#these images were drawn bottom to top so the colored one is the first concept and that's why it has no tattoos

[a-eo-iu]

[creates a new guy instead of drawing the guys I already have]

[triangle-strategy-notes]

Trish Concept Art

Trish's concept art! Translation notes and image ids under the cut.

Translation notes:

Full disclosure that I did this page a few months ago and forgot to write down notes as I did it, so I can't actually remember all the hiccups I ran into. So take these page's translations with even more skepticism than normal haha.

"Comes back swinging every time" was more literally "Gets up/comes back many times without getting discouraged."

"Leave it to me" might have also been "don't leave it to me". It has a negative particle so I was leaning towards translating it as "don't," but every auto-translator I ran it through ignored the "don't," which leads me to believe it might be an idiom of some sort, so I left the "don't" off. "Leave it to me" also seems to make more sense contextually.

The whole "mother supports the father's weak points" read pretty ambiguously to me. I'm not sure if they're talking about Travis (who's labeled "Father") or if they're referring to that faintly-pictured guy to the right of the family sketch. Since the arrow is there pointing towards the faintly-pictured guy, I'm inclined to say it's talking about him, but I'm not certain.

Image ids:

[id: Two pages of concept art from the Triangle Strategy artbook centered around Trish. The first page has a colored and uncolored version of her canon portrait, as well as a designer's note that reads, "In the beginning, I requested this character be drawn as someone who fights in a yet-peaceful setting (i.e., a character who isn't introduced as a fighter on any one side of the war). I remember that Mr. Ikushima was very excited to complete it. (Yasuaki Arai)". The second page is labeled, "Bandit Girl", and has several additional sketches of her. On the top half there's a note that reads, "Thief clan color test, picturing their hideout somewhere in Country A." There's a large color drawing of Trish next to it, with a label to her hair that reads, "Red hair." There's a smaller sketch of Trish spinning a bolas weapon around that's labeled "Weapon idea", as well as "Special Weapon 'Bolas'" and "Tangles around an animal's legs and immobilizes it." The second half of the page is labeled just "Bandit". There is a large sketch of Trish in what appears to be a bar fight. There are a list of bullet points beside her reading, "Hard to dislike, Tomboy, Comes back swinging every time, Short-tempered". There's another sketch of her family and herself as a young child, with her mother and father labeled. There's also another man drawn faintly to their right who appears to be Trish's grandfather. A note reads, "The father organized and led the previous generation of thugs and was well-respected for it. The mother supported the father's weak points." Another sketch of Trish has the dialogue, "Leave it to me," as well as a caption that reads, "I grew up carefree, surrounded by thugs!" Another drawing of Trish standing with some of her father's band has the note, "She has a pop/mascot type of look in this pose." There are two illustrator's notes at the bottom. The first reads, "She's so cute with her flashy grin and arms folded like her father. She even got her curly hair from him…….! (Rina Yoshiura)" The second reads, "I like the bandit girl Trish as a set with her father! I like lively and easy-to-understand characters, so they were easy to come up with. (Naoki Ikushima)" /end id]

[sage-nebula]

My season one collector's edition of Arcane arrived today and when I tell you how high quality and perfect everything is . . . I'm especially in love with the hex crystal dice.

The color is perfect and they are so shiny! You can't really tell from a still image, but they have a glitter substance in them so when you move them (or if you were to roll them) you can see something sparkly swirling inside. It puts the hex in hex crystal!

And the hex core one . . . man . . .

This is HEAVY. Pretty sure it would chip my floor if I dropped it. Definitely not for playing with lol. (But I don't play anyway so they're on display in my curio cabinet.)

There was also a cloth map of Piltover (including Zaun—it's just all called Piltover), but there's something on it that feels to me like it might be a spoiler for s2, so I'm not posting it here.

But there are high quality prints of Jinx's drawings (ones from her childhood and present day—you can see the skill jump!), and they are so goooood. Granted, some we've seen before, but it's nice to have thick, physical copies.

Cat Silco.

Family portrait. Here, Vi has the crown later given to Silco, and Powder was already drawing herself with dynamite, drawing someone on fire, drawing missiles and bombs. This is why the idea that Powder and Jinx are different people / personas is ridiculous; Powder is Jinx is Powder. She was always going to grow up to bomb the council building with a giant missile, no matter what.

Not sure exactly what is going on here. The bottom person might be an enforcer due to the mouth maybe? There's a dead pig and a dismembered hand. More bombs and dynamite and some early Chomper concepts. Nails, too, which if you remember she had in Mouser. (Mowser? Mowzer??) Little baby Powder had a violent imagination.

The common fanon is that Fishbones is a shark in honor of Silco, and I like that, but here we have an early Fishbones concept drawn by Powder. Granted, this still could've been from after Silco took her in and perhaps showed her the sea monsters, but it's also possible that Powder herself just always liked sharks because of the chompy teeth. And is it just me, or does that look like Piltover on fire in the background?

The first one she drew in present day (or closer to present day) is an updated Fishbones concept, schematic style. See what I mean about the skill jump, and how you can tell which were done by a child versus an older teen? I find it interesting that so much of Fishbones is pink here—did she still see Vi as a pillar of power when she drew this? I also love how she drew herself with Fishbones eyes up in the top right lmao.

Monkey bomb concepts. It may have traumatized her, but it was also the first one that ever worked, so she revisited it. There's also a doodle of a . . . hamster? . . . on there. Did she have a pet at some point?

And lastly, updated Chomper concepts. Not much to say here except I thought the "POW" at top right said something very different at first. Also she really did just get so much better at coloring and shading. I'm gonna frame these.

Anyway, I love the CE and I hope we get one for season 2 as well. Now to wait for the artbook to be delivered early next year. :3

[viviae]

The Red Plague: An Analysis

Ok, I’m to preface this that I am not at ALL a student of medicine or science I am just a humble blogger who really likes diseases, literary analysis, and the science behind death. This will also be a STUPIDLY long post so I am letting you all live by putting it behind a readmore this time

This goes without saying but there is a content warning to this. I’m talking about death, stages of decay, rotting, corpses, vomit, and other gross medical stuff. There will be NO images however. I subjected myself to viewing those images and I will not condemn you all to view them. 

I’m going to start this off making sure everyone is on the same page and post an image from the art book about the Red Plague itself

So let’s start with the canonical facts about the plague first

Average life expectancy was 3-7 days once symptoms show, Averages are also liars which means it could’ve taken a little bit more than 7 days or under 3 days to die. 

Spread by the plague beetles, exact method of transfer is unknown but Julian was force fed one and contracted the plague however they are safe to keep in containment.

Plague beetles also infected nonhuman objects like the water supply which is shown as a thick ichor. This ichor no longer possesses infectious properties at the time of the story

Julian believed that it had to do with a corruption in the blood hence the usage of leeches 

The Lazarus started as a containment center before becoming a crematorium, meaning people believed that it was spread from contact or things like that

HOWEVER This is not the first appearance of the plague as it would show up at locations Lucio stayed for too long but no note if it spread from these locations. 

It’s not a disease, its a curse.

So, this is one nasty plague on our hands. Most diseases that are this lethal would never be able to spread as much as it did unless it could spread from corpse contact or through other means like a carrier. I think that it could be spread through a combination of both which would add an additional need for cremation. 

Corpse Disposal & Spreading

Historically during plagues you would simply toss bodies into mass graves or ‘plague pits’. This would be, substantially, easier than what they do in Vesuvia. Cremation is not an easy process and is an art form. The heat needed for a cremation alone is incredibly hot and needs special methods to be contained. Not to mention the tedious cleaning process to make sure ashes don’t damage the heat element. So you are telling me that Vesuvia... went through the process of rowing away their dead to the middle of a lake to do mass cremations because it was the easiest? Yes they would’ve run out of grave space a while ago but no one is saying they can’t go make a plague pit out in the woods for half the work.

Now granted, I understand the imagery of making Asra wade through bodies of rotting corpses to find the apprentice’s bloated corpse is uh,,, graphic. Or making us stumble upon an open plague pit of bones in the woods with you LI is not what most people call romantic. (you’re welcome for that image) So they could’ve just made mass cremations on a separate island for tone reasons but that’s BORING.

Not a lot of diseases are actually capable of surviving in dead body simply because when we die our bodies lose the necessary high heats for them to multiply and survive. But this isn’t a disease in a traditional sense, its a curse to Lucio. And this is Lucio we are talking about, some one who is famously afraid of death and dying, which was grafted by a demon of pestilence who is obsessed with worms (cough maggot symbolism and death by disease cough). So I propose that the plague is spread in addition to plague beetles but by dead bodies themselves. This would put additional pressure on proper corpse disposal and the need for cremation. This fact would also explain why plague doctors were present at the boats leading to the Lazarus instead of simple plague carters (rowers?) as doctors would probably have to keep a closer eye on proper disposal of bodies.

As for how I think the beetles themselves spread the plague, I think it’s probably in a similar way as to how Lyme Disease is spread. I can’t name any disease that is spread by beetles themselves off the top of my head but ticks are pretty similar to beetles (I am not an entomologist). Lyme disease is spread by infected ticks biting into the hosts skin and regurgitating its stomach contents that includes the bacterium for the disease. 

This would explain why Julian got the plague pretty awful real quick. He consumed all of the plague beetle’s contents and Lucio didn’t have to try and force a beetle to bite Julian, which would’ve given Julian time to fight back. This is also working with the fact Lucio got bit by a plague beetle when running from Morga in his tale. He most likely contracted the plague, or perhaps he contracted the curse then and later on got re bit, in that bite. This would also explain the ichor that infects the water in the south end. Beetles are significantly larger than ticks, and so they might have a need to empty their stomach contents more and its more waste produced. 

Symptoms and Inspirations

The Red Plague is obviously, influenced by the Bubonic Plague in terms of symptoms and Tuberculous in treatment. I will list some of the common symptoms of Black Plague and signs and be comparing these to the Red Plague. I cannot stress enough that I do not have any knowledge in medicine but I don’t think the dev’s are all doctors so we are on even ground.

There are generally speaking three types of plagues; Bubonic (Most common type of The Black Plague and mainly targets your lymphatic system), Pneumonic (When the Plague enters and infects the lungs), and Septicemic (When the plague enters the blood stream, either form can lead to Septicemic)

Bolded Symptoms are what are obvious symptoms the Red Plague has taken from these three variations of plague. Italic is Lucio specific. 

High Fevers

Chills

Headache

Muscle Pain

Weakness

Seizures

Swollen black lymph nodes known as Buboes (Bubonic)

Internal Bleeding (Septicemic)

Gangrene (Septicemic)

Shock (Septicemic)

Vomiting Blood (Bubonic & Septicemic)

Coughing Blood & Mucus (Pneumonic)

Shortness of breath (Pneumonic) 

The Red Eyes

By far the most obvious symptom of the plague and its trademark. Consider this the equivalent of Buboes to the black plague. This is the first obvious symptom that marks you for dead and probably one of the first symptoms to show after a possible resting phase. 

Apparently it takes each eye individually as seen with Julian or it may not take both? The stage we see Julian in isn’t the clearest but I’m assuming he was rather early on with a pretty serious case. 

It’s also a debate of what exactly is going on with the red stringy bits under neath the eyes. For the sprite models it appears to be veins under the eyes that have been aggravated. While in the concept art above it has a more liquid and viscous look which is probably blood. And in Julian’s CG of him dying of the plague he has no marks around his eyes. So I’m saying its a fun combo of all of the above.

Essentially I think that the plague is causing the blood vessels in the eyes to pop and do serious damage. There can also be a foreign growth to occur behind the eyes or just magical nonsense, doing additional damage to the veins surrounding the eyes and cause bleeding from putting stress on the veins. 

The Arms and Lower Extremities

Ok, remember how I talked about Lucio’s fear of death and how its incredibly likely that the plague is manipulating his fear? In death there are various stages of decay, and different functions occur at each stage. And one of these functions is Livor Mortis. 

Livor Mortis is when your blood cells rupture out of your veins and die. These dead blood cells sink down to your body based off of gravity where they settle. This is seen as a purple color on the skin based on gravity, normally the back. This can be disrupted by any disruption to the body, but depending on time you are likely to receive lighter marks based on its previous position. 

What I think is going on all over the body is veins are rupturing and the body is going through an extreme form of living Livor Mortis. Just that it’s in red and not purple because this is the “Red Plague” and not the purple plague. And due to the patients still being alive when Livor Mortis is occurring it simply pools into the extremities instead of one specific location, with the fingers and bottom of the foot being the most severe. To add to the veins popping suddenly the subtle bruising through origin points to where the red vein-y look begins remind me of my own experience of having four veins burst in my arm. 

Julian had reason to believe he could use leeches to treat the plague and in typical plague doctor fashion of “They were right but not exactly” he was on the right track! Using leeches to drink the settled and dead blood would be beneficial to the patient. As likely leaving these areas to accumulate dead blood would put it at serious risk of rot, since maggots first grow on open wounds and areas affected by Livor Mortis. 

Julian might not have been curing the plague but what he was probably doing is preventing a lot of people from developing gangrene and needing amputations. A beneficial skill for a previous combat medic to utilize and what might have drawn additional attention to him. Julian’s uses of leeches could also explain why Lucio does not have any of these red marks since Julian is his personal doctor and Lucio would spare no expense for his treatment. 

Lucio’s Unique Symptoms 

Portia’s route mentions that due to Lucio’s longer surviving time he developed unique symptoms. We don’t know much details about this besides he was extra miserable and was confined to his bedroom most the time. From my provided list above I think that generally speaking the Red Plague is a combination of Bubonic + Septicemic plagues.

However, Pnuemonic plagues were considered especially deadly, but rarer. Lucio is described as having a cough when he has the plague and generally a wheezy voice. It wouldn’t be odd to think the plague had spread into his lungs due to the increase longevity he had. 

There is a dramatic irony in Lucio losing his lungs to sickness as well. Morga tells us about how when Lucio was very young he almost drowned and that instilled a fear of death in him at a young age. He’s also a man with a lot of stamina who can run in the freezing cold carrying a fully grown apprentice on his shoulder or run away from Morga who also possesses a lot of energy. Lucio has trained his lungs to be stronger more so than the average person, and now with his downfall he loses them. 

It goes along with his general want of having a new body as well. You can rebuild muscle mass although hard, but recovering from illnesses that target your lungs? You’ll almost never get back to the same degree you previously were. 

The imagery of the dead is also present in the animal itself used to spread the plague. Although the beetle comes from Lucio’s tribe, beetles play a role in decomposition. Beetles like to come after the body has been nearly completely rotten, after the maggots and wasps consume most of the dead flesh beetles come in and eat the scraps. Beetles are also used in skeletonizing items, one example I think of off my head is a man who had his amputated foot skeletonized by beetles for keeping.  So these beetles are coming in and spreading a plague that forces the body to go through stages of decay while living, for their own food. Just like Lucio’s tribe came in and slaughtered other tribes for their own need to eat.

The plague was handcrafted to torture Lucio for his inability to finish his end of the deal. That’s why it uses imagery of dead bodies, it steals Lucio’s lungs from him, and why even the dead can cause severe damage. 

Of course this is all my own theory and analysis of the plague but thank you for reading all of this. 

[angelanimedesaray]

Through the Looking Glass Chapter 9:  April

AN:  I’m getting ahead of the question now and stating that in this world, AOT isn’t an anime (Poor souls). So no, the Reader isn’t going to become omnipotent to Levi’s life/world.

They did not binge this in one day.  The first round, for sure they did, but it was a little broken up in spurts.  For the sake of brevity, considering this was already going to be a long chapter, I cut out all the flickering back and forth and just focused on their Movie Nights and them watching the show.

It might feel a weird mix of rushed and long, because they’re watching the entirety of Your Lie In April, but I wasn’t going to transcribe the whole show, so there’s a lot of summarizing and cutting things out and highlighting certain pieces, but its still long because there’s a LOT to cover.

Also because of how emotional this chapter is actually going to be, I want to just remind...that Levi is like, mid teens, and hasn’t gone through much of the stuff that adult Levi has been through, so in my mind, that justifies a bit more of a REACTION for some of this stuff.  But he’s still Levi, and he’s still going to be reserved and such, just...not as controlled as Adult Levi.

This whole chapter is like one big lead up to the next chapter, funnily enough. XD

Also got to listen to “Constellation” by Far Out feat. Karra on repeat writing this.  It felt so fitting!

I’m putting quotes from Your Lie in April in italics with quotes and an indent like this, so its clear that they came from the show.  Levi’s thoughts/memories will just be in italics, no indention .

Characters:  Levi, Reader

Pairing:  (Eventual Levi x Reader)

Warnings:   SPOILERS FOR “YOUR LIE IN APRIL”, Angst, FEELINGS, Language

Word Count:  10994

<----Previous Chapter    Masterlist    Next Chapter---->

*Levi’s POV*

At long last, Y/N was finally going to show him those movie, show things she kept talking about.  He knew plays and acting and putting on an act, but the concept of a show that was saved so you could watch it whenever you wanted without having to make people do it over and over was novel to him.

Boisterously proclaiming that it was going to be a “Movie Night” day, she’d grabbed his hand and dragged him after her like she’d used to do when they were young, despite his protests.  To be fair, he didn’t try too hard to wiggle away, either, letting her pull him along to the living room as she fussed and tried to decide what they were going to watch.

After all of her attempts to explain what a movie or TV show was, she decided that the best way to explain it to him was just to show him, though she still had to stop and explain the type of show they were watching.

“Okay, so what I’m showing you right now, is actually called an anime.  It’s a type of animation from a country called Japan, and it’s made from computers or hand drawn.  They draw the story, picture by picture, and put it together to make the characters and such move, with actors doing their voices and recording it in time with the pictures, sound effects like bells and wind also being saved, background music, so on and so forth,” she explained as she cut up pieces of paper and layered them on top of each other, pulling out a pencil and drawing a circle on each page, moving its position slightly each time.  “See, if you do it frame by frame, and then move it really fast, it's like the ball is bouncing--animation, and anime, works off the same concept, except they’re drawing everything,” she continued to explain, grabbing the bottom page and then letting the papers rapidly spring free, causing Levi to see the ball she drew appear to move along the page, even though he knew it was a bunch of individual drawings going by rapidly.

