#next time i’ll actually sketch it before i go on with color

[intraterrestriall]

jpv kind of sort of

[your-local-bi-panic]

Part 2: Sculpt This, Griff

Final Part

Description: You’re peacefully sculpting in your dorm when you get swarmed by notifications on a TikTok live. Is the UConn team actually talking about your artistic abilities?

Warnings: none

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Your screen goes black as the live ends, leaving you staring at your reflection in the camera — flushed cheeks, clay-streaked fingers, and a slightly dumbfounded look on your face.

“…what just happened,” you mutter to yourself, tossing your phone down and flopping back on the floor.

One second you were sculpting in peace, the next you were going toe-to-toe with Aubrey Griffin on a live in front of thousands of people — and not just arguing. Flirting. Hard.

Your phone buzzes again.

A text. Unknown number.

[Unknown Number]

You’re a menace. But I’m kinda obsessed. 😌

You blink, heart skipping. Then another message comes in.

[Unknown Number]

It’s Aubrey btw. Don’t block me. Unless it’s part of your sculpting process or whatever.

You sit up, snort-laughing. Before you can even respond, she sends a third.

[Aubrey Griffin]

Seriously though. That was fun. We should actually do something. You, me, some clay… we can see whose “art has more depth.”

You type, pause, then delete. Then type again:

[You]

Only if you promise not to bring crayons this time.

A beat. Then:

[Aubrey Griffin]

No promises. I like to express myself in vibrant primary colors.

You roll your eyes, but your cheeks are already aching from grinning.

Then a final message pops in.

[Aubrey Griffin]

Saturday? You teach me how to not embarrass myself artistically. I’ll bring snacks.

[You]

Deal. But I take payment in coffee and humility.

[Aubrey Griffin]

Humility? That sounds fake. But I’ll try for you.

Saturday afternoon.

You hear the knock before you even finish tying up your apron. You wipe your hands on a towel and open the door to find Aubrey leaning against the frame, hoodie sleeves pushed up, hair in a bun, and a cocky little grin on her face.

“You ready to lose?” she says.

You raise an eyebrow. “You brought the crayons, didn’t you.”

She pulls a jumbo pack out of her hoodie pocket like she’s presenting a rare artifact. “The deluxe set. With glitter.”

You snatch them, toss them onto your desk. “Disqualified.”

She laughs and steps inside, eyes widening as she takes it all in. Your dorm’s been transformed — shelves full of ceramic bowls, handmade mugs, a corner stacked with sketches, a massive canvas-in-progress propped against the wall. Half a dozen half-finished clay pieces sit on a table near the window, bathed in soft light.

“Whoa,” Aubrey says softly, turning in a slow circle. “This is… like, an actual artist’s studio. I thought I was stepping into a dorm.”

You smirk. “Yeah, well, some of us have hobbies that don’t include trash-talking on TikTok lives.”

“Bold of you to call yourself humble,” she teases, then nods toward the small easel you’ve set up. “Alright, let’s get this over with. Portrait time?”

You hand her a pencil and paper. “Try to capture the essence of my soul.”

She squints at you, dramatically. “Mmm… chaos. And maybe caffeine.”

Twenty minutes later, you're holding in laughter as Aubrey reveals what looks suspiciously like a stick figure wearing hoop earrings.

You hold yours up beside it — her, drawn in soft graphite lines, detailed and focused, somehow both casual and intimate. She stares at it for a long moment. “...Okay, rude. That’s actually good.”

You shrug. “Told you I’d win.”

She’s still looking at the drawing when she says, quieter, “How do you do that?”

You glance up. “Do what?”

“Make it look like someone’s… real. Like they exist on the paper.”

You pause. Then shrug your shoulders as a light blush makes its way up your neck.

Aubrey takes one more lap around your room, pausing in front of a painting with thick brushstrokes and colors that blend like storm clouds and sunlight. “You did all of this?”

You nod, a little sheepish despite the pride in your chest. “Yeah. I mean… I didn’t sleep much last semester.”

She crouches by a shelf of small sculptures — little bowls, abstract figures, a few animals mid-motion. Her fingers ghost the edge of a lopsided mug. “Okay, you weren’t kidding. You are the best artist at UConn.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Is that an apology?”

She grins. “It’s a surrender.”

Then she turns toward you, head tilted just slightly. “Teach me?”

You blink. “Wait, seriously?”

Aubrey shrugs, suddenly bashful. “I mean… yeah. If you want. I’m not promising a masterpiece, but—”

“I didn’t think you could ask for help.”

Her mouth drops open in mock offense. “Wow. Clay to the face.”

You laugh and gesture to the little workstation by the window. “Come on then, art girl.”

She takes the seat beside you, knees bumping yours, her leg warm against yours even through jeans. You hand her a chunk of clay and she holds it like it might explode. You try not to smile too much.

“We’ll start simple,” you say, reaching for your own piece. “We’ll make a dinosaur.”

She blinks. “A what?”

You’re already shaping the base. “Everyone’s first clay animal ends up looking like a dinosaur anyway. Might as well lean into it.”

She laughs. “That’s fair.”

A few minutes in, she’s pressing too hard, fingers smushing the shape into something… vaguely tragic. You scoot closer, shifting behind her a bit.

“Here,” you say softly, slipping your hands around hers, “let me show you.”

She stills. Her breath catches just slightly when your fingers close over hers, guiding them gently over the clay.

“Less pressure,” you murmur, “just enough to shape it.”

Your voice is right by her ear now, and you feel her relax into the motion, shoulders unwinding under your touch. You keep your hands there for a few more moments, pressing your thumbs over hers to smooth the ridge of what might become the dino’s back.

Then you slowly let go.

“Okay,” you say, leaning back, “your turn.”

She keeps going, more focused now, tongue caught between her teeth. “I think he’s coming together.”

You nod approvingly. “He’s got character.”

“Wait—damn.” One of the legs starts tilting to the side, making the whole thing slouch. “Okay, rude. He’s trying to die.”

You lean in again, nudging the base gently. “Not on my watch.”

Aubrey’s hand bumps yours as you both try to fix it, your fingers brushing, clay smearing across her knuckle. She glances at you, something flickering in her eyes.

You raise a brow. “You’re messy.”

She swipes a streak of clay across your cheek without missing a beat. “So are you.”

“Ohhh. That’s how it is?”

The next thing you know, you’ve got a smear of clay-water on her jaw, and she’s laughing as she retaliates, a bit of clay landing right on your shoulder.

And just like that, it’s chaos.

Water drips across your apron, clay smudges in places clay should not be, and you’re both trying to sculpt and sabotage at the same time. But somehow — somehow — the little dinosaur makes it through.

He’s a little uneven, a little droopy, but adorable in the way only a battle-hardened clay creature could be.

Aubrey looks down at it, then over at you, grinning. “Not bad for our first kid.”

You laugh, the words slipping out before you can catch them. “We’ll put him on the fridge.”

She leans in, just slightly, eyes still on you. “You’d let me near your fridge?”

You meet her gaze, a little breathless. “Maybe.”

She doesn’t say anything right away, but she doesn’t pull back either. Your knees are still touching. Her hair’s falling slightly in her face, and there’s a streak of clay on her jaw you could definitely wipe away — if you weren’t afraid touching her would undo you.

The air between you shifts, thick with something unspoken.

And yet… she just smiles. Picks up the dinosaur gently and sets it on your desk like it’s sacred.

“Same time next week?” she asks casually, like she didn’t almost make your heart stop.

You nod. “Yeah. For sure.”

She starts to stand, but not before brushing her fingers over your wrist, feather-light.

Then she’s gone.

And you’re left staring at the door, breath stuck somewhere in your throat, with clay on your cheek and a little dinosaur on your desk who saw everything.

Next Saturday, late afternoon.

You’ve barely set your brushes down when there’s a knock at the door. You already know who it is — your stomach’s been doing that thing all day. You open the door, and there she is: Aubrey, paint-stained hoodie, curls loose today, holding an iced coffee in one hand and a tiny plastic bag in the other.

“For our son,” she says, wiggling the bag.

Inside? A mini paint set and a tiny foam brush.

You blink. “You got him his own supplies?”

“Excuse me,” she says, stepping inside, “but if he’s going on display, he needs to pop. I thought we agreed he was gonna be a star.”

You close the door behind her, already grinning. “What did you name him?”

Aubrey sets down the supplies and shrugs like it’s no big deal. “Blorbo.”

You stare. “Blorbo?”

“It’s his vibe.”

You lose it, leaning on your desk as you laugh. “Our child is doomed.”

But before long, you’re both seated side by side again, paint pots open, paper towels laid out (not that you’ll use them), and Blorbo the Dinosaur front and center like a king about to get his royal paint job.

“He’s going blue,” Aubrey announces, dipping the brush into the paint. “Because he’s cool under pressure.”

You snort. “That’s your reasoning?”

“Also it’s the only color I know how to use without making a mess.”

Five minutes in, you’re already laughing because Blorbo looks like he’s mid-makeover and panicking about it. Aubrey’s trying to do clean edges but keeps overdoing it.

“Careful—you're giving him a racing stripe,” you tease, reaching out to smooth the paint with your brush. Your hand brushes hers again. She doesn’t move away.

You both freeze for half a second, eyes flicking up to meet. Then—

“I meant to do that,” she says, too fast.

“Sure you did.”

She dabs a light blue dot on Blorbo’s back, smug. “Highlight. Boom. Natural talent.”

You tilt your head. “That’s actually not bad.”

“Say it louder.”

You roll your eyes and reach for the spot she missed. She moves closer to see better, and now her shoulder’s pressed against yours. You don’t say anything about it. Neither does she.

“I’m just saying,” she murmurs as she watches you work, “if this whole sculpting prodigy thing doesn’t work out, you could always start a custom dinosaur business.”

You raise an eyebrow. “With you as my business partner?”

“Obviously. I’m the branding.”

You lean back, inspecting Blorbo. “Okay. He’s kind of adorable.”

“He’s thriving,” Aubrey says. Then she dips her brush in water, looks at you mischievously, and flicks it—just barely—so a drop hits your cheek.

You gasp. “You did not.”

Her grin is dangerous. “You looked too clean.”

Without thinking, you swipe your brush across her forearm — a streak of blue, bright and bold.

She blinks. “Okay. War.”

The next few minutes are a blur of laughter and chaos — water splashes, streaks of paint, and somehow a dab ends up on the tip of your nose. Aubrey’s laughing so hard she nearly knocks over the water cup, and you end up both trying to catch it, your hands colliding.

You’re both breathless now, flushed, still too close. Paint clings to your skin, your clothes, your shared little world of brushes and ceramic dinosaurs and unspoken tension.

She looks at you — really looks — and something shifts again.

“You’ve got…” She reaches up slowly, fingers brushing your cheek. “Paint. Right here.”

Her touch lingers just a second too long.

You swallow. “So do you.”

You press your thumb gently to her jawline, wiping away a smear of pale blue. Neither of you move.

You could kiss her.

You could.

But instead—

“Blorbo’s judging us,” you say, voice soft and teasing.

She grins, leaning in a little closer. “He’ll get over it.”

And then… maybe she doesn’t kiss you.

But it’s damn close

——

Blorbo is officially complete.

He’s a little shiny from the sealant, his ocean-blue body dotted with careful light blue spots, and he looks like the proud, paint-covered child of two artists who had way too much fun arguing over how many dots was “too many.”

You both sit back, admiring him from across the desk.

“He’s a masterpiece,” Aubrey says, brushing dried paint from her wrist. “A little lopsided still, but that’s personality.”

You nod solemnly. “Like his mom.”

She throws a paint-stained napkin at you. “Rude. I’m the artistic one.”

You snort. “Right. You painted the left eye crooked.”

“He was blinking!”

Still grinning, Aubrey leans forward, resting her chin in her hand as she looks at Blorbo. “Okay, real talk… can I take him back with me?”

You glance at her, surprised. “Seriously?”

She nods. “Joint custody. But he should stay at my place first. First artistic child and all.”

You pretend to consider. “Only if you promise visitation rights.”

“Obviously. You can see him weekends and holidays.”

“Mm. Every other Wednesday too.”

“Deal.”

Back in Aubrey’s dorm.

She carefully places Blorbo on her dresser, centered like he’s royalty. She even adjusts a lamp slightly to give him better lighting.

