#it just. visually would look better as a drawings with heavy shadows

[danidoesathing]

you've heard of bad movies and you've heard of mediocre movies with cool premises no get ready for: a fine enough movie that could've been a way fucking cooler if they just went harder with it

[steelsartcorner]

If you wouldn’t mind sharing your secrets, can you drop a quick tutorial for the hades art style? You seem to capture it very well!

Hey anon! Thanks so much, I’m flattered you think so!

To be honest there's really no secret, just a lot of trial and error. I am an amateur, but I’ll point out a few of my observations of the amazing Hades team’s work that I attempted to incorporate into this Astarion drawing, especially SuperGiant Games art director Jen Zee. Everything below is just my layman’s observation of her much, MUCH better work. You should check her out yourself!

First off, here’s a simple split out of the whole process (this will be long, more below the cut:)

POSE & PERSONALITY

Hades art is full of personality so the first challenge was to pick a pose that illustrates just one or two aspects of the character. For example, Dionysus from Hades 1 below has a languid, draping pose that reflects his chill-guy party vibes. Just looking at him you get an immediate idea of his personality.

And as much as I love the later wet-cat version of Astarion as he matures as a person, for the purposes of illustration in this style I chose a pose and expression that leaned into his early, less complex, more wily self. The dagger, wink, jaunty hips and head tilt are meant to communicate, without additional context, that he’s both trying to be appealing and is not trustworthy. 

LINEWORK & SHADING

Next is the linework and blocking! The Hades art team tends to use a combination of near-mono-thickness black lines, where exterior lines are thicker and interior lines are thinner or have no lines at all. They will often forgo an interior line to communicate form via color blocking instead. The style also makes heavy use of absolute black for the deepest shades, especially on more sinister characters or spooky aspects of a characters design. (See: Zagreus’ three dog head skulls and his red eye perpetually cast in deep shadow.)

It took some back and forth to find the right balance of black shading for Astarion. Too much and he looked too sinister and not approachable enough. Too little and he looked too innocent. 

Picking a strong light source helped with determining the direction and placement of the shadows so that just enough was obscured/revealed. It also helps in differentiating forms from each other so that, for example, the arm doesn’t disappear into the chest and become unreadable.

Using heavy black shading was a particularly useful trick in Astarion’s case, because his camp clothes color palette is fairly monochromatic between his light hair, pale skin, and white/cream shirt. That much light color can easily blend in too much and become boring: the flats I used were slight variations of white, from a warm reddish-peach to a yellowy cream to a cool light gray for the dagger.

COLOR & LIGHTING

Last is color! In Hades 1 and even more so in Hades 2, the lighting schemes are deceptively complex. There are often multiple light sources and use of bounce lighting to add a lot of visual interest. For example, check out this lighting on Polyphemus from Hades 2:

Not only does he have a cool moonlight hitting him from above, he also has a warm orange rimlight lighting him from the left, AND cool lavender bounce light bouncing off the ground and hitting him from below. All these combine and layer on top of one another to help emphasize the forms of the cyclop’s musculature and the textures of his sheep wool coat. 

I don’t think I was as successful in my own lighting scheme, because I’m an amateur, but I determined that the scene in which I was placing Astarion has a high sun and was outdoors. This means that the light hitting him from above would be a light, warm yellow and the bounce light hitting him from the left would reflect the nearby water and blue sky of the environment. 

To achieve this, I made use of different layer modes in my art program (Clip Studio Paint) to apply purple shadows (via the Multiply layer mode) and highlights (via the Soft Light layer mode) in a light sky blue and a light yellow for the primary and secondary light sources.

I ran into trouble with the blade, because it was also a light metal in an already light-color-heavy color scheme. At first, it was blending in too much and hard to read. So I decided to give it a bit of a magic teal glow to help it stand out, which meant adding a few specks of magic light reflecting back onto the face and clothes as well. 

INTEREST & DETAILS

Speaking of, Hades style art makes extensive use of adding little speckles of high-saturation color to add visual interest and cohesion. See this Zagreus portrait which is primarily made of grays, a tan bone-color, and reds: 

But sprinkled in are neon teal and magenta that don’t relate to the lighting at all. It’s just there to break up the blocks of color, bring unique colors like his green eye into the rest of the portrait, and direct the viewer’s eye. These highlights are slightly less bright in Hades 2, but still there, such as in this depiction of Apollo, who mostly glows with a warm sunlight but also has random pops of sky blue and green flecking his armor and hair.

The pops of color are often placed more centrally on the figure to keep your eye on the important parts of the portrait, like near Apollo’s face and on his armor. The color pops aren’t as frequent at the extremities; too much on the arm and your eye would be drawn away from his face.

I took a similar approach where I grabbed some of the brighter colors (like Astarion’s red eye, and the teal glow of the dagger), to add dabs of color that normally would not “make sense” from a lighting perspective, but add a little visual interest:

Also I totally studied their approach to Apollo’s curly hair to create the impression of Astarion’s curls!

Anyway, I think that's all I got for now, I hope this helps! There's more but this is already REALLY long so I'll stop here. In the end, it's really just a process of observation and replication of things you love in artwork you admire. Give it a try, it's a lot of fun :)

[crowcaws]

Btw this is what I mean when I say if you only watch anime, if you just wait for anime adaptations instead of giving Manga a chance, if you see Manga as just the beta version of something that would be better animated, you're absolutely missing out on some of the best art this planet has to offer.

(This post turned long as all hell so examples under the cut)

vs

(Yashahime)

The limitations of black and white make for some absolutely incredible artistic choices. Despite the lack of colour, the dramatised use of light and shadow is much more pronounced.

The colour versions are beautiful in their own way, but there's just something about black and white that evokes drama that a full colour piece of the same scene often takes for granted.

There is also a lot more care put into detail in individual panels, because you can stop to examine them. In an anime, details (like the legs on this centipede for instance) are often forsaken, understandably, because of time constraint. You're not going to over-detail something you only see for a few frames.

I'm going to use FMA as an example because people love to argue about which anime is better and my answer, for fifteen years, has been: The Manga.

Both scenes gorgeous, but in the manga version the artistic choice to make his eyes the brightest part of the page, even to the point of not shading his irises, draws the viewer's attention to Edwards eyes and his intense emotion, whereas the anime version kind of draws your eye to his hand and the motion of pointing. As yellow is the first colour the human eye tends to notice, I think the fact he's rendered in colour also serves to distract the eye from the most important part -- the determination and emotions in Ed's eye.

Same manga, different scene:

In the manga, a huge part of Lust's character design, and many of the sins in turn, is that they are an inky black blot on the page. They stand out as the darkest part of any given panel they're in. As such, I think their design when rendered in full colour feels markedly less inhuman when next to the rest of the cast.

In the anime, you get the Lust vs Roy scene as below. Good posing and composition, and by all means a great scene overall. This is two people in an arena who have just duked it out, and the dust is clearing:

The manga version looks like this:

There is no obligation to render a background and the scene is all the more intense for it: All it comes down to is these two characters, and the moment that one of them is about to die. The entire universe, for this panel, it just Lust and Roy. She emerges from the smoke like a tumour, like a parasite reaching for a host. She is not simply standing in front of him, she is emerging from obscurity, her strike sudden but his resolve unwavering. You can see from the way the smoke lingers around him that Roy stood stock still, as the smoke on her side whorls with the ferocity of her movement. He waited for her to pounce, knowing he'd kill her now or die trying. Even the sound effect is used as part of the visual experience.

Another FMA example:

This is a beautiful scene where Edward's arm is the focus, showing the way it, and the regret and heartache and loneliness and guilt that it represents, overshadow his life and his actions. Very nice, I like the way it's the shiniest part of the shot, if not necessarily the coldest.

But here's a very similar scene in the manga:

(All Fullmetal Alchemist and its adaptations)

I think again that the lack of obligation to render a background when it would not enhance the scene does so much heavy lifting here. The way his shirt is completely dark and the background is completely bright means that the grey that is Ed slices through the panel. You don't see his eyes, much like the anime example, but the way he's half in shadow and the way he stands in the void makes him feel so, so much more lonely here.

(I'm certain there's a more equivalent moment in the FMA manga but I couldn't find it for a whim post so here we are)

(Kagurabachi)

This one doesn't have an anime yet but the way this artist renders shadow dripping from a blade to form an inky black goldfish makes it difficult to imagine how you could render this in anime format and maintain the same feeling, or even improve on it. The lack of background makes the contrast bold, but anime often can't really leave the background perfectly black without making the scene confused.

Anyway this isn't to say anime can't look fucking awesome because it very often does. But if you're not reading the manga, well, you don't HAVE to. But you're missing out majorly and I'm sick of it being treated as this preliminary, inferior art form that needs a studio to pick it up and "improve" it to make it worthwhile.

[beesmygod]

"A GHOST STORY" IS A WEBCOMIC I MAKE THAT I WILL BE RE-POSTING, GRADUALLY.

the top row is from 2013. the bottom row is the re-draw from 2018. man what the hell was i on when i was doing the shadows in the re-draw. i've never had a good grasp on how top make shading effective and i'm lucky people paid this comic any attention lol. AVGN voice: WHAT WAS SHE THINKING!!!!!!!

one thing i tried to do in the re-draw was make my sound effects more visually consistent: no more red unless it's influenced by magic or the sound being onomatopoeia'd has a strong association with the color red (like a siren) and using palooka BB for clunky, "heavy" sounds. typesetting is not my strong suit, at all. it's a harder thing to get an education on outside of classes specifically designed for it and i think a lot of it is intuition. i did not pay enough attention to how i did my sound effects early on, wielding them haphazardly without enough care about HOW the sound actually sounds. and by extension, how to transfer those nuances onto the page.

part of that is because typesetting is very boring lol. it's the least fun part of the process for me because it involves a lot of minuscule futzing with font sizes, angles, outlines, ect looking for something that "looks/feels right". or at least right enough. and i have to do it without hearing any other sounds or else i can't concentrate. anything involving words requires me to lock myself in my office and run simulations in my brain like i'm super-computing.

actually, one good thing about revisiting these old pages is that i'm becoming more aware of the things i do think about while making pages now. i def was just thinking "GET SOMETHING ON A PAGE IN ORDER FOR THE STORY TO PROGRESS" at the time. which is good! but the bare minimum for comics. getting the idea onto the page and shipping it is all it takes to make a comic. but im trying to make good comics, which as it turns out, is really hard.

this comic does get better, i swear (I HOPE!!!). for a while i paced my comics way too fast bc i was convinced people would get bored with me if i wasn't constantly delivering hits ("hits"). which is a way, way too cynical approach to art and one's view of their audience. i have been trying to slow my pace, which has been detrimental in some ways but the story i want to tell is a little more deliberate than i was allowing myself at the time.