“They draw a solid background that doesn’t move, and then they add another layer on top that you can see through like glass, but they draw the moving parts on that layer, so it looks like they’re in the solid background and they’re walking and whatnot.  It’s really cool--makes me wish I could draw,” she continued, putting aside the papers she’d used for her demonstration and picking up the controller so she could get them started, gesturing for Levi to take a seat on the couch.  “I haven’t seen this one yet, but a friend recommended I watch it cause I love music, and I play the piano, and she said it was a really good coming of age story.  I’m a little wary cause she said she wanted my reaction to the end, but she usually suggests stuff I love, so I’m gonna trust it,” she continued to babble as the screen lit up with colors and pictures like a computer screen, most of it nonsensical to Levi as she shifted rapidly past most of it looking for the specific show.

She stopped on something extremely colorful, blues and yellows and pinks and reds in vibrant color with four drawn people lying in what looked like the sky, and she abruptly turned to face him.  “Are you okay with having to read what they say?  The original is in a different language, so it’ll have subtitles at the bottom translating what they say.  There are other versions where they redid the speaking parts in different languages, but I really like listening to the original--I feel like it really gets the emotions across because it's so well done.”

Levi hesitated for a moment, contemplating her offer of putting it in a language they understood or keeping the original and having to read what they were saying.  Eventually, he just shrugged.  “Whichever you want.”

“Subtitles it is,” she said, turning back to the TV and messing with a few things before she finally started the show, coming over to sit by him on the couch.  He was sitting normally, his ankle propped up on his leg with one arm resting against the back of the couch, the other lying casually in his lap.  Y/N, however, sat directly beside him, his arm behind her shoulders and her side pressed slightly against his, causing Levi to glance at her, mind flashing back to how she’d sat at the piano with him not too long ago.  She wasn’t even glancing at him, though, gradually relaxing next to him like a kitten curling up to get warm, her eyes fixed on the colorful display that was now on the TV.

Turning his attention back to the TV, Levi studied the images in front of him, a cheerful bit of piano music fluttering towards them as vibrant and colorful images of a girl chasing a black cat moved seamlessly across the screen, much smoother than the quickly drawn bouncing ball Y/N had put together to describe what they would be watching.

If she was trying to sneak a peak of his reaction, she would catch his eyes had widened at the vibrant colors and amazing detail, the realistic sounds that came through and made him want to check and see if the piano behind them was being played, or there were people hiding somewhere making the character’s voices and singing the song as the scene suddenly shifted to what Y/N described to him as an intro, a quick prologue of sorts that set the tone of the show.  Thankfully, however, she’d already explained to him that the sounds were done beforehand, recorded and somehow stored so it would be repeated to the images on the screen as they watched.

It was a little...outside his realm of understanding, how it all worked, and he had the sneaking suspicion he’d just have to accept that it just was and he needed to sit back and try to enjoy it.  That was how a show was supposed to work, right?  And that was exactly what Y/N seemed to be doing.

As she had warned him, the characters were speaking an entirely different language, so Levi couldn’t understand what was being said on its own.  Thankfully, there were the subtitles to translate, Levi’s gaze flickering between reading the small letters to looking at the colorful screen to see what was happening, trying not to get too caught up in the details he didn’t understand, like the games the kids were playing, and how different the environment was even to what he saw in Y/N’s world.

At least the basic stuff he could easily make sense of--the main character was obviously the quiet and reserved, black haired, blue eyed pianist Kousei, and the characters were around Levi and Y/N’s age.  The point of the story wasn’t clear yet, but she’d explained this was going to be episodic--it would be played like chapters in a novel, stopping at the end of a chapter before they would have to start the next one.  So it might be a while before he started catching that.  Right now, they were meeting characters, finding out their relationship to one another and getting hints at the history between them all.

Like the fact that Kousei lived alone because his father was absent, and his mother was deceased.  She’d succumbed to illness when he was still young.  That alone had the stirrings of empathy settling in Levi’s chest for the main character.  He couldn’t relate to the abuse, but the desire to make her better, that somehow he could do something to make her feel better did resonate.  It made him listen to their conversations a bit more, since he already had a foothold and something relatable.

Once he started drawing comparisons to the story unfolding in front of him, he couldn’t stop noticing them.

“The moment I met him, my life changed.  Everything I saw, heard, and felt.  All the scenery around me started to take on color.  The whole world began to sparkle.”

A world of monotone, devoid of color, until he meets a certain vibrant youth who brings a sudden rush of color and life into the world around her, dragging Kousei in by the hand--as if he could ever resist the force of nature she was.

Hm.  He wondered who that reminded him of.

He didn’t even notice when the “chapter” ended and the next started, his gaze flickering subtly towards Y/N on the couch beside him, appearing just as taken by the story as he already was.

However, this new chapter did bring about new questions, and was a bit closer to his grasp of understanding after watching Y/N play music for so long.

“Do you ever do competitions?” Levi asked as the characters walked around the competition and the history Kousei had at this specific building was teased, easily able to see that there was a piano on the stage despite it being a violin competition.  Surely if there were competitions for violins, there were for pianos?

She shook her head, chewing slightly on her lower lip as she answered him.  “No way--I play piano for myself and a few people.  I’m not looking to make a career of it or become famous for it.  Not to mention, I don’t think I’m cut out for competitions.  There’s a lot of pressure, and they’re really strict about playing the pieces exactly how they were originally written.  I want to play the piano how I feel, and that’s not always by paying attention to how it's written on the sheet.”

“And violins?  What are they like?” he asked.  He hadn’t seen or heard a violin yet, and was curious to hear what they would sound like.

“They’re a string instrument--portable, small.  Really beautiful, too--they’re my second favorite instrument.  They usually pair wonderfully with pianos--I’m pretty sure it’s common for a piano to accompany a violin in shows and competitions.”

Levi hushed with his questions again as the scenes playing out on the TV continued to unfold and the first violin performer took the stage, Levi hearing the light and lively music of the violin for the first time, the same song being performed over and over by the nondescript and nameless musicians on the stage in the show.

Beside him, Y/N was slowly tilting her head side to side as she listened to the music being played, eyes fixed on the screen.  She must have felt almost in her element watching this, while Levi felt a bit more like Tsubaki, not understanding a lot of the names and such that were being thrown around by the characters in discussion, but still there to enjoy it nonetheless.  When Kousei was tapping his fingers on the armchair to the piano music, Levi’s gaze flickered to Y/N to see if she was doing something similar, since she seemed focused on the music as well.  It wasn’t as precise as Kousei, maybe she wasn’t playing every note in her head, but her fingers were lightly tapping against her legs like she wanted to be playing the keys on the piano.

Then came Kaori’s first performance.

Watching, Levi felt a familiarity in the girl’s intensity, once again reminded of the girl sitting next to him, who seemed to throw herself into every aspect of life around her--at least compared to him.  There was a tension in the air, a feeling that this was going to be much different than the music they’d been hearing up until this point.  Even Y/N had stilled next to him, eyes riveted to the girl on the screen.

The first notes were shocking.  After listening to Y/N play the piano for so long, even his unprofessional, inexperienced ear could hear the shift in the sound, and how rich and deep it suddenly was.  Beside him, Y/N shifted into a more upright position, eyes suddenly lighting up and sparkling as she leaned forward, her breath catching.  The ripple through the audience wasn’t just in the show, but in reality, as the two of them on the couch suddenly focused entirely on Kaori’s performance.

The girl’s eyes flashed on screen, and the music suddenly leapt to life before them, making his own heart seem to pound a little faster, the sounds pleasant and uplifting to his ears, making him restless in a good way.  It sounded similar to when Y/N played the piano with him that one day, not necessarily in skill, but in the life and emotion that was in it.

Like Y/N, Kaori was pouring herself into her playing, she shone brightly through in the piece, made like it was pulling back a curtain to reveal a part of her soul.  Kousei even said as much, stating that Kaori was making the piece hers and hers alone.

The performance ended, and Y/N suddenly grabbed his arm with a squeal.  “That was awesome!  I’m going to have to find a recording of that!” she said breathlessly.  Her excitement was infectious, and almost prompted Levi towards a smile as they slowly settled back onto the couch, the story progressing in front of them.

She was such a stark contrast to the black haired youth in front of her, the whirlwind to his reserved personality, but even she would show flashes of vulnerability, for his eyes only, it seemed.  And he did what he could to hide what he could in order to protect her, without her ever knowing, probably.

Wait, was he still thinking about Kaori and Kousei?

Levi shook his head, focusing back on what was happening, reading Kousei’s contemplations about how he could still hear the refrain of the music Kaori played in the competition he witnessed, over and over.

Levi’s fingers tapped slightly against the back of the couch and in his lap, barely tapping out the melodies for the song they’d played on the piano the other day, music he heard even when he was alone with his thoughts in his own world, still able to feel her fingers aligned with his, guiding him through each key.  He’d find himself tapping them out in rare moments of idleness, like he was still clinging to the memory of the sound even if he didn’t have a piano in his world.

Y/N shifted entirely back to her relaxed position against Levi’s side, head brushing briefly against his shoulder and making his skin tingle where the brief contact had been, his stomach squirming.

Kaori dragged poor Kousei around everywhere, usually into situations far out of his comfort zone, and far more aggressively than a certain someone sitting beside him.  However, it seemed like more often then not, those situations were wonderful places that he wouldn’t have found or experienced on his own.

She brought color to his monochrome life.

Where he was hidden in shadows, she was cast in light, and she didn’t hesitate to pull him into the sun.

”I know you’re broken and beat up, but I want you.  I choose you.  I want you here.”

The beginning chapters seemed to fly by quickly, with Kaori pushing Kousei more and more, and beside Levi, Y/N seemed to be slowly wiggling closer to him.  Was it intentional?  Did she realize she was doing it?  He did--he seemed hypersensitive to every motion, yet he didn’t pull away, didn’t even twitch.  He stayed still, like sudden movement might frighten her away as easily as a stray cat.

As intriguing as the events on the screen were--and he was taking in the information, such as how Kousei used to have a black cat, how he couldn’t hear the sound of the piano after his mother died and quit piano directly afterwards, important stuff like that--Levi’s thoughts kept wandering as he watched.

He thought of how beautiful the trees with the pink petals were, how breathtaking every scene with them was, and how prominently they seemed to feature in every scene that had something meaningful going on.  Y/N called them cherry blossom trees.  He wanted to see one.  What would it look like?  What would the scene be if he stood under one with her?

Before he knew it, Kaori had cornered Kousei into accompanying her on the piano, and they were rushing towards another performance.  Anticipation stirred in the air between him and Y/N, both of them wondering how this piece would sound, considering Kousei had already been framed as a child prodigy on the piano, and they knew Kaori was breathtaking.  What would it sound like when they played together?  Levi worried about how it would turn out, how Kousei seemed to be unraveling in front of them just before they went up on stage.

Before Kaori gave him a literal smack to get him out of his own head.

As lighthearted and carefree as she seemed to be, every now and then, she would drop these little petals of wisdom.

Levi’s gaze flickered to Y/N again.

Her eyes would shift from a sparkle that almost seemed naive to a depth he hadn’t expected to see, and she’d say something that seemed beyond her years.

“Go on a journey.  A man away from home need feel no shame.”

“Natural.  Bizarre.  It’s like this girl herself is the journey with no clear destination.”

“You’re Freedom Itself.”

The couple took the stage.  The song started out slow, sensual, peaceful.  It reminded him slightly of the song Y/N taught him.

Before, predictably, Kaori brought her wild, fast paced playing back, bringing liveliness to the performance.  It started beautifully, but just as the music seemed to portray some kind of descent, Kousei lost sense of the notes, the sound distorted even for them, listening, as if they were Kousei, only able to faintly hear Kaori while the rest sounded muffled, strangled out by water.  When they were allowed to hear the sound again, it was off, it sounded harsh and jarring, out of sync.  Not at all pleasant.

Considering the earlier mentioned problems, he should have known this wasn’t going to be a perfect and completely enjoyable performance.  It was grating, and while he understood the emotional significance of seeing Kousei give up halfway through, his ears were a little grateful by that point.

The surprise was seeing Kaori stop as well.  He’d thought perhaps something would urge Kousei to start playing again, but he hadn’t expected Kaori to stop in the process.  Beside him, Y/N seemed to be biting on her thumbnail, her brows furrowed as she watched the screen in concern, a frown on her face, leg shifting restlessly around on the couch as she suddenly curled closer to Levi, directly against his side, oblivious to the surprised look he shot her because she was so focused with what was happening on the screen.

“Maybe there’s only a dark road up ahead.  But you still have to believe and keep going.  Believe that the stars will light your path, even a little bit.”

Kaori began to play again, the sound of just the violin playing on its own sounding lonely and out of place, especially when he knew there should be a piano playing with it.  All they needed was for Kousei to play again.  Would he?  No excuses, Kaori needed his support, and Levi found himself silently judging Kousei, mentally pushing him to help her, to play, because that was what she needed from him.

”So what was it that you saw in me?”

“But you have me!  Look up, and look at me.  Look at me.”

Kousei starting to play again was a relief, even if it wasn’t quite right at first.  After a bit of inner reflection, some time where they spent listening to the underwater sounds, it all faded away, and a soft scene of a mother and son filled the screen.  The mother’s softly sung lullaby was soothing, and as it shifted to a scene of the sky, Levi’s eyes widened at the brilliant beauty it was, the range of color, of blues and whites and even some purples and pinks.  How it sparkled and shimmered, stirring up emotions he didn’t know he’d buried somewhere inside him as he suddenly felt small again, curled up in a nest of soft warmth, staring out a small window up towards the sky high above him for the first time, gazing in wonder at the stars and moon that glittered high above him.

Words from one of the many times Y/N had played the piano for him drifted to his mind.  How she had perceived her music had struck some kind of chord with him, even if he wasn’t saying anything--even when he realized he had no words to describe what he was feeling listening to her play that single song.  He remembered how she’d told him that the point, what made music with her time, was how it could communicate what couldn’t be said with mere words.

The music shifted, and Kousei finally began to play, and the sound was enrapturing.  There were no words--it could only be felt, what was happening between the boy at the piano and the girl with the violin.

Could he find a violin in his world?  Could he learn to play it, so he could play with Y/N like Kousei played with Kaori?  Would they manage to produce something similar, something wonderful like that?  What would it feel like?  What would the sound between them be?  What would it say?

”I can hear your sound.”

So caught up in his thoughts, in the raw emotion and the music that had just enraptured them both, Levi was caught off guard when the mood took another shift.

He tensed, hand gripping the back of the couch a little harder as the sound faded away into an echo as Kaori suddenly collapsed.  The hairs on the back of his neck seemed to raise, warning him of something incoming, even though there was no physical threat.  He had a bad feeling, suddenly, seeing Kaori’s paler form in the hospital, seeing Kousei’s disbelieving look, the way all of her face wasn’t visible during certain key answers.  It put dread inside him over what was happening with her, where this would go.  A brief moment of happiness...but what did it mean in the long run?  What did it matter, if it was going to be ripped so harshly away, anyway?

“It was everything to you, and you’re trying to rip that away by force.  As if you were plucking off your limbs.  That’s why it hurts too much for you to bear.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to forget?  No, not a chance.  Because you and I are living for that moment.”

“I won’t forget.  I won’t forget, even if I die.”

“Thank you.”

The mood of the show mellowed drastically, far more serious notes seeping into the air around them as Kousei and those around him were faced with far more serious matters than who liked who, and music competitions.  The competitions seemed to be fading into the background, a mere backdrop to the true story.

Ah…

He might be seeing it now.

There was more to this tale than just playing in competitions.

And he had the feeling he was going to be facing some...difficult scenes.  Not the kind of gristly scenes of the everyday Underground.  The personal, emotional kind.  He was already getting flashes of past events, old emotions stirring this early on.  What would come next?  How deep was this show going to dig to bring out emotions or thoughts he didn’t even know he was keeping buried?

Y/N shifted again, now blatantly sidled up beside him, head leaning slightly to the side, coming to rest very lightly on his shoulder.  Levi stilled, pulled entirely from his thoughts, both of them seeming to hold the position to see what the other would do.

She didn’t pull away.

Neither did he.

Her head leaned a little more heavily against his shoulder, and she got more comfortable in her position next to him.  Levi relaxed, letting her do as she pleased, silently grateful for the companionable warmth her presence beside him seemed to be offering him, allowing the scarier thoughts to temporarily be soothed and chased away.  It helped that the story was shifting towards the more light-hearted as well, as Kaori and Kousei began to prepare for a piano competition.

“Before your fingers touch the keys, you must determine in your mind how you’re going to play it.  Why do you play the piano?  Is it for your sake?  For someone else’s sake?  How do you want to play this piece?”

Levi turned his head slightly to look at Y/N, curiosity stirred up in his mind as Kaori grilled Kousei for his mental imagery while he played.  “What about you?  What do you think of when you play the piano?” he asked her.

“Hm?” she asked, pulled for the first time out of the show as she turned slightly to meet his gaze, surprised by the inquiry.  “I...don’t know.  It depends on the moment.  Usually it’s memories, though.  Certain songs make me think of certain people, usually memories with that person.  Maybe something I want to do or say to them?  I haven’t thought of that much before...usually I just...do it.  And I tend to get lost in what I’m doing, too.  I guess that’s part of the reason why I haven’t thought of it much before.”

Levi continued to look at her even as she turned her attention back to the show, barely holding back a question that bubbled up inside him.

Have you ever thought of me?

She was teaching him to play the piano, right?  What would his mental imagery be when he played?

While Levi got his quick question in and mulled over his own thoughts once more, the mood shifted to something more serious in the show again.

Kaori was worried she was being too pushy, that Kousei might resent him for forcing him into the position he was in, now.  That she was being too hard on him.  And something that they said resonated with him, because of recent events.

