#just sort of draw poses and faces just because

[narfin-frood]

Silly question but how do you art?

Or more like, how is your process to draw? Your lines and posing are so loose and show the feeling of a character so well, like, how do you make your art so real with only a few lines is what most amaze me. Anyway I hope I'm not bothering you and that makes sense, thanks for reading!<3

you're not a bother, don't worry! i'm not sure if there's an appropriately concise answer to a question like this, but i'll try to explain my process for poses a bit, and if there's anything else specific you'd like to know about my process, feel free to ask, and i'll try to answer!

for posing, i find it's very helpful to start by thinking about what situation the character is in. you don't need a location or a background or anything (unless you're being #serious about it). for this, i chose "picking up something way too heavy" (cont. under cut, wall of text ahead)

keeping it very simple is key!!! do not worry about details!!! i am very bad at this. i love to add a little detail or two, like his eyes or his little expression, but i have to catch myself before i get too into it, otherwise i'll forget the point of what i was doing and/or get bored. use just enough strokes to get the point across, and stop there (for now).

i draw fast and loose, with long strokes, which also happens to help with the problem that happens if you start with any specific part of the body. it's important to start with... everything at once, or else you won't be able to see what needs to be changed or fixed until it's too late and you've already decided on where you want the head and the left arm to be!

to display effort & strain without just contorting the character's face, you gotta think about just how heavy the object is, how one would go about grabbing it comfortably, and whether your character is smart enough to lift with their legs.

wander is great (read: BEST CHARACTER DESIGN EVAR. i love him kisskisskiss) because he's not grounded in any sort of reality until necessary, and his limbs have no bones, but he still has specific proportions and volumes to refer back to if you get carried away with the wackiness. posing a character made up of several noodles of varying widths is very simple, because you can do basically whatever you want to push and pull and make it as clear (and/or as funny) as possible.

start with your line of action, in this case the long line connecting his neck and his left foot. think about where the floor is, so you can make the feet of your character and whatever else is touching it coexist in the same reality. think about clarity: big, simple shapes are your friends, and if you're not getting the gist of the pose through the silhouette alone, try again! there's NO shame in hiding the first layer and doing a couple more sketches until you land on something you really like. Don't polish a turd, especially if you yourself think it's a turd. it'll make you feel like you're wasting time, and drawing is about having fun and experimenting, so if it's getting boring or frustrating, it's time to try something else.

wander and other characters with no bones and no rules are great for posing because you can do things like make their arms bend the wrong way just to play with the clarity of the pose. this:

un-breaks the arms and makes a little more sense for somebody with elbows, but some clarity in the action is lost when the arms don't curve upward and away from the very heavy object he's straining to pick up.

grounding your characters is both more complex and easier than it sounds, and it unfortunately requires you to think about perspective (i know. i know. i know it sucks and it's confusing. i hated it for a very long time but once it clicks, you'll have it in your brain forever)

fudging a perspective grid is fairly easy, just draw several parallel lines and have them get closer to each other as they recede into the distance, and then do it again in the opposite direction. you can use the transform tool in whatever program you use most to fudge this for even less effort, by just getting a png of a grid and fucking with it

now that you've got your floor, think about those feet. the grid makes it fairly easy to envision how a shoe would look sitting on that floor:

this is also where having an understanding of volumes comes in handy, because things farther in the distance will in fact look smaller, but it's up to you to figure out just how much smaller it would be in comparison to the other identical thing with the same volume that's closer to the camera. usually it's almost negligible, but it becomes easy to spot if it's a little off.

and here's the pose i settled on! i made his noodle arms more extreme for extra XD factor and i put him on his tippy toes for that extra bit of height!

a lot of the principles i'm talking about in this post i mainly pick up from consciously watching my favorite cartoons (and live action shows) and if i really, really like the way something is done, or if i see something that i've never really registered before, i'll screencap it or i'll pause or i'll just keep thinking about it until i draw again.

this is called "building a visual library" and it's the #1 easiest and most important way to practice. it requires no drawing, unless you want it to. look at lots of art by artists you love, and if you see something and you think to yourself, hey, this looks really good, by all means, absorb it.

art is great and it's really fun and there's literally nothing wrong with taking inspiration where you can find it!! seriously!!! absorb your favorite parts of every art style you find cool and fun and put it into your own! you're the only person who can draw the way you draw, and while replicating an art style is fairly easy (or it can be, depending), matching it perfectly is Literally impossible, so don't worry about being derivative. Nobody will notice, and if they do, it's okay to say you're inspired by them! encouraged, even!

my own art style, like everybody else's, is a frankenstein's monster containing all of the things i've loved before!!! and i think thats beautiful and if anybody tries to tell you you've gotta be 100% original and have "your very own style", they're a filthy liar and they're definitely (consciously or not) already taking inspiration and reference from the things they themselves find cool and awesome.

ANYWAY. wall of text over.

TLDR: draw quickly, use long strokes (try not to pet your lines), have a specific situation to put your character in, get familiar with volumes and proportions, and have fun!!!

[thefairygodmonster]

Pinks and pookas or one and the same.  Pink Pooka technically has an official name now but I just keep callin them pink because its fun and catchy. There was a lot of words I wanted to share about this particular sona of mine but now that Im writing Im getting that ‘nah, just let art be’ vibes. Maybe another time.

 I have a huge backlog of sketchbook pages to share so perhaps that will be the time for fairy storytime. 

[averlym]

"one day, i cut him an apple. when he saw it, he laughed" (click for better resolution!) ,,, tag from @elliotly

[sercphs]

Despite everything, when Fischl's mood takes a more serious turn, she falls back on imitating the mannerisms and stances of the man who taught her how to fight - and nearly taught her to end the world.

[blackwaxidol]

Working on some torsos.... Initially just La'zaar's but I decided to put down an idea for Ru'thûn, too.

La'zaar's body chitin is more traditional, Ru'thûn's is based on something from Warmind concept art which I am quite fond of. I didn't want them to match, because I find trying to adhere to the traditional chitin genuinely aggravating.

[ineffable-gallimaufry]

in my semi-realistic bic pen era (except for the willow drawing but shhhh)

[twistedwonderlandimaginesblog]

Differnt anon but i love the swimsuit top falling off imagine, can we see it with Cater, Vil, Rook, Malleus and Lilia please?

Cater Diamond:

Cater had been mid beach selfie, striking a cute pose when he heard your cry of shock. His head whipped around and he became pink up to his ears, whipping his head the other way just to meet the prying eyes of others on the beach. He’s struggling to come up with a plan but finally points in a direction and gasps, yelling out a random influencers name and hoping their follower count was legit enough that they’d be known by the general public. It worked well enough that you were no longer the center of attention, an excited crowd forming and looking for the rare celebrity sighting while Cater rushed over to you. The crisis had been averted as you found your top, mumbling you’d just be lounging on the blanket the rest of the time. Later, when he’s sorting through his photos, he’s reminded of the moment as he caught the exact moment your top fell off, his face growing red as he hurriedly deleted the picture.

Lilia Vanrouge:

Lilia is no stranger to accidental nudity, these old eyes have seen some things in his many years on this planet, and it doesn’t leave him feeling any specific type of way. He can see that you don’t share the philosophy of ‘oh well’ when something embarrassing happens and does his best to save you, summoning a sudden wave that crashes onto shore and almost washes away some of the beach gear the gawkers had left unattended while ogling. He walked up to you with your top in hand, humming as he did; he held up a towel to cover you while you put your top back on, chuckling as he commented he knew the day would be interesting when you asked to spend it together.

Malleus Draconia:

The storm clouds that appear just as you’re kneeling on the ground, desperately searching for your top before others start pointing you out, was a blessing in disguise. Most beach-goers are too shocked by the sudden change of weather to pay you any mind and it leaves you with plenty of time to find your top, which Malleus casually stepped over to help you with. You feel embarrassed again because a prince of all people was witnessing you in such a state, but Malleus paid it no mind, seeming more protective than judgmental in the moment. You don’t catch any hint that he was the cause behind the storm, the clouds clearing away as he helped you tie your top back on and asked if you were ready to continue your stroll in a more secluded place along the beach.

Rook Hunt:

Rook had seen the unraveling as it begun, but you had not heeded his warnings of the top not being tied securely as every time you tugged it seemed to stay in place. He kept a diligent eye on you, not like there was anything else as striking as you on this beach regardless, but he does find himself failing in his duty when you point out a group of dolphins frolicking close to shore. When he hears your gasp he already knew what happened, his brain calculating in mere seconds that the disastrous future he had predicted had come to be. With a swift movement he removes the towel from your bag he’d been carrying, holding it over your chest and requesting just a moment to allow him to find the harbinger of chaos that was your swimsuit top.

Vil Schoenheit:

This was the issue with fashion these days. There was no practicality even in swimsuits, and while Vil lacked a real opinion on most beach outfits, he found yours seemed flimsier than most. It wasn’t quite a warning but he was unsurprised to see the top had pulled loose and left you in the middle of the beach, covering your chest and frantically looking around for your top before your humiliation limit was reached. He knew you’d rather be buried in the sand but he snapped his fingers to draw your attention, telling you to stay calm as it would attract less attention that way. He walked around you and finally found it half-buried in the sand, scolding you as your panic had nearly buried the only thing that would stop the staring. He suggested a nice cover-up next time, just to have a back-up plan should a swimsuit fail you again.

[syrupfog]

Luffy grew up with two brothers who, at first, hated him and kicked the shit out of him. Then, eventually, loved him and who expressed that love through kicking the shit out of him. 

Luffy's grown up with a low level of violence as love his whole life. 

His crew is the same, from very early on. Nami will beat on anyone (or at least any of the boys), and Zoro's been known to land a punch to the back of his head at every dumb remark he makes. 

And Sanji... his kicks are INTENSE. 

Luffy's lucky he's made of rubber.

and he laughs it all off-- because it's FUNNY. He knows his crew loves him, they're his CREW. He knows his brothers loved him, they're his BROTHERS. Luffy has always known violence as a form of love, although notably he rarely reflects that methodology onto others.

When Luffy meets Law the first time, Law watches as Luffy punches a Celestial Dragon in the face. That violence is, obviously, NOT a form of love. 

When Luffy meets Law the second time, it's when Law is saving his life, doing impossible levels of knitting him back together.

Luffy doesn't remember a lot of that bit, or the bit right after, on Amazon Lily, when the grief is at its strongest. 

But then, two years later, he sees Law again on Punk Hazard, and they form an alliance, and Luffy declares that Law is a good guy. 

No one else agrees.

But when has Luffy ever cared about other peoples' opinions? Now certainly isn't the time to start. Law gave all those pirates new legs. He saved Luffy. He's good. 

and then Law is travelling with them, aboard the Sunny. 

And he's mean and grouchy and short tempered and, again, everyone is wary of him. 

Luffy's not, of course, because that's just how Law is, but he's confused. 

Because no matter how many times Law snaps or yells or threatens to slice people apart, he's never violent. He doesn't throw punches or kick or draw his sword.

Which does make Luffy wonder if he's done something wrong, that Law doesn't feel like he can be free with Luffy, to go after him when he says something stupid. Everyone else does, is it because he's the captain? But Law's captain too, and they're in an alliance, they're equal.

But he doesn't say anything on it-- and even in Dressrosa, when Law tries to tell him the alliance is over, Luffy knows he wouldn't attack him even if he could. And it's confusing. He couldn't count the amount of times Ace landed a punch on him just for waking him up wrong.

