#not that fire alpaca is bad i just like the brushed more

[skelerangart]

an oldie i drew back when mark played help wanted

[luck-of-the-drawings]

"I think this is the most inhuman; and human, that I've ever felt.." MUCH CAN HAPPEN IN A YEAR. IN FIVE YEARS. A DECADE. imagine how much can happen in a century. just ONE (1). How will you grow? what phases do you find? even in 5 years, you will find patterns.

[blackstarchanx3new]

Creations AU, But I obnoxiously over explain it PT 6

Pages 151-180

Think of Dawko's voice: JUMPSCARE-

Haha Mike's a little fruity. Getting hugs from someone might not be the most common thing for him. We dunno.

Micheal are you trying to seduce Mike?

Jokes aside we learn some new things about Michael:

He's very cold and smells like metal when you're up close.

Probs cause he works down with machinery. Down there would be cold...

Also he lives with his dad. Greeaaaaaaat.

Living with someone who's dominating and possibly a serial killer.

Uh. Funny wording from you Michael about "Replacing body parts" and seems a bit germophobic in the way he talks about Mike's injury.

Sure that has no significance at all.

Mike doesn't seem all that concerned saying the disturbing line given all we know about him "It's not my first bad injury"

Also Michael buddy, personal space.

Oh.

So that's what his hair looks like when it's brushed. X'D

Details details:

Why does he have two toothbrushes in his bathroom?

Does he use the mint toothpaste or the bubble gum one...

Clearly two distinct individuals live here...whoever uses the bubble gum one is implied to be more childish.

Mike LIVES with someone...

Yes. You can gather all that from the background detail of toothpaste. That's the whole reason it's there. :)

Anyway about what Mike actually SAYS:

He finds Michael overbearing. Oof.

He CONFORMS his hair is dyed, it needs to be cut and considers dying his eyebrows.

In the ream of symbolism: Mike dying his hair implies he's covering something up.

In the realm of just normal shit: He doesn't like his natural hair color for whatever reason.

His choice of grey specifically could be dug into: as it's symbolism is mostly uniformity, blandness, and gloom.

But mainly I chose his hair color to be grey because you don't see a lot of young characters with grey hair. You see white haired characters (Ethan Winters in this series being an example of a white haired character) but not grey.

Mike embraces a hair color that makes him look older.

Also note: Mike doesn't brush his hair normally. It's a mess. Mike doesn't like his current haircut either.

Changing your hair is usually a sign of control, so the fact Mike seems to dislike so much about his hair is a sign he doesn't have much control in his life.

HELLO WHO ARE YOU!?

OH DON'T MIND HIM HE'S JUST ONE OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS.'

His eyes are weird and an unnatural purple color. If you know about Fnaf:

He's playing Fazerblast. I'm sure him being a great shot doesn't come into play ANYWHERE IN THE STORY GOING FORWARD.

You can tell I switched to Clip Studio paint for these pages lmfao. I was using Fire Alpaca before.

Few things: This person is very concerned with their looks.

Their design of having a beauty mark is there because I have one lol not that big tho.

He previously worked nightshift...Oh my.

Haha. His eyes are glitching.

Wonder if we know someone who can...corrupt body parts and make them robotic...No surely this isn't Cody's doing...Surely.

And he's talking to SOMEONE off screen.

A "Kid" apparently. Though the eyeline seems to be at his...Tall kid.

Uh oh.

We know someone who can look like a kid...

OH NO.

Tehe.

He speak Spanish-

Oh my the poster.

Yup Golden Freddy's messing with someone again.

But we dunno who this is or why they're important yet.

Something to note:

So far we've seen 4 security guards/night guards.

Mike: Who has a cyan shirt and a cute little pink bow. (He's got them trans colors)

Jeremy: Blue shirt, blue bowtie

Michael: Purple shirt and black tie

This mysterious person: Purple shirt and black tie.

Bet there's no significance to their outfits at all...

Just keep him in your back pocket for now.

Why would Cody be talking to this person? He pulls out a device and "Should do something about that"

He's clearly someone who has authority of SOME kind to fix problems.

We don't get to hear what Cody/Fredbear says about the matter, but whatever it is this person's "That's awful" leads us to think something BAD is happening....

Weird.

Back to fire alpaca pages gotcha.

That previous scene was added later lmao gives context to smth later.

Anyways:

Mike's outfit:

He's wearing a pale cyan Freddy jacket. The fact he owns Freddy's merch is very amusing. He clearly has a history with the place so him owning merch makes sense.

Funny enough despite Bonnie being Mike's favorite animatronic, twice now Mike is being associated with Freddy. It's the animatronic Cody picked to turn him into, and now he's wearing a Freddy jacket.

Those who know the game over sequence for FNAF 1 would know: Mike Schmidt is stuffed inside of a Freddy Fazbear suit. So these COULD just be cheeky nods to that. ;)

Why DOES Mike own Freddy merch despite Bonnie being his favorite?

He's mostly going just for Bonnie which is funny. He's also curious if "Evidence" is around.

Michael Jumpscare number, like what 3? X'D

He's very excitable and wearing a cute purple turtle neck.

Mr. Afton's not home, neat.

This house's inside coloring is based on the FNAF 4 minigame house. Because I make the rules lmao.

Mike wears cute pink heart socks and I just like that he's cute like that.

There are STAINS on the floor, specifically blood stains. They've "Always been there" according to Michael. Suspicious.

These stains origins are shown off in the SL comic but I won't spoil who they are from for people who are reading this first.

Mike is very offput by this.

They head to Michael's room.

Michael's room is based on the room we play in FNAF 4. Because I find that interesting.

This isn't mentioned here or anywhere really but shit you can infere if you read FNAF 4 and SL comics: Michael owns Cody's stuffed animals now, but Josh's old room is Michael's current room.

So Michael got a lot of things from his dead siblings it seems.

His "Friends" are creepy as sin.

Michael's expecting questions cause of what Bonnie said.

Michael asks Mike about his own father, which prompts Mike to be uncomfortable to say the least.

He hasn't spoken to his father in a long time.

Michael's brain seems to break from this idea and he comes off as super rude but he's just shocked.

Haha. Mrs. Afton is an interesting subject.

Again where she is is addressed in the Sister Location and FNAF 4 comic but for now, it's left to what Micheal says.

He doesn't remember her at all or a LOT of things. Because our boy had a terrible accident and he took awhile to recover from it and he has memory issues from before he got into said accident.

Mr. Afton's parting wasn't nice to say the least considering William is "Mad at her" and he refuses to talk about her.

Mike monologues to himself, coming to the realization Mrs. Afton might be dead.

And Michael's accident might have been from Freddy's.

Would make sense.

And we get a fun Alice in Wonderland reference with the Spring Bonnie animatronic.

It's design was inspired by the "Into the pit" Fazbear's fright books.

Hah. Micheal might not be as innocent as he lets on, note how he is now cuddling a Golden Freddy plushie.

And he resigns to his life is better without his mother and Mike is better off without his father.

Despite being a grown up, Michael's view on the world and his situation seem rather, childish. Which would make sense considering he lost a lot of his memories. It also makes his living situation, living with his father still make more sense. William is very protective over Michael.

Mike's reluctant to join the Freddy's family.

Buddy you dunno how deep in you're gonna get at some point lmfao.

Michael also did an oopsie slip up there if you notice:

"Let's forget about our crap parents"

...Michael.

Parents there is plural.

As in. He thinks William is crap too despite what he just said lmfao.

You might be starting to realize: Michael is masking a whole lot.

What he says/does does not reflect the real Michael Afton. He only seems to let his façade drop and talk honestly around Ennard and Bonnie so far. He's still pretending in front of Mike keeping a cheerful attitude.

And they have a totally relevant talk about ice cream.

If you know FNAF lore you know why "ice cream" is a disturbing topic but again this is smth for Sister Location.

Michael "Can't taste a difference" between frozen and fresh pizza.

Absolutely no symbolism in that line at all.

You can really take this however you want but small lines like this are kinda "Oh I get it" lines later. XD

Michael can't tell when he's being "Deceived", Michael will go with a widely accepted "Crappy" version of something because he just can't tell the difference.

A wider concept of disceptation/imitations being overlooked.

Or you can take William's preference as the odd one here.

William prefers something that in truth has no significant or quantifiable difference.

He enjoys the heir of something "better" when in truth there is no real difference and Michael appreciates things just because they're there.

Or it's just a comment about how Michael literally cannot taste things...

Michael stop flirting.

Also FNAF fans yes the allusions to another character is strong with Michael and that is 100% intentional. If you get it you get it.

He pretends. He knows how to make ice cream. He puts on an air of wanting to help fsr is very comforting when he talks hiding his true nature.

Again Sister Location.

This is another clip studio one I know for sure cause of the asset text bubbles I used for awhile.

Anyways:

Mike and Michael are watching TV.

Sister Location Michael Afton go brrrr wonder if they're watching immortal and restless X'D-

Ironic how Michael is cuddling the plush of an animatronic his brother got his head crushed by/is trapped inside. This is the second time he's doing it but he actually switched plushies as the one he was hugging earlier was a bit more scuffed looking. This one is obviously meant to be Fredbear from the purple hat while the one he was hugging earlier had a black hat and a contorted face.

Mike is obviously hugging a Bonnie plush. it's coloration is off from the Bonnie plushies we've seen earlier so we can think this thing is either a prototype or perhaps another location's Bonnie.

Either way: Despite Michael being childish he's willing to share his plushies with Mike and let Mike hold his Bonnie plush. He wasn't lying when he said he'd try to make Mike feel welcomed.

Jeremy refuses to come to the house because William's off putting. Jeremy's a rather skittish person so that makes sense. Though again we get another instance to Michael and Jeremy Fitzgerald being pretty good friends.

And speak of the devil and he shall appear! :D It's Willy Billy Afton.

William drives Michael mad.

What do you mean by "Those friends" William.

"That was one time"

and "Jeremy is from work too"

The implication is Jeremy and Michael had relations and William saw it lmfao because I find that hilarious.

So smth to note here:

The characters Fritz Smith and Sammy Emily are names used for one character inter-changeably.

This AU swapped his name around and this page refers to him as "Fritz" but past a certain point it's almost exclusively Sammy.

Anyways:

What THINGS did Sammy/Fritz tell William exactly?

Michael seems annoyed by William's presence even calling William a "Creepy old man" and to "Leave Mike alone"

William acts over dramatic about this.

Michael continues to be a menace to his aged father.

And William asks a question that confuses the crap out of Michael.

Mike's mom is nuts too, supposedly.

Mike's gonna stay the night though.

So, they're playing games together.

And Michael is "Not good at games".

Makes sense why Bonnie's the one who does the claw machine not him hah.

We know Mike likes to play video games...so it can be inferred his annoyance here is because he's actually good at them. X'D

Evidently: Michael is not a fan of "The other owner's son"

Conforming there's another owner outside of William.

Presumably Henry.

We hit 180 so gotta pick this up again.

[kurgy]

hey, im just now looking to transition from traditional art to digital. i was wondering if you have any recommendations for good free art programs? i know literally nothing about what makes a program good or not but im just trying to find something good to use when im able to get a tablet

hmmm, when I first made the switch from traditional to digital, I started with a free trial of paint tool Sai and no joke, like 12 years later, I still use it, though now I've bought a fully copy. I've tried a lot of programs, photoshop (not for me, hated the ui), fire alpaca (which is free! it's fine, but I personally preferred sai), procreate (i didnt like it much, but a lot of ppl do), and eventually bought clip studio paint which I was going to try to switch to fully, but honestly I am just so much more comfortable with sai that I use clip studio paint exclusively for comics now.

in my opinion, Sai is extremely user friendly, and a really good beginner digital art program with an easy to navigate ui, customizable brushes/textures/effects, and is capable of doing a lot even with less than what other art programs have.

so personally, I'd recommend Sai. however, I would recommend buying it. It's pretty inexpensive, no subscriptions, and was made by one guy who could use the support from the community. Pirating it is pretty easy, and everyone is struggling, but if you want to try Sai and have the means, I would definitely recommend buying it.

if you don't want to try Sai/don't want to pirate a copy/pay for it, then for a good free program I'd have to suggest fire alpaca. I don't have as much experience with it, but the times I did use it weren't bad, and it was pretty easy to navigate and use

good luck my man 👍

[lulu-the-warden]

I think I can make enough to feed us.  These temperatures are hard to farm in, but…

Geode paused mid sentence as he hoisted himself back up.  He began limping his way back to the workshop where he had some food and supplies stored away.

