#like I figured i should draw on my other tablet instead but i ended up drawing these instead ���

[michuyox]

South park shenanigans (P1???)

[feyspeaker]

Hi! I made an account just so I could follow your work. Your art is brilliant and honestly and inspiration to where I want to be. I’m an older artist who has all the anxiety when it comes to improving my process. I’m trying to get into digital portraits and I have so many ideas in my head, but it’s frustrating because I’m not where I want to be to make this happen. What are some tricks that help you/software do you use? Of course, you don’t have to share anything that makes you uncomfortable. I currently have procreate and an iPad, but I feel a little lost. Wondering if I need a different writing tablet and photoshop. Not sure. I just eventually want to find that 3D, but also artistic look you are able to achieve.

hey there! thank you so much!!

ultimately, I will sound like a broken record but I always recommend you sign up for local figure drawing or painting classes. have people pose for you at home and sketch with charcoal and paper. go to the zoo and sit down in front on an exhibit for an hour and try to draw the animals in front of you as fast as you can and fill a couple of pages, move on to a new exhibit and do it again!

nothing is more powerful of a tool to learn than whatever writing utensil you have in your purse and the back of a napkin when you see something you'd like to capture. I've spent quite frankly my entire rememberable life doing this. I used to spend every single day in middle school/high school/my brief failed stint in community college with a pack of cheap sharpies and a beat up binder full of old worksheets and homework to draw on the backs of.

drawing/painting from life will teach you better than anything.

I use a very outdated version of Photoshop, and only got a "nice" tablet in the past 7 months.

Also, a huge tip to you and anyone else reading this: do NOT get too focused on a "style" that you want. Obsessing over that just ruined me for years and years. I wanted so, so, so badly to be the next Matsuri Hino when I was a kid. I copied her work religiously and it NEVER looked right. Frustrated me to no end. And you know why my stuff never looked like hers? Because I'm not her! You can't force your art to come out any way that isn't natural, and the sooner you can accept the art your hand wants to create, the happier you'll be and the easier art will get for you.

The past couple of years before I started diving into this more realism based work, I was just shoving myself through trying to make what art I envied of others. Very stylized/textured watercolor comic book style stuff. And I just was NOT getting any better at it. I have always been more inclined toward realism work, but I've hated it and yearned for stylized work. Yoshitaka Amano? God, I just drooled over that artstyle and beat myself up for never being able to capture it in studies or otherwise.

I finally essentially restructured my entire career around making the art that makes me happy instead of what I "wanted" it to look like. I was extremely depressed, my life was falling apart, and I still needed to make art to survive but I couldn't "art" if I was depressed and hated doing it, so I just had to step back and stop worrying so much about what I thought I wanted to make, and started making what felt most natural.

there's no easy way, and art can be a soul destroying path at times, truly. your software and hardware should come very last place compared to practicing from life (it doesn't matter if you want to paint cartoony stuff of realistic stuff, always start from life). naturally you will find what makes your heart sing the most.

I get a lot of messages from people telling me similar stuff "oh your art is EXACTLY what I want to do!" but I promise you that kind of thought process is chasing a dragon that is likely to harm or drag your creative process down. art style is such a deeply personal thing, so of COURSE it's important to find inspiration, but the second looking at someone else's artwork stops inspiring you and starts frustrating you, put it away.

There are some artists who I love, that I do not check up on often because their artwork ignites, like, serious bitter jealousy in me. It's the truth. I get so mad at myself for not being more like them, and it's such a poison. I think more artists should be transparent about this feeling because I KNOW the art community has a lot of jealousy and ugliness in it.

A fact of being an artist is that you will never be completely happy with a piece you make. You are always going to see the flaws, and that doesn't change whether you'd been drawing for 2 months or 20 years. Occasionally, you will get one piece that you are like "how did I make that???" and then get frustrated that you can't recreate it lol! It's a tough beast.

It's just really important to step back and work on yourself and where you are at, because at the end of the day, the way your soul wants to express artwork might be WILDLY different from what your brain wants, and it can be really detrimental to let those two go to war.

I hope this helps. I'm very passionate about this, and when I started out I ALWAYS ignored the artists who gave the same exact tips as above. I thought they were so annoying and unhelpful, but now I /get it/.

[returnofahsoka]

I don't know what you want to do with digital art so this is just broad advice, but here are my tips!

Most drawing softwares or websites give you a white background. Change that to a muted, softer, color so that your eyes don't work as much. It doesn't need to be a dark color or even a grey, even just something around this area will do wonder for your eyes:

You can always put it back in white to check that your colors look good when you're finished, just don't hurt your eyes with your screen.

2. Speaking of screen, remember all those tips about how to work at a computer without hurting your back or your neck? Use them here too. One of the perks of drawing digitally is being able to just zoom in instead of getting the face closer to the drawing, I know that's not easy to get used to but trust me good posture is important.

3. You don't need any paying software or subscription, except if you absolutely need a very specific one, which most people never do. Digital art is one of the areas where the open source community works the most, there's tons of free software and material (and tutorials! there's tutorials for everything!) everywhere! My favorite is Krita because I like its options and tools (although I keep using the same handful ^^), but even something as basic as Paint can work well, depending on what tools you expect your software to give you. If you need Photoshop, you probably heard of Photopea already, I can confirm it also works really well.

4. Drawing time! If you have a tablet that has buttons, I really recommend spending a few minutes looking through a tutorial to attach your software's keyboard shortcuts to the buttons. Personally I have buttons for: switching between pen and eraser, zooming in, zooming out, rotating the image to the left, rotating the image to the right, and grabbing the image to move it. Also the basic Ctrl+Z. I'm planning to add the fill tool on the last button soon.

5. More tablet tips: your hand will probably not glide well on the surface of it. People usually buy a drawing glove for that, I still haven't taken the time to do that so I use a bit of fabric instead. Even just the end of your sleeve will result in smoother lines on the screen.

6. Many pens are pressure-sensitive! If yours is too, you can always begin by using one of the most basic pencils in the software that don't have pressure sensitivity, and work your way up to other pencils once your hand learned how to draw this new way. There can be other settings like angle of the pencil tip or speed, but those also take time to get used to and most people find them less intuitive. But do experiment with what you've got! You should be able to change the size of the pencils, and every other setting too, so if you like some aspect of a pencil but not another, you can just disable that other one xd

7. If you're not drawing with a tablet but with a mouse... Well I take my hat off to you.

8. This one's not specific to digital art, but I find that taking a few minutes to just draw lines and circles and waves works really well to get the hand and arm used to working in a new position. I do that every time I draw for warmup, but whenever I'm at another desk I really notice how much my hand needs it to get used to the new angle. You already know how to draw, your limb(s) just need to work on the neural pathways to become familiar with the new position(s). Thankfully cerebral plasticity works fast!

thank you!!

this is all such useful advice! i'm planning on getting into digital art again (my previous forays have been historically... not too successful) bc my laptop has a touch screen, i got a digital pen and krita is free xdd. it took a bit of fiddling around to find the settings and the brushes i wanted and i still haven't figured out where the ctrl+z is but eh, we're getting there. it's so different to traditional art though omg. but it does give very satisfying results i'll have to give that. thank you again, i will keep trying!!!!!!

[sunset-aria]

(Vent Art) "Just Draw For Myself"

For the folks wondering why I haven't been streaming art that isn't commissions as of late. 

When it comes to drawing for other people, the process feels nearly effortless. I can have trouble drafting or finishing a piece to my satisfaction sometimes, but I can take someone else's commission idea and bring it to life with clarity and accuracy enough that I often feel justified in bragging that I can "read a customer's mind". 

In the times that I've given myself the room to play with fanart, mostly Zelda-related, I've enjoyed the satisfaction of carving out a unique interpretation of something I find inspiring, from material that I'm deeply familiar with and that resonates with me. 

In recent months, I've been trying to pivot my workflow more towards leaving myself room in the week to do my own thing, to return to original characters and stories of mine that I've mostly left neglected, since most of my working time for years on end has been dedicated towards drawing things to make other people happy and to earn money. With how often I've mentioned to my husband, "I'd love to draw X", or "I really should go back to working on Y", I figured I'd have more than enough inspiration to fill the days in the week I've opened up for myself. 

That... hasn't really been the case. 

I'm not lacking for ideas, but the act of sitting down and creating for myself first and foremost has become foreign to me. I'm an artist motivated by praise from my customers and loved ones for rendering their ideas exactly as they see them.  And it feels like I've been doing it that way for so long, I've forgotten what it feels like to just enjoy working to build something I can call wholly mine. Even with the intentions of laying down a plan for an ambitious project, and structuring it how I might attempt a customer's piece, or inversely giving myself the freedom to experiment without the pressures of quality or customer expectations, my canvas becomes a blank wall standing in front of my will to create. I'll tell myself in the morning what I plan to work on for myself that day, but by the time I've sat down to put pen on tablet, the vision has faded. At best, I'll manage something small, but usually nothing at all, or I'll pivot to working on a commission instead.

Safe to say, re-learning to draw and paint for myself is still a work in progress. I know I can do it, because I've done it before, but it frustrates me to no end to struggle this hard to give myself the satisfaction I give to others so easily.

[fansnails]

feel free to ignore this message if you don't wanna answer. When I think of "art expert" I think of you lol.

Basically I've been using the same crappy drawing tablet I bought as a teenager and I've been wanting to upgrade for years and years, I could never justify the expense because art doesn't make me money it's just a hobby. but it is a hobby i love. I've saved money, I want to throw down to get a goooood drawing tablet. But i'm super clueless about what tablet that would be. something like a cintiq? If you have any recommendations for brands or what you use I'd love to hear. I get so overwhelmed trying to figure out what to get. If you have any other artist friends who want to input their advice that would be cool too. Even if you don't answer this message or can't give advice, thank you so so so so much for encouraging women to do art. Stuff you've said has really inspired me before and I'm just glad for it. :) thankies!

"When I think of "art expert" I think of you lol."

thats so sweet!!! im not expert by any means but i am passionate about the subject so i can definitely go on about it and lots of opinions. im gonna try and keep this short tho.

Heres a youtuber whos reviews and information i found really helpful and information when i was doing research for a tablet purchase. highly recommend. https://www.youtube.com/@aaronrutten

I've used wacom: bamboo, intuos pen small, intous medium and now my cintiq pro 24. my previous screen tablet was a huion 19 inch.

I used to have a lot of trouble with colors (still learning rn but anyway) so i didnt mind having a tablet with poor color fildelity but knew i wanted a screen tablet. I should have bought wacom cause i did end up wanting to replace it eventually, tho my huion did the job and lasted, its better to do one expensive purchase instead of two.

I agree with what this guy has to say about wacom alternatives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOnt5mLeJ0E Ive only ever used one huion tho so my personal experience could be limited.

Personal preference: i know extremely talented artists that dont use screen or large tablets. I personally have a lot of trouble with smaller non screen tablets. Screen tablets helped me improve noticeably. if you feel like the non screen tablets are limiting you might be like me and benefit from the screen.

I also felt guilt about wanting to buy a nice tablet "what if i fail? what if this just stays a hobby?" theres nothing wrong with that. Why cant you enjoy your hobby and have tools that imrpove your experience?

my main advice: its better to buy an expensive thing once then a slightly cheaper thing that isnt exactly what you want and then have to buy a second one or third. Do the research, find the one you want, even if its more expensive. My first screen tablet was 500 dollars…and it was the cheapest one but it wasnt really what i wanted so i inevitably replaced it with what i wanted the whole time. So research and just try and be sure about what you really want. The more thoroughly you research the less likely you'll have to spend even more money if you have to buy a different thing. If you said you saved and you want it, its worth it. If you just opt for a cheaper one you'll probably end up having to replace or buy a newer one.

[melchinafan]

I'm looking around for posts to read up more on alt text/image IDs/etc., trying to figure out what is preferred and how best to handle them. I've recently seen some posts using alt text instead of descriptions in the body of the post, and I remember something about alt text being fiddly for some folks though maybe not for others? But that was a bit ago so maybe there's been a tumblr update that made it better? Still not totally sure on that. (This article is pretty good so far, with clarification and examples of what each type of description is and what they're for. This one is also excellent, with a ton of thorough examples, though it's specifically art-focused. Tumblr-based link hubs I've found include this which has stuff about the why and how for various situations, and this which has even more, for both users and businesses.)

And part of my brain is going "my spoons, there's So Much involved here and AAAA..." (Both because I do try to make my descriptions Accurate and Interesting which takes brainpower to write...and also because I'm reading so much right now that my brain is currently full, so the mere concept of Having Spoons feels absurd at the moment.) But also I think...I think the basic flat starter sentences I keep doing are...what could/should go in the alt text section? (Like, "screenshot from [game]" and "stylized illustration, fanart for [thing].") I'm still reading, but if that's the case, you can chill, brain! We already do the alt text bit, we just gotta put it in a different spot.

It still does cost me spoons to also describe something after I've spent too much time drawing it. But I'm prone to sitting on things for a day before posting them, so I use that sitting time to at least start a description! Which I can then refine before posting, going back and forth between both image and description to double-check each for missed errors/potential improvements. AND sometimes I'm too lazy to pull out my tablet, so I'll start an image as a mouse-based doodle "note" to have the file ready to work on later...so sometimes I'll start the description then, if I've got a good idea of what I plan to have it look like! (Then it's doubly-important that I edit the description before posting, to make sure it matches whatever the actual end result was. But my perfectionism requires double- and triple-checking anyway, so it works out fine.)

Bonus benefit to image descriptions, besides increased accessibility (which is the point, and should be incentive enough to do them): I can indicate little details or intent in my drawings that might not be immediately obvious to everyone. Like, that Disco Elysium fanart I did had the swirling musical lines as a hugely key element that I pondered over and reiterated SO MUCH, trying to visually capture the audio differences I was imagining in every subtle way I could, even though the end result looks very simple. (Respective colors, different line thicknesses, and steady wave vs swooping swirls were obvious to me, but might not be to folks looking at it, yanno? Or they'd get the vibe, but not be able to explain why, so that could help make it "click.") Plus, I used the fuzzy edges and color fadeout as a nod to the Pale, which I also had the chance to add bonus hints about in the description (without having to go "HEY IT'S A REFERENCE" in the post itself). Or like this fanart of Ryou, I got to point out that the lineart placement and lighter areas of color not only served to indicate lighting, but also his slow movement and the fact that he's kind of dissolving. So yeah. Describing my stuff is also a nice little bonus to help everyone get in on what's going through my brain.