---

♥ read the comic: A Ghost Story ♥ support the comic for as little as $1 a month on Patreon ♥ pay what you want for the re-draw of the first chapter on itch.io

you can block the tag "#AGS repost" to keep this off your dash

[msfcatlover]

Shadow Tim (Reverse Robins)

So, a few very important things to keep in mind for Tim's iteration of the Shadow design:

Tim is taking it up as a tribute to Steph after her death.

Tim does not have a Moonbeam as his partner. (He was supposed to be the next Moonbeam, apprenticed under Cass, until shit went down.)

Tim lacks the fully context & perspective on Being Shadow that Steph & Damian had about it (but he's trying his best.)

To start with, Tim brings Shadow back to Damian's greyscale & gold color scheme, but with one critical difference: where Damian had pops of red, Tim uses very light touches of purple.

(Tim also keeps Steph's bat symbol, so here's a quickly thrown together contrast. Tim has no Moonbeam, so he gets no light/metallic accent on his bat symbol.)

The second major tribute is that Tim adds a cloak, specifically taken from Steph's original Spoiler design. Tim's version is black with a purple lining, and gold trim around the edge of the hood, calling back to both Steph's dual-tone hood & her hair. The cloak itself is ankle-length; not practical, but evocative & stylish.

(So this style cape, and massive thanks to the Stephanie Brown Costume History page, y'all are lifesavers.)

Tim relies on the cloak to disguise his form, with the costume itself being much closer-fitted than previous iterations. The top is a black bulletproof vest with short sleeves added not dissimilar to his traditional Robin costume, but the weird stripes are actually places for him to tuck gadgets he expects to grab in a hurry.

(Basically this, but all one piece, with the Robin sleeves, and obviously lighter on detail to keep from being visually cluttered. No one wants to draw or look at all those lines & straps, or that little wheel-velcro-thing.)

Tim wears a dull grey chainmail body suit between his black undersuit & outer costume. It shows mainly on his arms, between the top sleeves & his gloves, but if his pants tore it'd be visible there too. The gloves themselves are his spiky gauntlets from more modern costumes, in black but with a gold hem at the very top to reflect the band on his hood (paying tribute to Steph's thick hems & blonde hair, while also bringing back Damian's color scheme.)

(These bad boys.)

Tim sticks with the neck gaiter Steph switched to, but does not keep the greasepaint. Instead, Tim has a headset styled after ski-goggles. He was originally designing it for becoming Moonbeam, hoping an AI scan of his opponents' moves would help him predict what they were going to do (allowing him to better mimic Duke & Cass's skillsets.) It's still a pretty rough prototype by the time Steph dies, but Tim's put a hell of a lot of work into it, he's not not going to field-test the thing, now is he?

(You meet the new Shadow, and this stares back at you from under the hood [lightly edited for appropriate drama])

Below the utility belt (grey with gold snaps/buckles,) Tim wears black heavy-duty cargo pants tucked into knee-high armored boots. The extra pockets even further emphasize that Tim is a character with a diverse set of skills and especially gadgets, and the slight puff caused by tucking not-entirely-fitted pants in at the knee calls back to Damian's "Infinite Frontier" outfit that inspired my original Shadow design.

(Not quite that puffy, but that would probably be down to the artist.)

For the boots, I do really like the ones Tim's been recently wearing in comics... mostly, at least. The ones on-panel have a little tabi toe-stripe most of the time, which either appears to be decorative (just a notch in front of the toe, which I don't like the look of) or does weird things to the depth (making his feet look flat.) Also, as someone who cannot even wear flip-flops without getting bloody blisters, it just looks uncomfortable to me. I really like the version Tim wore on that cover with Damian—the shape looks more comfortable, it looks like it has better grip & heavier armor, and looks like a shoe it'd really suck to get kicked by—but the stripes are nearly invisible, and the weird spike of armor above the knee is a bit much.

Combine the foot from the cover-boots with the shape & highlights from the panel-boots. Make the stripes & knee-pad border gold, and add a gold trim along the top edge of the green sole; the sole itself should be dark grey.

And that's Shadow Tim!

A little higher-tech to foreshadow his ascendance to Oracle, while also reflecting Tim's canonical love of weird gadgets through the ages.

Pays heavy tribute to Steph, but not in any way that'd be super-obvious if you weren't in-the-know, without directly ripping off her designs or looking so much like her that the other Bats could mistake Tim for Steph out of the corner of their eyes.

Pays light tribute to Damian, but aside from being a Shadow costume, Duke & Cass have about as much influence on the changes Tim makes (see: chainmail, glove style, face covering) as Damian does.

Misses a few important details of Shadow's design (see: no longer visible eyes, no more grease paint, dramatically changed silhouette) showing Tim wasn't prepared to step into this role but is doing his best anyway.

Extra armor & pockets shows that Tim's got even more protection than previous Shadows, hinting through design alone about the impact Steph's death had on the family.

Sticks to Tim's fashion tastes without going overboard.

Adds a cape for him to go swish.

I'm pretty happy with it!

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

A VIRAL MEDIUM

Maybe it’s just that it had 50 fanadventures and therefore had a lot more room for diversity, but so far compared to 2017, 2018’s offerings have been very…samey. With a couple of exceptions, of course (like Dimmadome of Dimmadale or There’s Something in the Woods). So, yes, it is with a heavy heart that I say that A Viral Medium is YET ANOTHER Sburbventure.

Oh shoot this one’s got GRAPHICS! Like, that detailed, sketchy kind of artstyle that did gangbusters back in I’m Good, I’m Gone and Old Fiji Water.png. Or, at least, reminiscent of it. So, if nothing else, I know that the author(s?) of this text is competent in the visual department, to say the least.

Shoot, maybe this was the time where I should’ve talked about Hiveswap Friendsim, because the font when they introduce each character’s name is looking awfully familiar…it makes sense that Friendsim would make everybody think about Trolls a little more than usual, especially considering that by this time, Vast Error is the biggest thing on the site and growing with each passing day.

I must say, these fanadventures, while not being compelling to me besides a few, are starting to get very consistently competent. I think this might be a factor of like, the audience for the site, having now the aforementioned Vast Error example, becoming more stringent with what they consider “favouriting,” and therefore those that DO pass the threshold are better overall than other ones. Like, before it was simply that you had to be good at drawing, now it’s you have to be good at drawing and at least decent to telling a story. AND this is like, a lean year for the fandom, having only Hiveswap: Friendsim to sustain itself from Official content, so probably a lot of people at this point have dropped out of the fandom, thus causing few favourites and thus HIGHER STANDARDS of favourites to go around, if that makes sense. Or maybe I’m just jumping at shadows, who knows.

I must say, there’s a quite bit of like, interesting UI decisions? There’s a lot of Discord formatting going on that’s kind of cool, and now there’s another Message App involved and it’s got light mode on so it contrasts with the previous formatting that we had had up to this point.

But uh. You might notice I’m not mentioning like, these characters are compelling or whatever. Which. They are not. I am more invested by the art and the visual design and spectacle of it all than like. The actual story. Which is, decent, and. I keep using the word competent but honestly. Yeah. It’s that.

[spareparts-vn]

Hi! I'm really enjoying Spare Parts. I really appreciate how it has so much heavy drama, but it never feels oppressively dour or meaningless. There's plenty of more comedic or otherwise lighter moments that don't feel out of place, too. Can I ask as a wannabe writer myself, do you have any tips or processes for writing such effective drama?

thank you! i'm very bad at giving writing advice. i've written and deleted this post half a dozen times already. it's pretty hard to lay my thoughts out since my process is so tangled up in my brain's very specific eccentricities. so here's some extremely scattered thoughts that loosely connect to how i write "drama," which in my mind is just an extension of any compelling relationship between characters.

1) "iteration" is my main thing. write a bad draft, then edit it to be better, then edit it to be better, then edit it to be better, then erase the whole thing and write another bad draft that's slightly better, then edit that one to be better, then edit it to be better, then do that 100 more times until you have an epiphany that ties it all together. it's not very efficient but it helps me identify what works and what doesn't so i can hone in on what's interesting to me. in the context of drama, that means i can write out an argument between two characters and ask myself if it hits on anything compelling. if it doesn't, i scrap it, but if there's some feeling there that i want to flesh out, i can restructure it to pivot around that.

2) similar to the previous one, but i try to start broad and narrow my focus over time. taking two characters' relationship as an example, i'll start from the most generic interpretation of how they relate to one another and start adding nuance/complexity over time. i think of it like a life drawing, if you've ever taken a class for that. you want to start with the gesture of the pose first, then start to fill in shapes and values until the foundation is solid. you go around the whole drawing adding details in bits and pieces, rather than focusing on one body part and fleshing it out to completion first. you can slowly choose where to exaggerate shapes or darken shadows to add a little more visual flair to it. in telling a story, these details can often play out and develop through the course of the narrative.

2.5) this is an aside, but during my brief stint in art school, i once turned in a self-portrait for a life drawing assignment that i was really unhappy with. i spent so much time working and reworking it that it looked really smudgy from all the erased lines, but i was too stubborn to start drawing on a new piece of paper. i was very anxious about turning it in for critique, but the professor surprised me by saying that he liked the ethereal quality it had from all the eraser marks. that there was something interesting in how obvious it was that i'd redone it so many times, allowing the evidence of previous attempts to leave traces in the final image. that comment always stuck with me. i think of life, and art by extension, as additive in nature. you can't completely erase the past, so as time moves forward your canvas become more and more dense with information, even if it's been scrubbed away. relationships are the same, which i try to convey when writing my characters. the longer you write them, the more friction and drama will naturally fall out of them. so don't be afraid to start simple, you might surprise yourself with the sort of feelings that appear without you realizing it.