I think once I finish getting enough dirt down here I can grow plenty.  The problem is getting enough down here…between the permafrost and well, my bad leg…the trip to the surface and back can take all day.  What I would do for even one glowberry, though…if I even had one, I could grow it on the ceiling above my garden.

It had been years since Geode had eaten glowberries.  

It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jonathan.  My name is Geode.

Geode’s antennas twitched at the sound of the shivering sculkling.  She sounded so cold, even by the lava pool.  Geode had an idea.

I have something you might be able to use!

Geode spoke with a little more excitement.  He moved as quickly as his cane and bad leg would let him, making it to the workshop.  Once there, he dug through the barrels for the object.

The soft cloth brushed against Geode’s claw and he pulled it out.  It was a small coat; most likely it had belonged to a young villager.  It was made of alpaca wool and fur and was designed for the cold tundra weather.  The coat had likely been discarded because it was well worn and had a tear on the sleeve.  When the village above had been populated, the residents used Geode’s ravine home as a dumping ground for things they no longer wanted.  He would be angry about it, but it was one way to get things he could use.  One villager’s trash was another warden’s treasure.

Geode carried the coat to Jonathan.

Here…hopefully this will fit her.  It’s very warm.

After handing over the coat, Geode set about making dinner.  He rummaged through the barrels he kept his food supply in.

Potatoes, a bit of dried, preserved goat meat, and a handful of berries…what luck!  Geode even found a small quantity of dried mushrooms.  He fired up the simple furnace and placed three potatoes inside.  The hot surface on top of the furnace was used as a stove; Geode cooked the bit of goat meat he had along with a little soup made of the reconstituted dried mushrooms.  

Geode sat back down just outside of his workshop and gave a wispy sounding whine.  His leg was starting to bother him.  Was it an approaching snowstorm?

We are almost done, I promise…

[noxyfied]

This, is Noxy/Noxyfied/Nox. This is the character I identify as online, and I want to tell you my story with this adorable Arctic Fox because it is one heck of a tale from not so long ago

Things did begin rough at the beginning of my persona’s history. I honestly can’t recall how I came up with it, only how I inserted my love for something and went with it.

From the early years of 2017 to 2019 I was all paper and pencil. Ah yes traditional art was my big thing for a couple of years during that era of 2013 to 2020. I had a time where I wrote stories about characters I made, and not much. No fan art, no nothing, I wanted to stick to my own original ideas at first before I took the step to do something that I did not own; it was a weird mindset I know, I couldn’t hold myself to want to be original and develop to be good enough to draw other things.

It took me some time to develop, hell even to this day I still am unsure of my own skills but I enjoyed trying new things. I don’t reject much criticism even if it comes harsh it still lingers in my head when received anyway. I needed someone to identify as online, a persona who I would have an identity through as I was moving forward on this hopeful career I want to make with my art.

Idea #1 draw my own self accurate to how I look 

Scratch that...

Nononono, I am too bad at showing my face, even at that I don’t like myself.

So I had to come up with something else, 2019 was ending with my skills rising up to something neat. I had Fire alpaca and a wacom cheap tablet which I used time to time back then, and with how I moved foward I said “why not, lets draw a glaceon.

Not bad, not bad. I do enjoy anthropomorphic animals, and for a anthro Glaceon it wasn't so bad. Even back then I did not enjoy much of this picture but the idea sparked. I did roleplay around online a lot as a Glaceon. People always had referred to me as a Glaceon when talking, because furry friends tend to be like that and I don’t mind. It had definitely sparked the idea of identifying as one for my persona.

I had a hard time how I would draw this character, a more personalized Glaceon with my own flare of the art style I carry should be nice, should I make it tall? short? anthro? feral? the questions rose up. Even more as time passed, took some time unsure of it, Unluckily I had a Glaceon FURsona, not a persona. (Yes those were two separate things as I carried 7 fursonas as individual characters in their own stories).

But soon one day in class, my artsy self was bored and it just sparked.

This is it! yes! I love it! something about this just clicked for some reason, it was like nothing I had seen before I could not look away at it, this was it.

After class I went home and played some games. The idea was there but man am I tired. Things did go slow, but not for long as of January, the classes I took gave me the ability to better understand this Adobe Photoshop, an amazing tool for editing pictures but also... To draw?!? I have heard of using Photoshop to draw but was amazed to have the ability using such program. During my time 2019 I would doodle around on Photoshop in my school or at home (thanks to the campus giving me a cheaper prize to use it for assignments) Not bad, not bad, the program was for sure something nice to use. Look! I even drew my Fursonas there too, ain’t that nice

2019 was something for sure. It had just begun making 2020 quite the year as I took my wacom tablet, opened Photoshop, and on January there it was.

Oh how cute! I felt so proud of myself, firealpaca was nothing like how clean and pretty Photoshop was, I was amazed at this ability.

“I made this?” that would be what I ask myself everyday. Time to time I would, and still, look at my phone to my drawings and remember what I used to make some pieces, I will not forget how I used thick outlines with the line too from photoshop, added some depth on the eyes. But most importantly, I had a persona, and I introduced it

My friends loved it, I could not believe I am starting to do the shift, my days of traditional art were at a halt. Not at a complete stop since I do use traditional art for a few other things of course, this was just my main focus now.

This little creature was everything to me, cute, easy to make, helped me throughout a few months as I practiced with my digital art.

I also perfected it’s look, but something looked rather familiar about it. Could not put my finger to it, so I went on drawing it.

that was a few exceptions where I shifted the proportions for “it”

“It” “it” what was this thing supposed to be, I myself was unsure how to identify myself with this persona. Male? no, female? no. The issue was there, who am I really inside, who was my persona gonna be.

I still cannot tell you exactly what my persona was for the longest time. I at times felt lost and confused with my identity, it did not help that 2020 did its mumbo jumbo and a pandemic happened, it was a lot of time on my own at home just questioning really who I had been for the longest time. Classes were minimal so my free time was big around April and May.

I was always unsure of who I was exactly, through my early years late 2000′s I had in me that my body was uncomfortable for looking the way it did, 2010′s went silent but there was something in me I did not understand. why did I feel this way, why do I feel as I am not happy with who I am, and who I identify with.

This persona was the wake up call to who I really wanted to be. I saw it in me that I knew being a male was the main issue in me feeling unhappy. Throughout my life I did not enjoy masculinity as much as other kids, yeah I had some boy traits but it was rather minimal, I enjoyed other things more. I enjoyed a lot of things about being female it was something I had never seen before. as hard or confusing things tend to be from me to explain, its a rather hard thing for myself to explain. But that how it felt “confusing” I researched and looked for things and to my conclusion I had come to be, I come to identify as a MtF trans.

I felt relieved in me of it and I already enjoyed my days more after from it. The only issue is “who do I tell..?” I was timid to tell this to anyone, friends or even family. Especially family, those I come to admit they will never be told of what my decision was because of how hard headed they are. It is a tragic story to tell since most families are such closed minded people of rejecting others.

“My friends tho, my friends? I would feel bad if I told them” that was the mindset I had for a while before admitting to them time to time, one by one. This was a chapter in my life that had changed me early 2020′s but I felt a lot of joy in me to be who I wanted to be, I no longer took anyone else's guidance for controlling who I am, I just went with my own flow.

My persona was.... more comically confused, it could be either so I just left it how my mood wanted it to go for when drawing it. So, things went well, in 2019 with the money I got I found myself enjoying a lot of second handed games, with a game coming real soon that had me pumped for I had to get a console I wanted for so long

A PS4 for the the Final fantasy 7 Remake, I was so pumped waiting for the game, I got a used PS4 for it and even bought couple other games for it to get to know the console: Final fantasy 15, destiny, and later on this Persona 5 game a lot of people talked about. Hmm ok, well lets try it out and oh me oh my, a few days later:

The art style captivated me, can you tell I went all out to trying anything with my persona? I cannot believe I was my own guinea pig for these sorts.

Going around some friends and they will tell you that I used this pfp quite a lot back then, as well as updating it with a new oc I had come up with

A tale in due time will be told about this gal.

well, it was set and forth that this was me, my persona, this glaceon was who I was. People loved it, my friends really liked it, and I had a blast having this first pure year of digital art only. Meeting new friends, and admiring their art. Having old friends come back, and even losing a few others on the way. During the time of june, to July I was rapid about drawing my persona in many ways, short, tall, anthro, feral

even metallic.

 But there come some time I did not grew tired of. But a little worried that I had to rely on a franchise for my own identity, of course there is nothing wrong for those doing it. But reflecting on myself, back then when I wanted this art career to happen, I wanted to go all out letting out my imagination  with my own creations. I had to make the decision, it was time to move on...

...To a new art program and new drawing tablet

No, it wasn’t that. I had to branch out from this Glaceon, but keep my identity, my legacy of this persona in check, but with a new coat of paint of course. did not take a long time before choosing that I had to use a real life animal as inspiration for this change. Something at least close to it, ah yes of course! the inspiration of the Glaceon was an arctic fox, well those are some good stepping stones to begin with so what happened one day is that I began sketching, not before saying good bye to this old self that helped me begin. It was weird, this is me but it was old me?

Tested the new Brushes from this amazing program called Clip studio paint, and I gotta say I love the program. Sincerely the best choice I made to leave Photoshop for this.

At last, this is it. the new Me!

Familiar looking isn’t it,baby steps we can say.

I cannot blame the people for calling my new persona a “Glaceon-alike”

I headed to the right direction stepping away from it, but it was hard to let go

new program, new tablet, new me. the later half of 2020 went onto a lot of changes with myself, the chibi small version did not make me happy to make anymore, I was losing the touch and with the few comments I got of looking like a “powerpuff girl look a like” did set me off to do a drastic change I am thankful to do. This new me had some weird phases, don’t we all tho?

where else to brainstorm than back to the traditional old ways. Now, you may see this and ask what was I thinking when making this. the order of when i started and finish goes as: Top right: ok what if it was feral, nah nah scratch. Top left: Can I still make it cute with a round face and features I had from before? ew no! that looks scary Bottom right: lets make it more natural and wow hey! yes yes yes! this looks hundred times better. Bottom left: It is time I go all out and make it humanoid, it was how I found myself enjoying drawing most things but still did some anthropomorphic things. I was just not the best of it.

Back to digital and.... Amazing, I really out did myself this time, lets go for it, lets keep going with this

I even got a cool sword too!

My practice continued from here, the second half was great and fun. New persona got me in a place where I was happy with and through October and December I was having a blast with the more possibilities with it. I went on to practice with even more suggestive things after a life drawing class I took, proportions mattered to me and with this new persona I went out to make more better looking proportions that were attractive and stylish.

This persona was great, and I managed to make so much of it. even Drawing the more suggestive stuff had left me with an answer for this persona. Just make it gender fluid, my selection for this character being male or female made me so tired I did not know why I just made it gender fluid since the beginning. My mood swings for this character, and I can’t resist drawing it either way. Was I finished? of course not, this persona still had some work around to do. The hair became a pain to make to keeping up with  consistently.

2020 ended, with a year of exciting new things coming for this new year. I went through quite a lot in my life and my art career took a shaken with this new digital life style, my persona became the identity I saw myself through, something im happy with drawing to represent Me.

That isn’t to say that I gave up on drawing Me Me.

I drew who I hope to be, and will use this from time to time, nothing fancy but something.

It has been a year already since I began identifying myself with this persona from last year from now. ever since I sketched that doodle in class, it has been a happy trip through memory lane writing it and I am happy how things turned out. 2021 is what I hope to be as good as 2020 was (by that I mean drawing only of course) In 2021 one more change was made that had made me just as happy to continue on with.

I got more hair! as crazy as it is yes. More hair, and a different front style has been to this day what I been using.