“Look at him,” she whispers to herself. “Our perfect son.”

Before she can revel too long, the dorm door opens and in come a few of the basketball girls — KK, Nika, and Aaliyah, loud and laughing already.

“Aubreeeyyy,” KK sings. “Where’s the masterpiece?”

“I brought him back,” Aubrey says proudly, stepping aside.

They crowd around the dresser.

“Wait,” Nika says, squinting at Blorbo. “You made this?”

Aubrey shrugs casually. “Yeah. With help.”

“With a lot of help,” Aaliyah adds, eyeing her.

KK squints. “No way you did those details. You can barely draw a stick figure.”

“Excuse me?!”

They don’t buy it — and before long, KK’s already pulling out her phone. “We’re going live. People need to see this.”

Live on TikTok.

The comments explode instantly. People remember the last live. The teasing. The tension. The energy.

KK turns the camera toward the dino. “Everyone, meet Blorbo. Aubrey’s son. Also maybe the real star of the show.”

Nika leans in. “He’s like… actually cute. Which is sus.”

“Suspicious because there’s no way Aubrey made something this good,” KK laughs.

“Okay,” Aubrey defends herself, stealing the phone, “first of all, rude. Second of all…”

She turns toward the screen with a smirk and hits accept.

The screen splits. Your face pops up.

The comments go feral.

There’s no greeting. Aubrey just holds up Blorbo dramatically. “Say hi to your other parent.”

You blink. “Is this a custody check-in?”

KK howls off-camera. “YES! We’re trying to figure out which one of you actually made him!”

You shrug innocently. “He has my brushstroke genes.”

Aubrey gasps. “He got your chaos. That was your light blue splatter!”

“He thrives in that environment.”

“Hmm,” she smirks. “Well, just so you know, he’s sleeping on my side of the dresser. You get him next weekend.”

“Oh, we’re doing weekends now? What about mid-week playdates?”

Aubrey grins. “We’ll set up a calendar.”

The team in the background is living for it — loud, dramatic reactions, fake sobs, KK pretending to officiate a custody hearing. And the fans? They’re already clipping the live, comments pouring in faster than anyone can read.

“BLOBRO FAMILY SUPREMACY”

“just kiss already omg”

“when’s the custody swap vlog??”

“@UConnWBB pls give them a reality show”

“this isn’t about a dinosaur anymore is it 👀”

Aubrey looks back at the camera, her smile soft now. “Okay, but like… for real. He turned out so cute.”

You nod. “We did good.”

She catches your gaze through the screen, just a little longer than needed. “We really did.”

“I think he'll need a sister though”.

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If you have any requests please fill free to send them in. 😁😁

[eda-hagetaka]

The Bandit’s Secret

Part 1

Warning: Yandere, dark content. This part is mostly harmless, but I can’t promise the same for what comes next.

(English is not the author’s first language. Apologies for any mistakes. I translate and edit everything multiple times.)

(Illustration by the author.)

The autumn air was heavy and damp, the sun setting and painting the sky in the color of raw meat.

Kamila clutched her sketchbook to her chest, pulling up the collar of her crimson jacket. The cold wind slipped under her clothes, making her shiver, but stopping wasn’t an option.

Her assignment for the fine arts faculty required a series of sketches of cars and motorcycles, which had become a real problem—most bike owners had already tucked theirs away for the season.

She had been wandering through the empty streets for over an hour, peeking into courtyards and alleyways.

No way, I have to submit this damn project. I already have too many questions piling up about my absences…

And then, there it was.

Black, with gleaming silver details, the motorcycle stood in the alley as if waiting for her.

A smile spread across her lips—heaven’s little mercy.

Kamila quickly crouched by the wall, flipping open her sketchbook. Her pencil flew across the page, tracing lines and structure. She focused completely, almost forgetting the cold.

But within minutes, an unsettling feeling crept over her.

She froze, her hand stilling on the paper, listening intently. Every sound seemed threatening.

That heavy stare.

That’s what it was. The feeling of being watched—too intently, too closely.

Her head snapped up.

The alley was empty.

The shadows stretched long, and it felt like the entire city was holding its breath, watching her.

Kamila swallowed and forced herself to return to the drawing.

Nerves. Just nerves…

She had just started shading when movement flickered at the edge of her vision.

Someone was behind her.

She turned sharply, her heart lurching in her chest.

A man stood before her.

Tall, broad-shouldered, with messy blond hair and a lazy smirk.

But his eyes—those eyes.

That’s how predators look at their prey, flashed through her mind.

— You sketching my bike? — His voice wasn’t loud, but enough to make her flinch.

She hugged the sketchbook closer, realizing how awkward this situation had become.

— I… — Her voice wavered. — Sorry, I didn’t know it was yours… It’s just really beautiful.

His eyes narrowed slightly.

— Beautiful? — He tilted his head, as if searching for a lie in her words.

Kamila quickly nodded, trying not to let her fear show.

— I just needed a quick sketch.

The man stepped forward.

— Show me.

She swallowed. The way he said it—it wasn’t a request.

For a moment, she hesitated, but finally, she cracked open the sketchbook, revealing the drawing.

Phinks studied it, but not for too long.

Her throat felt dry. Her hands were shaking.

— Not bad, — he finally said, lifting his gaze. — You come around here often?

Kamila shook her head.

— No… I was just looking for a motorcycle, and I’m not from around here.

— Lucky me, then.

He smiled, but it wasn’t a kind smile.

She swallowed hard.

— I should go.

She stepped back, but he didn’t move—just stood there, as if accidentally blocking her way.

— I’ll walk you.

She shook her head quickly.

— No need, really.

Phinks narrowed his eyes slightly.

— You scared?

— No, — she blurted out too fast.

His eyes gleamed. He knew she was lying. It felt like there was no way out. But then…

Kamila looked down at her sketchbook, gripping it tighter. This wasn’t like her—to just talk to a stranger who had just scared her to death.

But something inside pushed her. Urged her forward.

A chance to step out of the endless cycle of home-school-work.

— Should we exchange numbers? — The words slipped out, high-pitched and uncertain.

For a second, Phinks actually seemed caught off guard.

— Why?

Kamilah tried to collect herself, forcing a casual shrug and a smirk.

— Maybe we’ll grab a drink sometime. Or I’ll send you the finished drawing.

She had no idea why she was saying this. It was reckless. Stupid. Dangerous.

But the weight of his gaze, cold and examining, sent a strange mix of fear and… something else through her veins.

Phinks smirked again but didn’t refuse.

— Guess you’re not as timid as I thought. Go ahead.

She quickly typed in his number, saving it as Phinks (Motorcycle) before giving him hers.

— Kamila, huh? — He glanced at his screen. — I’ll remember that.

She nodded, her heartbeat hammering against her ribs.

— Alright… I’ll go now.

He tilted his head slightly, letting her pass, but she knew he was watching her the entire time.

Only when she turned the corner did she dare exhale.

Her palms were slick with sweat, and the cold air burned her lungs.

But deep inside, something stirred—something that made her even more afraid.

She hoped he would text first.

[jiveyuncle]

your roleith pieces give me so much lifeeeeee ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ plz share any headcanons u have of them ps have a good day 🤩

!?!? You have no idea how delighted this ask made me, anon 😭💕 thank you sm!! I obsess over them in my notes and have so much planned for drawing. I’m actually about halfway through coloring a little mini comic interaction I have sketched out between Rolo and Krolia where she’s basically like, “High key, I’ll kill you if you betray him, again.” Lol

Sneaks!!

As far as headcanons, hmm. I’m bad at detailing, but I have general concepts and moments laid out in my brain:

When the Blade of Marmora teams up with the rebels on one of Keith’s earliest missions, Keith is not happy to see a certain someone working with the rebels. Doesn’t trust him at allll. He’s not outwardly hateful or anything, but his stress goes through the roof whenever intel is shared with Rolo or when Rolo is expected to watch Keith’s team’s backs.

Trust is slow to build. It takes Rolo ignoring an order from the Blade to go back for a civilian before Keith finally starts to believe Rolo might actually be alright. (It reminds him of something his old Voltron teammates would do.)

They race each other in crafts. Things are more even when Keith flies base models instead of his old lion, but he’s still the better pilot. He enjoys having someone challenge him.

Rolo 100% falls first. He’s not subtle at all, but he also doesn’t announce it or anything. Rolo’s team is so painfully aware of his feelings and tease him endlessly. Nyma will drop remarks (to Rolo’s annoyance) right in front of Keith about it, and it will still go right over Keith’s head. Matt is the last to figure it out and he about short circuits when he finally puts it together.

Despite the height difference, Keith kicks Rolo’s ass in hand-to-hand combat training.

Rolo’s bandages cover scars from his time under Galra captivity. The skin is particularly sensitive and fragile in those areas, and they’re prone to reactive flair ups of pain and swelling when messed with. Keith gets a look at these scars for the first time after a particularly rough battle where they wind up stranded and have to wait for backup to pick them up.

Lance is initially outraged to find out Keith is buddy-buddy with Rolo and Nyma (“You know, the people who sold us out to Zarkon and chained me to a tree ‘Rolo and Nyma!?’”), but he and Nyma actually eventually click and become decent pals. They have a bet going about how long it will take Keith to realize Rolo’s crush.

Krolia meets Rolo post- Space Whale and basically threatens Rolo with murder if he ever betrays her son, again. She doesn’t trust Rolo, but she trusts Keith’s judgement so she doesn’t meddle beyond that initial greeting. He earns her respect at a later time when a mission fails because he does something to ensure Keith’s safety over the mission’s success.

Rolo’s race can breathe in a wider range of atmospheres. There’s a pretty big scare when Keith’s mask gets shattered in a battle on the ground, rendering him unable to breathe, and Rolo has to drag him back to the ship while under heavy fire. Rolo essentially spells out his feelings after.

First kiss follows Keith making a close call piloting maneuver during a mission that saves his team. Rolo outright grabs him by the hood and fusses him out over the risky behavior, before Keith ends up closing the last of the distance.

Rolo’s race needs less sleep than humans. Once they’re finally together it basically becomes a battle for Keith to either choose to go to sleep together or wake up together. Keith chooses to do both anyway sometimes.

Both work in humanitarian aid efforts after the war.

I think that hits the highlights. Hope this satiates! And hopefully I'll finish the next Roleith piece sooner than later lol

[chalkscene]

lovebrush chronicles ⇢ THEY FIND THE DRAWING YOU DID OF THEM

ft. ayn alwyn, alkaid mcgrath, lars rorschach & clarence clayden

when you asked AYN if you could drop by the piano room and watch him practice, he didn’t expect you to take a seat on the far corner of the room, nose deep in your sketchbook. you’ve barely had a full conversation with him since you got here and he can’t understand why—you’re usually very chatty. he can’t help but scowl as he glances at you. he’s about to call for your attention when your phone rings and you immediately excuse yourself out of the room, “i’ll be right back.” as soon as the door clicks shut, he eyes your sketchbook which is now unsupervised. he knows he shouldn’t look but curiosity killed the cat. he gets up from his seat and strides across the room to peek at your work then his breath hitches. right before his eyes is a rough sketch of a raven-haired boy slightly hunched over a piano, his back on the artist—you. you’re drawing him. in a state of fluster, ayn quickly sets the sketchbook down in the same position he found it—hell, he can’t remember it. he’s too preoccupied by the fact that you’re sketching him that he registers a second too late that you’ve already returned, catching him fiddling with the sketchpad. before you can say a word, ayn walks back to the piano without sparing you a glance, “i didn’t see anything.” you feel the mortification in your system vanish as quickly as it came, now stiffling a giggle that threatens to escape your lips. ayn being more flustered when it was you who got caught drawing him is actually comical. you don’t even resist the urge to tease him, “really?” “really,” he answers curtly. “then why are you being weird?” “why are you drawing me?” ayn retorts with a tinge of accusation as he turns to glare at you but you’re not even slightly intimidated. you prod, “so you did see it?” ayn looks away from your smug expression upon his lack of rebuttal, doing his best to conceal the color in his cheeks with his hair. “i wasn’t going to,” you explain truthfully, “but you were so in your element i couldn’t help but… ‘capture’ the moment,” you say with air quotes, “i like drawing you.” ayn feels his heart skip a beat but as emotionally constipated as he is unable to handle your admission, he grumbles despite blushing furiously, “just ask me to come to the art studio next time.”

ever since ALKAID invited you to picnics or simple strolls around nature, you’ve developed a habit of making quick sketches of the scenery around you. but today’s an exception. with the cool breeze and the soothing warmth of the sun while you and alkaid sit side by side under a tree, it’s all just too relaxing. alkaid is busying himself with his camera when he suddenly feels a soft impact on his shoulder. when he glances at you, he can’t help but smile, endeared by the sight of you asleep. your sketchbook is left open and your grip on the pencil has loosened enough that a sudden gust of wind flips the pages and alkaid gets a glimpse of the drawing you had done of him. saying he’s surprised is an understatement. he finds it unbelievable that you’d ever choose him as your muse. alkaid isn’t one to pry but he can’t resist turning the pages over to get a good look at your drawing, taking in its rough details and pencil strokes. it looks beautiful, he notes, barely fighting a smile upon the realization that this is how you see him. before you stir awake, alkaid reaches over and with careful fingers, he takes your pencil and inserts it between the binding of your sketchbook like a bookmark before flipping it shut. he decides against mentioning it to you until the next day. alkaid goes out of his way to find you on campus, “hey, i was looking for you.” “why?” “it’s just, um…” he trails off, turning hesitant as if he’s choosing his words carefully, “do you want to make a trade?” “trade?” before you can ask more questions, alkaid takes out what you think is a piece of paper from his pocket until you get a clear view of it and realize it’s a candid picture of you. sounding hopeful, he offers it to you, “this for your drawing of me.”