After all that is said and done, and they land on Zou, and Luffy meets the Heart Pirates in all their glory, all twenty of them, he doesn't know if he gets more confused or less. 

The Heart Pirates LOVE their captain (as they should, Traffy is great!) and clearly would do anything for him, starting with those dorky poses they strike. And they yell at him for abandoning them, but they don't get violent with Law, and doesn't get violent with them. He sort of just... lets them yell at him and then talks over them. 

It's weird.

This isn't a thought that keeps Luffy up at night so much as it's a thought that he returns to whenever he looks at Law, reclining as his crew tries to get him to talk about what happened, or whenever Luffy's getting literally kicked out of the kitchen by Sanji.

It's a fact that Luffy puzzles on even in Wano, as Law is passively letting Luffy ruin every plan and then announcing that he planned FOR Luffy to ruin every plan. 

He doesn't hit Luffy for ruining his plan. He doesn't even elbow him in the side.

Before Luffy had seen Law with his own crew on Zou, he had thought that maybe Law didn't really like him. But after seeing Law interacting with his crew, he started to reevaluate. Law loves his crew, and although he threatens to use his Room on them (and maybe sometimes he does), that's not a violent thing. They can pop back together like Kin'emon did. 

But Luffy wonders-- what does it mean to be close with someone without feeling the freedom to get physical with them? 

He wonders this and doesn't have an answer, because that's never been his world.

And of course, what Luffy doesn't know, is that Law grew up with that violence. Had those formative years with Doflamingo, where he was taught to fight and lived with a family who was just as violent as Luffy's own. He was full of hatred and happily took it out on people.

And the only difference was Cora-- who at first was just as violent, to be fair, throwing him out a window and all that. 

But Cora who saw him as someone that could be saved, who sacrificed everything from his mission to his life, to give Law freedom of a different kind— the freedom of gentleness. The freedom that comes from being able to live for yourself. The freedom that comes from being loved enough that the one who loves you gave it all up for you. 

He gave Law everything he had, and he held him tight and told him it would all be okay.

And it wasn't, because Cora's gone, but Law took that love and internalized it, and from the very start the first thing he does is save Bepo from being hurt. 

He gathers a crew little by little and does so by giving them second chances like he was given, and gives them safety— including physical safety. Because separating himself from Doflamingo and that hatred means also separating himself from that senseless violence that comes from growing up in organized crime. 

Law's crew respects him because, despite his prickly exterior, he's stoically kind.He's using his fruit to help and to heal-- even when he gives those pirate hearts to the marines, did he kill them? Debatable. 

Law has worked hard to excise that violence from his life, and Luffy can see that even when no one else on his crew seems to notice.

And Luffy doesn't know why-- doesn't understand it-- but god it makes him smile wide when he sees Law snap at someone and knows that he can trust that Law won't hurt. 

It's like having a wild animal, capable of destruction, lay lazily at your feet.

Luffy wants that. It's an addicting feeling, to feel safe in that way. 

He loves his crew and he loves his brothers and he's made of rubber-- they couldn't hurt him, wouldn't hurt him. 

But the secret gentle kindness of Law is addicting.

[the-ancient-dragons]

Welcome back to Overcomplicating the Pyrrhian Tribes! This week: the beloved RainWings!!

You know what's up. Joy Ang and Tui are so cool and I am just me.

Details and explanation below!

Otherwise, next week are the chilly IceWings! See you then!!!

More overcomplicated dragons.

I knew the RainWings would be really important, and I think they turned out the best of all the ones I've done. I think they're my favourite because they are basically the perfect mix of extra realism spice without altering Joy's design too much. The SkyWing design is awesome and I love it to bits, but it is one of the two that are the farthest from canon.

As for the RainWing.... I had. So. Much. FUN. I heavily used chameleons and snakes - they're basically the two main species on my research board - but there is a dash of cuttlefish and frilled lizard in there. Where, you ask? Well if you look closely, all over the RainWing are little tiny flecks of darker colour. I found a beautiful reference of a close-up on a cuttlefish eye. Its skin is dotted in thousands of little marks and I thought that would be perfect for the RainWing, who can camouflage just as well as them. I don't know if it's been discussed in canon but I bet they could animate their scales more than just colour shifting - cuttlefish are known for using their rapidly shifting patterns to hypnotize prey. RainWings could do it too, sort of like Ka from Disney's 2D animated Jungle Book.

Speaking of Ka - snakes. I love snakes. The head structure of the RainWing here is very smooth and rounded with muscles based on snakes like the python. I was even going to originally draw them in a venom striking pose and got as far as completing the lineart, but ultimately decided it wouldn't fit the calm portraits of the other tribes.

Will you see it in the future? Hell yeah! Pure, unhinged, magical death spit. Looking at it now I might try to alter it to be a full piece of Glory attacking Scarlet or Crocodile.

In the striking pose you can see the frills much better, but I still took my time on this serene pose (this is where the frilled lizard influence comes in). If you notice that I've drawn every scale (every single scale) then, yes, I am insane. If you didn't know that yet, you know it now. You have to draw guide lines and follow them meticulously while you wonder why you don't make a scale brush, and then cry because you know the randomness and imperfections that come from drawing a thousand circles is how it looks natural. The eye area is actually my favourite part, since drawing dragon eyelids was the original inspiration for doing this. Did I mention that? I wanted to draw eyelids.

EYELIDS.

I digress. Besides the eyelids, I like the frills on the action pose, but this pose is where I like the body scales more. When zooming in on my chameleon colour refs, I noticed the very rhythmical distribution of their scales and figured I would give it a try. They actually do have extra large circular scales along their bodies, which is where I guess the canon RainWing design gets it from. Very clever, Joy!

Anyway, on this version, those small circular scales appear on the face. Not only that, but I added a bit of influence from the snouts of my ref chameleons by extending the nose bridges to wrap around the nose horn. They blend in so seamlessly and that's the reason why I love this design - it's subtle, barely there, mostly Joy but a little extra.

Wow, I talk too much. If you're here, thank you! It's not mandatory to read, but very appreciated. I heard once that visitors at an art gallery look at each piece an average of 2-3 seconds. Or was it 3-6? Idk, but it was shockingly short, and ever since then I've tried to encourage myself to pay more respect to other artists and glean their work for little details I skip after that quick glance. I could talk so much more about these designs but that would be like an hour long video, each, lol. If you have questions about anything, ask away!

[robintherobiner]

What would the Wayne Family and the Bat Family post tiktok

Bruce: videos of him buying new outfits with the material girl sound over it because, according to one post, 'his kids said it was funny and he liked seeing them smile'. on his official account though (the wayne enterprises one) his 'social media manager' posts clips from interviews and soundbites.

Batman: does not have a tiktok.

Dick: posts videos of him either doing gymnastics or of him hanging out with his siblings. Most of the time he is throwing up a peace sign and then Tim and Damian are wrestling in the background and he captions it something along the lines of 'brothers drawing blood in Blud!'

Nightwing: posts videos of short self defense tips/poses, regularly collabs with Red Hood. (not that Jason knows this, Dick just sets up a camera and then goes and bothers his brother until he tries to punch him so he can teach people to block)

Barbara: Posts videos talking about accessibility (both whats available and what should be put in place). if one of the wayne's annoy her, she also will post a compilation of them doing something silly like tripping over thin air or being caught using a hairbrush as a microphone)

Oracle: posts clips of people doing non violent crimes (faces blurred out ofc) with the caption "the eye in the sky sees you, dumbass." because why would you try ack a car on a street with three non-hidden cameras

Jason: doesn't post. anymore. does have an account from when he was a teenager where it's just him doing sped up acting videos to sounds. he has tried to log in to take it down but Bruce changed the password. Brucie regularly comments on different videos like "my baby was such a star... rip sweetie 🕊️🕊️🕊️" and its Jason lip-syncing to fucking Justin Bieber or something

Red Hood: posts videos shitting on Batman. the comments were full of people saying "daddy issues" or "i wanna be a dealer just so you can shoot me babygirl" so he turned them off. sometimes someone (tim) turns them back on and Jason gets bombarded with "BRO IS SERVING CUNT"

Cassandra: posts videos of her doing ballet, or of her showing off her strength. Not on purpose though, she thinks its fun to post videos of her teasing her brothers and the comments are like "WHY DID SHE JUST PICK UP DICK GRAYSON WITHOUT EVEN BREAKING A SWEAT WHAT"

Orphan: has a shared account with Batgirl, but she doesn't post on it, just sort of stands in the background as Steph makes funny videos.

Stephanie: enjoys posting videos pretending to be dating both Tim and Cass because she thinks its funny when the internet call her a gold digger and cheater. Bernard (after going public with Tim) occasionally fuels the fire by commenting "lmao get ur bag girl" under a video of her dragging Tim to a resturant

Batgirl: posts videos of her making fun of rogues, and on her shared account with Cass, just joins in on trends but obviously mixing it to fit her (aka: "when Batman lectures you for breaking a criminals leg but your literally just a teenage girl")

Timothy: like Bruce, he has two accounts. One is professional, with him promoting Wayne Enterprises products or whatever. Second one is full of him doing wild shit like skateboarding down the manor stairs or him trying to confuse Bruce with cringey slang. his most popular video though, is of him using the Nepo Baby sound by Fox SZN

Red Robin: posts slideshows of pictures of Gotham. All very aesthetic ones, of good architecture and people laughing together and shit. His bio is "showing you guy why I do what I do." His account is very artsy fartsy but he also was the first batfamily member to get verified

Duke: doesn't post, just likes videos.

Signal: posts videos of him trying to scare the other vigilantes, cuz, yknow, he can go invisible. tell me you wouldn't do that either if you could be invisible. exactly, you can't. He also makes videos about how hard it is to be a teen vigilante.

Damian: videos of his pets doing tricks. also regularly stitches Tim's videos and just deadass insults him. Tim always comments on his stitches with just a singular emoji because he found out it pisses Damian off more when he doesn't have a big reaction

Robin: posts about resources for gothamites. also has a shared account with Superboy (Jon) where they try and sneak up on both Superman and Batman. They have yet to succeed on either one.

[reds-skull]

CW FLASHING IN THE VIDEO (3rd from the bottom)

This is it. 3 months in the works, the comic (and video) are finally done.

A little over a year ago, I uploaded the first work in Revenant AU, Ghost's origin comic. I never thought I'd write a whole series for this, but I'm so glad I did. I got a whole new hobby out of it, haha.

I already began working on part 2, but this for me marks the start of it. I'm really excited to get back into this world!

Under the cut there are some comments on the comic I thought some people might be interested in (don't wanna make this post longer than it already is lol). I will upload the frames from the video separately, with comments on it there.

Bottom line is, thank you for letting me just go wild with this :)

Okay, I'm mostly gonna talk about the part where Fate shows Makarov the 141+Farah. Makarov doesn't see the Fate of people as literal images, he often has to interpret odd symbolism in the flashes he gets from the Weave of Fate.

I decided to go for a style I saw in a collection of calling cards in MW3, mainly from this one:

You can really see it in the faces and pitch-black cel shading.

I'll be going in order of appearance, starting with Farah.

Obviously, each of the "flashes" shows the Reaping of each person, Farah being crushed under rubble. Behind her is a helo of green gas, which symbolizes the Russian experimental gas. The motifs around her are more interesting imo - they're taken from the Urzik flag (and yeah apparently it's "Urzik" and not "Urzikstani"... according to the wiki at least). Wings, plants (feels to me like a pomegranate and some sort of crop, but I couldn't find what it is specifically), and a moon, upside down.