3) i try to imagine a person who would become psychotically obsessed with every possible pairing of characters. what would they find interesting in this dynamic? how could i give them something to chew on? how could i surprise them, or entice them to think about their relationship deeper? in spapa's case, there's obviously a lot of interplay between the most central characters, but i have internal dossiers on every obscure pair of characters that most people won't think about. but that means i'm going to write more about them and flesh them out, so the web grows more complex and interesting. (i've developed a fixation on a secret ship that i'm hungry to explore, but probably won't get the chance to for a while. i'll leave you to speculate on what that is.) every character's growth and experience is shaped by their relationships, so tugging on those threads can reveal things about my characters i hadn't realized before. and sometimes those threads are connected to sticks of dynamite, which explode. and then you get lucy and melanie yelling at each other, even though their first interactions don't really suggest they'd end up there.

4) i'm the type of person who struggle to resist cracking a joke when i think of one, no matter how inappropriate the timing is. i've seen some critique of spapa that jokes occasionally feel misplaced in really serious scenes, but personally, i think they're important! people are complicated and can have multiple modes of thought/expression at once. sometimes when you're in the middle of the biggest sobbing breakdown of your life you'll think something stupid and mundane that snaps you back to reality for a second. sometimes you're having the best day of your life and you'll suddenly remember The Incident and have to just brush it off. i try to reflect those sorts of weird moments in my writing.

5) i lean a lot on my experience in writing fanfic/doing roleplay of characters/ships that i'm interested in. taking the dynamic that's presented in the source material and bending it to suit my interests more, or to flesh out ideas that i want to explore through them as a medium. every now and then it helps to take a step back and assess what parts of my story i've built i feel are most compelling or could use some more attention. what scenes i would write fanfic of, and how i can place them in the story itself or build up to something that paints those scenes in the reader's mind. i just love characters. they're little toys i can make do anything

6) i guess overall my approach is very naturalistic/holistic. i let characters develop themselves and create drama on their own, just by being complicated little animals and thinking about them a lot. then i can take those shapes they make and mold them into something more refined. i try to treat everything as a piece of the whole. let the threads get really tangled up and leave a lot of time for exploring what those knots look like and how you might try to de-tangle them. but meanwhile there's other knots forming too. there's no getting it completely organized but you learn a lot about the mess while trying to pull it apart. the process is essential. the end product should reflect that process in whatever ways feel appropriate. imo

i don't know if Any Of This Shit makes any sense or is helpful. like i said, i've rewritten this several times already, and i've gotta do other stuff today, so hopefully you could pull something useful out of it lmao

[mieletthe]

set play

"Didn't you and Veth have, like, secret codewords for this shit? What's our codeword?"

Caleb taps the end of the pen against his chin a few times. "...'Fire'?" he suggests.

"'Fire'?!" Beau throws her head back in overdramatic exasperation and groans. "Come on, man. That fucking sucks! I'm gonna hear 'fire' every ten seconds in a fight and never know whether you're talking to me or casting a spell."

Caleb squints skeptically at her, one eyebrow raised. "Why would I be saying 'fire'? I don't shout spell names the way Fjord does. This is good, it is efficient."

"You've gotta have a better one for me. Gimme something on the level of 'Modern Literature.'"

He shrugs and starts drawing a box around the battle tactic they've spitballed onto a page of her journal. "Veth came up with all of those."

"What?! But, but you're the"—Beau gesticulates wildly, sputtering out syllables in disbelief—"the creative one! With the fucking tower and the personalized spells and shit."

"Veth is creative, too," Caleb simply says, closing the blue-ink border. He's left some space at the top for a title.

"Well, yeah, but…" Beau hadn't really thought about this before. Veth named the Nein Heroez, after all. And was 'Fluffernutter' from her too, or was that one Jester? She couldn't remember. Jester and Caleb were both so flashy and visual in their creativity; had Veth's snuck by undetected in the shadows of their panache? "Okay, fine, you can put down 'Fire' as a placeholder, but we're gonna work on it."

As Caleb writes it in, a shadow crosses the page, and they look up to see who cast it.

"They're ready to call everyone back in," Dairon says. Their demeanor reveals nothing about how the afternoon is going to go.

Her mouth pressing into a thin, tense line, Beau nods mutely and watches Dairon return through the heavy oaken doors of the courtroom. She glances sidelong at Caleb, whose face has immediately sunk back into the hollow expression she'd only just managed to distract him out of. Taking back her journal, she nudges his leg with her own.

"Come on. We've got this."

As they stand to follow, Beau impulsively grabs Caleb's hand and gives it a quick squeeze for good measure.

—

"Beauregard, I've been giving a lot of thought to our little naming conundrum. How do you like 'Strike a Light' or 'Spontaneous Combustion'?"

The wave she had been just about to crest drops beneath her abruptly, and Beau beats a limp fist against the mattress with a frustrated whine. Yasha squeezes her thigh in sympathy. Fumbling for her pants somewhere to her left, Beau yanks the sending stone from a pocket. She doesn't bother masking her ragged breaths as she responds.

"I swear to fucking Ioun, Caleb, I take back what I said when I called this stupid rock the best present you could ever give me. Learn better timing. Fuck."

Inspired by this post from @fjorests-of-wildemount

Also on AO3

[razzek]

how does your blindness impact your art? I would have thought that it would be impossible for a blind person to work in a purely visual medium like you do, but clearly that's not the case. do you use adaptive tech or specific styles/techniques?

(I apologize if this question is ableist. I would like to know more about your experiences, but I don't have a great grasp of what's appropriate to ask and what isn't. I am not trying to be rude.)

Oooh thank you for asking! :) For the record, I’m pretty chill, I know there aren’t exactly a ton of us blindies out there, so feel free to ask questions with the language you have. :)

Haha oh man, my blindness has impacted my art from the very first thing I drew at age 4. I have a small amount of vision in my left eye; no depth perception, no peripheral vision, no distance, pretty good colors though. Life to me is basically a smear of nonsense colors that I put meaning to through context and location. The closest thing to seeing anything clearly I’ve ever gotten was watching cartoons, which I did obsessively as a kid. So first and foremost, I don’t and can’t draw from life, it makes no sense to me. The bold, simple actions of animation and the heavy stylization has taught me a ton.

Over the years my style has become very much about being high contrast, high visibility. But it also tangles with my love of doing pretty intricate detail work (it’s soothing, what can I say XD). In the past I was strictly a traditional media artist and I drew with what I had on hand. Growing up in poverty, what I had was the pens I used to write with in school and the paper I scrounged out of recycling bins. I basically mashed my face on the paper and worked in light angled over my shoulder that wasn’t too bright. I clipped paper to clip boards so I’d always have something lightweight enough to hold in one hand while I drew with the other. I’d sketch in pencil and ink using my very beefy prescription reading glasses, and everything I do had to be self taught. Life drawing class just doesn’t do anything for the dude who can’t see the model. :D

In 2019 a botched cataract surgery cost me most of my functional vision. I can no longer read print for any length of time, I don’t watch tv, and increasingly I just forget to look at most things with my eyes. But! I have an iPad. :D It took a few years and finding a pair of beefy store bought readers so I can focus enough to draw, but using Procrate and zooming down to the pixel as well as sketching on a black background makes the art still possile. I still draw mostly the same way I did with traditional media. I know brushes could probably be used to make some things easier, but I don’t have the spoons or visual stamina to figure out how to use them except for making quick backgrounds (pro tip: never have your character or object floating in a white void, even a single line to ground them will make your work better).

Color of late has been an interesting thing because I literally do not understand how light and shadow really works. I’ve read up on it but there’s only so much anyone can do when they just can’t see the thing. I like to ink the best and color is just an experiment I’m trying every time I do it heh. I make up little rules of style for myself and do a lot of guesswork based on the full shape I think a thing or character has, if that makes sense. I don’t know how a lot of things work visually so I will make stuff up, guess, or you’ll see some funky style things that happen because I read a medical paper once and just like drawing the holes in an iris (that’s what the lines in characters’ eyes are heh).

I’ll have to make a video sometime. Some of this stuff probably makes more sense in action.

Tl,dr: I mash my face onto an iPad and use 35-ish years of drawing experience to guess at what leoks right. :D I don’t think I would have become an artist if I wasn’t blind, I would have had more to look at to distract me. XD

[quibbs126]

Here’s some drawings from my hypothetical Evoland 3 characters

Edit: yet again, being renamed to Evoland 2.5

I don’t actually remember what I told you guys about them last time, so I may end up repeating myself here

So first off this has just been a thing in my head; so Rowan here is currently dating some sort of crime lord, and I feel like this should be relevant at some point in the story, so maybe at some point in the story they end up meeting him, and probably subtly flirts with Rowan, and after the fact he’s teased for his supposed relationship with this guy

Also, Rowan’s blushing isn’t just a thing because I’m using purple shading, he actually blushes purple. I think that was another reason I drew this

Speaking of Rowan’s boyfriend, I tried to draw him down at the bottom. I think he looks fine, but he wasn’t exactly how I envisioned him in my head. I think he was going to have a boa, but it didn’t pan out. Maybe I’ll try and figure out his outfit at a later date. But for what I drew, I took inspiration from some outfits for Professor (Augustine) Sycamore, and for the character design, I kind of took visual inspiration from someone’s Warrior Cats oc, who’s design gave me particular vibes (this is the post if you want to see it). Basically someone who has a position of power that seems like just a socialite who doesn’t really deserve their high position because they don’t seem capable enough, but as it turns out they are very capable and use their charisma to their advantage

Also, that’s not what he actually looks like, but I’ll draw that at a later date. But to give you an idea, he uses a lot of products to make himself look nice

Next we have some drawings of a young Juno and Jovi. Jovi’s supposed to be a bard/musician (no he is not named after Bon Jovi, he’s named after Jove, to go with Juno’s naming scheme), and plays a lot of instruments, but he first got his passion for it from his sister, who played the ocarina. One day she got him one of his own, and he excitedly started playing it too, with them often duetting. This is what sparked his passion for music, and over the years he collected more instruments and learned how to play them (he keeps them all in that bag you see him carrying), but he still has the ocarina Juno gave him and still plays it. Juno still plays her ocarina, though she doesn’t play any other instruments, and the two do duets from time to time

Also, Jovi will no longer be a main party member, just a side character. However he will be important to Juno’s story