[frogsandfries]

I was going to say something, but I'm so tired, I don't quite remember what.

I think I was going to whine about how much I wanted that dumpster fire lamp from Tumblr, but fine, if I can't have it, I'll just throw it on my tottering pile of ideas that I have that I'll probably never get around to.

I really need to figure out how to.......... something with my sketchbook. Like, this probably isn't normal, but when I'm working digitally, since I can turn layers off, I will often work like three or more projects in the same document. It's kind of vaguely a little bit like having sections in a sketchbook, or if my sketchbook was in a binder, maybe shoving similar projects into one page protector.

But then of course, shit gets even more lost and buried than it would in a sketchbook, because instead of happening to flip past it while hunting for another project or a blank page, I have to remember the project with my brain, or be willfully hunting through my digital art program files.

On the other hand, the cool thing about working digitally is, I can make copies, change colors, erase and completely redraw. If I print out sketchbook "pages", sure, I can print out my studies or mood board or whatever, maybe that's a page or two, and I can print out any tentative patterns, in the case of beadwork. I can print out sketches and linework, but when do I hit print?

I guess that's the real question. When do I hit print? And then, where do I put my work? In a binder? I guess in a binder, I could use sheet protectors, and then maybe gather up any progress? Like, going from a sketch, when I'm drawing, to linework, to color. Or inspiration for a project, an original pattern when it's ready to bead up, and then any alterations when I've beaded it?

The thing I like about sketchbooks is, they're organic. You don't really curate a sketchbook. Cutting and pasting things into a sketchbook on purpose........ feels disingenuous? My logical brain knows that a sketchbook is whatever the hell I say it is, but my gut says this is not how to make a digital sketchbook a little more analogue.

But if that's not how..... then how??

Myself, personally, if I ever end up pursuing this, a) it'll be during a depression, b) I want to do it in a spiral bind notebook. Sketchbooks tend to have nice paper that will hold up to the weight of any added media, like more paper, and I can just tear out any blank pages as the sketchbook begins to bloat.

Another idea would be, I could PoD it. This really only works for collections that I've managed to get a good bit of pieces in. I wouldn't really want to do this for a book that wouldn't have a decent enough number of pages.

Maybe trying to make my digital sketchbook more analogue and accessible to my old-school brain is a dumb idea. But really, I can't describe for you the number of ideas I've had, scrawled into my tablet and they're just gone, poof! Buried fifty documents back, never to be seen again.

Whatever. I'm going to continue weaving Eeyore. Honestly, really, I should finish the neon triangles box..... Maybe I get more pizza. I'm just about food fatigued on pizza. Burjer? But if burjer, than chimkn nugg.........I vaguely want Jimmy John's......

[ega2nd]

My 2021 drawing career is not that good because I failed to maintain some of the stuff IRL which affected my productivity, hence, I failed my ultimate goal.

Ultimately, my life isn’t that good either but I managed to have a decent December at the very least, managed to get a Switch after I failed to get it since it’s release.

I was aiming to get my dream bike in 2021, which is a Kawasaki ZX-25R, it costs $10000 but my economy in 2021 couldn’t get much worse so I pretty much dumped my goal during the middle of the year.

But at the very least, me and my Mom managed to paid off the bike my Dad bought which he couldn’t pay anymore (It’s on lease, managed to pay it after 3 years of paying) and now we have it’s paper so that’s one less debt to worry.

My family still has debts don’t get me wrong, but It’s my Dad’s debts, I feel like I want to go selfish by not helping him pay for it, Dad isn’t a good father figure but I still loves him like he loves me but It’s just sometimes his doings are just beyond me which gave me major headache and frustration such as like he’s now cheating with other woman, instead of feeding my Mom, he feed other woman, he’ll be retired from his job next year and he still has around $10000-$15000 of debts at this point, I don’t really want to think about it but it still haunts me to be honest.

But ignoring those thing aside, my goal for 2022 is to get $10000 by the end of the year, statistically would be enough too (Even if bills, life cost, food etc already included inside that $10000) because with that money I could do anything, feed my Mom & Brother or even pay some of my Dad’s debts or anything, so yeah, I don’t have any particular goal to be honest because inside my noggin’ is just money and money, I could slit my throat or hang myself right here, right now if my thoughts finally got the best of me but I’m still sane and I refuse to give up just yet, I should get a reward to maintain my sanity for this long, It’s been 12 years since Dad has driving me crazy, I don’t have a great youth because of it because I always overthinking about money, him and his doings.

But I still loves him, despite that, he still paid for my tuition, getting me a Wacom drawing tablet back in 2013 which I still use until now, buying me laptop etc.

But I won’t lie that he drives me crazy, his doings and the way he cheats with another woman.

[cityoftheangelllls]

Presenting my revised redesign for Griffin the invisible man from Hotel Transylvania!

As I'm starting to get into the Halloween spirit, even though it's the end of August, I felt like revising my version of Grif. There's not too many differences from the version I posted in January. but I just wanted to share the ideas I developed in the months since and flex my improving digital art skills (I now have a Huion tablet so it's a lot easier!) As I did before, I tried to retain the art style from the movies. I also clearly am not the best at drawing slightly crusty middle aged dudes but I tried. I thought it would make sense and also be funny if his hair got really long over the course of the movies and came down to the middle of his back or longer by the time the fourth movie rolled around. I feel like he'd be the kind of guy who grows his hair out just because he likes it that way, and also, being invisible, he'd most likely forget to cut it or not worry about getting regular haircuts. I did consider putting a few gray streaks in there, but I'm leaving it as is for now. My version also has invisible clothes that he was able to make using his invisible serum - here's my reply on someone else's post where I go more into detail about this.

For all those coming at me and saying I'm fat shaming, being superficial, etc. because I drew him as a slimmer and more attractive man, hear me out:

I was honestly expecting a dude who physically looks like he's middle aged and past his prime - he's voiced by David Spade FFS, who is nearly 60 now - and I wouldn't have minded if he were balding or graying or a little out of shape. But what we got was not only absolutely painful to look at and anti-Semitic, at least according to some people, it completely disregarded all the hints that were dropped about Griffin's physical appearance and outline in the first three movies - TRUST ME, THEY'RE THERE. It's like the writers and character design didn't even watch the previous movies, and it was obvious enough due to the fact that they Drac and Johnny learn to appreciate each other all over again instead of further developing their relationship. Regarding Griffin, there were several instances in the first three movies where the outline of his body was hinted at, whether he was wearing visible clothes or wrapped in glowsticks, and ALL of them portray him as a slender man of average build and average height. There's also some promotional material for the first movie where he's wearing clothes and we can clearly see that he has a slimmer figure. We also saw that he has a jaw and neck, and even saw a partial outline of his head and face in HT3. NONE OF THIS lines up with what we got in HT4.

I have absolutely nothing against body representation in the media. In fact, I am ALL FOR IT. But if the HT crew wanted Griffin to be fat, they should have established that from the beginning. They just went ahead and completely changed his entire body, both his size and his height, just for cheap laughs and shock value. I should also say that Griffin's larger body in HT4 was NEGATIVE representation. They had him dressed in these horribly undersized clothes, including a shirt that looks like it was made for a little girl, for the bulk of the movie, and didn't even have him in proper clothing ONCE. Also, it all seemed to connotate that fat was equal to ugly. It all just felt extremely mean-spirited. Oh and did I not mention that he was much taller here too! He towered over Wayne, Murray, Drac, practically the whole gang, and he was just a head shorter than Frank if I remember correctly. AND it made NO SENSE that he didn't know he was balding!! He has hands, it's not like he couldn't have touched his head every once in a while! OH, and his torso was way longer and he had these little stick arms and legs! You know what, I'm just going to have to make a drawing comparing what he was supposed to look like and what he looked like in HT4 just to make it clearer.

But yeah, they messed him up badly, just for the sake of unfunny jokes, and he. deserved. so. much. better.

I'm hoping to tackle the other three guys (Murray, Wayne, and Frank) soon! ESPECIALLY Murray, because they did him just as dirty as Griffin.

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

calculated, m | jjk

pairing(s): jungkook x reader

summary: Some people would call you far too serious. Some would call you stuck-up. And some would call you a bitch. But to freshman Jeon Jungkook, you’re the head Calculus I TA noona  – and he’s determined to fuck you.

warnings: rated M (18+) for language; intense smut (fem reader, semi-public sex, pussy spanking, fingering, m-receiving oral, doggy, dirty talk); non-idol!AU - university!AU; dom!Jungkook x sub!noona!reader, ft instigator Jimin lol

--

part i | part ii | part iii | part iv

-

"I think Jungkook likes you."

The lead of your mechanical pencil snapped suddenly. Stupid soft graphite. You glared at it, annoyed, and brushed the broken piece away to complete the equation. 

"Who?"

"I think he's taking the afternoon class."

You double-checked the last question and handed him his homework back. "Jimin, you used the wrong equation, here and here."

Park Jimin frowned, face falling when he saw all your corrections. Being one of your parents' friends' kids, your parents and his parents naturally asked you to help him out when he entered the same university as you. You pretty much figured the likelihood of Jimin speaking to you was zero, since he was a dance major and you were a graphics design major. You shrugged and agreed.

Except you forgot you were also the head Calculus I TA and Calculus I was a required course for all students. And, turns out, Jimin wasn't that great at math. That's why you were sitting on cushions at your coffee table in your apartment with Park Jimin, watching a music program as you checked his homework.

"Oh."

Jimin began to look over your arrows and circles. You never actually gave him the answer. He usually ended up forgetting a step in the middle and thus fucked the answer. Usually he caught on easily once you pointed it out. 

You stared at the television screen, listening to the latest hit. Not bad. Catchy. 

"I think I should tell you because he's kind of reckless," Jimin was saying.

You placed a hand under your head and took a sip of your tea, distracted by the cute MC with the blue hair. He had a cute smile. It reminded you of a bunny.

"Who?"

"Jeon Jungkook," Jimin snapped impatiently.

You raised an eyebrow and faced Jimin. "Oi. I'm correcting your homework here. I could just correct it tomorrow and hand it back to you with red marks instead," you threatened.

He pouted at you, his full lower lip sticking out. "Sorry, noona."

You sighed. "Don't call me that. Makes me feel ancient." You turned your body so you faced him as he scowled at his homework. "Okay, okay, I'm listening now. What did you want to say?"

Jimin put his pencil down immediately and began to chat like an excited gossiping auntie. Round brown eyes getting rounder, glad for a break from his math homework. You didn't want to get him started, but he was going to nag you incessantly until you let him talk.

"I think he sits in the back?" Jimin pondered. "Dark longish hair, wears a lot of black. Looks scary when he's thinking because his eyes go really wide and he furrows his brows."

You twisted your mouth to the side and thought. You only attended the class when they had quizzes or exams because during lectures the professor didn't need your help. Mostly you remembered people by their personal scores or their handwriting, because you graded everything as the head TA. Looking at people's faces wasn't really necessary, unless you were looking for cheating. 

"Can't recall. I remember his handwriting though. Not bad," you said, shrugging. "I think he's pretty highly ranked at the moment."

"I think he likes you."

You scoffed. "How did you come to that consensus?"

Jimin tapped his temple sagely. "Intuition."

"If only you used that intuition on Calculus."

He frowned at you, pouting again. You let out a puff of air, conceding.

"What do you want me to do about it?"

Jimin scratched the back of his head. "Well, er... I'm just warning you."

"... Is he a serial killer or something?"

"No, no, no!" Jimin waved his hands on the air hurriedly. "He's really nice. But he can be kind of, uh... forward."

"How old is he?" you asked, glancing at the television for a moment as you took another long sip of your tea.

"Two years younger than me."

You choked. 

"What?" you squeaked between coughs. Jimin hurried over and patted your back as you struggled, becoming pink in the face. "The fuck? Tell him to find someone his own age."

"I did!" Jimin whined. "But he's stubborn."

You rolled your eyes. "You're warning me that I have to break a poor freshman's heart?"

"Kind of."

You rubbed your throat. "Hmph. Darn whippersnappers these days."

Jimin smacked your arm, laughing. "I thought you weren't ancient?"

"I am now knowing some kid is fantasizing about their fucking Calculus TA."

You had said your comment sarcastically. You fully expected Jimin to make some joke, but he froze up a little. You looked over to him. He looked somewhat guilty, like a lost puppy who got caught stealing food. You sighed and patted his back.

"Don't worry, I won't chew your friend's heart out. Finish your homework, so I don't drop you off too late. You have practice in the morning, yeah?"

"Y-yeah, thanks."

-

Forward, huh?

An understatement. 

You were sitting in one of the math department offices, laptop open, your drawing tablet in your lap, thinking. The conversation with Jimin happened about two days ago. In that time, you hadn't attended either morning or afternoon class yet, since it was only lectures. Not that it mattered, because lecture halls were massive. If this Jungkook kid sat in the back, then you probably wouldn't be able to see him anyway. At the moment, however, you were preoccupied with your assignment, to design a logo. Logo designing was difficult, especially since a school assignment didn't exactly have a real client attached to it to ask questions. 

Technically these were Calculus I office hours, but who attended office hours? Nobody.

Who attended any type of calculus office hours?

Yeah, exactly. 

You spent the time doing homework with the door open. You were the only TA that actually showed up for the office hours. Every other TA said it was a waste of time. It was. You still came through; in the off chance some poor kid decided her grade mattered. You felt bad since the actual professor wasn't very patient when people needed extra help. Also, technically you were the head TA, so you did have a bit more responsibility than the others.

Your black boots were perched on the desk as you sat back in your office chair, sketching a few ideas. If a member of the math department saw you, you would probably get in trouble. Thankfully, the math department was usually deserted. Math wasn't exactly the most social subject. 

You took a sip of your tea from your thermos, tapping your tablet pen on your black jean-covered thigh. 

"You look even better close-up, noona."