I'm skipping ahead a bit, but I've had the idea to make a drawing of Gaz in the Hanged Man pose since I started the AU basically. I tried sketching it once, and it went bad so I gave up lol. But I decided to come back to that here, and add some sort of tarot connection to all of them. I know practically nothing about tarot, googled the meanings of each, they fit well enough, I called it a day lol.

So Farah is the Moon, upside down.

Price is next, showing him taking control of the brain of someone. I didn't use the flag of the UK for the 141 (it'd be kinda boring...), instead I took the Taskforce 141 logo, and broke it down to different elements.

I took the laurels for Price, both framing his illustration and sitting above his head like a crown. I decided he will be the Emperor.

Next up is Gaz, the Hanged Man of course. Gaz gets both the wings and the stars (I changed mine to 4-pointed because... I like them better). Pretty clear why, both symbols relate to the sky. The illustrations kinda follow a rough day cycle, if that makes sense. Farah being night, with the moon. Price with his golden and purple color palette, twilight. Gaz being sunrise, and Ghost and Soap, day. This is why Gaz has a sun behind him.

Ghost was fun because he's the only inhuman one out of the group. I'll let you think what that implies, that even in Fate's Weave, Ghost is an outlier... Ghost gets the skull, and the card "Death". That one was easy, but what I did add is blood flowing down the skulls, like tear tracks...

Soap, the problem child, gave me the most issues as always. For once, it wasn't his fucking face, it was the flames behind him, and overall contrast and readability issues. Soap's illustration is probably packed with the most "hidden" details, though they're obvious if you've read the fic and Konchar's side story. The headless man behind Soap is Konchar himself, holding 4 chains with dog tags on them. The 4 soldiers from Soap's squad, who he killed before Soap was Reaped. Soap's pose is from the moment he came to his senses, after getting shot in the head and destroying a large part of Verdansk. He has 4 swords, pointing at him and downwards, so his card is 4 of Swords, upside down.

Between Soap and Ghost is a circle and a triangle. I'll explain that in the post concerning the video, since that's where I got that from.

If you read all of this, thank you so much! There will be another post for you to read in a moment lol

[need-a-name-101]

You know in that episode of how I met your mother where they find out that Barney always looks good in pictures no matter what. Yeah that’s Dick Grayson. No doubt.

A paparazzi is trying to catch him off guard while he suddenly sneezes, later they check the camera it’s Dick with the most dazzling smile.

Jason tries to take a picture of him when he is barely conscious, Dick is smiling with a peace sign and he looks good.

Tim on purpose collides with Dick in manor with hot coffee in his hands to have it spill down on Dick’s white shirt, Babs clicks a picture as Dick is telling Tim it’s okay. In the picture yes the shirt has spilt coffee but Dick looks poised and handsome.

Jason makes a deal with Damian to have Dami paint Dick’s face as he sleeps. They proceed to click a picture, Dick is on the sofa in a pose, laying on his side with a hand on his hip and the other supporting his head.

Wally tries to take a picture mid vomit, and boom there stands Dick Grayson with disheveled look, which looks as if done on purpose. (It wasn’t Wally knows, at the start of the night it was slicked back) and the top buttons of the shirt open, Dick is giving a blinding smile to the camera. No vomit in sight.

Jason draws penises on Dicks face, when he looks back on the picture. He face is clean, Dick is giving the camera a lopsided smile and when Jason looks up Dick is no longer there.

Steph tries to click a picture when Nightwing losses his balance and slams face first into a wall. Some blood drips down from his nose and yet he looks poised. He is giving the camera a thumbs up.

Duke tries to get one as a thug tries to slam Dick on the hood of the car. In the picture Nightwing is perched on the thugs back, whose face was smashed on the hood of the car by Dick.

Cass tried to take one when Dick nearly chocked on some food at a gala. When she looks at the picture it’s Dick holding a glass of Champagne (he was not holding that before) and leaning on the wall beside him.

Tim looks back on all his stalker photos he had taken and realises it’s the same case in all of them. He has one photo in which Robin Dick had fallen in Gotham Harbour and was soaking wet, still in the photo he looked sort of posed, straight back, a slightly tilted head.

Cass breaks in Dick’s apartment to catch him off guard. Dick had just woken up. She clicked a picture and it’s Dick in a shirt and shorts, in the perfect I just got out bed look. But he had just literally gotten out of bed.

Babs tried to take one as Dick just got out of a shower when they were dating. He walked out with a towel around his waist, and he was drying his hair with another towel. In that he didn’t even pose, the photo just looked fucking amazing.

She even went back and saw all the pics they had when they were in school and In all Dick looked great. Even the one she had managed to click when she and Dick had messed up a chemistry experiment because they were talking and parts of Dicks lab coat were signed.

Bruce banned taking photos on patrol because all of them tried to take a picture of Nightwing as he fought some low level thugs. Which lead to robin getting distracted as he tried to take a picture while grappling and hit a wall. Red Hood forgot to switch off his flash which lead to his position being revealed , and he got shot. Red Robin lost balance and fell of a gargoyle. Spoiler got distracted while sneaking around and blew their positions. On the rare occasions when Signal was with them he tried to take a picture and walked right into the drug deal they were about to bust surprising the criminals. Orphan got distracted and nearly got hit on the head. Even Oracle got distracted while trying to get embarrassing pictures of Nightwing while she was supposed to be finding a bank robber. She found the robber but not the a single embarrassing moment of Nightwing. No one had gotten the picture they were trying to click.

Even Bruce has no idea how Dick pulls it off. He refuses to partake in this silly competition set up by his kids. The betting pool is so huge that it involves all of Dick’s friends, the JLA and most of the people in the caped community. The money in the pool by now must be more than what Bruce makes in a year.

[catslvrr]

you know all my dreams (you were one)

danielle marsh x fem!reader | one shot

Synopsis: Being a superhero involves a lot of saving, like saving people from burning buildings, saving cats stuck in trees, and even saving yourself from being evicted from your apartment. There’s one thing that you haven’t saved yet, and that’s your relationship with Danielle.

Contains: cursing, blood, violence, death, cliche hero stuff

You would like to believe that you are a good roommate.

But when you come tumbling through the window, landing with a raucous thud, all you have the strength to do is squeeze your eyes shut and pray to the heavens that your roommate graciously ignores you. Again.

This is the fourth time in a week that you have managed to enter your room in such a manner. You rely on the fact that your roommate is abnormally nocturnal and is most likely asleep by now.

You grimace as you remember that one time you accidentally crashed through her window, blacked out, and woke up to her grim face as she poked you with her foot. It wasn’t that far off from how she originally found out you were Spider-Woman two years ago.

It had been a rough day. You didn’t leave exactly scot-free after fending off the attempted escape of some maximum security prisoners at the Raft. 

This attempt may have been catalyzed by the recent blackout that you may have caused by fighting off another escape attempt, but who’s to say that’s the case?

Regardless, all escapees were given a scenic swing, free of charge, straight back to prison—a temporary one anyway. Now all you had to worry about was making it home in one piece.

By the time you reach home, the muscles in your arms giving in from the endless web-slinging, you don’t have enough energy in you to ease your landing (which really just meant trying to land on cool superhero poses). You swoop right onto the floor, face-down and limbs sprawled out like a measly bug helplessly trapped in a web.

You’re not entirely sure of the full extent of your injuries in the moment—mostly because of the way your whole body is burning, reminiscent of the building you were thrown into, but you’re pretty confident you have at least multiple bruised ribs, a black eye, and a mild concussion. 

“So, all things considered,” you say half-heartedly to no one in particular. “Not too bad.”

(Future note: You actually also had one fractured toe.)

You’re happily drifting off into unconsciousness, with nothing but the belated, slightly panicked thought of whether you locked your door or not, when three sudden strikes at your door jolt you awake.

Suppressing a groan, you roll over and pull yourself up as best as possible, ignoring the way your ribs scream at you. God, you were in so much pain. You let out a breathy exhale and even muster a crooked smile, even though you know your roommate can’t see you.

“Roomie! What’s up?”

A pause. 

You cringe. Seriously, ‘Roomie’? You should’ve gone with the name you saw on the leasing contract.

(When you first saw it, you thought that the lease was some sort of scam, because your roommate’s signature looked like someone trying to draw Australia from memory. Upon further questioning of the landlord, you were left with the information that your new roommate, Haerin, was indeed real.)

Before you can even apologize for your lame attempt at a greeting, Haerin’s response comes curtly.

“There was a crash.”

You pick up on a slight inflection of curiosity in Haerin’s tone—is glad that despite her nosiness, she didn’t decide to barge in and see you in your full Spider-suit glory. You force out a chuckle, hoping your roommate doesn’t notice the strain.

“Oh—right. I just fell. Tripped over my own feet. I mean, while dancing. Well. Trying to, you know?” 

Your embarrassment grows with every word that bumbles out of your mouth, and when the heat in your cheeks is too much to bear, you manage out a simple:

“Yep,” to eloquently finish it all off. You cross your fingers and hope your roommate doesn’t question the fact that there is no music playing at all.

You barely hear a non-committal hum over the pounding in your ears, and only release your breath when you hear the familiar obnoxious typing of keys, finding your heartbeat in tandem with its rhythm.

There are some things you can always depend on, and one of those things is Haerin’s perpetual typing as she attempts to finish her journalism assignments at the last minute. The incessant clicking of the keyboard gradually becomes soothing, almost therapeutic. You pass out before you can even register any sliver of drowsiness.

And then you wake up to a deafening bang and splinters of your doors ricocheting toward you. 

Reflexively, you flick your wrist, effectively webbing any stray pieces of your door to the ceiling. But you also web your roommate’s face. There are a few seconds of silence as you both just stare at each other.

“Funny how you find me in my Spider-Woman cosplay,” you chuckle awkwardly. “Because I’m not, you know, Spider-Woman.”

Haerin slowly peels the web off her face, face wholly impassive, still menacingly holding the ax. “I’m hungry. Buy me Wingstop.”

It takes you an hour to get the Wingstop back home. Ten minutes was dedicated to a mini meet-and-greet.

“What the fuck, Haerin,” you say with a mouth full of lemon pepper fries. “You broke my door down with an ax.”

“I was hungry,” she replies matter-of-factly, as if that’s a reasonable justification for the insane property damage she just inflicted. “But you were also not responding for sixteen hours.”

“I was out for sixteen hours?”

“A bit of an exaggeration. Maybe around 10.”

“Why do you even have an ax anyway?”

“Look at where we live,” Haerin clicks her tongue. “And you being Spider-Woman just slaps a big target on our backs.”

“Pause,” you raise your hand and stop chewing. “I’m not Spider-Woman. I’m just… a huge fan.”

Haerin’s exasperated eyes flicker to yours.

“I’m serious!”

“Yeah right,” she scoffs. “You make way too many spider puns.”

“Like what?”

“Like ‘I’ll swing by’, or ‘I’m kinda tangled up in something right now’,” she explains with air quotes.

You noisily take a sip of a lemonade you bought from a random stall. “Huh.”

“So,” you chew thoughtfully. “Hypothetically, if I was Spider-Woman, how would you react? Would you tell anyone?”

Haerin scans you, still wearing the Spider-suit, sitting cross-legged on the sofa, ungracefully shoving chicken tenders in your mouth with ranch dribbling down your chin. “I’ve known for, like, three months.”

