva.”

When you entered the lobby, warmth washed over your body and you couldn't help but smile. It was all lit up with yellow fairy lights and an enormous twelve foot Christmas tree in the centre. The tree was decorated with red and golden baubles. It was simply magnificent and looked like it was straight out of a catalogue.

You walked over to the elevator and pressed the button. No way would you be walking up 22 flights of stairs to the top floor. You really couldn't believe you were even granted access to the building, nevermind the fact you now had an interview with the self acclaimed and prestigious mutli-billionaire Maxwell Lord. A feeling of dread filled your stomach. What if he caught on? What if he figured out you weren't this Barbara woman? Could you go to jail? You tried your best to shrug the feeling off and remain confident. To be honest, you'd rather spend Christmas locked away in a cell than with Tristan. You promised yourself that this would be worth it.

The top floor was sleek, a long and wide corridor with an office at the very end. Marble statues were dotted around, and the walls were filled with oil paintings bordered with solid gold frames. At the front, not too far from where the elevator had dropped you off, was a help desk. Three women with sleek hair and matching pencil skirts scoped you out, almost glaring at you. You were sure you noticed one of them stifle a laugh. But you were too mesmerised by your surroundings to care. Everywhere you looked was just so magnificent.

"Can I help you?" one of the ladies snapped you out of your thoughts. Your head bolted in their direction.

"Oh!" you exclaimed, pulling off your faux fur hat and sliding the gloves off your fingers. You shoved them hap-hazardly in your coat pocket. "I'm Barbara Minerva," you introduced yourself with the politest smile you could muster. "I have an interview with Maxwell Lord?"

The three girls gawked at you in silence. It was like you had grown a third head. "You have an interview with Mr Lord?" one of the women raised her eyebrows. She flicked her blonde long ponytail and settled a hand on her hip.

You hesitated, considering her rude attitude for a moment. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I do."

The three girls started at you for just a beat too long before one of them, with the sleekest ebony hair you had ever seen, handed you a document. "You need to sign this NDA." she said simply, rolling a pen over to you.

Your eyes scanned the document which just so happened to be very vague. "Why the need for a non disclosure agreement?" you beckoned. "It's just a job interview."

The blonde girl snorted and the ebony haired girl slapped her arm. "Yeah, just a job interview." The blonde assistant rolled her eyes, a small smirk playing on her lips. "We don't make the rules, Mr Lord does. And we know better than to question him."

This was really odd. You wondered if it was really worth it but you had already come this far— you couldn't just walk out now. You sighed and signed your name over the NDA. The blonde girl let out a cackle.

"Is there a problem?" you questioned, stone faced and unamused.

Your heart was racing. These ladies were so pushy and you were certain that if it was going to go wrong at some point— it would be now.

"No, not at all," a girl with chestnut hair smiled. "That's just Stephanie being a bitch as per usual." The blonde girl, who you now could identify as Stephanie gasped.

"I am not a bitch!" Stephanie cried.

"You kinda are." The ebony haired girl shrugged her shoulders.

"Shut up Amanda!" Stephanie spat. Amanda rolled her eyes and blew a bubble of gum before analysing her nail beds.

"Brittany started it." Amanda accused and before you knew it, the three girls began to cat fight each other.

"I- I'm just going to take a seat over there." You said, trying to speak over the girls who were shouting at each other.

"Amanda you know Mr Lord hates it when you blow bubbles with your gum!" Stephanie accused, narrowing her eyes.

"She does it because he still won't let her blow him." Brittany cackled.

"That is not true." Amanda gasped again, shaking her head.

You felt yourself waver out of their little argument, truly taken by surprise at how unprofessional they were being. You expected higher standards from people who were employed by Maxwell Lord. You shuffled into the black leather sofa, trying to get cosy when the double doors to his office opened. You adjusted yourself, watching as a young looking girl walked out. She didn't make eye contact with anyone, her movements were almost robotic.

"How do you think she coped?" You heard Stephanie whisper.

"Look at her," Brittany replied. "She's a mess. I better go check on Mr Lord."

"No, I'll check on Mr Lord."

"NO, I'll check on Mr Lord."

Once again, you muffled out their argument and paid close attention to the girl. As she neared you, you saw her lipstick was smeared to one side and her cheeks were tear stained— black kohl eyeliner smudged just as much as her lipstick. Had she been crying? You felt your nerves increase and you picked up on the fact that she was walking with a limp. Noticing the three girls race to Maxwell's office, you took the chance to approach the young girl. You stood up and held your hand out.

"Hey, are you okay?" you asked her, taking a compact mirror out of your purse and handing it to her. She shook her head, rejecting your sentiment. "What- uhm, what's he like?" You asked her hesitantly.