I even made a discord emoji for all the warm hugs to have with my fursona!

and my first ever animation I have ever done before!!

I am always experimenting new things, and i’m proud to be an artists to go out there and leave my art out there to be noticed by anyone. The love and appreciation friends and others leave me are the best thing I could ask. I look foward to see what is up ahead, for me, my career, and Noxy.

[searchingforstarss]

you heal me like the light of day

the third fic in my febuwhump/fluff series is here :)) this is written for the fluff prompts sick day + waking up together and the whump prompts graceless + stabbed. 

ps there’s mild injury description in here as well as a super brief mention of violence and shootings in schools. look after yourself x

posted on ao3 here

---

Scaring Morgan half to death really wasn’t part of Peter’s plans when he agreed to go outside and play pet hotel with Gerald after dinner in the dying autumn light.

He was in the middle of getting the alpaca ready for his spa appointment (aka Morgan brandishing a bucket of soapy water) when he lost consciousness.

It’s not like he did it on purpose. It just sort of... happened.

---

There’s a hand pressed across his forehead. It’s nice, cool - cooler than he feels anyway. He leans into it.

There’s a brief moment of confusion in which all of Peter’s thoughts jumble together and when he blinks his eyes open again, he’s not in Gerald’s pen anymore but spread out across the couch in the living room. Morgan’s there still, standing off to the side with strands of hay still stuck to her shoes while Tony is hovering over him closely, concern etched all over his face.

Peter is about to ask him what’s wrong before something is being pushed into his ear and he frowns, trying to squirm away.

Tony rests a hand on Peter’s shoulder, applying just enough pressure to keep him in place. “Just a sec, Pete. Gotta check your temperature.”

Peter scowls weakly. “Not sick.”

“You fainted, bud. I thought Gerald had bitten Morgan’s hand off or something judging by the way she was screaming.”

Guilt washes through Peter as the tinny beep echoes through his ear and Tony pulls the thermometer away. There isn’t much he hates more than scaring Morgan.

Tony glances down at the screen on the thermometer and Peter doesn’t like the brief look of worry that crosses his face as he does. “Not sick,” Peter mutters again petulantly.

“Not sick, huh? The thermometer and I beg to differ. You’re running a pretty impressive fever, just about to hit 101 degrees.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. Reckon this is the flu?” Tony asks, voice still gentle even despite Peter’s clear attempts to push him away. He really doesn’t need hovering over right now. “Have you got a headache? Sore throat? Feeling achy?”

Tony’s taken a seat across from him on the coffee table, reaching out a hand to brush it over Peter’s forehead again, thumb smoothing a few strands of hair away from his eyes. Peter just reaches up to bat it away weakly.

This isn’t the flu, Peter knows it isn’t.

The only part of him that’s aching is his side, just above his hip bone, but in all honesty that’s a secret that Peter was really hoping to keep to himself - for his own good. He's starting to doubt he'll be able to though, judging by the way that Tony’s staring him down and how his brain is starting to feel like it’s melting a little inside his own head.

Peter flounders uncomfortably under Tony’s gaze, suddenly wanting nothing more than to get up off the couch and get out of this situation.

He’s always been hopeless at keeping secrets from Tony. He only didn’t cancel this weekend at the lake house because he knew cancelling would be a sure-fire move to make Tony suspicious. Now, he’s wondering whether that was the right call at all.

“I, uh, you know what? I think you’re right. My head’s really sore, it has been all day actually, and I think that’s… that’s my stomach now, feeling really queasy. The flu really is the worst. I really should be in bed right now, shouldn’t I? Sleep cures all ailments or something like that…” Peter trails off awkwardly. Tony carries on staring. He’s suspicious now, Peter can tell, and he curses himself. He must have taken the flu thing too far. Damn it.

“Peter, if there’s something I don’t know about then I need you to tell me.”

Peter shifts. He fidgets with his fingers, tries to stall having to open his mouth and say anything else. His eyes dart over to Morgan, who’s now made herself comfortable on the armchair in the corner, distracted by a couple of animal figurines now, completely oblivious that her older brother is about to get himself in a lot of trouble.

Tony takes a gentle hold of his chin and tilts it back towards him so he’s got no choice but to look the man in the eyes. Peter exhales slowly. His side really does hurt and he wonders whether he tore a few of his (very shoddily done) stitches when he collapsed. He really doesn’t remember it throbbing this much before then.

“Peter,” Tony says again, and Peter pulls his chin away from Tony’s grip so he can avert his eyes down to his lap.

“Iwasstabbedafewdaysago” Peter blurts, and Tony’s eyes narrow infinitesimally as if this wasn’t what he was expecting at all.

“I don’t know if I quite got that, you wanna try slowing it down this time?” he says carefully, very clearly daring Peter to repeat what he’s pretty sure he heard.

Peter swallows. He dares. “I was stabbed. A few days ago. I took care of it, I promise, but it’s not, um, not really healing?” Peter says, voice rising at the end like he’s questioning.

“You were stabbed,” Tony repeats slowly, and Peter nods. “Okay. Wanna tell me how?”

Tony’s still staying fairly calm and measured. Peter isn’t sure where the angry reaction that he’d been expecting is.

“It was, um, look, it’s not that I wasn’t listening to you, but there were these guys and I overheard these things and I couldn’t just not-”

“You were out as Spider-Man?” Tony’s voice is lower now, just a touch more dangerous and Peter thinks ah, here’s the anger.

See, this is the issue. He’s kinda, sorta, definitely not meant to be out at Spider-Man at the moment.

He and Tony made an agreement a few weeks ago. After Europe and the whole Beck fiasco happened, Tony thought that Peter could really use the time out. Something about how being away from the Spider-Man suit would help him become clearer in his own head and himself again. The idea was mostly born out of the worry and panic that had resided inside Tony since the second he found out Peter was in trouble halfway across the damn world and he couldn’t do anything but sit back uselessly while Rhodey and Happy went to his aid. Tony doesn't like being useless, and he definitely doesn't like seeing Peter hurt.

Peter hadn’t thought it was too bad of an idea at first. He did really need the break at the time, but it was foolish to hope it would last. He wasn’t going to just sit back while everything was happening, not while there were men with weapons, not while they were threatening-

“Peter,” Tony snaps, waving a hand in front of his face. “Are you listening to me? I asked you a question. Were you out as Spider-Man?”

Peter rolls his eyes, against all his best instincts. He feels like shit, he’s being interrogated and all he wants is the waves of red hot pain to leave him alone. “I… ugh, yes, okay? I was. When the hell else am I going to be stabbed?”

Tony raises his eyebrows at Peter’s tone but doesn’t do anything to reprimand it. “This is New York City we’re talking about. I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt but apparently, that was absolutely the wrong thing to do.”

Silence.

“See? I told you anyway. Not sick,” Peter mutters suddenly after a moment, and Tony makes a slightly choked sound of outrage.

“Not sick? Peter Parker, in what world can you not see that maybe hiding a stab wound is worse than just being sick?”

Peter just shrugs. He could really use a nap right about now. This conversation is officially right down the very bottom of the list of things he wants to be doing right now.

“Let’s see it then.”

Peter pulls back slightly. “What?”

“Where you were stabbed. I need to see it.”

“It’s taken care of. You don’t need to-”

“If you’ve got a fever, I have a feeling it might not be nearly as well taken care of as you think,” Tony says sternly and Peter realises that he’s backed into a corner. There’s no way he’s leaving the room, or even getting up off the couch, without letting Tony examine him.

“But, Morgan…”

Peter hopes she hasn’t been listening in too closely, but for better or for worse, she’s fairly desensitised to hearing about Peter’s escapades by now. That doesn’t mean he wants her to see the consequences of them though.

Tony glances over his shoulder as if he’s just remembered that his daughter is in the room. “Hey, baby? You wanna go find Mom for a second?”

Morgan looks up from the animal figurine clutched now in her fist - a zebra - and shakes her head. “Petey’s hurt. Wanna stay with you.”

So she has been listening.

“I’ve got a really important job for you that you could do for me and Peter, though. Reckon you could tell Mommy we might need her down here with the special spider first-aid kid?”

Morgan jumps up and dashes from the room just as Peter protests, “I don’t need the first-aid-”

“Kid,” Tony warns and Peter shuts up. “Right, show me what we’re working with.”

Peter grimaces, but reluctantly tugs up the hem of his jumper to reveal the white bandage he’d adhered slightly wonkily over his wound. Pus and blood leak from the edges, but Tony barely even flinches until he reaches forward to slowly pull the bandage away, revealing the swollen, angry-looking skin underneath. There are red streaks that travel from the wound, further up Peter’s side.

“I - okay, Jesus, fuck,” Tony breathes out, jerking his eyes away from the injury.

Peter just looks down at it with an almost morbid fascination. He’d figured that his healing was working a bit slower than usual and that was why he was feeling run-down, but he didn’t think it was this bad.

“That’s infected, Peter,” Tony says shortly.

“I thought it would heal.”

“Yeah? Well, it isn’t and you know what sepsis is. I know you do. That can kill you. Is that what you want?” Tony presses, leaning in a bit closer to Peter but he pulls away from the man.

Peter freezes. “N-No, it’s not, I - I didn’t mean for this to happen. I just had to-”

“You didn’t have to do anything. What you were meant to do was remember that we had an agreement - which is clearly defunct now - about you and Spider-Man. So why are you sitting on my couch with a stab wound in your side?”

“It’s not what you think, Tony, I-”

“I think it’s exactly what I think. I know you, Peter, you have a hero complex the size of Manhattan but you need to learn that you don’t have to be the one throwing yourself down on the wire every damn time. You and I both agreed that you were going to have this break because you were worn down. You needed it.”

Peter’s too tired to even try and explain anything to Tony anymore. He knows nothing will get through, and he feels sick to his stomach but he’s not sure whether that’s from the weight of Tony’s disappointment or the infection.

“Did I really need a break? Or did you just need a break from having to worry about me?” Peter dares to ask. His voice is quiet with the knowledge that he's stepping into territory that he's not even sure he wants to be in.

Tony’s head shoots up and an odd mix of hurt and indignation twists on his face. He considers his words.

“I’m not doing this with you, not while you’re hurt. I’m going to call Bruce. I’ll get Pepper to come and look at that for you.”

As Tony gets up off the coffee table and turns to leave the room, his shoulders are pulled up in a tight, defensive posture. Peter almost wants to ask him to come back. He doesn't. Pride lodges itself in his throat instead and stops him from calling out.

He slumps and presses himself further into the couch. Slightly deliriously, he thinks that if it wasn’t for Gerald and his damn spa evening then maybe he wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.

  Pepper’s in front of him a few minutes later. She takes one look at his wound before declaring that there’s no way she’s going to deal with it on the couch because "blood truly is a pain to get out of these cushions.” 

They end up in the spare bathroom downstairs, Peter perched precariously on the edge of the bathtub. His head is still spinning a little and he keeps a tight grip on the sides to try and stop himself from slipping backwards.

“Let’s have another look,” Pepper murmurs, and she helps Peter lift his jumper off over his head, wincing in sympathy as his face screws up in pain at the movement.

“Tony said you tried to take care of this yourself?” she asks once she’s fully removed the bandaging, "you stitched it up at home?" Peter gives a feeble nod in response.

“Okay. Clearly, your body didn’t love that, but your healing has definitely been trying a little bit. It’s healed enough that we won’t need to re-stitch this up once I’m done. We have one positive,” Pepper tells him, clearly trying to keep her voice light.

Peter tries for a laugh, but it comes out stunted and forced.

He sits as still as he possibly can, teeth digging into his bottom lip as Pepper cleans the wound with warm water, using some mild soap to wash away all of the gunk and fluid clogging it before she examines it closer.

Pepper focuses on the task at hand, but every so often Peter catches her looking up at him slightly questioningly as if she’s trying to figure something out.

“What?”

Pepper looks up again in surprise.

“Sorry,” Peter mutters, already regretting his abrasive tone. “I just - I, you keep looking at me funny.”

Pepper considers for a second.