“there you are!” LARS says, beaming when he finds you working on an art piece in one of the academy’s studios. “hi,” you smile at him, “why were you looking for me?” lars shrugs, “just wanted to see you.” amused, you roll your eyes at his subtle flirting before getting back to work. you don’t mind lars’ company alongside his occasional praises, varying from that looks nice to i’d buy that. you actually like having him around. lars is going through your artworks when he suddenly speaks, “how much for this?” you tear your eyes away from your canvas to find him having one of your sketchbooks in hand. “which one?” you ask and you can’t even begin to describe your shock when lars turns it over. there it is facing you, the page where you did a drawing of him. you dart towards lars but he quickly gets on his feet, taking advantage of his tall stature to hold the sketchbook out of your reach. “give it back!” you snap but lars only snickers. “how much for this?” he repeats the question, more smugly this time. after a few failed attempts to snatch the sketchbook from his grip, lars eventually decides to hand it over. “you weren’t supposed to see that,” you grumble, tearing off that page and crumpling it into a ball out of embarrassment. you’re about to toss it in the bin when lars takes it from you, flattening the paper to look at the drawing once more. “can i keep it?” he asks sincerely. “it’s just a warmup sketch…” you mumble, your tone a clear contrast to lars’ boldness. for a few seconds, lars doesn’t speak as if he’s forming the words in his head, “did you draw me from memory?” when you give him a sheepish nod, the smirk on his face reappears, “you think about me that much?” you simply groan at his teasing which makes him cackle but he soon backtracks before you can grab the paper from his hand and dispose it. “thank you,” he says, “i really like it.”

you’re rushing to your next class when you run into CLARENCE, causing you both to drop your belongings. “sorry!” you squeak, crouching down to hastily grab your things and with a sigh, clarence follows suit. “running late again?” he teases. you throw him a lighthearted glare at the accusation before grumbling, “our professor dismissed us late.” you hear him chuckle at your retort but the sound comes to an abrupt halt. at his sudden silence, you slide your gaze over to him and you immediately realize why—he’s holding a notebook which is now opened to a page with a rough sketch of him on it. before clarence can say anything, you immediately yank your sketchbook out of his hands and rise to your feet. “um…” you begin to stammer while clarence remains quiet save for the sound he makes when he clears his throat. he’s unable to look you in the eye as he stands upright, now fiddling with his necktie with unadulterated focus. “i swear i’m not a creep or anything,” you explain weakly, a surge of humiliation washing over you, “i was just… practicing.” you wince upon hearing your words and you can’t help but apologize—whether it’s for the sketch or your lame excuse, you’re not sure. maybe both. “i’m sorry,” you tell clarence, “i’ll throw it away.” “don’t,” clarence answers a bit too earnestly that he himself is taken aback. “it’s…” he trails off, looking sheepish, “it’s a really good drawing.” you gape at clarence. that was not reaction you expected from him. saving himself from further fluster, clarence drops the subject and points at the time, “you’re already late for next period.” “shit!” “language,” he scolds you in his student council president tone. “sorry!” you don’t wait for a response before you’re running off to your next class. as clarence watches you disappear from view, he wonders if you’d let him keep the drawing if he asked.

[sixosix]

IT WAS ALL BY DESIGN | KAVEH

tags second chance, angst and fluff, time-skips, DARK HUMOR, lovers to exes to lovers again, profanity

written for art @aanobrain, who i made a bloodpact with saying that if i were to write this they’d write me xiao, so here we are. hope u like it art

a/n wc 4K kaveh lore spoilers but i didn’t follow the canon timeline. kaveh meets al-haitham BEFORE the palace of alcazarzaray. also this has two parts

next part

kaveh first saw you when he was presenting his nth draft proposal to his fellow group members.

it’s stressful, it’s a mess, kaveh is lost, and so, so tired. this group is certainly the worst one he’s had yet, but he’s too far deep to back out now.

tamara sighs deeply, like a tired mother, and kaveh’s temper flares, “i understand your need to express your love for aesthetics, but don’t you think that it’s unwise to sacrifice practicality?”

kaveh’s jaw ticks. “sacrifice? i’ve already explained that i’ve thought of every detail to consider. give me something to work on, actual criticism, without just slandering my ideals.”

tamara enjoys insulting his beliefs because she is nothing like kaveh. or maybe it’s because he is nothing like her.

it always is like this. snobs treat his proposals—bursting at the seams with unique ideas yet never neglecting quality—like a joke, and they never get past getting called drafts. he never gets past calling any of his first proposals a success.

“the outside world wouldn’t be as lenient as we had been to your designs, you know,” another of them says. one of his mentors. “tamara is right. we don’t have to get too detailed. here, listen, what if you just change up the strange curve of this wall? and this pillar you…”

outside world, kaveh thinks bitterly. he had already dealt enough with the outside world, but keeping him cornered against a wall he had been building against them was far worse than that.

yet he can’t say this. he’s said enough already. if tamara’s face were to get any redder, he’d lose the opportunity for the materials collectively funded by these people.

kaveh sighs, defeated. “i know. i’m sorry i snapped. i’ll take in your suggestions. what did you say must be removed first?”

“hold on,” one of his group mates speaks up. anis leans her chair over to another table, tapping the shoulder of someone kaveh is sure he’s never damn seen before. “hey, what do you think?”

you squint at kaveh’s work, unfazed by anis interrupting your studies. kaveh doesn’t want to, but he can’t look away. “i don’t understand some of it, but it’s nice. this building would look beautiful in the jungle.”

anis returns the front of her char’s legs on the floor. “ahh, you think?” she muses, handing the paper over to you. “well, an outside perspective is just as important.”

with a pen in your grip, you point at somewhere kaveh can’t quite see, blocked off by the back of the paper. it’s blocked off your face, too. “could use a bit more ornamental flora. too little over here if you’re going to already add it. life doesn’t just come from bright colors, but other forms of life as well.”

“spoken like a true amurta darshan.”

you huff proudly, lowering the paper and revealing your smile. kaveh stares, and stares.

knowing how to appreciate beauty as he does is a trait he has always admired. he secretly takes your suggestions to heart, planning to pull another all-nighter for a few sketches. this is the beauty of the akademiya; why he never gave up as soon as he was first brought down—he learns so much every day.

his heart races just at the thought of it. it’s been days since he felt this.

kaveh wonders if he’ll see you again and doesn’t get much time to think about it again when he’s pulled back to reality, back to yet another proposal that’s been erased so many times, it looks more like a smudge of ink than something kaveh would proudly call his.

kaveh sees you again in the house of daena hunched over a book with your face pinched, sitting next to someone, and he thinks that might’ve been when he fell in love.

but no, that can’t be right. that’s not how love works. it takes time, courage, long nights, restless mornings—this is just him a few feet away from someone whose words he admired.

this must be more like passing by a picture that caught his interest. this must be more fleeting, more like what he deserves, like how the yolk is shaped perfectly on his breakfast for the first time in weeks, how the weather is perfect for smooth construction without disaster, or how his mother did not at least cry too much in a day.

he had only been trying to pass by and continue annotating the book he promised himself to get back to, which happened to be slotted on the shelf in front of your table. it’s sheer luck. and he might’ve taken advantage of it.

the student next to you is speaking. cyno, kaveh recognizes belatedly. “do you get it? because wave could refer to the motion of your hands, but it could also refer to an ocean’s wave, or what is the result of the wind blowing over the surface of—”

you clutch your head. with your eyes off the books scattered across the desk, kaveh sees this as a sign to turn away, a small smile on his face as he listens to your voice. it’s pleasant, much more than the ones he hears all the time around him. “please, cyno, have some respect for your senior and have mercy on the bags under my eyes.”

“i am,” cyno says sternly. “i am cheering you up. perhaps it’s because you aren’t under-sand-ing my jokes.”

when kaveh risks a glance, you throw a crumbled paper onto cyno, which he catches with unblinking ease.

“don’t make me call tighnari here,” you threaten, holding a pen to his face.

“is he going to give me pun-ishment?”

“cyno…”

kaveh gets his wits about him again and realizes that he had been picking more books than he needed, just in time to hear more of cyno, unfortunately.

“did you not understand? you see, the word punishment has pun in it, which is what i’m—”

“that’s it.” the sound of a chair sliding across the smooth floor echoes in the quiet halls. “you sit there alone. think about your actions; i’m going to get lunch without you.”

kaveh takes a step forward, you do so backward, and you catch each other’s eyes from the synchronized movement.

somehow, meeting your eyes makes his heart jump to his throat. he can’t tell if this is better or worse than when you were just at a different table and he didn’t have the chance to speak with you.

it becomes a moment too long: kaveh gets nervous, spinning around on his heels and pretending to look for more books. this is unlike him. his head aches trying to think about it.

once you leave, kaveh approaches cyno.

“cyno,” kaveh says with a smile.

“kaveh,” cyno acknowledges. “why were you just watching us? was there something wrong?”

kaveh’s blood drains from his face. “was it that obvious? was it?”

cyno nods. “you’re terrible at acting casual.”

kaveh sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “ugh—whatever. cyno, hey, listen. that person you were with…”

“y/n?” he tilts his head. “did you need anything?”

“no, no.” kaveh repeats your name in his head, and files it away for later. “do you want to get lunch?” he asks, which he later realizes is an unspoken invitation for a new side of cyno he wishes he didn’t know. the puns hurt his head more than frustrating clients.

kaveh sits by himself in lambad’s tavern, lazily rocking his glass back and forth.

he’s made friends. plenty. but he’s not sure if he can confide in them if he were to go to them in this state.

he thought could consider al-haitham as one, but that blew over on his own face some time ago. it was a mess. kaveh’s not sure which hurt more: when he felt his own spite with how he trembled in spitting al-haitham’s name, or the fact that someone he almost considered a best friend seemed unfazed at all when they both knew that they wouldn’t talk to each other the next day.

al-haitham removed his name from the thesis, and kaveh tore up the copy he had of it. but unlike al-haitham, kaveh couldn’t bear the guilt and pieced them back together.

now they haven’t spoken for a while.

and he sits here, frustrated to the point of near tears.

he’s never felt as lonely as he feels right now, burdened by the stress accumulated from all those years with no one to tell him that he’s doing something right, that he’s going in the right direction. it feels childish, but when he closes his eyes, he can vividly imagine someone patting his shoulder, telling him he’s proud to call him his son, or someone pulling him close, kissing his forehead, telling him that she’d come back for him.

kaveh picks up the glass and takes a long sip.

“are you even allowed to drink?” someone says, too close to him.

kaveh inhales sharply, unfortunately breathing his drink along with it. he chokes on it, and some dribbled past his lips as he turns to the sound of the familiar voice.

you quirk an eyebrow. kaveh wants to gape.

