#so i think saturated colors are the way to go hehe

[rot-to-the-core]

made a color palette edit of aventurine and ratio! i wanted to show aventurine was from the desert w/ darker blond hair and tanner skin + highlight his eyes more by making darker ^_^ and i think he pops a lot more with a greener palette more! i also think ratio looks great when people highlight his purple features more so it was fun to do that as well !!!

[timidpumpkin]

Little Light (Stucky x reader)

Part 1: Found

Pairing: Dark!Stucky x f!reader

Summary: The first time you met Steve--or--the first time Steve found you.

Warnings for this part: Dark!Stucky, Female reader, Stalking, Reader has anxiety, Reader cries, Allusions that reader is a little, Allusions to kidnapping.

Warnings for future parts: Ddlg, Daddy!Stucky, Kidnapping, Forced age regression, Slapping, Anxiety, Panic attack, Slight dubcon, Stockholm Syndrome. (Will add more as needed)

Let me know if I missed any!!

Word count: 2.6k

Notes: Reader is in their 20s. There will be a few more parts to this as well as future writings within this universe! :) hehe. This is my first time ever posting a fic...please be kind...I am sensitive. Minors and ageless blogs DNI or I WILL block you.

It’s chilly. 

The night is abnormally quiet. Your ears have to adapt to the lack of sound. Bugs and frogs are no longer sounding off to the moon. The draft that bites its way up your nose is dry. It’s the first few indications that the trees will transform, stripping their colorful shields to brace themselves for the biting weather that's to come.

You huffed your way into your familiar abode, wishing it wasn’t so late. For the past, well, who knows how long, you had been working prolonged hours that certainly weren’t supposed to be a part of your daily work life. Nevertheless, it was, and you were tired–no, exhausted. 

Your head and stomach oh so kindly reminded you that it was in need of food, but when you make your way into the kitchen, nothing seems appetizing. Well, that wasn't exactly true. The truth was the idea of spending what little time you had left in the day making something that would only add the dishes, another chore, was dispiriting, to say the least.

So instead of meeting your basic needs, you were met with wet eyes that almost lull you into slumber. But before you're taken over by sleep, as you lay on your couch, your mind drifts to a time when things weren't as…hard.

Several months ago, or perhaps even close to a year when you think about it, you were in Washington DC. It was an academic trip, the last one for your last year. Of course, throughout your schooling, you had plenty of assignments to keep you occupied. Yet, trips like these made it much more than bearable–it was fun. Most of your time was spent exploring countless museums and exhibits tailored to define the world you lived in. Elation saturated your spirit as you and your closest friend, MJ, absorbed the new environment. 

Perhaps though, one of the most memorable parts of your trip was when you two snuck out late one night to grab a bite to eat. Your mischievous selves couldn't seem to be bothered by the fact that the city could be known for its more…eventful crime life.

The streets weren't nearly as crowded at this time of night. Still, the warm street lights and richly colored signs decorating local establishments left the perfect amount of people to create a steady hum of activity. After going back and forth between several different food options, you eventually found yourselves on a bench to eat your taco score of the night. You mumbled to each other through full mouths declaring over and over again how delicious it was and made plans to find something sweet afterward. You hummed in satisfaction when the urge hit you. 

You had to pee. Great. 

Where on earth could you find a decent bathroom around here?

“I’m gonna try to find a restroom,” you said, wiping food debris from your pants and standing from your seated position.

“Ha, good luck,” MJ jeered at you, mouth half full. “I’ll be here enjoying this then” she motioned to your leftovers.

“Yeah yeah,” you scanned around you before figuring a direction to try your luck at. “Well, I’ll be back soon if I don’t find anything.”

“Hey wait!” she blurted before you could take off too far. “Don't forget this,” you turn to see an outstretched hand holding your phone. “If you get kidnapped or something I'll need some way to find you,” she teased. “You know, so I don't get in trouble if you do.”

“How very thoughtful of you.” you rolled your eyes playfully taking it from her.

You roam around, one street to another until you finally happen by a small sandwich shop that, mercifully, lets you use their restroom. Once you depart from its doors, you realize you're not really sure where you are. At all. Every street and building looks like the other one and after walking for a bit, you’re pretty sure you’ve gone the wrong way. Where you find yourself now is darker. Few lights illuminate the path ahead, and you can’t shake the strange feeling that you’re being watched–despite not seeing a single soul. You can’t help but check behind you every so often, looking backwards over and over again until you're not even really looking forward at all anymore.

And that when your body hits it. Something hard stops your momentum completely and wobbles you off balance until you feel gentle but firm hands steadying your swaying form. You can’t help the gasp that escapes your throat. 

“Woah there,” the solid figure holding you speaks. You blink up at the deep voice. It’s a man. A large man. His grip eases off you and he holds his hands up, open-palmed. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” he appealed, a reassuring smile on his face. 

“Oh it’s-that's alright,” you try to regain your composure as you back up a step, making space between you and the stranger. “I suppose I should have looked where I was going” you breathed, trying not to sound so startled. “Sorry.” you posture yourself up finally getting a good look at the man in front of you. You can’t help but stare at him for–probably more than a few–awkward moments as you start to recognize his face. It’s one you saw only hours ago during your Smithsonian visit, specifically, the Captain America exhibit. Yep–you’re pretty sure that man looking back at you is Steve Rogers. 

Except, he looks different from the pictures and videos you’ve seen. He’s sporting a beard, and he really does look even bigger than you expected. Even with a few good feet between you, you still have to look up to him. And he’s looking at you too. Luckily, he breaks the silence, likely noticing your gob-smacked face. 

“Are you,” he looked you up and down quickly, assessing you. “lost?” he meets your eyes.

“Oh-uh-, no no, I’m-” you didn’t want to seem helpless, but when he raises his eyebrow at you, you quickly cave. “well yeah actually…I was trying to find my friend. I left her on a bench…somewhere.” you say looking around pointlessly, as if she’d somehow appear before you.

“Well,” he takes a tiny step towards you. “I’m sure I could help with that” he grins confidently at you. 

“Oh that’s okay,” you start. “I mean I don’t want to impose or anything.” You’re sure he has more important things on his agenda than to help some random girl find her friend. You felt like some lost kid looking for their parent in the grocery store.

“Not at all,” he says definitively. “come on.” He gestures for you to follow his lead. He asks you what you remembered about your surroundings when you left MJ. He seems to recognize the place you’re talking about immediately and starts guiding the way. On the walk there, you talk. Well–he talks, mostly. It’s not that you necessarily felt nervous in his presence. Rather, it just wasn't uncommon for you to be at a loss for words, especially with new people. The truth of the matter was, you just didn’t know what to say, it was often difficult for you in that way. In the way that you only felt comfortable around someone after a decent amount of time of knowing them. Regardless, what was uncommon was how comfortable you felt talking to him-or well-answering him when he spoke to you.

“You really should be more careful walking around alone like that.” he said, seriousness lacing his tone.

“Yeah,” you laugh guiltily, “after all, you never know what kinds of people you’ll run into.” you jab at him playfully and he gives you a laugh in return. He asks if you're new to the area, and you explain your presence as a result of a field trip. You tell him simple things, like what you study, and how you’re almost finished with school.

“You know what you want to do after you graduate?” he probes. You wish he hadn’t. You hated that question more than anything, and now it was coming from him. Nevertheless, you felt you could be honest. 

“I’m…not really sure” you look downwards, self-conscious of your answer.

“Hmm, I know what that’s like.” you peer up at him in disbelief. Sure, you didn’t know him at all really, but still, you couldn't help the short judgment that told you that wasn’t true.

“Really?”

“I know, I know” he chuckles, “hard to believe, right?” he glances at you, smirking as you continue to walk. “but it’s true. Maybe not exactly like your situation but…” he purses his lips “I know what it’s like to feel uncertain about your path.” You're slightly taken aback by his honesty, and it comforts you to know someone like him could feel the same doubts as you. 

Well, of course, you think. He is just a normal person–okay, superperson–after all. A person like any other. 

One with feelings, wants, and needs. 

You hum. “Did you ever figure it out?” he cocks his head at you. “You know, whatever you were unsure about?” he ceases his stroll and your legs automatically mimic his as you stand to face each other. Even at a respectable distance, he towers over you. It’s not just his height though, rather, his entire being, his build, is enormous. 

“I think I did,” he smiles at you “yeah,” you smile back and for the second time tonight, you’re staring, but again, he breaks the silence. “Is that your friend?” you turn to see MJ still seated where you left her looking as nonchalant as usual. You give Steve an affirmation and begin making your way to her. As you get closer you make out what appears to be a cup of ice cream in her hands.

“There you are. I’ve been worried sick.” she explains, taking in a spoonful. 

“I can tell.” you quip. 

“Was too! You never answered my texts” she wiggles her phone in front of you for emphasis. You don’t remember getting any texts. Then again, maybe you were too distracted to notice them.

“Oh, well, sorry, I kind of got lost. Luckily I ran into-” you look behind you wanting to show your friend who helped bring you here, only to see an empty street. Your brows furrow. 

“Ran into…” she peers in the direction you’re looking towards.

“Someone that helped,” you mumble mostly to yourself. She gives you a confused look. “I-I’ll explain when we get back to the room.” and you do.

You tell her about how he startled you at first but was quick to offer help. “Of course he’d offer to help, he’s a superhero.” MJ remarks during your retelling. She listens as you describe how easy it felt to converse with him, and how you wished you had only thanked him properly for helping you. Realistically, you’re not sure what would have happened had you not run into him–literally. 

That memory wasn’t one you thought of too often, to tell the truth, but it was one that reminded you of a simpler time. Yet, even then you remember being tired. Only now did it seem to catch up with you how much you had to do. It made even the simplest tasks feel like too much. You longed for a time when you didn’t have so much…responsibility. 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ

That night may have been the last time you saw Steve, but it certainly wasn’t the last time he saw you. 

He watched you that night, long before you even ran into him. He had been there for some mission, the importance of which he couldn’t remember. What he did remember though–your laugh. It chimed over the noise of the city around him, guiding him to your form where he was met with bright smiles as you giggled at something your friend said. There was something about you that drew him to you, and as the night went on, that something only grew stronger. He watched as you joked with your friend. He noticed your attentiveness to her, and those around you. How kind you were to anyone you interacted with, and how…silly you were for leaving your friend to go off by yourself. He knew then he had to keep watching, to make sure you remained safe. 

He was elated when you took that turn into the dark and empty street. It was the perfect opportunity to hear your voice–up close. 

And oh–how sweet you sounded.

Like how one would imagine a doe-eyed deer would sound. He reveled in how timid you were around him. How hard you tried to be courteous, mouth moving to form words, only for your lips to shut themselves. He truly thought it was adorable how you couldn't really look him in the eye, and when you did, you’d look away, often, with a bashful look.

Steve did see something in you that night–something he was missing. Once he realized it so, and dropped you off with your best friend, he knew he had to find his–Bucky.

Truthfully, he was more than just his best friend. They had been through so much, both together and separate. Both were thrown into treacherous waters more than once, living in unpredictable conditions, and exposed to the most atrocious of people. Though still, they had each other long before any of that. A friendship–a relationship–that knew no bounds–whether it be of time or situation. 

Steve knew Bucky would understand his fascination with you. They both had a lucid awareness of the wretched world they lived in. It wasn’t always that way, but time had proven it so over and over again. They could always rely on each other when everyone else seemed content with being against them. They knew the world still needed help, and they gave it, when and where they needed to. But nevertheless, in their eyes, everything was still tainted with darkness.

Except you. 

Over months, they observed you, studying you like there would be a test over every aspect of your being. Bucky thought you were even better than Steve had described. Beautiful, softhearted, and sweet. Yes, you truly were sweet. But in a way, too much so. He saw how nasty some people could be to you, only for you to return them with kind eyes and meek responses. He hated it. He adored you, and as time went on, it soon became clear that he didn’t want anyone to treat you in such a way.