“Sorry, no, I just wonder - why don’t you get May to do this? With her job and all. You don’t need to do everything by yourself, Peter, not all time…” Pepper says, trailing off at the end with worry that she’s overstepped but Peter just shakes his head to tell her it’s okay. He doesn’t mind. It’s only Pepper. He trusts her.

“I - I can’t.” He pauses. He fidgets with his fingers then stops because he knows he’s meant to be trying to stay as still as possible. “It's just, um, I don’t want her to worry, or have to see things like this when it’s me, y’know. Not after my uncle.”

“That makes sense,” Pepper says softly. There's a sort of underlying understanding clear in her voice and it fills a need for validation inside of Peter, that he’s doing the right thing by trying to look after himself, that he didn't know he had.

The bathroom falls into silence after that, and Pepper pulls what Peter thinks must be an antiseptic cream out of the first-aid kid, because when she applies it, as gentle as she is, it stings. Peter can’t stop the groan of pain through his gritted teeth.

  A few minutes later there’s a thumping on the stairs above them, just as Pepper sits back. “There, we’re all done. We just have to leave it a couple of minutes to air dry and then we can bandage it back up again but I’ll use gauze this time. It’ll breathe easier.”

“Thank you, Pep,” Peter sighs, more frustrated with himself than anything but she just shakes her head.

“It’s nothing. We can’t be perfect all the time.”

Peter scoffs humorlessly. He’s perfect approximately none of the time.

The thumping sound stops and now there’s footsteps running down the hallway. Pepper gives him a small smile. “Looks like we’re just in time as well.”

“Peter! Daddy says it’s time for bed so I wanna say goodnight,” Morgan exclaims, bursting into the room just at the same time as Tony, a few paces behind her, lets out a slightly suffering sigh.

“You need to slow down on the stairs, Morgan. Mom and I keep telling you. You'll fall down them one day.”

Morgan doesn’t even turn around to grace him with a response, all her attention focused on Peter. “I’ll do the stairs super slowly once I’ve given Peter all his goodnight kisses!”

She wastes no time in reaching up on her tiptoes to capture Peter’s face between both her much smaller hands and press six kisses all over his forehead, nose, cheek and jaw.

“Six magic kisses to make it all better! Six is my lucky number,” she explains, before adding, “because I’m six years old now,” in the same proud way she’s been doing since her birthday a few weeks ago. As if Peter could ever forget. He spent the day letting himself be showered in confetti and his face assaulted with face-paint by the gaggle of Morgan’s tiny friends that were running around the garden, cake induced sugar-rush in full swing.

“I feel so much better,” Peter says, mustering up as much energy as he can to sound enthusiastic. It’s worth it for the beaming grin that Morgan gives him.

“Love you, Petey.”

“Love you too, bug,” Peter murmurs into her hair. It’s a little damp and it smells of her strawberry shampoo.

Tony’s standing in the doorway watching the scene with an unreadable expression on his face. He won’t look Peter in the eyes. “You feeling any better?” he asks plainly as Morgan pulls away and reaches up to give Pepper her goodnight kiss as well.

Peter’s not sure. He still feels kind of dizzy and a little bit out of it, but the antiseptic cream has soothed some of the hot pain that had been radiating from his side so he guesses that’s a good thing. In the end, he just raises his shoulders a little in a shrug.

Tony nods in response to this and opens his mouth as if he wants to say something else before Morgan is springing out of Pepper’s arms and back over to Tony, latching her hand inside his.

He closes his mouth again, words left unsaid.

They leave the room and the bathroom sinks back into a silence that’s more uncomfortable this time, as if Pepper doesn’t know quite what to say to make up for Tony’s clear cool demeanour.

“Why don’t you head upstairs and get into bed, honey? I’ll bring you up a glass of water and some fever reducers soon.”

---

Peter’s still awake half an hour later, staring at the ceiling, when there’s a knock on his door.

“Yeah, Pepper, I’m awake,” he calls out. He could really use those fever reducers right about now because his body can’t seem to make up its damn mind. He keeps throwing his blankets off when he gets too hot and then having to endure the searing pain when he gets too cold a few minutes later and he has to lean down to pick them up off the floor.

The door cracks open.

“Not Pepper,” a voice says. Peter looks up and - oh, okay, it’s Tony. He steps in the door. “She did ask me to bring you these though.” He raises the glass of water he has in one hand and an assortment of colourful pills in the other up slightly. “I’ve got fever-reducers and some of your pain killers. I spoke to Bruce before and he recommended these. He’s sending up a course of antibiotics to start you on tomorrow as well.”

Peter nods slightly listlessly against his pillow, trying to process the information through his fever-addled brain.

“Okay. Thanks,” Peter says eventually. He’s not sure what else to say. Is he meant to apologize? He doesn’t think he wants to. He’s not in the wrong, he had to do something.

“No problem.”

Tony sets down the glass of water on the nightstand, and Peter reaches out to grab it, downing a few gulps and swallowing the pills that Tony had set down next to it at the same time.

“You need anything else?” Tony asks.

Peter shakes his head. “No, I’m good, thank you.”

“Have a good sleep then,” Tony says, turning to leave the room. The unsteady waves of anxiety that have been sitting at the pit of his stomach suddenly rear up as he sees Tony’s hand hovering over the door handle.

“W-Wait, no, Tony?” Tony glances back and he meets Peter’s eyes properly for the first time. “Are you, um, are you mad at me?”

Peter hates the way his voice sounds small, childish, unsure.

Tony's silent for a few moments. 

“I don’t know, Peter. I don’t think mad is quite the right word. But we had an agreement, an agreement that was solely to keep you safe." Tony sighs. "It would make me feel a lot better to know I could trust you to stick to your word."

Only ten minutes ago, Peter had been dramatically musing what could possibly be more painful than the throbbing in his side. He knows now. Tony’s words. Tony’s words are more painful.

Peter doesn’t respond. He doesn’t know how.

Tony leaves the room.

---

“I’m just about to crawl into bed, you need anything?”

Peter turns his head against his pillow to see Pepper at his door about an hour later. He shakes his head, but she crosses the room anyway and lays a hand on his shoulder.

Peter sort of feels like he shouldn’t, that he doesn’t deserve it, but he can’t help leaning into the way her palm cups his forehead gently before she leans down to press her lips to the same spot.

He looks up at her, and he knows defeat is probably shining in his eyes.

“S’Tony really mad at me?” he asks quietly.

Pepper gives him a sympathetic smile. “You know how he is,” she murmurs, “he can’t do the whole superhero thing himself now, so watching you out there getting hurt when he can’t protect you is hard. He wants to keep you safe. That’s all it is.”

Peter finds this kind of hard to believe but he doesn’t ask any more questions. Pepper squeezes his shoulder and wishes him a good sleep before ducking out of the room, leaving him alone once again.

---

Peter’s freezing, icy water surrounding him.

It’s filling his throat.

He doesn’t know where he is, the stormy waters that surge around him have long since risen up over the tops of buildings, only the roofs visible. 

He kicks out desperately to try and reach one of them for a moment of respite but just keeping his head above the water drains all the energy from him. He has to find a vantage point, he has to find Tony, find May. They were just here, they all were. Pepper, Morgan, Happy, Tony, May. They were just here. Where are they?

A shape forms in front of his eyes, flailing arms, a body and a head appearing out of the water.

Its arm reaches down for him and Peter turns, wants to run, willing his weak and shivering legs to carry him but he’s still surrounded by water, still drowning, and he can’t push hard enough-

He’s knocked down.

His head is submerged, water rushing over the top of his head, filling his nose. He tries to push to the surface, to gasp, but water just rushes down his throat.

“Peter!”

Peter hears the scream before the elemental, the Hydro-Man, knocks him back down and the screams become garbled background noise to the water gushing past his ears.

He kicks to the surface again and swallows down a huge lungful of oxygen.

“-eter! Over here!”

Peter turns his head frantically, battling the waves to try and search all around him. Where are they? They have to be-

There!

Happy, May and Pepper are huddled on a rooftop not far away. The water’s rising up towards them quickly. The Hydro-Man turns as he hears them yell and he’s heading towards them. Peter barely has time to yell out before the creature is bringing its force down onto the roof.

The roof crumbles into the stormy waters. Pepper, May and Happy disappear with it.

“May!” Peter hears himself scream. “Pe-” he coughs violently, water clogging his airways, “P’pper! Happy!”

They’re gone though. Swallowed up by the water.

“Kid!

That’s Tony’s voice. Peter has to get to him. He can’t lose everyone he loves. He won’t survive it.

Tony’s on another rooftop, feet slipping over the shingled roof. One hand is clinging to what looks like a piece of wrought iron fence while Morgan is wrapped in his other.

Peter swims and swims and swims, never daring to take his eyes off them even as the water stings his eyes, splashing up into them as he tries to keep them open.

He grasps onto what he thinks might be a bit of the roofs guttering, only feet away from Tony and Morgan now. He pants, chest burning-

The water is rising up around them, trying to drag Peter away. He clings on tighter.

“Tony, T-Tony, I don’t know what to do,” Peter wheezes.

The water level reaches the roof, the singles disappearing underneath a dangerous sea of blue.

Tony slips a little. A scream catches in Peter’s throat and he shoots out a hand to try to grab him.

“Take Morgan,” Tony’s saying desperately, pulling his own hand away from Peter’s and motioning hurriedly for him to take Morgan’s.

“Ton-” Peter starts, Morgan’s wrist wrapped in his precariously slippery grip.

The Hydro-Man raises his aquatic fist again. He brings it down, and the force from it knocks Morgan’s hand from Peter’s own. He fumbles, opens his mouth to yell her name-

When the water calms again, she’s nowhere to be seen.

Instead, Beck’s there. On the rooftop in front of him, having absolutely no trouble whatsoever weathering the stormy waters around him. There’s a sick smirk on his face.

He flickers for a split second, and a cluster of drones appear in his place before he’s back, reaching, always reaching, leering as he does, arm closing around Peter’s throat and-

Peter lurches awake, pathetic whimper choked in the back of his throat.

Beck’s here. Tony and Morgan, Pepper and May and Happy. Everyone is gone. He’s on dry land again. The water has retreated and they’re still gone, washed out far away. Nowhere to be seen. Nowhere to be found.

Dry land. He’s not drowning. His feet are brushing against something solid. He chokes down a gasp and his hands shoot out to find the crumpled cotton of his bedsheets swimming around him. He grasps at them with shaking hands. They’re dry, mostly save for the clammy feeling of his own sweat that he can feel seeping into them. He’s not underwater.

He’s… he’s in bed?

He lets himself take in his surroundings properly this time. He dares to open his eyes for longer than a few seconds now that he’s sure he’s not going to be snatched away by the tide, even though he’s still shivering, can still feel the icy water lapping at his skin.

He counts five things he can see, a technique Tony has always encouraged him to do to ground himself after nightmares throw him back to a hellscape of places and memories he would rather never experience again.

The curtains.

His backpack shoved into the corner of the room.

The empty glass of water on the nightstand.

The Lego set sitting on his desk that he and Morgan were planning on building this weekend.

The bedside light. It casts a soft glow around him. It’s warm, so far away from the cold blue he’s been submerged in that Peter closes his eyes for a second again, lets the golden light wash behind his eyelids so that’s all he can see.

His head is still muddling all his thoughts into a panicked mess. All he can hear is the echoes of terrified screams in his ears. The screams of the people he loves that he couldn’t save, that he let fall to their death in the arms of the elementals, of the Hydro-Man, of Quentin Beck.

So much for grounding. He can’t breathe again.

It’s not real. They’re safe. It’s not real.

The elementals are illusions. The elementals aren’t real.

It was just a dream. The dream wasn’t real.

Beck is dead. Everyone you love is okay.

It’s not real.

Peter sucks in a few deep steadying breaths to appease his quivering lungs and burrows back under his comforter to try and find some source of comfort.

Then he sees it out of the corner of his eye.

At first, it’s just the flickering of a grey storm circling in the corner of his room underneath the window. Lightning flashes from within it and Peter swears when it does, he can see a face within the darkened swirling clouds. It reaches for him, and god, it has arms now as well, just like Peter’s dream, just like the elemental in London had. Peter flinches back and-

It disappears.