"He's just the way you imagine him to be." She told you with a shaky exhale. You rolled your shoulders back as you contemplated her words. You hadn't really thought much of Maxwell Lord. Of course, everyone in the world knew who he was. For generations, the Lord family had shares in the oil drilling enterprise, but Maxwell Lord IV made a name for himself when he bought out 90% of the oil fields around the world; his father only owning a measly and yet still impressive 15% before him. The front page of Forbes magazine three years in a row— practically the face of 80s television with his cheesy infomercials being broadcast on every channel, every time of the day. Everyone knew his face, they knew his voice, they knew Maxwell Lord. Stories about him graced the tabloids, speculating who his latest lover was, whether or not there had been a new strain on his family and what his financial earnings looked like circa 1984. "He's just getting cleaned up now," the girl informed you with hazy eyes. "Maybe do yourself a favour and bring yourself tissue."

"That bad huh?" you bit your finger anxiously.

"No, he's amazing." the girl swooned. "I just hope I get a call back."

Okay, now you were really confused. "Well, good luck." You offered her a warm smile but she just bit her lip and continued limping to the elevator. A few moments later, the three girls who manned the main desk approached you. Stephanie took a step forward, offering you quite possibly the fakest smile you had ever seen.

"Mr Lord will see you know."

Taglists: [comment or drop me an ask if here if you would like to be added]

December Magic: @goth-topic (im so sorry it won’t let me tag you) @kiwi-the-first​ @100layersofdaddyissues​ @mrschiltoncat​ @honeymandos​ @thisisthe-way​

Permanent: @supernaturalgirl​ @phoenixhalliwell​ @ah-callie​ @luvzoria​

[imaginesupply]

Sore backs and tented shorts, or  The one where Tom gets a massage

Tom Hiddleston x Reader one-shot 

It’s been ages since I’ve written anything and I’m feeling a bit rusty but inspiration just hit and my three remaining braincells - who’ve survived the current heatwave so far - came up with this smutty filth. 

I hope you’ll enjoy! Let me know what you think :) (It’s proofread but it seems by ability to spot typos and mistakes rises by 200% percent as soon as I hit post.)

Word count: About 2.6k

Warnings: Oral sex (male receiving), improper uses of the word ‘God’ and unrealistic descriptions of massages. 

---

Tom stretched, trying to pop the knots on his back, as he sat down to rest between scenes. Maybe he was getting old, too old for this, Tom pondered for a second before mentally slapping himself on the face. Who was he kidding? Loki was a role he'd never give up on, as in never ever. 

So if that meant performing the various stunts himself for authenticity's sake and suffering through it, he would do it, without complaining.

He stretched once more, giving the battered script one last read before getting ready to shoot the next scene of the series.

The camera crew adjusted the filming angles while the make up artist powdered his face, making sure there was no excessive shine to his skin. Loki would certainly not break a sweat running away from a building he himself set on fire and throwing himself on the ground with a grin just a second before it all exploded. 

Yes, Loki would undoubtedly be grinning in that situation, Tom reckoned. The human, however, tried not to flinch as he realised he'd have to run and throw himself on the mattress with all his strength, again and again. The mattress was certainly softer than the ground they'd CGI into the scene, but his body was also certainly more breakable than Loki's.

One hour later, Tom was spent. Letting himself collapse on the blue stunt mattress, he was relieved that everyone had finally agreed that the take had been perfect - the grin, the hair, the elegance. The only thing he wanted now was to hurry home and sleep. Maybe he could ever delay his shower to the next morning if he changed the sheets upon waking up, he negotiated with himself.

"Hey, you okay?" 

Tom opened an eye only to find Kate crouched over him, a frown obscuring her features. "Yeah, I'm just feeling a little worn down, that's all."

Kate nodded to herself. For a second she felt guilty she was asking too much of him, but then they'd both agreed that they wanted the series to be perfect, whatever it took. "You were great back there."

His eyes were already closing again and he only nodded noncommittally. "Anyway, I suggest you go take a shower. The message therapist I booked for you is already setting up."

Tom sat up in a flash, his back protesting the movement. "That's very kind but I'm alright, no need for-"

"Be ready in ten minutes unless you want to be late," Kate interrupted him, challenging his British punctuality. He opened his mouth again, but she waved him off, knowing what he was going to say. "Bobby has been fed and walked. He's lying outside right now with part of the crew, enjoying the last sun rays of the day." 

Tom cursed internally and got up, feeling outsmarted. This was not something he was looking forward to but he'd be damned if he showed up late.

"Also, this will be routine until we finish shooting." Kate added quietly before running off.

--- Water droplets ran down his back as he stepped out of the shower, a white towel wrapped low around his hips. Sighing, he cleaned some of the fog on the mirror with his hand and then proceeded to tumble dry his black hair before adding some nourishing product to it. 