They saw you working yourself to depletion every day. How you’d let dishes and laundry pile up. How poorly you ate, and how…clumsy you could be. Tripping over nothing after a long day, injuring yourself when actually attempting to make a meal. They knew what they needed to do. They knew what you needed. 

You needed them.

You needed them to take care of you.

Steve couldn’t bear to see you suffer like this, and Bucky knew they were the only people who could truly keep you shielded from the cold world around them. They would be your warmth, and you would be their little light. 

Yes, they could tell you needed them.

They could tell when you failed to do the simplest of things. 

They could tell when, every night, you’d grip your favorite stuffed animal in your arms.

They could tell when you were sure all the lights were out, your thumb would slowly slip its way behind your lips before you drifted to sleep.

Timing was everything. They had only been waiting for the perfect moment when everything was ready–including you. So when they saw you this night, curled up, tears staining the fabric beneath you as you fell asleep with an empty stomach, they knew it was the perfect time. 

[ashwii]

Thanks for answering! Could you go into how you paint? It's always the trickiest part for me

Hehe sure thing! I even recorded some of it, bc for me personally, i learn a lot easier when it's visualized like that, aha.

So first off, we'll start off with our base!

Personally, I like a lot of gradients and color variations to start off with, but these can be solid base colors of you prefer :3. From this, ALL layers are gonna be merged down into one, no separate layers here yet :D

Going forward, I have a video done here kinda showing what I do :DD. I'll explain below the video in more detail what I do

First the base shadiws and highlights — for the shadows I'll usually pick from the color wheel (a darker, more saturated tone, plus I'll also shift the hue some) and draw right on the canvas. For the base highlights, i'll almost always use a bright orange on whatever adjustment layer makes your color nice and bright and glowy (for PTS it's Luminosity, and for CSP and Procreate I usually use an Add layer).

THEN I DO SOME MESSY BLENDING OUT, nothing pretty yet, just getting some of the colors blended out hehe

Afterwards, the drawing usually looks like this :0 very messy lol

NEXT !!! PAINTING TIME !!! As show in the video, it's allllll about color picking and going over what you've already done. For a lot of it I use a softer brush, letting the colors blend together more softly, and then for other portions I'll use a harder pen for where I want more of the color that I picked to show through. Sometimes I'll draw over the line art all together if I don't think it's needed, or i"ll draw the line art back in after painting over it if I want those lines still :0

And there's just a looooot of drawing over and painting over. The 20 seconds you saw of painting and blending usually goes on for like 3-6 hours, depending on the drawing XD.

After ALLLL of that, I get smth like this

AND this was pretty much just working on leo. Now to work on the background elements >:3c same progress, just for the atmosphere and not the character!

YAY NOW THAT'S DONE !! Now all the paintings done soooooo

Color correction and final touches >:3c no more painting, now there's just a bunch of fun glowy layers we add on top of this heheheeh

AND WE DONE >:DDD

I hope that helped some djejwjww. Tbh, the way I learn the most is if an artist im trying to learn from straight up just streams what they’re doing, but I don't rlly know anywhere i could stream or who would be interested ;w; but I hope this helps enough anyway!

If there are any other questions, I'll be happy to answer! Ive said before I rlly like playing art teacher heheheheh <33

[uniformbravo]

since i've spent the past few days essentially staring at nothing but natsuyuu volume covers i thought it'd be so fun and silly to try and redraw them all from memory tee hee. all 30 (thirty) (三十) of them!!! wheee!!!!

i haven't actually looked at them next to the originals yet so guess what time it is!!!! LET'S COMPARE

starting with volume 1. iconic. show stopping. masterpiece. the mona lisa of natsuyuu SURELY i reproduced every single detail perfectly such that it kickstarts my career as a forgery artist RIGHT

well feast ur eyes

(im using the english volumes for comparison btw they have a good clear view of the art)

CAN U TELL WHICH IS WHICH OOO THEYRE SO ALIKE BET U CANT!!! SPOT THE DIFFERENCE LEVEL 1000 WHICH ONE DO U SHOOT

all i remembered for this one was GREEN and it's not even the right shade of green ajgosugdjfkdgj i even made the fuckin. what do u call it. i'll just say yukata??? I MADE IT GREEN AND ITS SUPPOSED TO BE RED i stg if u held a gun to my head & asked if there was any red on vol 1 i'd be DEAD

but i remembered the book of friends is like. weirdly purple? ok well in this pic it looks p gray BUT ON OTHER COPIES...... IF U UP THE SATURATION GKSJKDNFKDG

why is nyanko sensei smack dab in the middle HUH i couldve sworn he was bottom left this is so fucked up and scary. haunted manga volume??????? i bought it from a grarage sale idk you guys-

at least natsume's pose is like kind of right but also that's most definitely a complete accident i can ASSURE u (im rereading this the next day and the pose isnt even CLOSE what are u TALKING ABOUT)

anyway can i just fucking point out the kanji on the book of friends bc that is from MEMORY YEEHAW here's what it's Supposed to look like: 友人帳

LIKE even tho i got the last one wrong ITS LIKE STILL PRETTY CLOSE??? i think i deserve 100 points for this objectively

MOVING ON THO....

OK NOT AS BAD AS I THOUGHT SURPRISINGLY im actually like. i thought i bombed this one completely but liKE THE COMPOSITION??? KIND OF ON POINT. KIND OF GENIUS TBH

i remembered Blue and Madara and like what else do u need rly. butterflies are optional in all scenarios imo

also i NEVER have any idea what natsume's wearing in any of these so i always just like default throw him into his school uniform LMAO u will see a pattern

why is the book of friends burgundy in this one btw. it was GRAY i mean purple definitely purple aha

ok volume 3 im actually scared for i know i fucked up SOMETHING

HGLKFKGLKFKGFN OK!!!!! OK NOT SUPER AWFUL!!!! just noticed i forgor to color the book of friends fukg

main thing i remembered abt this one was the color of natsume's... attire.... and which characters were present. whats sensei doing all the way up in the top corner tho 0/10

return of the school uniform lmaooooo hm. irrelevant who cares plus didnt ask. all things considered this wasn't as bad as i thought. THE NEXT ONE HOWEVER,

hsngjfgnfjn okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

sensei's way cuter in this one than i realized wait wtf this cover's cute af how did i never notice. underrated cover -10 @ me. look at his lil BLEP >:O!!!!!!!

i knew there was some fuckshit going on w the yukata in this one ourhg i was just like hehe greeennnn also sensei's there. my work here is done

what is natsume's pose even hgnkg i was straight up making shit up at this point LIKE the first 6 or so covers are SO hard for me to distinguish in my head i should get a free pass for the poses in all of them like i can do whatever i want IM the artist now

oh god whats next vol 5

OK!!!! like a straight 5/10 TBH i literally forgot i was planning on rating these LMAO

i remembered the like white v-neck shirt thing and his pose kind of??? i had NO idea what to do for the yukata tho i just made it orange and u know what?? close enough. my rule of thumb is just like pick a color and then throw flowers all over it u cant go wrong

taki looks so much more mysterious on the original and also wearing a skirt. i gave her a big stick bc i thought i remembered her having one in general but i think i made that up tbh wouldn't put it past me. got her hat right tho hee haw

cant believe i didn't get natsume's beautiful artwork tho look at that little shit sensei up there god hes so ROUMD literally moma material

PROBABLY my best one yet uhhhh but i maybe cheated JUST a little for this one ITS LIKE BARELY CHEATING STOP BOOING ME

as i was toying w the idea of doing this redraw thing i was still working on collecting my Images and Pictures so i kinda started taking note of a few small things here & there and one of them was just. the general gist of this cover SO LIKE that's why it's so good LOL

forgor the flowers tho. i literally forget everything that isn't a character like immediately BUT OK CUT ME SOME SLACK like after a point the covers start being whole ass scenes which are SO much easier to remember shit abt than the fuckin Green Void (p sure this is the last green void cover tho)

8/10 composition is gr8 but details like the shirt & the yellow flowers are wrong, also the stick is backwards. i literally looked up what that thing is called and forgot already tee hee

OK WE'RE NOT DONE W THE GREEN VOID I REPEAT-

fuck dude. fuck. i rly thought vol 6 was the last one LOL not to spoil but as i was grabbing these images i saw a Preview of what's to come and the green void lasts until fuckign volume TEN LOL collapses onto the ground and dies

so erhermrm this is vol 7 lolllll i remembered the bg flowers this time can u believe hahaha distracts u from the fact that LITERALLY everything else is wrong auhghg

u know what the green void turned into bushes and i think that's beautiful.... like points for creativity on my part tbh. like to be completely honest. 3/10 i got the characters right

YO????? GATE CONFIRMED LET'S GO?????? it's definitely the school gate but i choose to believe natsume & tanuma r in jail for crimes and u should too

actually this is shockingly accurate for how much i goddamn struggled w this one gkjsldkg the CHARACTERS are right the OUTFITS are right SENSEI'S THERE urgh i knew one of these covers had tanuma holding sensei like that but i couldn't remember Which

i can't believe i actually got tanuma's pose that close i rly thought i was bullshitting w that one wtf. +5 points instantly

do u like how i just scribbled sensei wherever lmaoooo i drew natsume & tanuma & went like. i think sensei's in this one. PLOP

6/10 honestly closer than i thought

OK........ I SEE........ literally dies

this one i was getting MASSIVELY confused w vol 4 bc i could remember nothing distinct abt either of them except Green and natsume w Big Doggie

i remembered the BARE essentials of the composition but not much else... since i thought the green void was gone i put the green i remembered into natsume's yukata (and then put him in the school uniform again LOL) and went WELP. GUESS I'LL DIE NOW

2/10 honestly one of the worst fucking ones lskdjflsdkg

OK THIS ONE.... i almost died irl trying to remember this shit, even before i started and i was still viewing the covers i was like there is no way in HELL im remembering this shit for vol 10. and i was right

like. Purple. White Mask. Antlers. WILD layered clothing. at first i drew the mask as an actual deer skull but later had a straight up epiphany and redrew it like that which... still not correct but I MEAN.... IT'S PRETTY GOOD

i cant believe most of the purple is the bg oughgh his clothes are WHITE..... this is fucked up. i DID remember the stick tho, bells and everything!! actually bells and nothing else!!!