You almost knock the ranch cup over in shock. “What?”

You swallow the chicken tender too quickly, and have to take a breather because you almost choke on it. “How—I mean, why would you think that?”

“You discarded one of your broken web-shooters in my room.”

“Oh. That’s where it went,” you scratch your cheek. “So… you won’t tell anyone, right?”

Haerin smiles. “Only if you pay for the door.”

You hear the screeching of a chair against the floor, hear the imposing footsteps headed toward your room. You feel something poke you. It’s probably the handle of that stupid ax she’s so attached to.

“You good?”

You respond with an unintelligible noise.

Another poke. “Rent’s due soon, you know.”

You roll over with a groan and pull off your mask. “Spare me some sympathy, I’m dying.”

“No you’re not. You’ve had worse.”

Haerin squats down to your level and dabs a cut on your forehead, leaving a burning sting. “Ow!”

You stay mum as Haerin wipes your face free of grime and blood. It’s rare, but when Haerin patches you up, there’s a tinge of gratefulness that twists your heart, and you know it’s better to leave it unspoken. That’s just how you two are.

You break the silence after a while. “I really need to find a job, don’t I?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Haerin replies. “I think you should start your own business: Spider-Eats.”

“Like… Uber Eats?”

“Exactly,” Haerin nods proudly. “But you don’t need to pay for gas, because you just swing over. And I’m sure people will tip you because you’re Spider-Woman.”

“Huh. That’s actually a really good idea.”

As you shuffle out of your Spider-suit and wince at the way your bloody clothes stick to yourself, you make a mental note to start designing and coding a Spider-Eats app. And to also do laundry again. You languidly stretch your limbs, trying to ignore the aches and pains.

“Thanks, doc,” you grin at Haerin. “I feel better already.”

Haerin nods and walks out to the living room. You hear some faint rustling, and the smell reaches you first: pepperoni pizza. You can practically hear an orchestra of trumpets and horns and trombones sing as Haerin re-enters your room, like an angel from heaven, holding three boxes of pizza. It’s even from the same parlor joint the two of you always loiter around.

“Wait,” you pull a can of grape Fanta out of her hand and toward you with a web. “I’ve always wanted to try something.”

Haerin watches as you dangle from the ceiling upside-down and crack open the can. You bring it to your mouth and attempt to drink it, only for you to choke and spill it on your floor.

“Oops.”

After that sad display, you both find yourselves in a familiar position: sitting cross-legged on the floor across from each other, absolutely devouring the food you’ve chosen to be a victim to your outrageous appetite. It comes with being a superhero.

“Seriously, Haerin,” you sigh in satisfaction. “I love you so much.”

You and Haerin mostly eat in silence and scroll on your phones until all three boxes are demolished. You pack up all the boxes and push them to the side, flopping into a starfish position and feeling bloated already.

“You know,” Haerin starts, her voice surprisingly sincere. “Tomorrow’s the day.”

You slowly exhale. “Yeah.”

She flops down beside you. The two of you stare at the LED strips (set to red and blue) that you both went to hell and back trying to tape on the edges of the ceiling.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

You offer a small smile. “Nah. You know how it is.”

The two of you lie there for a while until you both fall asleep.

Unfortunately, being a superhero is not all glitz and glamor. You find yourself to be quite the average Joe, living an ordinary life. At the end of the day, you’re just an engineering college student with no job. Well, besides the occasional side gig of being a masked vigilante.

You tend to relish the mundane moments these days, and maybe it’s the age. (Haerin would roll her eyes if she heard you say this.) Those fleeting moments where you can bask in the serenity of a night without any pings from the local police database you hacked into, although often only lasting several minutes, are valuable to you. Sitting on rooftops and indulging in the view that is the city skyline at night—you never get sick of it.

You used to hate this—being human, that is. After the bite all those years ago, being Spider-Woman was riveting. The novelty of your superpowers made you feel competent. Made you feel like someone. (Only after you persevered through the beginner's clumsiness.) Of course, there are the not so great parts of still being human. Like attending mandatory labs, dealing with group project partners who go M.I.A., and the exorbitant rental rates. Regardless, you believe the good still outweighs the bad.

But like most good things in your life, they never stay. How foolish of you, to think that your newfound powers could somehow transcend the inevitability of pain and loss. If anything, you face it more now. 

That youthful naivety led to more trouble than you can handle. That night when you swung past that robbery at the bodega, without a care in the world, unwittingly sealing the fate of your aunt. Any last connection you had to your family was violently torn from your grasp.

It was your fault. And nothing can change that. It haunts you every waking hour of the day, manifests itself as a wicked virus, and its suffocating tendrils latch onto you on the nights when you’ve delved too deep into your own thoughts.

You try to block it out now, but the best you can do is repeat to yourself that it’s a reminder. A reminder of who Spider-Woman has to be and what she means to the city. An unwavering hero who stands for justice and protects everyone. A hero who does the right thing.

You hum to yourself as you push the door open with your shoulder, exiting the shop with a bouquet of pale purple forget-me-nots. You shove your hands into the front pocket of your hoodie after adjusting your backpack, slightly shivering at the crisp chill of the early morning.

You greet the local store owners as you pass by, even giving a hand in moving crates or supplies to help set up shop. It would be so much easier to just swing to the cemetery, but there’s a sense of reverence you feel you need to uphold, and the only way to do that is just to visit as yourself. No mask, no secret identity. Just you.

You’ve just crossed the threshold to the cemetery with one step when there’s a prickling sensation on your skin. As you get closer to her grave, the discomfort only grows, and so you swing to the nearest tree and perch yourself there.

And then you see her. In the flesh.

“Danielle?” You whisper to yourself, dumbfounded. What was she doing back here, after all these years?

Danielle stills for a moment, and so do you. She turns around and eyes the surroundings as if she heard your voice. You duck and burrow yourself deeper within the leaves.

You observe her quietly, donning her own bouquet of roses, and you smile wryly at the sight of them. Of course, she remembers her favorite flowers. Danielle sits at the grave for a while, her lips moving as if talking, but the music blasting in your headphones blocks it out. You don’t try to eavesdrop.

She��s dyed her hair blonde now, and you didn’t think it possible, but she stands out even more. The color suits her—it matches her personality, akin to a warm and inviting sunflower. Seeing her treat the grave with such care and tenderness makes your heart pang. You grip the tree branches tighter to try to steel yourself, swallowing the guilt and heartache that arises. You don’t expect anything less from her. She’s still so kind and loving even after what you did.

She takes out a small pouch, eventually settling down and crocheting. You’re surprised for some reason, but you also make yourself comfortable in the tree. Even though you’re a hundred feet apart, being in the same vicinity of her fills your body with a sense of repose. You allow yourself to believe that you’re sitting next to each other, still friends, grieving together, and you think that helps you heal a bit.

Half an hour passes before you feel a droplet hit your face. And then another. You and Danielle look up at the same time, only to see the billowing clouds roll in.

Without a second thought, you slip your mask on and shimmy out of your clothes, fishing an umbrella out of your backpack before webbing it to the tree. You clear your throat as you land behind her, as gently as possible so as to not scare her.

“Need this, Miss?” You forcefully deepen your voice, holding out the umbrella above Danielle’s head.

She turns around, lips slightly parted in shock, and it takes all your willpower to not visibly tremble.

“Thank you,” she smiles sweetly. You wonder if she would greet you like this if she knew who you really were. “Let me give you something in return.”

Danielle hands you a crochet ribbed beanie, a bright red just like the roses she brought, with a white pom pom on top.

“This one took me a few days.”

It’s incredibly endearing, but you’re panicking at her presence so you can only express your gratitude with an awkward, “Thanks!”, voice crack included, before slinging to the nearest building. 

You make sure to wear it on the way home.

Haerin notices it as soon as you return.

“What’s with the new look?” She asks, not looking away from her laptop.

You set an iced Americano for her on the coffee table, and then proceed to drape yourself on the sofa, feet nudging Haerin’s side to annoy her. She chooses to ignore you rather than resort to violence only because you bought her coffee. She also chooses to ignore how your suit is still wet from the rain outside, droplets of water permeating the sofa. You take off the beanie, making sure to gently lay it on the table before slipping your mask off.

You rest your head against the arm of the sofa and close your eyes, but all you can think about is Danielle. The sincerity in her eyes as she gifted you the beanie and her saccharine voice rings out in your mind. You lay there and reminisce in silence for a while. You end up falling asleep for a few minutes.

Then Haerin wakes you up.

“Hey.” She slaps your foot. “Answer my question.”

“What—oh.” You mumble in confusion, trying to regain your senses. “I saw… someone at the cemetery.”

She finally turns to give you a deadpan expression. “Be more specific. A ghost? One of your many archnemeses?”

“Worse,” you rub your face tiredly. “Danielle.”

Her typing pauses. “Wait, the childhood best friend you told me about?”

“Yeah.”

“The one you ghosted?”

You sigh. “Yeah.”

“The one you pitifully pine over?”

“Well—yeah.”

Haerin lets out a low whistle. “She gave you that?”

“Yeah,” you murmur. “She didn’t know it was me.”

“You should keep it that way,” Haerin says. “It’d suck to open up old wounds after so long.”

“I know.” You puff your cheeks out. “And that’s not even the end of it. I spent forty bucks on flowers just to leave it to rot in a backpack in a tree.”

She glances at the wet puddle you created on the couch. “We can go back tomorrow and get it?”

“It’s okay,” you reply, opening your eyes to the pouring rain outside. You hope Danielle made it home okay. “I’m gonna wait for the rain to die out a bit and then head out again to investigate that weird case. I’ll put the flowers where they belong on the way there.”

“Is there a new lead?” You can practically hear Haerin’s ears perk up.

“Yeah, all the reports of the disappearances seem to pop up in the same area. I just checked for a location that shares an equal distance to all of them and came up with an abandoned warehouse.”

Haerin sits in thought for a second before asking, “Can I come with? You know how the college blog always relies on me for Spider-Woman content.”

“Fine.” You begrudgingly acquiesce. “Only if you get a cool shot of me.”

Haerin takes out her camera and snaps a quick photo of you.

“How about this?” She turns the camera around to show you the result.

You scoff in offense. “Seriously?”

“Is it not flattering enough?” Haerin teases, wrestling the camera away from you.

“I look like a wet dog!”

You web the camera to yourself and delete the photo.

“Stop abusing your powers.” Haerin clicks her tongue. “Go web a towel to clean this mess up.”

“What a coincidence,” you cheerfully ignore her. “The rain’s stopped.”

Like a miracle, the rain has cleared out, the darker clouds making way for the sun. You web a towel to dry your suit (but not the couch or floor) and slip your mask back on again.

“Alright,” you step out onto the balcony and turn to Haerin. “You want a ride there? Uber? Spuber…?”

“Let’s just stick to Spider-Eats.”

“Yeah.”

“And, no thanks,” she winces. “You almost swung into a pole last time.”

“Oops,” you say with no sign of regret. “Anyway, I texted you the coords. Meet you there.” 

You hop on the balcony railing and salute Haerin before proceeding to fall backwards with your hands behind your head. The rush as you swing through the city is unmatchable. You savor the wind rushing against you, the boisterous noise of cars honking and mindless chatter zooming in and out of your ears.