“You’re suffering because of me.  I’m sorry.”

Levi saw Y/N in front of him in his mind’s eye.  Her eyes were downcast, lips pressed together, shoulders slightly hunched, and she was on the verge of tears after his barbed words expressing how shitty this situation was for him, how it teased him with what he could never have.  Did she blame herself, for him being pulled into her world, always around her for a brief while before he was kicked back?

But again, she’d been right.  Even if it was brief, that didn’t mean the time he spent here with her was worthless.  It still meant something to him, and it still brought him some comfort and, oddly enough, a sense of security.  From the very first time they’d met, she’d provided him with somewhere he could truly feel safe and cared for.

“It was you who swept away all the dust.  For sweeping away the dust that had collected on my body...thank you.  For encountering me.”

The more hints the story dropped about Kaori’s health, the more worried Levi became about the turn this story might take.  He was bracing for impact, a small frown on his face as he saw the pile of medicine Kaori was carrying around with her at the competition.  Kousei’s musical rivals didn’t register so much with him in the previous two chapters, because he was still so focused on what was happening with Kousei and Kaori.

Y/N had gotten up at one point by now to get a drink, bringing back a water for him to sip on as they continued the story, time passing by without either of their knowledge of just how long they’d been sitting here.  Even Levi, usually so much more active, was content to sit here and watch, hardly noticing his inactivity as he drank up every scene, every word, some ringing out through his mind, others falling into place as narrative importance, worry and elation and nostalgia, as well as so much more, all stirred together inside him, Y/N curled up like a kitten at his side, his arm still leaning against the back of the couch, his hand resting softly on her shoulder.

However, while he and Y/N were falling into a position of ease, the story seemed to be starting to shift more to the relationship between Kousei and his mother, and what happened to her.  Kaori was getting worse, it seemed, and they were digging into a relationship that felt, in certain ways, similar to what Levi had gone through, and not too long ago, either, now that he was forced to look at it.  It made him...uncomfortable, to say the least, but he wasn’t saying anything--he needed to see where this story was headed, with how invested he was at this point.  And even if it got personal, he thought he might be able to sit and endure it all the same.

”My mom’s coming from the hospital to see me perform...so you see, in order to make Mom well again, in order to make her happy, I’m gonna play my very best as a gift!”

The first hit actually made him flinch.  It was slight, but it was there, and Y/N might have caught it--he wasn’t expecting it, not from the tone, or what had just been discussed, or the way the scene changed so rapidly from the cheers of the audience after little Kousei finished playing his best for his mother to the slap across his face from the ailing woman.  He suddenly felt tense, his hand still on Y/N’s shoulder and his expression suddenly unreadable as the hits kept coming, making something dark and angry well up inside him as Kousei was hit hard enough to draw blood against a backdrop of the abuse he’d been suffering the entire time.

Perhaps Y/N hadn’t caught it, because she was flinching as well, and her reaction was far more open on her face, eyes watering with near-tears, a slight shake in her body, and the occasional, shaking breath.

”All I wanted was for you to get better.  All I wanted was for you to be happy.  And yet...I wish you would just die.”

“That was the last time I said anything to my mom.”

Levi’s grip tightened on Y/N’s shoulder, but neither of them said a word, a grimness in the air as they continued to watch the story in front of them that had started so colorful but was taking a darker turn rather quickly.

Levi scowled slightly at the switch to such an upbeat little song at the sudden end of the chapter, which would be followed by another upbeat song at the beginning of the next.

“These ‘intros’ and ‘outros’ are deceptively cheerful,” Levi criticized.

“What’s a good story without some struggle?” Y/N replied, though she briefly untangled herself from her position at Levi’s side and wiggled off the couch.  “Though, I think I’m going to go grab some tissues.  I’m starting to think there’s going to be some really sad or heartfelt stuff coming up.  Tell me when it’s back on if I’m still missing!” she added before darting away, leaving Levi to sigh quietly to himself and look up at the ceiling, keeping track of the show in front of him as he waited for her to run off and come back with a colorful box, squirming back into place beside him and letting his hand return to her shoulder as she placed the box next to her on the couch, sighing contently.

“The show must go on!” she insisted, face devoid of the strong emotion they’d been sharing just a few moments ago.  She settled next to him with a soft sigh, the sight of Kousei struggling at the piano returning where the previous chapter left off.

They watched him struggle against the ghost of his mother, trying to force himself to play through it, to play even though he couldn’t hear, even as the sound grated on them.  Watched as he slowly gave up, until he stopped entirely before the song was even over, just like he had with Kaori.

Part of him had expected Kousei to have some kind of revelation just before he quit and push through, but he’d really stopped.  Now it just remained to be seen if he could start again.  Of course, after his performance with Kaori, they knew he was disqualified.  But would he find a reason to play anyway, like she had?

”Even the you that’s here inside me, won’t let me give up.  That day, I wonder.  What did you play for?”

Levi felt the ghost of her fingers on his again, unaware that he was tapping the keys against the skin of her shoulder at the memory.

Once more, the sound changed as Kousei found his reason to play.  The girl who’d changed his world from monotone to color, who dragged him into a whirlwind of life without giving him the chance to think twice about it.

“Just one person matters to me.  Only you matter.  Thank you...Will it reach her?  I hope it reaches her.”

”Your hidden emotions.  The you that you’ve never known.  The piano drags out everything…”

Levi’s gaze once more was unfocused on the screen as he was swept away in a sea of his own thoughts, thinking back to the times he’d listened to Y/N play.  What had he been hearing those days?  What would he hear in her playing in the future?  If he put enough effort into learning to play as she tried to teach him...could it help him communicate some of the things he struggled to say?  It was at least worth giving it a shot.

And he would be sure to pay closer attention in the future to see what he could hear, what he may not be aware of.

The pacing lulled into something more relaxed once more, a brief reprieve after the emotions that were just thrown at them, allowing him and Y/N to talk a bit more, both of them keeping one eye on the subtitles even as they made little comments about what they’d heard so far.  The unspoken love triangle?  Maybe it was a triangle.  The romantic feelings were crisscrossed and all over the place between this group of friends.  They commented on their observations about Kousei and Kaori, what they thought was going to become of the two as they watched, whether Kaori or Tsubaki would end up the one with him in the future.

Music was another thing they talked about, obviously.  How they wanted to hear Kousei and Kaori play together again--and were excited they had the chance to with the upcoming concert.  Y/N also expressed how she loved Chopin pieces, and as a result was happy about how many Chopin pieces were in the show so far and was hoping to hear more.  She also mentioned that Love’s Sorrow, the song they were working on now for the concert, was a beautiful piece--mournful, obviously, but beautiful.  She even offered to help him learn it when he got more used to the piano if he wanted to.

Levi was a little distracted, though, by the further warning signs that something was going to happen to Kaori.  In the same stroke that he contemplated how she had a skill for seeing the beauty in the world, like Y/N tended to do for him, she said something ominous that further solidified a growing suspicion that Levi was keeping in mind.

“You know, I’m not always going to be around to help you.”

As worried about Kaori as that line made Levi for the context of the show, it also reminded him of his own situation with Y/N.  He helped when he could, but he was absent so often...and it worked both ways.  He was perfectly capable of taking care of himself when he was on his own, but Y/N he worried about.  What if something serious happened when he wasn’t around to help her?  Would she be all right?  Would she be able to take care of herself until he could be here to help her?

It was another line that resonated with him, another one that was going to burn in his mind and make him brood over their situation.  This show was rife with them, and it had his emotions all over the place, despite his outward calm posture.

He had no way of knowing just how strongly the next chapter was going to hit him.

He was as riled up as Kousei after hearing that smart mouthed kid claim that the music Kaori made was just disastrous noise.  If he’d ever heard someone say that about the music Y/N played, he was liable to sock them in the mouth.  Honestly, after that comment, he’d thought that the focus was going to be on Kaori again, even with all the recent focus on Kousei’s mother.  That misconception was quickly fixed, though, when the chapter began with a flashback to Kousei’s mother and how he became a pianist, further reinforced when Kousei started to play and they were given the first glimpses into his thought process, and what his new mentor--his mother’s old friend--was thinking.

Kousei’s mother’s favorite song, Kousei’s lullaby.

”Would she have played it like this?”

Kousei was curled up against the wall in the darkness of a room with no one else, knees pulled up to his chest, head buried, trying to shut out the world, the woman who’d known and been close to Kousei’s mother finding him in the darkness as Kousei cried out for his mother, for someone to help him, save him.  Levi tensed, going completely still beside Y/N with his gaze riveted on the scene in front of him.

”That son of ours is about to bid you a last farewell.”

”Will it reach her?”

Levi’s jaw clenched, his teeth grinding together as he attempted to keep a lid on the emotions that were trying to rise inside him again.

“After I’m gone, what’s going to become of Kousei?  Will he be able to earn a living?”

There was a pressure on his chest making it impossible to breathe and a forceful pain in his throat that was pushing right at the back, like there was something stuck there that wanted to come out but couldn’t, because he wouldn’t let it no matter how much it pushed.

”What a terrible mother.  There’s nothing I can leave that boy...”

His breathing ground to a halt except for the barest, shaking whisper through his nose.

“I wish I could’ve stayed with him longer...Will my treasure ever find happiness?”

Eyes fixed on the screen, Levi suddenly felt the overwhelming need to bolt, could feel his fingers and legs twitch like he was about to without warning, but the music was reaching a crescendo, and he thought maybe, just maybe, he might be able to make it through this, even as the pain in his throat and the pressure on his chest seemed to grow more crushing, more painful, so much harder to contain.

”Do you think it reached my mom?  The way I played my very best?  Do you think it reached Mom?”

“You two are connected, aren’t you?  Of course it reached her.”

Kousei broke on screen, and Levi suddenly realized he wasn’t going to make it to the end of the episode.  He needed to bolt now or he might shatter.

Levi tapped Y/N on the shoulder to get her to move, not daring to look at her and possible see her a crying mess already at the emotional scene.  He gave a brief, “I need to take a shit,” that he managed to get out in a steady voice past the pain in his throat by some miracle, and then stood up, the brief statement her only warning to shift before his movement accidentally dumped her on the ground.  He didn’t run to the bathroom, that would be too much of a tell.  Instead, he got up calmly and made his way to the bathroom, not hurrying his step until he was out of sight and already halfway up the stairs.

By the time he reached the bathroom, he couldn’t hold it back any further, safely locked behind the bathroom door with the water in the sink running seconds before he finally choked on the feeling in his throat and chest.  A strangled sound left him, and he leaned over the sink, trying to catch his breath even as his body tried to make him sob.  His breaths hitched painfully, a slight shake in his hands before they clenched the edge of the sink, shoulders hunched and teeth grinding painfully as a soft whine escaped his rigid body.

Y/N was waiting for him.  He couldn’t stay up here forever, but he at least had to get ahold of himself before he headed back down there.  Out of stubborn determination, Levi tried to gulp in air and steady his breath and hands.  Once he had a strong enough hold of his breathing, he cupped his hands under the water and splashed some of it onto his face to help calm himself down.

Only when he felt his composure had returned, Levi dried off his face and hands, then carefully made his way back downstairs, well-aware that the chapter wasn’t even over, and there were still several chapters left--nine, according to Y/N.

A lot could happen in nine chapters.

Levi calmly returned to his seat on the couch, Y/N giving him a quizzical, examining look before she resumed the position they’d been in before resuming the show in the exact spot he’d left--thankfully, it was after Kousei’s breakdown, so he wouldn’t have to see any of that again.

That didn’t, however, mean that he was in the clear.  No, now that they had put a neat little bow on Kousei’s struggle with his mental image of his mother, they were moving on to the one who had been concerning Levi since one of the first few episodes.

”There’s an ever present sorrow hanging over Arima’s music...Then it’s a demon’s path he must walk.  His growth is spurred by sorrow.  If he walks that path, he might have to lose someone to move forward.”

Kaori was in the hospital again, and Levi felt the uneasiness and dread about the direction this show was taking grow substantially.  Especially as Kousei ran inside the room and saw Kaori in the exact position his mother had been in.  The way this show was starting to dig at some subconscious and deeply buried pains and fears of his that he would rather keep far from the front of his mind, but it kept plodding on, and he felt far too invested now to just leave it where it was.  The curiosity and need to know what happened next would eat away at him if he asked Y/N to stop it there--plus, asking that might tip her off that something about it was upsetting him, considering at this point he couldn’t claim he was bored with it.

”You’re gonna be fine, right?”

“I can see you again, right?”

“You won’t leave me like my mom did, right?”

At this point, the focus on Tsubaki and Kousei’s relationship was a much needed break from the reality and darker questions being asked with Kaori and Kousei right now, questions that he had asked himself from time to time regarding Y/N, questions and concerns he didn’t want to think about for his own sanity.  What was happening with Tsubaki was more lighthearted, less grim, even if it was confusing and brought up even more questions to ask himself.  After all, Tsubaki was being faced with the question of how she felt about Kousei--the boy who had been her friend since they were little, who she was falling in love with no matter how much she tried to deny it, who she had always been beside and wanted to be beside forever.

It made him wonder.  He and Y/N were friends--had been for years now.  She was there for him during his darkest moments, and he’d been there for some of her scariest moments.  Yes, they were friends, but...was it starting to go deeper than that?  Did he feel closer to her, somehow?

Her hands had felt warm against his when they played the piano together, pressed against one another with his arms around each other so they wouldn’t get in each other’s way.  His skin had tingled where she touched him when she’d taken care of and cleaned him up after that fight.  He felt comfortable sitting beside her now, with her leaning against him, her head on his shoulder, despite how borderline intimate it felt.

Had she felt something similar?  They hadn’t really looked at each other in these moments--they’d been avoiding looking at each other whenever something like that happened, so he had no idea.  Was she aware of just how comfortable he was around her?  How different that was for him?  Did she have any clue how important she was becoming to him, how big a part of his life she had gradually become despite the very real distance and difference between their two worlds.

This entire time he’d been drawing similarities between them and Kousei and Kaori, when perhaps the comparison should have been with Tsubaki and Kousei.

It sure as hell might make him feel better, considering he was rather sure she had a terminal illness.  After growing up in the Underground and with the experiences he had so far, fatal illnesses were something he could spot, especially when there were as many warning signs as there were for Kaori.  She only seemed to be getting worse--he was pretty sure she’d been told she was going to die, even though there was no audio for the moment to confirm it.  Since the first episode, Kaori had been centered on making an impression, about living on in the memories and hearts of others--she was clearly afraid of disappearing without a trace after she was gone.

Still, amid all the aching and pain, there was still flashes of hope as Kaori struggled against her illness, and more moments that made him think about the relationship between himself and the girl next to him--more damn connections between them and Kousei and Kaori, which did nothing to sooth his nerves and fears he didn’t even know he had.

“Why are the sounds you make so beautiful I think I’m going to cry?”

“That devotion you showed.  Her heart had turned grey, and you gave it color.”

Had he managed to give her what she gave him?  He felt like he didn’t have anything to give, coming from the dreadful world he did.  She was always the one bringing color into his life, had he ever brought color to hers?  Would he ever be able to?  His world, his life, was ugly and dark and probably tragic.  What could he offer her out of that?

”Did I reach him?”

“You don’t have the time to see me.”

“It’s not about time--I want to see you.”

The chapter started so calmly--discussion about the next round of the competition, Kaori continuing her struggle to get better, Tsubaki finally admitting her feelings for Kousei in a way.  Levi even made a quip about how Watari and Kaori really needed to stop dragging him along as the awkward extra in their group, practically rubbing it in his face even if it was unintentional.  There was even another moment of resonance with something Tsubaki said to Kousei.

“So you won’t lose your way, so you won’t have regrets, I’ll stay by your side forever.”

Still, he should have seen it coming.  It shouldn’t have surprised him, considering he was well aware of the cruel shittiness of the world, even if Y/N wasn’t.  All this time he’d spent bracing himself with the hints of just how bad Kaori’s illness was, the ominous lines of hers.  All the lightheartedness and self-discovery of the past several episodes came crashing down with the emergency with Kaori as, from what Levi could see even though they clearly had far more advanced medicine that Levi knew nothing about, Kaori had some kind of close call, a brush with death, right in front of Kousei.  And then with the damn cat getting hit and dying literally moments later, Kousei having to wash the blood off of his hands and breaking down in the wake of everything that was happening.  He shouldn’t have been surprised, but it still ached to see it.

And there were two chapters left.  Realistically, he doubted that Kaori was going to recover in two chapters after all this time.  By now, he was certain that she was going to die by the end of the story.

She wasn’t even gone yet, and Kousei had already given up.  Levi had seen plenty of people reach that point.  No fight left, no will to move.  Kousei was right back in the position he’d been in at the start, the impending loss of Kaori the final nail in his coffin, his breaking point.

“Why does it have to end up this way?  I can’t...go on.  No more...I can’t try anymore.”

He hadn’t hit his breaking point--he hoped he never reached that point.  But he was sure even he had one, even if he wasn’t sure where his limit was.

Levi blinked at the white fluttering from the sky on screen. A novel sight he couldn’t ignore or just accept.  Snow, Kaori called it.

So that was what it looked like.  One of the many things he’d heard about but hadn’t seen…

“Have you seen snow before, Levi?  Since you live Underground,” Y/N suddenly asked from where she was curled up into his side, head turned to look at him curiously.  Levi shook his head no, and she hummed.  “You’ll have to show up some time in the winter so I can show you all kinds of awesome things you can do when it snows.  It’s cold, but it’s fun.  And everything looks so clean and pure...my favorite things are the trees encapsulated in ice,” she said with a wistful sigh, eventually quieting down as the scene on the screen continued to develop.

Maybe one day.  But he would have to come through not only when it was winter, but on a day that there was snow, and he had no control over when he blipped over into her world.

Blipped, blip...her word for when Levi flickered into and out of her world.  Clearly, it had caught on even in his mind.

“The people I care about keep leaving me...I’m going to be left all alone.”