7/10 ok it might seem high but CONSIDERING this design..... i think i did shockingly well TBH

NOT...... the worst...... one....... i could've sworn he was sitting on a pile of books this is so sad that woulda been so cute 😭

for a second when i saw the real cover again i thought he was sitting ON the bookshelf and i was about to RIOT but its okay it's a step stool. still physically possible

my version of natsume here is so much more like Proper gksld he looks like a school boy... studying in the academy's library... hardworking student.... but no the real one is just sitting there like a wet puppy orz he's not even READING i rly thought he was reading. this is such a huge L

cannot fucking believe i was right abt the window tho. like wrong shape but the fact that it's even there.... giving myself a whole ass point for that one

5/10 i rly thought i nailed this one gksgndfkj

also RIP TO THE GREEN VOID U WILL NOT BE MISSED o7

ah shit ok. well one of them was in the school uniform at least fjgugjdkf

why is my natsume lying there like hes abt to start a therapy session, boy would NEVER-

also the plushie hmnmhnmhngnf i dont KNOW i knew there was some kind of prop there but like gun to my head i woulda died again. main colors that stood out to me for this were green and that bluish purple so i got those into mine but i mean. well u can see

once again a random window in the bg i got correct let's gooooo 5/10

LMAO SPITS OUT MY DRINK WHOOPSIE!!!!!!

this is so fucking bad im choking im gurgling LOLLLL i was SO sure natsume's paper had an eye on it i was POSITIVE this is so fucked up. i mean obvs i picked that up from sensei but like i didn't even KNOW sensei was there. or that there were bg characters at all uuuuuououohghh (matoba ignored +5)

i was like. black yukata red flowers CHECK piece of paper w eye CHECK horns CHECK i even went back and edited the horns to be more accurate i was so proud of myself sobs

ok but i knew it was shit trasjh when those were the ONLY details i could remember bc obviously there was gonna be more going on I JUST DIDN'T REALIZE HOW MUCH MORE.....

straight up dookie/10 no jk fr like 3/10 @ me u need to use ur EYES

OK..... I WAS VERY CONFIDENT ABT THIS ONE..... except for his outfit i knew i was bullshitting that BUT I THOUGHT I NAILED THIS ONE....... the one fucking time i didn't just default to his uniform LMFAO

even remembered the pink flower ball smh and for WHAT. i knew he was sitting in a pile of plushies & blankets or smth but no way in HELL was i even gonna attempt to draw them with a speck of detail. but HEY the plushie i drew for vol 12!!! i knew he existed Somewhere. he doesn't even have a horn tho thats so fucked up i thought he did

obviously the most striking thing abt this cover is the bg w that deep burgundy & the circular window so that was the main thing i nailed down right away (my palette was more muted tho). also natsume sitting there w paper in his mouth but i thought he was mid return when rly hes playing like keep-the-balloon-off-the-floor or whatever the fuck he's doing. i love u natsume

(if i thought he was in the middle of returning a name WHY didn't i include the actual book of friends flksglkd automatic fake fan/10)

8/10 this was like my ace in the hole i was like if i got nothing else i got U volume 14!!! and then

NOT THE FAMILY PHOTO......... FUCKING DIES

man idk shit just end me. whats even going on in this cover im gonna deck u natori. dont ask why this makes me want to commit violence hes just so. URHGHGHnH

i dont know whats happening to me rn looking at this im losing my fucking grip dude who let this happen im gonna hurl this volume into the sun??? i think???

why did i add the other two youkai i just thought they should be included but i played myself i had to draw them from memory and for WHAT. pls tell me i got them at least a little bit right i stg

it's the crossed legts dude if he was just sitting there like a board the way i drew him id be like ah shit it was just natori sitting not natsume too but he just HAS to cross his legs and the fucing elbow propped up holding the glasses im S MAD IM SO MADdestroy him

it's 1am i gotta go. i have to go. right now my mom is calling me i have to fukcng. 4/10 i got the couch colorr right. bye

---

tumglr...... only allows 30 pictures per post..... bc im not on desktop? or is that a site-wide thing now. in any case this is getting long so i think im gonna split it right down the middle into 2 posts so there u go, first 15 volumes. so far my score is ermmm

well i didn't rate the first few volumes.

vol 1: 6/10 decent

vol 2: 6/10 also decent

vol 3: 5/10 composition is Scramboled

vol 4: 2/10 it's SO BAD

so now my overall score is 74/150 fjggudjofjdkgjk doing gr8!!!!!!!!!

ok bye for real ✌️

[charlie-boyfriend]

your art is so gorg how do u choose colors???

hehe thank u :3 Hard to explain i kinda just go with vibes n shit its fun for me n i just kinda have developed an eye for what i like but!! one thing that i do if my piece looks messy is i try to make the amount of distinct colors Smaller like i try to avoid having colors that r too close to each other in hue and value but not quite the same (though i think this only works for me cos i dont shade at all so keeping the palette as small as possible looks usually good)

Oh yeah speaking of value color values r SUPER important- I recall seeing a video or a post abt it years ago it changed the way i view colors completely. I couldnt explain it any better than someone else already would have but basically you should try taking a look at your piece in grayscale..! Colors with similar brightness etc will still have different values from each other(think bright neon yellow VS bright neon blue)

I also used to play around with premade palettes quite a bit, think 3-5 colors w good contrast (I think that helped me understand values too) (I dont rly use premade palettes anymore unless sometimes when im planning a game or a website layout)

ALSO my pieces recently r suuuper filtered i play around w brightness saturation ETC whatever ibispaint has however the base colors have to work imo u cant fix a "badly" colored piece with any filters its more of an afterthought (n i worked Specifically Without Any Of That for a while...! so suppose that helped too)

Yay ok sorry for the ramble i doubt its helpful but thx for the fun question i love art...

[kirbyliker12]

I love all your art pieces soooo much 💖💖💖what's your art process??

WAHHHHH THANKSSSS hehe hmm I’ve never formally given art advice before (i also haven’t taken a single class so this might not be that helpful) but I’ll try 👍👍👍

Personally I always used to have trouble during SKETCHING yeah that’s right the step everyone says is “fun” I’d always get annoyed with trying to perfectly convey the image idea I wanted while constantly fixing and starting over and cleaning up and by the time I finished the sketch I’d be way too exhausted from how many discarded ideas and redoing I did AND the lines would be mildly confusing to me 🥸🥸🥸guidelines always kinda felt stiff and slow to me so that didn’t work either

Then I started getting LAZY n stuff😏😏😏😏basically you use a big brush and roughly draw the shape idea you have and then you get an eraser and either sculpt the shape to align with your idea or you’d outline some parts so you get the idea of the figure

Sneak peek of a drawing as an example heehee uh I also add a 10% black layer over everything on the sketch then erase where I think the light will be (good guideline for later n it makes the sketch look COOL) also when I’m doin big pieces it’s easier to fix how it looks bc I’m not as distracted by sketch line details n forget to look at the entire image as a whole😋

ALSO don’t b afraid 2 use filters lots of people use them it’s not like its a program creating an image using tons of stolen art without consent🥸🥸🥸🥸it’s just some color correcting n so on like an orange “overlay” to make everything look sunnier or a blue “hue” layer to make everything slightly closer to a color but not too much so it looks distinct

Dis is da free filter on ibis paint x😏😏😏IBIS SWEEP!!!

Even though the colors r nice it also ends up muffling / changing the brightness n darkness of some colors that you don’t want in your final piece (I normally end up using “multiply” layers to darken some spots along with “Hard Light” layers to change the hue and some “add” layers if I feel like i want cool glowing stuff) you can also set an all black layer to Saturation and play with it’s opacity to get a less saturated product

Anyway lastly uhh stare at similar artworks depicting the thing you’re trying to do like ummmmm if u wanted to shade water for a beach you can look at artworks n take a mental note on how it manages to look like water (there’s lots of different styles n if you can go browse until u find one that could work with yours)😋😋😋😋

[lucyvaleheart]

reblogging this direct from source cuz it's such a long post but I got tagged by a bunch of people for this one!!

Thank you @black-eyed-seas, @cynthjam, @alicethebard, and @ladyofspoons for the ping <333

Last song: Technically speaking, last playing when I got out of my car was:

Just cuz it was running through my liked songs on spotify 👀 but the last one I listened to that stuck in my head (from the same drive this morning to work) was:

cuz I fuckin love this guy and I wanna learn the lyrics to this well enough to sing it by memory I'm SO CLOSE BUT HE'S SO FAST

Favorite color: Purple!! Probably a decently common answer, but it is SO FUCKING GOOD..... though there's also this specific shade of magenta I love, hang on I have a hex code for it: #FF3AF8

and here's a quick slice of it so you don't have to google that:

Last movie/TV show: Mmmm.... Again on a technicality, I watched casino Royale the James bond movie the other night 👀 my wife jade put it on the TV hehe

But the last one to stick in my memory as the actual "what have I watched recently" is probably Jujutsu Kaisen; me and jade got through all of season 1, the movie, and then more than half of season 2 (that's currently out) before taking a break and forgetting to go back to it LMAO

But it's so fucking good omg I'm such a sucker for good quality fighting animation and shit dude I love it

Sweet/spicy/savory?: All definitely have their place!! I think I lean most heavily towards sweet, with savory coming in at a close second; and I DO very much enjoy spicy (as long as it's flavorful and not just pure heat) but I am white and as much as I'm pushing my spice tolerance higher and higher I'm still pretty low on how much I can tolerate 😔

Relationship status: Poly as hell!! Married to @jadedkitteh, @ginny-erinschild is my girlfriend (!!!!) lots of gay kinky sex with like 18-30 other people; and fuckin.... I'm sure there's more on the way I've yet to meet 💖

Last thing I googled: another answer with a technicality; the last thing I googled was leather for leather working cuz I'm.

.....I'm meeting up with a friend soon and they do leather working projects and stuff and I kind of wanted to get them a gift but I cannot fucking tell what is good quality leather or not qwq so I'm thinking I'll go to a store irl instead

The thing I last REMEMBER googling is Minecraft server hosts, so I could check into the current market of them (over saturated and riddled with bots, just like I remember) and see how expensive decent hardware was so I could maybe set one up for my discord server 👀

Current obsession: ......aside from my lifelong obsession with swords (see #swordposting), rocks, and Minecraft?

... Probably a game called Spiritfall :3 holy shit I've been running it over and over and over it's SO fun

Still in early access, but it's like.... A fuckin.....

... I'll link a post by one of the people working on it in a second here, but it's like a platform fighter roguelite 👀 combat is so goddamn fluid and fun and enjoyable, the roguelike elements are VERY hades so if you're a fan of smash or whatever and also hades I heavily recommend it! I've put like..... Easily over 100 hours into it in the month I've had it, they're constantly updating it with more shit, there's so many cool weapons (except a sword..... ;-; there's technically twin blades on a string but I would give my damn soul for just a proper longsword with close-combat style moves, like fuckin. Uh... I dunno, claren from rivals is a pretty good base? 👀👀👀 Marth/lucina? That kinda stuff, yknow?)

... Anyway here's a post by @ayeforscotland with some of my tags ranting about it :3

Tag nine people: oh boy. uh...... let's see here.

@ginny-erinschild @junk-thunder @naughtyshucklebuck @jaxspades @genderless-slave @puppygirlcassie @puppygirlarson @sparklefawx @penelopix @irlactualhuman @kaitiekat @boyphrodite and also any mutual who sees this on their dash and manages to read this far. Love you :3

Nine people I'd like to get to know better

Tagged by @meghawhopp <33

Last song: Down by the River by Borislav Slavov from the Baldur’s Gate 3 Soundtrack (or more specifically the cover of Down by the River by Nerissa Ravencroft)

Favorite color: Blue and purple!

Last movie/TV show: Seinfeld, I’m currently on season four!

Sweet/spicy/savory?: I have a huge sweet tooth, so sweet things

Relationship status: Single

Last thing I googled: I searched up the show “Arthur” because I was trying to find that one meme where Buster was like “You really think someone would do that, just go on the internet and spread lies?”

Current obsession: Fragaria memories and tears of themis mostly^^

Tag Nine People: @kyaruun @xinieeee @deadmansbistro @florapot @hunita812 @scuffle-with-spirals @rexonalapis @maxellera @manicpixiedoomedgirl

[stepswowdsen]

【Magi】 Judar

You can see my post from yesterday! I did a quick speedpaint and included some rambles as usual

Doodles

Old

New

Hair I drew but didn't like so I'll definitely scrap this one

Old

New

Other Judar wearing hanfu doodle

Magi Anime: Judar Concept Art

My Colour Edits

Colour Edits

I just realized I forgot to post the colour edits yesterday whoops...

I like doing colour edits! I think they're more helpful for me than picking colour swatches, cuz they help me see what the colours look like when they're together on the design, and it helps me harmonize the colours and see what I need to fix/adjust manually

Sometimes, I use filters to get colours and then colour pick from my edits. And sometimes I just pick colours right off the spot

I usually shift the hue and saturate the colours more. As I said, I usually shift the colours to cool tones (blues and purples)

I play around with Hue Slider, and then possibly Correction Layers like Posterization, Color Balance, and Gradient Maps

And maybe a bit of Tone Curve

I saturate the red/pink spectrum and also blues (but make sure the blues are more muted in comparison, to the warm colour spectrum like reds and yellows, so they can pop more)

So more saturated but still muted cool colours, more saturated warm colours

Or I do the opposite, more saturated cool colours and more muted warm colours

It also helps me get creative with colours... I learned a lot by experimenting this way!