You’re back at the cemetery in no time, and after checking if anyone’s around, you stand before your aunt’s grave once again. Danielle’s roses are still lying there. You wipe some raindrops off the headstone before laying your bouquet down. Then, you’re off again. There’ll be time for that later.

The abandoned warehouse is not too far from the docks, a very typical location for people who are up to no good. You perch on the roof of a building opposite it, where Haerin is already squatting and taking photos. You can spot her motorcycle stationed in the parking lot behind the building. She barely flinches as you tap her shoulder.

“How did you get up here?”

“A good journalist never reveals her secrets.”

“Isn’t it ‘sources’?”

Haerin shrugs. “Same thing.”

You squat next to her. “So… did you notice anything before I came?”

“I did some research. Think this warehouse is registered under the name of just Jace.”

“Just Jace? That’s such a sick name.”

Haerin doesn’t bother to correct you.

“Name doesn’t ring a bell though.” You squint and scan the seemingly innocuous warehouse. “And I’m not picking up any heat signals… looks like nobody’s home.”

“How are we getting in?”

“This is a job for Spider-Woman!” 

You leap off the roof and swing around the warehouse, sweeping the perimeter to search for a way in. 

“There’s always an entrance when you can climb walls,” you muse to yourself.

You open up a voice channel as you crawl up the side of the warehouse, eventually reaching the roof where there is a conveniently open skylight. “Bingo!”

“Psst, Haerin,” you say. “There’s an open window on the roof.”

“Awesome,” she replies, although you note that her tone lacks excitement. “Can you get in and open the door for me?”

“The door?” You peer inside the open skylight. “You mean the gigantic sliding doors?”

“Don’t tell me you’re too weak to open those.”

“No,” you huff. “It’s just that… wouldn’t it be too loud?”

Haerin’s response is reluctant. “I guess.”

“You know what that means,” you sing-song. “It’s time for a Spuber ride!”

There’s some silence followed by a long sigh.

“I thought we agreed to not use that anymore,” she grumbles. “Hurry up and get back here.”

Haerin’s pick up and drop off is quick and easy, much to both of your satisfaction. You asked her to give you a five star rating, to which she replied, “That took literally less than thirty seconds.”

Inside the warehouse is dark, with only some dim flickering lights providing you with a shadowed view of the interior. The warehouse is stocked with looming cargo containers.

“Seems pretty filled for an abandoned warehouse,” Haerin muses, her voice echoing in the void. The silence feels foreboding, which makes you glad that Haerin asked to come, not that you would ever admit that.

“There’s gotta be something here,” you run your hand over the undulating surface of the steel containers. “A secret room, or some complicated contraption.”

“What about that?” Haerin points at a scrape mark on the floor in front of one of the containers, which coincidentally matches the circumference of a quarter circle.

“Oh. That was fast.”

You walk over and tug on the latch, before pulling the door open.

“No worries,” you strain out. It’s heavier than you thought. “Leave it all to me.”

“If you say so,” Haerin says with a smug smile on her face, standing there with no care in the world.

Once you finally get it open, inside the container is a set of stairs that lead downwards to an ominous tunnel.

“Totally not creepy,” you laugh nervously and gesture to Haerin. “Ladies first?”

She rolls her eyes before making her way down. The tunnel is fairly well-kept and it’s not long before you find yourselves in the secret room. It’s a lab, wires running hazardously on the ground, bits and pieces of machinery scattered on tables and filling up boxes, and computer screens displaying complex data and research.

“Okay,” you drawl. “Kinda getting evil mastermind vibes.”

You ruffle through some papers lying around. It seems to be sketches of some cylinder machine with cogs and complicated wiring in it. After inspecting the lab for a bit longer, you both come to the same conclusion.

“He’s trying to time travel,” Haerin notes as she snaps some shots of the lab.

You nod. “His experiments are probably what’s causing all those people to disappear into thin air.”

“What were the statements of the witnesses again?”

“Like the victims were just sucked into an invisible portal.”

Haerin pulls up some files on one of the computers. “It makes sense. It looks like he’s trying to time travel to the year his daughter died.”

You both are silent at this information. Until that silence is broken by a screeching sound outside, one that oddly sounds like the gigantic sliding doors opening.

The two of you immediately break out into a sprint and up the stairs. You don’t hesitate to scoop up Haerin once you’re out of the container and soar up to the roof with a web.

“He’ll know someone was here,” Haerin whispers.

“I know,” you sigh. “Hopefully it won’t lead to anything. We’ll have to come back later.”

Like the true neighborhood-friendly Spider-Woman you are, you give Haerin a Spuber ride back to her motorcycle. She revs the engine once to get your attention, then bids you farewell with a teasing “Race you home!” as she accelerates into the distance.

“So not fair!” You shout out at her retreating figure, swinging to catch up. You’re straining your arms to keep up with Haerin’s motorcycle, but a police car passes by with sirens on, and you know what you need to do. At the last second, you snap your left wrist to make a breakneck turn. Haerin will understand.

You can barely keep your eyes open as Minji nudges you with her elbow.

“Late nights playing 2K again?” The image of her stupid grin floats by in your mind.

“Something like that,” you whine, flicking your head up so your lab goggles fall on your nose. “I should’ve skipped today.”

Minji pulls up the DXF files you made for the project and resumes with the task of readjusting the ratio of some gears. “You don’t even need your lab goggles for today.”

“I look smarter with them on.”

“Yeah, right.” Minji peeks at your rough outlines of the gearbox transmission on paper. Some edges are ripped and it’s crinkled under your folded arms. “Damn. When are you gonna digitize that and render it?”

You slump back in your chair and close your eyes. “When I get a good night’s rest.”

“So, never.”

“Yeah.”

“The assignment’s due next week.”

“Yeah.”

“I hate you.” But she doesn’t. Because the two of you have been lab partners ever since you tripped on her lab coat in class a year ago and knocked over a bunch of her circuits and wires, which, to this day, she still blames you for, which is ridiculous, because who on earth owns a lab coat long enough to the point where it spills on the floor? But, you digress. Her lab coat is now properly tailored.

You’re half a second from drooling and snoring when there’s that prickling sensation on your skin again, and the hairs on the back of your neck shoot up, leaving you with that sinking feeling in your stomach. You sit up so abruptly that you almost slam your forehead onto the table.

Minji’s arm flies in front of your chest to steady you. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you stammer. “I just… need to go to the bathroom.”

You grab your backpack and sprint out of the lab, navigating yourself to the nearest exit. You’re on the roof of the building in no time, in your suit, and you immediately see what’s wrong. There’s a man in the middle of campus, floating above the ground, and whatever objects are around seem to be gravitating toward him. The objects begin to orbit around him, creating a mini tornado.

You try to call Haerin, but she doesn’t pick up. You try to call Minji too, but no luck. Your stomach coils with anxiety. You don’t have long to dwell on it though.

As objects slam into one another, students begin to file out of class and understandably panic. Campus security is screaming and directing people to emergency exits, but the whirlwind only gets worse and things are smashing into windows and buildings.

“This isn’t good,” you mutter, immediately diving into action. You web benches, bicycles, poles, and trees in all sorts of directions to disrupt their trajectory toward anyone. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a blur of orange amidst green, and hear a very distinct meow.

“Tiko!”

You hurtle yourself toward the flying tree and narrowly shoot through the branches, successfully grabbing Tiko. You were going to plop him down somewhere safe, but it seems he had other plans, because he crawls into your backpack and nestles inside it, sticking his head out.

“Hang tight, Tiko,” you scream, swinging toward the mystery man. “I’m going to stop this!”

The man now stands on a rooftop, the debris around him thrashing against the building which is threatening to fall apart. You land not too far from him.

“Hi!” You yell over the deafening winds.

He whips his head around, raising his palm to hurl a rock at you. “Stay away!”

“Wait!” It narrowly misses you as you skillfully duck just in time. “You’re Just Jace, right?”

“How do you know my name?” He falters for a second, taking a step back. “…And it’s just Jace.”

“Isn’t that what I just said?” You mumble to yourself in confusion.

You shake your head to focus on the situation at hand. “Please stop this, Just Jace. You’re hurting others!”

“I… I know!” Jace’s hands tightly grip his hair in frustration. “I don’t know why it’s not working.”

As his ire flames up, so do the winds, dust and small rocks starting to obscure your vision.

“Please, calm down!” You desperately yell, slowly making your way toward him with arms raised as a sign of peace. “Let me help you!”

The sound of police sirens grows louder, and you can hear the whirring of helicopter blades behind you. The police helicopter sways in the midst of the tornado, and you fear for both Jace and the police.

“No, no, no!” You try to wave the police away, knowing their presence would only distress Jace more.

“Police! Hands in the air!”

Police officers begin to rappel down from the helicopter, guns aimed at Jace. He scrambles in fear, sending rubble hurling at them in defense. Bullets fly out immediately after.

The sound of gunshots rings through your ear as you expertly maneuver through the ricochets and try to keep everyone safe. You burst through the combat and tackle Jace whilst he’s busy with the officers, trying to Spuber him to somewhere safe.

He wrestles in your grasp, screaming at you to let him go. Tiko gives him a few smacks in response. As you swing through a window, you release your hold on him, both of you rolling over to catch your balance. 

You lean against the wall, taking a moment to catch your breath. You’re rubbing your head that’s throbbing in pain, not noticing Jace’s sudden silence.

“The police really have the worst timing, am I right?” You awkwardly laugh.

You look up to see Jace stalking toward you, like a predator to prey, a dark intensity in his eyes. Any trace of the Jace you encountered before is gone. You bounce on your feet immediately.

“Jace?” You say hesitantly, walking backward. “We can talk about this…”

“You broke it,” he snarls. That’s when you notice what he’s clasping onto so stiffly. It looks awfully similar to those sketches you and Haerin saw in that secret lab. He lets it go and it clatters on the floor.

“I didn’t mean to,” you try to ameliorate the situation. “I was trying to save you.”

Your pleas don’t seem to reach his ears. He just simply repeats, “You broke it.”

“No need to get so upset,” you laugh sheepishly, hands in the air, discreetly scanning for the nearest exit. “I know a really good tech support guy.”

Your skin tingles. Jace then lunges at you, and out of instinct, you web onto the broken device and you swing it around to slam it into the space between you and him. The device makes contact with the concrete and shatters into pieces, shards of glass flying everywhere. For a moment, you feel as if time has slowed down, and everything sounds muffled, like you’re sinking deeper and deeper into the ocean.

And then everything goes black.

You wake up with a gasp, cold sweat sticking to your body. Haerin steps back, surprised. She’s holding her beloved ax, its handle hovering dangerously close to your cheek.

“You’re awake.”

“What?” You look around frantically, hands squeezing the sofa. “How am I back here?”

“What do you mean?” Haerin frowns. “You fell asleep.”

You stand up and squish your face against the window. The college campus is untouched. “What happened to Just Jace? Is Tiko alright?”

Her eyebrow furrows. “Who’s Just Jace? And Tiko the campus cat?”

You don’t respond, still lost in your own thoughts.

“Did you get a concussion on the way to the cemetery?”

You stop pacing and look down, and sure enough, you’re still in your suit, wet from the rain just like two days ago, and the beanie Danielle crocheted is lying on the table.

Then it dawns on you.

“Oh my god, Haerin.” Your jaw is slack. “I just traveled back in time.”

“What.”

It takes you fifteen minutes to sum everything up.

“But the weird thing is that the device didn’t seem to be done when we were in the secret lab.” You bite your cheek in thought. “I don’t know how he would’ve been able to get it working in the next two days.”