“it’s coffee, and i’m allowed,” kaveh mutters hoarsely, flustered. how long have you been there? were you just watching him?

“but you’re pretending it is alcohol?”

kaveh looks away. he was hoping that no one would notice his dramatics.

“it’s funny,” you tell him. kaveh wasn’t really hoping to appear funny in his sorry state.

you call for lambad and tell him you want your usual. when lambad returns, he hands you a half-full glass of what kaveh could smell as alcohol. maybe he should’ve done the same, but his goal was to feel awake enough to finish his due project, not intoxicated and slurring his words together.

“well?” you turn to him, your cheek against your palm as your arm rests against the counter. “are you gonna act like it and bemoan your regrets?”

students of the akademiya have started to become familiar with the fact that kaveh is a one-of-a-kind genius. names like light of kshahrewar started to circle the halls loud enough for kaveh to hear it from rumors and to his face when they asked to collaborate with him or when they ask for too much of his time.

he was expecting you to do the same. he wouldn’t even blame you if you tried because he wouldn’t hesitate to say yes. yes, yes, i want to.

there is no liquid courage here, just the presence of you and his muddled mind finding it far too comfortable.

“my mother remarried,” he says.

you blink, pausing mid-way through drinking your fill. “oh…?”

“i’m happy for her,” kaveh says, confident, firm.

“here’s to that.” you clink your glass against his.

you weren’t taking it as a happy statement. he doesn’t want sympathy, but he knows that whatever you’re thinking is the irrefutable truth. perhaps you were mourning with him because he, too, knows that there’s nothing content about him when he has to reassure himself out loud.

kaveh wants to ask so many questions. he wants to pull out the stacks of papers shoved in his briefcase, ask you what you think of it, listen to you tell him that you understand its beauty, but it’d be more beautiful if he weren’t so afraid and confined in someone else’s ideals. he needs to hear you say it because he knows you’d say the exact same thing as he wants.

instead, he sits quietly, watching you from the corner of his eyes, entranced.

and kaveh—he’s longing. or maybe he’s just starting to feel loneliness. 

“so, what happened between you and al-haitham’s group project?” you ask, wearing a smile that spells out you know exactly what you’re getting into.

“oh, don’t even get me started,” kaveh groans.

the night ends with his heart a little lighter than it was before. (this is still fleeting, right?)

it seems like after that, you’re just everywhere and always by his side. kaveh loves it. especially when he’s too caught up with the world and needs someone to distract him enough to remember that the world is splendid.

despite his desperate attempt at drowning himself in coffee in hopes of being able to remodel at least three rejected drafts, he doesn’t get anything done at all.

he knows that giving in and offering to help out everyone who asks him for it isn’t healthy. he knows it, and he sees the effects on his face, the paleness of his skin, and the mess of his hair.

when kaveh stares his paper down, he can almost see himself on it. not a reflection, but a shadow. it looks like a bird’s nest. he might as well get feathers to go with his hair and complete the look.

someone taps his shoulder, and kaveh somehow doesn’t feel like reacting accordingly. “kaveh, is that you? are you kaveh?” the stranger asks, all in one breath.

it takes him a few seconds. breathing in and out deeply. he turns around, hopes the eyebags on his face aren’t as heavy as they feel, and smiles.

“yes?”

“ah!” he recognizes the student. a few years younger than him. he can’t quite come up with a name right now. “thank goodness. they told me that you could help me with this, i knew you wouldn’t disappoint.”

“oh,” kaveh says, quiet.

if any of his friends were here, they’d glare him down, tell him that he’s going to bleed himself dry if he even thinks about saying anything aside from no. but they aren’t, and kaveh’s heart is bleeding out instead.

“what is it?”

“kaveh!”

you come stumbling in between him and the younger student, whose eyes bulge out of his eyes. he seems to be shaking, if kaveh were to look any closer.

without warning, you throw an arm over kaveh’s shoulder, leaning down to press your chest against his shoulder blade. kaveh’s breath hitches.

you tilt your head to appraise the cowering junior. “oh,” you say, as if not realizing he had been there all along. “daneh. did you need anything?”

“no. no, no, i don’t,” daneh splutters. “i’ll take my leave, i think— i think i should— please excuse me.”

while daneh runs off, kaveh tries to recall his breakfast and the procedure he did in his head to calm down and give himself the boldness to meet your eyes. what is happening to him?

dried fish fillet pan-fried until crispy, served in creamy, white sauce, sprinkled with mint—

“kaveh,” you say. your voice is too close to his ears, which he is sure is turning red.

—kaveh, kaveh, kaveh.

“y/n,” kaveh says, defeated, the grip on his quill faltering. “what was that about?”

he thinks he can feel a grin, and he badly wants to see what it would look like on your face. “i don’t remember telling you my name.”

curiosity wins. kaveh can’t help but smile along with you when he sees it. “you did it on purpose?” then, “cyno told me.”

“you asked around about me?”

“yes, i did,” he says, almost petulantly.

the way your mouth tips to one side more makes your beam come off more smug. “is that so?” you say, and kaveh feels like he’s bared himself to the world. “what’s this?”

kaveh follows where you’re pointing. it’s a mindless sketch he was practicing with; he doesn’t remember drawing half of it. “i was… oh, i don’t know, i just needed a break.”

“this is what you do on your break?” your fingers hover over the page as you trace the curved columns and drooping roof. “green. they look like leaves,” you tell him quietly.

kaveh’s smile turns softer at your sincere awe. “i know.” he wonders what’s going on in your head, then wonders if he’s worth knowing. “what do you think’s missing?”

“i’m no architect, but it could use a bit more of a… splash, you know? color. maybe some—”

“ornamental flora?” kaveh finishes for you. “you’re right. there’s no need to worry about this, though. i must have been on autopilot creating this.”

“straight to the bin it goes? what a shame. it’s stunning.” there’s a seat right there, yet you insist on being pressed against him, bent over, still too close to his ear. you talk about beauty, and kaveh asks himself if you’ve looked at yourself. “i suppose i don’t understand how geniuses work. you are one of a kind, light of kshahrewar.”

then he is suddenly so aware of your hand having trailed upwards, resting on his nape. as you move, your skin rubs absentmindedly on where the hair fades. he shivers.

he hates that title. he feels like he doesn’t deserve any praise he receives at all. yet when you say it—

“you blush a lot,” you point out. kaveh wants to dig a hole and lay there forever. “it’s cute. your expressiveness is charming.”

“don’t—just say that.” his face is so, so red.

al-haitham finds him alone at the same table that night, unable to focus on anything but his racing thoughts. something is wrong with him, he’s sure. he’ll have to pay tighnari a visit and retrace if he’d picked the wrong mushroom.

al-haitham—and kaveh doesn’t know how he’s managed to figure it out so easily—makes a face that would be the closest thing to a smile. “i like y/n,” al-haitham says, out of the blue.

“what,” kaveh says flatly, coiled up like a cat prepared to pounce.

“smart enough to pull you back down and smart enough to make you listen.”

“it’s—” kaveh wants to say it’s not like that, but he goes silent thinking about it. “fuck off. you wouldn’t get it.”

al-haitham tilts his head to the side. “you’re the one not ‘getting it’.”

thankfully, al-haitham leaves him be. they are still on awkward terms, after all.

“oh,” kaveh says intelligently one morning. oh, no.

tighnari’s ear twitches. “the star of the show is here, finally.”

“everyone,” kaveh starts solemnly as the door slams shut behind him. the wind blows, and kaveh’s hair flutters, looking like he came straight out of those films.

“how has dealing with your recent client been looking?” tighnari asks with a smile. cyno and al-haitham nod because they probably didn’t think of even asking that. it’s why tighnari is kaveh’s favorite.

but he is not here to talk about that.

kaveh slams his briefcase on the table, rattling their glasses. “i’m going to confess.”

al-haitham makes a face. “who are we confessing to?”

“not we, al-haitham. stay out of this,” kaveh says. al-haitham’s expression doesn’t change. “i’m going to confess, and it’s going to be so romantic. no one can say no.”

“i would say no.”

kaveh glares, snatching his glass. “al-haitham, just be quiet. the adults are talking. this isn’t about you.”

“you invited us out here,” al-haitham points out.

cyno tilts his head. “to y/n, right?”

“about time,” tighnari sighs.

“yes, to y/n. and what do you mean about—” kaveh huffs, getting red in the face, flustered. “hey, aren’t you guys going to stop me? tell me this is a bad idea and that i’m going to ruin this meaningful friendship i have with y/n?”

“everyone wants you to confess already,” al-haitham says, as if kaveh is stupid for not realizing that. maybe he is.

cyno hums thoughtfully. “if i stop you, i think y/n will murder me with bare hands.”

“oh,” kaveh says, pleased. whatever that means. “alright, then, thank you.” he downs the glass of water—it was al-haitham’s, most likely, judging by the incensed expression on his face—and grabs his briefcase again.

“where are you going— kaveh, hey, where do you think you’re—” tighnari smacks his hand on the table, yelling after kaveh, who’s already by the door.

kaveh’s confession is messy, quick, and probably not as romantic as he had hoped, stumbling over his words and feeling as brave as an infatuated schoolgirl.

“pinning me against the shelf like this is quite the move, kaveh,” you say, and kaveh snaps back to reality. “why are we hiding?”

“sorry,” he splutters, backing off a bit but not enough to have you far from touching him. “i don’t want—someone could see us.”

“now, why are you afraid of that?” you grin, sly enough to make kaveh comprehend that you know exactly what he’s called you over here for. you do the—the thing again, where you trace shapes on his nape, and he shivers helplessly.

“i like you too much,” kaveh says, his face too red to be passed off as sunburnt.

suddenly, all the confidence he thought he had when he left the tavern dissipated. “you know what i mean. can you—no, will you… ugh, i’m not doing it right—”

you meet his gaze, and you don’t look away, the long silence starting to grow distressing for kaveh.

“kaveh,” you say softly, and that’s when kaveh’s expression crumbles. it could be because of how you said it, carving his name with your mouth so tenderly, but really, it’s because he feels like you wouldn’t look at him the same way ever again.

“yes.”

…wait.

you cup his cheek, pulling him closer to you by his hips. “yes, yes.”

“wait,” kaveh says, “really?”

you bristle, tilting your head down. are you embarrassed? kaveh feels a thrill run down his spine. “yes. about time—we finally did something about the unbearable tension between us. so, if you’re willing to have me…”

“yes, yes,” kaveh says, to all of that. “god, yes.”

embarrassed, you bury your face on his shoulder. kaveh can’t hide how fast his heart is beating when you’re directly on top of it. when you’re in it. “but listen, kaveh, i don’t know if i can stay here in sumeru forever. and i know it will be hard. so if you aren’t—”

kaveh is too happy to think too hard about that.

“no,” kaveh says, “no, i still want to try. please, let’s try.”

“okay,” you breathe, smiling brightly. “kiss me already, will you?”

kaveh prays and prays and thanks their archon that this isn’t fleeting. don’t let it be, not when he has you, and he has already found out your lips meld perfectly with his.

lord sangemah bay commissions him.

in the first few minutes after dori told him that she could care less about what he wanted to do with the place, kaveh didn’t know what to do with himself. he wanted to do everything, but when all of it comes rushing at once, he’s frozen in place instead.

he takes a step in the direction of the house of daena, then another, and another, until he’s sprinting and his heart is racing enough to have a smile crack across his face.

he spends the night in there. he feels crazy; other students can sense madness in his eyes. they all leave him be, as if they know that once they ask, kaveh will never stop talking.

kaveh feels his wrist sore, but he can’t stop. he wouldn’t be able to if he even tried, not when he thinks of a sinking leaf for a roof, windows shaped like petals, and your words—

kaveh pauses, glancing at the clock that has definitely been spinning faster than he remembered.

it’s sunrise. he gets back to work.

“you’re grinning ear-to-ear,” you say, poking kaveh’s cheek. “you’re not telling me something.”

kaveh isn’t. but only on purpose. he takes your hand and uses it to kiss the back of your palm as he blinks up at you, the embodiment of innocence. “what are you talking about? i told you about it. dori commissioned me, and she said that i’ll be in charge of the approval of the design and the construction process…”

while kaveh explains all this, gesturing wildly with his hands, he trails off when realizing you had just been staring at him fondly. his heart skips a beat or two.