It’s like it was never there in the first place. Peter dares to blink a few times and drones take its place, hovering menacingly.

Someone has to be controlling them. Peter’s eyes dart around, searching and searching, not sure exactly what he’s looking for but then finding it anyway when he lands on Beck standing at the foot of his bed, only a few feet away.

Fear freezes like ice in his chest.

They’re here. In his room. The drones, the elementals, Beck. He could get to Morgan, and Pepper and Tony. He could hurt them.

Peter shudders. It can’t be real. It can’t be. Beck is dead.

But he’s here. In Peter’s room.

Peter forces himself to close his eyes. He can feel his entire body trembling with tightly-wound shivers. He’s not sure whether it’s from the cold or the fear anymore. He closes his eyes for a long moment and when he re-opens them, Beck isn’t there. The room is empty.

But there’s a flash to his right and he jerks his head around just in time to see fiery orange molten lava creeping through the cracks in the floorboards. It rises and rises, slowly forming into a threateningly recognisable figure as Peter’s rapidly beating heart crawls further up his throat.

Peter was stupid to think he could ever be rid of Beck. He’s still here, he’s still controlling everything and Peter doesn’t want to be a pawn in one of his games anymore.

He wants what he couldn’t have the first time.

He wants Tony.

Peter tries to swing his legs over the edge of the bed but he can’t quite get them to cooperate. He’s tangled in the mess of his sheets, and he kicks out against them, panic still coursing through his veins. No, no, no. Get me out of here. I can’t do this. Not again. Tony. Tony.

He opens his mouth but no sound comes out. He wants to call for Tony. He needs help, but he’s too choked with terror.

Tony.

Need to get to Tony.

With one last fumbled kick of his leg, Peter throws himself from the bed, almost managing to catch himself but his limbs collapse beneath him, knees hitting the ground with a lump. Lava is still rising from the floor, and it towers over Peter now when he’s this low, taking on a burning figure of destruction.

Peter manages to make it to his feet, wrapping his hands around his nightstand to pull himself up. His legs feel weak beneath him, barely holding his weight. He knows he can’t afford to fall, not again, not when he has to get out of here, has to find Tony.

He fumbles a hand out until he finds the wall to his right, and he uses it to keep himself upright.

The hallway is darker than his bedroom once he throws the door open, but he lurches out and pulls the door hurriedly closed again behind him as if that will keep the monsters contained. As if a closed-door has ever stopped Beck.

He can’t see where he’s going. Everything is blurry. He wants Tony. Tony’s room is at the end of the hall, next to the landing at the top of the stairs. He knows this.

He just needs to get there.

Peter can’t remember the hallway being this long. Has it always been this long? His legs shudder and nearly give way as he nears the stairs, but he just shoots out to grab at the wall to steady himself again.

He’s so close.

He makes the last few steps and closes his hand around the door handle. Usually, if he was in a sane state of mind, not riddled with a high-grade fever and the claws of his trauma that have latched on and refused to let him go, he would be far more apprehensive about entering Tony and Pepper’s bedroom in the middle of the night for comfort. He’s basically an adult. He shouldn’t need it.

But right now he does. He needs Tony more than anything.

But when he yanks the door open and stands in the doorway, Tony isn’t there. His side of the bed is completely empty, still made up.

Pepper’s there though, and she stirs at the intrusion. She sits up and looks blearily towards the door. “Peter? S’that you?”

“T-T’ny? I need, I, um, I just - Tony,” Peter stutters out, eyes wide and pleading.

“Honey, take a breath. Is everything okay?”

“Tony,” Peter repeats again. It’s clearer this time, his desperation ringing clear.

“He’s downstairs,” she tells him, voice worn with sleep. “I can help you down there if you want?”

Peter shakes his head in the darkness. He doesn't want to be a bother. He’s already been a bother. He’s woken Pepper up. He didn’t mean to. He just needs Tony.

“No, it’s o-okay. Thank you,” Peter whispers.

Peter’s bedroom door is still closed at the end of the hallway when he retreats from Pepper’s room, but he still doesn’t feel safe.

Beck and his monsters could be lurking anywhere.

 The stairs are his next big challenge, and logically Peter should probably be more worried about the challenge of navigating them when his entire body feels like it’s barely functioning and he’s in danger of collapsing at any second. He’s just focused on getting to the bottom of them though and he grips the railing for dear life as he makes his way down, barely registering the wood splintering a little beneath his grip.

He stumbles down the last few, clumsy footsteps thudding against the rug at the bottom of the landing.

He’s downstairs.

Tony. Where’s Tony?

“Peter?”

That’s his voice. Peter tries to follow it, unfocused eyes searching until he lands on the dim light of the TV. Tony’s sitting in front of it on the couch and Peter’s lungs feel like they almost collapse under the weight of his own sigh of relief.

“Hey, Peter. Kid? What’s going on?”

Peter realises he’s just standing there, swaying and staring like an idiot. He takes a few tentative steps forward, and then he’s moving and he can’t stop himself.

He’s only a few steps away from Tony when he all but collapses, the tension in his legs from the fear and trembling finally flooding out and it’s like his strings have been cut.

“Whoa, whoa, steady on there, Bambi,” Tony rushes out, both arms wrapped around Peter to stop him from falling. He pulls him closer to him to steady him and gets him settled in the spot next to him on the couch. This is nice. Tony feels strong and steady when Peter is sure that he’s neither of those things right now.

“We’re not exactly feeling very graceful tonight, are we?” Peter hears Tony muse. He’s only half paying attention, eyes locked on the singular one of Beck’s drones he can see suspended in the corner of the room.

He was right. Of course a closed bedroom door was never going to hold back Beck and his horrors.

He shoves himself closer to Tony’s side, a whine escaping from the back of his throat before he can help it.

“Hey, no, that’s okay,” Tony placates, “that’s what I’m here for.”

Peter shakes his head. No, no. That’s not what he’s worried about. Beck followed him, he followed him downstairs and Peter led him straight to Tony.

Peter flinches as more drones appear overhead. Beck must be controlling them, making them disappear and appear at will to mess with him. They circle above him and Tony, green lights glowing eerily.

“No, no, no,” Peter mumbles, eyes fixated on the drones above them. He can feel himself shaking again.

Tony’s eyes follow his up towards the ceiling.

“Peter?”

“Make it stop, p-please. Make them go away.”

“Make what stop? I can’t help unless you talk to me,” Tony says gently. He draws his eyes back down to focus on Peter’s face, the way his eyes are darting around in an almost crazy fashion.

“I keep seeing things. I-I don’t know if they’re real. Beck’s here, he’s everywhere. He’s gonna hurt you, he’s gonna hurt e-everyone, I-”

Tony’s face softens in a sort of understanding, and Peter doesn’t get it. How is he not scared right now? Can he not see what’s going on right in front of him?

“Pete. There’s nothing there, I promise.” Oh. “It’s just your fever messing with you, buddy, you're hallucinating. You’re safe - nothing’s gonna get you here.”

It’s not real? Peter tries to remember the mantra he’d been repeating to himself earlier in his bedroom.

It’s not real. It’s not real.

Beck is dead. Everyone you love is okay.

It’s not real.

“How do we know?” Peter asks, voice small. “He’s clever, he could hide them, he could hide them from you if he wanted, how do we-”

A sudden thought catches Peter off-guard and he drops off mid-sentence. Tony’s voice doesn’t sound angry anymore. He was so angry with Peter before, disappointment dripping from every word he spoke.

He doesn’t sound like that anymore.

Peter hasn’t done anything to redeem himself, anything to make Tony forgive him.

What if this isn’t his Tony?

His breathing catches and he stares up at Tony - illusion Tony? - with wide eyes.

“You’re not real,” he murmurs. He shakes himself a little and it makes him dizzy again. He can’t believe he fell for it. “You’re not real. The real Tony is angry with me. This isn’t… you’re not - not him. You can’t fool me, Beck.”

Peter only has a short second to see the way Tony’s face falls with anguish before he’s being tugged towards whichever Tony is sitting in front of him.

Real or not, he feels real enough as he threads a hand through Peter's hair. Peter should pull away, shouldn’t let himself fall for this so badly, but he can’t help it. It even smells like Tony, like home, and he buries his face into the gap between his shoulder and neck, lets himself hide there.

Darkness envelopes him, and even though it’s not real, he feels safer, Tony’s arm curled protectively around him.

Then Tony starts speaking.

“God, kid.” His voice sounds so distraught. “I’m right here. I’m real. There’s no room on the planet for more than one Tony Stark, you know that. You got the real deal right here.” He pauses. His fingers carry on running through Peter’s hair. It feels so familiar. “I wasn’t angry with you, you know. I don’t know what it was. I was scared, probably. But it doesn’t matter how I was feeling, it never does and it never will when it comes to you. If you need me, that’s more important than anything.”

Peter tries to pull away, to look up at Tony, to meet his eyes. He wants to see if he can let himself believe that this is real but Beck still lurks in the corner of his mind. Tony must see the fear still lingering on his face because he tucks him back closer to him.

“Keep your eyes closed, okay? We’re just gonna relax for a bit, give your fever a chance to stop kicking everything into overdrive. You’ll feel better in a minute,” Tony promises, and Peter so badly wants to believe him, wants to believe that it is him.

The room is quiet for a few minutes. The television is still murmuring in the background. Anxiety thrums steadily through him until Tony opens his mouth to start speaking. 

“Remember when we did the road trip to Massachusetts to pick up my stuff from that MIT alumni exhibition? I could have had it delivered, you kept telling me that, but I kinda wanted to show the campus off to you, see what you thought. I mean, after everything, you staying closer to home doesn't sound half as bad as I thought it would, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Tony chuckles. It reverberates in his chest and Peter feels it against his ear. He knows what Tony's doing. He's reminding him who they are.

Peter and Tony.

Not illusions. Both real, both alive. Warmth blossoms in his chest and banishes some of his nerves.

He continues. “And then the car broke down on the side of I-84 on the way back? The tow truck took hours and you told me it was too dramatic to ask Bruce to come down with a quinjet so you dragged me down to that McDonald’s because you wanted me to try that god-awful thing you do where you dip your fries in your milkshake. I still don’t understand how you like that.”

Peter makes a slightly indignant noise.

He’s breathing easier now, the illusions, his hallucinations - whatever they were - slowly loosening their hold on him. Peter focuses in on Tony’s heartbeat. It sounds like the one he knows so well.

“Y’know, I still think about the first convention Bruce and I took you too, as well. We worked on that biomechanics paper and I thought you were gonna vomit on my shoes before we went out to present it but turns out Bruce was the front contender for that one right before we got on stage. He made it to the trash can. Thank god for that, those shoes cost-”

“I don’t wanna know how much the shoes were, Tony,” Peter mumbles in protest. Everything Tony wears - or, maybe, used to wear - probably cost more than months rent for his and May’s old apartment.

“Okay, yeah, sure, we can do that. I just need you to know that they did not deserve to be vomited on.”

Peter chances taking a glance out of one eye. The drone has disappeared from the corner, and a little bit of the last tension he’s been holding onto dissipates. Tony carries on anyway, voice calm and soothing.

“What about the first time you and Morgan did me that joint Fathers Day present? I dunno if I ever told you how much I love that. I still have it hanging on the wall in my office. It really should be out here in the living room somewhere, pride and joy and all that, but Pep reckoned the colours would clash with her cushions. We’ll blame Morgan for that though, between us, we all know she can get a little bit over-enthusiastic with the paints.”

“You kept that?”

“Course I did. One of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten.”

“But it’s awful.”

Peter feels Tony shrug, his head shifting a little where it’s resting with the movement of his shoulder.

“Doesn’t matter," he says, laughter in his voice. He doesn't bother denying Peter's statement because it really is true. It is awful, splotches of paint in mismatched colours, something that's maybe meant to be a stick-figure family in the foreground. It's chaotic. That doesn't mean Tony doesn't absolutely love it.

"It's still the best,” he says, not a shred of doubt in his voice as he sits up slightly. Peter frowns at the movement but lets Tony maneuver him a little so he’s resting against Tony’s side rather than hidden in his neck. “I want you to open your eyes properly for a minute now, bud. Anything there?”