“He probably knew someone was onto him when we left the door open,” Haerin says, searching up ‘If you travel back in time, will you break time and space if you get into contact with someone?’ on Google. Most of the results are fruitless.

“That makes sense,” you nod. “But I wonder why he would end up at our college campus out of all places.”

“Maybe it’s the college his daughter went to?”

“Right,” you nod again. You prop your laptop on your lap as you start scouring through the map of the area around the college. “I need to know where he first appears so I can stop him before he gets to campus.”

Haerin ponders for a second. “You mentioned that there was some research on nuclear fusion, right?”

“Yeah… hold on.” You zoom into a nuclear power plant just a few miles from the college. “The device must need a lot of energy to work. He probably got it from here.”

“So,” Haerin hums. “What’s the plan?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Haerin’s voice is unimpressed over the static. “This was your plan?”

“You know me,” you quip ironically while weaving in between the blasts of energy that Jace is throwing at you. “My plan was to come up with a plan now.”

“And have you thought of one?”

“Not really!” You coolly avoid his punches and slide in between his legs. “I’ll call you back!”

When you manage to catch Jace off guard with a roundhouse kick, he stumbles and you use the opportunity to swoop into a vent to hide. You did not expect this alternate version of Jace to be so hostile. You tried to talk to him, really.

(You lower your web bit by bit as you dangle upside-down behind Jace. His back is facing you, clearly focused on wiring his device to the generator.

You tap his back. “Hey.”

He swivels around so fast he almost loses his balance, but immediately regains it and squares up. “Stay away!”

“No, no.” You plop on the floor. “I’m not here to hurt you. I know you’re trying to time travel. I’m from the future, actually.”

There’s an air of hope in Jace’s voice. “The device worked?”

“About that,” you rub your nape and flash an embarrassed smile under the mask. “I kinda had to smash it onto the ground for it to work. You were kind of trying to kill me. But no biggie, I forgive easily!”

Jace narrows his eyes. You stiffen as you feel dread trickle into your stomach. His fist jerks out and you jump back just in time, feeling the wind from the blow brush against your face.

“What the hell, man?” You pout. “I literally just forgave you.”

He doesn’t waste time and continues with a flurry of punches. “I must’ve been attacking you for a reason.”

You shake your head as you roll to the side. “Don’t say I didn’t try to be nice.”)

“Come out and face me!” Jace yells, his voice reverberating throughout the power plant. “You’re nothing but a pest.”

You silently crawl out of the vent and onto a supporting beam. Once you’re positioned right above him, you web him up, landing a nasty uppercut. You don’t have time to celebrate though, because on the way down, he grabs your ankles and pulls you down back to Earth.

“Oof!”

“This ends now.” He hisses, blood dripping from his mouth. He charges toward you, bearing a metal rod in his hand.

“Really getting into the villain role now, huh?” You joke, voice strained as you leap off the ground and kick him square in the face. “Give me some time to think of a name for you.”

You side step another one of his tackle attempts. “Oh! How about Prime Time?”

The only response you get is Jace surging forward with more punches and kicks. “You could just say you don’t like it!”

Jace doesn’t deign you with an answer. He unexpectedly throws a crate toward you, and just as you duck to avoid it, he gets his revenge with a successful blow to your chest with the metal rod.

You slam against the wall, slumping as the wind is knocked out of you.

“Like I said,” Jace says with heavy breaths, towering over you and looking down with a sneer. “This ends now.”

You can only see his silhouette because of the light shining through from the entrance to the power plant behind him, and this gives you an idea. You muster up any remaining willpower and web onto two pillars, pulling yourself toward it and using the momentum to swing kick Jace.

You both fly through the air and outside the power plant, crashing on the roof of a passing car. You wince as you feel the dent in the car. Jace rolls down to the hood of the car. Logically, the driver starts steering off course because the windshield is blocked and they’re probably freaking out at the fact that there are two injured people on their car.

Your body moves before your mind processes what’s going on—you’re webbing people out of the way of the speeding car, even though you’re still lying on your side. But the car spins out of control too fast for you to react. It ends up ramming into the front of a cafe. The impact of the crash sends you flying into the glass wall and into the cafe. You’re getting deja vu: glass is shattered and people start screaming and running away. 

“Oh no,” you groan, trying to ignore the burning pain. “This will not look good in the press release.”

What’s also burning is the car that you’re pinned under—the heat from the crackling fire licking at you, so hot that you can feel it through the spandex. All you can see is the thick smoke that blankets the cafe. From the shadows emerges Jace.

“Please,” you wheeze, feeling like you’ve been hit by a train. Which actually happened once, an experience you wouldn’t recommend to anyone. “This isn’t what your daughter would’ve wanted.”

“Don’t mention her again.” He digs his boot into the car, forcing pressure on you, and you’re exerting all your muscles in your arms to hold the car up. “And some superhero you are. Look at what’s left of this place.”

You strain your neck to stare at the inside of the cafe, and the sight horrifies you. It’s a complete wreckage. Your eyes zero on blonde hair that peeks out under a table that’s been flipped over. Your blood runs cold and there’s a sharp pain in your gut, like a knife sickly twisting itself over and over again. 

Jace chuckles cruelly at your silence. “What, no more snarky remarks?”

She can’t be dead. It’s all your fault—you were too busy slinging people out of the way to notice where the car was headed. How did she not get out in time?

“No,” you choke out. Your lip trembles pathetically. “Turn back time. Please.”

He follows your gaze and smirks. “See someone you know? I guess now you know how it feels.”

Any empathy you felt for him is overridden by the sheer anger that engulfs you. Your body shakes with rage. What comes out next is guttural and raw.

“I’ll kill you,” you spit. “I’ll fucking kill you.”

Jace turns around and cackles, and you wonder how everything went to hell so fast. You wonder how he changed so fast. He’s walking out of the cafe, to the college campus probably, and as much as you want to grab him and beat him until he’s blue, there’s something more important. Or rather, someone.

The adrenaline from the rage earlier is still coursing through your veins and you use your remaining strength to push the car off you. (You wanted to hurl it at him too but your arms were failing). You know exactly what you need to do. You sling a web to the device he’s holding loosely, then repeat that same swinging motion that you did the other timeline, slamming it so hard on the ground you almost feel like your arm will rip off.

Time slows again, and you find yourself in a familiar position, deep in the abyss. The world goes black.

It takes you three times before you realize you’re stuck in a time loop. You don’t know why, but you only get sent back a few hours to the nuclear power plant. You try everything, anything to keep Danielle safe. You know it’s selfish, that you should be caring about everyone else too, but you can’t stand the thought of her dying. You’ve already lost her once, back then when you left her. You can’t be the reason for the world losing her.

In the first loop, you spray the wheels of the car with webs to prevent it from crashing in the first place, but the car stopping in the middle of the road only causes another car to veer off the streets and into the cafe. In the second loop, Jace hurls a boulder mid fight and despite you redirecting it to the building next to the cafe, that building ends up collapsing… on top of the cafe. Everytime, you saving other people leads to Danielle dying in some way.

It’s the third loop. You’re at the nuclear power plant again, head in your hands, and Jace hasn’t noticed your presence yet. You want to cry. Nothing is working. Maybe this is karma for ghosting Danielle all those years ago. Being a superhero is all about sacrifices—is this the sacrifice you have to make? You thought you would be better at letting go by now.

Haerin’s voice is soft in your ear. “Have we had this conversation before?”

“Yeah,” you sigh. “This is the fourth time.”

“I’m sorry I can’t remember. And that our solutions didn’t work out.”

“Don’t apologize. You’re the only thing keeping me sane right now.” You bite your lip. “And it’s my fault anyway.”

There’s some faint rustling of paper and typing.

“Nuclear fusion,” Haerin says after a while. “Have you tried slamming the device into the generator? The sheer energy might just break the loop.”

“I might as well.” Your voice is thick with fatigue. “I have nothing else to lose.”

You don’t even bother to greet Jace this time, just immediately pulling the device toward you and slamming it onto the generator. The reaction is instantaneous—the device explodes and the generator rumbles, sparks flying. Waves of energy start pulsing out in irregular patterns. It’s so strong that you’re knocked off your feet and your back hits a railing.

You’re knocked out again. Maybe you’re setting a new world record.

Hidden under the knitted quilt, you stir, the thin web of strands barely stifling the bite of the morning cold. Someone is sweetly humming a melody that’s on the tip of your tongue. The constant hum finds its way into you, it softens your bones and eases your heart. The constant hum sings, enveloping you, lulling you back into the solace of the darkness. 

This tranquility is swiftly broken by you remembering. You launch out of bed, blinking your eyes to gain a hold of your surroundings. You’re in a campervan. Nostalgia washes over you as you realize that this is the campervan Danielle’s family used to take on road trips. You wearily eye the photo frame stuck to the rustic fridge. Gleeful smiles and sand-covered faces adorn the frame, reminding you of what you left behind. 

You were known as that quiet kid who had no parents. Any attention you received would consist of pitied stares and hushed whispers. You didn’t mind the loneliness—you were used to it. And your aunt took care of you and showed you love. That was enough. You didn’t think you needed any more love until Danielle moved in next door and changed your life.

She was the first to approach you, holding out a four-leaf clover with a bright smile, saying “Hi! I’m Danielle, you look like you need some good luck!”. It only took you a few months to warm up to her, not that it was hard, because she was so understanding and cheery. She never cared about what other people said at school. She cared about what you had to say, and that’s something you never thought you needed, let alone deserved, until her.

Danielle’s family is equally as sweet, and they welcomed you with open arms. Every few months, they would go on a road trip and you and Danielle would always say farewell with teary eyes and lingering hugs. Until Danielle insisted you tag along, and that’s how it became a tradition.

Lightly caressing miscellaneous decorations as you make your way outside, you take it all in. The gentle twinkle of fairy lights shyly shines through the tinted windows that are littered with stickers and magnets. This caravan was your second home. Inextricably imbued with memories with Danielle, the two of you left no inch of this van unexplored and untouched. Outside, the fresh smell of subdued smoke (bacon and eggs) wafts to you, beckoning you. Your stomach growls. You forget about the ravenous appetite of a superhero.

But you’re not a superhero right now. You’re twelve, not yet bitten, meant to be blissfully unaware of the terrors that await you as you grow up. You run outside to find Danielle. She’s preparing a plate of breakfast for you.

“Danielle!” You rush toward her and tackle her in a hug, tears subconsciously spilling onto your cheeks. She steadies herself so that the plate of food isn’t knocked over.

She gasps out your name, concern etched in her eyebrows. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” you shake your head and nuzzle her neck, sniffling like a baby. “I’m just glad you’re my best friend.”

Your voice is so high and prepubescent, which makes you burst into laughter out of nowhere. Danielle laughs with you. “I’m glad you’re mine, too.”

“Where’s your parents?”

You lean back as she tilts her head to the barbeque grill a few yards away. “Cooking up their breakfast.”

You eventually let go, quite reluctantly, and take a moment to admire her. You’re smitten. Her hair is brown, bangs slightly ruffled, and she’s sporting a toothy grin. You’re so overwhelmed with love you can’t even speak, but this is soon overshadowed by guilt. This is the girl whose heart you broke.

Nothing about you gets past Danielle, so she immediately notices your wavering.

“You okay?” She intertwines your fingers together “Let’s eat breakfast.”

‘I don’t know,” you mumble, feeling a wave of nausea hit you. “I feel a bit dizzy.”