“why—why are you just staring like that?”

“it’s hard not to.”

he kisses you square on the mouth, the blueprint of the palace of alcazarzaray hidden beneath his palms, and he thinks he’s never been happier.

(and under the same stars, the withering slithers in, and everything crashes down faster than kaveh could even say please, no.)

a/n art if you’re reading this i didn’t tell you but this is actually a second chance fic cus i remember you saying it’s one of your favorite tropes 🤧 but anyway ty for reading!

[successblueprints]

How I Deal with Tough Days When My Brain Won't Let Me Work

We all have those days where productivity feels impossible. It’s like no matter what we do, we just can’t seem to get started. I’ve come to realize that, for me, these days aren’t just about laziness or lack of motivation—it’s more complex. When I procrastinate, it’s often my creative brain, or what I like to call my “inner child,” throwing a tantrum.

Step 1: Understanding the Procrastination

The first thing I do is pause and try to understand what I’m running away from. Is it the overwhelming amount of work? In that case, I break it down into smaller, manageable bits. When the material feels boring, I add some fun—by creating colorful and funny interpretations of definitions or concepts. I turn words into weird characters, almost like a cartoon in my mind. Sometimes, I’ll turn it into a game, like seeing how many questions I can get right, or even trying new study techniques like rewriting a sentence or reading it out loud.

I find that when I’m bored, it’s a perfect opportunity to experiment. I might try drawing funny sketches of the material or use quirky interpretations to make it more interesting. The key is that I have to figure out what’s causing the procrastination—is it fear, perfectionism, or just the sheer volume of work?

Step 2: Naming My Inner Child

Once I understand what’s happening, I like to give my inner child a friendly name. This helps me communicate with it when things get tough. Every time I mess something up and feel like quitting, I know that it’s just my inner child reacting to the idea of perfectionism. Naming it makes it less scary, and I feel more in control of the situation.

A perfect example would be the time I noticed that my inner child shows up in my skincare routine, but not because I’m lazy—it's because I feel unmotivated when I don’t have enough of those colorful, trendy products, like the ones all over TikTok. You know, the Drunk Elephant skincare, with its fun packaging that every influencer seems to have. It taps into the same idea as “Sephora kids,” where even as adults, we’re drawn to overconsumption of things we don’t actually need, just because they’re colorful or trendy or aesthetically pleasing.

But I’ve realized that I don’t need fancy, colorful products to wash my face before bed. My inner child might crave those items, but recognizing that helps me let go of the unnecessary pressure to follow trends. I focus on the routine itself, rather than what’s missing from my shelf.

Step 3: Clearing the Distractions

Next, I clear my desk. Anything that’s not a school supply or a tool I need for work can be a distraction, especially if it’s colorful or unrelated to my task. I set a 5-minute timer and start working, just to show my inner child that it’s really not that scary. Once the timer’s up, I double it, taking short breathers in between. I repeat this until I feel like I’ve done enough for the day.

Step 4: Knowing When Enough Is Enough

After a certain point, I trust my own judgment. I ask myself honestly, “Is this enough for today?” If I feel like I’ve given it my best shot, I let go of the need to do more. I accept that some days will be harder than others, and that’s okay. The important thing is that I’m not fighting my inner child, but working with it.

It’s a simple process, but it’s effective. Instead of battling myself, I’ve learned to communicate with that part of me that gets overwhelmed, bored, or perfectionistic. By understanding and breaking things down, I can get through even the toughest days without feeling like I need to drop everything.

P.S.: I’ve struggled to stay productive most of my life, and a part of that was because I didn’t grow up in one of those aesthetically pleasing, western-style homes you always see on social media. I live in the Balkans, and my bedroom looked nothing like that. It wasn’t perfectly curated or full of trendy decor, but over time, I grew to love my culture and my surroundings. Even though I wasn’t the richest or living the most "aesthetic" lifestyle, I’ve learned that what I have is enough, and it doesn’t define my ability to be productive or happy.

[orchid-prince]

My 1st Year of Drawing through Fanart

I really started in July, so it’s not a full year, but taking a look back at where I started in 2024 is pretty cool! Checking for improvement, noticing where I was struggling. I can even see what skill I was trying to pick up at the time based on the jump in the skills quality/the lack of focus on others. So before the year ends here is:

✨My First Year Trying to do Art✨ through the fanart I’ve made! Enjoy!! <3

Would you believe it took me 3 tries to get freaking BILL CYPHER right ?!? This is V2 actually but it’s a good indicator of where I was starting.

This was the first day I decided drawing was fun for me. I woke up, and immediately picked up my pencil to spend all morning drawing, without truly realizing it. Keep in mind I didn’t even have a pencil to draw with before this session, the other work in this notebook are, like, all pen.

🎀My baby spinel!!!🎀 I adore her🥰

Is the art good, not really, but you can tell who she is and at this point that’s kinda my only goal. If it looks like ‘em it’s close enough for me.

Side note: This is the piece that instilled the fear I will mess up any nice sketch by coloring it, a fear I still have to this day.

She may look decent here but in my sketchbook she’s ruined foreverrrr XD

Ok…maybe there’s a pattern with the kinda characters I’m compelled to draw.

Aaaanyway this is where I started focusing on hair more, the spikey look was my thing in the beginning while I was still trying to figure out how hair works. Lowkey I’m still trying to figure it out.

Also WHY DID I DRAW THE EAR LIKE THAT?!? What was I even going for 💀

Fun fact: Daria is my benchmark for progress! She’s been my favorite character since I was a teenager & she’s made of pretty simple shapes. I imagine when I get more confident I’ll take more liberties with how I draw her, like Jane, instead of trying to make it a one to one mimick.

Also bonus Sir Integra Hellsing, she was my first attempt to an actual anime style especially in the hair. And similarly to jinx you can tell this was more focused on learning on drawing her hair rather than her face. This was a trend for a few weeks which did come back to bite me in the ass with this next piece

Ya know what I didn’t see a theme with the characters I draw before I started making this post, and now I definitely do.

But OH you can SEE my struggle with her on the page🤦🏾‍♀️! This genuinely took me 2 days to do because her face frustrated me so much I rage quit till the next night.

After this I went back to practicing eyes and finally trying finding out how to draw mouths and lips in different ways and positions to avoid this problem (Didn’t work, I still often refuse to draw a face if the hair/body is pretty)

And to top it off I inked it & accidentally made her lids look like eyebrows, so now I have a fear of inking 🙄 Thanks Catra >.>

Now THIS is where I actually started staring at my hands for a good 30 seconds after drawing like “MY HANDS MANAGED TO MAKE THIS??” Because this was only 6 DAYS after I rage quit on Catra. Yet I can make this?!!? What?!?

This was genuinely just supposed to be a doodle to practice using his big ol’ grin to learn how mouths work cuz he’s all mouth and teeth. But lowkey, still have no idea how this and the next one happened. It was a weirdly good art-day for me but I had never been more proud. And shockingly I’m still really happy with how these came out, usually I get pretty ‘Meh’ on my favorites after a while. Maybe even kinda nitpicky, but these two feel like my magnum opus for the year.

^^Look at this!! If I could inject this I would! Angel Dust with Pinchers is the BEST version. I will not take criticism.

This, similar to Fizz, was mostly for his eyes and to try to get the flow of hair and fluff down.

By this point I discovered if I find which of my favorite character has a design quality that is unique that correlates to the skill, I can trick my brain into picking up the skill through hyperfixations and sheer force of will.

Aaand welcome to Valentine fails to figure out expressions and head positions, ;-; someone give me back my 3/4 front facing view cuz obviously I can’t do anything else.

This was the most low effort fanart but Marcy became a pretty easy character to draw by this point so I attempted a spooky vibe to try something new. Unfortunately they all just look traumatized, yet that kinda works for her character.

This is the point I started having a little problem, towards the end of October and beginning of November I screwed up.

I usually tried to draw every day if not every 2-4 days. Right before this I skipped over a week, for some reason tho that made me feel like my quality has begun slipping. Like if I don’t try to put lines to the page every day even if I’m just doing circles and not drawing anything productive I’m ginna lose all my progress and go back to square one. This Anya (from the game Mouthwash) is from my 4 inch doodle book I got to combat this problem.

While I’m not particularly proud of this one I will say if July Me saw this I think she’d be really proud and actually love it. So I chose to as well. Besides I adore that sweetheart Anya in any form she takes!

And last but never least: KEN TAKAKURA AKA OKARUN!!!

This is by far my favorite of my most recent drawings. Playing loosely with his shapes was pretty freeing, since I have a very stagnant idea of lines and forms, especially with hair, so getting to do Okarun was fun. His hair and collar felt very ‘scribbly’ to me which was actually fun because I wasn’t so focused on exact shapes how I usually am.

It’s not perfect (like those lopsided ears) and it’s not a direct mimick like Fizzarolli but I still really really like it.

If you go back and compare this one to even my first three I feel like I’ve gotten so much better in the last 6 months. It only makes me wanna keep trying!

***************

If you read all this, firstly thank you!!

Also keep drawing, draw every day you can. Or pick up the pencil right now and start, idc if you think it’s “bad” idc if you make 100 “bad drawings”. Art is first and foremost about having fun, feeling good while creating. Not just to get good at it, which ,not gonna lie, was my focus in the beginning. But what’s actually FEELS good in the moment is to finish up a picture and be like “WHOA I MADE that! It didn’t exist before, I made it exist!” Everyone deserves that feeling.

So pick up the pencil and get to it!

The world deserves to see what you can create <3

[o0o0thorn0o0o]

It’s that time of year again!!!

The amount of times Ibis crashed on me ;~; (still sorting out the storage issues—at a slug’s pace, ‘cause other things be preoccupying my mind), but it was worth it!! I’m very much proud, very much pleased, with how it came out this year if I do say so myself! Ahhh, all that struggling with and “refinding” my art style this year was not for naught!!

I think of my previous years, 2021 is my favorite, but it’s officially been replaced now 😌 I feel so content rn (please don’t let this be a short moodlet, eheh)

That said, I do think I prefer last year’s hands. They were also a pain this time—primarily Yukiko’s right hand…

Anywho, previous versions (+ “base-color” version + a close-up ‘cause why not) under the cut (after some more rambling, eheh):

I was really struggling to start this—I restarted it 3 times essentially—so I’m also really happy with how it came out in that regard. As such (plus the crashes), I’m a wee bit late this year, but only by a few days; I really don’t mind it for once, haha.

I noticed I was going in a certain direction over the years with Yukiko’s hairstyle and the light source, and not the one I intended. Realized that this year, so I fixed those trends:

Tried to make the light source more behind and adjusted it’s position to match with the scene in my head more (though, if I really wanted to be truthful to that, she’d be in one of the other ballgowns I designed for her since she wears this specific one for her first meeting with Gakushuu in this AU, whereas the idea for this scene is supposed to be from when they’re much more familiar with each other later on. But, uh, I like this dress wayyy too much, so let’s just ignore that, haha). I was actually thinking of finally implementing a proper bg this year—even sketched it (mainly for perspective, though)—but I really wanted to just get this done, haha, but also… I didn’t want to deal with more crashes… Perhaps next year… but don’t quote me on that, haha.

As for the hair, the strands that bunch up the rest of Yukiko’s hair—I noticed I was placing them too low. How I imagine her hairstyle to be is that they eventually connect up to her bun (I should definitely sketch a back view concept of this design, mainly so I don’t forget stuff like these, eheh, and to visualize just what in the world is going on… but that’s something distant future me will worry about… if she remembers, of course ^^;). But they’re also supposed the same length as the rest of her hair, so… yeah… I thought this would make her hair less fluffier, which would’ve saddened me, haha, but it didn’t! That said, I have a feeling I’ll possibly make it less voluminous next year… Seems a bit too thick… but idk. I like drawing thick hair, haha.

Oh, also, if you’ll notice: I decided to simplify her underskirt design last year, and… yeah, no, I reverted that change, haha.

Mannn, I am in such a mood to draw more “A Brothers’ Quarrel” stuff/AC Kingdom AU stuff in general (like designing some proper outfits for Gakushuu and Karma finally (they’re the main characters, and Yukiko only appears for a specific part of the AU, yet who do I draw the most…? XD), drawing her horse, Camellia, drawing her in her other dresses, finally getting around to drawing her ladies-in-waiting designs in that other Kingdom AU (just how long ago did I post the traditional sketches of them? Yikes…), etc, etc), but I’ve got too much stuff to get finished before the end of the year. I really need to pick up the pace, eheh.