Inwardly, Levi felt himself flinch, and that desire to bolt was trying to rear its head again, the desire for her to shut it off and spare him these comments that kept digging into the darker corners of himself, the weakness he kept hidden away for no one to see.

“But you have me.  But you have me.”

For the first time, Levi felt Y/N’s hand give his little squeeze on his knee as Kaori repeated her sentiment to Kousei.

Perhaps the feelings were mutual.  Maybe he wasn’t the only one drowning in emotions on the inside and drawing parallels while they watched this show, if she was giving him a little squeeze after those words.  After he registered that he had felt it, and he hadn’t imagined it, he gave her shoulder a small squeeze in return.

“I’m going to struggle as hard as I can.  Struggle, struggle, struggle, like there’s no tomorrow.”

“You gave me this desire to cling to the time that I spent with you.  Aren’t you going to struggle to?  We’re so good at struggling.”

Hell if that wasn’t the story of his life so far, right there.

Collectively, the two of them held their breath, watching as, after Kousei declared how useless it was for him to even try to play in the state he was in right now, Kaori got to her feet on her own, and the sound of the violin softly flickered towards them from the screen.  It was like the music was from a dream, her imaginary violin ethereal, Kaori lit up by a flurry of snow as she played to a crescendo and smiled at Kousei.

“See, miracles can happen just like that.”

Shaking, legs trembling, sweating, collapsed into Kousei’s arms with a breathless laugh, clinging to him like a source of comfort.  It wasn’t her reciting of the things she knew about Kousei, or what she wished she knew, that drew a response from him, but her heartfelt pleas with Kousei as he held her in her arms.

“I’m scared.  I’m scared!  Don’t leave me all alone!”

That was why it was familiar.  That was how Y/N had held him when…

And perhaps the reason he’d lashed out when he’d found out about how fleeting this world was for him had been because…

Levi shifted, and it was only when Y/N started to pull away did he realize he’d been shifting to get up and walk away, to bolt.  When she fixed him with that questioning look again, not-yet-spilled tears in her eyes from the emotion of the scene, her hand still fisted in his shirt, it brought him back to what was happening in the present, and he shook his head as if to dismiss the movement as he sat back down, relieved when the scene changed again.

Considering it was going to the competition and Kaori’s surgery at the same time, he doubted he was going to get much of a reprieve before the emotions hit again.  Kousei was still a mess, though it was a miracle he’d at least shown up to the competition, but even watching him was worrisome, wondering if he was going to break at the piano again after all this progress he’d made throughout the show, everyone watching in concern in the show and on the couch.

“I made you remember something you don’t want to remember…”

“I won’t forget, even if I die…”

“You can just forget about it all, like you’ve pressed the reset button…”

“I guess maybe we never should've met, huh?”

Levi had to close his eyes for a moment after that one, sucking in a sharp breath.  It was like it had come right out of his denial of their entire situation, how angry he’d been, the pain it had caused, how for a few moments, he’d felt like it would have been better if he could forget it all, if they had never met, because then he wouldn’t know about what he could never have.  His heart ached painfully, the words reverberating not in his mind, but in his bones as the pain in his throat already seemed to be returning.

He opened his eyes, and on screen, Kousei started to break down again, face in his hands, on the brink of tears seated at the piano, on stage in front of everyone once again.

Tsubaki sneezed, and after a few moments of reflecting, after realizing how many people he knew were there...Kousei finally began to play, the notes reverberating deep inside his chest in a full, resonating sound.  Something about it made him nostalgic, but also so...it was so…

“Bursting with such mournful color.”

The chapter suddenly came to an end mid performance, which startled Levi--especially when Y/N darted forward so suddenly to grab the remote and quickly jump to the next one, immediately snapping back into his side, clutching to his clothes like her life depended on it, curled into a ball as he realized for the first time that tissue box was suddenly right in front of her, easily accessible.

The last episode.

Considering the set-up, neither of them were going to get through this last part unscathed emotionally.

It started from the beginning of the piece this time, the commentary being made by the onlookers and Kousei different this time, centered entirely on Kousei after the very beginning.  Levi and Y/N were both enraptured by the performance though, holding to one another on the couch with gazes fixed forward, completely still, even their breathing slight as they paid full attention to every word, and let the music pull them in deeper into the emotional symphony Kousei was creating with just the piano.

“I’m so scared...Somebody…”

“But you have me.”

“I’m not alone.  From the moment that we meet someone else, none of us can ever be alone.  We’re all connected.”

Levi’s grip tightened slightly on Y/N’s shoulder again, and he felt her grip tighten in return.

“Don’t leave me all alone.”

“Dummy, you have me.”

“Inside me...you exist.”

Y/N nuzzled into his side like a cat, and he thought he felt his shirt starting to get damp.  He ignored it, keeping his grip on her firm and steady, staying still beneath her as he stared stalwartly at the screen, even as the emotions were starting to stir violently around inside him.

”No way am I going to leave you all alone.  Reach her.  Reach her.  Reach her.  Reach her.”

The scenery changed entirely, like Kousei was playing in the sky amid a shower of colors, floating around like leaves that autumn day when he and Y/N had jumped into the piles and sent them scattering into the air.  Kaori’s whispered ‘Thank you’ as Kousei carried her back down the stairs sent a shiver down his spine, especially when Kousei of the present reacted, and turned his head to see Kaori materializing beside him, violin in hand.

Beside him, there was suddenly a whine from Y/N, and a rather large sniffle, as well as that damp feeling on his clothes starting to spread.  She trembled slightly beneath his arm and hand, and he realized she was starting to cry rather heavily, her face partially buried in his side.

The music was jarring, disorienting, suddenly intense and tragic as Kousei closed his eyes, barely holding back tears.

Oh.

Oh, shit.

And there it was.

Kaori’s rich violin playing joined into Kousei’s suddenly mournful and tragic playing, and Levi realized that they were witnessing the last time the two would get to play together.  It couldn’t happen again in body, but at least in spirit.  Words weren’t needed for this moment.  Nothing was said between the characters on the screen, and not a word was spoken between Levi and Y/N.  She was continuing to cry into his side, with Levi starting to semi-awkwardly rub her shoulder to try and comfort her even as his own heart seemed to be pounding painfully at the sight in front of him, every note piercing him deeper than he thought possible with the raw emotion behind and pure weight of this single moment.  All there was at this moment in time, was him, Y/N, and the music being created on the stage in front of them between Kaori and Kousei, one last time.

A sob broke past Y/N’s control as the colorful day turned into a rich night, and Kaori stopped playing.  Levi held his breath, watching as transfixed on the scene as Kousei was transfixed on Kaori, the music softening for the briefest moment before it started to turn slow, mournful, and tragic again.

”Wait...please don’t go!”

As Kousei started to beg Kaori to do all of these things with him again, good and bad, Levi felt the pressure on his chest return, the burn in his eyes and the clench in his jaw, the pain in his throat.  Memories of his own were flickering before his eyes in place of what Kousei begged of Kaori.

A small hand offering a still-warm roll.  A splash of cool water to the face with shrieks and giggles filling the air.  The security of being able to lean comfortably against a warm back with the sun shining down from above, hands gripping his legs and his arms wrapped around the girl who carried him home on her back.  The cool taste of ice cream as they leaned against the brick store.  A gentle hand rubbing soft circles on his back as he slipped in and out of lucid thought in his feverish state.  The sound of hope amid darkness that they managed to create together despite his crude piano playing.  Her hand even now clenched tightly in his shirt seeking comfort, like when he’d led her home in the dark through the desert.

His hand was stretched out before him, pulled along by the girl that suddenly disappeared when he closed his eyes.  He tried to reach a little further, as if his fingertips could press past some veil between his world and hers, so he could reach her even for another moment.  The warmth and the softness of the comfort she wrapped him in evaporated into smoke between his fingers, disappearing in translucent curls, leaving him with nothing to hold, the weight of her presence suddenly disappearing.

What if one day he didn’t come back?

What if one day it all just...ended?  Without any warning?  The only sign that he would never return the passage of time and gradual loss of hope?

“Don’t go, don’t go, please don’t go, please don’t leave me behind!”

Y/N was sobbing openly into his side now, but she didn’t move to stop the show--she kept watching it.  Levi was unaware of the fact that his hand was shaking against her shoulder, all of his effort on keeping the emotions bottled inside him as he watched Kaori disappear before Kousei’s eyes in a flurry of petals, swept away by an indifferent wind.

The rest of the last chapter seemed to pass by in a blur, Levi spending most of that time trying to work his way down from the emotions that scene had stirred up in him, glancing over at Y/N to see a collection of tissues around her while her gaze remained fixed forward, still a blubbering mess over the events that were unfolding on screen.  Shards of Kaori’s letter made it through to Levi, certain fragments sticking with him in the moment, others slowly settling in likely to make an impact on him later.

“I want Kousei to play the piano for me!”

He understood that sentiment.  He loved listening to Y/N play for him, it was one of the many reasons why he brought it up so often.  Sure, it was nice she was trying to teach him to play, but the true moment of enjoyment for him was when she played for him.

“Isn’t it funny how the most unforgettable scenes can be so trivial?”

“None of it was trivial.”

No, none of it was.  From playing card games in her room to playing tag on the playground, or eating frozen treats on the steps while they played simple games with their hands.  Every little moment was one Levi kept stored away, a secret trove of memories just for him and her, something bright and...something that the Underground couldn’t corrupt, because it couldn’t reach or touch this world or the girl at his side.

“Was I able to live inside your heart?  Do you think you’ll remember me at least a little?  You better not hit reset.  Don’t forget me, okay?  That’s a promise, okay?  I’m glad it’s you, after all.”

Like Y/N said, just because the moments were fleeting, didn’t mean they didn’t matter.  Even if they stopped one day, for whatever reason...at least he would have everything that had come before, the memories, the moments that nothing could take away.  He didn’t think she would want him to try and forget, anyway.  And a part of him wouldn’t want her to forget him, either.  Unlike everything else in his life so far, he wanted this good thing to last, one way or another.

“Will I reach you?  I hope I can reach you.”

This time, when his mind procured the image of his hand outstretched in front of him, trying to catch the disappearing back of the girl in front of him, fingers finding nothing but air, he let his hand squeeze slightly against Y/N’s shoulder once more, reminding himself she was right here in his arms right now, and not to take that for granted.  Maybe sometimes she’d be out of reach, but right now, she was right here.  She wasn’t always out of reach.  He’d just have to make each moment he was here count for something.

Thankfully, she already seemed pretty good at making that happen, so he felt like he wouldn’t have to worry about it too much.  She was always taking him by the hand to have him run with her wherever she wanted to go and explore, and so far, she hadn’t made him regret following her on her little adventures.

She made his life colorful.

“Thank you for being my friend, Levi.”

“I’m the one who should be thanking you.”

Next Chapter---->

Levi Tags:  @clary-quinn @humanitys-hottestsoldier @whalerus @sunny-flo @thirstyforsometea

Through The Looking Glass Tags:  @artist-bby @kaz2y5-pie​ @tartheyes​ @super-peace-fangirl​ @huntersbunker​ @nefelimalfoy​ @soft-levi-girl-blog​ @honeygivemeachainsaw @regalillegal​ @sugas-daddy7​ @cathyannecookie @chaoticshepardplaid @roayaloveslife​ @sanrioclit​

[fancyfade]

Amazons by Fade31415

[image: two sets of fanart featuring Amazon characters from DC. the first is whole body shots, the second is faces. they feature Io, Phillipus, Diana of Themyscira, Artemis of Bana Mighdall, Donna Troy, and Grace Choi. Io is wearing her comic outfit -- blacksmith apron, light loincloth/tunic thing on her lower half, boots, gloves, a headband, and no shirt. she is broad and wide and has short brown hair.

Phillipus is wearing her gold-colored armor and a red cape and red headband. she has long hair in dreadlocks and a slight but muscular build. Diana is wearing her wonder woman outfit she wore to fight medousa, sans the helmet, so she has the greek armored skirt thing instead of her usual underpants. she is tall and broad shouldered and broad shouldered and muscular. next to her is artemis of bana mighdall, who is around the same height (only slightly shorter than wonder woman), wearing a black outfit and white jacket with the sleeves rolled up, holding a sword. She has her hair tied back in a long ponytail. next to her is Donna Troy in her starry outfit that is black with silver boots and a silver belt. next to the other amazons she seems small but she’s 5′9″. finally is Grace choi, who is 7 feet tall and very buff, the largest of the bunch. she has reddish hair and is wearing a red crop top and black pants. she has tattoos on her upper arms and abdomen.

next there are close ups of the six women’s faces. end image]

end image, begin commentary

had a pretty autistic overwhelmy day so mostly just drew lineart and finished this

Recently I read through Greg Rucka's New Earth Wonder Woman Run...

Felt the need to draw some Amazons.

misc design decisions:

Io: Io got to keep her comic outfit. She felt way more naked than I thought she would drawing her in that outfit but id already finished lineart by time i realized that. oops. Io also got broadened up a little just to distinguish her from the other amazons more -- she was supposed to be big according to the back of the book notes but i wanted my other amazons to be bigger than they were in comics so...

Phillipus: phillipus actually got to keep her design in the comics. she’s wearing one of the many outfits she appeared in, I think this one being her down to business outfit.

Wonder Woman: Wonder Woman’s body type was changed slightly since I drew her last. she’s a hair more bottom heavy and her arms are a little leaner to better distinguish her from Grace. she’s wearing the outfit she wore to kill medousa (sans helmet) because i REALLY liked it. that said I can see why it was a one off because that plate skirt was a pain in the ass to draw.

Artemis: Artemis is drawn with the outfit she was given in the concept art in the back of the book because she changed her outfit every scene in the book and I didn’t want to find out which one was most artemis-y.

Donna: Donna doesn’t appear in this series (except at the way end when she’s trying to convince wonder woman to help her punch the universe ending threat in the face) but I drew her anyway because she’s an amazon and I like her. She has the same body type and face I gave her when drawing her in comparison to the other teen titans. Poor thing looks tiny smushed between Artemis and Grace but shes’ 5′9″ like she is in canon I swear

Grace: Grace also didn’t appear in this series but I love her so. She’s drawn pretty much how I always draw her, giant and buff. She really threw off the scale in this image XD Normally wonder woman would look tall and Donna would look average height, now Grace looks tall, everyone but donna and phillipus look average, and donna looks short :P

[trickstump]

homeroom angel 

eddie kaspbrak/richie tozier rated e 5.5k 

thank you to @eddiekissbrak for beta’ing and cheerleading me through this journey. migz, you’re a real one. 

(read it HERE on AO3) 

Richie’s not looking for it.

Of course Richie’s not fucking looking for it, though; to look for it, he’d have to have had any idea that it existed, and the idea of Eddie doing anything like this was beyond unfathomable. It was a whole other level of this could never happen that even Richie fantasies couldn’t have predicted it- and he’d had some pretty wild ones.  

But. Here the fuck it was, skipping floors two through two hundred on the Wonkavtor and busting through the top of Richie’s head, staring back at him from the page of the magazine he’d picked up.  

Eddie. 

It’d been- there were so many fucking steps, really, to them even getting here in the first place. Richie had to have found this fucking magazine when he was in colleg- not this issue, god, not this issue; if Richie had picked up this fucking issue in college, he was sure his mind would’ve exploded. But, he had to pick up this magazine in the first place in college, furtive, snatching it off the rack at the drugstore and not bothering to pay because holy shit, he couldn’t stand the idea of looking the dude in the counter in the eye and paying for a porno magazine that shouted Boys! Boys! Boys!

So. He had to pick up this magazine, and then, in a drunken fit just after his first few paid shows, he had to buy a subscription to this magazine- fake name, correct address- meticulously updated every time he moved so that it could be delivered right to his door packaged in a discreet envelope, and occasionally shoved into the bottom of his suitcase while he was on the road, because he liked to have the company of Mr. January 2016 on cold nights in decent hotel rooms.

 And, then, he had to be subscribed at just the right time, because he’d really been about to cancel his subscription entirely when the throwback issue came out. It was getting fucking dangerous, having his porn hand delivered to him like some kind of creepy old man, when Eddie had just moved in after trekking out to LA as a part of his post-Derry, post-divorce midlife crisis. There’d been an incident last month when Eddie’s found mail with the fake name that had lead to Richie having to sneak back out to the mailbox in the dead of night to do some recon before Eddie’s neat little “return to sender; does not live at this address” got his jerk-off material for the month taken away. It was the modern era; he should just make the jump and start going digital, anyway. 

So. Petty theft, years of furtively waiting for his monthly fix of scantily clad men to arrive via the US Postal service, and someone somewhere’s visonary idea of “let’s just reuse some fucking old pictures this time; these dipshits’ll crank it to anything, I’m sure” culminated to this:  

Eddie.  

Not Eddie, now- obviously, not Eddie, now. That’d be fucking insane, and Richie would be losing more of his mind than he’d already lost. He’d just been flipping through the issue, admiring this and that, and- he’d almost skipped the pages on his first thumb-through, absentminded and half hard, free hand resting on his leg, when he saw the flash of a leg and flipped back.

And then, there was Eddie. 

Younger- a few decades younger, the little white Times New Roman in the corner told him; Eddie, November 1999. November, Eddie’s birth month- happy fucking birthday to him. He only caught it the second time he looked at the picture, flipping the page and then flipping back to make sure his mind wasn’t just projecting the image of a younger Eddie onto the pages. 

It wasn’t. 

It was Eddie- his Eddie, flushed a little pink in the way he got when he was flustered, doe-eyeing the camera. His mouth was just as pink as his cheeks and hanging open just a bit, and Richie spent so much time looking at his face, he almost forgot to look at the rest of him- all of the rest of him, most of all of the rest of him, because thank god, this was not where he was seeing Eddie’s dick for the first time. Narrow avoidance, though, only because of the artful drapery of the fugly pink fur- rug? blanket?- monstrosity they had barely draped over the area, which let Richie see everything except his dick. 