Peter does. He tentatively casts his eyes around the room, but there’s no one there apart from him and Tony.

“No. No, it’s just us,” Peter says, tone awash with relief and tiredness.

Beck isn’t here. This is all real. Tony’s here. Tony’s real.

He lets himself go lax. “Thank you, Tony.”

Tony just waves off his thanks with a lazy hand movement. The man kicks his legs up onto the coffee table and lets his head fall to the side, cheek resting against Peter’s curls.

It’s nice, Peter thinks. The feeling of Tony curling around him, protecting him from the demons that he knows are just in his head now, but are still his demons nonetheless.

  “Any idea why Europe’s in your head again all of a sudden, buddy?” Tony asks breaking their quiet after a while. “It hasn’t been this bad in a few weeks.”

Peter considers whether he really wants to divulge and bother getting into it. He doesn’t want to bother Tony with everything, but maybe he owes it to him to let him know what’s going on after he’s just spent fifteen minutes talking him down from whatever the hell his fever was putting into his mind. The rational part of his brain tells him he doesn’t owe Tony anything. Tony would hate to know that Peter ever thought like that, even for a second.

He wants to tell Tony though.

Now that Beck and the drones and everything has vanished from where they were lingering in the corners of the house, taunting him, this feels like their familiar brand of normal.

He’s pressed to Tony’s side on the couch, there’s shitty late-night TV playing in the background and one of them is tangled up in their trauma. That’s Peter, tonight. He should let Tony play his part, help him sort through the mess and untangle whatever’s in his head. Peter would want Tony to let him do the same.

“I had a nightmare,” Peter admits, finally.

“You wanna tell me what it was about?”

“Yeah.” Peter stays silent for a few moments and Tony lets him. He doesn't push, just wraps his arm more securely around Peter and rubs a thumb over his shoulder absent-mindedly. He’s still way too hot even through the fabric of his pyjama shirt.

“I, uh, I couldn’t save you guys,” Peter offers up eventually. “You, n’ Morgan and May and everyone. There was all the water, like in Venice and you all needed me and I couldn’t help any of you. I… Morgan was the last to go. I tried to save, um, get to you but you told me to help Morgan instead and then you were gone and I tried, I did, I p-promise but there was too much water and she fell and I couldn’t… she didn’t… she was just gone. Everyone was gone.”

Tony sucks in a quiet breath. Peter watches him carefully. He doesn’t want him to be disappointed. It was just a dream but he didn’t mean to not save Morgan. He’s always trying to look out for Morgan - even when it results in a stab wound in his side.

“M’sorry, I tried. I just, I thought I did a good job the other day, with the guys n’ the bombs, but… but I couldn’t save her now and I think I’m still just so worried about that, that I’m-”

Tony holds up one hand to halt him and Peter bites down on his bottom lip nervously. He knows he's let his fever-addled mind and desperate need for Tony to not be disappointed with him get away from him. He wonders whether he’s disclosed too much.

“Peter,” Tony says carefully, “we’re being honest with each other right now, right?”

“Uh, yeah?” Peter says, but that sounds a bit too unsure so he tries again. “Yeah, yes, definitely.”

“Then I need you to tell me this, what are you talking about? Guys with bombs?”

Peter swallows.

“I promise I didn’t mean to go out as Spider-Man, I really didn't, but I just overheard this conversation the other night and these guys sounded kinda sketchy so I put one of those trackers you gave me on one of their cars without them noticing and I went out there later that night.”

“Okay…” Tony says. He sounds unsure as to where this is going but he nods as a signal for Peter to keep going anyway.

“They were, uh… they had this warehouse, super typical I know, nothing we haven’t seen before. But there were guns n' bombs, all that sorta stuff, loads of it. I was going to leave, I swear, I was just gonna call the police but then I heard them talking. They were going to - they were, um, gonna use them to target schools so I had to do something. I couldn't... couldn't not."

“They were going to use them in schools? To try and take out school kids?” Tony asks slowly. Peter looks up at him and he considers the words for a second before he nods his head.

“Elementary schools.”

“Pardon?”

“Elementary schools,” Peter repeats. “That’s what they were saying. And I couldn’t, I couldn’t just not do anything because I was there, and what if they got away and if anything ever happened, to anyone, to Morgan… I would never forgive myself, Tony. Never.”

This seems to shock Tony into complete and utter silence. His jaw goes slightly slack and if this was any other night, any other scenario, Peter might be pleased with himself for being able to invoke this sort of reaction out of Tony.

“You got the guys?” he asks eventually.

“Yeah. Webbed ‘em up - that's when one of the guys got me with a knife. The police swept the place out, got all the weapons.”

“Good. Good.”

“I really was going to try and stick to this whole no Spider-Man thing, I promise, it’s just-”

Tony holds up a hand. 

"No. No," he says, taking a steadying breath. "I want you to be able to admit when you're wrong and that means I have to set a good example, right? I was probably too rash. I should have heard you out. It sounds like you did good, kid.”

“So we’re okay?” Peter asks tentatively.

“Of course we’re okay, bud. We’re always okay, even when I throw a bit of a strop. If you ever need anything, I don’t want you to ever not come to me about it. I just, seeing you hurt is a little harder now that I'm like this," he says, raising his prosthetic arm. "And now that we're all, uh, everything is like this..." he finishes, gesturing around the cabin, Peter’s shoes and textbooks strewn around, Morgan’s toys covering the rug. Now that we're a family, is what Peter thinks he's trying to say. 

“It’s okay,” Peter says. He knows what Tony is trying to say. He remembers Pepper’s words earlier. He kind of gets it, in a weird way. He always used to hate when Tony used to jet off on missions he was barred from due to inexperience. “I know you worry.”

“Who told you that?” Tony says with a gentle scoff.

“Pepper.”

“Of course she did. That woman knows too much.” There’s a mock scowl on his face and Peter is relieved to have some sort of lightness injected back into the conversation.

They can talk everything out once they’ve both gotten some sleep. Peter knows Tony. He knows that he’ll probably spend hours on the phone to the NYPD tomorrow to make sure that they got every single explosive and firearm out of that warehouse.

He’ll then probably spend multiple more hours on the phone to Morgan’s elementary school trying to convince them to up their security or at least let him donate the equipment.

That sounds like exhausting work for a worried father. They both need rest.

“You making yourself comfy here then?” Tony asks as Peter buries himself further into the couch cushions, head still resting on Tony’s shoulder, the spot he fully intends to keep it in.

“Kinda planning on it. S’that okay?”

“Course. Mind if I join you?’

He couldn’t leave even if he wanted to. Peter’s trapped Tony’s arm between him and the couch, and he hopes he doesn’t try to tug it away. He likes the little bit of extra comfort.

“You were here first.”

“Touché.”

Tony turns the television on mute but doesn’t turn it off. Peter appreciates the light that the TV exudes into the room, and he knows Tony probably did it on purpose.

As soon as Peter lets his eyes close, drowsiness begins to ebb its way in. He’s content to let himself fall completely into it this time. He’s safe and warm. He’s real. This is real. They’re okay.

“Pete?”

“Mm?”

“I don't know if I say it enough, but I'm proud of you.”

---

Peter’s muscles are stiff when he wakes up, a drowsy yawn escaping his mouth without warning. He’s shifted in the night, somehow ended up with his head shoved up against the side of Tony’s leg. There’s a throw blanket over him that he doesn’t remember being there before.

Tony shifts beside him.

“What’re you doin’ awake, Pete?”

“Dunno,” he mumbles back dopily.

“If you want any more sleep, I’d get it now. The little monster’ll be up soon.”

Peter knows he’s right judging by the gentle morning light starting to creep in through the curtains.

“M’kay. You too.”

Tony threads a few lazy fingers through his hair in response and he closes his eyes.

They both drift back off.

[bmpmp3]

rainyluneblogs replied to your photoset “I’m lowkey weirdly drawn to Star-Crossed Myth despite only playing...”

@shadowfairyy this loooks sick as hell?????? how did you do that effect please teach me your ways

adjsjsj thank u for asking i spent way longer than needed on those effects and I am ITCHING to TELL MY TALE OF TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

okay to preface this: there is Absolutely a better, more efficient way to do this, maybe with something like after effects? i don’t have that ‘cause its a trillion dollars but there’s probably alternatives but also I was Too Lazy to learn something new but not too lazy to spend 2 hours tryna fudge it with my trusty drawing program clip studio paint and also a copy of photoshop

so like..,, i drew the drawing right? the bishounen freaking out in the foreground, the space-y background in the..background (i used some default pastel type brushes just really big and some constellation brush i got off clip studio assets and just went ham qwq i have no restraint with fun brushes im like an 8 year old with kid pix)  i used one of my many, many glittery effect brushes to make slap some on a layer between the background and foreground and also on a layer on top of it all, this brush was like, glowing shards? random glowing shapes, i thought it looked neat, i got it off clip studio assets but if you use another program you can probably find similar brushes or resources for other programs~ or if you really wanted you could draw it all in yerself lol I gave a little buffer space all around the drawing, so like theres this blank space surrounding it where the shards keep going, this was so when they move they dont get cut off lol

what i did was i opened it in photoshop to make an animation (still havent learned the clip studio animation features lol, i think fire alpaca has some pretty good animation stuff tho so thats an alternative!) and like so each frame i just shifted the glowing shard layers up or down (i made the two layers go in different directions ‘cause i thought it looked cool) by one single arrow key press each frame i did it manually sobs 15 frames each colour so it wasnt too bad here’s what the timeline looks like!

so yeah theres definitely better ways to do that but this...is what i did

for the transition frams between colours i just used a motion blur effect, i think both clip studio and photoshop have it, sai probably has it too? i remember gimp having it, not sure about fire alpaca its been a minute since i used that one but yeah just a motion blur lol

he must go.... his planet needs him

the framerate was consistent throughout, i think it might be like 12fps? 30fps? i chose no delay for the timing on photoshop I don’t know what that is in real person words and then i just cropped out that buffer space i added earlier~ and BAM it was done

the actual full sized gif file was wayyy bigger than the one i uploaded to tumblr so i made it like a quarter of the size but if you wanna watch yer internet Beg For Mercy as it attempts to load a 25mb gif here’s the link to it on my dA~

OH i almost forgot, in the background glowing shard layer, I went at some of the shards with an airbrush shaped eraser tool with the opacity real low so I could make some of the shards look like theyre fading into the distance atmospheric perspective babey

if you wanna try something similar I’d recommend not being like me and instead learning some kinda aftereffects type program or something BUT if yer determined all you need is yer draiwng program of choice and access to a copy of photoshop OR oorRR this might be even more tedious but you could use just firealpaca and alpacadouga ‘cause its free and really good in my opinion (i used to use it before i got csp), or if you wanna use a different drawing program that doesnt have an export each layer as a separate image button theres this little free tool i like called grimace for exporting a bunch of images from one psd that i adore, its supposed to be for visual novel assets but I use it for all kinds of things now lol

i guess the moral here is you can do all kinds of professional looking stuff with just what you got on hand or maybe some little freeware things (and a few hours) if yer determined enough qwq the other moral is that im crazy 

[zealoptics]

Chasing Sunsets with Zeal Optics

Words by Kelly Mazanti

Photography by Gabe Rovick of F4D Studio

Read the original story here

What does Summer mean to you?

For us, Summer is all about going on adventures, spontaneously hanging with our friends and chasing the best Sunsets we can find. Recently, we took a detour from the day to day to explore some hidden gems out our back door. Of course, we took our favorite sunglasses along for the ride.

3 days, endless memories

             Day 1 - Gunny (aka - Gunnison, Colorado)

When you drive through this town nestled into the Western Slope of the Colorado Rockies, you’ll be at the gateway between Crested Butte in one direction and Telluride in the other - not such a bad crossroads if you ask me. This town is a recreation mecca, a paradise for fishermen, rafters, bikers and all kinds of outdoor adventure seekers. 

Gabe surfing the rapids

After making our camp on some BLM land just outside of town, we headed down to the Gunnison Whitewater Park to soak up the sun, watch surfers take on the rapids, and fish. 