And then I drew a younger Jill. Not sure if I said before, but back in the day she was a wildly different person, being very flashy and confident. She would participate in illegal underground fighting tournaments, becoming champion of the ring by time she was like 15-16. However after a particular incident, the same one that caused her and Rowan to split, she left the town and went out on her own, and she changed her way of life, just becoming a simple nomad. That fighting ring probably comes back into play later in the story, like we go there to fight or something, and she reluctantly has to come out of retirement

I’m debating whether her power should be Earth or Light. Earth because she’s a heavy hitter with incredible strength, but Light because it works with her previous flashy personality and serves to put her in a dichotomy with Rowan, her ex, who has shadow powers. Also it’s more a secondary/tertiary element, like the other ones here. I’m just not sure which one works better

Also I’m not sure if her name should be Jill because…I dunno, it feels too plain? Like it’s just a normal name, as opposed to other main characters in the series who have more uncommon or object names. I have been considering the name Lazuli, or slight variations of it, because of her having so much blue

Edit: I didn’t realize that I never said before, but her new name is officially Lazul. Which can be interpreted as either a 1 letter change from “Lazuli” or “Elazul”, a character from Legend of Mana, an old game I enjoy

Also also, I’m wondering if I should have her be her younger self, because as a middle aged adult, she’d have restraint, and she and Namone (oh yeah I’m also changing Amonne’s name to Namone, I just think it flows better) wouldn’t get into many shenanigans because of it, but that wouldn’t be the case with her younger self. But on the other hand, given that younger Jill had basically no restraint, and Namone would have no concept of restraint, I wonder if they’d be too chaotic. Also it means I’d have to change her relationship with Rowan, since he’d stay the same age, but that’s lesser. She’d still have story elements to work with though

But yeah, so here’s just some stuff. Hope you enjoy! (Granted I doubt few people are going to actually look at this)

[scribbly-z-raid]

Hello! I have often had the chance of admiring your work in different places, so you must imagine my happiness when I discovered your account here. After years of observing art, I have decided to try my hand at it, although rather to the dissatisfaction of my expectations. I was wondering:

1. What is your process for drawing comics, more specifically the steps you take and the tools you use?

2. Do you have any tips for how to draw the fabulous Lord Ghirahim? Please don't laugh at me, I am in quite a predicament and am unable to do him justice with my attempts..

I would be ever so grateful if you shared your wisdom and experience with me since I lack both in this field. Thank you for your time.

1. Comic process I use Clip Studio Paint EX for drawing comics. This version of Clip Studio I have is geared towards comic making and thus comes with features that help with comic making but the basic version of Clip Studio works perfectly fine as well.

As for my comic drawing process, my general process is as such:

Script - writing out the dialogue/general actions, pretty self-explanatory

Thumbnails - based off the script, I draw thumbnails of all the pages for the comic. This step I focus more on pacing of the comic so everything is loose in terms of placement. I like to sketch these out traditionally on paper. Thumbnailing is useful for long comics but nowadays I do them even for single page comics as well

1st sketch - Initial sketches of all the pages based off of the thumbnails digitally

2nd sketch - heavy revisions for composition/panel layout. I also typically put in all the text that I know will go onto this page to layout word bubble placement. Sometimes I end up adding more pages to the whole comic if I think if it's necessary

3rd sketch - a clean-ish sketch, basically the final look of the page. I tend to already have the panels drawn out with the panel tool in CSP at this point

Line art - suffering

Background - also suffering but not too bad since nowadays I use 3D models/pre-drawn assets/brushes to do backgrounds

Screen tone - suffering x3

Blacks/shadows - Just adding shadows/anything solid black onto the characters, like clothing or black hair

Balloons - at this point I finally give the text word bubbles lol

Add any other special effects or whatever necessary (e.g. motion lines, sparkles, etc.)

Some random notes about my comic process:

For the writing step, I write the script and then beg my friends to help me edit it to be less dumb lol

My process is fluid so I go back and forth between the steps all the time

I work page-by-page, so instead of like finishing each step for each page all at the same time, I finish an entire page before moving onto the next one. This is probably a really bad idea

I rarely start work on the first page of the comic. I tend to start working on the page I think will be the most annoying (get the hard shit out of the way first lol)

Random tips:

Keep reading direction in mind when doing page layouts. Is it left to right? Right to left? Reading direction will have an effect on how a reader’s eyes travels across a page

Look at your favorite manga/comics/webtoons/etc. and observe what you like about their paneling/page layout

Just do it. You’re not gonna get any better unless you actually draw. Yes this means you will be producing some bad comics at first but that’s just a part of the whole process of improving and becoming a better artist. If you really hate your old comics you can always redraw them

A really bad visual step-by-step of my comic process:

As for tools, I just use a textured brush for line art. I hate backgrounds so I use a lot of free assets to for backgrounds lol. Clip Studio Assets store is great and filled with a lot of free assets to boot.

2. Drawing Ghirahim This thing I drew is still relevant to how I draw Ghirahim. It’s 4 years old but the way I draw this bastard hasn’t changed much, really.

[bigskydreaming]

@hood-ex

Okay but re: the subject of wingfic.....picture this....His Dark Materials style AU where instead of kids having daemons who shapeshift until they settle, kids have wings that are constantly shifting and trying out new forms until they settle.

And maybe Dick’s generation is the first one to have this.....like, the DC multiverse is constantly having these universe-altering Crises, that are all metaphysical and unleash and reshape cosmic and universal creation energies....and early in Dick’s tenure as Robin, let’s say the DC multiverse undergoes a Crisis whose resolution has an unexpected side-effect.....at that point forward, teens begin manifesting their like, soul or whatever, in physical or metaphysical form, in the shape of wings.

They first pop up around when kids start entering puberty, and tend to settle around them kinda ‘finding themselves’ as adults....and we’re not talking just bird-type wings. Wings of any kind, any shape, any material. They’re described as ‘metanatomy’ not in the sense of metas having altered anatomy but more in the sense of how metaphysical relates to physical.....these wings don’t have to prescribe to any biological or anatomical rules because they’re not biological in nature. Kory’s people describe the wings as a child’s ‘over-soul’ - a manifestation of their fundamental, individualized essence that’s overlaid on top of their physical self.

So, many wings are bird-like in nature, physically capable of being touched, damaged, healed, etc....but just as many are batlike or dragon-like, they can be just wing-shaped and made of fire, they can be mechanical appearing or insectoid or pretty much anything. There was a period when Dick was around fourteen when his wings were just wispy wing-shaped stormclouds behind him, lightning constantly flickering up and down their lengths as though it were the wings’ veins.....another period where they were just giant sweeping shadows behind him that he could nevertheless fly with, and while he was Robin, they most consistently manifested as bright, gleaming swaths of luminescence that glowed as though they constantly had spotlights trained on them. 

(Which had Bruce paranoid it would just make Dick an easy target, until they realized that a ‘side-effect’ of Dick’s wings when they looked like this was instead of making it easier for the bad guys to train their weapons on him, even the most hardened villains would find themselves hesitating to pull the trigger. Some kind of pulsating, emotion-laced effect of those wings drawing their attention was it was more like moths drawn to a flame....they were so busy being momentarily entranced or hypnotized by the spectacle of them that they were usually a second too late in actually firing....by which time Dick was in a position to strike them first. Well, at least that’s how it went until the Joker managed a lucky shot anyway. But then, when isn’t that asshole an exception to the rules?)

Some wings had little quirks or fringe effects that went with them taking on a certain form or appearance....though those didn’t tend to stick around when the wings shifted to a different appearance, unless a person’s wings settled in the shape a particular fringe effect was associated with. Like when Roy hit adulthood, his wings settled in the appearance of bright red feathered wings with black accents......his wings are fairly small and not suited for long range flight, or even flight in general, as they tend to be more useful in helping him glide in short, quick spurts. But they also come with a perk unique to him....when Roy uses his own feathers to fletch his arrows, those arrows never ever miss. 

In adulthood, Donna’s wings settle as giant bird-like wings, all black feathers with silver specks of stars scattered all across them, same as her Troia costume. They’re like patches of night sky sliced straight out of the heavens, and when Donna’s in costume she’s impossible to see cutting through the dark. Her huge sweeping wings would cast an easily noticed shadow over the ground if not for the silver specks dotting her feathers, but thanks to those, by the time she’s close enough for you to make out her features, distinct from the night sky, its far too late to do anything but go oh fuck.

Wally’s wings are more of a presence than a visual. Hummingbird type things that match his speed but never manage his stillness. Beating at the air a furious several hundred wingflaps per second, so even when he’s standing still he’s far from motionless....the air around him thrumming with movement, humming with vibrations that make it look like he’s constantly surrounded by shimmering ribbons of heat baking off an asphalt pavement. And again, that’s when he’s just standing still. When he actually gets agitated, they hit the air like a thunderclap. Sparks shooting up from the points of contact as the friction of them is so fast and furious it ionizes the atmosphere around him all on its own.

Garth’s can be a bit unwieldy when on the surface, but in the water they make him glide faster and smoother than any Atlantean before him. Stretching out from torso to underarms like the wings of a manta ray, they’re black and gray and streaked with purple like his eyes and the tattoo around it, just inverted. The material of them thick and coarse enough that when he flings his arms out or wrapped around himself just so, the folds of his wings draped around him create a dense barrier capable of shrugging off any number of projectile impacts.

Vic’s are mechanical marvels, smooth and sleek metallic expanses that aren’t dissimilar to Marvel’s Archangel, but where Warren’s feathers are knife-like flechettes, Vic’s host a variety of sensory arrays and feed him all sorts of data. Gar’s never fully settle....they shift as often as he does, sometimes vast and feathered, sometimes batlike and leathery....always green though, and always there no matter what animal he shifts into. He’s never a snake so much as a feathered serpent, a pegasus instead of a horse, a manticore instead of a mere lion, and well, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Beast Boy take to the streets of Manhattan as a T-Rex with giant pterodactyl wings. Why his wings never fully settle could be due to his shape-shifting or it could just be in his nature.....Gar’s the original Lost Boy who’ll never FULLY grow up.

Raven’s are purple and black on the outside but bone-white on the inside.....like her empathy, they cut both ways. When she pulls her wings tight around her and someone else like a protective shroud, they can shield her and those in her care from prying eyes and scrying magic....when she throws them wide and strikes out with them at enemies on either side, the touch of her feathers is like feeling the cold of the grave. Kory’s are a deeper, royal purple juxtaposed beside Raven’s shadowed inky violets.....but rather than feathered, Kory’s are tall and draconian, imperious and imposing canvases adorned with swirls of red and green like nebulas painted across a cosmic backdrop. Curling emerald flames lick around the edges of them just like her starfire sometimes dances through her hair.....even when ‘ablaze’ her wings are cool to the touch if she invites you to touch them, but touch them uninvited and you’re going to get burned. Badly.