God. He couldn’t even fucking think about Eddie’s dick right now. Not that he let himself think about Eddie’s dick too much, anyway. He’d think about being in love with Eddie all day long, and maybe about the fucking phenomenal sex they could be having every so often, mostly when he was lonely on the road, because there was a weird line when it came to being in love with your childhood friend, and that line was drawn exactly on the other side of “jerking off thinking about him while he’s sharing an apartment with you.” 

Speaking of, Richie’s dick went from being passively interested in the goings on to standing at attention like a goddamn car lot flag pole the second he had enough brain cells to process what he was seeing. He was achingly hard, now, and at the same time frozen in place, free hand now gripping his leg so hard he was going to leave a bruise. He couldn’t do anything but stare, heart racing like he was running a marathon.  

It was the best thing he’d ever fucking seen, and he needed to stop seeing it. 

“Hey, Richie?” 

Eddie’s voice outside his door jumped him into action, and Richie dropped the magazine like it was burning him. “Uh- yeah?” His voice broke on ‘yeah’, and he really, really sounded like a kid whose mom was two seconds from walking in on him jerking it. 

Eddie, for his part, didn’t seem to pick up on it- or, more likely, he was just fucking polite enough not to call him out. “You coming out so we can go eat or what, dude?”  

Fuck. Richie had been so caught up in a past where Edward fucking Kaspbrak, world’s stuffiest man and love of his life, had posed for a gay porn magazine that he had forgotten about the present where said childhood sweetheart was expect him to get dinner. “Oh, for sure.” He’d managed to get control of his voice, because he was a goddamn professional. “Just give me a second, man, I’m not decent.” 

“You’ve never been decent in your life,” Eddie huffed. “But, fine. Be out in, like, five minutes or I’m gonna eat without you.”

Richie waited until he heard Eddie’s footsteps disappear to exhale, and then it was just him and- well, him and Eddie again, still staring up at him from the centerfold with a look that Richie had barely ever even dared to imagine he could pull off. 

Fuck. 

He gave himself a few moments to breathe, eyes squeezed shut least the air he was just getting back into his lungs be stolen again, and he flipped the magazine closed before he opened them again. This was- definitely crossing the line he’d drawn for himself, and he should probably just throw the whole thing out before he jumped over the line and directly into something dangerous. 

But.

But, he couldn’t bring himself to- for a lot of reasons, really, chief among them the fact that he knew having a missing issue in his back catalogue would drive him absolutely fucking insane, and totally, totally, not because he couldn’t imagine ever getting rid of the only proof he had of the divine fact that Eddie could have “fuck me” eyes. Totally. 

So, instead of the trash can, or the back of his closet in a box where the rest of the issues went, Richie played into the full fantasy of being in college again and shoved the magazine under his mattress, resolving to deal with this later. The rest of his five minutes was spent trying to will his dick to sit back down by any means necessary- mostly by thinking about Eddie’s mom, which was an irony that Richie was too wired to appreciate in the moment. 

Thank fucking god they weren’t going out or anything. Eddie had just picked up cooking in his quest for independence, and liked to show off whenever Richie was home, which Richie didn’t mind in the slightest. He’d survived the last several decades on his own on Hot Pockets and takeout whenever he was home, and room service or fast food when he wasn’t.  

Eddie cooked, and Richie did the dishes. It was disgustingly domestic, and thinking about the concept rather than the action actually made Richie happy to do it, instead of mildly irritated. Love was a hell of a drug. 

He couldn’t really focus on the food tonight, though, because every time he looked up across the table- because Eddie made them eat at the table, like what the fuck was that?- he was faced with Eddie, who hadn’t changed enough in twenty years for Richie to be able to not see flashes of his pink lips and flushed cheeks every time he saw him.

It was like being haunted by a sexy, sexy ghost. 

“And I- Jesus, dude, are you even listening to me?” Richie blinked when Eddie waved a hand in front of his face. “Earth to Richie; you look like an idiot, man. What’s up with you, is there something on my face?” 

“Uh,” Richie said, trying to say anything but ‘hey, you used to be, like. Hot, in college or whatever’, but obviously not reacting fast enough for Eddie’s tastes. 

“I already got the fucking mole checked, it isn’t cancer,” he said, and that was Richie’s Eddie, vision snapping back into focus. 

“I’m not staring at your fucking mole, dude,” Richie said, rolling his eyes. “Also, aren’t they only like… cancerous if they have hair in them, or something?” 

“No,” Eddie said, and sucked in a breath, and that launched them into a conversation- well. A tirade from Eddie with color commentary from Richie, really, and that was more like their normal dinner conversations, enough that Richie could phase out his lust for past Eddie and focus on the warm fuzzies that having this Eddie in his life gave him.

 Dinner and dishes done and conversation still rolling, though they’d cycled past about twenty different topics now, they moved on to the post dinner ritual of turning on the TV and not-watching Wheel of Fortune in favor of not-cuddling on the same couch, even though there was definitely a perfectly fine recliner in the room. This was the kind of thing that made Richie think that maybe, just maybe he had a chance in hell in all this- but, fuck if he was going to make the first move, so he just sat there with his arm flung over the back of the couch, hand dangling just so it brushed Eddie’s shoulder, and pretended he gave a shit about whatever Pat Sajak was saying, and wasn’t just watching Eddie.  

Because Eddie was double his age at heart, Wheel of Fortune faded into Jeopardy, and when Jeopardy faded into whatever the fuck came after, right on cue, Eddie yawned. “I’m going to bed,” he said, and Richie nodded.

“I’ll probably turn in, too,” he said, and they both just sat there for a few seconds after Richie turned off the TV, something- something- lingering between them. This part, too, was part of the norm; there was something one of them wanted to say, needed to do, but Richie was too chicken shit to be the one to do it, and Eddie was- well, Richie wasn’t sure what Eddie was, scared, nervous, too freshly out of an intensely shitty relationship, but what it boiled down to was Eddie yawning in again, breaking the moment, and saying “g’night, Richie,” as he got up, and went to his room. 

Normally, Richie’d just sit there for a few moments and stew in the moment he let pass again, but tonight, he only had to sit there for a second before he remembered what he’d been trying to get out of his head since dinner. 

He felt like a burglar in his own home, tiptoeing back to his room and closing the door. He thought about keeping the light off, for a second, but flipped it on at the last second. If he was going to be crossing the fucking line like this, he may as well be able to fucking see it in its full glory.  

He settled onto the bed and pulled the magazine out from under his mattress in one smooth move, flipping it open to the page without having to search, like the universe knew exactly what kind of self destruction he was looking to do. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and when he looked down on the exhale, Eddie was staring back at him, legs splayed and back arched artfully, like he’d just been waiting for him this whole time. 

“Hey there,” Richie said to an empty fucking room, and too much brainpower had already switched to dick power for him to be embarrassed about it. It didn’t take too long for him to get fully hard again- because it was fucking Eddie, of course it didn’t, and Richie wasn’t in the business of teasing himself when it came to jerking off, so he inelegantly wriggled out of his sweatpants and boxers, kicking them to the bottom of the bed. 

It was a little awkward, balancing the magazine in one hand while he had the other on his dick, but Richie was a pro at it, at this point. Normally, though, he’d only look at the magazine for a bit  before he let it fall aside, letting his mind do the rest of the work. Tonight, he couldn’t make himself put it down, though, because putting it down would mean he wouldn’t see how fucking right Eddie looked, laying back on that stupid, ugly pink fur, arms draped above his head and legs spread wide.

“Fuck.” He didn’t say it very loud, but Richie felt like he could hear it echo through the empty room. This was going to be the shortest fucking jerk off session he’d had in maybe his entire life, but, that should really be expected, considering the circumstances, and- 

“Hey, Richie, do you think I should get this mole checked again, because I really-” 

The world stopped. 

Eddie- real Eddie, now Eddie- was standing in the doorway. Fuck, normally, he’d knock, but Richie guessed the mole thing was really fucking bothering him, because he’s just slammed it open and given Richie no time to react. They both froze, when they locked eyes, and Eddie realized what was going on, and his face skipped right past the pretty pink Richie’d just been looking at to bright fucking red. “Oh. You’re- busy.” 

“Yeah.” Richie’s hand had not moved from his dick, nor had he moved to put the magazine down, or cover himself up, or anything a normal fucking person would do. Instead, his gaze flicked from Eddie, down the magazine, and back. “I, uh- sorry.” 

“Oh my fucking god,” Eddie said, and Richie felt his heart jump into his throat for a second as Eddie started moving towards him, and- laughing? “Dude, is that a fucking magazine? What is it, the fucking sixties?” 

“Fuck you!” Richie was finally moving, now, but it was mostly to jerk the magazine out of Eddie’s reach when he reached for it. Eddie didn’t seem to care that his fucking dick was out, so Richie was gonna ignore it for the time being, and hope it went away. “It’s artful, man.” 

“You’re such a grandpa,” Eddie snorted, managing to snatch the magazine away from Richie and dance just out of reach before he could snatch it back, flipping through the pages. “Is this fucking vintage magazine porn? Richie, you’ve got to be fucking kidding m-” 

The last part of the sentence died on Eddie’s tongue as he reached the centerfold, and he went pale as a ghost. “I, uh-” 

“You looked, like... Really fucking good.” That was the wrong thing to say, the stupidest thing Richie could’ve possibly said, but he spoke before he thought. 

“It- college, man.” Eddie didn’t seem like he was entirely in himself as he spoke, still staring down at the page. “I… I wanted to feel hot. So.” 

Eddie’s voice was so fucking small when he said it, it made Richie’s chest ache. “Wanted to feel hot?” he asked, sitting up a bit. “Dude. Eds, you are hot.” 

“I mean, I used to look pretty good- I worked out and shit.” Eddie shrugged, finally putting the magazine down, setting it on Richie’s bedside table. 

“I didn’t say ‘used to’,” Richie said, using his single ounce of courage for the rest of the year. “I said you are hot.” 

“Present tense?” Eddie’s gaze snapped from the carpet to Richie’s face, brow furrowed, seemingly searching it for... something. Richie wasn’t sure if he found it or not. “You think so?”

“I’ve always thought so,” he said, because he had, and if he was being honest, he may as well go the whole way with it. Fuck the line.

“Fuck, Richie.” The two words left Eddie’s mouth in one gust of breath, and before Richie could add anything onto his confession, Eddie had surged forward, and kissed him, hands on either side of Richie’s face, holding him like he was something precious . It was honestly a very sweet kiss, for how inelegant it was, and the fact that Richie’s dick was still out, several decades worth of longing and things unsaid pushed from both sides. 

When they pulled away, they were breathless, and Eddie’s forehead was resting against Richie’s. “You were really gonna sit here and jerk off to my fucking picture while I was a room away, huh?” he teased, and even if Richie knew it for what it was, guilt wormed its way into the pit of his stomach. 

“The fuck else was I supposed to do?” he shot back. “Knock on your door and go, ‘hey, Spaghetti-O, I know you’re in the process of doing your old lady skin care routine so that you can pass out by ten like some kind of retiree, but I need you to know that I found your ancient nudes, and they dredged up every fantasy I’ve ever had about you and then some. Thoughts?’” 

“Yes,” Eddie said, and then, “You’ve had a lot of fantasies about me?” 

“You’re the only person I’ve ever fantasized about,” Richie said, and he hated how fucking honest he was being about that. “Even when I didn’t know it was you, it was always- the shape of you, the flash.”

“You’re not allowed to be that romantic when your fucking hard on is digging into my hip, man,” Eddie huffed, and then he kissed Richie again. This time, there was nothing sweet about it, all heat, biting and sucking, and when Eddie pulled away to kiss down Richie’s neck, there was nothing he could do but bite back a moan. “And, yeah, you should’ve fucking come to me. You don’t need the fucking magazine when you have the real thing.” 

“Have I got it?” Richie asked, and he wasn’t even sure what he was asking, but Eddie stopped pawing at his shirt for a second to give him the answer that he needed, anyway. 

“Richie,” he said, deadly serious and flushed the same shade of pink he’d been in the picture, now. “You’ve always had me. Now, take your fucking shirt off.”

Richie didn’t have to be told twice, and by the time he got the rest of the way undressed and retrieved his glasses from where he’d flung them across the bed in the process, he was treated to Eddie having done the same, stepping out of his sleep pants, silky, stupid, monogramed button down hanging off his shoulders. “God.” He couldn’t help the outburst, and it made Eddie look over to him with a smile- no, a fucking smirk, crawling back onto the bed like some kind of stupid sex kitten from an eighties porno and letting the shirt drop to the floor in the same move. 

“Like what you see?” 

“You already know I do, asshole,” Richie said, rolling his eyes at the line and running his hands down Eddie’s sides and back up again in the same motion. “You’re fucking hot, Eddie.” 

“I like hearing you say it,” Eddie said, surging to kiss him again. He’d settled on Richie’s lap, sort of, straddling his hips, and it was fucking rewarding to feel that he was just as turned on as Richie was, even if Richie couldn’t bring himself to look down at his dick yet. That was a shade too far; he wasn’t sure he’d be able to recover. 

“You’re fucking hot,” he said again, sort of mumbled into Eddie’s shoulder as he pressed a kiss there, and started working his way down. “I’ll keep saying it, then.” 

“You’re- shit, Richie, we’re not fucking kids, you can’t just go giving me hickies all ove- oh, you’re probably the only person I’ve heard it from in, like- a decade,” Eddie’s head was tipped back, eyes fluttering shut, and it was such a pretty scene Richie almost didn’t process what he’d heard. 

“No one’s told you you were hot in ten fucking years?” It sounded so impossible to Richie; who the fuck could miss all this, even with the not at all provocative polos and button downs Eddie usually wore- or. Well, Richie found them provocative, but he found everything about Eddie appealing in one way or another. 

“I- fuck- was married,” Eddie said. “And we weren’t, like… that kinda couple.” 

“Her loss,” Richie said. “My gain. You’re so fucking hot.” 

“Your gain,” Eddie echoed, and he was smiling, so fucking gentle that Richie forgot how to breathe, and also the fact that he was supposed to be ravishing him. “Do you, uh. Wanna fuck me?” 

Richie’s brain stopped working. “Do I want to fuck you? Eddie. Eddie, I think if I don’t fuck you, I’ll die.” 

“You won’t die,” Eddie huffed, even though Richie wanted to protest when he removed himself from his lap. “Do you have, like. Lube and shit?” 

 “First drawer on the left.” Richie made a vague gesture towards his dresser, and readjusted to give Eddie more room on the bed when he came back.

“I haven’t fucking done this in years,” Eddie when he found what he was looking for, tossing the bottle at Richie. “So, you’re gonna have to, like. Be patient.” 

“I’m so patient,” Richie said, fumbling to catch it and then fucking up his first few attempts at getting the cap open in his haste, undercutting his whole statement. “I’m like fucking Buddha, man. Did you- want to grab a condom?” 

“I checked, yours are expired,” Eddie said, settling back onto the bed. “Which tells me, like, how little sex you’ve been having. We can, like… make a run, if you really want one? But- I’m clean, and I… if you are, then.” 

“I am,” Richie said, maybe a bit too quickly, because the idea of raw dogging Eddie was the closest he’d had to a religious epiphany in his whole life. “I- am.”  

“Good,” Eddie said, the word coming out like a sigh as Richie repositioned himself once more, looming over him to steal a kiss. “Then, do you wanna do this part, or should I?” 

“Can I?” Richie was getting gift after gift tonight, feeling like Christmas goddamn Day when Eddie nodded. He shifted down again, getting probably too sloppy with the lube as he coated his fingers. Whatever, he’d change his sheets later. 

He couldn’t take his eyes off of Eddie’s face as he pushed his first finger in- slow, so fucking slow, because he was being patient, and gentle. The pink was back in his cheeks, and his eyes were half lidded, eyelashes fluttering every time Richie’s finger moved, small noises Richie wasn’t even sure he knew he was making falling from his lips. “Fuck, Richie.” 

“You good?” Richie was breathless- he’d been breathless a lot in this; maybe he should ask if Eddie had any of his old inhalers lying around. 

“Am I good?” Eddie almost sounded like he was going to laugh, but Richie must’ve hit something good before he could, because the noise turned into a drawn out moan. “Jesus, Richie. Another- another, and harder, and fucking do that again.” 

“You’re so bossy,” Richie snorted, but he did what he was told because he kinda liked that Eddie was bossy. 

Two more fingers and several minutes later, Eddie’s eyes looked like they had almost rolled back in his head, and he was tugging  Richie’s hair. “Okay, you’ve- you’ve gotta fuck me now, or I think I’m gonna lose it.” 

“Losing it is the point,” Richie said, even as he drew his fingers back. The whimper Eddie let out when he did was intoxicating. 

“Not before I’ve had your dick in me,” he countered. “I’ve waited way too fucking long for this, and I’m not gonna be waiting until I get it up again because I came like a fucking college kid before we got the main event.” 

“Then here comes the show, baby,” Richie said, shifting once again. He had to manhandle Eddie a little bit so that they were both positioned properly, handing him a pillow to put under his hips because neither of them were fucking twenty somethings anymore, and he was realistic about the level of crazy they could be getting here. 

Eddie rolled his eyes as he readjusted himself. “Don’t call your dick ‘the show,’” he said. “Even if it’s- Jesus, Richie, where do you even fucking put that thing?”

“I’ve never exaggerated a big dick joke in my life,” Richie said, a little smug because fuck yeah, finally, some respect. 

“I guess not,” Eddie said. “But, having a big dick doesn’t mean you know how to fucking use it.” 

Richie’s eyes narrowed. “That a challenge, Eds?” 

“Just an observation,” Eddie shot back, laying back on the bed and looking up at Richie with a smile that was definitely a challenge. “Prove me wrong.” 

Richie took that as his cue to do exactly that, lining up and pushing in- just a bit, at first, small thrusts of his hip before Eddie kicked- literally, fucking kicked, the asshole- him into action. “We just spent twenty fucking minutes working me up to this, Richie,” he said. “Fuck me like you mean it, now.” 

“I’m trying to be a gentleman, so you can sit pretty in your desk chair tomorrow,” Richie said. 