A clear, silvery, male voice cut through the silence. The voice came from the doorframe right in front of the desk. You frowned, slowly lifting your head from your tablet. How had you not heard him? Were you really that focused on your assignment?

Chucky black sneakers. Black cargo pants, slim fit. Distressed black sweater, hands casually in his pockets. Broad shoulders. Lightly tanned skin. Sharp jawline. A tiny mole under a mischievous smile. Your eyes narrowed as you made eye contact with those sparkling dark brown orbs. Long hair slicked back, with only a few wispy strands on his forehead. 

"Calculus I question?" was your response. 

His smile quirked a little higher. The young man didn't have a backpack with him. Didn't even have a piece of paper stuck under his arm. Wasn't even trying to pretend that he needed help.

"I have questions."

He didn't elaborate. You lowered your legs, placing your tablet on your laptop. 

"This is Calculus I office hours. For calculus questions only."

His eyes flickered to your laptop and tablet. Back to you. 

"Is this what the TAs should be doing during office hours?"

Suddenly, you could feel your pulse in your ears. Point taken.

"What do you want?"

He slid into the chair across from the desk, hands still in his pockets. Watching you carefully, still smiling thoughtfully. It should have been unnerving, but there was no malice in that smile. Maybe you were imagining it though, so you kept your guard up. 

"I'm Jeon Jungkook."

Yeah, I guessed, you thought wryly. "And my name is on the syllabus. What do you want?"

He tilted his head at you, studying your face. 

"How do you know Jimin-ssi?"

Isn't Jimin older than you, punk? "Our parents are friends."

He nodded slowly. He looked around the windowless office, at the three papers tacked to the wall – outdated notices – to the still open door, to the desk with your laptop, tablet, and backpack. Then to you, sitting back in the black office chair, eyebrow raised, hands half-in the sleeves of your gray flannel, cropped black sweater underneath. 

"I think you're beautiful, noona."

Your brain winced at the compliment and your hormones looked up from the abyss. Your brain scolded them to go back to their hidey-hole. You clicked your tongue. 

"I'm too old for you."

There was an ever-so-slight tick of his head. His eyes shifted downward and then flicked back up to you, almost shyly, if it wasn't for the small smirk dancing on his lips. 

"We both know such a mindset is outdated."

You felt your breath catch in your throat. The fuck? Your hormones peeked out again. Your brain was too distracted with trying to find a comeback to tell them to fuck off. You figured you better cut this off right now before it went too far. 

"This whole conversation is inappropriate," you said evenly, standing up from the chair and rolling it back. You walked around the desk and stood in front of it, balancing your ass against it. You crossed your arms over your breasts. "You should leave."

He slowly, slowly gazed up at you. Why did he look so satisfied? Your heart did a little three beat skip. Stop it. Keep it together. Jungkook got to his feet, hands still in his pockets. Then he pulled them out and pushed his sleeves up.

Oh?

Tattoos ran up his right arm, the beginnings of a sleeve. Ink black against light tan, flexed muscle. He was not a skinny pretty boy. You were so busy staring at his arms that you barely registered him placing them casually on either side of you, face right next to yours. Now you were staring down at his broad chest, at his black distressed sweater.

"Excuse me?" you snapped testily, lifting your head to look into his smug eyes. 

"I won't touch you," Jungkook murmured quietly. "Unless you ask me to."

This punk ass bitch.

You narrowed your eyes. "What makes you think I would?"

That small teasing smile came back. 

"Well, for one, you haven't actually told me you have absolutely no interest yet."

Your hormones prodded you excitedly. Your brain told them to shut up. Your eyes moved to the open door behind his head, looking into the empty hall, trying to keep a balanced, even tone. It came out a little sharper than you intended.

"Door's wide open."

"Embarrassed to be seen with me?" Jungkook purred, breath on your cheek. 

You tried not to react even though your hormones were fucking losing it. "What about you?" you shot back sharply. 

You heard Jungkook chuckle. "Fuck no I'm not." Your heart jerked heading the crude word come out so daintily and casually from his lips. "I want to be seen with you. All the time. In every position." 

You finally tore your eyes from the open door to give him the side-eye. "Real big words there."

Jungkook smirked. "I'm giving you a chance to tell me no. It's taking everything in me not to bend you over this desk right now and fuck your brains out."

You sucked in a breath. Accidentally. Not on purpose. There's absolutely no way Jungkook would have noticed unless he was literally right next to you. Which he was. Shit. He leaned in closer, still not actually touching you. 

"You like that idea?" he breathed, the lust evident in his voice, not even trying to hide it. 

"I am not some easy bitch at the club, Jungkook. This is the fucking math department," you scolded, eye-level to the base of his neck, wanting very badly to make out with it.

Now it was his turn to inhale sharply. He pulled his head back, and now you were face-to-face with those dark, dark eyes, falling, falling, your body screaming at you to do more. And still you didn’t, torn between reason and instinct.

"I'm so pissed," he growled, breath against your lips. "That the first time I hear you say my name, I wasn't watching your pretty lips form it."

Those few strands brushed against his exposed forehead, framing his furrowed brow and those intense dark brown eyes, making you breathless, telling you that you should, even though the last shreds of reason were telling you, do not, do not, do not give in to Jeon Jungkook. 

"It's the middle of the damn day," you murmured.

"And you make me horny every second of every day," he groaned, so close now that his nose almost touched yours. "With your stem stare, your assertive stride, your well-spoken words, and your beautiful body that demands to be kissed, loved, fucked." He panted, shoulders shaking. "God, I want you under me so bad. You have no idea, noona."

Resolve? Hello, where are you?

You raised an eyebrow. "You think you're enough for me?"

His dark eyes gleamed. 

"I know I am."

Your eyes flickered to the open door, the vacant hall, feeling Jungkook's body heat hovering so close, so close to you, and then you shifted your eyes back to him. Your brain was screaming at you and your hormones bonked your brain silent. The words at the tip of your tongue came tumbling out, nothing to hold them back anymore. 

"Let's see."

And then you kissed him.

Jungkook’s reaction was immediate, his large hands leaving the desk, grabbing your waist, ramming his crotch into you. You gasped against his soft lips and he slid his tongue inside, playing with yours, moaning, kissing you hungrily. His fingers pressed into you through your clothes, strong, tight, unforgiving. Your eyes flew open, surprised at his eagerness. He retreated his tongue and nipped at your lower lip, sucking on it lightly. You shivered, feeling him lift you onto the desk, pushing your legs open with his hips, grinding against you. He kissed down your chin, lifting your head impatiently, moaning against your skin. Every gentle kiss a jolt to your system, contrasting with his rough hands kneading your waist, pulling you close against his firm body, the fucking desk cutting into your thighs, eyelids fluttering.

There was movement at the door.

You froze.

Jungkook’s lips latched onto your neck, sucking sharply. You choked back a wanton moan, seeing a familiar face. A familiar, plump smile with cute, lovely eyes. He waved a small hand at you and reached for the doorknob, locking it from the inside before winking at you and closing the door silently.

Park fucking Jimin.

That bas–

Your thought was sharply cut off by Jungkook nipping at your throat, hissing as he rolled his hips into your thigh, a distinct bulge pressing into you. He yanked down the front of your sweater, sucking on the space right between your collarbones. You whimpered and shuddered, wrapping a leg around his waist and hooking him towards you, hands finally leaving your chest and grabbing his, fingers getting caught in the holes of his sweater.

“Fuck,” he growled. “I’m so fucking hard already because you’re so fucking hot.”

You caught yourself against the desk, elbow slamming onto the wood. You winced. “I haven’t done shit,” you said, surprised to feel your lips slightly swollen.

Jungkook grinned. “You don’t have to. Just you below me is enough.”

You glared at him and he bent over the desk, grabbing the back of your head, pushing your face to his, kissing you again, stealing your breath. It was the perfect mix of force and desperation, leaving you yielding, back arching as he sucked on your tongue, bobbing his head up and down slightly to pull on it. You tried not to make noise – everything was already too noisy anyway – only crying out softly when he let you go. Now you were on your elbows with Jungkook towering over you, licking his lips, the spare strands now stuck to his exposed forehead. His eyes roamed over your body before landing back on your face. You gave him your best questioning look.

He chuckled darkly. “I want to rip all your clothes off, but something tells me you will be upset with me.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Because this is still the middle of the math department, let me remind you, Jungkook.” You huffed. “I don’t live here. Don’t get crazy.”

He grinned, leaning forward. “Say my name again, noona. God, let me watch your delicious lips speak my fucking name.”

You raised your eyebrows. Then you felt his hands on your jeans, undoing the button, making you jump. The zipper going down, down. He yanked at the seam, digging it into your already wet pussy, shoving your panties into your slit.

“A-ah, Jungkook…”

Oh fuck. That sounded kind of pathetic.

He bit his lower lip, and yanked again.

“J-Jungkook, ah…” Your eyelids fluttered, trying to keep your strict demeanor.

“Fuck,” he hissed, firmly gripping the waistband of your jeans and pulling them down your ass, half-dragging your panties down. “You like that, noona? Do you want me to be rough with you?”

You prayed to the higher power that he would just take the damn hint and not make you say it. But Jungkook was dragging your panties back up, the thin black fabric being sucked into your folds and ass as he pulled them far too high. You gasped, trying not to look down, trying not to look at his face. But he grabbed your chin, dragging you back to him, making you open your glazed eyes, making you see his excited expression.

“Look at me, noona.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Jungkook held the front of your panties and pulled, hard. You had to choke back a moan, the fabric nearly ripping, rubbing harshly against your clit. You felt the squelch of you getting wetter, hearing it clearly as he yanked at it, stimulating your clit.

“Tell me you don’t like it, noona,” Jungkook whispered hotly, letting go of your chin. “Tell me and I’ll stop.”

You spread your legs involuntarily, trying very hard not to make a fucking sound, but it was already obvious by your fists clenched against the desk, your widespread legs, and your pussy lips practically sucking your panties in, so much so that they nearly disappeared into you.

Jungkook snuck a glance down, gasping softly at your glistening pussy being tortured by your panties. He dropped to his knees and you had only one second to be confused before Jungkook’s tongue licked up your slit. You had to slap a hand over your mouth to avoid crying out, leaving your sounds limited to muffled whimpers as he lapped at your juices, groaning into you. Your entire lower body vibrated as he teased your covered clit, smushing the fabric into your deeper, rougher. Your hips strained, trying to hump his face but only digging your panties into you harder.

You removed your hand from your face, biting on your tongue to regain some semblance of thought so you fucking talk.

“T-take it off…” you gasped. You looked down, seeing his mischievous eyes above your quivering mound, licking his lips slowly, pink tongue tracing the contours of his mouth.

Jungkook raised his hand.

Smack!

This time you had to actually shove to knuckles into your mouth and mute your squeal as pain radiated through you, your pussy stinging. He slapped you again, right on your clit, hard, making your throw your head back and nearly hit the desk, hips raising to meet him. Oh, God. He pressed his finger against your aching clit, rubbing hard, standing up to bend over you, an impossibly strong presence as he pleasured you.

“Say it, noona,” he breathed. “Tell me you like getting your pussy spanked.”

He was rubbing your clit so hard that you felt your hips raise into it, eyes rolling back into your head.

“Say it or I’ll stop,” he warned menacingly, voice so low it ripped through you.

You tore your knuckles out of your mouth. “Don’t stop, please, fuck, Jungkook, I love it when you spank my clit, fuck, please, fuck.” The words came jumbling out in a rushed, half-panicked whisper, cut off by your sharp gasp as your orgasm clawed into you. You felt Jungkook slap his free hand over your mouth, shutting off your wail as your throbbed into his hand, turning into helpless whines as he spanked your clit hard and fast, accentuating your high with waves of sudden, aching pain. You pushed his hand away, pressing your head against the desk, gasping.

“Harder, please, Jungkook, harder.”

He was staring at your fucked-out face, massaging your throbbing pussy with his palm, coating his fingers with your cum. Your voice a thin moan, hips rutting into him.

“Believe me, I want to,” he snarled. “I want to so fucking bad, noona, but we’re already loud enough and you’re making a fucking mess.”

He pulled your panties down, nearly useless at this point and roughly shoved two fingers into you. You gasped, tongue lolling out and he took the chance to put two fingers of his free hand into your mouth, rubbing your wet tongue. You could feel every joint, the calluses of his fingertips as he thrust them into you, slopping, wet sounds accompanying his movements.

“Fuck, look at you, noona, sucking in my fingers, letting me fuck your mouth,” Jungkook murmured, centimeters away from your face. “I haven’t even fucked you with my cock yet and you’re already taking me so well.”

If you could think, you probably would have a snappy response, but Jungkook was stuffing his fingers into your mouth and scissoring the others inside your pussy, driving you insane. You made eye contact with Jungkook, him and his blown-out pupils, his lips trembling as he rammed his fingers into your holes faster, harder, sliding you up the wooden desk. Something inside you snapped and you squeezed your eyes shut, your body shaking as you came again, trying to yell, but unable to because Jungkook shoved his fingers into your throat, making you almost choke if it wasn’t for your own expertise. An embarrassing amount of liquid poured down his hand and wrist, dripping down your thighs. You clamped your legs shut, burying his hand, hips jerking as the aftershocks rippled through you.

You heard Jungkook swallow loudly, jaw tight. He slowly pulled his fingers out of both holes, strings of bodily fluid following him as he did so. Your shaking knees were barely holding your lower body up, jeans constricting your calves and your upper body way too fucking hot.

You laid back on the wood, trying to catch your breath. Was it a fucking cliché? Probably. You felt Jungkook lift himself off the desk and you closed your eyes, chest heaving. Of course. He was just going to leave you like this, tearing your secret out of you and then leaving to boast about how he turned the head Calculus I TA into a helpless, submissive puddle of goo without even actually fucking you. Why did you even bother–

You suddenly felt the desk creak and snapped your eyes open to Jungkook climbing onto it, straddling your chest, unzipping his pants right in front of your face. His slicked hair was becoming unfurled now, more and more dark strands falling down around his ears. His brow furrowed, eyes so wide and focused you weren’t even sure he was actually looking at you.

“Uh–”

He reached in his black boxer briefs impatiently and pulled out his thick, leaking cock. Your eyes widened and his found yours, glittering with arousal. A smear of pre-cum grazed your cheek as he adjusted his position to push the red, bulbous tip against your lips.