It wouldn’t be an adventure without friends pushing you to try something new and I somehow found myself in an Alpaca Raft next to Lisa taking my turn on the rapids which resulted in my fiancé and I discovering a new sport we want to get into and more gear we’re going to have to buy - #coloradolife - haha!

With a full afternoon playing in and around the river to fill up our happy meter, we made our way back to camp for sunset, Lisa’s famous Moscow Mules, bougie charcuterie and elk burgers over the fire. 

                                   Day 2 - Crested Butte

With a rich history in mining, built by immigrant families, today Crested Butte is a mountain biking & skiing mecca. We rolled into Crested Butte ready to ride. The wildflowers were almost in full bloom surrounding us and we couldn’t fight the feeling that we had been transported to Switzerland… The iconic 401 trail that we were planning to ride was not suitable for riding due to recent rains, so we took a detour to Brush Creek and found some awesome riding with a variety of technical terrain and flowy single track.

The ride ended with a raging river crossing - a great opportunity for us to all cool off and get muddy like little kids coming home from soccer practice. With smiles pasted on our faces, we headed back into town, took solar showers off the back of our vans and waltzed onto Elk Ave. in search of cocktails.

First stop, the World Famous Wooden Nickel for martinis. First constructed around 1880, this bar is rich in history and definitely worth a stop as you’re thinking about where to grab dinner. 

Next, we walked across the street to The Dogwood for craft cocktails and tapas. The Mac & Cheese was out of this world and the back patio was an absolute dream world tucked away in a secret garden off the back. 

For dinner, we headed over to Bonez for tacos & tequila to finish off a perfect day. 

                Day 3 - Gunnison River & Cottonwood Pass

Waking up with the sun has its perks - enjoying coffee without interruption and watching the world come alive.

After a leisurely morning, hanging in the Eno, drinking our favorite naturally processed coffee from Bivouac and filling up on snacks to fuel our day, we headed back into Gunnison to float a section of the Gunnison river with mellow rapids and scenic canyons. 

As we headed out of town for the journey home, we turned left at Almont to head up and over Cottonwood Pass, perfectly timing the sunset when we reached the top. We could go back and spend an entire week just exploring the pass for all it has to offer with fishing, climbing, hiking the Continental Divide and abundant vistas. 

Alas, every fun adventure must come to an end so we can start planning the next one. With reality setting in we descended into Buena Vista where we passed the Cottonwood Hot Springs and the drive in movie that was just about to start for the night as the last bit of daylight began to fade. 

These are the adventures that build equity into our lives, providing us with lasting memories that continue to get better as time goes by. These are the experiences we live to have and to share.

                                          Lessons Learned

01 // Keep Colorado Wild - tag responsibly & let others make their own discoveries

02 // Leave No Trace - it’s up to each of us to leave each place better than we found it

03 // Respect Locals - the influx of tourism in rural mountain towns can be detrimental to locals by driving up their cost of living & creating challenges on their economy. It’s important that we have patience for the service industry that is working their butt off to accommodate tourism and leave FAT tips for the people who are working so hard to make our experiences amazing.

Thanks to my friend Gabriel Rovick of F4D Studio, his wife Lisa and my fiancé Christian for sharing this adventure with me and keeping life fun.

xo, Kelly

Written by Kelly Mazanti, Founder & CEO of Pier Collective - a brand identity & design studio based in Breckenridge, Colorado

To learn more about the F4D Studio + Pier Collective Collaboration & to work with us, please drop us a line here & we’ll be in touch!

Thank you to all of our partners and friends for making our adventure memorable:

@f4dstudio

@piercollective 

@zealoptics

@sahmurai_usa

@cellarwestartisanales

@bivouac.coffee

@theconsciousmerchant

@belovedboutiqueshop

@wallaroohats

[sanchoyoscribbles]

I was wondering what program you use to draw your art and how long it took to get used to it

I use clip studio paint pro! it’s a program you have to pay for (you could also get it’s upgrade version clip studio paint EX but its more expensive- I’m honestly not sure what features are different or if its worth the extra :/ maybe look up a comparison video if you have extra spending money? one thing I know is different is that in pro you can make like a 20 second or so animation but I think EX has unlimited numbers of frames so if ur interested in animating that might be worth looking into. any animations on this blog were made with pro not ex tho) 

I bought mine on sale about..2 years ago-ish? for like $30. It’s actually really similar to paint tool sai, but with more features (the reason I got it was the manga-making features like the toning stuff! It makes making my comic 110% easier lmao)  u can customize the layout a lot and stuff so you can hide features u arent using or customize your color palettes ect ect. 

As for how long it took me to get used to it- I think that because I was switching from paint tool sai which has a similar layout, it didn’t take me long at all…the more you play with a program, the quicker you get used to it! I also looked up a ton of tutorials haha. I def immediately loved the lineart stuff way more because it’s way smoother than sai’s imo

I don’t mean to sound like an advertisement, but it’s super good and I would highly recommend it if you have the money! theres also a lot of good tutorials for it and free brushes in the community- along with other assets u can download :> Here’s a link to the free trial if you wanna just play with it and see if you wanna buy it! and theres a lot of videos reviewing it on youtube if you wanna see other people’s opinions :>

BUT I will also say as far as art goes programs don’t matter that much imo- hard work, study and practice can make masterpieces in even MS paint! 

I could probably draw similar stuff to what I do on paint tool sai which can be found for free if u can find the cracked vers (like …right here is what google gave me, u can try this at ur own risk if u dont wanna pay for it) and has like 80% of the features clip studio has- I used to use paint tool sai actually so if you dig way way back on my old (kinda bad lmao) art blog 99% of that art is made in paint tool sai which is SUPER easy to use and has a ton of nice tutorials! (the only reason my art on there looks bad is bc I was younger but I promise paint tool sai is also a very good program and easy to use lol)

 and I’ve also heard good things about Krita and Fire alpaca altho I haven’t personally used them myself! I used to use gimp when I was younger and it’s free and SUPER easy to use (I have a few friends who use it and their art is A++ with clean lines and NICE colors. I’m specifically thinking about @mewmizu like look at her art its great shoutout to my talented friends tbh) all of those I just listed are also free programs as far as I know! You can find videos comparing them on youtube! Ofc I reccomend just..playing with them yourself too since they’re free and decide which you like and what features you’re personally looking for in an art program. For me having smth that can make comics and also illustrations was important so that’s why I’m using clip studio!

Sorry if this got wordy but I hope it helped! If you need to know anything else about the program (or my art?) feel free to ask and I’ll try my best to explain! Have a nice day! :D

[everythingfirealpaca]

Whenever I try to draw curves it ends up caving in. Like the sides curve, the top of the curve however is just straight and this only seems to be happening for fire alpaca and not my other programs. Any way to fix this? Thx!

Try with lower or 0 Correction.

Otherwise, try the general tablet troubleshooting steps:

Most of your other programs have probably changed to the Ink pressure/location system built into Windows. FireAlpaca, like a few other programs, is still using the Wintab pressure/location system, provided by the tablet manufacturer, to provide compatibility with older versions of Windows and older tablets.

Recent versions of FireAlpaca have added more Windows Ink/TabletPC compatibility, which means more tablets should work without problems. Check your version under Help menu, About (current version 1.8.4. For virus safety, only download from the official website at http://firealpaca.com

Next, try File menu, Environment Setting, and change Brush Coordinate from Use Tablet Coordinate to Use Mouse Coordinate.

If that doesn’t work:

Install the latest tablet driver from your tablet manufacturer web site (and restart your computer after installing it).

If your tablet software allows it, and if you are using Windows (I don’t know whether Macs have any equivalent), turn off Windows Ink/TabletPC services. Wacom Intuos tablets have this as a checkbox in the tablet software under Mapping (Cintiqs, under Calibrate). Huion tablets have this option as a checkbox in the tablet applet that runs in the system tray. Other tablet brands might or might not have this option.

Also turn off other tablet services built into Windows or your tablet software, such as Pen Flicks and press-and-hold for right-click. Screenshot instructions here (somebody else’s bad language, for which I apologise, but they document the process very well): http://i.imgur.com/Viuhhok.jpg

If you have a Huion tablet and a recent version of FireAlpaca (as above, see Help menu, About for your version, current version 1.8.4), be sure to tick the checkbox for Check if there is a problem with HUION tablet (under File menu, Environment Setting).

Otherwise, see this tutorial (part 1 of 3, read all 3) for using the Curve snap and other tools to get more precise lines.

-Obtusity

[memedokies]

(almost) every anon ask since fall 2016

if u havent noticed i am BAD at answering asks so here’s a Big Dump of most of the asks i’ve gotten in the past few months

ps; i’ve excluded pokemon suggestions bc i plan on getting to them at some point

Hihihi!!! What brushes do you use in fire alpaca??  i dont do much in firealpaca (esp not lately lol) but when i did use it a lot i just used the fill bucket and the standard/default brush to fill in gaps n such lol! i dont really draw in it, i used flash/adobe animate for the lineart and just fill in color in firealpaca :3

when did you start animating?   uhh when i was around 11 or 12 when i started digital art i guess? i just used photoshop for the longest time then got flash when i was like 15 or so

 How did you get flash?  i got the creative cloud dealie, its technically required for my school :—-0 

 hello!! what are you majoring in in vcu?? im thinking about going there for college  im in communication arts! omg cool lmk if u come here ill tell u where to get the best bubble tea

 how many fps do you use for your wiggly animations? i work at 24 fps in flash on twos but just end up using photoshop’s 0 second frame delay/ “no delay”?

 Hey love your animations! What do you animate with?  adobe animate 2017! (previously flash) 

You mentioned a YouTube channel but I can’t seem to find a link to it? Do you post processes on there? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCovvoZxlQjFaIA7A3w_94Zw theres not much atm but i plan on posting a lot more, including process/speedpaints! 

i really like your art style gosh darn!!! everythings so fluid and stylized and nice aaa (also ur animations are goals) do u have any tips for someone still developing their artstyle????  WAH TYSM!!!!! compile art you already like and incorporate aspects from their styles into yours, BUT dont limit urself to one style! if u like something then try it out! do straight up copies (as PRACTICE, DONT CLAIM IT as your own ofc) of stuff you like to see how they work and what you’re clicking with. spending time on fundamentals is MEGA helpful so keep going back to that too! USE REFERENCES!!! draw …from ur soul…what makes u ..FEEL good

 how do you make that burn effect on your lineart? it makes it your pieces look sharper and even more interesting, it’s super cool!!  when i used to use flash for lineart and firealpaca for coloring a lot, setting the lineart layer on BURN with the coloring layer seeping a lil past the lineart would get this effect automatically 

(like on the whiskers. u can see it gets a brighter brown(?) and the warmer yellow on the ears)

but since then i’ve been using sai+photoshop more so i just do it manually! i’ll use this funny pic of me and my cat as an example lol

^i select the lineart/everything i want the funky color around

^slam that INCREMENT button a couple times

^make a new layer under the lineart

^fill that puppo with ur preferred color! something brighter works best, or even straight up white

that’ll give you something like this

then i open it in photoshop

and i mess with the pink line layer’s blending mode..color burn usually does the trick but depending on the Look you’re going for, saturation, multiply and overlay have some similar effects that look cool. 

i also usually get rid of the outermost edge of pink line that’s visible around the lineart, just so it looks a little cleaner? to do that you just select around your lineart, increment/expand selection, and delete/erase in the selection of the pink line layer

uhh yeah! lmk if anyone needs clarification on this, i have some other #TIPS on makin ur art look crusty and funky so…lemme know if you’re interested :—3

What do you use to animate? And, a more specific question, how do you make transparent animated gifs? adobe animate 2017! (previously flash) i export my animation from flash as a png sequence then open it in photoshop, where the background will be transparent and save it as a gif from there nyaaa

if anyone needs more clarification lmk and i’ll make a proper walkthrough :-0

 Hello!! Ur art is rlly pretty and so inspirational and nice to look at!! 💗💗 I was wonderin’ if ya had any tips on choosing shapes for characters? Like, when you draw shapes for a certain character, it looks rlly like it fits with the character’s personality n stuff!! ( e.g: Your Love Live! drawings!! The characters look so good in your style.) I’ve always admired how u did that n was hoping for some tips maybe?? Anyways, have a good day!!💛💖💟💜💝💞💖 HOOGA!! TYSM!!! and YEA you basically guessed it, i mainly just think about the character’s personality and translate that into a shape or Pheeling… 

especially for anime characters i look at the Very Subtle differences in the character’s original design..or possibly canon implications…for example kotori has slightly different eyes (it also says on her wiki page she has soft droopy eyes!) so i make sure to incorporate that Detãile

 anime wiki pages that have details like that is nice, for love live they have cute lil “charm points” which is really cool n helpful! listening to how a character is described in their world can give clues to what differentiates them which you can make more clear in your design

taking into account each characters context is good too, what they do/hobby/personality and how that could affect their appearance/posture/attitude

 YEAH its really fun to figure out certain characteristics and make it evident in their appearance! or. idk thats just what i do lol. hopefully this helps!