“You can be a gentleman next time,” Eddie said- and, holy shit, next time. “This time- fuck me like you mean it.” 

Richie didn’t have to be told twice. He was really, really considering maybe starting going to church again, with all the religious experience he was having this night, but he could mull that thought after he finished processing how fucking good Eddie looked, gripping Richie’s sheets as he rocked into him, slow at first and then building. “Jesus Christ, you’re fucking phenomenal.”  

“Stop using words with more than three syllables,” Eddie said, eyes fluttering shut and then open again, locking with Richie’s and not moving. “Your dick is turning off my brain.” 

“Phenomenal,” Richie said. “Effervescent. Show stopping, beautiful, an absolute fucking knock-out-” 

“Shut up,” Eddie moaned, tugging Richie down and kissing him. “You’re already fucking me, you don’t have to flatter me.” 

“It’s not flattery if you’re fucking everything,” Richie said, and that got Eddie’s eyes to widen.

“Everything?” he asked, and his voice was way, way too gentle for the moment. It seemed like an important question, for being only one word. 

“Everything,” he echoed, sure, more sure than he’d ever been about anything in his life. “Always been, Eds.”

“You can’t just say that shit, Richie,” Eddie said, but he kissed Richie again, and when he pulled away, added: “Say it again, anyway.” 

“You’re everything,” Richie repeated, and it became a mantra. “You’re everything, Eds,” like he was trying to burrow the idea so deep in Eddie’s mind he’d never fucking doubt it again, for better or for worse. They were fucking clinging to each other, now, and Richie wasn’t sure when this had turned from fucking to romance novel love making, but he wasn’t about to stop it. There was no way he could detach his feelings from this, if any of the shit he’d been saying didn’t make that obvious on its own. 

It only took a few more minutes of everything, you’re fucking everything, you’ve always been everything for Eddie to tighten around Richie, whole body curling like a spring when he came between them. “Richie, Richie, holy fucking shit-” 

“I’ve got you,” Richie said, sounding wrecked, because he was fucking close, too- he’d been close before Eddie’d come in, it was a wonder he hadn’t already blown it like a virgin- and he needed Eddie to know it. “I got you, I got you.” 

“Richie.” Eddie sounded just as wrecked, and it just took one look at his face- pink lips, pink cheeks, doe eyes blown wide under his lashes- to push him over the edge, coming with Eddie’s name on his lips. 

“Fuck.” His arms gave out, as he came down, and he flopped on top of Eddie. “Fuck, I think I’m dying.” 

“Don’t die with your dick still in me, idiot,” Eddie huffed, nudging him until he shifted and hissing as Richie pulled out. “God, I forgot this part.” 

“The afterglow?” Richie flopped on the other side of the bed now, and was pleased when Eddie shifted and followed, tucking himself against Richie’s side.

 “The part where I need to fucking shower,” Eddie said, making no move to get up.

“Do it later,” Richie said. “I’ll hop in with you, save water.” 

“If you hop in with me, neither of us are getting clean,” Eddie snorted, and god, if Richie hadn’t just came, that would’ve done some shit to him. 

“All the more reason,” he said, tucking Eddie a bit more securely into his side and dropping a kiss to the top of his head, getting a little bold. 

“Did you mean all that stuff?” Eddie asked after a beat of silence. “About-” 

“You’re everything,” Richie said, and he could feel Eddie’s breth hitching without even looking at him, because he wasn’t brave enough to do that right now. “Always been. It’s… yeah.” 

“Always?” Eddie sounded like he couldn’t believe it, which was stupid, because of course it was true. 

“Which part of that did you miss, Eds?” Richie asked. “The part earlier where I told you you were the only guy I’d ever fantasized about, or the way I used to follow you around like a puppy when we were kids, or-” 

“Shut up,” Eddie said. “It’s- you were my everything, Richie, so please, give me a damn minute to adjust to the reality that I haven’t been stupid for thinking that maybe you felt a little the same the whole time.” 

“Take a minute, then,” Richie said, because, oh, he didn’t know what to do with that, so he probably needed a minute, too. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

“Neither am I,” Eddie said, and that made Richie relax a little bit. “I’m staying here, tonight, by the way. I’m not sure my legs work.” 

“That good?” Richie hummed, smug, and Eddie didn’t answer, but the kiss he pressed to Richie’s shoulder did for him. “Told you, I’m fucking good.”

“One time doesn't count,” Eddie said. “You’re gonna have to give a repeat performance.” 

“Oh, I’m gonna,” Richie said. “A few- later. Probably not tonight.” 

“Probably not tonight,” Eddie agreed. “But- soon.”  

“I’ll fuck you every night I’m home if you let me, Eds,” Richie said, and sounded a lot more lovesick than he intended. 

“You’re taking me to dinner, first,” Eddie said. “Nice dinner, that I’m not cooking.” 

“Deal,” Richie said. “It’s a date.” 

“A date.” He turned to look at Eddie, then, and he was grinning like Richie had just done something amazing. “Good.” 

Richie had to kiss him for that. “I’m getting that picture framed, by the way,” he said as they both tucked in for the night. “We can hang it in the living room.” 

“We have people over, Richie,” Eddie said. “You’re not putting my nudes in the fucking living room.”

“They’re tasteful!” Richie protested. “And, like. That wasn’t a no on the framing.” 

“It’s a good picture,” Eddie said. “But, not in the living room.” 

“My office it is, then,” Richie said. “I’ll hang it right behind me, so when I do Skype interviews, it’s there.” 

“You’re the absolute worst,” Eddie groaned, but he kissed Richie again, so Richie decided he was gonna take that as ‘maybe.’ 

[mysticsparklewings]

Behind the Screens

Oh, look, a reminder of why I don't do detailed backgrounds often! Okay, okay, this is actually an entry for projecteducate's All Mediums Contest: From Logos To Art. It sounded like a fun challenge, so I thought I'd take a stab at it. (Hopefully obviously) My primary logo choice/inspiration was the Instagram logo, largely because I had a strong visual idea for it in my mind right away. However, if you look closely there are logo inspirations hiding in there, too.  Some of them I think are more obvious, while others are more subtle. In case you'd rather try to find them on your own, I'll list them in small text so you can skip to the next paragraph and not be spoiled. Moving left to right, top to bottom: Outside the window is the Twitter bird, tweeting away; Then we have a literal FaceBook propped up against the window, and next to it a "Ko-Fi" Coffee cup; below the window we have a chair, the SnapChair, based off the SnapChat logo/ghost, which I am particularly proud of. On the right side of the art, we have a globe with some plastic bits that's inspired by the Google Chrome logo; then a PinBoard as a reference to Pinterest; and side-by-side on the table we have an Apple-apple and a Tumblr-tumbler. Fun fact: Because of that apple I now know there are in fact real apple species that have white skin, the most common among them seeming to be the "white transparent" variety. You'll notice all the logos have something to do with the internet/computers/social media, and though I did think about sneaking in a couple of other logos like Dominos or the NBC Peacock (since those logos have good visuals), I ultimately decided it was better to stick to a more cohesive theme. This is also where the title came from, as the idea is this is the reality behind the screens of a perfectly poised Instagram photo. And therein lies the further theme/message you can take away from this; Notice how the figure is holding the camera so that we can't see their face at all, like a mask. And how the other logos have crept into the rest of the scene, in a way that a lot of them you probably wouldn't notice as internet icons if it wasn't pointed out to you. Both of these are realities for a lot of people. On the internet, we put on a facade like a mask. We control the narrative of what people see of us. And our online presence and habits sneak into our lives in ways we might not notice right away. Both things happen for better or worse, and they can and do happen to anyone, regardless of who you are. To that end, I consciously tried to make the person holding the camera little androgynous, so that it could be a boy or girl, but since this is me we're talking about I'm pretty sure it leans more notably on the feminine side.  And it doesn't help that for the positioning of the hands I had to use reference photos of myself when I couldn't find quite what I was looking for online. Speaking of which; to make the art I started out with a traditional sketch of the figure and the background bits that were inspired by logos, except for the Pinboard and Kofi/coffee cup. And it's kinda funny because I wanted to base the camera design off of one of the newer instant Polaroid cameras (as that seemed the most fitting to transform into the Instagram Logo camera), and fortunately when I was taking the reference photos my phone is sized just so that I could use it as more or less a stand-in or base. This worked out even better because it meant I could just take the photos in front of a mirror instead of having to set a timer and hope I could pose correctly from a distance.   I scanned the sketches in, and then came the trickier part: That background. Especially since a lot of the concept here relies pretty heavily on it. I used a lot of reference photos I found online for this. I did have a basic, rudimentary sketch of my own that I made without any references, but I knew to get the lighting and perspective right I was going to need some actual photos to go off of, and I don't personally have a room that looks like what I had in mind for this. Based on these photos, I did end up putting the shelves over the pinboard, as opposed to putting the pinboard higher on the wall, but other than that and some slight adjusts to the perspective, my general idea for the room stayed the same. And, given my tablet situation, I gave myself a bit of break and decided not to do perfectly clean, solid linework for anything other than the human figure and the camera they're holding. The camera kinda had to have clean lines for this to work, and I thought the figure would stand out from the background better if they were done with clean lines. (And I'm pretty sure I was right about that.) For once in my life, I mostly started in the back and moved my way forward. The walls and ceilings, then the window, then the shelves and the stuff on them, then the banners over the window. And my process reminded largely the same throughout: Loosely line the object, give it a base layer of color, then go back and shade/lighten as necessary. And I was using semi-realistic colors, though I knew they were going to get largely disguised later on when I did the all-over overlay to really drive the Instagram logo inspiration home. Naturally, all the stuff on the shelves was a largely more annoying undertaking than I'd anticipated, but it wasn't quite as bad as the multitude of books I had to do for World in a Book. It's not even that drawing in a bunch of objects like that is hard, necessarily, it just takes a while to get through if you want it to look right. Anyway. Once all of that was done, I took a break to work on the figure and camera, getting the lines done and then moving on once again. Then it was the other logo bits' turn. Once I had them all lined and properly arranged/placed (as they were drawn as separate, individual items from the rest of the scene), I colored each one using the actual logo colors first, then went back to shade them, and then fiddled with some adjustments to bring the saturation down a little and make them blend a bit better with the overall tone. I would end up having to undo some of this after I added the overlay, and as otherwise with that in place some of the logo-inspired things would've either blended in too well or stood out way too much, depending on which one it was. (The camera is a bit of an exception here as instead of getting proper shading, I opted to line it only and just use my home-made gradient inside of it. Once those were taken care of, I back-tracked to color in the figure. Which went similarly to everything else, save for this time I'd use multiple layers for the shading/highlights until I was happy with it, then I merged all that onto a layer about the base color. And then, because I have one solid blue-gray base color for them, I then went back and separated the hair, skin, and shirt with their own unique colors. That was all the coloring done, so I moved on to filling all the blank "photo" spaces I'd left everywhere; the pinboard, the tumbler, even a little picture on one of the shelves. For this, I simply used my own artworks as that seemed like the fastest and easiest way. I just went through my gallery, found pieces I thought would fit properly, then copy & pasted them in and adjusted them to size. A few I did a little perspective warping on just to be thorough, but nothing too crazy. Finally, then I could move on to arguably the most important part: The overlay. Actually, aside from the overlay making the whole image look a little bit too dark, a little too saturated, that went a lot smoother than I thought it would. I just had to turn the saturation down a bit and bring the lightness up to fix that. Or, that's what I thought. I must've saved this thing 6 or 7 times thinking it was finished before spotting this, that, or the other thing (usually related to lighting or shading) that needed to be fixed. First, it was just fiddling with the overlay layer because it still seemed too dark overall, then it was tinkering with shading in various places, and then I decided to drop the ko-fi cup in there because it felt like that spot on the windowsill needed something else and I really wanted just one more logo reference. And then the bottom left corner I thought I fixed earlier now seemed too dark, so I had to un-fix/re-fix that. And of course, even after all that back-and-forth, I thought I was finally, finally done when I noticed the black checkerboard squares on the SnapChair were too dark of a black compared to the blacks/darks elsewhere in the photo, especially considering how light the area around the chair is. I'm sure I could've left it alone and it would've been okay, but my own brain wouldn't let me. So I fixed it! It's not even that noticeable of a difference, but it makes my brain feel so much better knowing it was indeed fixed. Fortunately, after that (at least for now) I stopped noticing things to tweak/fix. It's still not completely perfect, but the things I could continue playing with are at least to my satisfaction to the point I'm comfortable calling it finished. Though, honestly, it already feels like this description should be a lot longer when I think about the 3-4 days I spent working on this.    It was a lot of work, but just like I thought it would be, it was fun and I'm really happy with how it turned out. It was a real challenge as far as shading and perspective go, and obviously, for as strong of an image I had in my head when I started, it wasn't exactly a cakewalk to get it there. A lot of the lines are rough up-close, but they don't look so bad when there's so much else going on in the picture to distract from them.  Maybe I'll try the "softer" lines like this more often. I do know one thing, though, I'm going to be avoiding detailed backgrounds for a while. They always take a lot out of me. ____ Artwork (c) me, MysticSparkleWings I do not own any of the logos that inspired parts of this artwork ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[worldsandcenturiesfunposting]

The Scorn Logo was designed by Martin de Diego. You can find his Artstation account here: https://www.artstation.com/martindediego and the page for the logo here: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/LP5Xv

From top to bottom, accompanying each picture on the website:

-First sketches for the symbol

-First approach to letters and symbol

-Material early tests

-Eureka! General forms founded 

-Central symbol test variations

-Central symbol test variations 

-Central symbol test variations

-Last tests

-Final version

According to Diego: They wanted an "O" that also works as independent symbol form, like an emblem for the game, but they wasn't sure exactly what they wanted so i had to perform many variations.

Given how intricate the initial designs for the “O” in the logo were initially, it’s a bit funny that it ended up being a fairly standard “O” with two breaks in it. In any case, you can get an idea of what the process behind designing the logo was like. 

Since the “O” was such a big part of the logo, he started with that. The very top sketch in the first picture closely resembles what the final version would look like. It seems right from the start he had an idea to make it biomechanical though with a lot more sharp edges than you’d see in Scorn. 

Following that, he continued to wrestle with “O” designs but was also able to come up with the general shape of the other letters. We don’t know how long it took to decide on those shapes and what variants there were while figuring it out, but based only on the information available, I assume it came pretty quickly. He’s still trying to figure out the “O” and is trying to both draw a semi-final looking design on the left and silhouette of what it might look like on the right. Some of the ones on the right look more like arcane symbols you’d find in fantasy games than the sort of thing you’d find in a nightmarish universe of odd forms and somber tapestries. 

In the next picture you can see that despite having the general shape of the letters, he still hasn’t finalized what the texture of them would be. The top and bottom letters are closest to the final product but not exact as they have clean smooth edges while the center letters look completely metallic with no organic components. For the “O” he put in two designs that don’t even resemble the final product: The circle composed of sharp scythe shapes (try saying that fast five times) and interestingly enough, some fetus thing. It kind of reminds me of the shrimp baby from Dark Seed (a game that features and had some direction by HR Giger). Finally, the logo would have had some aqua blue highlights on the edges.

Moving on to the next picture, the logo actually looks very close to the final product. He finalized the overall design of the letters, ditching the smooth edges but keeping the boney biomechanical look and was now focusing on how bold or thin some of the lines should be. 

Then it was back to wrestling with that damn “O” again. He made the other letters metallic grey which would be consistent in its design until the very final version. For the “O”, he seemed to really try for something organic looking but also symmetrical. There’s a general boney-ness to the designs but many of them look like bones crafted into some sort of art piece rather than something you’d find naturally. This again made it look more like something you’d find in some fantasy game, or at best, something you might see on the walls in Agony, than something from Scorn. 

More “O” designs. The top middle is very close to the final version but the rest are just way different than what the final design would be. Second row far right design looks kind of like a rib cage and sternum. With the sharp spikes and edges on some of the designs, these “O”s can end up looking like biohazard symbols. 

Next he ditches symmetry and tries designing it like some sort of shell. Sometimes it’s very decayed and other times it doesn’t have any decay in it at all. 

The penultimate logo uses the same previously mentioned top middle design from before. There’s a lot of green light erupting from it with white light within the green light being prominent in the “O” design. Being split into two parts, the “O” actually closely resembles the C with each end curved in more. Also both sides are mirrors of each other, showing that symmetry was still very important. Finally, there’s some bit in the center that I assume is where your eye is supposed to be drawn to first. 

I said that logo was the penultimate one but there was another variant of that near final design that I couldn’t post due to Tumblr’s image limit. 

The concept is the same. Green lights with the “O” being the center piece of it all. 

So now we get to the final design and there’s quite a few interesting changes. One of the biggest is that the “O” no longer stands out as much. It’s not symmetrical or fancy but instead it blends in much better with the rest of the letters. It’s odd since the devs specifically stated they want the “O” to work “as an independent symbol form, like an emblem for the game” and yet, it looks no more special here than any of the other letters outside of being in the center. It doesn’t have any additional light or fanfare...but then again, none of the other letters have lights either. 

Also the metallic grey was changed to a more yellowish grey that gives it an overall more organic look than before. It may be hard to see, but some parts of of the previous letter designs also had ridged tubes running along it while here, thanks in part to the color change, it looks much more like straight up bone structures. 

The “O” is also no longer symmetrical with the part on the left being larger than the part on the right. Some of the part on the left still does look like the “C” with some variation, but the upper side of that part helps differentiate it. The two halves still do have some mirrored qualities but it’s nowhere near as extreme as the previous design. 

The final picture I added was one of the initial designs for the first Alien movie for comparison. Initially they wanted to sort of ape the HR Giger biomechanical aesthetic and like some of the early designs of the Scorn logo, there were things included like really sharp spike points and an organic structure with metallic texture (though the Alien logo shares similar colors to the final Scorn logo more than the previous versions). I wouldn’t be surprised if Diego knew about this logo and got some inspiration from it. The top end of the “I”and bottom end for the “N” closely resembles the ends for all the letters in the Scorn logo.  