“I want to fuck you, noona, but you have to clean me up,” Jungkook breathed, gently asking you but also trying to greedily push his dick into your mouth.

You could say something, but somehow you concluded you were going to be muffled anyway, so you opened your mouth, tongue snaking out and licking the head. Flat, wide, and all over, coating your tongue with his pre-cum, moaning at his taste. Jungkook sunk his teeth into his lower lip, hissing softly as he spread his legs even more, lowering himself slowly into your mouth. You licked around his cock before closing your lips and sucking, growing wet as he thrust his hips into your mouth, slow and steady, eyes closed. You reached up to hold onto his thighs, whimpering as you felt his muscular quads through his pants. He opened his eyes and looked down at you, sliding his cock in a little deeper, hitting the back of your throat.

“Fuck, noona, so fucking sexy, taking my cock like that,” he groaned, reaching down and pushing your hair out of your eyes. His dark hair hung down, framing his face in shadow, making your pussy throb at the image. “Makes me want to fill all your holes up, makes me want to coat you with my cum and see you covered in it, messy and dirty with me.”

You couldn’t say anything so you just whined, nails digging into his covered thighs.

“You want that?” His voice dropped several octaves again. Your skin prickled hotly with every word. “You want me to jack off all over you and leave you a mess covered with my cum?”

You squeezed your thighs together, desperate for friction, now moving your head to suck harder, rubbing the tip fiercely against the back of your throat.

“F-fuck,” he gritted out. He tapped your hand hurriedly, eyelids fluttering. “S-stop, stop.” You whimpered, sadly looking up at him. He chuckled, rubbing your knuckles soothingly.

Look here you little shit, you can’t say all that dirty stuff and not expect me to be horny, your eyes were telling him.

“I know, I know,” he purred. “But I want to fuck your pussy and office hours are almost over…”

You glowered at him, but reluctantly unhinged your jaw, opening your lips. He slid out, gasping, hitting you in the chin and getting the front of your sweater wet.

“You’re a jerk,” you muttered as he climbed off you.

Jungkook chuckled. “Sorry, noona.”

You shook your hair and reached into your backpack, pulling out a condom, only to turn around and see Jungkook pulling one out of his back pocket.

“Oh.” You blinked at him. “You’re prepared.”

Jungkook wiggled his eyebrows. “I knew what I was coming for.”

A muscle in your brow twitched as he tucked his tongue in his cheek, grinning widely at you as he ripped it open and slid it on slowly, rolling it down his thick cock. His voice changed, dipping raspy and low.

“Turn around.”

Part of you wanted to fight, but then you spied the time. You rolled onto your stomach, sighing exaggeratedly as your legs tangled a bit in your jeans. You felt Jungkook’s presence behind you as he bent over your back, hand sliding over your lips and covering your mouth.

“Sigh all you want, noona,” he growled, chuckling as you shivered. “Just don’t scream when I’m fucking you.”

Your eyes widened as you felt the head press against your puffy pussy lips, pushing in forcefully, expanding your tight little hole as his cock entered you, his moan against your ear, your name dripping with lust. Both of you still mostly clothed, but his cock sliding deep, deep inside you, his teeth on your earlobe. Your walls throbbed around him, squeezing him. He gasped, jutting his hips experimentally into you. A stifled moan sneaked past his fingers, your tongue licking them lightly.

“That’s it,” he breathed. “Nice and tight for me, bent over this desk.” He nipped at your ear, whispering softly as he began to fuck you. “What if someone hears you, whimpering for my cock, begging to be fucked?”

Your hands clenched into fists, eyes fluttering shut, feeling him pound you into the wood, deep and slow and far too perfect.

“Noona, what if someone sees you?” His voice like smoke, invading all your thoughts, threatening your dreams, cursing you with the feeling of his lips on your ear and his hips pounding your ass. “Proper, harsh, strict noona turning into a slut for this cock, bent over this desk and humping my hips so you can get this dick deeper inside you?”

You squeezed your eyes shut and wiggled your ass against his cock. He thrust his hips harder into you, jerking you forcefully upwards, your thighs smacking against the desk. Light flickered in front of your closed eyelids and you opened them, seeing your phone screen glaring at you. A message from Jimin. Finish already! You struggled to say his name and Jungkook lifted his hand for a moment to hear your shaking breath.

“Jungkook,” you panted. “Time.”

He covered your mouth again. “You’re right,” he grunted, rolling his hips into you, biting back his moans as you clenched around him. The wet, slapping sounds became louder as he changed his angle, fucking you roughly into the table. It pushed your hips up and you clung onto the edge of the desk, moaning around his hand, tongue pressed flat against his palm as he fucked you with reckless abandon, beating a damn indent of the edge of the desk into your thighs. The dull ache was going to lead to a bruise, but you didn’t care, pushing your hips back to meet him. A choked wail vibrated in your throat as you came again, whole body lurching as he sunk his teeth into your clothed shoulder, groaning as he came inside you, cock twitching and throbbing against your walls. You felt the condom expand, matched with Jungkook’s hiss as he pumped into you. You pulsed your pussy around him and he detached his mouth, whispering your name against your ear.

“You’re dirty, noona,” he rasped, the words so breathless they made you shiver. “I love it.”

You shakily reached up and peeled his hand from your mouth, gasping as he straightened to hold the condom and pull out of you. Fuck. Oh fuck. You scrambled for your phone, seeing Jimin’s text.

You better rush outta there, noona.

You heard the wet, peeling sound of Jungkook pulling the used condom off gingerly. You turned around, hissing at Jungkook before he threw it in the trash.

“Are you crazy?” you muttered, snatching it from him. “Someone will see.”

Jungkook blinked at you. “What else do I do with it?”

You glared at him and tied it up, grabbing some tissues and wrapping it inside. Then you shoved it in your backpack, along with your laptop, your tablet, the spare condom, and reaching over the desk to unplug your laptop’s AC adaptor so you could shove that in your bag too.

“Fuck, your ass is so sexy,” Jungkook marveled behind you.

“Jungkook, we have to get the fuck out of here, so pack your damn dick,” you ordered, yanking your jeans up. Squelch. You sucked in your lower lip in at the cold, uncomfortable sensation of your soaked panties. You zipped your bag and checked around the desk to make sure you took everything. You grabbed your phone and shoved it in your back pocket, turning around to see Jungkook rezipping his pants. Thank God. You might have been tempted if he hadn’t listened to you. Then you remembered the two bits of condom wrapping on the floor and picked those up too, shoving them in your other pocket.

Jungkook smirked at you. “So thorough, noona.”

You scowled at him. Maybe he hadn’t been in this situation before, but you sure as hell have.

“Stay here for twenty seconds and then leave.”

Jungkook pouted at you. You felt your heart skip a beat.

“But I don’t even have your number.”

You rolled your eyes. “Ask Jimin. You two are in cahoots anyway.” You popped your head out, looking around. No one. You popped your head back in. “Also, you owe me new panties the next time I see your smug little face, you punk,” you added, tone irate.

He smirked at you; his long dark hair wispy around his playful eyes.

You gave him one last look before you tore your eyes away, rushing through every back stairway to get the hell out of there before someone could realize you just fucked a freshman during office hours, your slopping, torn-up panties reminding you with every step that you really needed Jeon Jungkook to fuck you again.

-

part ii

--

masterpost

[cdelphiki]

“Fuck.”

Jason’s spoon clanked into his bowl, as he dropped it and fumbled for the remote. He’d been watching Jeopardy! with the volume low. Half the fun of the game was answering the questions himself, and really, the idiots on the show were often just distracting.

But Jeopardy! wasn’t on the screen anymore.

The Joker was.

The Joker and the current Robin.

“—play a game, shall we?” Joker said, and Jason just cursed louder as he tossed his cereal on the coffee table and jumped up.

“Hrnn,” Robin groaned, when the camera panned to him, “Who’d want to play with you?”

Fucking brat.

The poor kid looked in rough shape. His mask was slightly ripped, showing off a massive bruise right under one of his eyes. His fat lip and the blood trickling down his chin didn’t help much, either.

Oh, yeah. And the fact he was tied up and inside a tiny little cage.

How the hell had Joker got his hands on Robin?

Never mind, Jason thought, as he kicked around the shit on his floor, freeing the various pieces of his Red Hood uniform, he knew exactly how Robin got himself captured.

Batman was out of town.

And he’d left Robin in charge of Gotham.

Like a fucking moron.

“Uh, uh uh,” Joker said, “That’s no way to behave. Be a good little birdy.”

Robin groaned, when Joker stuck a stick inside Robin’s cage, and jabbed him in the side. He pressed a button, and Tim’s groan turned to a scream as he was electrocuted.

Jason grimaced.

“Now,” Joker continued, through a laugh, “The answer is ‘Topeka.’”

Joker’s stupid fucking laugh.

Jason should not be helping the bats.

He did not help the bats. The bats hated him. And, sure, they had good reason to, but it just meant Jason shouldn’t be helping them out of principle!

Why help people who hate your guts and wish you were still dead?

The bats are out of town, his mind helpfully reminded him, they can’t save Robin. And like hell was Jason going to let Joker kill another Robin.

“Shit,” he mumbled, as he grabbed his helmet and shoved it on his head. All he needed was his guns, now.

“Come now, Robin,” Joker said, “You’re disappointing the viewers at home.”

“No, you’re disappointing the viewers,” Jason snapped, as he placed three guns into his holsters, and grabbed his spare magazines, checking to make sure each was full. “No one wants to watch the fucking Joker fuck with a little kid.”

Even if that little kid was Tim Drake. And annoying as fuck.

The camera zoomed back on Robin’s face, and Robin finally mumbled out, “Capital of Kansas.”

Robin screamed, again, when Joker jabbed him with the shock stick, and Jason growled.

He grabbed his tablet and hacked into the batcomputer in record time. He wasn’t sure if Bruce knew he could still do that, but at the moment he was fucking glad he hadn’t been caught yet.

“You didn’t phrase your answer in the form of a question! Haven’t you ever watched Jeopardy!? That’s what the good folks want right now.”

“Fuck, kid,” Jason mumbled, as he triangulated a location on Robin’s tracker, “Where are you?”

Only Robin’s tracker was listed in Gotham, too. No one else was around. Not Alfred. Not Batgirl. No one.

Why the fuck did Bruce keep leaving Robin all alone?

Hadn’t he learned his lesson the first time?

Tim groaned on screen again, making Jason draw his gun and unload the full clip on the screen.

Shit.

His neighbors probably hated him.

“Where are you,” he growled at the tablet, just as Robin’s location finished loading.

Warehouse in Crime Alley.

Not even five blocks from Jason’s safe house.

Good.

- - -

The Joker had almost no henchmen guarding his warehouse.

Usually Joker’s operations were more thought through. Right?

This time it was just pathetic.

How in the ever-loving-fuck had he got his hands on Robin, anyway?

It took Jason not even ten minutes to reach the warehouse, break in, and incapacitate all ten of his thugs. It took only another fifteen seconds to climb up into the rafters, into the main area where Joker was ‘filming’ with Robin.

“Now, Robin,” Joker said, his his annoying high pitched drawl, “You are down in the negatives. You need to get this next answer correct or—”

Jason didn’t let him finish the thought.

Because he shot the Joker in the ass.

“Shut the fuck up,” Red Hood snarled, as he dropped down from the rafters, right on top of Joker, “No one cares as much as you think.”

“Hood,” Joker said, grinning wide, despite all the blood leaking out of him.

Or, well. Not much. Jason should shoot him again.

Robin would get all high and mighty, if Jason actually killed Joker.

Fucking hell.

“How nice of you to drop by!” Joker said, laughing, “We could use a second contestant.”

Yeah. Sure.

Jason brought his elbow down into Joker’s face. Hard. Breaking his nose and knocking him flat out.

“How disappointing,” Jason said, as he stood up and turned toward Robin, “That wasn’t nearly as satisfying as shooting him in the face would have been.”

Robin stayed laying there, where he was, curled up in his cage, clutching his stomach tight.

Whistling, Jason crossed the room and tried to get Tim’s attention. “Yo. Half-pint, you all right there?”

Tim didn’t react, other than to curl up tighter when Jason approached the cage and put a hand on one of the bars.

“Shit,” he mumbled, “Okay, kid. I’ll get you out.”

Ridiculously, it took longer to figure out a way to get Tim out of the cage.

He tried to pry the fucking lock open with a crowbar he found laying around…

Joker and his fucking crowbars.

But the lock wouldn’t budge, and the stupid replacement Robin kept flinching every time Jason got too near. Which, should have probably made Jason feel bad.

If he were, like, a good person.

Instead it just pissed him off enough that he grabbed the crowbar and started bashing it against the lock, until the damn thing fell off.

“Okay,” Jason said as he opened the cage door, “Tell me what the damage is, kid.”

Robin didn’t respond, so Jason reached in and placed one gloved hand on his shoulder. All he was going to do was shake it, a little. Just to make sure the kid was alive. And like, just out of it.

But apparently Robin was super out of it, because instead of growl at him or snap some dumbass quip, he jumped up and punched Jason right in the stomach.

“Fuck,” he huffed. The little sucker packed a mean one, but he was too damn out of it for it to do more than make Jason wince. “The fuck, kid? Knock it off.”

Tim jumped up, however, on top of the cage, then wobbled there as he tried to right his balance. The second Jason tried to reach out to him, to catch him before he toppled over, or some shit, Tim pulled out a couple of his stupid R shaped throwing stars and started throwing them.

“Shit,” Jason growled, as he dodged, “Kid, knock it off.”

“What do you want?” Robin asked, and with that, apparently reached the end of his spike of adrenaline.

Because the next thing Jason knew, Robin was falling off the cage bars he’d been perched on, and Jason had barely enough time to dive the few feet between them and catch the stupid runt before he landed on the concrete ground, head first.

“Get off me,” Robin demanded, thrashing about in Jason’s hold.

All it made Jason do was squeeze his arms around Tim tighter.

“Stop,” Tim said, his voice getting a little more desperate, “Get off.”

“Ow,” Jason complained, when Tim kicked him in the knee, “Would you knock it off. Am I hurting you?”