It was only then that he remembered he had no change of clothes with him, more specifically underwear, since he always preferred showering at home. Contemplating his clothes on the back of the chair, he concluded that he didn't have many options unless he wanted to put on the boxers briefs he had worn all day or go nude. Tom chuckled to himself at the latter thought, already imagining a young male therapist telling him to take his English countryside back over the pond. Deciding not to make the person he'd have to see for the next month uncomfortable on the very first day, Tom pulled on the black running shorts he had worn to set that morning, going commando underneath.

--- 

One minute late, Tom knocked on the door to the infirmary. 

"Come on in." A voice replied. A feminine voice to be exact. Not what he had expected.

Obeying the lady, Tom opened the door and let himself in, his eyes landing on his new massage therapist for the very first time. Clearly not what he had expected. Tom swallowed, using his acting skills to appear nonchalant even as he subtly - or at least, as subtly as was possible in such small quarters - eyed the woman in front of him. 

Her hair was tied back in a neat ponytail, revealing the elegant curve of her neck. She was wearing a tight fitting white t-shirt with equally white yoga pants. A look of purity all in all though it had his mind immediately wandering to the realms of exquisitely impure thoughts.

"Hi! I'm (Y/N). Nice to meet you, Tom," she introduced herself, stretching out her hand for him to shake. "Oh! Do you mind me calling you Tom? I can also go for Mister Hiddleston if you prefer."

Tom suppressed a groan, there was always something about being called that that got his mind spinning. Chastising himself, he shook her hand, flexing his biceps more than was necessary. Her hand was soft and warm and small, exactly what he needed. "Nice to meet you, (Y/N). Please do call me Tom. We'll be seeing each other quite a lot after all."

She nodded, smiling kindly before telling him to lie down on the massage table. Tom noticed that it was in fact surprisingly wide, but didn't think much of it. Maybe Kate was right, he needed this. His body undeniably did and if he were honest, he had been craving the touch of another human, feeling rather lonely as of late. Most of his friends were back in London, and those that weren't, were still too far away. As for a different kind of touch, a woman's company to be more exact, he couldn't remember the last time he had being blessed with it either. Definitely before Atlanta, he concluded. 

He barely heard her move around, her naked feet making little to no noise on the floor. "We will do a combination of deep tissue and Thai massage today, so that I can determine your problem areas for the next time."

Tom was in fact aware of a very problematic area of his but decided to spare her the dirty joke. He just didn't realise quite yet how problematic that area was in fact going to become.

(Y/N) came to a stop in front him, he could feel her presence as she warmed the oil between her palms before finally gliding her hands over the skin of his back. Tom couldn't help the pleasurable hum that escaped his lips as she started working out the knots on his back, some of them loosening under her touch with an audible crack that had her chuckling. God, even her voice was perfect. Dozing off was becoming more and more tempting to Tom, his eyelids feeling heavier than ever when she bent forward over his body to reach farther down his back. He felt her breasts press against him as she did so, the back of his head suddenly encompassed between them. Yes, there was the bra and then that pesky t-shirt between her chest and his skin but his body didn't seem to care. Not even one bit.

Clenching his teeth, Tom felt blood rush down to his once again problematic area. The fact that his dick was squished under him only served to make the situation all the more uncomfortable. Tom groaned, wether from arousal or frustration, he wasn't sure.

"Are you okay, Tom? Did I hurt you?" (Y/N) asked with concern. 

Tom swallowed nervously. "No, don't worry. Your hands feel great."

She moved away from him, the weight of breasts gone and he breathed out in relief. That is, until he heard her climb onto the massage table with him.

What the-? It was then that he remembered what a Thai message entailed from a vague conversation he'd once had with Ben and Sophie.

Before he could come up with a way to get out of this... predicament, (Y/N) straddled his hips and all but sat down on his butt. His cock immediately reacted to change in pressure.

"You've got quite a knot here," she explained, softly rubbing her fingers near his spine, about halfway up his back. "I'm going to try and break up the knotted tissue. Tell me if it hurts too much."

It did hurt, the way the heel of her hand pressed against the sensitive area. But it definitely didn't hurt enough to kill his arousal. If anything, it made it worse with the way he felt her weight shift above him whenever she moved. Instead of relaxing, he was only growing more tense. 

As Tom felt precum bead on his glans as she climbed off of him, having him feel equally disappointed and relieved when she went to work on his legs.

Her hands felt heavenly, sometimes painfully heavenly, as they moved over his calves. Not that it is eased his arousal, but Tom was confident that the massage was almost done and he'd soon be able to climb into the shower again and use the opportunity to wank himself to an orgasm. 

He'd certainly think of her as he'd stroke his shaft later, imagining she was there with him. Water running down her body, rendering her obscene white t-shirt transparent, her nipples visibly pebbling even behind two layers of fabric. His cock seemed to enjoy his fantasy as well, now so hard that Tom seriously started considering rubbing himself on the towel draped over the table to find some relief.