I just go off my gut feeling and "what looks good"

I saturate colours a lot, but I do my best to balance them so that it's not overkill

In my art, the red/pink is much more saturated then the teal/cool-toned black

My mutuals said I have a really interesting sense for colours... That makes me happy hehe

I hope to become even stronger at it <3

Art Rambles

I think I really like this doodle (and the other one that I did before). I really like the expressions. But ofc I'm picky with my arts so I'm always trying to improve on my old arts and constantly strive for something better looking

Been doing a lot of front facing doodles lately in general cuz they're quick and easy, and also cuz I wanna see which one will turn out to be the best one to turn into character concept art ref sheets…

Ok so for the recent Judar doodle...

Ok yeah I'm sticking with the middle (new) one

When I redraw the hair again, I'll make sure to try and make it similar to the middle one

I just quickly redrew the face

So I fixed what was bothering me. Again. The eyes, nose, and mouth all look better now!

And yeah, that's more like it. The mouth should curve at that angle

My redrawing tendency is so bad, guys 😭 The neurodivergent urge

I'm insanely picky with my own arts, guys. HELPPP

Though thankfully it looks better everytime

I also quickly redrew the hair and I was like "I would still redraw this, but this is fine for now"

I decided to test it by roughly/quickly filling in the base colours and I immediately went like (.) 🧍 I DON'T LIKE HOW THE SILHOUETTE AND SHAPE LANGUAGE OF THE HAIR LOOKS… I PREFER THE PREVIOUS ONE

No, I see the problem

(Magi: Ch. 46)

For example, see this

It's cuz Ohtaka's arts of him have the hair spikes vary in size and length, which creates an interesting and distinguishable silhouette, and good shape language.

But mine (that recent hair I drew that I'll definitely scrap LMFAO) lacks that variation in the hair, cuz the hair spikes are rather thin and are roughly around the same size. There's also not much gaps in the hair... Ok, I know what I need to fix.

[deathberi]

i hope you don’t mind me asking but how do you keep aerith’s eye color the same in your gifs when i try with my gifs her eye color always fades to gray and i want it to be the same as her pretty green/turquoise eye color??!!😭😭

hello hello anon! of course i dont mind and omg i feel youuuuu!! rebirth has been very wild on its lighting here and there, right? :3

if then i think your psd (i'll be referring to the set of adjustment layers together as one whole 'psd') is most likely anti-green or anti-cyan? do you usually use a previous psd right off the bat orrr do you manually do all adjustments every time??? but either way what i like to do when all my existing psds fail me is to go basic and stick with selective color and hue/saturation and just adjust adjust adjust til im satisfied lol. trick maybe is to check her default eye color on a specific scene by testing the saturation at max. that way you'd get the dominant color for her eyes there and you can adjust specifically that hue. example sometimes you think it looks green but it's actually cyan, so i'd tinker more on cyan only for both hue/sat and sel color. if the specific hue isnt working, then try adjusting the tiniest little bit on the neutral to just shift things altogether! if you get what i mean omg!! but basically yeah, by manually adjusting per color range really helps you understand the colors of a scene and see which works to your target!

but really when it's a very greenish and cyanish scene overall i'd just try not to neutralize it so much bc we'd get dull gray eyes then usually :( unless you're willing to do masking!! i do this too sometimes but only on my solo twitter gifs and never on tumblr bc it's too much work for bigger gifsets hehe

[mimithealpaca]

inking/coloring test + style exploration ft. ursula tso

a redraw, inking, coloring practice/experimentation, and style exploration all in one post! the pic i was redrawing/referencing is this.

how i would normally approach coloring with marker + something a lil newer (adding saturated highlights on the edge of shadows)

was referencing the coloring style of horikoshi's 9th anniversary spread. i like his coloring style now--a lot more contrast. not enough color vomit/surrealism for me though hehe. he tends to use the colors you'd expect for a character, which isn't necessarily bad. a "pick a good color scheme from the get-go and not blend everything like mad" artist, maybe. which is... not me, i think. as you can see in 1, i do like to blend.

the idea was shoujo coloring??? so desaturation, use of whites, blend the edges, etc... tbf, i hate the lineart here the most. i was trying to do a sketchy thing but it took me this long to realize... yo.... i actually don't know how to do that lol. not anymore. i'm more confident with my lines than i am so... scritchy-scratchy no bueno.

i was looking at one of my fave artist's art (komunhorangi) but they didn't have any marker pieces on their insta :') i think their strength is color schemes, especially with blue/pink/purple which... well, i didn't add nearly enough in this pic. i like how i colored this one the most though, as well as the lines. g-pen FTW!

no style ref for this, i was just trying to do a no-blend thing, i guess. fluently markers for hair and shirt. ONE prismacolor marker for the skin.

this one i tried to do a gretlusky workflow. color pencil sketch, erase, ink (sometimes they ink AFTER though), color everything in, saturated color on key points (i.e., face, shoulder, collarbone), then color pencil on top for texture. although the inking/general style does not evoke gretlusky at all (and i wasn't necessarily trying to), this one was a pleasant surprise.

OKAY NEXT ARE THE STYLE RECREATIONS

i didn't look up any references for these by the way. just from my head. how'd i do?

here is the first one in my own style.

tried to do horikoshi style

tite kubo what's upppp don't look at the hand DON'T LOOK AT THE HAND

takahashi rumiko's style is forever gonna be in my art dna, i've accepted this as fact now

no specific artist here but... i was thinking... shoujo?

ichikawa haruko

"generic josei style???" maybe subconsciously thinking "even though we are adults" though

[peonycats]

hello! ive been looking through your art and stuff and ive realised that you have this amazing way of shading (esp for clothes) that somehow makes everything look more 3d/pop out more but is very subtle. as someone who has a (relatively) simpler art style who can't go all out with the realistic shading and things like that - how do you do it?

Man I hate taking so long to answer asks that my art style changes BAHAHAHA

how long i took to get this ask aside, WAHHH IM GLAD U THINK SO HIGHLY OF MY ART... THAT REALLY DOES MEAN A LOT TO ME- i’ll try my best to explain how i go about coloring line artwork with an art piece of miss qatar, and hopefully it makes sense!

I’m a bit of a lazy bastard, so when I’m not looking to fully render my artwork in a style similar to my Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania painting, I tend to outline the shadows to make it easier on myself haha (altho it does require u to have a half decent knowledge of clothing folds so like how much easier it is... is debatable) After lining, I fill in base colors.

Then, I loosely color in areas of shadows and highlights- don’t worry about making this nice and clean, this is just about making sure you get the relative values down and that the lighting is accurate.

Once I’m done with that, I start rendering the shadows and colors in detail, giving it a lot more variation. I like to change the hue of the base color in the shades to make it more interesting, and one of my favorite techniques is to ring some shadows with a warmer, redder surround line to make it pop out!

When I’m done rendering the shadows, I duplicate the layer and using curves, manipulate the contrast to go higher, before using “Gradient Map” to choose a gradient map I like, then messing around with opacity and layer settings until I’m satisfied with the colors- this isn’t necessary, but I do it cuz I like the color variation it gives hehe

(Sorry if these images are a bit crunchy I used the timelapse to go back and take screenshots bahaha)

I mess around with the colors a bit more, making it warmer and more saturated (I find my ipad’s colors are wayyy more saturated than other screens so I usually edit in post to make up for it sdjfjsd) as well as tweaking colors here there- for example, I made the folds on the right shoulder a bit darker because I felt that the lighter colors were taking away too much attention from Qatar’s face and the left hand side. And then I’m done! Hope that helps anon!! 

[rhodeys]

✨ COLORING GIFS FOR RAINBOW SETS ✨

hello!! so this ask had just been sitting in my inbox for days, and since i finally got some free time (and an incentive) i thought i’d put together a general coloring tutorial - especially for those who are interested in rainbow sets, or just want to get freaky with their gifs, hehe.

photoshop: cc 2021, but tbh this tutorial is compatible with most versions of photoshop for: beginners / anyone with a basic understanding of adjustment layers and brush tool (optional)

the tutorial will show how you can: (1) enhance colors in a neutral/washed out scene (2) change the overall color of a shot (3) make the colors bolder/stronger (4) convert the dominant color to another color

in other words: i rarely save my psds so this is what we’re stuck with

1. 

usually, when i’m making a color set, the first thing i do is open the hues/saturation layer and pull the saturation to a 100. this gives me a pretty good idea of the colour palette i can work with. and since this shot is more on the dark side, i brightened the gif a bit, and then moved saturation to a 100. this is what i get:

now that i know the dominant colour is yellow, i can drag the saturation back to 0 and start working on the actual coloring! i go to curves, and brighten the gif a little. most of the time, the white and black points (the first and the third inkdropper) does wonders in color correcting your gif. buut, marking the white point of for this gif would remove what little yellow we have, so i just did a manual adjustment until i was happy with the result.  

(since he’s a poc, i used a brush tool at 35% capacity over his face on the curves layer mask. it’s soft, and barely noticeable, but it stopped him from looking lighter, which would become a problem once we move on to the vibrance layers. basically, the lighter the subject, the more susceptible it is to being affected by color enhancing layers.)  

next, i go to the yellow hue/saturation option, and increase yellow saturation to 50. i usually don’t do this much, but the yellows are very very light in this scene, so we’re enhancing the colors wherever we can. i also lowered the intensity of the reds using these settings:

the reason i’m reducing red saturation is because - remember the dominant color on his face was red/yellow? - i don’t want my vibrance layers to end up reddening his skin too much. we already tackled a portion of this when we used the brush tool with curves, but this just ensures that the final product doesn’t have his skin looking too yellowy/funny, hehe. this is my gif after the saturation settings:

honestly, the difference is minimal, but now we have an actual color to work with. now it’s just a matter of enhancing that color. at this point, his skin may also look washed out, but the color will return once we get started with the vibrance/color layers. 

now, i open the vibrance layer, and - this is always dependent on the gif, btw - drag the sliders around until the colors are bolder. this is my gif now:

the yellows are much more evident now, and there’s a bit more color in his face - so yay! at this stage there’s really no need for selective coloring - so i’ll just add a brightness layer and another vibrance layer:

and voila!! mans lookin good

2. 

changing the overall color of the gif is a fairly easy process. i think one thing to look out for is if there are people/a lot of skin that would end up being affected by the coloring – unless there’s minimal movement that you can use a brush tool for. 

loki is more or less a silhouette in this shot, and all i’d need to do would be increase the contrast between him and the fog, and slap on a color. this can be done one of three ways: selective coloring, color balance, and gradient map. i’ll be using selective coloring here because i felt that worked best and it’s also an adjustment layer i’m most comfortable with. 

enhancing the contrast comes first, and since the brightness/contrast layer didn’t work as well as i’d hoped, i opened up the exposure layer and put in these settings:

and i get this:

now that loki is much more prominent against the fog, we can move on to the coloring. since i want it to be pink, i’m gonna open the neutral selective coloring, and use these settings:

just make sure your selective coloring is on “absolute” because it colors your gif independent of the original gif and makes your colors more strong, whereas ‘relative’ colors your gif relative to the original gif – which doesn’t work all that well for color sets. (read: makes it look ugly)

i got the color, but methinks its still a little too dull, so i’ll add a brightness/contrast layer to make the color pop

and done!!