She quickly sets down the plate of bacon and eggs, her hands instantly finding their place on your waist.

“Maybe you should get some more rest,” she pouts, gently squeezing your waist. You try to suppress the shiver that this causes.

“Yeah,” you agree without a sliver of resistance. “Come with me?”

Danielle sends you a knowing smile. “Okay.”

You both make your way back into the van, ditching breakfast. You climb into the comfort of the bed, lifting the same knitted quilt so that it hugs both of you. Your body relaxes, for the first time in a very long time, and you bask in the heat radiating off Danielle.

As your eyes involuntarily close, you can hear the faint sound of ticking. You’re unsure of what is to come, but the curl in your stomach unfolds and pardons you, allowing you to feel Danielle’s love. For just one more time.

–

There’s a brief moment where you regain a shred of consciousness at the nuclear power plant, but everything is too bright and you have to squeeze your eyes shut. You only feel another wave of energy vibrate against your skin before your vision’s black again. Definitely a world record.

Someone’s playing with your hair. Deft fingers weave through strands of your hair and twirl it, lightly pulling on it before letting go and repeating. You blink your eyes open and are met with Danielle already staring at you. She’s older than the last time-travel episode, but younger than the current her. You’re still smitten.

You’re laying in her bed, in her room, in her house. You surmise it’s probably a sleepover night. She’s wearing those glasses with a clear frame, so it must be midway through senior year. You smile to yourself as you remember that she breaks it just before graduation by sitting on it. (She forgot that she put it on her seat.)

“What are you smiling about?” Danielle pokes your nose. “Are you thinking about how that one kid fell off his chair while falling asleep in class?”

“No,” you giggle as you sit up, nostalgia pervading your chest. “But that was funny though. Thanks for reminding me.”

She’s playing with your fingers now, head tilted with that starry look in her eyes that always leaves you dumbfounded. Your smile slowly fades. You feel like a kid again, even though this was only the two of you from three years ago.

“Danielle,” you say shakily, eyes locked onto your entwined fingers. “Would you believe me if I said I’m from the future?”

She considers your question for a second. “What happens in the future?”

You swallow a lump. Where do you even start? ‘Well, I’m actually gonna ghost you in a few months and we’ll never speak again, but then we meet, well not really—it’s more like I see you, and then you die in a cafe because of me. Oh, and I’m Spider-Woman.’

“You dye your hair blonde,” you continue, voice barely above a whisper. You’re holding back tears. “And you go to college overseas to study.”

Danielle’s face shifts into something sadder, half sympathetic. “That doesn’t sound too far-fetched.”

“I’m… I’m sorry,” your voice cracks. “I do some really bad things in the future, and I’m really sorry.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Danielle tries to lift the mood. “Can’t be worse than the time when you spilled orange juice all over my biology assignment the morning it was due.”

Your rambling teeters on the line of coherence. “I push you away—and I’m such an asshole. But I had to, you have to believe me. I can’t tell you why because it hasn’t happened yet and it will probably break some rule of time-traveling, but I just want you to know that I’m so–”

“Hey,” she cradles your face like you're something delicate. Like you’re not the person who will leave her behind with no explanation. “It’s okay.”

“I miss you so much, Danielle.” It’s all you can say. “I miss you so much.”

Her thumb tenderly swipes away any tears that fall. “I’m right here.”

But she’s not.

You’re sobbing pathetically into her hand. You can’t remember the last time you cried. It must’ve been at your aunt’s funeral. Your head is pounding and even though you’re in the body of your younger self, you can still feel the phantom repercussions of fights with Jace. Danielle continues softly, “I could never hate you, no matter what. All you need to do is talk to me—the me in your world.”

“I love you,” you hiccup, lip quivering. “I never got to say it in my timeline. I hope you know that.”

“You know I do too,” Danielle smiles, bitter-sweet. “Promise me you’ll say it to the other me.”

You nod, looping your pinky finger with hers.

She seems satisfied. “You’ve been through a lot. Let’s get some rest.” She guides you back onto the pillow and onto your side, nestling behind you, arms wrapped around your waist and clasped on your stomach.

The ticking sounds again, and it slowly floods your mind as your vision fades to black.

“Please tell me it’s over,” you plead weakly as you wake up to the sight of peeling plaster on the ceiling. You force your body up, and you see an unconscious Jace collapsed against the wall. The broken device is just a fingertip away from you. This is the room you Spubered him into while distancing him from the police. You’re back. 

“Thank you,” you breathe out. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Tiko hops out of your backpack and rubs his face against yours.

“Hey, buddy,” you coo, scratching his chin. “Thanks for the help. I’ll see you around campus.”

You pick yourself up, shaking stray shards of glass off you. You web Jace against the wall, and make sure to add extra to ensure he doesn’t escape. You briefly notice the wrinkles on his face and his calloused hands.

“Some things we have to let go,” you say softly to him, even though he can’t hear you. “I need to take this to find the missing victims.”

You leave a space in your heart to mourn for Jace’s daughter, and genuinely wish the best for him. Tiko’s already run off somewhere. You take the device and stretch your limbs, preparing for the long journey home. 

Actually, you have two stops before you go home. First stop is a safe place to change out of your suit and temporarily hide the device.

Second stop. You run to find Danielle. You think that this has been a long time coming, considering that you’ve been running away from her for the past three years.

You’re standing like an idiot outside the cafe, hands in your pockets, just staring at Danielle through the glass wall. She seems to feel the weight of your gaze though, because she eventually looks up and her eyes widen at the sight of you. You wave awkwardly, to which she starts packing up her things in a hurry.

You breath hitches as she says your name. It rolls off her tongue in a way that is so familiar.

“Care to join me on a walk?” You rock back and forth on your heels, avoiding eye contact with her.

Her face is passive. It scares you more than it should. But she complies without any questions. “Okay.”

It takes around twenty minutes to reach your aunt’s grave. You pat the space in front of you as a gesture for Danielle to sit down, and she does.

“Before I start,” you say. “I just wanted to say thank you for visiting my aunt. You didn’t have to.”

But she did. Because that’s what she always does—go above and beyond. You take a deep breath before releasing it. “I’m sorry.”

She nods, showing that she’s listening, but doesn’t respond.

“I… was an asshole,” you clench your jaw and close your eyes. “I said some hurtful things.”

(“Are you avoiding me?” Danielle asks, eyebrows furrowed.

It’s another morning of a school day.

“No,” you exhale deeply. You don’t spare her a glance. “I’ve just been really busy.”

“We’ve both been busy for a while,” she counters, frustration laced in her voice. “But the difference is that we still made time for each other.”

You slam your locker door shut. The spider bite thrums with pain. “Take the hint. I don’t have space for you in my life anymore.”)

“And even after I said those things, you still tried to reach out to me.”

(More unread texts from Danielle. Can we talk? I’m sorry about the other day. 

Hey, I’ve been trying to give you space, but I just wanted to check in.

Why are you ignoring me?)

“There’s a reason I ghosted you. Not that I’m trying to justify it, but I just wanted to let you know it wasn’t because of you or anything.”

The other Danielle’s words flash through your mind.

“I love you,” you finally say, and it feels as though there’s this weight lifted off your chest. “I have, for a long time. And I needed to leave you because I love you. Because I was scared.”

Her eyebrows crease in thought. “Because you were scared I didn’t love you back?”

“No—well, not no! Of course I care about that. But that wasn’t my main concern.”

“How do I say this,” you scratch your head. “Oh. You gifted me a beanie the other day. Crocheted by you, red with a white pom pom.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” you say. “Oh.”

You fiddle with the grass that you’re sitting on. “I accepted a long time ago that anyone close to me will be in danger because of, well, who I am. And being Spider-Woman… it’s a responsibility that I have to commit to. I can’t just fall in love.”

A pause. “Who said you can’t?”

“Well,” you stutter. “It’ll put you in danger. And I have to put my Spider responsibilities first.”

She shifts closer to you. “And what if I’m okay with that?”

“You’d… you’d have to actually like me back anyway.”

Danielle punches you on the shoulder.

“Ow!” You frown. “What was that for?”

“For being an asshole.”

“Oh.”

“You should’ve just talked to me.”

“I know,” you admit. “But I just felt like I couldn’t.”

“I never stopped thinking about you all these years,” Danielle shakes her head. “I was a mess. I wanted to hate you so much, but I just couldn’t. And I hated that even more.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Danielle says, and the look in her eyes tells you that she really does mean it.

You hesitantly reach out toward her. She grabs your hand and moves it to her face. It’s your turn to cradle her, making sure that she’s really here and that this is real. Her smile is teary. 

“I love you,” you breathe out. And that’s the only thing you want to say for the rest of your life. To make up for all the times that you didn’t. 

“I love you, too.” Her smile is so enchanting and you want to lean in and kiss her.

But gunshots ring out nearby and there’s shouting. You turn to Danielle, distraught. She grabs your phone from your pocket and adds herself as a contact.

“Go,” she nods softly, handing you back your phone. “Call me when you’re done. I’ll tend to your wounds.”

Your eyes flit over to your aunt’s grave. You hope you’ve become a hero she can be proud of. And you thank her for everything. You slip on your mask and stuff your clothes in a backpack.

Being a superhero isn’t all that easy, but you’re glad you have people you love to lean on to relieve the burden. You leap off the ground with confidence, swinging toward the chaos.

Dedicated to user phamphamz... happy early birthday!

Title is from Autumn by Niki :]

[parisoonic]

How the hell do you manage to superimpose the hilariously exagerated proportions of the tf2 mercs into a cohesive 2d style? I always struggle SO much with like, the way the mercs' models have huge hands, the way they have relatively low-poly definition on things like arms, shoulders, and legs... and Especially the way like, the models are kinda janky when you pose them for art purposes- when using movement tools, things like armpits and seams between body parts get all deformed... Which makes the study of form and silhouette rather difficult.

I assume that a lot of your ability to translate the concept of the mercs from their original mediums into your own works of art comes to you quite naturally- through experience you have with drawing and art style stuff, as well as through intuition. I was simply wondering if I could poke at your mind and get some insight into your process, any thoughts you have about the proportions and silhouettes of the mercs, any quirks you've found while drawing the mercs, or simply what you enjoy drawing about them. Like, don't be afraid to infodump about something just because you think people wouldn't find it interesting- I am here, I am sitting, and I am listening- if you so choose to speak.

I am utterly fascinated and enraptured by the more behind-the-scenes aspect of art. The mundane things that come second nature to great artists yet seem so revolutionary to less experienced artists.

I love your work, I look forward to seeing more of it, and I hope you have a nice day :]

Sorry for the late reply! I've been a little…stuck on how to answer this but that's mainly because to me, drawing is composed of SO many different little skills - you have form, anatomy, shape language, silhouette, appeal, rhythm, acting and posing…not to mention everything AFTER your raw draughtmanship like line style, rendering and colour theory. Trying to distill a multiude of small skills into some pithy advice is overwhelming to my brain. So I'll take the invitation to ramble instead :))

I don't think I have any new or revolutionary insight into the tf2 guys specifically - more I'm using them as work horses to excercise general silhouette/posing/shape-language and further my skills when it comes to drawing characters!