Tim stilled, for a second, and seemed to evaluate the situation. Jason was still holding onto him, but he loosed his arms a little.

“No?” Tim asked, like he wasn’t sure if that were the correct answer, or something.

Stupid brat. And they accused Jason of shooting first, asking questions later.

“Then why the fuck are you fighting me?” Jason demanded.

“You’re…” Tim said, then paused as he put a hand up to his head. Shit. Jason needed to get him back to a safe house and checked out.

Letting go of Tim completely, Jason set him down and maneuvered, so he was kneeling in front of the stupid runt. He put a hand on Tim’s head and forced his head back, a little, so Jason could get a good look at it. He could see one of Tim’s eyes, due to his mask having so much damage on it, and it looked like Tim was at least making eye contact.

Or, at least. As much eye contact as he could when Jason was wearing a helmet.

“You’re the Red Hood?” Tim finally answered.

Jason merely huffed. “Yeah. And you’re the boy hostage. Where are you hurt?”

“What?” Tim demanded, “Why do you care?” and Jason rolled his eyes.

“Like I’m gonna let Joker kill you. That’s my job.”

Okay.

Wrong thing to say.

Because Tim’s eye grew wide, and he shuffled backward, out of Jason’s reach, kicking his feet.

Jason tried to grab his feet, to make him stop, but Tim kept kicking, and got Jason right in the ribs.

“Ouch, stop it. I was kidding.” Tim got him on the chin, and Jason snapped, “Just stop. I’m trying to help you.”

“Why,” Tim demanded, as Jason finally caught one of his legs and held it up high enough that Tim lost his balance.

It was kind of amusing, how Tim landed on his back, and just groaned.

“Why’s there gotta be a reason?” he asked, “Maybe I don’t want to see another Robin die!”

“You beat me near to death like two minutes ago,” Tim shouted, pulling at his foot, and not succeeding in freeing himself.

Because Jason was standing, and Tim was short. It would be no trouble at all for Jason to just lift Tim right up off the ground entirely by his leg.

“It’s been four months, stop being dramatic.”

“You expect me to believe you’ve changed enough since then that it matters?” Tim demanded, just as he pulled another throwing star out and threw it at Jason.

Too bad for Tim, Jason saw it coming a mile away. And just caught it.

“Yep!” he cheered, “You done now? You’re, like, super out if it and your fight sucks. If you couldn’t tell.”

Robin mumbled something Jason didn’t catch, so Jason dropped his foot, and tried not to grin too wide when Tim groaned when his body hit the ground.

He didn’t fall too far.

And Jason was sure his head and upper back had been on the ground, already, before he let go.

“Can you walk on your own?” he asked.

Once Tim stopped being all dramatic about everything, he grumbled out a, “No,” so Jason knelt down next to him and offered a hand, to help Tim sit up.

Tim glared at him with so much derision, it risked making Jason laugh.

Instead, all he said was, “Then stop fucking fighting me and let me help.”

“Fine,” Tim snapped, lifting an arm up so Jason could wrap it around Jason’s shoulders, “But if you try anything, I’m calling for Superman.”

“Whatever,” Jason said, as he hefted Tim to his feet, and started making toward the warehouse exit, “Just shut up and let me get you out of here.”

Tim was in pretty rough shape.

Jason already knew that, of course, but it became even more obvious as they made their way back to Jason’s safe house.

Mostly because Jason did all the fucking work.

Tim’s left leg was obviously fucked up. Jason was a little glad he hadn’t held that leg up in the air, because then he’d feel guilty.

And that wasn’t it. He kept clutching at his stomach, and Jason was willing to bet there was at least some pretty bad burns there from all the zapping.

Dragging Tim’s ass up the side of Jason’s building was easy, of course. But annoying. Because Jason had to hold onto Tim tight, because the stupid brat’s grip kept loosening whenever Jason jostled him too much.

“Shit kid,” Jason mumbled, as he pushed Tim through the window to his safe house, “I can’t believe Bruce leaves his fucking kid all alone to protect Gotham when he’s out of town.”

Because, seriously.

This was ridiculous.

Tim was fucked up. And it was all Bruce’s fault.

“M’not his kid,” Tim mumbled, as he stumbled a few feet inside Jason’s safe house, over to the couch. He collapsed down with an oof.

Jason rolled his eyes and closed the window behind him, after he jumped inside. “You are too a kid,” he said, unsnapping his helmet and tossing it down on the ground, “You’re like, thirteen.”

Tim followed Jason with his eyes, even as he sank into the couch a little more, and said, “I’m fifteen. And I said I’m not his kid.”

“Fifteen!” Jason shouted, tossing his gloves on the ground. His safe house was pretty small, so his kitchen was his living room. And he, thankfully, had a pretty good first aid kit sitting in the cabinet under his sink. “That’s how old I was. And obviously I meant his son, you idiot.”

“I’m not his son either,” Tim said.

Jason paused, as he was pulling his kit out, and looked up over the counter at the little brat.

“He didn’t adopt you?”

Hadn’t Talia said….?

How the fuck was he even Robin?

“No,” Tim exclaimed, “I have a dad.”

Is that why Bruce was more lenient on Tim? Because he wasn’t his son?

Bruce never let Jason out of his fucking sight as Robin.

He’d thought that was because he didn’t trust Jason, and clearly he trusted Tim.

But was it maybe because he’d adopted….

Nope. Not thinking about this.

“And he lets you run around with the bats?” Jason asked, finally crossing back over to Tim and slamming the first aid kit down on the coffee table.

Tim jumped, but then scowled at Jason and said, “It’s not like he can stop me.”

“Seriously, kid?”

“Look. It’s none of your business. Are you gonna let me go?”

In that state? Not bloody likely.

But instead of say that, and get Robin all fighty again, Jason said, “I’m not keeping you prisoner, but let me look at your injuries.”

Tim rolled his eyes, but sank back down into the couch and mumbled, “I’m fine.”

“Uh huh,” Jason said, pointing toward the stomach Tim was still clutching, “lemme see.”

It took a second of Tim glaring, but he finally relented and lifted his shirt, and Jason could only wince in sympathy.

“Damn, Timbo,” he said, looking at the criss crossing scorch marks littering his abdomen, “Those look fun. I’ve got some burn cream that should help.”

Jason worked on Tim’s injuries in silence for a good ten minutes. He had so many burns, Jason kind of wanted to go back and shoot Joker in the ass again, just for inflicting them.

And maybe go find Bruce and shoot him in the ass, for leaving Tim all alone for this to happen in the first place.

“That one needs stitches,” Jason said, after he’d pulled Tim’s sleeves up, inspecting his arms for any more burns to treat. Instead, he found a jagged knife wound, that was still oozing a little. “Did you think you could hide it from me?”

Tim pulled his arm closer to himself, and mumbled, “S’not that bad.”

Jason rolled his eyes, and pulled out his suture kit. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Amazingly, Tim didn’t fight him at all, when he took his arm back and started cleaning the wound enough so he could apply the local anesthetic and start stitching it up.

Instead, all Tim did was stare at him, a little blankly.

It was actually unnerving.

“What?” he snapped.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I told you,” Jason scoffed, readjusting his hold on Tim’s arm so he could get the last few stitches in straight, “I’m not letting Joker kill another Robin.”

And, sure. Stitching the kid up and treating all his burns was going a little above and beyond.

But Jason would feel a little bad if he, like, bled to death or whatever.

“Yeah,” Tim said, blinking hard as he ran his free hand through his hair, “But like, you coulda just took him out and left. Why’re you— ow.”

“Whoops,” Jason said, bearing his teeth a little as he grinned at the accidental needle prick he gave Tim outside the numbed area, “Are you seriously complaining? Don’t you know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth?”

Tim was rich, wasn’t he? Weren’t they taught that shit, too?

Jason was pretty sure Bruce never let him be ungrateful about gifts. Not that Jason would, of course. But even Bruce Wayne taught his kids to be thankful for what they had…

Then again. Tim apparently wasn’t Bruce’s kid…

“When that gift horse tries to kill us every other week, no,” Tim said.

“Shut up,” Jason scoffed, “I haven’t messed with you idiots in months.”

Which was, absolutely, completely, 89% true.

He hadn’t attempted anything fatal on them in months. Fucked with their cases for the laughs? Maybe.

Mostly just Bruce’s. When it didn’t get anyone hurt, of course.

Just because it was fun to fuck with Bruce.

Because fuck Bruce.

“Yeah, but— ow.”

Jason might have stabbed him again.

“All done,” he said, before Tim could get out whatever it was he was going to protest, “Congratulations, you’ll survive. You can sleep here. I’m burning the safe house tomorrow, though.”

He’d shot the TV. So it was pretty useless now, anyway.

“Next time you get captured by the Joker, I’m shooting you in the ass, got it?”

“Yeah,” Tim said, rolling his eyes as he settled back on the couch a little more comfortably, “Whatever.”

Jason watched as Tim pulled his legs up and clearly just… collapsed there. To sleep. And rolled his eyes even harder.

Like that would be comfortable.

On his way to the window, after he’d put his helmet back on, Jason grabbed the blanket and pillow from under the coffee table and threw it right at Tim’s head.

Tim scowled, but did readjust himself so he looked at least slightly more comfortable.

Satisfied, Jason nodded and said, “Kay. Tell Bats I said fuck him. Later, squirt.”

“Thanks, Jason,” Tim mumbled, just as Jason was slipping out of the window.

Heh. The runt wasn’t so bad, after all.

Maybe.

But Jason was not going to make a habit of this. No way.

If he did, he’d have to go shoot Batman in the ass, for letting his stupid little Robin get hurt.

That would be fun, actually.

[crown-anon]

aah i thought of a req!!!!! could i maybe request one shots or hcs (separate) w dream, sapnap, n wilbur with a s/o (preferred he/him!!) who draws a whole lot,, n one day they catch him drawing him?? tysm :]

@ghcstbnr asked

gn i just realized i made a typo i meant cc catching reader drawing them- but ty again :)

of course! it's kind of long, sorry about that

I took a little creative liberty with the notion of "catching you drawing." also Sapnap's looks kind of long but it's also dialogue heavy. if you want me to redo it, I will. hope you like it 💗

& a note to everyone else, I don't write for Wilbur yet! I only write for the dream team at this time. sorry about that! this will probably change in the future, though, so look out 👀

CW: swearing

format: one-shot

people: dreamwastaken, Sapnap

pronouns: dreamwastaken's piece is ambiguous, Sapnap's piece uses he/him

edited 27 April 2021

—

dreamwastaken

since he doesn't use his camera, you find yourself with your boyfriend in the studio more often than not. when he's gaming casually, you play together, or one of you will cheer the other one on. when he's streaming, sometimes you interact with the viewers, or read donations for him; sometimes you just sit next to him, soaking up his energy and warmth. when he's working long days and long nights to edit videos, you're content with just relaxing together in the same space. at times you have to drag him out to the kitchen to eat, or help him to bed if he passes out, but…he's really cute when he's focused. (and you're starting to think he does it on purpose just so you can dote on him.)

today is a little different. he's recording for a manhunt that's meant to drop in a couple days. you're quiet, trying to avoid disrupting them. you're perched up on the loveseat, staring fondly at him across the room. he's so animated, the way his eyes shine when he talks to his friends, how he tears up when he laughs…

Patches mews at you from the arm of the couch, as if to say, disapprovingly, I cannot believe how sickeningly sweet your inner monologue is.

and you try to understand where she's coming from, you really do, but the sun's starting to set, and the gentle rays slotting through the blinds are shifting from white to gold.

he looks so divine, you decide. it's unfair. how could I not love him? he's seriously pretty. and before you can stop yourself, you're sketching him out on your tablet. you glance up at him fast to get the details right, and look away just as quickly. he never meets your eyes. soon your whole page is covered in little Clays, capturing the way he feels, the way he acts, the way you feel about him. Patches jumps off the chair, with all the moving. and before you know it, you've drawn up a whole page of concept art of your unfairly beautiful boyfriend. Patches was right about me, you muse to yourself.

fuck. Patches. the same Patches who's been meowing at you for the better part of an hour, now sitting patiently at the door? there's no way Clay didn't pick up on all that noise, you fret. but he's still playing, looking intense as ever. relief washes over you, replacing the guilt.

come here, girl, you think to yourself, knowing Patches wouldn't have even understood you if you spoke. sorry to keep you waiting. and you rise, slipping quietly out the door with his cat in your train.

—

you're coming back to the studio. Patches, fed and sated, is napping in another room. opening the door, you have to stop yourself, you freeze. your boyfriend's kneeling on the ground, sitting on his heels, right next to the door—you'd have hit him if it opened any further.

"baby, what are you…" the words die on your tongue.

my book. my sketchbook. my sketchbook full of drawings of him. shit, he's gonna think I'm such a simp! the embarrassment, the shame, the fear, it's overwhelming you.

you hear your voice break. "…what happened to recording…?"

"finished half an hour ago," he says simply.

and that was that. for the first time in ages, the silence hanging between you was thick and heavy with tension. you wait. and wait. and wait. you wait for the criticism, the hate, the argument that never comes.

suddenly, he seems content with what he's seen, when he looks up at you adoringly, and takes one of your hands, giving it a soft squeeze. "is that…me?"

you've lost your voice, all you can do is nod.

"you…you think I'm beautiful?" he glows.

ah, I suppose I did write that, somewhere in there. you look away. all the things I've said…

he brings your hand up to his lips and leaves kisses on your knuckles.

you sound small. "do I not tell you that enough?" you pause. "that you're beautiful? that I love you?"

and just like that, his nervousness dissolves into euphoria. you both start laughing at the same time.

"oh my god—" he wheezes. "—you're so sappy."

"only for you," you blurt out, and start laughing harder. but he quiets, he hesitates.

"only for me," he repeats.

you sink down onto the floor next to him. he's staring so fondly at you, you can't help but smile back.

"only for you," you affirm.

he rests his hands on your knees, pulling himself closer to you. he's so close to you, you can feel his blush. you let your eyes close, softly.

but the kiss never comes. instead, you're met with a "then what about all those drawings of Patches?"

laying on the floor, tangled up in each other, in hysterics, you distantly think I hope he remembered to leave the call from recording earlier.