3. 

animation gifs are much more easier to color because the colours are easily isolated, which is just chefs kiss when you use selective coloring. for this one, i just want to enhance the blues / reds, and remove the magenta tone so that the colours are more vivid. first, i increase the contrast:

it’s sharpened the colors a bit, and reduced the dullness:

now, because i want to enhance the blues/reds, and reduce the magenta, i’m going to use these settings in my selective coloring layer: 

i didn’t want to make the red too bright, since red has an annoying tendency to pixelate, and lowered the magentas just enough so that the three of them still have a bit of color on their face. now the blues: 

now that that’s done, all we need is to brighten up the gif. i’ll use curves for this:

i selected my white point (the white inkdropper) from the white part on baymax’s face (which i just realized makes no sense bc his entire face is white) which immediately brightened up the gif and erased the excess magenta. 

if you want, you could still make it brighter by selecting your white point a little towards the shadows in baymax’s face - but methinks this gif looks fine by itself ehehe 

4.

this one will be fairly easy - especially for a shot like this where it’s just blues and black - and will only require selective color and some brightness layers. so, i want to make this a violet gif. the very first thing i’ll do is open up selective coloring and enhance the blues:

idk if this is a thing others do djsajskl i feel like they do, but i do this because i’ve always found it easier to do color convert when the colors are enhanced - so, the more enhanced my blues are, the easier it is to convert to violet. this is what i have now:

now it’s time for violet!!! yee!!!

i increased the magenta in the whites because the highlights in the cloud were looking VERY white, and would end up looking very weird once i increased brightness. so this is just for…. consistency

now we can get on with brightening!! i open up the brightness/contrast layer and use these settings:

and another curves layer, where i’ve intense-ified the dark parts (the grey slider is at input: 27) and lightened the rest (the white slider is at input: 220) 

(i just feel like it makes the coloring look crispy)

and tada!!! 

i hope this helped! i’m still in the learning process when it comes to coloring, but if you have any questions/clarifications, please don’t hesitate to reach out! 

[coatl-cuddles]

Okay so I generally have two styles for doing shaded stuff Painted and then my “holographic sticker” style with the dots and that one swishy dotty gradient pen.  This is for my painted style!!!  Long story short here’s a tutorial on how I do that for some friends on discord hehe.

AND TADAAAAAA THATS HOW I DO IT~~ cant read my absolutely ADDHORENT handwriting?  No worries!!!!  Captions/Transcript + some extra notes below !!!

TRANSCRIPT! Step 1: Lay down your flat colors! I always color drop everything to make sure its as close as possible.  The only time I don’t color drop is if I’m adjusting a red to a more pinkish color!

Step 2: Shading time!  The first step is to choose what color you want to work with!!  Remember that when you’re shading that SATURATED IS BETTER.  Don’t darken the color unless you really need to.  Just make it more saturated and/or cooler.  Cooler colors are darker than warm tones.  So if you need to adjust go saturated - cooler - and then lastly darker if needed!!   For the sake of the tutorial make 3 colors.

The first one a saturated color / A DARKER saturated color / a complimentary or contrasting color. This is our lightest to darkest scale!

To start off take your first color and cell shade ONE FLAT COLOR or SECTION with it!!!!  Do NOT use this for the ENTIRE drawing!! Work in pieces!!!  

Step 3:  Add a gradient to that cell shade~~ So you just used 1/3 colors to cell shade with.  Now take your other two colors and create a gradient with it!!! You’ll want a blendable brush for this.  I like CSP’s oil flat brush!   Make sure your contrasting color is in the darkest spots! Step 4: Blend with the flat color bordering your cell shade!! AKA just make the border that meets the cell shade softer.  

Honestly, dont worry about making it clean.  Really all you need to do is take a few strokes of the flat color and put it into the cell shade a little and youre good to go.  I like doing little dashes.  Also when you do this feel free to take that yummy contrasting color and make it bleed up towards the lighter color!! It’s not accurate with like how shading works or whatever, but it looks super fucking cool. 

Step 5: Highlights!! Its time to add some highlights!! Basic rule for highlights.

Warm flat color = cool toned highlight!

Cool flat color = warm toned highlight!

Literally just put this color anywhere you want a shine and then take that color and OUTLINE the cell shade like riiiiiight up against the lineart. Trace your lineart with this color where its darkest basically.  This counts as your “backlighting” and all that nonsense, but more importantly it just looks cool.  If your highlight is too bright for the shadows you can also outline with your flat color!!

Step 6: Details!!  Add sparkles and shit.  I also like little lines.  Draw diamonds, fish, stars, planets, flowers, etc etc.  Whatever the fuck you want!  I use the highlight color or I use a slightly lighter version of it to do this Aaaaand youre done!!!!!

I don’t do all of these in this order obviously, usually I wait until I do EVERYTHING with cell shading before I add my highlights and details, but for the sake of doing one section of the tutorial I figured it would be easier to see how its done.  If you wanna try drawing this way just know that with time you dont need to plan out your colors and eventually youll just know what to do as you go along and you’ll probably jump around a bunch.

My tips are make it messy, have fun with it, dont worry about all the little details until the very END (i.e lines or patterns on the clothes. You’ll just cover it up otherwise), and feel free to fuck with your glorified cell shade as much as you want!!! 

 Dont over think it either~  Its literally just a cell shade with a gradient + highlights that outline the lineart where its darkest.  Thats alllll it is~

Hope this helped and have fun drawing guyssssss

[lily-orchard-gossip-blog]

Anonymous Submission

So... I redrew Lily's new puppet out of spite. 

The first (and most obvious) thing I did was resize Lily's left eye, and then I moved and resized her mouth so it's not so close to the nose, both of which made me realize that her head was a little too big, so I resized that as well. I also made her eyebrows a little more visible because the simple black lines of the original blended in too much with the lines in her hair. I lightenend the hair just the tiniest bit so the detail in it would be more visible, and I made the braid on the top of the head look more like a braid.

For the eyes I made the pupils/irises rounder and less alien-like, plus I added some detail to make them pop out more. For the clothes/accesories, I added the other strap to the top (because though the right strap might be slightly obscured, it shouldn't just disappear like that.), slightly altered the top's saturation, gave the skirt a more identifiable shape and cut (I think maybe the original was trying to be a circle skirt, but I wasn't sure so I just made it a pleated skirt), I then changed the bracelets to a more round, Sonic style bracelets to help define the silhouette a little more, and I changed the necklace to be more clear as to what it's supposed to be (the Gardevoir megastone). I almost wanted to do a pink diamond symbol out of spite, but I decided not to. The pink clashed with the color palette! :))))

I only made very tiny changes to the colors so they'd be more clear in black and white. Here's a tip for artists, if you're unsure about your character's color palette, take whatever photo editing/art program you have, make a new layer above the drawing, fill entirely with white and set the blending/layer mode to "color", if the values of the colors look way too similar with each other, then you might need to change the color palette a bit. That's why I lightened the color of the skirt and changed the hue of the shirt (I was going to give her a blue skirt, but then she started to look like Wonder Woman, soooo). 

Hehe, I put way too much effort into this. 😓 And I'm sure a professional character designer could come up with something better, but whatevs. The "Good vs Bad Character Design" video by BaM Animation was a huge help for this design, and I recommend it hugely for anyone trying out character design! 

[woozi]

Hi!! Can I ask you if you have any advice on how to only colour one part of a gif? Like you did with your Jeonghan bday set? I have a hard time figuring it out ㅠㅠ

hey bestie!! it def is v challenging, i also find it quite difficult at times so don't feel too discouraged!

i think the way i'd go about it differs on a case to case basis, especially considering the color i'm going to be changing, but here's a very basic guide/a gist of how i do it <3

for me, the easiest colors to manipulate are blues and cyans so i'll be using scenes with them on this example!

this is my base gif

i usually do a preliminary coloring first majorly bc of the skin before adjusting/changing the color im trying to play with. here is how it currently looks like

and now we play with the colors!! go to your adjustments layer and select "selective color", the next panel should appear

you can try to slide the panels around to make sure you're augmenting the color that you want. i just like doing it because sometimes greens read as yellows, etc, hehe. now. what im trying to change here are cyans bc of cheol's background. the first thing i like doing is reducing the "shades" available by trying to make it one solid color. given that his background also has hints of blue in it, i first move the sliders around to my liking to achieve this.

now that i have a more cyan background, i can choose to repeat that step to make it more solid, but in this case i'm satisfied so i wont do that lmao 😭 now i boost the cyan itself to make it more vibrant. more vibrant colors are easier to change later on!

now for the fun part!! we use hue/saturation to finally change the colors. since i'm changing cyans, i'm going to select cyan and just move the slider to the color i want. in this case that's red!

and there you have it! you can also move the saturation and lightness sliders to augment the color to your liking. here are other color examples and their equivalent sliders too (just bc i enjoyed making this lmao)

you can always do more coloring on top of it too in case the skin got messed up, hehe. hope that made sense! sorry its a little all over the place my brain just got fried from class fdjfdjfdj if you have more questions don't hesitate to ask, i'd be more than glad to answer them <33 hope this helps!!

[jean-does-not-have-a-horseface]

Only Time Makes It Human 2

As promised, here I am with part two, hehe this is looooong and I'm really really proud of it 👉🏻👈🏻 part one here

Pairing: Levi/ Reader

Tags: college!au, angst, fluff, many smooches in this chapter I hope you enjoy

Warnings: mentions of cheating, smoking and Zeke being a little shit

Cobblestone streets and modern renovated buildings bathed in tiny multi colored Christmas lights decorated almost every side of Trost with Christmas creeping around the corner. Petra's eyes were gleaming golden as they landed on every store window, the smile on her face refused to fade. Her footing only became faster as they approached the turn to the familiar coffee shop.

Her cuffed up jeans swayed as she flickered her feet to the pedestral, expectedly catching Levi's attention, but not for the reason she'd like to. Today, Petra seemed too bright and bubbly to take notice of any puddle of water that was left behind from last evening's brief snow storm. Everytime Levi managed to open his mouth, in hopes of scolding her to prevent her from getting her feet wet she seemed to skillfully sway herself out of danger, leaving him with his mouth slightly parted while his unspoken words took a roote from the tip is his tongue back to his brain.

"Come on Levi! We're almost there!" Petra said enthusiastically.

Levi only managed to click his tongue in response. With a head that was begging to burst and hips that burned in soreness and superstitial scratches inside his sweatpants he couldn't possibly bring himself to catch up on Petra's enthusiasm. He even caught himself wondering how Petra was in such a good mood; as if she wasn't mixing any existing drink along with Hange last night.

His head was swamping him, drowning him with trillions of new questions with every passing second. It was merely impossible for him to ignore his point of view of last night's events. His mind was not even allowing him to take a breather, to enjoy a soul mending cup of hot tea before he could come up with any believable assumption as to how exactly he ended up in the position he woke up in.

As he sternly walked ahead behind his bubbly partner, his heart protested in his chest everytime he set his eyes on Petra's auburn hair. His stomach, much in a horrid condition as well threatened him to spill the alcohol poisoned insides it was welding; every aspect of his sore, hungover body deemed him unable to allow him to carry on.

Nontheless, as they took the inevitable turn the all too familiar coffee shop stood only a few meters away from him as he paced a few more steps, clutching his stomach along with each tap of his feet on the ground. Petra shot him a knowing glare before she set her hands on the vast metallic knob, a loving half smile lingered it's way across her full pinkish cheeks.

Winter time didn't suit Petra, she knew that as much as the next person. Despite the fact that the saturated rosy hue on her cheeks and nose made her look unbelievably sweet, her caramel like persona and choice of aesthetic screamed spring from miles away. It was a miracle that she could manage to get through wintertime somehow stylish and warm. With her lilac puffer jacket zipped up over her mouth and her wide leg jeans cuffed perfectly in order for her butterfly patterned socks to peak from her creamy Converse, she felt somehow confident enough that this could be a regular casual look for her.