[quibbs126]

*sigh* I don’t know. I don’t even really know why I’m posting this in the first place, I don’t really like it

I’d say what it is, but you can read what’s on the tin. I thought it’d be cool if I drew that g2 Optimus design, because I think it’s cool looking and Optimus might look good in black and red, and with pink eyes

This was my reference by the way

But no, I couldn’t figure out how to make him look right. I thought maybe I could try sketching him in another style, but no, that didn’t work either. But I finished the sketch and thought it looked halfway decent, but when I went to do lineart I realized it wasn’t. But halfway through lineart I just gave up and slapped it together, slapped some colors on him, wrote some stuff on the page, I guess to fill up the black spaces I know I wasn’t gonna fill with actual drawing, and now we’re here

It’s the fucking arms I tell you. I still don’t know how they’re supposed to work, and I don’t know how to pose them either. So they look like shit. But I can’t just not have them, so they have to be there

And I don’t really know what’s happening on the shoulders either, particularly the wheels. I know I made them too small but I don’t know how to make them look how they do on the toy either

I considered trying a more stylized art style since the 3D was fucking with me, but my brain couldn’t figure out how to do that either, so I’m stuck doing the same thing over and over again, drawing in circles and wondering why I’m not getting anywhere, while simultaneously being unable to figure out what I’m doing wrong

So now we’re here. It looks bad. The shoulder pentagons are too small. The face is too tall. The colors on the face are all wrong. The arm is all off anatomy wise. I forgot to color in the black on the back despite going in and adding lines for them. The grill’s off. The chest doors don’t look like doors the open up, they look stuck to the rest of him. He barely looks 3D because I’m bad at doing this

But I got far enough, and I knew that even I start over on a new canvas, I wouldn’t want to delete it by this point, so I might as well finish it instead of having it taunt me every time I see it. So here we are, as I’ve said multiple times

I really wish I was better at drawing Transformers. I should be at this rate, it’s been a couple months. But no, I don’t know how to improve and I keep staying with the same mediocre art, because I don’t seem to like trying. I do try, but it’s not improvement, it’s just me making the same mistakes over and over again. Like with arms and the joints

Why can’t I get better? Am I just not trying? I don’t know how to try better

I have thoughts I want to share with people because I think they’re neat, and I know any thoughts I do have will only gain traction and be seen if there’s art attached, at least here on tumblr, and because I am an artist, I have to try and draw them. Especially because I’m anti-social and a cheapskate, so I can’t ask someone I know who can draw Transformers good and I won’t commission anyone for it either. I’ll only get what I want if I do it. But I’m bad at doing it

So it’s either write it out and see some people like it, but it’ll only be for the next couple days before it gets forgotten and I too forget about it, and it’ll never do as good as if I did draw it, or draw it but not as good as it needs to be, so people won’t really care about it anyways. Because my flat drawings aren’t really good anyways, just mediocre, and I write too much on my drawings and go on tangents, meaning people probably aren’t gonna reblog it with their own thoughts on anything I said either

But this is just me being greedy anyways. No one’s entitled to give me their opinions, especially when I know my thoughts are stupid anyways. I don’t really know anything about Transformers, not like other people do, I’m just some casual person who just got here and should just go back to Cookie Run at this rate, but is stupid and keeps thinking that maybe she’ll get good at this and have opinions people actually care about

And don’t go on here telling me that I shouldn’t put so much emphasis on what other people think, so long as it makes me happy. It doesn’t work like that with me. Drawing the thing’s only half the fun for me, and sometimes that varies. The real fun comes from telling people about the thing I made, and the ideas I made for it, especially when they tell me what they think of it. If I draw something and nobody sees it, and I don’t tell anyone about it, what was the point of me drawing it? Even if I enjoyed it, heck when I do, I’m even more motivated to show it to people, because I’m proud of it, or that pride comes later when I see people really do like it. These things are intrinsically tied together for me, I can’t separate them

What’s even the point of all this? I’m just complaining at this rate about basically nothing, at least nothing to do with what I drew. But I don’t like what I drew. But I made it so I have to show it, at least to get a semblance of what I was going for out there. I’d like to think maybe if it did, someone better could get what I’m going for and do it better, and I can see it better, but no one ever does. I’m not good enough for that. Maybe some people did, but not anymore, I’ve grown too big for my britches. And also we’re not in the same fandoms anymore

And I write all this, but it feels almost performative. Like I’m putting on an act of frustration and disappointment and anger and whatever other emotions I can’t quantify right now. Because this’ll still be on the post. I’m still gonna post this. I’m still gonna diligently put my tags in it like any other post. Like I’m doing this for show. I’m not, but I’m making a deal of it publicly online, aren’t I? So I must be doing this for attention

*sigh* Well I suppose it’s my own fault

I’ll probably try to attempt this again some day, maybe even later today or tomorrow (actually probably not, I work tomorrow), because I never got out what I wanted, but I can’t figure it out right now and I’m too lazy to make it any better. So take this not very good quality art that I really shouldn’t even be posting, but hey, it’s content, isn’t it?

[faffreux]

can you tell us about when you fell in love with fawful? :)

Yep. In fact, I'll write a whole mini essay for you so I can add it to the FAQ section of my website coming up shortly LMAO (SINCE I NEED TO FULLY ANSWER THIS QUESTION FOR THERE ANYWAY, RIGHT???) CLICK UNDER THE READ MORE TO SEE IT BECAUSE THIS IS GOING TO BE THE LONGEST THING I'VE EVER POSTED HERE, LMAO.

To preface, I have been a fan of the M&L games going back to the early-mid 2000s when I was a kid. I had no involvement with fandom or anything of the sort back then but I used to hop on my mom's bulky computer and look up fanart and other related content as early as 2004/5 and as a result, ended up captivated by the characters long before I knew who they actually were. (As a result of this, I have the names and art styles of various old M&L fandom creators permanently ingrained in my head and often wonder where they are today since a good deal of them vanished..!) It wasn't until 2006 that I got my first handheld console (DS Lite) and of course, what did I do? Immediately begged my mom to order me a used GBA copy of Superstar Saga. 

When I finally had the game in my hands it was like coming home to a colorful world that I'd been captivated by for so long but never gotten the chance to actually explore until now. The characters felt like old friends and the Beanbean Kingdom as a location felt familiar and comforting to me. (As a side note, Popple quickly became my favorite. Shocker, right?)

I used to sketch various beans in my notebooks as well as on printer paper we had lying around the house. Long story short, I finished Superstar Saga and then a few years later in 2010 I picked up Bowser’s Inside Story and THAT’S WHEN THINGS SHIFTED–

BIS brought Fawful and his personality to life in a way that captivated my imagination like nothing else had prior. He quickly overtook Popple as my favorite character from then on forward… and that’s where it ends! Or.. is it?

Nah, that’s where it gets funky. Life got a little chaotic after that and not only did I stop playing video games altogether for many years, but I also almost completely gave up on art - the one thing I was most passionate about above all and thought I would make a career out of someday. A series of depressing events caused me to lose all hope and motivation for anything I created and the spark I’d kept inside of me for so long all but died out as a result.

We’re going to timeskip again, this time to late 2019. I’d just moved away from home permanently for the first time and had been getting settled in and no matter what I did to make my new apartment a cozy place it always felt like something was missing. My mind would keep wandering to the fact that I never made art anymore despite it having been such a key part of my life when I was younger. I so desperately wanted to change this and over the next few months the frustration only kept growing until on January 1st, 2020, I sat down in the living room with a pencil and paper in my hand and shut my eyes tightly before saying under my breath:

“I do not care what it is, I don’t care how it comes. Just please… PLEASE send me something to bring my art back. Anything… anything at all. I don’t care what I draw, I just want to be drawing again.” And with that, I placed the lead onto the paper and began to sketch…

And from there… a familiar face appeared!

(Now I could ramble to you about how much I do NOT like this drawing and how off model it is from how Fawful actually looks… but I’ll forgive myself since I hadn’t touched the M&L games in over a decade at this point and had forgotten most of Fawful’s character. And yet?? Here he was.)

How else can I explain it except that in that moment it felt like the pencil in my hand had suddenly become one of these:

A joy that I hadn’t felt in SO long suddenly filled my entire being and without wasting another second, I immediately went online and ordered both Superstar Saga and Bowser’s Inside Story to replay again. In the time waiting for the games to arrive I had started drawing daily again - sketching out various old characters of mine with dozens of doodles of the bean man stacked in between them all.

There he was… always smiling, always happy to see me, and oftentimes with his arms outstretched as if to give an encouraging hug. When the games arrived I worked through them quicker than I ever had prior - finishing up Superstar Saga in less than a week and subsequently moving onto Bowser’s Inside Story with a LOT of excitement built up for it. 

It was my first day playing and I was having the time of my life! The way Fawful looked in his little grey cloak with that enormous, charming grin of his as he bamboozled Bowser into eating the Vaccuum Shroom had me giggling with joy while words repeated in my brain over and over of: “I need to draw this later, I NEED to draw this later!!!” I WAS EXCITED ABOUT ART AGAIN… AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. I was practically hopping in my seat from the happiness I felt in my heart and chest every time Fawful appeared at this point!

This was how it felt until the moment I arrived at the Fawful Theatre and watched as he began dancing on the stage floor. THIS time.. something different came over me. If you’ve felt it before, then you’ll know what I mean when I say that it was like my entire body turned warm all at once, like some sort of flame had been lit inside. I’d never felt it for anything or anyone prior to then, and that's partly why it hit me as hard as it did. I was practically sweating.

Heck, I was so absorbed in my feelings that I had forgotten there was anyone else in the room with me! That is.. Until my roommate at the time spoke up: 

Her: Are you alright? Me: Uhhh… yeah, why? Her: You’re red as a beet. Are you sure you’re okay?

By this time I had realized what was really going on so I reassured her I was fine, grabbed my 3DS, and ran to my room to finish the playthrough on my own so I wouldn’t embarrass myself any further, hahaha.

In the days, weeks, and months following that moment I became dedicated to drawing the best art of Fawful I could possibly create! What started as a challenge to myself to ‘give back’ to the person who’d given me back the ability to create again turned into someone I genuinely could not stop drawing for how much fun I was having doing it. The desire to make better and better art in order to honor him drove me to improve at a speed I never had prior, and soon thereafter I created Jolligig as a way for me to be in this colorful world with him and to express the deepening affection I was feeling for him with every day that passed by.

By some miracle, my prayer had been answered and here it was in the form of a grinning lima bean.

[End of Part 1. Interested in the rest? Yes… there’s more, I’m sorry. Please let me know in the comments. This took a while to write so I thought splitting it up would be best if folks are interested, LOL.]

[4pplec0re]

mostly bodies. hair and faces and anatomy. maybe coloring, but i don't usually color my work so don't be obliged to answer that

i appreciate the help :)

alright i’ll try my best 🙏 just for u anon

my biggest tip (kind of general. but yeah) is to not let yourself get to the point of absolutely hating drawing. sometimes i won’t be able to figure out how to draw something and genuinely get so upset that i have to walk away for a while, and that’s okay! after i calm down (and maybe have a snack LOL), i go back to it. sometimes i even restart my sketch entirely if i think it’s beyond saving, and usually the next attempt comes out good :)

you’ve heard this a million times before, i’m sure, but references references references. they were Not lying when they said you should use references. i use them all the time even now. a big thing that helped me was sketching over top of a picture of someone doing whatever pose i want to draw, breaking it down into shapes, and doing a second sketch on top of that one of the actual anatomy. if you’re interested i have quite a few references on this Pinterest board of mine!

adding onto above, the “simple shapes” in question are typically a very very simply shaped skeleton. like this fellow!