—

over dinner, you meet his gaze, and he gives you that look. that stupid, handsome look; the one with the smile and the danger behind his eyes. he makes a point of pausing mid-bite, but it takes you a minute to notice that he's stopped eating.

"what's up, honey?" you ask, sounding a little more concerned than you should have been.

he shrugs dramatically. "oh, nothing…just figured you'd appreciate a muse." there it was. the teasing. you knew it would happen eventually. but the tone, it's kind, it's tempting; gentle, unlike a serious jab.

so all you do is roll your eyes, but you can't help the way your mouth quirks into a smile. "you're so dumb," you murmur with affection, and shake your head at nothing in particular.

Patches curls her tail around your ankle as she passes you by.

—

on the couch hours later for movie night, you're the last one up. Patches is curled up in Clay's lap, purring. Clay, in turn, sleeps soundly in your lap. (you think if he could purr, he would, but he settles for humming softly when you play with his hair.) you might think it's funny looking back on it later, but it feels so tender and vulnerable now. you like calm evenings like this one. Studio Ghibli plays quietly on the flatscreen; you don't know which one, you're not really paying attention anymore.

you're busy tracing the contours of Clay's skin, feeling more than seeing his shape in the dark room. mapping him out in your mind, learning his figure like you're seeing him for the first time again. you think you understand him a little bit better, every day you spend together. and with confidence, you make your first stroke, illuminated by the moon.

—

Sapnap

you only barely stop yourself from drawing a big "X" across your paper. exhale, and start erasing furiously. don't rip the paper—well, we didn't need that sheet anyway. ball it up and throw it at the dark, cobwebbed corner of the room. along with the rest of your mistakes.

you're trying. you're really trying. but those lips. his fucking lips. fuck.

your boyfriend smiles at the camera as he gets a donation with a sweet message on it. it should be so easy. he's right there. right here.

you check the time. it's been an hour. you've been trying, and miserably failing, to get his lips right for an entire hour. today, at least. you scoff at yourself, your misery, and pinch the bridge of your nose. it isn't fair.

his camera's on, and he's live, so you know you can't be in there with him. nobody knows you're together, and you don't want know what kind of backlash to expect if people found out. so you've been avoiding his streams…the whole room where he streams, really.

you've kept yourself busy by drawing. and you've cycled through many subjects in your life, and eventually, been able to draw whatever you put your mind to with enough time and effort. the problem is, your sights have been set on Sapnap, even for months before you got together. okay, maybe that isn't the problem. the actual problem is that you fucking suck at drawing him.

you get going, start it out, do an okay job, but midway through screw it all up somehow. to make things worse, your reference is his 2D image. he doesn't…know that you draw him. you're terrified to say. so you can't use the real life Sapnap as a reference, like you would prefer.

ugh, and this one's ruined too. you rip it up and throw it at your growing pile of paper balls, but being tiny confetti-sized pieces of paper, they don't make it very far. great, something else to clean up later, you huff at your own thoughts. it isn't fair.

—

"[name]?" he calls for you. you're one step ahead, already opening the door. you can't remember when you got here and decided to brood outside his room.

"hey, do you think you can—" he tears his eyes from his camera, his waiting audience, to look up at you expectantly. when he sees you he stops immediately, looking concerned, standing to meet you.

"what is it?" your voice is flat.

out of view of the camera, he mouths, are you okay? you only shrug and avert your eyes.

he falters, contemplates, sits back down at his desk and starts to talk to his viewers. "hey guys, I'm sorry for the short notice, but I gotta cut this stream short. my…" he glances at you for approval, only to see you motioning with your hands as if to say, no, don't.

(you yourself don't really know what for. no, don't end the stream for me? no, don't out us like this?)

he looks back. "…my friend…something came up with my friend. I have to take care of it. it's really important." you can tell he has trouble finding the right words. you can tell it throws him off, he's acting out of character for his internet personality. do you blame him? isn't this your fault? "sorry again. bye guys!"

the second he made the last click, he gets up and pulls you into a hug. it's unexpected, it knocks the wind out of you. you're certain he feels the tension.

"babe…what's wrong?" it's muffled by your neck and the sweater you're wearing. you just hold him, saying nothing.

he pulls away and holds you by the shoulders. "look at me. what's wrong?"

you feel all the more embarrassed. it's so silly to be upset about. "I…I…well, it's a lot."

he shakes his head, to say I'm not going anywhere, but his expression softens, his grip loosens. "do you want to talk about it?"

you sigh. "it started as 'I can't draw for shit', then it became 'why am I afraid of asking you for help?', and finally, worst of all, 'why the fuck can't we be seen together?' it isn't fair. it's never been fair. I'm sorry."

he thinks about it for a second. "okay, what makes you feel like we can't be seen together?"

"are you joking?" you snap. "we're two fucking boyfriends. in this society." he didn't look hurt by the outburst, but the guilt crept in anyway. "…I'm sorry."

he shakes his head, "do you really think I'd let that happen? I wouldn't ever let anyone hurt you, darling. remember that."

"I know, I know…" you don't know what to say. "it's easy to forget, I guess."

"what are you afraid to ask me for help about?"

"I…" shit, you guess you have to tell him. close your eyes, breathe, "I've been drawing you. trying to draw you. but I can't, it never turns out right."

you peek, and he's red in the face, stuttering. "me? you draw me? of all the hot people out there?"

you furrow your eyebrows at him. "don't give me that shit. you know you're cute."

he shakes his head incredulously. "are we talking about the same person here?"

"dude, your smile is literally the most radiant fucking force of nature I have ever seen."

"you're hot too! why are you coming after me?"

"I'm not 'coming after you', you're being defensive about your looks, when you shouldn't be! you're gorgeous, baby."

you're both giggling like girls at a sleepover, the anger and frustration long forgotten. now it's a war of who can be more grossly in-love with the other.

"what part of me," he manages between laughs. "are you having trouble drawing?"

"oh god," you groan, remembering yourself and your dilemma. "your lips."

"my fucking lips? you would think that—"

"no," you warn. "shut up. don't say it. don't you dare say it."

he leans in close, his hands have moved up to cup your face. you shiver.

"don't worry," he grins. "I won't."

the kiss is long and sweet, nothing like the ones you've shared in the past. he takes his time, you savor each other. you feel time stop ticking, you feel your heart stop beating, you feel the way he tilts his head. you grab him by the collar of his shirt and pull him in. and when you part, you're breathing heavy, in tandem.

"thanks," you manage. "but I needed to see your lips, not kiss you into next saturday."

"nah," he laughs. "I think you needed that too."

you choose your words thoughtfully. "do you need me, too?"

he hums, and—

ding!

dreamwastaken donated $69!

:)

you could die. you could really, seriously die.

the response is instant. you don't even see Sapnap move from you to the PC, flushed down to his neck, apologizing, apologizing, and apologizing again. "change of plans, guys, we're doing an art stream!"

the chat is filled with "huh?"s and "what?"s.

"huh? what?" you didn't have the time to process what just happened.

karljacobs: I thought we were doing a make-out-with-our-secret-boyfriends stream :(

he smiled warmly at you. "yeah. my lovely boyfriend is going to draw me! he's been wanting to for a really long time, and his art is really good. let's go get your stuff."

you're in so much shock that he makes it past you and out of the room, while you stand there waiting. after a pause much longer than you intended, you hurry after him.

—

down the hall, in your room, he's got your sketchbook tucked under his arm, closed. you're sure you left it open when you came out.

you only barely get the words out. "um, did you…go through it? please don't laugh."

your heart sinks when he laughs heartily, but he grabs your hand, resting it on your book, about to hand it off. but he holds you there for a second. "of course not. I respect your privacy." he ponders for a moment. "I respect you."

you can feel the sigh of relief when you let it out. "I…love you."

your holding your book now, as he moves to collect the boxes containing your pens and pencils and colors. he gets them all together, but before he picks them up to head back, he turns around to face you. "is this too much?"

you absently reach for a hand, tracing over the lines on his palms. and you think about it. am I okay? is this too much?

"I don't think so. not with you. I'm okay."

he moves to open the door and grab the rest of your things. "well then, let's not keep them waiting!"

—

edited 27 April 2021

[clotpole-art]

Retrospective: Illustrated Merlin Alphabet Challenge

Finally finished the Merlin Alphabet Challenge, so here's the artist notes no one asked for! See below the cut for comments on each piece by order of creation. Be warned folks, it's a long post.

Before we begin: credit to @merlin-gifs for the challenge, which can be found here. It's awesome, go do it.

First thing you should know is I did probably 80-90% of these while on phone calls or in Zoom meetings and that's reflected in the simplicity of most pieces -- the compositions aren't complicated, the lines aren't refined, the coloring is slapdash. If you noticed variation in quality of the pieces, that's why!

Second: I tried to focus on trying something new for each drawing. Didn't always happen, but this challenge did succeed in helping me push me out of my own comfort zone.

Without further ado...

A is for Arthur Pendragon

Textures, baby! Brushed metal of his armor, scratchy linen texture of his shirt, wispy softness of hair and skin. I'd recently gotten my tablet out of storage after a year of figuring out where the hell I was going to live and this was one of the first pieces of digital art I spent time on. Glad it was Arthur kicking us off!

B is for the Beginning of the End (1x08)

Fun fact, I did not draw this with my tablet. I drew it with my work computer's touchscreen. It was awful, would not recommend.

C is for Camelot

I wanted to get used to different brushes, so landscape of the castle it was! There are brushes that help with drawing grass; I did not use said brushes and my wrist hurt afterward. That being said, I really enjoyed working on this and it was one of the few pieces I didn't do while multitasking.

D is for Daegal

Also drawn on my work computer's touchscreen, not my tablet. I didn't learn my lesson from B and the experience was even worse. This is my least favorite piece which sucks because it's Daegal so I'm slated to redo this sometime in the near future. Gotta do our boy justice.

E is for Elyan

Oh, I adored drawing this. Elyan often gets shafted in terms of fandom appreciation so I made sure to choose Elyan for this prompt and to participate in the Elyan fest. Plus, I love a good ghost story and figuring out a way to include the druid spectre was fun. Didn't multitask on this piece because Elyan deserved my full attention.

F is for Freya

Ho boy. This piece. I have such mixed feelings on this drawing. Really really didn't like it after I'd decided it was done and very nearly scrapped the whole thing. I had a vision in my head that I just couldn't render into reality and it frustrated me SO MUCH. Looking back, I like it much better than I did when I first created it.

G is for Gwaine

What can I say, he's pretty when he's cold. I didn't stretch too much with this one -- it's my normal drawing style, I was just trying to find a brush that mimicked the softness of pencil.

H is for Hunith

Another one that didn't stray too far from my comfort zone. I was stupid sick and slammed at work, so a motherly Hunith manifested herself. I blame the bad brush choice on the cold medicine.

I is for Isolde

I woke up and chose violence! Tried to vary my figure drawing style a little in this piece but my brain resisted, resulting in... this. Not mad at it, but not happy with it either. Poor Isolde.

J is for Juggling

Ah, this lovely piece was drawn during a particularly vexing meeting at work. Fun fact, there's another version of this line art that's less about Merlin's stress and more about mine.

K is for Knights of Camelot

Continuing the theme of doodling through bad news and shit meetings. Like I said above, normally meeting doodles aren't complex because I'm concentrating on something else. This one was more involved because I didn't want to concentrate on the meeting. I have a few issues with this from a technical standpoint (perspective, my nemesis) but it's still one of my favorites. Tried some funky coloring technique, didn't hate it.

V is for Vibrant Colors

And here is where we said fuck the rules and started going out of alphabetical order! This one was really fun to do and I loved kicking off Albion Party with this as my first submission. The colors were a challenge (as I hoped they would be) and this is the first time I had to do some color tweaking midway though and after finishing the coloring process. Vibrant Arthur, my beloved. This started as a multitask doodle but took dedicated time to finish.

O is for Old Religion

The concept for this one was buzzing in my head for a bit before a quote-prompt solidified it. I adore the thought of more visible, tangible representations of Merlin as the son of the elements, of "magic itself" -- not just sun-gold eyes, but sea-water hair and sandstone-skin. A complement to the vibrant Arthur portrait.

S is for Sorcerers

When I said I wanted to challenge myself, I wasn't kidding. Ho boy, this was fun but frustrating. I wanted to completely illustrate a gif. So I did. Will I do something like this again? Maybe. A while from now.

M is for Morgause

See above -- same illustrated gif style so at least I was able to reuse some drawings. Poor Morgause ended up looking a little wretched here because I was mentally done with this when I was drawing her. Love the concept of tarot cards + Merlin but others are doing it so I won't continue this series.

Z is for Zzzz

This one was specifically done to test out some custom brushes I made in Krita to make abstract background drawing easier for me. I think they turned out well! Plus who doesn't love bb iridescent Aithusa.

L is for Leon, P is for Percival

Quick, minimal doodles of the boys! Mentally, I was going for a Brady's-style retro ensemble cast TV show credits feel. Not mad at it! Some boys look closer to their actors than others (I think my brain broke drawing Percy, my apologies to Tom Hopper).

T is for Tristan

It wasn't until after I posted this that I realized there was more than one Tristan in Merlin. Could have drawn Isolde's bf but I drew Ygraine's dumb jock undead brother instead. Had some fun with dark greys and blacks here regardless.

Q is for Queen Annis

Best royal in Albion, bar none. I tried a different coloring technique here and I kinda like it! may make it my go-to but we'll see. Old habits are hard to break. Also: our queen deserved more badass clothes.

X is for Arthur X Merlin

Oh, be still my shipper heart. Doodled and colored during a meeting. I had hoped to spend more time on it outside of multitasking but alas, work is a bitch. This one is slated for a rework sometime in the future; I adore the concept too much to let it go without creating another version of this that isn't an utter mess.

U is for Uther's Ward

And here's my attempt at forgoing line art. Not fun, do not like.

Y is for Young Warlock

Channeled some pain into this one. Those are the dead eyes of someone who had been told that he'd succeeded when his friend died. That the destiny he'd been expecting to carry on his shoulders into old age was done and dusted before he turned 30. Grief plus the existential dread of the aimless immortal. Oof. One of my favs.