Lilith’s are four enormous feathered wings of green and gold and black spread behind her like the many layered wings of a seraph. They’re decorated in various places with dark concentric circles like those found on peacock feathers....until those circles flare and open wide and you realize you’re staring at dozens of eyes that are all looking back at you.....each a window to your own soul, freezing you in place with a glimpse of your own darkest secrets or possible destiny.

Joey’s are many-hued mosaics, like wings made of stained-glass windows. Hazy and indistinct shafts of rainbow light slanting through his varied ‘feathers’ when he spreads his wings in the air behind him.....like viewing screens or windows they show glimpses, afterimages of everyone he’s ever joined his soul to when riding shotgun in their bodies.....making them forever a part of him, a link he can tap into at will and rendering his power less about possession and more about connection, a forever-door that lets him merge with one of his previously tethered-to teammates, no matter where they are in relation to him. But with the slight change that now what he makes up for in range, he loses in stealth, as his wings show up behind the body of his ‘host’ for as long as he remains merged with them.

And Dick’s wings finally settle in adulthood to sweeping feathered wings of blue and indigo banded with gold.....but where his presence is less attention-commanding than in his younger years, his impact is definitely felt. As his settled wings act as an epicenter for a kind of gravitational bubble around him that’s keyed to his mood.....when he’s lighthearted and in high spirits, everyone around him feels a little bit lighter, purely in a physical sense, gravity within his sphere of influence being a little less heavy, leaving his friends and teammates a little lighter on their feet, quicker in their reactions, etc, etc. When he’s feeling heavy though, his immediate environs feel it with him - though that’s not always the worst result when surrounded by enemies he’s better off having feel overburdened, weighed down, like they’re struggling to get to their feet and the air itself is sitting a little heavier in their lungs every time they take a breath.

[it-was-all-a-beautiful-dream]

Silva Lining (Saul Silva x Reader) Chapter 16

Warnings: Swearing

Word count: 2.1k

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The barrier was abandoned as you head back to the school. What was Aisha thinking? Telling the teachers their plan?

You huffed as you walked into your mothers office. Saul had stayed behind at the barrier with the Specialists while you and Aisha were escorted back by your mother and Mr Harvey. Stella, Terra and Musa were the only ones there, Bloom no where to be seen.

“Before you say anything, I didn’t say a thing, it was all this ones doing.” You hitched a thumb in Aisha’s direction. “The only thing I found out was Rosalind has been after me this whole time and has been using Bloom to get to me. She somehow knew the truth about who my mother was and knew she couldn’t use me to free her. So please please please tell me nothings happened yet and Bloom is just taking her time in the creepy hidden room?”

You sucked in a breath, forgetting to breath during your mini rant. The girls just looked shocked, less shocked than normal, they probably expect this kind of stuff now, nothing was easy when it came to your life.

You watched as Farah came back through the door way, having gone in search for Bloom. “They’re gone.”

So here you were, sitting around your dorm, having been shouted at by Mr Harvey; who you don’t think you’ve ever seen angry before. Terra stood up to him and then he locked you all in using magic…. could anything else go wrong. Oh wait, you spoke too soon.

You kicked back in your chair, leather boot clad feet up on the table as you listened to Stella go in on Aisha for being a snitch.

“Bloom is being selfish, the last thing Miss Dowling needs is to be worried about Rosalind.” That made you stir in your seat. Your feet came off the table with a thud.

“Stell, she does have a point there. You know how much shit we’ve cause Dowling, I know with the new found relationship status I could come across as bias but after all, all this shit is happening because of me once again. Can we just stop arguing for one second and figure out how were going to help?”

Your speech was interrupted by the flickering of lights. “Okay did anyone else see that or am I having some weird magic stroke?” The rest of the room murmured. Okay, not a stroke.

“This shouldn’t be happening, Alfea is an outpost it runs on magic.” Terra paced and Musa and Sam joined the rest of them in the room.

Sam, being able to walk through walls, decided to go and check it out. See what was happening.

“Wait I can come with you..” You volunteered but he had already vanished. “Okay thennn.” What felt like seconds later Sam was back through the wall screaming in agony, his stomach sliced open, blood soaked through his clothing.

“There’s a burned one in the school!”

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The courtyard was the busiest you’d ever seen it. Your mother was using magic to slam windows shut, fire fairies were welding them shut completely. Saul was on one side dishing out armour and weapons to anyone who’d take it. Mr Harvey had set up a medical bay for the suspected casualties. Your mind was spinning. The voices had started when Sam came through the wall. Whispers in your mind almost like it was your subconscious. It was fucking annoying.

Looking around you saw a hell of a lot of scared faces. Your heart beat rapidly in your chest, you hadn’t had a panic attack in months but it sure felt as if you were having one now. This was happening because of you. Innocent people were going to be hurt because the burned ones wanted one thing. You. Your eyes scanned the courtyard as your mothers speech rang out. Saul caught your eye, and gave you a look. Scared, worried, love. He conveyed it all with just one look. He was going to get hurt. Because of you. In that moment you knew what you had to do.

Trying to sneak away had failed. Since meeting Stella you knew you’d had a bond more stronger than friendship. You were blood and something about that gave her an edge. She knew you were about to do something stupid, she could literally feel the dread running through her veins.

“Please tell me you’re not going out there alone, how many times is it going to take for you to realise were better off as a team.”

Stella made you jump as she spoke up behind you, with her was Aisha and Bloom. Your ran your hands through your hair, pulling the long strands up onto a bun, the bobble on your wrist secured it in place.

“Actually, I could use some help.”

So the plan was set. Bloom would stay and distract Saul and your mother. They’d been keeping such a close eye on her lately that they were certain she was going to be the one to do something stupid and reckless. Oh how the roles had reversed. Aisha and Stella were coming with you, you needed Stella there to help you ground your powers. Like you’d always said, she was the light to your dark and vice versa. Aisha, well, she was a fucking powerful and smart fairy, couldn’t hurt to have her on your side.

Sneaking behind a wall just off the courtyard, you held your hands out allowing smoky black tendrils of magic flow freely from your shaking fingers. The portal opened and with one last look back at all the fear and chaos inside, you stepped through.

-Saul’s POV-

We got back to the school just in the nick of time. The courtyard was full of scared, fear fulled fairies and Specialists and all Saul could think of was his girl and why the fuck she wasn’t in the courtyard with the rest of the students.

His heart beat rapidly as he gave orders and handed out weapons and armour to every student he could. He was alerted to Y/N’s presence when he heard screaming and panicked cries from across the room. She was helping her friends carry Harveys kid, his torso clawed away at by the hands of a burned one.

He was too distracted, he couldn’t go to her straight away people would notice, even amongst all this chaos, they still had to be clever and careful. He was busy talking to Sky, still trying to keep his girl in his sights but he failed. Now seemed the only chance that he might get to tell Sky the truth about Asterdal and that’s what he did. How he killed Skys father to save himself after Andreas turned on him. Sky didn’t want to believe and he was pissed, but it needed to wait until after. After the burned ones weren’t knocking on their front door. He looked around again for you, wondering where the hell you were.

“Are you seriously looking for Y/N after you told me you killed my father?” Sky seethed, rightfully pissed off. “I don’t know where she is but she asked me to tell you she loves you, and she’s sorry, she said she would have said it herself but it would have been too obvious.” With that Sky walked away to the front line before Saul could ask him what she meant by sorry.

The burned ones were banging on the doors, windows, you name it. They had arrived. Farah parted the crowd of scared students like the red sea, Marco behind her telling people to keep their nerve. Saul joined them at the front armed and ready. Screams erupted as glass fell from the towering ceiling above. A fairy shot fire from his hands directly at the burned one who had fell through the roof. It charged it’s way towards the specialists, swords drawn, they charged forward, only to stop when the burned one changed coarse, leaving the students behind.

“What the hell was that.” Terra panicked and looked around for more signs of burned ones.

“They’re all moving together… like they’re looking for something.” Saul looked at Farah, realisation dawning on his face.

“Where’s Y/N?”

-Your POV-

The air was colder than usual. Maybe it’s because deep down you were scared shitless and the nerves were getting the better of you.

“Y/N you do know my mums gonna be here soon, with an actual army!” She ran after you, trying to keep up with your long strides.

“Stell, the burned ones have always been after me, from the start. I can’t stand back and not do anything. I know how to stop them, I’ve had the power all along, I’ve just been too afraid to use it. I need to draw on more power than I ever have before. That’s why I need you both here, so you can try and stop me if it gets out of control.”

You could hear the burned ones getting closer, their menacing growls echoing through the spindly trees. Shadows bounced around the outskirts of the space you were standing in. You didn’t realise you were crying until Stella brushed your tears away. Both fairies grabbed your hands.

“If anything happens, tell Saul I love him. I’ll never stop loving him even in death.”

You gave Stella one last hug and did the same with Aisha, taking a deep calming breath you stepped forward, your heavy boots squelching in the waterlogged field that overlooked the school you’d come to call home.

When you knew your friends were far enough away you opened up you senses, giving in to the power you possessed. Your eyes turned black and your body began to slowly lift from the ground, arms outstretched. You could feel the power swirling inside you. It’s presence made you gasp. Around you, a smoky black fog, your body was consumed in it, a visual representation of the power you held. You looked down to your fingers, to your body and smiled.

Fairies used to have wings but they had lost the ability to perform transformation magic so adapted and didn’t need them anymore. So it came as a surprise when you felt giant wings burst from your back, glowing black and white. This is what it meant to be the answer to all the realms problems. You smiled again, tears threatening to spill due to the feeling of being whole. This is who you were meant to be all along and now you had finally found yourself.

The burned ones sprung from the depths of the forrest. Your boot clad feet hit the ground with a thud and your smoky, bright wings fanned out behind you. You were ready. They charged towards you, their growls filling the air. Your hands shot out and your black tendrils of magic shot into their chests, ripping out the spark inside them. You watched as one by one they crashed to the ground around you. Their monster like growls no longer.