His thoughts were interrupted when she moved over his knees, to his his thighs. Her delicate fingers folding back his shorts to reveal more of his legs. Tom jerked suddenly, trying to hide his erection from her hands and crushing it under his belly in the process. He winced. 

Undoubtedly sensing Tom was tensing up again, (Y/N) made quick work of his thighs. Maybe he was a bit shy and didn't like being touched there, she reckoned, shrugging to herself to hide her disappointment. She'd always enjoyed her job, finding satisfaction in other people's well-being. But massaging Tom Hiddleston? She would have done it for free (don't tell her boss!).

"Please turn around, Tom." She said softly after finishing up the back of his legs

He startled. "What?!" Came his terrified voice. 

(Y/N) frowned. "Can you please lie down on your back now? So that I can work on your chest and the front of your legs."

Tom stilled, silently panicking. "That won't be necessary. It's quite late and I'm feeling much better already."

"Nonsense. I won't leave you unfinished," she protested, his cock twisting her words. "Besides, my boss would kill me if she ever found out I left a client halfway through a massage."

His jaw clenched. He was torn between two equally bad options, but in the end, he inner gentleman couldn't stand to be the one to jeopardise her job.

Slowly, Tom turned around on the table, still hoping that his erection wouldn't be as noticeable as it felt but the tent in his shorts was impossible to hide, sticking straight up to the ceiling.

She stared at his face curiously, observing his reddening cheeks before lowering her gaze. "Oh," she gasped.

Somehow, part of him had hoped her reaction would have been less shocked and perhaps a bit more pleased. As it was, she just stood there like that and he threw his forearm over his eyes, hoping it would lessen the embarrassment. It didn't.Sighing, he made a move to get up, hesitating whether he should apologise before leaving or if that would only make things worse.

The weight shifted on the massage table as she climbed on top, joining him on the soft padding.

Instantly, Tom lifted his head off the pillow, holding himself up on his forearms, bewilderedly watching Y/N as she knelt between his legs. "What are you doing?" He asked, his voice croaky, his eyes glued to her décolleté which the neckline failed to hide in this position. 

She looked up at him slowly, coyly, though her grin was nothing if not provocative. "Hoping to release all tension in your body," she replied, her tongue peeking through as her hands went to his hips, thumbs drawing circles over his shorts. "If you'll let me, that is." 

Tom swallowed audibly, almost expecting her to throw her head back and start laughing. But she never did. Instead, she sat back on her haunches, waiting for him to consent. "God. Yes, please!" He breathed out, his British accent growing thicker.

(Y/N) licked her lips, fingers working behind her head to tighten her ponytail. "Now that's more like it, Mister Hiddleston."

Without missing a second, she bend forward, lowering her face to place a kiss on his stomach, just below his belly button. Tom's muscles tensed in response, already looking forward to what was to come.

He struggled between the desire to watch and the impulse to lean back and simply enjoy. She made the decision for him, her hand pressing down on his sternum before moving her attention back to his groin.

Tom hissed as he felt her lips kiss the head of his cock through the lightweight fabric. His body suddered, his cock throbbed and she chuckled. (Y/ N) repeated the process a few more times, enjoying the teasing. Then, she moved her fingers to the elastic waistband and pulled his shorts down, grazing his buttocks with her nails. 

His cock sprang free, hitting his lower stomach a couple of times and Tom already felt a drop of precum slide down from the glans to his belly button. (Y/N) surprised him, first neglecting his weeping cock in favour of his balls, sucking them into her mouth one after the other, teasing them with the tip of her tongue.

Tom groaned her name, squirming beneath her and thrusting up. With a smile, (Y/N) decided to give in. She traced the tip of her nose along his length until reaching the head and then wrapped her tongue around the glans, teasing the frenulum. Tom moaned loudly 

He felt her hand wrap around the base of his cock before she took him in her mouth, as much as would fit. Instantly, his hand settled on the back of her head, caressing instead of pushing. "Just like that, darling."

She took to humming around his length, intermittently sucking in her cheeks and Tom started feeling the telltale tightening in his groin faster than he should. His hand gripped her ponytail harder, alerting her but her movements didn't slow. Tom propped himself up on his elbows, groaning at the sinful sight of debauchery in front of him.

"I'm close," he managed to warn her through clenched teeth. (Y/N) looked up at him, never halting her movements and the mischievous look she addressed him revealed that she knew exactly what she was doing.

Tom dug his heels against the padding of the table, canting up his hips and thrusting up in her mouth as his orgasm washed over him. (Y/N)meticulously sucked him clean, swallowing down rope after rope of his cum whilst humming around him.

"God, (Y/N). That was..." For once he was left without words, still dizzy with pleasure in the aftermath of his orgasm.