It’s worth noting that even before he was hired, Scorn had a completely different looking logo:

The letters were a lot more straight forward, lacking any boney or biomechanical aesthetic. Some parts were rounded and there were differences in the width of areas, specifically the top and bottom curves in letters, but the majority of the flair for it came from various red weed like vines stemming from the “O” onto the other letters. Though it wasn’t symmetrical, there was an element of mirrored symmetry to it. 

--

And so that concludes the history of Scorn’s logo. We unfortunately do not know too much about what the decision making process was outside of what can be figured out from just the pictures themselves. Did he send in each iteration and get feeback on what it should be more like? Is there anything significant about that fetus thing in the game itself or was it something born completely out of his imagination? There’s quite a few questions. 

In any case, it certainly went through a lot of changes. 

[fantroll-purgatory]

So this sad sod was my 11 year old self’s “attempt” at a fantroll, and oh boy oh boy is he ever edgy-mcedge-lord. I kinda liked what his theme was and deiced it was revamp time…and so here he is.

I love this child with my entire heart and would risk jail time for him.

Let’s get this freakshow on the road.

FIRST: Alternia.

Name: The only semi-redeemable thing I did for this poor lad was his name. It was Hecate which was from the Goddess Hecate who was associated with magic, ghosts, and necromancy. More or less what he was based off.

I think let’s run with the fact that you made this dude when you were 11! In addition to being about dark magic and ghosts and stuff, let’s actually include the childish element of it and a desire to be seen as dangerous. This actually tracks with the later backstory you provide that he’s sheltered and has little experience interacting with others.

For the last name, how about Bafmet like Baphomet, especially given that the Goat of Mendes is often depicted with the two crescent moons of Hecate. It also dovetails nicely with the symbol you already gave him!

Age: 7.4 Alternian Solar Sweeps

Strife Specibus: Bookind???

Jkdfkjslf does this mean boo-kind like ghostkind or book-kind like tomekind. Because either technically works.

Since I’ve added Baphomet and have also decided to be a little bit bullshit about this, maybe glaivekind based on Heartcleaver, Baphomet’s glaive in D&D.

With that said, I later agreed with your assessment of him as a Void player, which means you can do fistkind/hornkind, which is to say, a specibus that just requires using the weapons you have on hand. Hornkind will be especially effective once I give him the goat horns he deserves.

Fetch Modus: ???.

I kinda like a Gravestone Modus, if we’re going for necromancy! Captcha cards can be “dug up,” but inevitably in increasingly degraded conditions depending on how long they’ve been left to “rot.” Means you need to think twice before taking something.

Blood color: Rust, since it would allow him to have physical abilities and there usually best known with powers relating to the dead(?)

(I was kinda of thinking to changing him to a Jade blood since for all the dying-dark-undead theme I was kinda going for???)

I agree, actually! Male jadebloods are considered rare, and I especially like a troll whose caste is known for raising new life being associated with necromancy.

Symbol and meaning: Pentagram, dude was meant to be based around black magic, sorcery and necromancy(?) Or some kind of edgy and dark magic based theme.

Trolltag: ghastlyGhoul??? Don’t know man.

Yeah let’s punch that up a little. How about astraNomicon, using the inverted star in his symbol (astronomy) and common endings for pop culture occult-y books (i.e. Necronomicon).

Quirk: Still clueless, sorry.

I have one that might be funny: how about he swears a lot but “censors” it using his symbol. He may not see it as censoring (and may rather see it as posturing by aggressively reminding others of his symbol), but it’s certainly how it comes off. Example: I don’t have f⛧cking time for this sh⛧t. Burn in h⛧ll you weak ⛧ss m⛧th⛧rf⛧ck⛧r.

Special Abilities (if any): All I got from the vaguely written and horrid fanfic my 11 year old self wrote and never finished was he had some kind of uncontrollable marysueish black magic that made “insane” and messed his eyes up. (Also it had something to with the horrorterrors?)

Hm. If we let his jadeblooded status ride, maybe his eyes never adjusted to the light due to living in a cave for most of his life? So contrary to what we know about undead jadebloods in Alternia, Hecate would be unable to see well in the Alternian sun (though he’d still be able to survive it where other trolls couldn’t), but would be able to see devastatingly well at night. It lets him be “weird” without being Mary Sue-ish.

Lusus: It was some kind of mix between a cat, a owl and a snake. I think it’s based off a a mix of common familiars witches had?

Tbh that all sounds really solid!

Personality: Here's what I tried to come with based on his older and messier one;

Hecate is a shy, soft spoken troll who would rather very much keep to himself. Being raised basically in the middle of nowhere, he’s useless at speaking to people and awkward leading him to distance himself from other people. He also has a very fragile ego which can be broken, being on the bottom of the hemospectrum only adds to this.

If we make him a jadeblood, we can still make this work since practically all of his company would be grubs. Necromancy may also be something to which he’s drawn because of the loneliness and steadily growing pile of grub corpses as the cave trials continue. This also gives you a very interesting story hook: what gets him out of the cave?

Interests: Shitty Horror Movies, magic tricks, reading, astronomy, magic, necromancy

Title: Some kind of void player???

Given that he’s grown up away from others, yeah I think Void stands. And as a character whose actions claw him out of obscurity, you may want to go with Witch of Void (think: grimdark Rose)? Works thematically, and his inverse is Seer of Light, which works with all that book learnin’ he must be doing.

Land: ???

How about Land of Snow and Circles? I like the idea of this half-blind f⛧ck⛧r stumbling around a bright tundra. He encounters glyphs set into massive stone slabs of increasing size which he must arrange to create a planetwide circle to summon his denizen.

Dream Planet: Derse?

Ehhh tbh I can see a convincing argument for either. I always like putting edgy characters on Prospit since its bright aesthetic contrasts theirs AND the whole talk of destiny can make them get a big head.

I’m really sorry for giving you such pisspoor info to work with but I hope you can get something out of it.

Nah, I like it! If I’m being honest I would’ve probably been harsher if I’d gotten this troll like 4 years ago, but I’ve softened over the years and in my old, ancient age of 25 I think I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that fantrolls are just about having fun at the end of the day.

I’d say we’re doing a redesign but tbh except for the sign we’re building this guy from the ground UP.

Sorry about the picture quality for the first guy; tumblr kinda deep-fries images if they go beyond a certain width and I can’t click through to a clearer picture until it’s published so…here you go.

So I think your character forced me to look at what people are trying to do when they build an Edgy Character. From reading your bio, it looks lie you want a character who is immediately readable as a threat, but also comes off as cool and gothy? Which is how we get the dude on the right. Let me go through the details top to bottom.

Horns – Like I said, Hecate deserves some goat horns! They’re great for goring, they make him look taller, *and* Baphomet is sort of a goat.

Hair – The length comes from a chirp-trolls template, while the bangs are from one of fan-troll’s hairstyles. If we wanted to keep going with the sheltered aspect, I feel that long and unkempt hair is a quick and easy way to convey that as a creepy fact without sacrificing the cool factor.

Eyes – I used a tarsier’s eyes to make the original base. You’ve definitely seen a picture of a tarsier before even if you didn’t know it was called that. Mainly I went hunting for an animal with spectacular low-light vision. This way you can have your cake and eat it too; at night Hecate has big, round eyes to allow him to see in the dark (which kinda verges on adorably creepy), and during the daytime he has pinpoint pupils that look incredibly threatening despite the fact that he can’t see a thing.

Mouth – now that we have all these delicious new trolls in Troll Call, we can really start to see trends among specific blood colors. For jadebloods, it looks like they all have emphasized lips and two fangs, so I added those in for him. It definitely made him look more unsettling than when I just gave him a normal mouth full of teeth.

Outfit – all of this is courtesy of fan-troll, as usual. Once again, I wanted to go back to both the concept of edginess and to the trends we see among jadebloods. Despite covering a wide array of aesthetics, we still see that jadebloods trend toward the fashionable. With that said, a suit on its own risks just looking dapper, but a suit with practical boots? That’s terrifying. Why does he need practical boots. What is he going to do?

Anyway, that concludes my review of your troll. Thanks for submitting this dude; I’m real fond of him!

-TR

[vis3003]

Business Card Project - Part 1

Around the time this module started, I got back into contact with someone by the name of Josh Hitchcock who I met and worked with back in college. We met when we were 16 and worked on several projects with each other during our year studying photography together, I learned a lot from Josh and we’ve stayed loosely in contact ever since leaving school but haven’t collaborated on anything for around 5 years despite having always had similar interests, styles and aesthetics. Josh is also still pursuing his passions and talents in visual communication and is beginning to build a portfolio with the aim of applying for a BA, just like I was doing this time last year. Alongside getting himself prepared to do a degree, he has been expanding his online presence and slowly establishing a business and brand identity for himself. He reached out to me originally to ask if I could potentially create him a logo that he could use across all of his platforms which he needed fairly quickly as he was building a website, unfortunately I couldn’t meet the turnaround deadline and so he commissioned someone else to do a logo, later reaching out to me again to ask if I might be able to create business cards instead.

Josh had already started sketching out ideas and so he sent me his drawings as a starting point for the design

After some discussion and a little bit of time, Josh came to the decision that this was his favorite prospective card design and even began experimenting with it's colors.

It was at this point that I asked him to create a Pinterest board to help gather all of the ideas together which he promptly delivered on. Pinterest’s description of the board “Clean, simple doodles. Photography orientated based on nature and ancient art. A perfect combination of tech, nature and aesthetic.” sums it up perfectly. This was a really strong starting point for the overall design as it includes everything from small decorative graphic details such as flowers, vines and suns; to a concise range of colors for the palette of the art itself. The board isn’t overcrowded, it's clearly well thought through and does good job of clearly communicating the kind of style that I was expected to reflect in my design.

Coincidentally around the same time I started this project, I decided to treat myself to an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to support my University work, these have become increasing popular in the art world because they are incredibly powerful creative tools, I chose to invest in it mainly for it’s capabilities in creating digital art using the Adobe suite and Procreate using the pencil which is exclusive to iOS and has is slowly becoming the standard for digital drawings.

Having recently attended the Illustrator workshop, I thought that I would experiment with using this software both on my iPad and computer as I figured if I could learn to use them in conjunction with one another from the get go, I would be in a better position overall later on; but in doing so, I threw myself two learning curves at once as I was not only dabbling in software I wasn’t comfortable with but also using that software on a device that I am a complete beginner to which was a definite challenge for myself.

I started out by doing a Google search to find out what the standard size is for business cards and found out that is generally 3.5 x 2 inches (1050 x 600 pixels at 300 DPI, which is the standard DPI for printing). This is how I decided to set my document up which is what gives me the white rectangular shape that you see me working on to start off with.

To begin the design, I picked out my favorite things from Josh's sketch which were the wavy line details and the bohemian style sun. I created some simple outlines using the line tools on iPad Illustrator starting with the border and dividing horizontal line where I intended the design to end, from this I was able rough out where patches of lines would go and add the sun. For the sun, I originally tried to draw one with wavy points but I was struggling to get it proportionate, even when I'd figured out how to use the reflect tool to make my drawing symmetrical, it seemed to be throwing the design off and so I threw this idea out and went for a pointed sun design instead. I chose triangles for the points as a subtle reference to the exposure triangle which is a rule that dictates camera settings when it comes to photography so it ties in with the business well and was also a concept that Josh was trying to reflect in his logo. I achieved the geometrically accurate shape of the points around the sun by creating the very top triangle and then using the Radial Reflect tool whilst using my iPad which automatically created the rest of the points for me with even spacing and perfect symmetry; all I had to do then was resize the points as I pleased. Once I had done this, I decided to repeat the process but with a small line between each point to give it an extra beaming sunshine look, this also fits in with how some of the sun's and graphics are drawn on the Pinterest board that I'm referring to as I design this.

Once the outlines were complete, I started experimenting with filling in the patches with lines, this is an effect that is featured on the album art of one of my favorite albums of all time, Currents by Tame Impala which I previously learned how to do using a vector pack from Spoon Graphics as I did work inspired by it for my University portfolio. Although I have used these particularly line textures before, I have only used them in Photoshop and not Illustrator so I haven't actually used the vector versions of them up until this point. I inserted these into my work using my computer as that's where they were saved, I was able to use Adobe Cloud to sync my work between my PC and iPad making it easy and convenient to switch between the two whilst working. Adjusting the waves worked similarly to how it does when I use them in Photoshop, I just added them in as a layer and then used direct selection mode to delete the extra lines around the outlines and border that I’d drawn in leaving me with what you see above. At this point, I sent what I’d done so far to Josh so that I could begin to get his feedback and make sure that what I was doing was in line with his vision.

Whilst I was waiting for him to reply, I started experimenting with adding color to the design hoping that it would help us visualize it better; I used colors directly from the Pinterest board for my palette by taking a screenshot of the webpage, opening it up in Illustrator, swatching all of the colors and adding them to my Color Library so that they could be easily accessed whenever I needed them.

At this point, I just filled in the colors according to what made sense to me, blue for the sky, yellow for the sun and something contrasting for the wavy lines, honestly, I chose orange because it’s my favorite color and I really like the way that the purple looks next to it, especially against the blue background where it appears slightly more subtle whilst still being effective at breaking up the image in the way that it needs to.

I continued to add colour, changing every other point on the sun to be red to give it more dimension and incorporate more of the colours from the chosen scheme; I then added green to the bottom section which I chose because I thought it would represent grass and fit in with the sun and sky theme that seemed to be emerging. I also added some small stars as I was experimenting with the shape tools dotting them into some small empty spaces on the design so that they line up in a triangular shape which is another subtle reference to the expose triangle.

Then I started experimenting with adding text and social media icons, Josh had told me that he wanted his name, website and social media information on the card, we decided to leave his phone number out as he only has a personal mobile number and didn’t want to risk handing it out to strangers. I chose this Art Deco style font for the name because I liked the lines in it and thought it went well with the lines in the top half of the design which are probably my favourite thing about it at this point. I didn’t use the same font for the website because it doesn’t look as good when it’s small, you can’t really see the lines and it made the website hard to read so instead I chose this glyph font which I thought Josh would like based on some of the imagery from the Pinterest board; I was unsure about this choice at first but it quickly grew on me as it’s subtle and yet it makes the website look bold on the bottom of the image which draws your eye down to it when you’re reading the information. I also added some social shapes to the front keeping Josh updated on my progress as I went along.

It was at this point that I started to receive some feedback from him, he was really happy with the first impressions of the design but did want to make a few changes. He started out by asking if I could change the green on the bottom to the orange colour in the waves with the hope of giving the card a more uniform look which we both agreed looked much better. He then asked me if I’d started designing the back which I hate to admit that I hadn’t actually thought about at this point and so we started discussing the layout; collectively agreeing to move the social media information to the back of the card and have that there along with some sort of bio which I much preferred the idea of as I wasn’t too keen on how the social shapes looked on the front of the card and I was worried about how I was going to fit all of the contact details on without making it look messy.

Originally we thought it might be nice to add some floral details to the front of the card where the space had now been freed up but we quickly decided that this didn’t look quite right.

[benkennedy45]

Surreal photography

https://www.designyourway.net/blog/inspiration/amazing-examples-of-surreal-photography-39-photos/

The purpose of surreal photography was to destroy the borders between reality and dream and to release the passion.

Various experienced photographers like Man Ray, Lee Miller, and Raoul Ubac were drawn to surrealist photography because of its commitment to achieving artistic freedom.

Surreal photos present pictures that are unlikely to be found in the real world and surrealist photographers produce photographs which have a  special impact.

Surreal pictures usually represent overlapping photographs, abstract forms or blasts of light that trick the viewer’s senses.

The viewer’s brain perceives that the things they are observing are quite impossible in reality, yet at the same moment their eyes are viewing a remarkably realistic-looking photo. Surreal picture manipulation is really a challenge.

It demands a special sort of creativity to produce such an impact. It is not all about the fancy picture editing software programs or the camera, just many techniques taken by photographers that deliver the surreal images their charm.

Surreal Photography Starter Guide

In order to take surreal photographs, you will need to have an idea. So, when some idea comes to your mind, it will be good if you sketch it out.

This should be the case with everything that you do, not only for taking surrealist pictures.

So, firstly you need to get some pencils and sketch the surrealist ideas which begin to emerge.

Next, plan the photos you will need to take to shape your surrealism ideas. TTake the lighting into consideration. You should plan that well if you want your surrealist photos to turn out great.

Even if you will be working in Adobe Photoshop using a lot of manipulating, cutting and pasting, twisting and many other techniques on the surrealist picture, your surrealist photographs should be great to start with.

Make your Photoshop work much simpler by capturing a great image with your camera. This will save you time as you will have a lot to do in order to fine-tune your surreal image.

When you are creating a surreal photo it is always a good idea to start with the background first and then work on the final details later.

Attach your surrealist images one at a time in Photoshop as to see if the light flattens. Color temperature plays a huge role, so try to make it consistent so the photo looks more natural.

Also, shooting raw truly pays off here since you will have total control of the picture, you may manually adjust shadows and highlights, set the white balance and much more.  You can use shadow to create a dark surreal landscape or add highlights for a lighter setting.

Methods of Surreal Digital PhotographyCliché Verre

This method is normally used in drawings, etchings, paintings and also photography.

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Cliché verre was firstly practiced in the 19th century by French artists and includes transporting the resulting picture to a light delicate paper and drawing on a transparent surface.

This method is further known as glass negative in photo surrealism because it involves utilizing negatives that are glazed with a glass plate.

Photomontage

As one of the most usual methods utilized in surrealist photography, photomontages incorporates joining 2 or more images together and achieve to look like they are one single photo.

The photos a generally integrated by utilizing digital editing software. Generally, surreal photographers are capturing pictures of some interesting backgrounds and other picture of the main subject. After that, they join the 2 images easily and make them seem like one.

Multiple Exposures

This method can be made by using an analog camera and capturing a photo without moving the negative.

By doing this, you will place two separate photos onto each other, forming an undetermined mix of each.  This will form a surreal effect. Since each photo is formed, you will be capable of picking out details from every photograph in the complete surrealist photograph.