Your wings retracted and you breath deeply. The burned ones that had once surrounded you no longer deformed and burned. But there, laying on the ground, humans.

“What the fuck?”

You heard running footsteps and looked up dizzily to see your mum and Saul running towards you in worry.

They stopped, looking around at what had unfolded. “Well done Y/N.” You mother was tearing up, shocked, happy and proud. You stumbled towards Saul. He ran to you, swooping you up in his arms.

“Farah what’s wrong with her?!” Saul was panicked, brushing the hair back from your sweaty forehead. Your mothers hand came to rest on Sauls shoulder.

“It’s okay Saul, she’s just weak, let’s get her back to the school.”

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That night, the lights came back on in Alfea. Your friends surrounded you as you lay in bed, all talking about the events that had unfolded and how you had earned your wings. How Stella and Aisha had helped you in your time of need. How Terra and Musa had helped save Sam, and how Bloom had helped distract everyone to make the whole plan a possibility.

As the girls chatted and laughed, you zoned out, looking around at each of them. You couldn’t believe how lucky you were. A girl from no where in England, finding out she was a fairy, finding an amazing group of friends who she knew she’d have for life. Finding Saul, finding her mother, finding herself. She couldn’t help the happy tears that fell.

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Oh my goshhhhhh! I hope you liked this chapter! I really enjoyed writing it! So much dramaaaa <3

As always please let me know what you thought! Comment, like, re-blog and if you wanna be in the tag list let me know!

CHAPTER 17.1 -------- CLICK HERE

Tag List

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[somethingwittyandweird]

So, I’ve once again taken up the pixel pen and put together 30 days of swords for Swordtember! I feel like I’ve improved a lot since last year’s offerings, and I felt a lot more confident working with the program and trying more complex things. I even tried my hand with some more animations this year!

Once again, this year’s offerings are a mix of existing swords from various media, redesigns of old swords I drew years ago, and new swords made specifically for this challenge.

Blurbs for each sword under the cut!

Shadow: A long katana-like weapon wreathed in shadowy tendrils. My first attempt to adding an ‘effects’ layer. Shape evokes the yin.

Light: Another katana-like sword with radiant light shining from the tip. Design evokes the yang. Obviously, meant to be the perfectly balanced counterpart to Day 1′s sword.

Insect-Like: A sword that evokes a bee/hive motif. I sorted through a lot of various bug designs that I wasn’t really feeling, but I finally settled on this one as one of the less creepy-crawly kind of bug.

Ghostly: A spectral, animated pirate scimitar. The concept of a ghost blade made me ask what a dead blade returning to life would look like. I settled on a broken hilt with an animation of the ethereal weapon appearing in place of the lost blade.

Lava: A sword with a motif of a river of lava running down its length. I spent a long time staring at Zelda fire temples to get the look of the ‘rocks’ floating in the river of lava to look right.

Snow: A chilling, translucent icicle blade with a snowdrift design on the hilt. I decided to try and create a light reflective effect to sell the ice aspect, and I’m really surprised at how good it turned out in the end.

Storm: A bronze blade with a detailed painting of a thundercloud and choppy seas on the blade, and wind designs in the background.

Anchor: A blade made in the shape of an anchor, with a detail of seaweed wrapping the hilt. This one is certainly better at bludgeoning than slicing- I took a cue or two from armor-breaking blades with similar top-heavy designs.

Summoned: A collage of the prior 8 blades, plus a new broad blade, emerging from several portals. These were initially all new blades, but I felt it was cooler to reuse the prior swords for the background blades. Inspired by the “Gate of Babylon” ability from the Fate series. I’ve never seen the Fate series.

Banished: A long blade being broken apart and drawn into a void portal. This is the only sword where I filled in the background of some sort of room, but I felt it was helpful to emphasize the vanishing point.

Dwarven: A short blade with angular, detailed designs on the blade and hilt.

Elven: A recreation of the Master Sword from Zelda. Because it’s my favorite sword to draw and I wanted the excuse. Hylians are close enough to elves for my purposes.

Delicate: A sword made of glass. Once again very proud of the light reflective effect. Very sharp, but not very durable....

Aquatic: A colorful blade with a motif of kelp, coral, and a clownfish hilt. Definitely the most visually popping sword of the bunch.

Forest: A longsword with vines wrapping the crossguard and roots twined around the hilt. Enchanted leaves swirl around the blade. A very druidic blade.

Broken: The delicate sword, shattered into pieces. Maybe glass weapons weren’t the best idea.

Bone: A recreation of Blutgang from Fire Emblem: 3 Houses. The Crest of Maurice, this blade’s associated crest, is visible in the background.

Floral: A long, elegant blade with a lotus motif in the guard and hilt. I really like the palette on this one. 

Musical: A sword with a staff design on the blade, clefs on the crossguard, a piano keyboard for a hilt, and a whole note for a pommel. Probably makes noise when you hit things with it.

Blessed: A golden, hallowed blade surrounded by holy light and angelic figures. I’m very pleased that the shape of the angels reads so clearly despite being pretty small in size.

Eyes: A shadowy blade covered in glaring red eyes, with a toothy smile for a crossguard. Inspired by Pride’s shadowy tendrils from FMA:B. 

Alive: A recreation of the Mimicry blade from Lobotomy Corporation. A wicked cleaver covered in exposed, warped flesh. An unexpectedly nasty blade, I think I’ll steer clear of more horrific elements in future.

Multi-purpose: A recreation of Leon (Squall’s) gunblade from Final Fantasy VIII. Gunblades are a little silly, but fun.

Vampire Hunter: A longsword with a cross on the guard and a wooden stake inlaid in the blade (so it’s effective against its quarry). A looming bat-shaped shadow glares from the background.

Translucent: An ancient-looking hilt with a cracked, green gem. The blade is made of energy and flickers in and out in time with the gem pulsing. This is a relic of an age past, and the magic that once powered it is all but drained away...

Stone: This is a pointed, angular obsidian blade with a tigers-eye gem for a pommel. One of a series of elemental swords I designed a while back.

Cosmic: This is a broad, star-studded blade with a green glow emitting from the blade. The palette is directly inspired from the 3AM Dress aesthetic from Homestuck, and the symbol of the Space aspect is visible above the grip. I make no apology.

Mechanical: A large blade that folds out segment by segment to its full extent. I had this idea early in the month, and worked on getting it just right by the end. Things that can fold up into a convenient size then fold out to a full extent are very much my jam.

Wind: A blade that curls into a spiral evocative of a gust of wind. 

Ornate: A bejeweled blade adorned with filigree, with a crossguard in the shape of a crown. A truly ostentatious weapon.

[doshmanziari]

Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth

A curious fact about the Metroidvania genre, if you will permit it to in fact be a genre, is that, despite the influences accorded to Symphony of the Night on the Castlevania side of things, very nearly none of the games cast as such -- and by now there are hundreds -- have been interested in consciously modeling their look on SotN. Depending on what portions you’re examining, the 2018 release Timespinner might be one such rare example; although, to my eyes, it most often resembles an imaginary title released near the end of the Super Nintendo’s lifespan: certain rendering techniques and palettes are there, but the overall effect has a sort of glossy compression and grotesque meandering which I would sooner associate with Hagane. That I’m making this observation is not meant to be a critique of the genre. It could, however, be developed into a general critique of the sort of pixel art which has tended to make its way into finished works since the boom of “indie” productions. One could quite rightly say that the majority of this material pulls from a needlessly small pool of titles released on the NES and SNES, with the more obviously labor-intensive stuff often appearing to derive from (or at least have the most similarities to) the Amiga’s heavy-hitters and the adjacent demo scene.

Anyway, my intent with laying these things out is to draw attention to Team Ladybug’s 2021 release, Record of Lodoss War ~Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth~, which, besides achieving a quality of visuals full of skilled rigor yet appearing effortless, is probably the closest anyone has gotten to SotN’s style since its release -- including the handheld titles produced by Koji Igarashi. Each of Team Ladybug’s prior games, like Pharaoh Rebirth and Shin Megami Tensei: Synchronicity Prologue, has demonstrated a similar excellence; but I think it was only upon Touhou Luna Nights where one could sometimes get a simultaneous sense of potential proximity to Castlevania and a slight move away from the smooth and cutely organized precedent set (and mostly still occupied) by Cave Story. With Deedlit, most people will, I assume, first seize on Deedlit’s sprite for a comparison, since it is blatantly based on Alucard’s. I would also note the abundance of particulate effects. The environments are the most significant, though. While a degree of flatness and sharp outlining has been maintained, the impression of depth and dimension to the surroundings -- both their details and the recessing of layers -- has greatly increased. This balance reaches back not only to Symphony of the Night but also to its canonical precedent, Rondo of Blood, which had a persistent, punchy aesthetic of sharply measured out tiles set against a number of stark backdrops with zones of pure black. SotN itself had sections illustrating this: examine, for example, the Marble Gallery’s lowest room.

The first screenshot above is one good condensation of the elements I tend to associate with Symphony of the Night’s places. For a broad point of comparison here, I might refer to the Colosseum or Olrox’s Quarters; for a specific one, maybe the Outer Wall’s leftmost vertical room with a hung figure. Here are a few of the elements which come to mind: 1) a definite shapeliness to each room, achieved by a contrast between the floors/walls/ceilings and the backdrops; 2) a careful partitioning of the background details, organized according to the foreground arrangement(s); 3) strong shadows alongside the walls and ceilings; 4) angled railings and staircases with visibly serrated contours; 5) borders’ screen-hugging extremities being much darker than the rest. In enumerating these elements, I’m not saying that they are always present no matter where you look in SotN (the fifth item, for instance, isn’t that common from area to area; yet, when it is present, it is notable), but rather that their appearance here and there creates a stylistic continuity which we can, in a way, reverse engineer as a guiding aesthetic.

The second and third screenshots I’ve included for how visibly they delight in the room-shape. For the second, it approximates a W shape, its middle an ogee arch with lips dividing shaft from dome. Note the inclusion of unnecessary but equally delightful structural anomalies: the two outward-thrusting platforms held up by colonettes and topped off by trussed posts. For the third, note the cavetto-like underside to the projection beside Deedlit, which creates a kind of minor shelter; and the way that the arched ceiling to the right has a supple continuity -- the border’s line moves straight down and then curvaceously bends to the right. This quality, although brought out by the inverted castle (and bypassed in what is now a boring and bored tradition of dismissing a “lazy” and “inconvenient” quantitative supplement), is not specific to Symphony of the Night. I’ve mentioned it because the level design of these games is, in my opinion, at its best when it is, to an extent, formally inexplicable, prone to yielding to miniature architectonic fantasies and wordlessly evocative therein. Deedlit makes it especially distinct through its “silver-lined” surfaces and darkly receding cutaways.