She licked his cum off her lips, taking in the sight in front of her with a smile, acutely aware of her own arousal. Tom's chest was flushed, heaving as he fought to regain his breath, his eyes still closed.

It was only then that she realised what she had done. She had blown Tom Hiddleston - a client.

[ilikemesometaetaes]

Don’t Hold Your Breath ~ jjk

Prologue

•••> Author: @ilikemesometaetaes​

•••> Summary: As the CEO of an international government security company, you have the world at your fingertips. Living life lavishly and extravagantly has become the norm. Behind closed doors, however, you host a past that renders you lonely and, quite frankly, miserable. It’s only a matter of time before your past comes back to bite you right in the ass.

•••> Pairing(s): Jungkook/Reader

•••> Inspo: This fic is inspired by the song “SAVAGE ANTHEM” by PARTYNEXTDOOR. Thank you to @btssmutgalore​ for everything you’ve done to help me! You’re amazing!

•••> Word Count: 2.3k

•••> Rating: 18+ • Please do not read if you are below the age of 18. I do not condone minors reading my work. Of course, I cannot stop you.

•••> Tags: angst | ceo!au | rockstar!au | CEO!Reader | Rockstar!Jungkook | AU!BTS | Exes to Lovers

•••> Warnings: a boatload of angst, heartbreak, cursing, pining, kissing, depression. Warnings are written specifically to chapter. Refer to the DHYB Main Page for the full rundown.

Note: I don’t have a beta reader so please forgive any mistakes I may have missed. Also, if you are confused by the italics, refer to the DHYB Main Page for info on that.

Copyright © 2020 ilikemesometaetaes. All Rights Reserved.

Taglist: @apurpledheart​

If you’d like to be added to the taglist, add a comment to this chapter or the DHYB Main Page!

NAVIGATION: | > Chapter One (M) –> Mini-Masterlist -> Series Masterlist

~#~

NOW.

The bed was cold around you.

You felt yourself breathe. You felt your heart beating in your chest. You felt the evidence of physical life within your body.

But you couldn’t help the withdrawn and frigid feeling of death laced into your mind.

You felt alone. You felt longing. You felt numb yet riddled with too many emotions to comprehend all at once.

Overwhelmed with confusion, you went to the moment that brought you calm. It brought you peace and happiness despite the things lost.

The beautiful dream-like vision of butterflies and a certain meadow filled your memory as you laid in the darkness. Sighing with content, you let yourself remember.

“Fuck Jimin and his girlfriend. We can have all the fun on our own.” He sneered in his Satoori accent. After years of knowing you, Jungkook slipped from his proper accent whenever the two of you were alone. All you could do was chuckle at his harsh words.

The blanket laid out before you was a pristine sky blue. Jungkook had gathered small stones to hold it down at the corners.

“What have you been up to today?” You asked with a hint of breathlessness due to the trek the two of you had made to get to the peak of the large hill. Turning your head to look at him while you spoke, you noticed that his head was craned upwards, gaze locked on the sky.

In response to your query, he collapsed back onto the blanket, allowing his white t-shirt to slightly ride up, revealing a small sliver of the skin on his stomach in the process. The white reflected the sun in your eyes almost painfully, but not enough to take away from the angel-like glow that it gave him.

“Nothing much. Played video games for an hour or so. Cooked and made breakfast.” He angled his head slightly to look at you. "Finished up my essay for my philosophy class. You?”

“Oh, just the usual. Didn’t finish my calc assignment by noon so I’m only going to get partial credit for that.”

Your reply reminded you of how different the two of you were when it came to school. His alone time spent in his dorms went one of two ways; he either played video games with Taehyung or studied- there was no other. His scoff broke you out of your brief thoughts.

“You know, you’re going to end up falling behind this semester, and then we won’t have the same class for our last semester as college students.” His pout that accompanied his statement had your eyes flicking to his bottom lip which shined with a slight sheen of saliva, accentuating the plumpness of it.

It was no secret that you found Jungkook attractive. Hell, even Yoongi found him attractive and Yoongi was quite impassive. Even now, with his eyes squinting under the light of the sun, his hair messy, and a thin layer of sweat covering his skin, you found him absolutely breathtaking.

You remembered how the two of you met.

Shared classes brought you closer together. Ever since you had first met him during your sophomore year when you became part of a foreign exchange program in South Korea, the two of you clicked. Realizing that he spoke English- rough English- had you giddy and eager to teach him to perfect his language skills in return for helping you with your Korean. Needless to say, you learned Korean a bit quicker than he learned English seeing as one of your majors was dedicated to the language learning.

After you decided to stay in Korea and finish the requirements for one of your degrees at your other university online, the two of you grew close in the process of mutual education. When you decided to stay was when you actually got to know him.

He was pursuing a degree in music, specializing in vocal performance, while you were working towards a double major in political science and language studies with a minor in business. Although you were packed full of classes, your work ethic was definitely capable of improvement despite having helped you survive to senior year.