However, with the holidays approaching in a week's time she knew she would have much more liberty to her clothing choices. She shot another warm look at Levi again, never loosing her small smile as she painted the picture of the two of them near Erwin's fireplace on Christmas day in her head.

Had it not been for his body pushing him over the edge of guilt be probably would have left his heart warm up by the small affectionate gesture.

Petra's attention seemed to deviate away from him for a few, mere seconds, with an ultimate goal to find a nice comfortable booth to sit in. Upon her eyes falling to the left she spotted one that looked decent, if not, the best booth in the cafe. Plenty of today's minimal sunlight was gathered on the spot; at the side there was a waitress, silently scrubbing the surface of the table with force, a tray with used cups and plates balancing perfectly on her other hand.

Amazing spot and recently cleaned? Levi's prayers must have been heard today.

She resended the fact that Levi would be too grumpy to let himself be bathed in light; with a grip of her hand around his wrist she pulled him towards the booth in fast movements. She couldn't have anyone take the perfect stand on her favorite cafe and plus, it would do good to both her and Levi to warm up under the nice morning light.

Petra loosened her puffer jacket off her frame, as silently as she could master; she knew by looking at Levi's face that he was in pain. It was unusual if him to get that drunk, she knew, but he had been particularly grumpy and almost too generous with his drink the previous night.

Not that Petra couldn't suspect the reason as to why Levi had managed to go to such extend. Her mind had been fast to put the pieces together when she saw you approaching their group and even faster to acknowledge that you seemed to ignore Levi and her completely. She had seen the effort and pain in your somewhat unfocused eyes every time you threw a small glance at them, she had seen the way Levi's face would fall with every passing second as your greeting to him never came and she wasn't one to judge.

When deciding to go after Levi after he had just broken up with you she knew she had to accept that maybe he wouldn't be able to recover from his past relationship that early as to get in one with her. Hange had warned her about it, her friends had warned her about it, but with her caramel sunshine personality and quick smart wits she had found her self in a promising position to Levi's future. In addition, they were having fun, joyous moments together, their linking had soon turned into what seemed like a blooming relationship.

"So." Petra beamed and shook her thoughts off her head, extending her hands patiently waiting for Levi to respond to the action by tingling his fingers through hers. "What's today's tea?"

Getting comfortable in her seat wasn't hard. The faux leathery material of the booth rubbed on her buttocks but with her jeans muffling most of the sound though she let it fall deaf in her ears. Still, her hands sat welcomingly extended on the table, her fingers occasionally motioning Levi to take a good grab at them to which he never seemed to pay attention. He seemed to distracted and anxious, too deviated of the world around him. But still Petra remained beaming, patient.

"Today." Levi sighed, burying his head between his palms, rubbing along his eyebrows with his thumbs. "Today I'll have coffee."

"Oh it's one of those days?" Despite not wanting to be too generous with her bubbliness to the point where she could irritate the man, Petra chose to simply lower her voice in understanding.

"Turkish, make it double and bitter."

Only on rare occasions did Levi drink coffee. He didn't despise the taste as much as warm lager though, what got him cringing with coffee was that he'd be moody and sad all day afterwards. But today sure had been an exception. No amount of painkillers would work for his head if he didn't get a sufficient amount of caffeine in his body. And since he already was in a shitty mood, how could coffee make it any worse.

With Petra out of sight for a few moments he was for the first time today, left alone with his thoughts. As his head throbbed memories roared their way to every corner of his brain, making his eyes squint. Anxiety would creep in and out as he thought of leaving you in his apartment confused and all alone, supposing you'd know what to do.

How could you know what to do?

In that moment leaving with Petra had seemed as the only possible thing for him to do; he couldn't expose you to her, for all that was worth you shouldn't have been there in the first place. But now? Thinking about it made him sick to the stomach. You were equally confused as lost in the moment and he had left you alone after spitting his anger for himself towards you, he made a mental note that a little self control couldn't harm him the next time he had to deal with promiscuous situation.

Most importantly though, he was facing an irrational inner conflict. He wasn't one to jump to impulsive decisions, but he wasn't one to be unfaithful either; his actions sat acute on his chest, sending dry gulps down his throat.

Petra arrived with two drinks in her hands before he had time to process his thoughts further. Sitting her self on the booth again she passed him the small white cup, the strong aroma of Turkish coffee hitting him immediately upon the action.

His chest tensed as he finally felt comfortable to shift outside of his jacket. The guilt inside him was tripping, lathering his stomach in vibrations and spending hot waves throughout his body. Suddenly, he couldn't bare to look across the table in Petra's direction.

She was sipping tenderly on her hot cup of chocolate cappuccino, her upper lip curled up in a sweetheart manner on the rim of the cup as she ogled at him with a feathery soft expression plastered across her face.

Though he loathed to be put in such position by his own self, the decision in the back of his mind seemed like the only rational one. As the time passed by and his coffee sat in the small cup, still as ever, his thoughts only roared louder. Was what he was thinking the right thing to do or was he just jumping into another heartbreak?

There was a sudden hunger eating away his insides, a need to see you and sit down to talk about whatever had happened last night. His heart was pounding at the thought of sitting across from you under a softer, humane setting, with your eyes starting into his. Maybe you could linger your hand into his, in the way Petra had prompted him to do so before and maybe he'd be able to somehow come up with particular words to solve the tention between the two of you.

But supposing that could ever be the case, that prompt left no room for Petra by his side.

"Maybe we should take a break."

The words left his mouth before he could manage to put an alt to his thoughts.

Without realizing, his eyes were now wide, starring deep into Petra's hazel ones. With shaky hands he grabbed his cup, deciding now that it was time to wet his dry mouth.

"No." Petra blinked her eyes erratically into Levi's, taken aback as she was.

It hit her like a truck.

One particular thing had struck Petra, back in the day when watching Mean Girls as a coming of age teen for the first time. The way Regina was slammed by the school bus was raw and unforgiving, perfectly fit to the nature of the scene and surprisingly it had looked realistic enough to make Petra -or anyone else- gasp. But had she ever thought she'd be in Regina's shoes?

"No?" Levi spoke as if he was right on time to answer the question in her mind. But Petra was still struck, mouth slightly agap as she stared back at him. Her mind was traveling on way too many places at once, sending anxiety to her stomach but she managed, despite all odds, to take a deep breath. Then, another.

"What's gotten into you Levi?" She asked.

"Last night was," he paused, averting his eyes with guilt.

Suddenly, Petra knew. She didn't have to try and guess what he was despairately trying to mutter. The evidence was everywhere, but she had deliberately chose to close her eyes. She should have known ever since last night when Levi left without informing no one. She squinted her eyes and furrowed her brows, by clenching her fists hard enough so that her nails were digging into her palms her knuckles turned white.

It was mostly his appearance that gave him away, more so than his behavior. When it was most likely for Levi to be unusually grumpy on many days, it wasn't like him to dress so randomly. His woolen black turtleneck didn't exactly match his sweatpants and his leather jacket. It wasn't like him to make such matches between his clothes, not even when he was in a hurry. In addition, she could see the marks behind his right ear, something he might have had no idea about, but she was going to spare him of the embarrassment.

"No, we're not breaking up."

It wasn't like her to mouth such statement; in fact, Petra would never on her right mind prevent someone from breaking up with her. She had seen it happening one too many times. Of course human relationships were made to fall apart at some point but her luck, especially when it came to romance, had never been kind.

She had been kind to everyone instead.

Whether people liked it or not that was her. Kind and considerate too much for her own good. She couldn't help that she was attracted to mysterious looking men with issues that would stand in her way of happiness; Levi was a tangible example. As much as she would like to mark her territory around him, she was aware he didn't belong to her. He had unbeknownst to him made sure to show on different occasions, whether it was by staring at you from afar for a lite too long or by finding her self being offered to wear your spare clothes that lived still in his apartment.

Maybe that was what was breaking her heart, urging her in turn to refuse his departure from her life. She didn't know why she shushed him in such way. Was it that her heart would tear in two if she heard an actual confirmation to her thoughts fall off the tip of his tongue? Most probably.

"I don't mind." She cut him off the moment she saw him opening his mouth to speak. "I'll help you get through this, I wouldn't abandon you for a slip up."

...

"(Y/n)! Where have you been we've been worried sick!"

The moment you set your collapsing feet inside the campus Sasha's eyes fell on your form, desperately shooting you simultaneous glares of terror and relief. The brunette practically run to your direction; with her feet stomping on the now discolored, moist grass that covered the majority of the campus yard she marched ambiguously. A worriedly frowned Eren who tried his best to contain his messy hair from getting in his eyes as he run, followed asuit.

"Jeez, why are you wearing the same clothes as yesterday?" Sasha inquired, her voice loud as it was rang through your throbbing head, lingering in any possible hurting crevice. "Are you alright!?"

"Sas, don't scream, my head is about to explode." You muttered with watery eyes, begging your self to ignore Sasha's and Eren's puzzled faces.

"You reek of alcohol and sweat!" Eren exclaimed. "Shit. Where did you stay the night?"

"Beats me, Eren, I could have slept at a bench for all I know," you exhaled below a tainted breath.

At the sight of Eren's hard, unforgiving gaze, you could feel your heart speeding up inside your chest, the small vital organ clenched on your lungs, preventing them from processing air normally. Your chest burned in anxiety and uncertainty, there wasn't much time for you to come up with any excuse of your nighttime where abouts, you knew that much, and Eren or Sasha weren't going to straight up digest any profound lie you could come up with on the spot.

"Where did you wake up though?" Eren inquired sternly, yet his voice wasn't exactly authoritative as he waited for your answer.

"Outside my apartment door, I really don't remember anything up to that though."

"Don't scare us like that!" Sasha playfully punched your shoulder as she spoke with worried eyes. Her expression though quickly changed comically into fright as she finally scanned you up and down. "Just! Where is your jacket? It's freezing! Are you crazy?"

"I left it at that house yesterday. And my keys were in it." You muttered, averting your gaze away from Sasha.

"Stay here, I have a spare jacket in my bag, I'll go get it from Connie."

You nodded in response ignoring the fact that Sasha was already running away on her tracks upon the words leaving her lips. Quickly, you noticed as the expression of disapproval deformed off Eren's face, his lips curling upwards into into a soft smug.

He leaned close to you, bringing his face to the crook of your neck tilting his chin upwards so that his lips were almost brushing against your earlobe.

"I sure did leave you a nice mark yesterday huh? Don't flaunt it like that people will get jealous that im with you." A chuckle escaped him as he placed a quick kiss at the side of your neck. Eren's words were slowly shivering their way through your spine raising every single hair on your body.

When you realised what he was referring to your eyes widened, the tender spot of skin on your nape he had planted a kiss on burned in spreading hot blotches. Your stomach growled in protest to your feelings, threatening to spill once again as anxiety tied the organ in a numbing knot.

You shot a puzzled look at Eren -or rather at his back- but you weren't sure for what exactly. Your head was spinning, processing his spoken words unevenly in despairate efforts to put the pieces together. Was he aknowledging that you were together or was he sassing you over hickies he hadn't been the one to make?

And as oblivious as ever he only shot you a wide ear to ear grin. The cold winter air blew his long bangs to all directions across his face, his eyes squinting in happiness as he pulled back from your neck placing his palms over your shoulders. He didn't really seem like he even knew whether the marks on your neck were made by him.

"You know, maybe we should go out next Saturday alright?" He batted his eyes on you once again "No labels, just us buying Christmas gifts. Maybe Zeke could come as well."

Ah yes, Zeke. As if your problems weren't big enough already while you had to deal with the fact that you were most probably ruining Levi's life again with yesterday's actions, you also had to tolerate Christmas shopping with Eren and Zeke. When the fact that Eren would avoid the two of you being alone together in any date-like scenario was a given it was only on rare occasions your so proud and self proclaimed wingman stuck along with you.