N is for Nimueh, R is for Rising Sun, W is for Will

And we end on this sorry offering. I was away from home for a while without my tablet and I just got tired of waiting. So, pen doodles at the airport. This was a challenge in its own right because 1. pen only and 2. I wasn't able to pull Netflix up for a reference on the fly. Which is why Will's face is obscured and Nimueh looks.... not like Nimueh lol.

In summary: this was a goddamn joy to do. I finished 26 letter prompts in approximately 21 weeks, which exceeded my own unspoken goal of filling one letter per week. I found a good, happy corner of the Merlin fandom after a years-long hiatus away from being a fandom creator. If you did make it this far with me, thanks for reading my inane comments and giving this little project even a moment of your time -- I'm so grateful.

[cuddlesslut]

Live my Life Ch.1

Kuroo x fem reader

Summary: sometimes life is full of making the wrong choices and not knowing till it’s to late.

A/N: this is chapter one of my new story. I’m still writing the Home series I must really wanted to start this story as well. I hope you guys like this one.

Warning: Angst, Smut, Drunk Sex, Underage drinking, toxic behavior

You found yourself sitting in this dingy bar nursing a drink you weren’t supposed to have. This had become part of your routine. It all started about three weeks ago. Your friend Kana, or well you suppose she could be called a friend she was more of a friend of a friend. She seemed nice enough kind of the free spirit type of girl always into the new big trend, not really what you would describe yourself as, more of what you wanted to be. You weren’t exactly some shy shut in but still your anxieties held you back from charging head first into in life and taking the bull by the horns. That’s why you surprised even yourself when you offered to be Kana’s bar buddy.

Kana is bartender at this whole in the wall bar with dim lighting. It got fairly good business but not enough to warrant more than one bartender at a time. That being the case Kana would often be there by herself well late into the night, the neighborhood wasn’t horrible but it still was unsettling sometimes. So as her bar buddy you would come at some point in her shift and find a free seat at the bar hopefully far enough distance from any other patrons. You’d order some fries or whatever greasy snack food you craved and waited there with her while she worked until she was ready to lock up. It was pretty easy you’d just sit there offering her someone to talk when she was bored or when she need to escape some overbearing customers. She’d make her way over too you and pretend to make you a drink. Although she offered you a drink you usually turn her down for the clear fact that you were underage when it came to drinking. It was perfectly fine for you to sit in the establishment since it also served food but at the age of 18 drinking was still prohibited. Being the laid back girl and bartender she was Kana didn’t care about bending that rule for a friend.

Most nights you’d pull out some school work on your tablet that your carried with you or just read some stories on your phone. Usually trying your best to avoid conversation with the regulars. That didn’t work as well as you hoped and soon enough you were quickly learning all of the local gossip and being included in the group known as the regulars. Which is what you were since you found yourself here four nights out of you week. You didn’t mind spending so much of your time here with Kana it was kind of nice to stray from your comfort zone plus you and Kana were steadily getting closer as friends too. Everything was smooth sailing until you met him.

It was a usual Thursday night you got dressed in your causal but sleek outfit. Wearing a comfortable pair of Jeans that hugged your body nicely not too tight but still showed your curves. You paired it with a black blouse and black ankle boots. You freshened up your make up of the day not needing to try to hard seeing as you weren’t going there to impress anyone. In fact you preferred to not draw any attention. Your brushed through your hair finally heading out of your home and too the dingy bar. Things seemed a little off tonight some felt different but still you took your usual seat as you scanned the bar. It was fairly empty only two other customers sitting all the way at the other end of the counter. Kana wasn’t anywhere to be found, she’s probably just grabbing something back you reasoned. And sure enough you could hear a clang in the back of the establishment that was hidden from the public eye. Although it wasn’t Kana that popped around the corner. Instead stood a tall and extremely handsome guy. He was wild black hair that was strewn in a chaotic fashion but it suited him. You could tell by his physique that he was fit , not too overly muscular but when he reached up to put the box he was carrying on the top shelf you could see a peak of a very well defined v line on his tanned skin. This man was the definition of tall, dark ,and handsome. And that wasn’t even mentioning his intense honey eyes that felt like they pierced your soul with just one look. He wore a black pair of fitted jeans and a red button up with strange print on it. You could inspect the odd design more intensely as he approached you with a smirk plastered on his face. Ah they were little black cats that littered his print. The style screamed I’m stylish but quirky.

“Well hello there sweetheart how can I help you?” You could tell he was using his customer service persona. Ah he goes for the smooth talkng flirt, he probably does very well with middle aged woman, you think.

“Um yeah,” you state giving the room one more look “ do you know where Kana is?” You questioned.

His perked at the mention of your friend. You could see him relax a little as he released some tension rolling his shoulders back. “Ahh you must be YN,” he smiled placing his hands on the bar leaning forward. His voice was a notch higher no longer Using his deep Casanova tone, this one was more natural. You eyes widened at the sound of your name leaving his lips.

“Yeah,” you replied hesitant.

“I’m Kuroo Tetsurou,” he presented his hand offering a firm shake to which you awkwardly accepted. “I’m guessing Kana forgot to inform you that id becoming back to work my usual Thursday shift today did she?” He let out a small chuckle.

Damn it Kana you cursed inside your mind. You could have been cozy in bed right now. “Ha nope she did not,” you let out a sigh. “I didn’t realize she was just covering these last few weeks” you respond.

“She just had my Thursday shift Mondays and Wednesdays are still her regular days.” He grinned “she was nice enough to take my shift while I was out with some family stuff.”

“Ahh I see, well I’ll should probably get out of your hair,” you stated starting to slide off the stool.

“Hey wait you came all the way out here let me get you a drink,” he offered.

You froze in your seat for a moment kind of embarrassed. You felt heat creep to your face as you respond “ oh umm I’m not actually old enough I’m only 18,” your eye locked on the surface in front of you.

He let out a chuckle “let me see your ID.”

Your face scrunched in confusion “but-” you start but he cuts you off.

“Shh just hand it over,” he smiles. You raise your eyebrow as you reach into your handbag fishing out your ID and handing it over. He backs upmholding it as though it was valid. “Well look at that! Sure enough you’re 20,” he gives a cheeky smile “so what can I get you to drink?”

You take back your card placing it back safely in your bag a look of shock present on your youthful features. You lean forward whispering “won’t you get in trouble!” Not wanting to have someone risk their job. He lets out a haughty laugh. “My dads the owner so I’m not too worried.” He stated cockily. “So again what are you drinking sweetheart?” Again he flashed that stupid smirk that sent your stomach doing flips.

After two drinks and some idle chit chat in his free time you decided it probably be best if you headed out. He was quick to stop you. “Ahh come on dont leave so soon I was hoping you’d be my bar buddy too,” he pouted. You rolled your eyes at his teasing. It was enough to keep you there though ordering another drink to nurse. It felt nice chatting and casually flirting with this attractive stranger.

This too became part of your routine. You still went to the bar during Kana’s shift to keep her company but you kept going on Thursday and spending you night talking to Kuroo. The both of you spending most of the night getting to know each other. It was just surface things like school, you found out he was two years older than you going to a university near by studying chemical engineering,and your taste in music which was something you had a lot in common. The conversation focused mainly on you. He always directed the flow of the conversation he was so out going and smooth, always asking questions about your day liked hearing about your day as if being a 3rd year in high school was the most exciting thing. You’d sit there for hours with him trying new drinks sometimes finding yourself leaving the bar at three am as if you didn’t have class in four hours. But you didn’t care it was exhilarating this was the most rebellious thing you had ever done. The flirting was harmless never going to far. And although you wouldn’t admit you were getting a crush on the raven haired bartender.

It was just another Wednesday night but today something inside of you told you to dress up more than you’d usually go for. Tonight you wore a simple black dress with a deep neckline that really showed your figure without being to flashy. Your period had recently finished so knowing you were securely dried up you decided to go for a pair of your fancy red lace panties and a matching bra that always boosted your confidence. Not that anyone would be seeing them. You checked yourself one last time before heading out to the bar and damn did you look hot.

When you entered the bar you were surprised to it was rather busy with customers all over the place, luckily you find a seat at the bar. You noticed that Kenma was also behind the bar. Kenma was the other bartender that worked the shifts opposite of Kana and Kuroo. He was also Kuroo’s best friend. You’ve only met him a couple times when he’d come to the bar to see Kuroo while he was on shift. It must be really busy if they called him in to work the bar with Kana.

Kana gave a sigh of relief and smiled as she saw you sitting at the bar. “Oh my god girl hey,” smiled “do you see how hectic it is?” She laughed. She took a moment to fully look you over her eyes wide.

“Damn girl you look fucking hot!” You felt some pride grow in you hearing your friend complement you. She always looked amazing so hearing that she thought you looked great felt like high praise.

“You want a drink babe?” She asked although it was more a of statement as she was already whipping together a drink before you were finished nodding. She handed you a strong yet sweet drink before she was whisked away by some needy patrons.

You sipped on your drink watching Kana handle the crowd. You and Kenmas eyes would lock every now and then but it’s very short and awkward. You don’t know him very well. Part of your anxieties had you convinced he didn’t like you. But you tried not to read into it to much. Kuroo had told you once that it was just that he wasn’t much of a people person only working at the bar as a favor to Kuroo and his father. You sit there silently observing the world around you not noticing someone taking the seat next to you.

“Boo,” a husky voiced whispered into your ear sending shivers down your spine. Kuroo cackled as you jumped turning around clutching your chest.

“What the hell Kuroo!” You gasped trying to steady your breathing. “They call you in too?” You ask referring to the booming business you sat in.

“Nah it’s my day off and I wanted to come have a drink and bug Kenma,” he rose his hand singling said man for a drink. “But looks like I lucked out now I get to bother you all night,” he smirked.

“Oh really and who said I want to have you around I deal with you enough on Thursdays,” you smiled back with a sly look.

He feigned a look of hurt. “Ouch YN you wound me, I thought we were friends,” giving you look that definitely didn’t come off as just friendly. You just roll your eyes trying to hide your intrigue. “Well it seems I need to prove my friendship to you let me by you a drink.” He rested his hand on yours as he signaled for a refill on your drink.

You should have seen it coming but you acted surprised when after several drinks and a couple rounds of shots you found yourself in the back seat of his car. Your red panties tossed to the side somewhere in the vehicle. You were laying back as he dove under the hem your dress. Kuroo looked up to your face his lips barley an inch away from your heat. He had a devious look on his face as he watched your face flush with need. Your lips were swollen from the heated make out sessions you had outside the bar. He quirked his eyebrow teasingly his heavy breath tickling you. He was waiting. It was almost tortuous but you knew what he wanted.

You pouted your chest rising and falling from your hard breathing. “Please!” You begged. He smiled content with hearing your pleas before diving into you his tongue lapping at your wet folds. Your head fell back in pleasure as he ate you out like a man starved. Your moans filled the car as he worked his skilled tongue in and out of you. He could feel how close you were as he felt you clench around his fingers as he worked you loose. Relief flooded your body as you came on his face. Lust still flooding you as you watched him lick up all your juices. He moved up your body sealing your lips into a searing kiss you could taste your essence on his lips.

Your hands reached down his body grabbing at his bulge. He let out a groan in your ear before picking you up and placing you on his lap. He attacked you neck nippping and sucking harsh purple marks into your skin. He pulled the collar of your dress down pulling your breast out . Moving your bra down he latched his lips around your swollen nipple rolling it between his teeth. You let out a pained moan as you rolled you hips into his lap. He finally hit limit. He lifted you up as he pulled his pants and boxers down before lining his achingly hard length with your wet cunt before pulling you down on it. Both of your groans filled the space as you felt him fill you whole. You hid your face in his neck as you panted while he let you adjust to the intrusion. You could feel his hands roaming your ass pushing the skirt of your dress up. A sudden smack came to your ass. You let out a hiss. He rubbed the mark he left on your soft skin.

“Go ahead sweetheart ride my cock,” he demanded. His dirty words sent shivers over body. You did just as he said starting to move your hips up and down rotating on his dick as it reached deep inside of you. Your body was already on edge from your earlier release so it took no time to have you clenching tightly around him you next orgasm fastly approaching.

“Fuck you’re so god damn tight,” he groaned. Lust took over as he grabbed your hips holding you still as he drilled up into your pliant body. Your moans egged him on as he chased both of your climaxes. He loved the feeling of your pussy clamping down on him. Feeling you milk his cock drained him of his will and of his semen as he came deep into you.

You both sat there for a moment both coming down from your highs. Bodies worn from the intense session you had just had. He groaned throughing his head back, “fuck I didn’t wear a condom,” he cursed.

“I’m on birth control” you breathed moving off his lap. You searched for your panties sliding them on quickly trying to contain the mess between your legs.

“Good, that’s good,” he breathed a sigh of relief he looked around both of you. It seemed no one notice dyour little drunken romp in the parking lot. There was a slight awkward pause neither knowing what to say.

“Well that was great,” he offered, “uhh do you need a ride home?” He questioned.

You shook your head, “no I’ll just grab a quick Uber home,” you respond pulling your phone out to do just that.

He nodded seeming to like that idea not wanting you to walk home. “I’ll probably head back in and sober up a little before heading home. I definitely can’t drive right now. I’m not even sure my legs will get me back inside,” he laughed. You giggled as well. A chime rang from your phone, your ride would be pulling up soon.

“Hey give me your number and message me when you get phone safe.” He said taking the phone to send a message to himself successfully trading numbers. He gave you one more deep kiss before you left to catch your Uber.

That night your body passed out exhausted. You knew you were going to regret drinking so much tomorrow morning when you have to wake up for class.

And damn was your body sore. Your head was ponding from all the alcohol and the rest was sore from the wild sex you had. Still you woke up bright and early making sure to shower off any evidence from your delinquent activities. You made sure to take some Advil before leaving for school opting to skip breakfast since your stomach was still unstable from the liquor. Your morning classes were relatively easy not but extremely boring. You found yourself daydreaming through most of your history class thinking back to your night with Kuroo. Little fantasys of dates, and more long talks at the bar, even some naughty ideas popped into your head. It was almost like you willed him into existence because not two seconds later your phone vibrated. Your heart skipped a beat seeing his name pop up in your notifications. You laughed at the way he saved his number last night. Oh my god he texted me you thought you were so giddy. That was until you read the messages.