“I know, Kook, but I honestly don’t know why math is required for my major anyway. I just want to be done with it.” You grumbled and adjusted your clothes before laying beside him.

He sighed wistfully, signifying his state of relaxation and calm, which you found yourself fighting a smile for. Of all of the time you had been around Jungkook, he was always emotionally charged or stressed. There was never a time you knew him to be absolutely at peace or silent in the way he acted. To hear him decompress was still a relatively new concept to you and had you giddy to relax with him in hopes that he would open up to you.

A few moments of silence rested between you both, effectively ending the previous conversation.

“Do you think about him anymore?” He voiced, distracting you from eyeing a cloud as it covered the sun. The break from sunlight was welcome on your straining brows.

It took you a moment to respond, caught off guard by the loaded question. He knew of your situation because you were open with him. But why did he care? “Sometimes. I know that he wasn’t good for me. I know that I gave him too much slack and that’s why he lied to me.” You sighed.

“Yeah,” He chuckled dryly. “That dude was an asshole.”

“I still don’t get it. I told him that everything he did was okay. I told him all he had to be was honest and that I wouldn’t be mad at him.” The frustration of your breakup with your ex-boyfriend was nowhere close to being gone. Eleven months of lies and deceit despite the good memories was difficult to remove from your conscience.

He had used drugs, something you weren’t a fan of. Despite this, on top of the fact that it was illegal, you knew that it helped his depression and you loved him throughout his questionable choices on how to treat himself. All you had asked for was his honesty; all you wanted was for him to tell you when he used.

Jungkook sat up to look at you. He frowned and then reached towards you to brush away some of the hair that fell over your forehead.

“I get that he did you wrong. Believe me. I get it. But the fact that you still think about it is irritating. It’s been a year, right?” His scowl made him look adorable.

“Something like that.” You sighed.

“And you haven’t moved on?” He asked, concerned. You were about to reply in defense before he cut in again. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I know you don’t have those types of feelings for him anymore, but you haven’t moved on from the situation?”

Your reply was curt. “I’ve moved on. I’m just annoyed.”

He sighed and looked down at his hand that he wasn’t leaning on, toying with the fabric of the blanket, before laying back down with an elongated exhale. He knew this conversation was over.

After a while of laying down in the sun in comfortable silence, you noticed that the clouds were starting to roll in more frequently, accompanied by a cooler breeze. When you craned your head back to look upwind, you saw the darkness of a storm system crawling across the sky.

“Hey Jungkook. I think we-“ Snore.

You cut yourself off at the sound, quickly snapping your head to survey the sleeping boy beside you. Eyebrows completely relaxed and lips slightly parted, he was a sight to behold. His hair had fallen over his eyes slightly, urging you to return the favor in brushing it out of the way. He stirred slightly before settling back down and sighing. What a sight to behold indeed.

The deep rumbling of thunder is what caused you both to jump and look at the sky. “Jesus.” He croaked while abruptly sitting up and rubbing at his eyes. “How long was I out?”

“I’m not sure. I only realized you were sleeping a few seconds ago.” You began picking up your things whilst he picked up the blanket, draping it over his arm.

The first few raindrops of the storm had only just begun; a light pitter-patter at random places in the grass began slowly at first, gradually picking up pace as you and Jungkook were packing up the last of your things.

You giggled as the rain started hitting your face. It reminded you of tiny, cold kisses. Jungkook, on the other hand, used the blanket to shield his head after slinging his backpack onto one shoulder. His face was scrunched up in an unconscious attempt to keep the rain out of his eyes.

“Let’s get out of here.” He huffed tiredly.

“Good idea.” You laughed.

The trek down the hill and back to Jungkook’s old truck accelerated to a jog following the increased pattern of raindrops hitting the ground. Before long, even you were seeking shelter under the blanket he was holding over his head. After a few minutes of laughing breathlessly and bumping into each other on the path back to the truck, you had decided to hold the other end of the blanket since he wasn’t really holding it over your head effectively. His free arm consequently ended up slung over your shoulders while your free arm draped over his.

The tan truck came into view after your twenty-minute journey back. By this point, the blanket had soaked through and both of you were drenched. Making quick work of the passenger side door, he slid in first to cross the seat while you followed suit with a huff.

“Well…” Jungkook trailed off, placing his bag and the wet blanket between you before running his fingers through his long and very wet hair in order to push it away from his eyes. “Shit.” He looked at you with finality and a small grin gracing his face.

You gazed at his beauty, glancing at his lips as he spoke, before meeting his chocolate brown gaze. Want filled your body as the adrenaline from the past few minutes surged through your veins, rendering you mute. Heartbeat running absolutely erratic and breath suddenly short, you became acutely aware of how tight of a space the two of you were in and how quiet the cabin of the truck became.