In the back of your head you could always think about Levi and how much he disliked that you would sometimes hang out with Zeke, especially due to the fact that the two of you shared a sculpture class.

But why exactly were you thinking about that now?

Nevertheless you needed to stop your mind from running back to Levi for only a moment. The way he had abandoned you in his apartment all alone was cruel enough and as you looked at Eren, worrying your button lip between your front teeth, you contemplated on whether you deserved it.

You had gotten up on your wobbly feet only to maniacally search for your clothes all over his floor. Your jacket, long forgotten in his car to which of course you didn't have access, held your apartment keys. You had opted to just dress up with the clothes you had and walk the short distance to the campus; what could have possibly happened in a ten minute walk? You couldn't freeze your arms off in such a short period of time.

Admittedly, you had taken numerous walks without a jacket after midnight during wintertime, but the freezing morning breeze of December in Trost was something you wished you had never underestimated.

If you could, you would have Sasha slap you for not borrowing one of Levi's jackets but in your last hungover braincell's defense, you didn't want to cause him any more trouble. Of course you'd put him in enough trouble when you'd ask him for your jacket and keys, you couldn't possibly imagine to have to give him back a piece of clothing you had burrowed without asking.

You were positive he had come to hate you enough that he could set any cloth you wore on fire. Was he going to do the same to the bed covers, you wondered.

Naturally, your thoughts were cut short as Sasha approached you with a hooded sweater in her hands. As the brunette whined, out of breath you finally awknowledged Eren again; his hand was wrapped around your shoulders, providing momentarily warmth as he worriedly stared at your shivering jaw.

"You must be so cold." Sasha mouthed as she wrapped her own arms over Eren's around you. "I'm sorry I didn't have a spare jacket snd, Connie didn't either but Reiner did, he gave me this and he said he'd search for your jacket at their frat alright?"

You simply nodded, slightly closing your eyes in acceptance of her gesture. Your own frozen arms came to wrap around her waist as you pulled her close to you. "Thank you baby."

"Don't mention it. Reiner also gave me a jersey, they're both fleece, you should be warm enough."

Eren seemed to shift uncomfortably as you ripped Reiner's black hoodie off Sasha's grip, despairately speeding up your movements to wear the warmth providing piece of clothing over your form. His lips puckered momentarily as he pinched his nose in what looked like annoyance from the corner of your eye. Quickly though you caught his face falling into a smug expression once again as he eyed you.

"I'll say thanks to Reiner for you." Eren said, clicking his tongue while pinching his nose once again.

Once Eren strolled away, Sasha widened her eyes dropping her mouth in an unbelievable manner of disbelief. She sucked the underside of her mouth, propping her lower lip even further to exaggerate the comical effect of her expression. Not that you were one to judge, you stared back at her with the same look on your face as well, puzzled much by Eren's mixed signals. The two of you continued to stare back and forth at eachother for a few silent moments as your temples throbbed, despairate to process what had just happened.

"Is Eren jealous?" Sasha finally uttered, finally putting the situation into words. "What the actual fuck?"

"You know he told me to go Christmas shopping with him? As in going out?" Sasha's mouth formed into an 'o' as she stared at you, her eyes lingering at your lips awaiting for your next sentence. "And what do you know, then he even said no strings attached and that he'd invite Zeke as well."

"And now he's jealous of Reiner giving you his clothes?" Sasha furrowed her brows at this, earning a reluctant nod in response by you.

"I need to have a smoke, or else I can't process this." You sighed, avoiding Sasha's disapproving gaze at your statement. As your eyes scanned around the campus you spotted Erwin and Mike sat on a kiosk. A mischievous grin of relief creeped onto your face as you thought of how Erwin would never run low on tobacco. "Wanna go say hi to Erwin and Mike?"

Sasha simply nodded, opting to keep her lecture about the hazardous nature of smoking to herself. This would have to wait for another time; she knew better than to go against her hungover friends. Connie especially was a pain in the ass to deal with. Everyone knew that much thus compared to him, your need to have a smoke felt almost irrelevant.

"Erwin!" You rolled your eyes, your face squinting in pain as you plopped yourself next to the blond, your head quickly coming to rest on his shoulder "Tell me you've got much needed tobacco and filters."

"Sure I... Uh.. I do."

"Great," you sighed "please roll me one."

Even if you missed the way everyone's eyes widened at your sudden presence, Sasha certainly didn't. With a quick, shy look at Erwin, she apologetically averted her gaze to everyone in the kiosk; she nervously cleared her throat next, attempting to get your attention as subtly as possible yet, you still sat with your eyes closed, leaning on Erwin's shoulder. In a way Sasha felt sorry for what she was about to do, but you'd be thanking her forever once you had gotten yourself out of the situation.

"Hi Levi, Petra."

"Oi"

"Hi Sasha!"

Your eyes shot open in terror as you heard the exchange of words. Your head almost immediately shot up from Erwin's shoulder; of course, as Sasha had warned you with her greeting, Levi and Petra stood before you, eyeing you up and down in judgemental looks. Automatically you placed your fingers at the nape of your neck, ready to mingle with the skin there in an attempt to cover up the bruised skin from Petra, not thinking about whether your nervous actions easily gave you away.

"Uh... Hey you guys!" You spoke. The need to to bite your tongue off and swallow it so you could never mouth anything as awkward ever again hit you almost instantly. Awestruck by your awkwardness Levi and Petra only nodded in response, causing a long sigh to escape your lips.

You seriously didn't know why you had to go through this. All you wanted was to actually process last night in a quiet friendly environment and then maybe you'd attempt to think about Eren's weirdly awaken jealously. But as Levi's steely orbs burned holes in your form, wide enough to indicate he could might as well be seeing someone come back from the dead, you disposed of the fantasy. Of course he had to occupy your mind I'm such way that your heart burned brighter than your hungover headache.

No one around you could possibly know what the look you shared with Levi meant. As far as everyone was concerned last night hadn't happened, not in their timeline at least, but for you and the onyx haired man it was an inescapable reality. It was almost telepathic, the way you knew what he was trying to tell you with his steely gaze, as if he was answering the questions inside your head.

We need to talk about last night.

Nervously you averted your gaze to Erwin's hands and they brought the rolled cigarette to your lips, wordlessly asking for you to sip the edge of the rolling paper with some saliva from the tip of your tongue to activate the glue. Once he handed the cigarette to you, you shot up, putting weight on your now week knees. With one hand you put the cigarette between your lips, you took a drag as you carefully lit it up with the lighter Erwin handed you. You waved everyone goodbye, rubbing your palm on Mike's back, earning a small smile from the blond.

Great, now there was no way you'd ask for your jacket back. You'd have someone unlock your door for you. So much for saving yourself from such embarrassment.

...

Saturday came before you could even have time to decide what gift you wanted to get everybody. As per usual, you'd be spending Christmas at Erwin's; it had became a tradition in your group even before you and Levi had hit it off as a couple. Erwin was living all alone in a huge, very non college student budget-y apartment. His father had bought it for him before passing away and you as his dear friend group, had made an oath to never leave him lonely on Christmas.

Except for last year you'd usually you'd have dinner at Erwin's. Levi had always been strict on spending at least half of the day with his mother, therefore Erwin had always had Christmas scheduled. You'd visit him on the 23rd, making all preparations for Christmas dinner and Levi's cake, so that you wouldn't have much work when the big day would finally come.

Naturally, you'd open gifts at Erwin's, therefore you always dropped your presents for the group at his place when you'd buy them, although today you didn't think you'd be able to do so.

While you were almost done with buying presents, Zeke and Eren were spending way too much time pestering each other for what gift they'd buy to their father; at first they had set their eyes on an expensive silver watch. You had to admit it was a beautiful accessory, the way it shone under the bright lighting of the store's window seemed magnificent and just like you had told Eren, you approved of such gift for Grisha, one hundred percent.

And right about then, Zeke has decided to stir things up. You knew he was jealous of Eren's and Grisha's father and son relationship, but you had never guessed it could go to such mischievous extend on the blond's behalf. With a sour expression and a poison dripping mouth Zeke had expresed his utter disgust over the watch, claiming that this was not the right gift for their father and that they should settle for something more 'doctor-like'.

Their bickering had went on for about an hour before you had decided to excuse yourself from the jewelry store. Now, you stood sat on one of the comfortable futuristic benches in between the stores, scrolling maniacally through Instagram. It was such a slow Saturday and if you were to say you were bored it would only be an understatement; almost nobody had posted anything interesting enough to catch your attention, no new music was announced by your favorite artists, hell you even missed people posting a bunch of stories with their Christmas trees.

You almost ignored the tall, dark frame approaching you as you were deeply lost into your phone. Destiny's Child - 8 Days to Christmas repeatedly blasted in your ears as you continued to scroll, still ignorant to the figure beside you.

Your own little Christmas bubble world was cut absurdly as a hand came to wave between you and your phone screen. Your heart skipped a beat as you jumped on your spot, taken aback by the sudden action. Wide eyed and looking to your left you finally came to identify the man who had startled you.

Now that could be a cure to your boredom. Even if it wasn't the best possible option.

"Kenny?" You exhaled enthusiastically slipping your hand between your locks of (h/c) hair, reaching for the small black ear buds. "I'm so sorry I was wearing my headphones. What are you doing here?"

"Ahh just buying Kuchel's gift. You got me thinking you were trying to ignore me runt."

"I'd never, be-" You playfully punched his shoulder as he eyed you, a smirk appearing in his face quicker than you thought it would.

"Besides I'm your favorite uncle, right?" He spoke, completing your sentence. A deep sigh escaped his mouth as he rubbed his cold hands together, hoping to create enough friction to warm up his fingertips. "How long have you been waiting for the midget runt?"

You turned your dropping face away from his direction as the words fell off his mouth. Your heart gradually started throbbing inside your chest, the tight knot of anxiety was forming and coming undone in fragments of seconds as you stared at the white granite under your feet. Kenny must had taken a while to realise the chance of aura around you, a steady chuckle came out of him as he commented on Levi's meticulous routine of picking gifts for his friends.

"And why the long face?" Finally, he turned his attention to you "Did you have a fight?"

"Not exactly, we haven't fought in a long time." You admitted.

Kenny's gray eyes worried over you before squinting in another smiling manner. His palm came to playfully slap your upper back as he left out another loud chuckle of amusement. "I'm sure you two don't have many things to fight about. Kuchel is so enamored by that, how do you even manage with this brat (y/n)?"

"I don't... Not anymore at least."

Kenny's chuckle was cut short absurdly by your soft, mumbling voice. There was no way he hadn't heard what you had just said, he was just struggling to comprehend the context of your words. You claiming you weren't dealing with him anymore meant you weren't together anymore and Levi had deliberately kept this secret from him and Kuchel.

"Wait, you're not together? When did that happen?"

"Kenny" you paused, deciding to set your eyes onto him all while still avoiding his gaze. "It's almost been a year."

"What? Wait, why?"

"Levi and I, how do I put this in the shortest way possible, Kenny..." You sighed, bringing a finger to the side of your lips and biting the inside of your cheek as you tried your best to concentrate on your summing up skills. "He became distant, too engrossed with studying and shut himself off and I guess I just, I felt excited for something else. Levi felt excited for something else too."

That could make up for a quick summary, it could be enough to make Kenny understand the quick narration of you point of view. It was unnecessary to go into further details, such as how you had came closer with Eren throughout your group, or how Zeke had tried his best to convince you that he was right on the fact that Levi was growing more distant with each passing day, every time you'd open up to him about your problems.

More over, you couldn't possibly go into the lengths as to how quickly Levi had hit it off with Petra, proving Zeke's assumptions on the fact that maybe Levi was just tired of you.