I really don’t have much else to write here at the moment and would prefer to leave it to other people, perhaps those familiar with the terminology for pixel art, to do a better job of explaining this and that visual similarity. I just wanted to jot down some loose thoughts and hope that it might kick-start similar and more developed comparative considerations for readers.

[visionsofus]

Hi! I hope I’m not bothering you but I was wondering if you’ve written Wanda’s first reaction to Vision’s human shimmer before?

hi! you'd never be bothering me! sorry this took a bit for me to get around to - my response ended up being a lot more long winded than I meant! thank you for reaching out with this, at the time I hadn't written anything like that but now I have ~ hope you enjoy 🥰

my inbox is open for anything and everything scarletvision

I just see you

synopsis: Vision hasn't seen Wanda in nearly a year, not since they both decided the danger was too great and they needed to go their separate ways. But he's still her emergency contact, so when Wanda ends up in hospital, Vision is the first to hear. Frantic, he travels to France, desperate to see her safe and harbouring hope that they might yet reconcile.

words: 4,140

read on AO3 here

There was a ringing coming from Vision’s bedroom.

It took a few shrill rings for him to realise that the noise wasn’t coming from inside his own head. Vision had been so wrapped up in his research that he hadn’t resurfaced for hours. It was a jarring thing to do all at once, to leave the carefully regulated interior of his mind and appear back in the physical world once more.

The ringing continued and Vision glanced around, his eyes adjusting quickly. Morning had quickly turned to evening and the pale walls of his room were lit up amber by the sunset.

The source of the sound was quickly discovered in the depths of his wardrobe, hidden within a pocket of a jacket he rarely wore. Vision fished the small flip phone out, anxiously. It had been a gift and the only person who knew its number hadn’t spoken to him in months.

Recalling that telephones only rang for a set time Vision hurriedly answered, lest it run through to the voicemail he’d never had cause to set up.

“Hello?” He said hesitantly, straining his ears to hear the person on the other line. The environment behind sounded busy, he could hear many voices piling on top of one another in chorus.

“Monsieur Maximoff?” The voice on the other side of the phone sounded stern, but unfamiliar. She was also speaking French. Vision did not know anyone who spoke French.

“I’m sorry, who am I speaking to?” Vision asked, fumbling for what to say and desperately grasping at the internet for a French translator. Mr Maximoff? He thought, who on earth was he talking to and how had they come across his number.

“Ah, Anglais.” The voice sounded more distant, as though she were talking to someone else. She returned, this time speaking in English with a heavy French accent. “Am I speaking to Mr Maximoff?”

Vision wasn’t sure what else he could say. “Yes, yes, you are. I’m so sorry, who is this?”

He was just about to trace the caller’s IMEI but the woman at the other end provided him with all the information he needed.

“Bonjour, Mr Maximoff. I am calling from the Toulouse University Hospital,” she said.

“Toulouse,” Vision repeated in astonishment. “Toulouse, France?”

“Yes, Monsieur,” she replied, sounding slightly vexed. “We had a patient brought in earlier tonight and you were listed as her emergency contact. Her condition is stable, but she had a hit to the head. We’ve observed her for a few hours, and she seems fine, but we wanted to advise you of the incident so you might pick her up.”

Vision breath caught in his throat as fear gripped his heart.

“To clarify,” Vision said shakily, “you are speaking of Wanda.”

“Yes.”

“Is she okay?”

He must have sounded rather strangled in his panic for when the woman spoke again her words were measuredly more soothing. “She is perfectly fine, Mr Maximoff. Just a bit shaken up with some light bruising and an abrasion on her forehead. We would like to monitor her overnight and if everything is okay, we can discharge her in the morning. Can you come to the hospital for then?”

“Of course!” Vision said frantically. “I can be there soon.”

She ended the call with a pleasantry in French that he didn’t recognise, but he was already on the move. He thought about leaving the phone behind, but decided it was better to have it near him in case the hospital called again.

Vision’s form blurred as he darted about the room grabbing at bits and pieces, he thought he might need. He wanted to travel light but also didn’t want to be caught unawares. He withdrew the travel bag he kept in his nightstand which contained any identification he needed to appear human. Vision had gotten his driver’s license once he had started making more solo trops and Tony had thought it useful. Vision obviously hadn’t taken the test itself; he was a better driver than any human and a test wasn’t needed to prove that.

He also retrieved his passport and the credit card he seldom needed to use. None of these listed his real identity, mind you. Instead, they displayed his human glamour with his pale skin and a head of sandy blond hair.

There was no way he could travel under his true identity without being clocked by the authorities as operating without the Accords’ instruction. Vision doubted that visiting your ex in hospital counted as noble activities that the United Nations would look favourably upon in the event he was caught. Especially when that ex happened to be an international fugitive.

With his ID secured and slipped safely into the pocket of his jacket, Vision made for the door. He was out of the compound before the building’s AI had the chance to trigger the system and notify Tony that someone had crossed the property line.

Vision had never had cause to test his super speed over such extensive distances. There had always been easier alternatives for travel.

Thankfully, progress went fast. Though it was frustrating having to stop at ever major border or airspace to disappear offline so he couldn’t be identified as a hostile flying object. When he did have secure connection, Vision kept an eye on the news in Toulouse, terrified that Wanda might be discovered. So far, the feed was quiet, and Vision had to rest on the assurance that the woman he had spoken with on the phone had said nothing to indicate she was suspicious of Wanda.

In the end, Vision managed to make it to France in just over two hours, having had to detour over the North Atlantic to avoid some nasty weather. Staying low to the ground and mostly hidden under the cover of night, he risked getting within two miles of the hospital before returning to the ground.

Vision ducked down an alley and took a moment to hide in the shadows. Taking a deep breath, he focused his energy on putting on the shimmer that made him appear human. It slipped into place easily. Straightening his jacket and running a hand through his hair, Vision ensured he looked relatively presentable before heading back out onto the streets of Toulouse.

It was an excruciatingly slow walk, but Vision knew he couldn’t risk drawing attention by walking any quicker than a human. Even in the early hours of the morning, Toulouse still had life to it. There were a few too many watchful eyes than he could be comfortable with. Even knowing that no one on this side of the world had seen his human form, it was still difficult to put the fear to rest.

Vision quickened his pace marginally as he reached the hospital’s entrance, figuring it might seem normal enough to hurry given where he was. In his head he reminded himself over and over that this was normal. He was here because he had received a call about his ‘partner’ who had been hospitalised. Vision felt sick even as he thought it.

Inside the brightly lit ground floor was a round desk with bright green letters hanging above that said la réception.Sitting behind the desk were three nurses. Vision caught the attention of the nearest and smiled politely.

“Bonjour,” Vision said, the language sounding strange in his mouth, “je suis ici pour Ms Maximoff.”

The nurse leant forward to catch Vision’s quiet tone. He was hesitant about using the last name ‘Maximoff’ and wondered why on earth Wanda hadn’t given them a false name.

“Ah,” the nurse’s eyes lit up in recognition and she turned to call over her shoulder, “Louise?”

Another nurse came around to the reception and as she rattled off something in French Vision recognised her as the stern woman who had spoken with him on the phone.

“Mr Maximoff?” She said with a welcoming smile.

“Yes,” Vision said hesitantly, “oui.”

“I though you would come by in the morning—”

Vision opened his mouth to provide reasoning for coming so quickly. He had forgotten how difficult it was, having to lie all the time when he was with Wanda.

“—but I understand you must have been very worried. If you would please follow me.”

Vision shut his mouth tightly, perhaps it was better to say less and let them assume more. The nurse turned away and walked down a long corridor to a set of lifts. She called one down and the doors opened with a chime, before gesturing for Vision to get in. As he stepped in, Vision let his hands brush against the control panel and shuddered slightly as he was absorbed into the hospital’s security system. It felt wrong, but it was better than risking someone having recognised Wanda already. Vision scrubbed through the security, uploaded a match of Wanda’s face and proceeded to edit all visual of her from the camera’s history. The system was too limited to even realise what was happening, let alone retaliate.

“Could you please explain what happened?” Vision asked politely as they reached the fourth floor and the elevator doors opened once more.

“I’m afraid I do not know much more than what I told you over the phone,” Louise said. “She was brought in about seven hours ago with a few other patients from a car accident. A vehicle lost control on the motorway and took out several other cars with it. A bit of a mess I am afraid.”

Lousie caught sight of Vision’s horrified face. “Not that Ms Maximoff was badly hurt,” she said hurriedly, “she is perfectly fine, and we will be able to let her out in the morning.”

Vision breathed out shakily as he was led down a brightly lit corridor. “Thank you.”

“Do not worry,” Louise gave Vision a comforting smile and stopped in front of a nondescript door. “You’re welcome to stay until morning though don’t tell anyone that I let you in out of visitor hours. There is a canteen on the ground floor, but it does not open until 7 I am afraid.”

“That’s alright, it won’t be a problem,” Vision said with a smile, eager to get inside the room and out of view of prying eyes. “Thank you for all your help.”

“D’accord,” Louise said her eyes crinkling in another smile and waving her hand, dismissing his thanks genially.

Vision managed to wait until she had retreated down the corridor before steeling himself and letting his human glamour fall. He did not want to see Wanda as anyone but himself.

As Vision erased himself from the corridor, he took the first step into Wanda’s cramped hospital room. The space smelt sterile, even to him and it was so wholly unwelcoming that Vision’s heart seized at the idea of Wanda spending hours here alone.

It seemed she wasn’t as troubled, instead lying sound asleep in the hospital bed. With the bed propped as it was, Wanda’s face was bathed in the light peeking through the blinds as car headlights flew past. Vision peered at her face intently, surveying the damage.

There was a graze across her forehead and a couple of stitches in her chin, but otherwise no other outwards injuries. There was a clipboard attached to the end of the hospital bed and Vision picked it up quietly to assess the doctor’s notes. It was in French, and shorthand at that, but he managed to decipher the words with the aid of his translator. MTBI. A mild traumatic brain injury, Vision thought. He knew it sounded much worse than it was and was comforted by the doctor’s following notes: no further cognitive symptoms, keep overnight, review in morning before discharge.