Oh, how you wanted to kiss him.

The seconds seemed to pass like hours. The mood in the truck morphed from playful and light to something else. Something thicker. Headier. Heavier.

The pressure of the moments passing by bristled you with tremors as your previous levels of adrenaline spiked almost uncontrollably. You didn’t miss the way his bottom lip twitched in the slightest of movement.

His eyes glanced at your lips for a split second, giving you no time to adjust to the quick movement, before his hand was on the back of your neck to usher you to him in a messy kiss. Heat flooded your body as the taste of his breath caressed your tongue.

“Y/N.” He breathed after momentarily pulling away. His dark eyes were filled with passionate fire, pupils dilated almost scarily. “You-” His lips reattached to yours before he could finish speaking, illuminating just how shocked and pleased he was with your kiss.

His lips were as soft as silk as they glid against your own, slotting perfectly in shape. His warm breath tasted mildly of morning breath- not that you minded- but mostly blueberry as you came to discover that he had slipped a jolly rancher into his mouth sometime during your journey back to the truck. You giggled at the thought of how much he loved candy, earning a smile from him as he continued to press his lips to your own.

There was no way you’d be able to pull away just to speak. Speaking was so unnecessary. Words were irrelevant in that moment. 

Why speak when you could kiss him? When you could feel the way his lips moved against yours in ways they could never move when speaking? When they conveyed more emotions than any word could ever express? Why would you even bother ever speaking anymore when you could spend the rest of your life kissing Jeon Jungkook?

You answered your own questions as his arm lopped around your waist to pull your body closer to his: you wouldn’t.

Of course, those were thoughts in the heat of the moment. Simpler times called for simpler feelings. The pure and innocent ardor of love and adoration paired with the excitement of new attraction was a welcome sensation in contrast to the empty and cold feeling of your everyday life. You were sick of feeling numb.

Too many years were spent in emotional solitary confinement. Keeping your emotions at bay began affecting your health, causing your hair to thin and your skin to wither like paper. It took looking at yourself in the mirror after mulling over a photo of you and Jungkook before you noticed the difference. You hadn’t even noticed that you lost a considerable amount of weight.

Therapy had helped for a little while, but it didn’t assist you when you began seeing his face on news articles and TV once your sessions ended.

Even after the things that he had done, you were no stranger to the feeling of longing that you had for him- for the echoes of what used to be.

In your cold, companionless room, tears ran down your cheeks in mourning.

Of course, it was too good to last.

[mamahersh]

The Road to Hell (is Paved with Good Intentions) Chapter 6

“Season 8 was well underway, and the server’s first conflict is bubbling just under the surface. But BDoubleO can’t worry about that right now because he has an Etho to find so they can work on the Horse Course together. However when Xisuma calls a surprise server meeting on behalf of EvilXisuma, BDubs gets his answers about where Etho’s been in the worst way possible.”

(CW: angst, blood, gore, torture)

Chapter rating: M

Sorry, chapter’s a little on the shorter side today, but that’s how the cookie crumbled, eh? On plus y’all get a long boi for a final chapter tomorrow! But yes, please enjoy BDubs and Etho centered chapter!

As always, if you enjoyed this chapter or this fic, I was directly inspired by this oneshot on AO3, so give them some love!

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 7 (Final chapter!)

They had been trying to find the hidden base for the last hour and a half, and they were still no closer to finding Etho. BDubs wanted to viciously tear something limb from limb (not really, he had felt that bloodlust already, and he couldn’t do that to himself again). The multiple scout groups were still in the process of methodically digging down and then flying back up out of the hole only to travel 9 blocks forward to do it all over again. The worst part was that they were only about half way done with this, and still no sign of Etho. Pulling his head back and stretching out his shoulders, BDubs looked around the hole he was in and double checked his communicator to see what his Y coordinate was. Seeing he was at the bottom of the digging depth they had set, he sighed and pulled out his rockets to fly out. Mechanically, he hopped up and let the wings on his back catch the air as he launched straight up with a rocket. Knowing he would need multiple to get out, he spammed 4 more rockets in quick succession to get out of the hole. However he accidentally set off 5, and flew far above the ground out of the hole, and into the blue sky. He cursed under his breath, as this was a waste of time that he could be spending digging. But before he was about to take off his wings to fall at terminal velocity to the ground, he caught sight of something on the edge of his render distance near build height. He didn’t think anyone had been building up that far, and realizing it was a bit along the same axis they were trying to explore, he flew up even higher to try and get a better look at whatever it was.

The closer BDubs got to the structure, the more hope began to pool in his chest. The structure was a strange box up at world build height, seemingly made out of obsidian. The box itself was a large 13x13x7 cubic room, with seemingly no entrances nor exits. BDubs could think of nothing else other than it would be simple to hide a 9x9x3 box inside and protect it with layers of obsidian and lava. Not wanting to break his cover just yet, he decided to make a note of the coords in chat without sending it; and then fly to the next closest searching Hermit. 