"Shit. I'm sorry, if it helps, care to gossip on Levi's new item?" Kenny shifted his hands inside the pockets of his camel colored trench coat, rubbing circles on his upper thighs through the material of the pockets. "I'm dying to to know to what he moved on."

"Kenny! I don't do that!" You bit back and lowered your gaze as you instantly second guessed your statement. You contemplated on whether talking lowly about Petra is the right thing or not to do; she hadn't done anything wrong to you, she was just dating someone she liked while you were turning into their bitter, regretful ex. You couldn't possibly have the right to be jealous of her. But as you looked at Kenny's disapproving expression, you realised that maybe, just maybe, you were. "But I guess I'll show her to you!"

With a double tap your screen came to life, the familiar unlocking page bubbling as it urged you to fill your chosen password. Your fingers ran quickly on the familiar numbers; you've typed them one too many times already. You bit your lip in newfound anxiety as you awkwardly scrolled your social media folder, your fingers found the fuchsia camera icon automatically. With another tap your white Instagram homepage popped up, accommodating a picture of Mike and Nanaba's hands, each holding a carton cup. With a quick doubly tap you liked the picture and set your self the task of on swiping through the story icon features, quickly searching for Petra's familiar profile picture.

"Ah here you go." You finally spoke, breaking the silence as you found Petra's icon. Tapping on it once her newest story popped up. You set your finger on the screen again, keeping your tap locked in place to pause the flow of the story.

The picture depicted her standing before her mirror dressed in a white turtleneck layered with a powder blue plaid dress and topped with a black flap pocket woolen jacket. You could make the creative 'outfit of the day' mention on the bottom left corner, although you were unsure if Kenny cared enough about Petra's Saturday outfit. Plus, you didn't really need him to compare her sophisticated style to you.

"You know I can't really see her face, her phone is in the way."

You simply tapped over Petra's profile name as you sighed. Petra's feed appeared before your eyes, slowly loading all her highlights and posts. You gave your phone to Kenny next, deliberately choosing to look away and stay silent as he scrolled through the girls photos, curiously ogling at her for a few seconds.

"Ah runt," he spoke after sometime, his hands extending to give your phone back, "you ain't gonna stop being my favorite child, he'll come back around you know. He'll always love you, you have his heart and all that jazz."

Kenny tried his best to cut himself some slack from the awkwardness of the situation. Keyword; tried. As he sighed, his head spinner on what he could possibly say to you, he could exactly pinpoint if you needed to be reassured or comforted, or whether he was too late to be there for you.

There was something puzzling you, that was certainly written all over your face as you studied him. Your fingers were nervously mingling with eachother as you gripped on your phone, your hips shifting uncomfortably in the spot you sat. You were nervously thrusting around in your seat, that was much obvious to someone that knew you like Kenny did.

"He already did. But I'm not convinced he loves me, it's more like he has one more reason to hate me. We uhm we... You know, pfft, TMI Kenny, I'm sorry but I need to talk about this with someone."

"Shoot it!"

"We hooked up a well ago."

Oh shit, now that was new. Kenny's eyes widened in surprise as the words left your lips. His shifted himself enough to fully face you, his gray eyes worriedly meeting yours as you opened your mouth to explain. Words that were supposed to flow effortlessly ceased to exist as another, louder voice overshadowed your own.

"Zeke I swear I'll kill you if you- oh who's that (y/n)?"

You turned your head to the owner of the voice, your heart dropping the moment you met Eren's soft turquoise gaze. He stood there, clutching the small burgundy gift bag in his grip, as victorious smug adorned his features.

"Uh, finally you guys! This is Kenny Ackerman, he's," you paused, suddenly uncertain on how you should introduce Kenny to Eren and Zeke or whether you should introduce him to them at all.

"Levi's uncle." Kenny spoke, saving you from unnecessary fidgeting of information. He eyed Eren meticulously as his face slightly dropped in annoyance.

"I'm Eren Yeager, (y/n)'s friend and that's my brother, Zeke."

Eren smiled and extended his hand for a shake at Kenny's direction. Clicking his tongue, Kenny reluctantly gave his hand to the younger man before nodding knowingly in your direction. Eren didn't have to say anything else to prove Kenny he was halfheartedly trying to assert some dominance over you and although the older man tried his best to keep his laughter to himself, he got the message Eren was trying to convey.

Taking another breather to himself, Kenny picked his lips, allowing his face to fall into his usual stern expression.

"See you around (y/n)."

..

You laid on your couch, enthusiastically reading through a Greek epic you had burrowed from Hange a while back. Your hair dripped into the towel you had folded on the arm of the couch as you rested your head against it. You had wanted to slow down your thoughts before taking a change at blow drying your hair, there was a rage of overthinking going inside you that you refused to be left alone with.

You felt overly slow after your meeting with Kenny; the bath you had taken had done nothing to soothe down the wild nature of your thoughts, despite the fact that you had taken your time soaking in hot water and lavender oils.

The strangle fatigue you felt was feeling more indifferent with every passing second as you anxiously read bout Antigone's suicide, your heart was slowly being filled with grief as you though about her significant other, Heamon and how he could possibly react to her death. You were so enamored with the fact that Heamon was son to the king who had ordered Antigone's imprisonment that your eyes were ready to spill all the unshed tears that had gathered in the small corners of tender skin.

You set the epic down, burying your face between your palms as you let out a deep sigh. The air in the room felt heavy, you thought, thus you decided to get up from your couch and stroll around the room to reach for your hairbrush. Maybe now was the time to blow dry your head, your thoughts were completely off Kenny and Levi for the moment.

The sound of your doorbell startled you, though, making you freeze on your spot. You immediately unlocked your phone, hurriedly checking through your notifications for a sign on who it could be; it was rather unusual for someone to just visit you without having informed you about it beforehand.

Nontheless you marched over to the intercom, your finger shooting to press the metallic button to let your voice ring on the other side of the front door of your apartment building.

"It's Levi. I've got your jacket."

Panic run through you in throbbing waves. You simply stood there, feeling utterly and ridiculously puzzled with what you should do. You didn't know if you wanted to run down the front door and just grab the jacket on your own or if you just wanted to call Levi in. Grasping the situation seemed only fair, even in your panicked state you could admit you knew that much.

Your fingers immediately reached for the button underneath the one you were pressing causing a buzzing sound to ring through the intercom. You nervously opened your door and as on que, a few moments later Levi's frame emerged from the elevator doors, strolling to your direction, your black leather jacket neatly folded in his arms.

You wanted to speak, to greet him decently for once after all that time but you failed to find any prompt as to how to do that. Your mind felt at haze as you stared at him while he walked up to, the light from your apartment slowly illuminated his face more with every new step he took to its direction.

"Hey, sorry I came so suddenly, I'm on my way to the movies." He greeted, probing his head upwards to accentuate the action.

'Hey' you wanted to say, to establish some normal ground in your dynamics but still the words that left your mouth before you had enough time process what you wanted to say didn't exactly disappoint.

"Wanna come in?" The subtle look in your eyes as you fixated your orbs at his was at the very least, mesmerizing. If Levi was to describe it, he'd find himself quickly running out of sophisticatedly flavored academic words.

There was definitely a different kind of tention forming between the two of you. It was in the air, but whether it was caused by his own brain as he made the all too casual car ride to your place or by the way that you casually swayed your hair over your shoulder before prompting your head closer to him to speak up, he didn't know. All that he knew was that he was feelings his heart hammering in his chest as anxiety creeped in his stomach. The bold nature of his actions was having this profound effect on him and he'd be damned if he had to question himself one more time as to why he was in your doorstep now out of all times.

Still, your words somewhat lingered in his brain, despite almost falling deaf on his ears. His inability to pay attention to words was probably caused by his heart throbbing in his chest at witnessing this side of you.

"Sure" Levi found his mouth vomiting an answer.

You stepped aside, making room for him to entered the room as you gestured him to. Once he had walked in you closed the door behind you, your chest heaving in a despairately deep breath.

...

Did all kisses feel like that?

Your lips were soft and tender and tasting like burnt tobacco while Levi's were chapped dry and thus split, tinted in purple and tasting like dried blood. It was eeree to think about it, how it came to yours lips finding his once again or why it felt the way it did and why did it momentarily comfort you.

Your whole body was paralyzed with stress and agony; you couldn't move. The inability to speak caused by the burning guilt driven feeling inside your stomach was slowly taking a toll on how the rest of your internals liked to function. The efforts you were putting to regulate your breathing out of your nostrils were tainted and faint, as if not enough courage was laying underneath them and you hated it. You hated that your lungs were paralyzed like that under Levi's mouth on yours.

Maybe if you stopped existing or disappeared for just a moment everything would be normal when the next one came. Yet, things could never work like that and reality was always unforgiving to the actions you would decide to go for.

You still couldn't process how this had happened. One minute you were sat on your couch, angrily looking at each other as you spoke about how prohibited and dirty was what you had endulged in the previous week and the next your words had ceased to exist. His gray orbs had locked into yours, his breathing had quickened, much like yours, and your faces had been so close that your noses were almost touching.

You didn't know what had pushed you to act upon the tention in the air. Maybe it was your aching heart or Levi's eyes as they had begged you to kiss him. Now your own lips, in a similar way were begging him not to stop moving against yours.

Lost in your extravagant world of misery and heartache you didn't seem to realise that Levi's hand still hadn't left your cheek when you let out a long deep sigh escaped your mouth. Instantly though, with your brain acknowledging the moment and delving deeper into the reality of this situation, you jolted away, causing Levi to jump back on his tracks, as if he'd be electrocuted.

"Levi" you trailed off, softly mumbling the next words "I'm so sorry I did this, I should have known better."

Your heart was beyond hammering inside your chest; the cold dripping swear of anxiety had started to coat your palms and upper chest as he engulfed your lips again, this time much more gently. He gently tagged on your bottom lip, worrying it between his own lips. The mellow sounds of sucking filled the air as you tried to pull back, only to be attacked by his mouth every time.

Suddenly as you had just started melting under his hot touch on your waist, you heard what sounded as the most despicable sound that ever existed. Levi's phone buzzed in his pocket as it rang angrily, causing him to pull back from your face. The phone stopped ringing though, just before he could manage to swipe the answer button to the right, sending a huff of annoyance to leave him.

Petra's caller ID burned in his screen once again as his phone started ringing for the second time. This time, he hesitated to lick up. As he started at you apologetically his fingers trembled. He knew, eventually he would pick up the phone, judging by the time his phone read he was late to the very own screening he had decided to ask Petra to. Guilt formed in the back of his throat and he clicked his tongue to try and suck it up, even for a brief moment. With his finger on the acceptance button he turned to you again fixating his eyes at your bruised lips before he spoke.

"I have to go y/n I'm so sorry." He said and finally brought the phone to his ear. "Hey, I'm on my way, I had a mishap, I'll be there in ten, save a seat for me."

This all felt too familiar, once again you were forced into the third person's perspective, although this time you were fully aware of your intentions before and after the so called mishap.

"Listen, supposing you want this to work again we have to put an end to whatever else we have going on. I can't bear being the-"

"I know" he quickly cut you off, picking up his letter jacket from the pool it had formed around him as he hurriedly got up. "I'll call you alright? Have a good night." You blinked at him, not having enough time to utter a response as you watched him run to your door.

Your heart fell to your stomach as you stood frozen in your couch witnessing him exit your small apartment, not even bothering to look back.

You knew now that if Levi chose Petra your world was going to burn.

If you suffered along with my by reading one too many paragraphs in this chapter I'm sorry, thank you though for reading this fic in its entirety, please look forward to part 3 hehe, as always here are my tags: @ackermans-freedom-inc @sasageyowrites (my baby thank you for helping me SO much with this chapter I don't have enough words to explain how much I love you) @ladyofpandemonium @nobody-knows-anymore @levisbrat25 @papinaveensbitch @alrightberries