I do agree though the proportions are rather silly when you stop and think about them realistically…they can be kinda tricky if you follow their 'actual' proportions. what looks great individually was maybe never meant to be directly compared (ie: Heavy's hand size against Spy's lol). It would've been funny if the TV show exsisted and we had more content to review…would the animators have had rules like Spy and Heavy can never shake hands? Would they cheated the proportions for shots? Or would they have said WHATVER it's gonna look weird and embraced it? (Like Kingpin in Spiderverse lol)

Paul Lasaine for 'Into the Spiderverse' This is AWESOME. But it's also one of the silliest designs I've ever seen comitted to screen. The varied scales of the characters work because of the unifying treatment (lighting, rendering, consistant hand anatomy, consistant clothing fold treatment etc) and because they are sort of proportional within themselves. A common mantra is that hands should be about as large as a characters face....which they all are here!

Human brains are very flexible and forgiving though. It's totally fine for you to put a character with huge hands and head next to a teeny tiny character! Vanellope and Ralph from Wreck-It Ralph look grand next to each other! And in that film you even have varying levels of stylisation sitting against each other (unified by the look dev treatment of the shaders and lighting). I think as long as the chracter is proportional within themselves it sort of works out. IE: a general rule is that a hand should be as large as the face so…you can have some large arse hands as long as their placed on a body with a big arse head. Unifying characters with the same treatment (ie: lineart brush, colouring style will also help them look cohesive next to each other :) )

I don't actually reference the 3D models/animations very much at all and instead draw their proportions based on my tastes for stylisation following their general vibes/silhouette profiles. I don't stick THAT close to their in-game looks and there are artists who do that are so so so much better than me (Creedei and Flapjack come to mind). I'm not amazing at body-type differentation and TBH they're all wearing chunky clothes all the time so I usually draw the guys as one-of-three body shapes: Heavy is the uniquely wide guy; Sniper/Scout/Spy are all tall and slim and Demo/Soldier/Medic/Engie have a little more of the generic 'hero' bodytype with varying tallness and broadness of the shoulders

Something like this! You can vary all these individual elements in terms of size, thickness, taper amount etc to create different characters. If you ARE going to reference the 3d works though you'll need to apply some anatomy knowledge to overcome the weird shoulders, armpits and knees which desperately need blendshapes to correct the 3D volumes and approach it a little more like an animation supervisor. There's a reason why you see in making-ofs and art-ofs character designers, character leads or animation supes doing drawovers of the models. These are character models that have had great effort put into their 'base' silhouette but it still needs to be reinforced in every frame for maximum appeal.

Shiyoon Kim for 'Raya' This sort of thing will occur at multiple stages during the animation process. Shiyoon Kim's notes are post final model but pre-animation. Most likely for internal rig tests, exploring what blend shapes and alt shapes are needed for the rigs etc. If your production has time, this will continue all the way to final anim. IF! But it's interesting to see how he emphasises the shapes and enhances the character acting of the 3d model.

As for 'mundane things' - I wouldn't say they're second nature! (If that makes you feel better!) I have to actively really persue certain advice and try to figure out how to best apply it. This can sometimes involve redrawing and redrawing an element of the drawing until I've grasped the nettle of whatever I'm after or…..until I get frustrated and either delete the drawing or just call it done lol

Here, I'm looking for a really specific flow of the head that sells both the acting and a subtle head tilt. I'm also trying to apply the general mantra regarding faces that converging lines (set by the eyebrows and mouth) are more appealing than parallel. It's tough! I also tend to use a drawing I've already done as a template/reference on the page too. Oh! This page is an amazing example of why I'm not an animator or storyboarder…consistancy? Who is she? 💅

Converging lines (that form tapered shapes) are always more appealing than parallel. Using this logic you can loft the facial features across converging lines to create dynamic appealing espressions. Combining this with anatomy, perspective and rotation is the tough part though. I'm still learning o7

The things I probably think about MOST are always flats vs curves, simple vs complex and general line of action/flow...and then eliminting tangents. Each of these can be a dedicated visual-essay on their own - hence my stumbling as to answer your question. Anyhow, not sure if it's ever come up on this blog but I looove dinosaurs :)) so i'm using a wee piece to demostrate these ideas! (but also to demostrate these concepts apply to everything from humans characters to animals, props and background design)

Okay, I'm getting self-aware that this is getting really long :') I have a wee tutorial tag for my blog if anyone wants to comb through my garbled art-thoughts. Learning, studying, repetition and practice will always be the greatest teachers! I'm glad you like my art- thank you so much for the lovely comments - I feel like such a noob still and not qualified to give people advice but we're in it together learning! High-five! 🙌

[elaine19day]

Alright guys, I'm here today to address the pictures of the alleged 'new merch' that had been circling around in the English fandom for a few days. See how I said 'English fandom'? Because nobody really addressed it on weibo and XHS yet… at least not to that extent. (Sorry, I have seen these screencaps on tumblr, insta, X and discord, and I have no idea who originally took them, I don't claim to have taken those screenshots, merely providing them here so you know what I'm talking about.)

So what happened? A few days ago a random shop on taobao created new listings that offered a new series of badges and prints/acrylics - not just featuring the 4 main boys, but also He Cheng, Qiu, She Li and… Cun Tou…..?! Now let's take a moment and sit back and think about this for a while. First of all: Why would a random shop that's NOT affiliated with mosspaca in any way post new 'official' merchandise? (Because we can see there's the mosspaca copyright writing on the badges and acrylics, just like it used to be on the previous badge series) Why would this random shop post these things while neither OldXian herself nor her boss, moss, have posted or announced anything via weibo/XHS? Don't you think this is sort of fishy? You don't find this strange, you don't question that at all? Sure, some people said: It's leaked and it will be available on the upcoming signing event on the 29th which OX announced on her weibo. Sure. There is a possibility, of course. They could have a leak in mosspaca studio and some person got their hands on some undisclosed merch and decided to make bank by making a new shop and listing the items for pre-order, hoping they could cash in. NOT a smart choice if you wanna keep your job because such incidents get investigated thoroughly and we all know by now that moss himself is very strict about these things and already has taken legal action against shops before when they sell fake merch as official merch. The other possibility? Old Xian's apple account has been hacked by an outsider and then the same scenario as before applies - that person wanted to cash in before it officially releases.

Now. How has OX handled merchandise before? It was always announced before an event and sometimes even months(!) in advance when they were pre-order items. Also. Have you ever seen Old Xian making merch for Cheng, Qiu, She Li and Buzzcut? Sure, the first 3 have been on some old postcards way back in the day, plus they are depicted in some of the artbooks, okay. But actual merch with them separately? The last badge series had a very limited special edition button with He Cheng. That was super rare. And now OX suddenly makes merch of the 2 adults, plus She Li AND Buzzcut, who's a minor character which barely makes an appearance? (Sorry, Buzzcut fans, not trying to be mean, just wanting to drive home the point that OX creating merch of him is highly unlikely - unfortunately.)

So what can we take home from all the stuff I just pointed out? Yep, there is a high chance that this is not official. It might be fake merch, sold by a random person who used generative AI tools and editing skills to create these things. I mean, sure, some of the pictures look highly convincing, I give you that. But then again, there are fanartists out there who can perfectly mimic Old Xian's style and edit/draw the boys in new poses that make it seem 'real' and official. But then there's THIS. Please take a close look at the way the faces are 'drawn', the way that the eyes are sort of smudged, same as some of the abs, the way Mo's face is contorted in a weird angle, the way the hands look chunky and unreal, and so on. (click on image to enlarge it and see it in more detail)

Weird, right? Well, it's a very common, typical thing for pictures that are generated with free AI tools. Everyone who has tried one or the other and has fcked around with one of those tools out of curiosity will notice.

Also - have you noticed the sheer AMOUNT of things posted from this one random seller? 10 different badges, 12 different long bookmarks (acrylic boards?), 4 couple cards, plus a LOT of other random new things which all feature very old panels from the manhua… When has Old Xian ever released SO MUCH merch at once? Yep. Never. Plus the re-using of old pictures for new merch? Also doesn't make much sense. And there's a lot of the older illustrations being used for these supposed new things here.

So if you take all of this into account, you might conclude that someone is tryna pull your leg here, selling fake merch disguised as official by even slapping the logo onto it to make it more convincing and mimicking how it looked the last time around. Of course - there might be the odd chance that mosspaca suddenly took a 180° turn and completely changed their modus operandi and decided to do things completely different compared to before and that it was leaked after all and meant as a surprise for the new autograph event etc etc etc. Yep. There's a chance that all this is true after all. But there's also a chance that I step out of my house tomorrow and an airplane crashes onto my head. Of course, that chance is *extremely* small. But the chance is there… So there you have it. All I'm asking you here, is to take a moment to think it through logically when you see these things online. And that you don't instantly believe everything that other people post who are always so eager to spread false information just for the sake of stirring up the fandom without ever taking the time to verify their sources. (No, I'm NOT taking a jab at anyone here who posted/reposted these pictures and was confused and/or asked about it. I was just as puzzled as you guys. But I am criticizing those who post it and announce that it's definitely new, official merchandise…) In conclusion: Might be true, but chances are very slim, all things considered. Let's wait until Tuesday when the event takes place and keep an eye on weibo and XHS - let's see which pictures the CN fandom will post when showing their autographs. Then you can check if there's new merch present. If not - well, then it's pretty safe to say that this was definitely fake. (And if this turns out to be real after all, I will make a follow-up post, regarding the AI-looking faces. But you might not like that 'lore' so I will not mention it for now, to prevent possible drama.)

[canisalbus]

might be an odd question, but i have a theory after noticing trends amongst artists iv known in my life and SO FAR it's rung true so im expanding sample size

IDK if u know what aphantasia is already so I'm including reference [forgive me if uv already spoken abt this also]

Where would u say u fit on the scale?

For me I cannot see an apple, I know I am supposed to, or I will see concepts of it [like how the flesh is shiny and holds water droplets but i do not SEE it nor can i hold a clear visual of anything in my mind for that matter it is always flashing IDEAS like components of a visual, never the whole thing]

I'm asking because of people I've asked about this, there's a quality of their art that [i dont know how to put into words WHY] reminds me of each other, and I'm wondering if u will give me the same answer they have because I am a curious little bastard

I'm pretty sure I'm 1? I think I might have one of those brains that operate mostly on visuals. I don't need to close my eyes to see the image in my mind, it just sort of "opens in a different window" and I'm looking at reality and the mental image simultaneously.

It's never a flat picture, I see a 3D model of sorts, and I can rotate it around, cut it into pieces, look "through it" to see it from outside and inside at the same time, and arrange it to different poses if it's a character. Sometimes when I'm drawing something, I imagine what it would feel like to touch it and hold it in my hands, and that helps me to figure out how to convey a better sense of volume and tangibility.

I also think in images (or, like, gifs?) and I've never had an internal monologue. It surprised me when I heard that some people actually have a narrator in their heads, I can't imagine what it's like.

It's not always fun though, sometimes I get pretty nasty intrusive thoughts and they come in forms of vivid and very unpleasant mental images. Like visiting a relative's grave and being hit with a crisp picture of their decomposing body. Or getting those "I could walk in front of that car/ jump down from here" call of the void thoughts and instantly getting a brain illustration of it playing out from an onlooker's point of view and what the aftermath would look like. They're most distressing when it's bad things happening to someone I care about, for example I have a really persistent one about accidentally slamming a door on my cat and seeing him crushed and dying.

Oddly enough it doesn't extend to all visual thinking. My mind's eye and visual memory work well, but I also have severe face blindness and practically nonexistent ability to form mental spatial maps of my surroundings.