He quickly found Tango, and explained the situation to him, before they both flew off back to the coordinates to investigate. “I can see what you mean. I’m surprised we hadn’t seen it sooner when we were flying around this area.”

“Well we were looking for something on the ground,” admitted BDubs, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. “It makes sense we didn’t notice something in the sky till now.”

“Good eyes either way, my fellow big-eyed broski. How do we want to go about this then? Should we just announce the coords in chat and risk that scumbag getting away?” asked Tango, rocking back on his heels as he himself did some thinking.

“I was hoping to somehow pass a message along without letting EvilX onto our plans. What’s the closest base to here?”

Tango thought for a moment, looking at the surrounding country-side as he did so. “You know, I think we’re pretty close to my turtle farm at the moment. Closest base to that would be Joe and Cleo’s so we could meet there. If we didn’t want to draw as much suspicion though, we’d probably want to meet up at Jevin’s base or Stress’s base, since they are located pretty close to the center of the search pattern.”

BDubs nodded and thought for a second, but decided speed would be more valuable than caution. “Let’s have them meet at Joe and Cleo’s base. Anyone late to the meeting we can meet along the way back and let them know what’s going on as we go to raid.”

With the plan set, Tango quickly put out a message saying that all search party members should meet at Joe and Cleo’s base for a meeting about a potential new search pattern. BDubs hoped that the other Hermits wouldn’t waste too much time in flying down by complaining or asking too many questions that could potentially blow their cover. Glancing down at his communicator as they took off in Joe and Cleo’s direction, he saw most of the chat filled with confused but willing Hermits. He looked away to focus on his flight, and thanked his lucky stars that the other Hermits were able to take a hint better than he could.

“Don’t worry Etho, we’re coming. We know where you are, we just gotta break in,” BDubs muttered to himself, happy to already see the skeletal structure of Joe and Cleo’s mega-build castle. He could see Cleo, XB, and Hypno already gathering in the center of the small town at the base of the castle, and BDubs just hoped the rest of the searchers would be there soon. “Just hold on…”

—-------------------------------------------

Etho came to to see EvilXisuma’s mask right in his face. To complain about the inconvenience of still being attached to the chair (though he had managed to get his left arm entirely removed from the cuff and was working on both of his legs, but then again his upper arm was still pinned to the chair.), Etho decided the most expedient way was to spit on EvilXisuma’s mask. He managed to get some spittle and blood onto the mask on his first try, so he counted it as success, even though he was immediately punched in the face. Admittedly, the punch barely registered as pain, since he was already in so much pain constantly. But he had been in so much pain for so long, it just didn’t really register anymore in general. Sure, his body would shudder, and squirm, and instinctively try to get away; but the rest of him just tried focusing on getting out of his binds a little more every time he respawned. 

“Well Ethoslab, I was going to say it’s been a pleasure, but after such a rude greeting, I think I’m just going to leave the punch as my response to our time together. Unfortunately for me, I must be off. Your friends seem to have caught on to our whereabouts, so I’ll leave you with a little present and then I’ll be off. If, for whatever reason Xisuma can’t figure out respawn, I might make a second appearance. Wouldn’t want you all to suffer needlessly for the sins of a few.”

Etho tried to glare at EvilXisuma, but he just couldn’t get his face to respond, so he settled for just being generally unresponsive, since his tongue never did grow back after all the respawns. His breathing picked up though as EvilXisuma pulled out a water bucket. Dread pooled in his stomach as he began to realize what final hell EvilXisuma was planning on leaving him in. “I can see you understand what my present is for you, and I know those watching are probably very aware as well. So I’ll just finish up and I wish you the best till your friends come by to save you. I’m sure you can recover from this kind of repeated respawn.”

With that, EvilXisuma created a small tower of cobble behind Etho’s chair and set the bucket of water loose on the top of the tower. And of course, the water flowed down and over Etho himself. Before the water covered his head, he managed a single breath, and he held it as long as he could as he felt the water cover his entire head. Through the water, he watched EvilXisuma fiddle with his communicator and then disappear as if he had never been there in the first place.

Etho tried that first breath to hold onto it as long as possible. But his lungs were not infinite, and he eventually succumbed to the lack of air.

“Ethoslab drowned whilst trying to escape EvilXisuma.”

“Ethoslab drowned”

“Ethoslab drowned”

“Ethoslab drowned”

“Ethoslab drowned”

“Ethoslab drowned”

“Ethoslab drowned”

“Ethoslab drowned”

“Ethoslab drowned”

“Ethoslab drowned”

“Ethoslab drowned”

“Ethoslab drowned”

“Ethoslab drowned” “ETHO!!”