So there really was nothing else wrong. It was reassuring and he felt much better now that he was standing before Wanda’s sleeping form, her chest rising and falling steadily.

It was only then that Vision realised precisely how long it had been since he had last seen her. 8 months. Three seasons had passed since she had pushed him out of her life for good and he had let her. Wanda had sworn she didn’t want to see him again, and Vision had let it happen. He’d regretted the argument ever since it had happened

Now here he was, her unassuming emergency contact after a car accident. What if it had been something more final, what if that call had been made to deliver more devastating news, what would he have done?

Vision didn’t waste time pursuing such guilty thoughts further, instead going to Wanda’s side and sitting in the chair beside the bed. As he reached out for her hand, laying still atop the scratchy hospital blanket, he knew it was where he was supposed to be. As he took her hand her fingers twitched, registering the contact.

When Vision looked up, Wanda’s eyes were open, if slightly bleary. She blinked slowly in the darkness.

“Vis?” She whispered, her voice thick with sleep and exhaustion.

“Yes,” Vision replied, desperately wishing he could reach out and take her into his arms but knowing it was not his place to do so. Not unless she invited him to.

“It feels like you,” Wanda smiled and closed her eyes again, squeezing his hand. “I wish you were here.”

Vision frowned and wrapped both hands around hers. “I am here.”

Wanda stilled and Vision felt his hands grow warm and the familiar feeling of Wanda’s power. Perhaps just confirming it was him, or maybe it was a more involuntary reaction.

She sat up abruptly. “You shouldn’t be here!” The movement had apparently been too quick for her as Wanda winced and raised a hand to her forehead in pain. Vision jumped to his feet once more and helped her lie back down on her pillows.

“How did you get here?” Wanda asked, now wide awake and staring up at him.

“They called me,” Vision said slowly, trying his best not to distress her further. He thought about moving away from the bed to give her space, but she had grabbed a hold of his wrist and didn’t seem keen on releasing it. After so long without hearing her voice, Vision was content to stay as close as she would allow.

“The accident, was it bad?” He asked.

“Honestly,” Wanda said slowly, “I don’t really remember. It happened so quickly, nothing like a real fight. Just a flash of metal and I was lying on the curb. It barely touched me, but the paramedics insisted I come to the hospital.”

“As they should,” Vision said, unable to keep the distress from his voice. “What if something worse had happened? You really never know with head injuries…”

“Well, I feel fine now,” Wanda said relaxing somewhat amongst the cushions. “Did they tell you when I can leave?”

“In the morning,” Vision replied, “as long as the doctor checks you one last time before you leave.”

Wanda didn’t seem happy at the prospect of having to stay any longer than necessary but at least she didn’t push him to break her out of the hospital.

“I didn’t realise I was still your emergency contact,” Vision said quietly, looking intently at the mattress.

Wanda sighed quietly. “If you’re asking if there’s anyone else, there’s not.”

Vision stiffened. “I wasn’t prying.”

A few moments of silence passed by. “That doesn’t explain why I was listed as Vision Maximoff in your contacts.”

Wanda groaned and finally released his wrist, using her hand to instead cover her face in embarrassment. She sighed heavily and looked at the ceiling. “Let’s just say I was young, hopeful and in love.”

“That wasn’t that long ago,” Vision smiled, half-heartedly trying to joke past the growing discomfort in his chest. He hated that she used the past tense when talking about them.

“Yeah,” Wanda shrugged, “well a lot has changed. Being a fugitive changes things.”

Vision nodded, though he knew he’d never really understand what the last year had been for Wanda. “I hope it does not change everything.” He spoke slowly, afraid of saying something that might make her ask him to leave. “My feelings have not changed.”

Wanda bit her lip but seemed to be fighting off something like a smile. “Mine haven’t either.”

Hearing this made Vision breathe easily for what felt like the first time in months. Despite the circumstances, he was here beside her. Wanda was safe, light bruising aside, and through it all she somehow still loved him.

“I know things will always be complicated, but I hope you’ll think about letting me back into your life again,” Vision said softly, taking Wanda’s hand in his again. “It does not matter in what way or form, as long as I can be near you.”

“I’d like that,” Wanda said, her words barely above a whisper. Her chest shuddered as she yawned, wincing again as she shifted her head.

“You should rest. We can talk in the morning.”

Wanda nodded and let her eyes flutter close.

Vision stayed up for the last few hours of the night, a loyal shadow at Wanda’s side. All the while he counted down the minutes until they could leave and he could see Wanda safely to her house, wherever it was she was staying in Toulouse. It concerned him that Steve and the others probably hadn’t heard about Wanda’s accident, and he hoped they weren’t losing their minds with worry. There was another part of him that thought Wanda might be alone in France, she had always preferred staying in Europe when her small band of fugitives went their separate ways. But maybe that was just wishful thinking on his part.

It was foolish for Vision to hope, but he was starting to think the best way for this day to end was with him in Wanda’s bed. Of course, logically he knew they weren’t there yet. Even Wanda’s admission the night before to allow him back in her life felt like enough. But it was difficult to curb 8 months of longing.

As the clock ticked past 6am and the sky began to lighten behind the blinds Vision waited patiently, not wanting to disturb the rest Wanda so clearly needed. She had never been a quiet sleeper, always tossing and turning and mumbling in dreams. Vision was well accustomed with her habits, so it was unnerving to observe her stillness. But her breathing remained steady through until dawn. The only time Wanda had shifted was to roll onto her side, pulling their hands, which had found each other in the night, closer towards her.

Wanda finally woke around 7 and Vision busied himself by pretending to peer out the blinds and observe the street below.

“How are you feeling?” He asked over his shoulder, hearing the sheets rustle as Wanda sat up.

“Better now,” she mumbled. “But ready to get out of this place, I’d rather not risk it with the authorities in France again.”

Vision hated the way that Wanda said again. What had really happened in the months he hadn’t heard from her?

“No need to worry, I’ve removed you from security camera footage and before we leave, I’ll scrub us from the system again.”

Wanda rubbed at her eyes as she slipped out of the hospital bed. “Give me a chance to splash my face and change and we can get going.”

“No rush,” Vision murmured but it felt untrue. There was a rush. Even if he did remove them from the records there was no saying that a member of staff wouldn’t eventually recognise the name Maximoff and tell the authorities. Yes, the sooner they were out of the hospital, the better.

While Wanda was freshening up, Vision gathered her meagre belongings. Her necklaces, rings and phone had been left in a plastic tray on the bedside table. With everything safely in his pockets Vision slipped back into the hospital’s security system. From what he could tell, no alerts had been tripped but then again he didn’t know if the hospital had a specific code for ‘there’s an international fugitive on premises call the police’. Vision knew the hospital was nearly at capacity based on the records he had looked at, so the chances that their faces would stick out of everyone felt unlikely.

Nevertheless, it was better safe than sorry and there was no way they wouldn’t draw attention with him looking as he was. Once again, Vision closed his eyes and visualised his human shimmer, shivering as it fell into place. His skin tickled as his hair fell onto his forehead and Vision reached up to run a hand through it, a mannerism he had never had reason to practice but had seen others perform.

The bathroom door creaked as Wanda closed it behind her. It was a relief to see her out of the hospital gown and in something more Wanda.

“Vis how are you going to—” As she turned and caught sight of him, Wanda’s voice caught in her throat. She brought both hands to her mouth in astonishment.

Vision suddenly grew shy. Of course, Wanda had never seen him like this, of course it would be a shock. Did she even recognise him?

“It’s still me,” Vision said hurriedly, whether for her sake or his he couldn’t be sure. He rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck as Wanda’s eyes continued to search his face in disbelief.

“I know,” she finally said, approaching him slowly. “I can tell it’s you.”

Just as she reached him the door to the hospital room slid open and a young woman entered.

“Bonjour,” Vision said hurriedly, taking a few steps back from Wanda and turning his attention to the doctor. Wanda’s eyes remained on Vision right up until the doctor approached her and asked her to do a few simply exercises. When she was sure that motor function was normal, they were told they were free to leave and to go down to the reception to begin the process of checking out. The doctor made Wanda promise to return to the hospital if she began experiencing anything like memory loss or migraines.

With the doctor gone once more, Wanda spun on Vision, getting far closer to him than she had yet. She reached up and placed a hand on his cheek, frowning.

“This is new.”

Vision nodded against her hand, relishing this one touch that he had spent months dreaming about. “I started working on this as soon as I left…”

He didn’t need to explain more and saw Wanda’s gaze grow shadowed as she presumably recalled their fight. It had been about their safety around each other, it always was. Wanda had been angry about Vision being put at risk around her, and he had been annoyed about the same thing for her. It had been so difficult to hide and meet up every few weeks back then, especially when Vision was so recognisable, and Wanda was being broadcasted around the globe. When Wanda had finally insisted on breaking things off, Vision had agreed. He’d returned to the compound and spent a week perfecting his new human mirage. It was all in the hopes that when she next called him things would be easier. But she hadn’t called.

“Do you have a—” Vision swallowed nervously, “—a preference?”

Wanda tilted her head curiously, “I don’t mind this new glamour, either way it’s you. But I prefer the you you.”

Vision tried to hide his relief as he raised his hand to Wanda’s which was still pressed to his cheek. Her thumb was running curiously circles over his skin. Carefully, cautiously, he took her hand and pressed his mouth to the back of her knuckles. The gesture’s effect was immediate, and Wanda closed her eyes.

“I miss being close to you,” she whispered, as they gravitated closer together. “I could imagine you; I could see you were safe on the news but nothings the same as having you here under my hands.”

Well, she’d had one more assurance than him at least.

It didn’t take much for Vision to pull her closer, hooking an arm around her waist and letting his human glamour fall. She sunk into his embrace, as he had imagined her doing for months and Vision wrapped his arms securely around her.

“Please don’t ask me to leave,” he said, strained.

“Alright,” Wanda said, her voice muffled as she pressed her head into the crook of his neck.

She drew back and took his face in her hands and kissed him. Vision’s legs nearly gave out from underneath him as her mouth moved softly against his own, something he hadn’t let himself dream of doing ever again.

Wanda smiled against his mouth. “We’re sticking together from now on.”