(sorry the image is fucking massive idk why it does that) also good to note that typically, your elbows should meet your waist, and your hands should meet your mid-thigh, but don’t be afraid to play with that a bit 🙏

i was stubborn and didn’t do this for YEARS and years but flipping your canvas is actually so so helpful… sometimes i flip my canvas and suddenly i notice that my character is doing that fuckass micheal jackson pose and im like why are you literally italic

i have started to not think too hard about it when im drawing hands and my life has been bliss. idk how else to explain this one… might just be from drawing hands so many times. but yeah. i do Not do that whole finger segment thing anymore i just don’t have the brainpower to make it work personally

as for hair just remember how you want it to be shaped mostly. idk. i love drawing hair so it’s just muscle memory at this point for me 😭🙏

faces… i don’t know i just don’t use that many lines. enough to convey the expression you want, i suppose. but that could just be a stylistic thing!

SKULLS ARENT CIRCULAR… they’re more like ovals. this tip saved my life when it came to drawing side profiles

ALSO ALSO IF YOU WANTyour character to look more up or more down their ear should like. be above their actual face for looking down and below the face if they’re looking up. like this

all i did here was move her face (+bangs) down or up depending on which way his head was facing!!

in conclusion please remember im literally just some teen who likes to draw i haven’t even taken any professional classes so take this all with a grain of salt… i am seriously not lying when i say my process is fuck around and find out LOL but i hope this helps!!!

[the-100-days-of-junkan]

THE 100 DAYS OF JUNKAN

Hello everybody! I’m Carbonated-Jem! 

I sincerely hope you’re having a good day as this post finds you.

You’re probably wondering what this is. Well this my good compatriot is the result of a very ill advised task I put upon myself at the beginning of this year. There’ll be a TL;DR at the bottom for those who don’t want my full ramblings (sorry about that btw, not very good at this), but I do appreciate anyone who’ll give a silly person like me the time of day.

You see, I am a fan of Danganronpa, and as a result I like to read a lot of gay fanfic (and if I’m feeling daring I’ll even look at fan art, shocking). This series for all its ups and downs is quite important to me and becoming who I am today. Tokomaru especially helped me through a period of a lot of stress and depression, among other things. 

But as you can tell by the name this isn’t a Blog Dedicated to Tokomaru, it’s a blog dedicated to Junkan. Which might be very surprising to anyone who I haven’t divulged this info to personally. 

I try to make it a habit to not delve too deep into fandoms for the sake of my mental health, I look up fanart, read some appreciation posts on tumblr, read fics, and depending on the series make art for others to enjoy. However one thing I tend to become vaguely aware of regardless of whether I want to or not is what ships are and are not controversial. So I am very aware of the fact that saying I ship Junko and Mikan is bare minimum getting some weird looks from a lot of the people reading this.

Before I give a reason why I’m doing this let me just make clear what this is in the first place.

This is the 100 Days of Junkan, a project I undertook (Kind of as a joke) at the beginning of the year. I have made 100 Pieces to post across the next 100 Days. Some are finished art, some are sketches, some are sketches I added color to later, some are multiple images grouped into one day, comics, and far more. I’ve learned a lot through this project artistically, and some of the surprises I have in store will hopefully be worth the effort. I don’t know 100% for sure what day this post will be on, however the event itself will begin October 1st, and if I did the math right will continue all the way till January 9th. 

Why would I put this much time and energy into this ship, knowing that there are a lot of people who downright hate it? Simple, I just like the ship a lot, and wanted to make more art for it.

And I should further note, there are plenty of fans of this ship as well, however they may be disappointed to hear that unless you’re very much like me, you probably won’t enjoy what I’ve made with these two. In canon (much to my chagrin, because I’m not partial to the direction it took in DR3) this is a very abusive relationship. This is not really my thing, anyone who has seen the ship art I’ve done on my main page will know that I much prefer to draw soft, fluffy shipping art. I try to make art which will leave a positive vibe on people for the most part.

That said I understand why there are people who like this ship for how it is represented in canon. Shipping Junkan has taught me to stop being judgy of people for what they ship (I used to really hate Togami x Toko for example, and while it’s still not my thing I can totally understand why people are into it now). Everyone has their own reasons for shipping something, whether it’s an interesting dynamic, they just like seeing the characters kiss, as a coping mechanism, and plenty of other reasons. I have my boundaries of course, but at this point I try to be open minded towards peoples proclivities.

So if I’m not drawing a Canon Compliant Depiction of this ship, what am I actually doing here?

Well I’ve decided that I’m going to draw niche art for an already very niche ship. I like Junkan on the softer side, where regardless of where it's supposed to be in canon or an AU they just actually love eachother, I've seen and have been inspired by a decent amount of Fanfics depicting this exact thing. It's the dynamic that I find the most interesting personally, as I like the directions you can take it with the characters.

So that’s the deal, for 100 Days starting from October 1st you can expect this blog to post a constant flow of soft Junko x Mikan art. If that’s your thing, I sincerely hope you like all this! It’s been my number one goal to give some art to the people who share a similar desire for softer depictions of this Ship, along with all the people who have already made amazing pieces of writing and artwork depicting the same. If this isn’t your thing, I hope you’ll at least stick around to give it a chance, and if I can’t sell you on it like I have with some of my friends, I hope you can at least walk away from this with a shrug.

Apologizing in advance to all those who peruse the Mikan and Junko tag, because this is gonna be flooding those for awhile I imagine. I fully understand if you wanna block me for this, hope you have a lovely day after that! 

Now dear viewer, please watch this long road unwind and behold such sights as: Me slowly memorizing these two to the point that I can draw them almost entirely without reference at this point, inconsistent colors schemes,  inconsistent heights, so much goddamn blushing, AU’s galore, and the unspeakable things I learned how to do for this project! (And by unspeakable I mean I don’t wanna spoil the surprise!) 

Oh! And as an extra bonus to all this, go check out my AO3 account. I have a singular Junkan Fic on there right now, however as a little bonus for this event (and sure, thematic for Halloween) I’m going to be posting a Vampire AU Junkan Fic periodically throughout October. Partially inspired by the fact that Day 30 depicts a scene I came up with way before the actual fic, and I really want to have it written out and available to read before that post comes out.

The other reason is that if I say i’m going to post it here, that means I am required to actually do it by the law of my brain. Which will likely outweigh my complete lack of self confidence in my ability to write anything making me too paranoid to actually let it go public~

Here’s the link!

And if you stumbled upon this post through the Junkan Tag and not my main account, here’s a link to it!

You’ll find plenty of other Danganronpa Art, including Junko and Mikan on their own. I do other stuff but I imagine that’d be the most immediately interesting, but hey you never know. So hopefully if this blog doesn’t provide anything you’d be into, my normal works will catch your attention! 

I’ve also opened an Ask Box for this blog, why? I dunno. I’ll be real it just seemed like the thing to do. But feel free to ask questions and I'll try to respond best I can!

And finally here is the TL,DR for those who didn't wanna read through my mind numbing rambling.

I like Danganronpa, I like drawing Soft Junkan art for a lot of reasons. I’m posting 100 Pieces for 100 Days of this ship, and hopefully ya’ll will enjoy it. If not, that’s okay! I hope you have a great day! 

Reblogs Appreciated!~ Stay hydrated Everyone!~

[le-trash-prince]

Hi! I love your stories, and I was wondering how you plan them? Because they are so well written and every little corner, every little detail fits perfectly together!

Oh thank you 🥺

My process starts off internally. I’m a visual thinker rather than a verbal thinker, so I have to be able to see something very clearly in my head and then translate it into words. This involves a lot of lying in bed and staring at the ceiling while I play out a scene from a story over and over until I can see it as clearly as if it were happening to me. Sometimes this step may only take a week or two esp if it’s a oneshot, but often it will be months and months of working on a story before I even type a word.

Usually when I actually sit down to properly start a fic, I’ll have at least a couple of major moments or scenes pictured clearly, as well as the general shape of the story. From there, outlining helps me lay things out in a more linear format and helps me narrow down how one moment leads to the next. My outlines tend to be pretty simplistic bullet points—I’ll start broad and then add in more specifics as I work on a chapter and a scene. It’s really just a way of noting to myself what I want to happen, but writing it down helps give me a different perspective on the story as a whole and helps me with tying together moments from different parts of the story. At this point it’s like laying out puzzle pieces, playing with them and seeing where they fit best, maybe realizing some of them don’t fit at all, and figuring out which new pieces I need to make.

For instance, an outline might start out as something like this

Coffee shop scene, exposition, maybe SonicNorth POV, maybe Kim POV: Kenta makes an order, SonicNorth act up, Kim kicks them off the register

Laundromat scene, establish Kenta’s motives, bonding convo

Tony scene, tone shift, oh no

maybe coffee montage or smth

pining

KimKenta date(?) at CharlieBabe cat/dog cafe

pining

[redacted] scene

And so on until I’ve got enough to work with.

Some of these moments are obviously more detailed than others, so I’ll go in and refine them until it’s fleshed out enough that I have an idea of the pacing and where I want to break it into different chapters. Once I figure out where the first chapter begins and ends, which for instance, may be the first three bullet points above, I’ll segment off that portion of the outline. From there, my process varies between adding more detailed bullet point ideas or just going straight into writing it out.

When I’m writing, I tend to think of it in terms of layers, like a drawing in photoshop. The outline is a sketch layer that lets me see the composition of the story. When I’m writing a scene, I can usually only focus on one aspect at a time, so I have to go back again and again and add things until I’ve gotten close to what I see in my head. Action and dialogue often get worked on at the same time, but emotion is usually a different layer, as well as tone, setting (I skimp on describing this lmfao), symbolism, etc

When I describe it like this, it may sound like I’m consciously separating these aspects of a scene, when in reality it’s just that I’ll write something, read it over, realize there’s no emotion conveyed, and then go back and add in what the characters are feeling. Sometimes this happens when I’m drafting, sometimes not until I’m officially editing, and when I’m editing, it’s definitely more purposefully separated so that I can try to be consistent with how often I’m touching base with how the characters are feeling or that I can make sure I’m being consistent with my descriptions of a room layout.

I also tend to think of characters as colors—say, I’ll look at a story, realize I’ve got a moment with North in one place and realize I need to balance out the composition by sprinkling some North-blue in another place or two.

Overall, I feel like I’m always struggling to convey the level of detail that I see in my head. Even though I’ve improved, I still have a long way to go until I have figured out how to describe certain details. This isn’t me being self-deprecating, just lamenting that there’s parts of my stories that readers can’t see 😔 So it means a lot to hear you say that you love the way the details fit together 🥹

I hope this makes sense! This is just the way I’ve figured out how to work with my brain, since I’m not the sort of person who can sit at a blank document and just start typing away—even when I know exactly what happens, it’s still a lot of work to translate it into words.

[fangirlwriting-stories]

Before I Go

Chapter One

AO3 Link

Chapter Two:

Remus tells Janus what he did the next morning while Janus is making them breakfast.  Janus does not seem happy about it.

“Roman,” he says flatly.  “Your brother.  The one who stood by while your parents kicked you out of house and home.  That Roman.”

“Yes, Janus, that Roman,” Remus says, sketching another line on the drawing he’s doing of Janus’ very attractive ass.  “He’ll be here later this week.”

“And I don’t get a say in this?” Janus asks, turning around and putting his hands on hips.

“Nope, I’m dying.”

“You can’t use that as an excuse every time!”

Remus raises an eyebrow.  “‘I’m dying so let me try and fix things with my brother one last time’ isn’t an understandable want?”

Janus growls something under his breath, but turns and starts moving the scrambled eggs around the pan again.

Remus casts his eyes downwards again and picks up the pencil, but Janus turns back around before he can really get proper inspiration.

“I don’t want him to ruin everything,” Janus says through gritted teeth.  “You have half a year left at the most, I want it to be good.”

Remus gives Janus a soft smile, then stands and walks around the kitchen island and wraps his arms around him.  “It will be,” he murmurs.  “You’ll be in it.”

Janus sighs in exasperation, though it’s clearly wet and shaky.  “Dammit Remus, that’s not fair,” he says weakly.  “You know I can’t deny you anything when you get all sappy on me.”

Remus turns and kisses Janus on the ear.  “All the more reason for me not to stop,” he purrs.

“Let go of me,” Janus says.  “The eggs are going to burn.”

“An acceptable casualty,” Remus says, letting his hands wander lower, purely so he can get some more inspiration for his drawing, of course.

“Mm, Remus, seriously,” Janus says, though he certainly sounds very averse to Remus letting him go.