Kuroo 🥵: Hey YN.

Kuroo 🥵: Last night was a Mistake. Look I have a girlfriend and I love her so I think it’s best we pretend last night never happened. Sorry.

Ouch. That hurt.

General Taglist: @diesinspanishbcimhispanic @graykageyama

Taglist: @captain-janeway @elianetsantana

[dragynkeep]

Feel free to ignore this if you want, but how do you make your edits? I really want to do the same to create my oc's, but I wouldn't even know where to start.

I don’t mind teaching people the basics of how I do my edits, let’s start!

So, I use Paint Tool Sai, so everything I do is based around that. You don’t need Paint Tool Sai, but I don’t know how you could do it on other programs so you can either just get a free copy or play around and figure out the specifics for yourselves.

Now, let’s say I’m editing Ruby’s Atlas outfit, I’d need a screenshot of her, preferably one from the Atlas Arc!

Obviously, if it has a background like this with multiple people that I don’t feel like editing or don’t want, I’ll have to find a different background to put my finished edit on. Otherwise, I can just put the finished Ruby back on and carry on editing out any bits that can’t be hidden.

Open up Paint Tool Sai and first matter of business is... shrinking the head.

Yeah, I don’t know why, but the heads on the female bodies are always so dispropotionately big, especially when compared to the men. It can lead to some wierd shots like this:

Seriously, her head is twice the size of his. Someone tell CRWBY that women’s skulls are not sexually dimorphic, we all have the same skulls.

Fortunately, Ruby doesn’t need to be shrunk much in this specific screenshot, plus a bigger head is typically for younger characters and makes her look younger than everyone else, if it wasn’t for every woman having this head shape that it. 

But on some of my edits, especially my Ruby and Aurora one, I had to shrink their heads by like a third, it was horrendous.

After a good deshrinking, set the layer the ss is on at around 50%, it doesn’t really matter so long as you can see the lines you’re about to draw. I don’t have a drawing tablet, and the arthritis means that it’s too painful and uncomfortable to draw, so I just use a mouse.

Word of advice, here. It’s okay if your lines aren’t super clean, what’s important is you’ve laid the base down for the cleaner lines to be put on later. But here, you do have to put in extra work if you want a different body type since RWBY doesn’t offer much in terms of diversity. For Eirian, I have to physically draw the muscles for her since Ruby has none, so I would suggest either having some familiarity with drawing on your own or have plenty of references to guide you.

Okay! With the main sketch lines down, we move on to cleaning everything up! Set the sketch layer to around 50 - 60% opacity, or until you can see your lines over it but can still make it out from the screenshot.

On a lineart layer, choose the lineart tool and make sure it’s 0.7 width. I use 4 for drawing, but using this very skinny width makes it appear more like an actual RWBY model than just a drawing over it.

When you’re done with that, it should look like this! In the layers section, you’ll notice two new lineart layers as well. You have a main one for most of the lineart since the colour won’t change, but for the highlights, lips and eyes, it’s best to have them on a separate one underneath the main one.

The reason for this is because, once you change the colour of the lines later on during colouring, having them all on one layer means that the coloured lines overlap on the black outlines, which doesn’t look nice. The highlights in the eyes should be on the layer beneath the main one, and the layer for the lips and eyes themselves should be on the layer under that. Any other details you might wanna add that have a coloured lineart should go on that layer too.

Once the lineart is done, we have one more thing to do before we get to the next stage. Pressure tool.

It’s not hard to find on the tool bar, it’s right between edit and select, but I use this to make the lines flow more seemlessly rather than stop abruptly. When you select the pressure tool, simply pinch any ends of lines on your edit, like strands of hair or the fold lines on Ruby’s cape. 

It should look something like this when you’re done! Compress all the lineart together and move on to the next step: lighting.

Before we can get to colouring, we need to put done the lines for the lighting. First, determine where the source of light is coming from, and put down all the lines that would happen from that light source. Also, make sure the colour of your shadows lines are not black, so you can distinguish them from the base lines. I usually gross a mid tone grey.

Like this! Once all the lineart is done and its all on one layer, we can move on to colouring.

I used to just simple cell shading like Maya RWBY, but I’ve moved more towards detailed shading so it’s easier to give it more texture and such. I have a colour pallete handy, and colour using four different colours: the base, highlights, base to shadow, and the actual shadow.

For example, with Ruby’s skin tone, her colour pallete would look like this:

[Highlight, base, base to shadow, and shadow]

With the select tool, select all the area you want to colour in. Obviously, don’t do the shadow areas first, they gotta go on after. Add the base colour first, and then do the highlights like this;

With the blur tool, simply blend it together until it’s all blended together:

Like this. Repeat with the base to shadow colour, going along wherever the shadow lines touch the skin.

Next is simply doing the shadows on the face.

With your colour tool, simply click the grey shadow lines with the shade colour selected and they’ll turn that colour.

I add blush to my edits so they have more colour to their cheeks. The colour of the blush depends heavily on the person’s skin tone, so I do it by taking the base, darkening it while upping the saturation, and moving a bit closer to the end beginning of the spectrum where red should be.

The blush layer (the one currently selected) should be above the skin layer so that you can just clip it onto the skin. This means you don’t have to reselect every part of the face just to do the blush.

Slap the blush colour on like this and then blend until it’s as natural as you like.

It should look like this once everything is done, and you changed the lip line to the colour of the lips! You can do this for most textures, changing it up when you need to (i.e. cell shading for metal with more harsh highlights, leather has bright highlights that aren’t blended completely together with the base colour).

A problem with having the lines so thin is that, while colouring, the colours can tend to “bleed” if a layer with a lighter colour is next to a layer with a darker colour, and the lighter layer is on top of the darker layer. If you just make sure all the darker colours are above lighter ones, it should be fine.

Now, with hair, it’s a bit different to how I colour everything else, especially two toned hair like Ruby’s.

Rather than just highlighting the base part, I highlight all of it (save for the hair spike but that’s just because I don’t need to two tone that and it’s just get in the way).

Once selected, I put the base hair colour down and then the colour of the tips, before I put blend it all together..

The highlights and the first shadows are on separate layers. 

Since Ruby’s hair is two toned, we have to put the highlights on an overlay setting so that it changes depending on what the colour is underneath. Blend it in

Repeat with the first shadows layer, making sure its separate from the base and the highlights layers. Also, set the shadows layer to overlay for same reasons as the highlights layer.

Now for the shadows, deselect all of the hair and then select all the parts of the shadows only.

Once all selected, make a new layer for the shadows and colour it all a very dark version of the hair’s base colour, near enough to black without being black since we want it to be tinted a colour.

After making sure the shadows layer is clipped to the hair layer, like we did with the blush, we can delete all the grey lines where the shadows are. You can easily do this by holding Alt while on the lineart tool and simply click the lines to delete them.

Now set the shadows layer to around 50% opacity so the shadows match colour to the hair. 

Now, rather than use the blur tool, we use the gaussian tool instead. It’s not a tool that comes with Paint Tool Sai, so here’s my settings on a customised water brush:

With the Gaussian tool, just blend the shadows with the hair until it looks like softer shadows rather than harsh lines like on the face.

And that’s it for the hair! If the character’s hair is just one colour, you don’t need to do any settings on the highlights or the shadows, but the process is the same after!

Now that we have Ruby done, it’s time for the eyes! My most favourite part and the one I have to do last, otherwise I’ll do them and then abandon the project.

Note: The sclera (White parts) layer should be below the lashes but above the skin layer, since we’ll be turning the grey lines to white once done. The highlights layer should be between the sclera and the lashes, while the irises layer should be between the sclera and the highlights.

If you want the highlights to pop more, make the sclera an off white instead of pure white, while the highlights are pure white. It makes them stand out more.

Similar to the skin pallete, the eyes should have a base, highlights, shadows, and a darker colour for the pupils. Ruby’s pallete would be like this:

Now, with the bottom half of the eyes selected, fill it in with the base colour.

Then simply colour in some highlights at the bottom. 

And blend together!

After that, just add in the shadows and recolour the lines.

With the irises, I always colour them in a very dark tone of the eye colour, similar to how Yang’s are coloured in canon! Recolour the pupil’s colour line, and the lines around the iris itself.

And that’s how to colour in the eyes!

Now that Ruby is done, we just have to give her a background! If you picked a good screenshot, you can just put the person back on it and edit out anything peeking out from behind them, but this specific screenshot has a lot of people in the background that looks way different to how Ruby is coloured, so I’ll have to find another one.

If you can find one of just a background, great! Slap the character on and move to the next stage, but a lot of the screenshots on the wiki are either too cluttered or just not right, so I’m gonna have to do a lil’ trick I constantly do when characters won’t get out of the way.

A screenshot like this, with a character far away and plenty of background, is a good enough one for this.

Take a part of it and stretch it out, you can make it seem like the person is part of the set. Obviously, you need to get a pretty good chunk, otherwise it could look pixelated and just not great.

Since Ruby still looks like she’s not part of the set, she needs to have a filter put over to adjust her lighting. The best way to get the lighting to match the scene is to find a character from the OG screenshot, and colour pick the colour off any white parts of their body. You’ll always find white on their person since everyone’s scleras are white.

Once you have the filter colour, clip a new layer on top of your character layer like so:

Change the layer setting to Multiply and then paint it on the character!

With the filter on, you can adjust it with some darker and lighter so it looks like the light is shining on her.

And there we go! There’s other little tricks that I do, like making the character’s eyes glow in the dark like with Blake and Ruby, or the Maiden’s fire eyes like in my Aurora piece, but this post is already so long. If people wanna learn how to do those, I can make another tutorial to help!

[collisiondiscourse]

my art process: a simple(ish) guide to how i (kinda) do things

okay!! so, i said i was gonna post my art process after i finished doing the danny phantom piece so... here it is! the drawing i used for a step by step process explanation is actually... simpler? less clunky than how i usually do things. i must preface this entire post by saying that i am fully self-taught for anything to do with art so if there are some things here that are exceeding no-nos... very sorry OOPS

The drawing took an estimated 4 hours total and for software I used FireAlpaca. My tablet is One by Wacom (aka the tiny ass red one). Without further ado... here’s my narrated guide on how i kind of do art!

1. Sketch Layers

sketches, are ofc, one of the fundamental steps in art. Some artists do them differently, whether they do color blocking/splotches first or silhouettes or your standard messy-lineart-before-the-actual-lineart

i personally do 2-3 different lineart/sketch layers, each layer specializing in different aspects. i took this technique from julia lepetit, a host from the drawfee show--a channel that i really recommend watching if youre an artist, like art, or just generally like having fun background noise while you work on something because... untreated adhd lol

this is the first sketch layer! i color coded them for reference and i use the yellow sketch layer to figure out poses. i use this gesture sketch layer to figure out where i want limbs to go and how i want the body to twist.

after i figure out the posing, i move on to my second sketch layer. the green layer is my refined sketch layer where i figure out the form and anatomy of the sketch. this is also where i start planning how expressions, special costume bits, and hands work!!

the red layer is my last and final sketch layer. technically, the red layer sometimes also doubles as my final lineart! the reason why i do this final step instead of doing the final lineart simply is so i can work on details of the costume. i end up refining certain portions, or even stretching/free transforming the whole body. 

The red helps with the refinement of the drawing bc the ink being a color that isnt black kinda,,,, tricks my brain into not believing that its all permanent. its easier for me to go back and erase/change some parts when my brain doesnt think that everythings final. when im finished, i simply go back and change the color of the lineart to black with the protect alpha function.

this is how the final lineart looks! be sure to close the lineart (aka make sure that everythings connected) so that the bucket tool can work and make your life 2000% easier. 

2. Coloring

my coloring process is kind of... a mess LMAO its super dependent on how i feel like coloring on that day, but this is the usual method i use when im not thinking too much about it.

first are the flats! i use the magic wand tool to select all the areas around the lineart and reverse the selection so that all the areas inside your lineart is selected. color it with a base color, turn on protect alpha, and begin chunking in all the colors.

all of the flats excluding the pupils, background, ectoplasm rings, and danny phantom logo are on one layer. once that is done, we move on to shading!

for shading, i use a combination of the normal pen tool and the airbrush tool to smooth out the edges of the cell shading. since all the flats are on one layer, i simply set this one to clipping mask so that i dont have to worry about coloring within the lines. I only use one color really for shading (here, i used purple) and then protect alpha and add splotches of other colors (pink, orange) in relevant areas.

once i finish doing that, i set the layer to multiply and adjust the opacity so that it looks softer and more attuned to the colors of the actual piece

its at this point that i fiddle with the hue/saturation/brightness settings on the flat color layers to my taste, seeing what works and what doesnt.

i then lightly go over the piece with a bright color (very very very light cyan) and put focus on the areas i think should glow like his freckles, eyes, and ectoplasm rings from where he’s coming out of a wall.

i rlly rlly love layer effects, so i set that one to add and again adjust the opacity to how i want it to look. 

3. Finishing Touches

...yeah i know it looks like a hot mess but hear me out.

on a new layer, make a CRAP TON OF GEOMETRIC SHAPES. ALL OF THEM IN NEON OR PASTEL. i get comments about my coloring methods sometimes and honestly im pretty sure its all due to this step. i make all these goddamn weird shapes, colored according to levels of lighting (yellow in lighter areas, turquoise in areas affected by the glow, purple in shaded areas etc. etc.) and also clip this layer. 

i then set the layer effect to either hue, overlay, or add and set its opacity really low to make it unobvious and cleaner to look at. this is a method that i learned from tumblr user zephyrine-gale who is... exceedingly talented and pulls this off way better than i can WKSDJSKKS

after that... ur basically done!! i add a few more layers like the noise layer for extra texture and sometimes some very light gradients (usually yellow to purple bc of something something color theory)--but after that, the piece is basically finished!

thanks for sticking around and reading this monstrous thing!! i might do more posts like this in the future, so who knows?

if you enjoyed this tutorial, want to support me and my art, or just wish for a way to pay for me to shut up... you can tip me 3 dollars or commission me here at ko-fi

(also reblogs are much appreciated. thanks <3)