Have you ever seen the anime jojos bizarre adventure? alas i have not..i have some friends whom are into it so i’ll prob end up watching it sometime lol

sorry if this is obvious but!! are you the creator of Fork and Knife: Food Fighters?? your gif of fork is super cute btw!! yes i am!! wah tysm!!

Hey my little sister found your animation on an online art gallery and she really loved it! omg cool, thanks so much!!

Your style is so lovely!! OHG thanks!

your blog is so precious i love it a lot! your art is so cute too ^u^ waa thanks!!

Your art and animations art really cool! Keep up the good work! You are amazing!! aahg thank you!! :’333

 your art is fuckening amazing hh broe…tysm

 Oh my gee, I used to follow you on Deviant Art, and now here I am, finding you on accident. You’re still as talented as ever. =w= b hUIOpugh deviantart, my homeland..my origin.. thank you!!!

- O mg I love your art! 💕💕💕 thank you!! heart emojis!!! 💖💖💖

- your art and animations give me so much inspiration, thank you! everything about your style is so fun and it cheers me up omg this validates my top tier goal in life, im so glad!! thank you SO much!

Your style is so charming and adorable ;__; thank you!!

ur art is so gross in the best way possible this is the biggest compliment ive gotten thank u so much. i love making gross squishy awful drawings

IM SO HAPPY I FOUND YOU!!!! IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU FOR AGES!!!!!!!!! I LIVE FOR YOUR BEAUTIFUL ART!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!! BHOLY CRAP THANK YOU!!!

 your art style is very cute ! 🌱 oohg thanks!! thanks for the little sprout emoji, i love her

GOOD ART!!!! good art good art good art EVERYWHERE I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! OHHGG THANK YUO

how do ya draw such cutely its driving me nuts Nuts NUTS !!! I LOVE SPARKLES AND BRIGHT COLORS AND FUNNY ANIMALS..its my lifeblood..thank u.. 

You’re a really rad artist! I’m Glad there’s some cool artists that are local! Have a good time at VCU! oh wow thanks!! 

Ur shapes r so good thanks i LOVE a nice wholesome shape!

I rlly like ur art style my dude thanks!! 

hi! just wanted to let u know that you’re wonderful and i wish u well in everything u do this is making me bVERY HAPPY THANK YOU SO MUCH!!

 Im love You!! IM L OVE YIOU

that meowth boy is so good. i love him as he is my son THANK YUO i too, love meowth a Lot

 I love how your art is basically lines and curves, it’s very cute oo thanks! 

i love your art style so much!! it’s so zesty? i cant think of a better word to describe but its like. zesty & refreshing & rly rly cool !!! THATS A BEAUTIFUL ADJECTIVE I LOVE IT thank u so much!!!

You seem like you would watch Osomatsu-san. I could see you drawin dem bois in you hella rad art style. osomatsu was the wildest ride of my life. tho i dont think i could physically be able to sit down and draw them seriously ever… 

 Pls make more angry cat comics theyr so halarious plllls 👀 more are on the way!!!!!!

Have you done a meet the artist i sketched one when the meme was still poppin..is it too late lol? maybe i’ll still do it

[kayroseoldblog]

iPad Pro w/ Apple Pencil vs. Wacom Cintiq Companion

Hello everyone!For Christmas this year, I received an iPad Pro 12.9in and an Apple Pencil!

As someone who has been practicing digital art for almost 10 years now, I thought it made sense to throw my two cents into the internet about this tool. I also included a few other people's thoughts on each device to try and make the review as well rounded as possible!

Keeping in mine that my Cintiq Companion 1 is three years old now, and my iPad is the latest 2016 edition, you can take this review with a grain of salt if you like.

Let me first start by listing the tools I have used to draw with...

Drawing Tablets I've used:

Wacom Bamboo Tablet (No longer available)

Wacom Intuous 4 Tablet (No longer available?)

Wacom Cintiq Companion (First gen, 2013, Windows 8)

and now:iPad Pro 12.9 w/ Apple PencilDrawing 

Programs I've used:

Photoshop Elements

Corel Painter

Sketchbook Express

Paint Tool Sai

Fire Alpaca

Photoshop CC

Procreate App

Medibang Paint App

The Cintiq 

I've had a Wacom Cintiq Companion v1 since 2012-2013 ish, and I have always loved it. I took to drawing directly on the screen pretty fast, and since beginning to use it, I've always had a slight disconnect when returning to regular drawing tablets. I'm just not as used to it anymore, but I do use them in a pinch.

The Cintiq has an amazing Tempered Glass screen which gives the texture of the drawing a really nice feel, though it seems to make its accuracy suffer, it's very easy to tell that you are drawing on a SCREEN and theres a bit of glass between you and your drawing, but you hardly notice it when drawing usually.

However, Wacom recently, in my opinion, has been going down hill with its portable tablets...I haven't tried out/seen anyone usng the Mobile Studio, but maybe that one is better! Sure looks promising!

My cintiq's charger has been broken for some time now, and after doing some research I found out that any tablet manufactured before July 2014 has a really bad charging problem...and Wacom will fix it for free, but it's been known to just be a band-aid fix. Many friends have said this about their external drawing tablets from Wacom in recent years as well. It makes me miss my old Intuos 4!

My Cintiq has a battery life right out of the box of between 8-10 hours. I use photoshop extensively to draw, and sometimes switch between that and other programs, making 8 hours about the max I can get out of it. After a year or so, that went down to 5-8. So I wouldnt use this more at home than on the go.​

Pros:

OS is up to you (Mac or PC available)

Desktop Applications (Creative Cloud, etc)

Pen w/ eraser on back- Comes with Stand/Case/Pen in one cost

Sort of Portable

Custom Brushes/Downloadable Brushes

Can use on its own w/ no external monitor​

Pressure Sensitive

Cons:

Heavy heavy heavy!

Very thick

Fan gets loud

Included stand is pretty bad

Calibration is off near the edges (Granted, not many people draw near the edges)- Wacom usually has problems

Horrible Battery life

Takes a long time to charge

Screen resolution is odd

Colors are always slightly off

While my review is of the Cintiq Companion 1, I've noticed not much difference in my friend's Cintiq 2, aside from the battery charge lasting a little longer, and it being a bit lighter in weight, but they had this to say:

"Haven't used the iPad so i'm biased - t's the industry standard, I like having the touch keys while drawing, i like the texture of the surface, and it's powerful enough to run Adobe programs without lag, I also like that it's fairly portable if you don't mind the weight. The color on screen I think is sliiiiightly off bc whenever I transfer it from there to my phone or elsewhere something is just... off with the colors. Cintiq is powerful. Use it if you're like professional, because Adobe programs and other stuff. Plus it's a laptop. But if you're just looking for something to do digital art on, the iPad is cheaper and will do it for you from what I hear.  I enjoy [my cintiq companion 2], it does what I need it to and that's all I asked for."

The iPad Pro 12.9in w/ Apple Pencil

Now to be fair, I've only had my iPad for a week and a half, but I think that's even more impressive, because I love it WAY more than my cintiq

The battery life of the iPad is already way longer than my cintiq ever had. I've charged my iPad once since unboxing it. (it was unboxed at about 70%) and thats with extensive drawing every day. Apple says it gets between 10-18 hours of life depending on what you're doing, and boy is that true The downside is that this thing takes FOREVER to charge again, but for how long it lasts, I suppose it's a small price to pay.

The Apple Pencil has an amazing battery life and charges incredibly fast. I've topped it off once since getting it, and it charges fast. Charging it for 15 seconds supposedly gets you another 30 minutes of life. I haven't tested that out, but I wouldn't doubt it honestly. I was able to charge it from 12% to 100% in just 20 minutes, and that's the only time I've had to charge it!

The Apple Pencil feels great on the iPad, and glides really nicely and naturally. It didn't take me long to get used to it at all, it's very much like drawing on the cintiq screen which I liked. However the pressure sensitivity is even more accurate, and the ability of the pencil to draw exactly where you put down your tip is INCREDIBLE. It's very much like drawing on paper.

The size is also great, as it's like drawing on any A4 paper if you draw portrait, and the real-estate of the screen drawing landscape is even nicer. The resolution is much more comfortable than the cintiq's, and I don't feel like I'm drawing in a super cramped area. (Though this all depends on the App you use, I'm not a fan of Medibang Paint as I feel like everything is so squished!)

The Apple Pencil also has the ability to draw tilted. The cintiq's stylus has this too, but it's not as accurate or helpful. This is what makes the Apple Pencil a PENCIL and not a stylus.

However, the Pencil and iPad, which are sold separately, don't come with anything to hold the Apple Pencil in, so I had to buy a sling for it, which was only 6$, but still. It's an expensive item and you're going to want to keep it, not lose! Before buying the sling, I was constantly worried about misplacing my pencil. I don't mind not having a stand as the iPad Pro is so comfortable to draw with it in your lap, sitting anywhere you like. If you're looking for a stand for it, they're pretty cheap on Amazon

Pros:

Better Pressure Sensitivity/Accuracy

Amazing Battery Life

Extremely Portable

Cheap or free Apps W/ Great Quality. Bridging the gap for Photoshop.

Pencil feels great to draw with

iOS Updates

Custom Brushes/Downloadable Brushes

Feels more natural to draw on

No Lag

Cons

Pencil/Tablet sold separately 

Slow to charge

Case/Accessories all sold separately (I'm told Mobile Studio Cintiq will also have everything sold separate)

No Desktop Apps (Photoshop, Creative Cloud, etc)

No cursor to show how big your brush is (in Procreate at least)

ONLY compatible with iOS for iPad

Not a full computer

I was lucky enough to have professional Comic Artist, K. Lynn Smith of "Plume" give me her thoughts on the iPad Pro as well!

"Pros, extremely fun to draw on, it replicates pencil and paper perfectly and it's portability is amazing. You can draw anywhere. Cons: not a lot of storage space on the iPad, sometimes the airdrop goes wonky, and though the programs available are amazing, there are some options not available...like assistance in drawing a perfect circle or stamp/clone tool. "

You can read Plume here!

The Final Word

In all Honesty, I think I'll be using my iPad Pro for most of my digital work from now on. Between all the apps and features, especially with ProCreate, this tablet is really bridging the gap between a Ciintiq and an iPad. Procreate specificaly is missing a few things such as a crop tool, and a text tool. It also doesn't have quite as many ways to edit as Photoshop does, but it's got most of them and enough that it doesn't bother me. You can also save your files from this app as JPEGS, PNGs, PSDs, and GIFs, to name a few.

My Cintiq is currently on it's way out and wheezing its way through life , but I don't think I'll be totally getting rid of it in case I need to bring something from my iPad over for photoshop, but honestly, I do that with my traditional work already so that really isn't an issue to me.

If you're looking to get into digital work, I recommend the iPad Pro 12.9 and Apple Pencil over the current Cintiq Companions. When adding in all the things you'll need, it comes out to the same price as a Cintiq Companion.

While the Cintiq and Wacom ARE the "Industry Standard", you really cannot tell the difference any longer, and I know of many professionals who use strictly the iPad Pro 12.9! Most studios/Art Directors care about what the work looks like, not what you made it on. (unless you're animating!)