Unfortunately, a second later the sound of sizzling on the stove starts to get louder, and Janus actually pries himself from Remus’ arms and turns to move the eggs around again.

Remus pouts, moving to lean over on the counter next to him.  “Meanie.”

“This meanie doesn’t want you to starve,” Janus says, giving him a look.  “Go sit down, the eggs are almost done.”

Remus blows a raspberry that turns into a couple coughs, but he just waves off Janus’ concerned look and moves to sit back at his seat, picking up his pencil and starting to draw again.  He’s just finished with the last of the sketch when Janus sets a plate of scrambled eggs down in front of him.

“You really want to do this,” Janus asks quietly, sitting down opposite Remus with his own plate.  “Even if it blows up in your face?”

“Especially then!” Remus says with a bright smile.  “What better way than to go out with a bang?”

Janus reaches over and puts his hand on top of Remus,’ then shifts their hands around until they’re clasped together.  He gets that sad look in his eyes when he’s thinking about something he doesn’t want to say, then lifts Remus’ hands to his lips and presses a kiss to it.  “Okay,” he murmurs.  “Then I’m here, Remus.”  He looks up, a sudden dangerous look in his eyes.  “But the second he tries something—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Remus says, lifting Janus’ hand to kiss it back.  “You can stick your teeth in ‘im.”

“I’ll do more than that,” Janus says lowly.

“I hear you,” Remus says, giving him a fond smile.  He lowers their clasped hands onto the table and takes a bite of egg with his other, and the two of them lapse into silence as they start to eat.

…

It’s a couple days later when Roman arrives.  Janus has positioned himself in between Remus and the doorway for most of the day, and Remus has pretended not to notice.  Just after lunch, Remus is hanging his picture of Janus’ ass, which he has colored and shaded and framed.  It’s going to hang above the coffee table for as long as Janus wants, after.

Remus finishes hanging it, climbs down from the coffee table and steps back slightly, looks at it and tries to be satisfied.  He isn’t.

Janus steps closer and smiles up at the drawing anyway.  “It’s very you,” he says, sounding slightly exasperated.

Remus huffs, crossing his arms.

“What?” Janus asks, turning to look at him.

“It’s… hmm,” Remus says, moving to sit back on the couch.

“Remus, I like it,” Janus says, moving to sit next to him, still in between Remus and the door.  “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Remus grumbles, crossing his arms.  “It’s… it’s fine.  It’s just not right.  I’ll just have to make another one until I get it right.”

“Remus,” Janus says, giving him a look.  “That’s like the fifth time you’ve said that.”

“I haven’t gotten it right yet,” Remus says.  “I’ll say it until I get it right.”

“And when exactly will that be?” Janus asks, crossing his arms.

“I don’t know,” Remus says, rolling his eyes.  “I’ll know when it happens.”

“Remus—”

A knock on the door interrupts them both, and they turn, going quiet.  They don’t get a ton of visitors since Virgil stopped coming, and this is the day Roman is supposed to arrive.

Sure enough, a second later he calls out, “Remus?  Are you there?”

Janus stands before Remus can make a move, and walks across the living room to the door.  He pulls it open, and Roman blinks, startled.

“Uh, hi,” Roman says.  “Do I have the wrong apartment?  I’m looking for—”

“Yo!” Remus calls, and Roman’s gaze shifts from Janus across the room to Remus, who is now laying over the back of the couch in an attempt to appear as casual as possible.

Roman’s gaze falls slightly in relief, before scrunching up again in confusion.  “But then who—” he starts, turning back to Janus.

Remus snickers, practically feeling Janus’ annoyance and exasperation.  “For fucks sake,” Janus mutters, turning to stalk back across the living room.

“We’re really close roommates,” Remus calls with a grin over at Roman, right as Janus sits down on the couch and slides up to Remus’ side.  He slips under Remus’ arm and looks pointedly back at Roman.

Roman at least has the decency to look a little sheepish.  “I… thought you would be alone,” he says.  He drags two suitcases in the door and sets them to the side before shutting it after him.

“Ah yes, the poor lonely gay,” Remus says, leaning against Janus.  “It’s so sad.  Isn’t it so sad, Janus?”

Janus gives Remus an unamused look, and Remus beams at him.

Roman doesn’t say anything, but he does look a little bewildered as he comes over to stand in front of the couch.

Remus raises an eyebrow at him.  “Well?  Spit it out.”

“You… sounded very different,” Roman says.  “On the phone.”

“Ah yes, that was 3AM Remus who was exhausted and had just finished hacking his guts up,” Remus says, ignoring Roman’s flinch.  “Just because I still want you here doesn’t mean we’re playing by his rules.”

“You…” Roman says hesitantly.  “Aren’t you scared?”

“I’m fucking terrified,” Remus says plainly.  Janus goes still next to him, and Remus tightens his grip around him.

“Just like I was terrified to come out to our parents,” Remus continues to Roman.  “And just like I was terrified to live on the streets.  And just like I was terrified to ask Janus out.  Being terrified is not a new thing for me.  I’m a big boy, I can handle it.”

Roman doesn’t say anything to that.

“So,” Remus says, sitting up.  “Toss your shit in the guest room.  Tonight we’re going to a drag show.”

Roman goes pale immediately.

Janus chuckles in amusement, leaning more heavily against Remus.  “You know maybe this wasn’t such a terrible idea,” he muses.

“I—” Roman says hesitantly.  “I don’t know how comfortable I am with—”

“He’s dying,” Janus says with a smirk.  “Go put your shit in the guest room.”

Roman swallows, then heads off to grab his suitcases.  As soon as he disappears down the hallway, Remus turns to Janus.

“What happened to not using that as an excuse every time?” he asks.

“I’ve suddenly become more amicable to the idea,” Janus says.

Remus rolls his eyes and leans against Janus’ shoulder.

“Uh, guys?” Roman calls from down the hallway.  “There’s only two bedrooms.  Doesn’t Janus need one?”

Remus doubles over cackling, and he’s too amused to even care when it devolves into coughs.

…

The guest room was small and plain, and Roman hadn’t brought any decorations.

He set his suitcases over by the wall, but all that was in the guest room was a bed and a tiny desk, so it looked like Roman was going to be living out of his suitcases for a couple months.

He promised Clarissa he’d call when he got there, but now that he was there the idea honestly sounded so distasteful that he was seriously debating putting it off until tomorrow.

He could still hear Remus talking with Janus out in the living room.  Janus had apparently just said something amusing, because Roman could hear Remus’ cough-filled-laugher from here.

Janus was definitely not something Roman had expected.  But then, the times he had considered Remus in the past ten years, what had come to mind was Remus struggling to make it by on the streets or making a living in… less socially acceptable ways.  Living in a perfectly normal apartment with a… a boyfriend had never been on the mental table.

But then, neither had dying.

Remus’ phone call hadn’t helped either.  Nothing about how scared and lost he’d sounded had suggested he had a boyfriend to help him.  If he had Janus, why would he want Roman?  It’s not like the two of them were close.  He hadn’t expected to hear from Remus ever again.

Roman sat down on the bed, not liking the way that thought felt all of a sudden.

Maybe this would be good, then.  He was going to stay even if it wasn’t, for Remus’ sake, but maybe it would actually be good for him too.  He might actually get some kind of closure with his brother, which he’d needed for… he didn’t even know how long.

And yet you had to wait until he was dying to try for that closure, hissed a voice in his head.

Roman winced, dropping his head with a sigh.  Maybe, on the other hand, this would just fill him with guilt and make him miserable and Clarissa was right and right and he should have stayed home.

He looked towards his door, still easily able to hear Remus and Janus talking, light and almost carefree, except it couldn’t actually be carefree.

No, Clarissa wasn’t right.

Roman wasn’t sure he’d be ready for everything Remus would want them to do together, but Clarissa still wasn’t right.

And Roman was going to call her tomorrow.

...

Chapter Three

[littledragondork]

TES Cat AU: Skyrim Thieves Guild

My self indulgent TES Cat art is done, at least my favorite Skyrim Thieves guild NPCs are, Probably gonna’ post the Companions next because I was drawing the Skyrim Dark Brotherhood and for the life of me I couldn’t get Cicero to look right lol, but I’ll take suggestions :3c

(I’m so down with doing the rest of the Skyrim Thieves Guild eventually)

Anyway, my art for Skyrim Cat AU Brynjolf, Karliah and Mercer Frey under the cut, with some design notes :3

I wanted Bryn to be an orange cat, not only because I like orange cats and their low intelligence but because it just made sense. I also wanted him to be one of those massive fluffy cats, the ones that weight like 20lbs/9kg and have more fur than they know what to do with, he’d be 99% fur, go to pet him and your hand is just swallowed by the fur. I made him a mackerel tabby cuz’ I like mackerel tabbies and because they are just super common cat patterns. For a long time I wanted to give Brynjolf Sectoral Heterochromia, which is basically when one eye is 80% one color and has a little dot of another, in this case I wanted brown, but I couldn’t really get it to look right so I ultimately scrapped it.

He also has a docked tail because I liked the idea of all the known Nightingales having something fucked up with their tails.

I also did a little sketch with the thieves guild armor, I think it’ll fit like a harness with a few little pockets and bags. I imagine they’d all have dexterous enough paws where they can make stuff like furniture, buildings, tools, weapons, armor, cook food etc, makes everything a lot easier to me

I imagine all the Nords I’ll draw have ear tufts, extra fluffy paws and long fluffy fur coats, they’d probably slide on ice a lot lol, Think Maine coons, Norwegian forest cats, Siberians. I referenced Maine coons, Lynx and bobcats the most with Bryn here, but he is just a domestic cat.

So, for Karliah (same with all elves tbh) I wanted big ol’ ears, I feel like I could have made them bigger but I decided against it because I didn’t want them to be in the way too much (might change that later though). She is also mostly back cat because I felt it was simple and cute (I have a black kitty and I love her). It’s also not shown here much but she’d have pretty short fur, and a thin and small build, think 10lbs/4.5kg.

Karliah’s tail is shortened and broken (a painless break, the kind that happened as a baby) as to go with ‘all Nightingales have fucked up tails’ deal.

did a more meme-y sketch in this one, I was in a goofy mood and thought it funny how quick both Brynjolf and the Last Dragonborn were to just accept selling their souls.

I imagine all Dunmer would have black or dark grey base coats and those that are tabbies to have them be lighter than the base, so for example a black cat with white stipes or grey with red stripes. They, and all elves will be mostly based on the Oriental Long/short hair cats because of their big ol’ ears and narrow faces but I’ll take creative liberties of course.

Last in this batch is Mercer Frey, I redesigned him at least 8 times, first he was solid grey+ Tuxedo pattern, then he was a dilute grey tabby, then a spotted tabby before I settled on a colorpoint because he was said to be “high born” and coming from a wealthy family, and I was like “hey, colorpoints are fancy cat coats and I can see a rich and powerful family wanting to breed that into their line” and thus Colorpoint Mercer was decided on. I knew 100% I wanted him to be grey because of the whole “grey fox” fan thing he has going on in the game

Seems like every time I would get near him in my playthough, any playthough of Skyrim actually, he’d look at me like I just spat in his drink so I tried to capture that here. Also the Knife cat meme because I thought it fit him.

he doesn’t have a tail because he doesn’t deserve one it’s with the ‘all Nightingales have fucked up tails’ bit.

I also wanted to share my ideas for weapons (still no clue how to do bows) but swords, great swords and daggers, would be little gauntlets made of the specific type of metal that go on the paws, and they would range in size and weight depending on the weapon its based on, so great swords would be huge metal claws while daggers would just be apart of a little leather glove that wraps around the paws. Lots of good ideas cooking up in my Autistic little mind lmao /pos.

I imagine all Bretons will just look like the average street cat, standard issue cats if you will, the common domestic short/long hair, probably have the most diversity in fur patterns and the like.

So that’s what I was able to get done in about about a few hours (with frequent breaks and work in between) A lot of the time was looking at both official art, fanart and the in-game models to get a good sense on the personality (both fandom and canon) and seeing what I can convert more easily to a non-humanoid design, a lot of shape language practice because I like shapes :3

I have a Solid design down for Ulfric but I wanted to do batches with like characters, so all Thieves guild girlies with each other and so all Civil War Girlies with each other, some might be drawn in pairs as well, like Hadvar + Ralof or Vilkas + Farkas.