Typography

This is a surrealism photography method where 3 distinctive images are taken from one roll of film. This triple-exposed photograph makes it impossible to simply pick out one subject from one photograph, creating a surrealist picture.

Long Shutter Speeds

Long shutters speeds are another modern surrealism photography method if you want to create surreal photos by playing with the speed of your camera.

Shutter speeds normally last shorter than a second. A remarkably quick shutter speed has the capacity to “freeze” a moving subject.

For instance, a running individual can be captured with both of the legs in the air. Slower shutter speeds may describe movement in a photo of a moving subject. It can also blur motion, which will result in a surreal picture.

Solarisation

Solarisation, also recognized as the Sabattier effect, is a method of photography surrealism in which the picture is somewhat or entirely changed in tone.

This is a Man Ray surrealism technique. A partially-developed film is visible to light whilst it is being formed. Normally, the partially-developed film is presented by switching on the light in the dark room for a short moment.

The surreal photos developed by the Sabattier effect results in the withdrawal of highlights and shadows, which creates a great level of contrast.

Capturing during the “magic hours”

The magic hours, also known as the golden hours, is the period shortly after sunrise or before sunset. This is the time when the sun has taken the lowest angle up in the sky.

During the magic hours, the rays of the sun are covering everything in warm and attractive colors.

Picutestaken at this time without flash usually turn out to be surreal pictures.

The twilight hours are also known as the blue hours and are a great chance to take surrealist photos. This is the time after sunset and before sunrise. A surrealist photographer can use this time to create overwhelming scenes.

Juxtaposition

The juxtaposition is utilized in surrealist photographs, painting, sculpture, and writing. One of the intentions of surrealism is to increase our mental limits by juxtaposing entirely distinct objects in surreal pics.

For example, in surrealist images, a portrait of a modern woman could be captured with a dead fish in her legs or a photograph could represent an arena with a baby in a plain white dress in the center. Here are some surrealistic photography examples.

Blurring

To produce a surreal environment for your videos and photos, the subject needs to be in focus, and then you can utilize blurring effects in your post production and camera.

Decreasing the opening of the camera will lessen the deepness of the field in the image, and it becomes simpler to blur objects that are moving through the time you take the photo by reducing the screen speed. You can edit the picture and copy the image layer in Photoshop to enhance your surrealism image.

Shutter speed

Shutter speeds can help you produce cool surreal art.

Quick shutter speed has the capacity to stop a moving subject and the slower shutter speeds can describe movement in a picture of a moving subject.

Shutter speeds are lasting shorter than a second. It can likewise blur movement, which can produce dream surrealism pictures.

Float your subject

This is an extraordinary way to produce images of surrealism. Utilize stool or chair so that it becomes simple to eliminate in Photoshop later to keep your subject up as if the subject is in the air. Nevertheless, to perform this effect, you need to keep your camera in a manual mode and also turn off the auto-focus.

You also need to use a tripod as to maintain the position of all in two pictures really close. One picture will possess the floating subject on a prop, and the other must be quite the same image, just without your subject or prop in the frame.

In Photoshop, open both the pictures, with the background picture as your bottom layer and the floating picture on top. Lastly, take the brush tool and zoom in. Eliminate the prop from the top layer to finish levitating the individual or object in the picture. The result will be some amazing photography ideas.

Tips and Tricks for Beginner Surrealist PhotographersImprove Your Idea

Look for a surreal pic on Flickr, DeviantArt, and Tumblr, and you will notice a huge number of surreal ideas available.

Many pictures are clearly created through, and are, storytellers. Do you have a story that you would like to tell? How can you attract diverse parts together or create surrealist pics to tell your story?

What sort of a picture can you presume that you haven’t noticed in a picture yet?

These are few questions that you can question yourself as you are creating original ideas for surrealism project concepts and stories.

Examine Photoshop

You need to have rather good skills in Photoshop or a related picture editing app to produce a realistic looking surrealist image.

A perfect surrealist photograph seems so real that it gives the viewer the chance to think if that moment captured really happened.

With all kinds of photography, practice makes excellent, so learning as you go along likewise an excellent way to learn surreal photography techniques.

You can always check out the Craftsy’s excellent Photoshop tutorials for newcomers. You can likewise enjoy our new post on the fundamentals of using Photoshop.

Use Inventive Commons

You can create some excellent landscape surrealism photography by utilizing simple imagery techniques and camera equipment.

Nevertheless, in case that you don’t have the means or time to bring out your idea with your own images, some experts believe in sharing their images for the greater good of photography and art.  give up their images through an inventive commons license.

You can see some of those pictures on DeviantArt or Flickr. The original experts typically permit usage of their images and derivative works for non-commercial motives without a charge. Naturally, be certain that you have the approval of the principal photographer if you want to use pictures that are not yours.

Easy Techniques

If you are looking to start with easy surrealism, you may attach just a bit of the surreal to your pictures with easy techniques. For instance, utilizing the HDR mode on or HDR software can drive your pictures into a surreal empire. HDR function very well for building photography or landscapes.

Managing the color temperature of a raw picture can turn an ordinary picture into a surreal picture—if you go for abnormally warm or cool it can totally change the feel and the look of the image.

You can likewise selectively adjust the color of some parts of the image to make them more realistic. For instance, you can make the water turn red or the sky to look green. This improves the mood of the image and makes it seem otherworldly.

You can additionally increase one point of a picture very quickly to make it surreal. Beauty retouches do this with control: changing curves and eyes, proportions of legs, and changing texture and skin color. You can actually overdo this sort of improvement to create surrealist portrait photography.

[triangle-strategy-notes]

Whiteholm Castle's Gardens Concept Art

Concept art for Whiteholm Castle's gardens! This has been something I wanted to translate for a while, purely because it's just really pretty :)

Translation notes and image ids under the cut.

Translation Notes:

"Resting place" might have meant something more like "shrine," but given the appearance I leaned toward "resting place."

"Unreal splendor" was lit. the Japanese phonetic spelling of English's "unreal" + the Japanese word for splendor. I'm not really 100% sure why that English word was used there, but I think it's just meant to be a little extra fancy/emphasized.

There were a lot of little words on here that I was a little iffy about, in part because the handwriting was kind of small and I had trouble making out the characters. Longer sentences are usually actually easier to translate because you can use grammar and sentence structure context clues to figure out what the word is supposed to be. When it's a one-off little label, it becomes a lot more important that you know exactly what each character is. The image of the lantern hanging on the lanternpost is one in particular that I still feel sort of unsure about (it definitely mentioned hanging the lantern, but I couldn't 100% figure out what exactly the rest of it meant).

Image Id:

[id: A set of 4 images. The first is the original Japanese version of the page of concept art for Whiteholm Castle's gardens.

The second is the top third of the page, with English translations. It has the heading, "CountryA_Garden/SacredTreeVersion." There is a small shot of Whiteholm Castle with a red box outlining the section with the gardens, which has the label, "here is a wide shot of the area," as well as another label pointing to some trees outside the gardens that reads, "a forest grows around the castle." There is then a much larger and detailed illustration of the gardens, which has a large tree centered to the far right side. There is a label that has a text box with the heading, "Sacred Tree." The text in the text box reads, "A large tree that has been growing here since before the kingdom's founding, and keeps watch as the land develops. The tree is old, so its leaves have long withered away. But at night (maybe once every few cycles?), fireflies gather and form glowing leaves, returning it to its former glory." There is another nearby note that reads, "White gradient from the base to the trunk and brown gradient from the trunk to the branches." Another small label is put on the smaller, less distinct foliage nearby, reading, "forest." There is a small image of the tree at night, labeled "Sacred Tree (Night)" with the caption, "Countless fireflies are drawn by the tree's special sap and form a tree of light."

The third image is the middle section of the page, and is labeled "Country A Garden." It has a small diagram of the streetlamp with the label "Streetlamp (The idea is that it's illuminated by a lantern candle rather than a gas lamp.)" Another nearby note reads, "Lantern hands from pole." There are several additional simple labels pointing to the lotus flowers that grow in the large rectangular fountain, as well as the small semi-circle fountain that serves as a source for the rectangular one, a gazebo that is called "resting place," some large stone flower vases, some benches, some flowering plants and ivy that hang from the balustrades around the garden, and the reflections on the water, which reads, "The sky is reflected on the surface of the water." Off to the side there are some more detailed close-ups of the stone vases (which contain yellow roses), a stone bench, and a "general purpose balustrade."

The last image is of the garden at night, labeled "Country A Garden/Firefly Version." It is the same as the previous image, but with different coloring, and devoid of many of the labels. It has the same note about the streetlamps. At the bottom, there is an illustrator's note that reads, "In an effort to avoid making the garden look gaudy, we paid special attention to not overdoing it with flowers. But at night, we send out fireflies with the deliberate intention of giving it an "unreal splendor." (Tatsuaki Urushibara) /end id]

[larasati98-blog]

KNB217 Digital Creatures Assignment 1

By Yosephine Vania Devi Larasati | n10129251

For this assignment, I decided to choose Jack from the folktale of a magic beanstalk. Since this is a well-known story for decades, I find it easier to identify the character and setting played in the story.

Jack and the Magic Beanstalk

Jack and the Magic Beanstalk is an English fairy tale. According to Joseph Jacob’s version (1890), this story revolves around the adventure of Jack, a boy living on a farm with his poor widowed mother. One day, his mother asked Jack to go to the market and sell their only cow there, since they run out of money to buy some food. In the market, thoughtless Jack met an old butcher that offered him a magic seed in exchange for his cow. Instead of selling it for some coins, Jack tempted to trade his cow for the seed. Knowing that Jack brought home a seed instead of money, his mother was angry and threw the seed outside. However, the bean grew overnight into a giant beanstalk where there is a castle upon it. Excited, Jack climbed the stalk to find the castle on the top and it was filled with magical animals and instrument which belong to a giant living in it. Realising that he needs goods to sell, he stole a magical hen that lays golden eggs and magical harp that can talk. Unfortunately, the harp began to scream for help and surprised the giant. The giant chased down Jack until he almost reached the ground, but Jack started chopping down the stalk that also crushed and killed the giant. The overall story takes place during the renaissance. The setting happened in the farm, market and a gigantic castle built for giants.

Jack

Jack is often described as a young man that is always taking advantage of any opportunities provided to him. The folktale also shows that he lives in desperation since he and his mother lived in constant poverty. From my personal view, I would describe Jack as a naive and reckless young man, yet caring about his family’s needs. Jack is very spontaneous, innocent, and easily tricked by an old man into trading his cow with what the man called it a magical seed. Not forgetting the fact that he is a farmer, he has a diligent personality.

Jack is physically skinny, due to living in poverty for a long time. He is a tall boy and his body barely shows any muscle, like a twig, I would describe. He weights very light that allows him to sneak into a castle without waking up the giant. His clothes are very simple and comfortable to wear for farming but seem quite dirty from going to the field often. Also, the clothes seem old since those are old clothes from his late father.

In summary, the characteristic of Jack is divided into two:

Personality traits:

Innocent and naive

Spontaneous

Somewhat stubborn

Taking for granted

Soft-hearted and devoted to his family

Physical characteristic:

Tall and skinny

Pale skin with noticeable sunburns

Extremely light

Round face (as he is still young)

Wearing old farming clothes that are lightly covered by dirt

Mood board

First thing, I gathered references based on style and body type that is relevant to the story. I love the idea of loose clothes with a belt that exaggerates his thin figure. However, since it is a low poly character, the clothes might be harder to animate the flow.

Experiment Drawing

After that, I began to draw the character concept based on the mood board. The first picture shows the characters line up consist of Jack, his mother, and the Giant. I love making a character comparison at first, so I know what will differentiate Jack among all of the characters.

Here is I draw rough sketches of Jack. From first glance, he looks like a scarecrow, which I found very interesting. I continued to explore his look by combining shapes.

I tried to combine shapes of circle, square, and triangle. I decided to use many circles for his head to show youth. Later on, I prefer a round shape for the eyes and the nose that emphasise his innocence, friendliness, and soft, while I was still playing around with the shape of the body.

Rough Silhouette

I narrowed down to 5 silhouettes that I find appealing and easier to create in low-poly.

Final decision, I found this very simple yet appealing. Just from the silhouette, this character seems clumsy and soft. I will develop this rough silhouette into a more unique character.

During the renaissance era, men were mostly wearing linen tunic that is belted at the waist and tight legging (Central Coast Renaissance Festival, 2019). The tunic was worn as an undergarment beneath outer clothes, such as cloak by upper class (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1998).

I tried to modify the clothing a little, such as cutting short the bottom part of the tunic. This makes Jack looks slender and gives clarity to his body shape. Creating a character turnaround sheet is not something new to me, yet still challenging no matter how many times I have done it. Especially, in a three-quarter view. Also, I am giving Jack a slightly crooked back.

Medieval and renaissance tunic (Larp Inn, 2019).

As for the colour palette reference, I am using a colour wheel and chose to use complementary colours with earth tones. Here, I combined blue and orange as well as adjusted the saturation to bring the two colours together.

Colour wheel sample (Lynton, 2018).

Coloured character turnaround

The image below here is used for reference in the modelling process. The character is drawn from the front, right, and topside view.

Modelling Process

The video below here shows the quick video of modelling the character from a cube.

Due to insufficient storage, I screen captured some stages after the recording. These are where I learned my mistakes.

1. Arm Twisting

I did not pay attention to the anatomy of the muscle. So I had to remake the arm and make a twist.

2. Face Topology

Modelling mouth and nose with the right loop pattern is complicated for me. I followed several other tutorial videos on the internet and other people’s work as a reference. Other challenges include modelling the face to look appealing while maintaining the polygons count to keep it under 1000, for example, changing the hairstyle to be much simpler than the original design.

Overall, I did not find any problems with the UV map process, everything went smoothly. Until I painted the model using Substance Painter. Painting hair surprisingly became the most difficult thing. I mostly do realistic style rather than stylised, so it took a while for me to get accustomed to the painting process. I mostly used polygon fill feature in Substance Painter at first, then added more details(dirt, and collar) using brush.

Rigging Process

First time using Advanced Skeleton 5, many things happened in the process. There are a few steps that I have to repeat until the model can move properly. One of them is the eyeballs that are stuck with the head model and won’t rotate by themselves. Resolved it by fixing the connection between the joint and the geometry. Another problem I had was the knees bend backwards. Turned out that my model’s legs were slightly bending backwards and Advanced Skeleton automatically generated inverted knees.

Animation Test

Final Render

Jack by yosephine98 on Sketchfab

In summary, I am satisfied with the design of the character. Even though the execution of building the 3D model does not meet my expectation. There are many things I have to fix in my model. In the future, I am excited to build another model with better design and 3D model.

References

Central Coast Renaissance Festival. (2019, May 24). How did people dress in renaissance England. Central Coast Renaissance Festival. https://ccrenfaire.com/how-did-people-dress-in-renaissance-england/

Jacobs, J. (2003). Jack and the beanstalk. English Fairy Tales. http://www.authorama.com/english-fairy-tales-15.html

Larp Inn (2019). Guy Tunic. Larp Inn. https://www.larpinn.co.uk/guy-tunic-brown-p-6496.html

Lynton, J. (2018, 29 May). Close to my heart color wheel [Image]. Make it from your heart. https://blog.closetomyheart.com/2018/05/29/color-theory-double-complementary-color-schemes/

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (1998). Tunic. Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/tunic-clothing

[lovrodney]

Garage Girlfriend - Optional Bias

This is for My Cute Dork ( @dart48 )! Thank you for the year that we have been together! I am so thankful to have you in my life and for all of the smiles, laughter an inspiration that you have brought me, I don’t know what I would do without you. #happyalmostoneyear #benandthebunny

Shrugging off a cotton hoodie from his shoulders, he hung it by its hood before slipping off his DC skate shoes. Unloading the contents of his pockets across the narrow shelf in the entry, turning his head over his shoulders they began to search the open concept apartment for you. Finding you hunched over in front of your computer, a pen wiggling in between your fingers, headphones covered your ears while your favorite graphic shirt allowed some color from your shorts to peek out from under the longer bottom hem of the tee.

Wandering into the kitchen, your boyfriend watched you work tirelessly on the assignments whose deadlines were quickly approaching with every tick of the clock. Pulling out some ingredients from the refrigerator, he began to make a simple dinner for the two of you. Heating up a pan, he began to grill two slices of bread with cheese melting between. Meanwhile he heated up a can of chili just to split into two bowls. Cutting the grilled cheese in half, he platted the sliced sandwich around the edges of the bowl of chili that sat in the middle of the plate. Carrying over your dinner in one hand and a glass of ice cold water in the other, he cautiously approached you in an attempt not to disturb you. Placing your dinner on the corner of your desk, he wrapped his arms slowly around your shoulders causing you to smile. Lifting one of the headphones off of your ears, he pressed his lips against your cheek moments afterwards.

“Welcome home” You whispered to him, leaning into his touch.

“Thanks sweetheart” He whispered in reply, allowing his breath to brush over the shell of your exposed ear. “Enjoy dinner, I am going to be out in the garage so I don’t disturb you. You are welcome to come and join me after you submit your assignments.”

“Thank you, thank you for making dinner as well, you really are a sweetheart” You turned in your chair slightly allowing your eyes to meet his.

Brushing his thumb against your cheek, he lifted your chin up slightly to align his lips with your forehead. Closing your eyes once you saw him lean in, his warm, soft lips ever so softly touched your forehead before lingering against your skin a moment or two while his thumb brushed against your cheek. Butterflies fluttered in your stomach as your hand wrapped around his wrist that was resting against your cheek.

Pulling away slightly, his eyes met with yours, “Study well, you go this.” Placing your headphone back over your ear, he gave you a sweet smile before standing upright and heading to the bedroom to change his clothes.

Exiting the bedroom outfitted in his oil splattered, ripped and worn jeans along with a well worn grey t shirt with multiple unknown stains to match. Making his way out the back door, he paused at the door frame to glance back at you. Happily munching on the grilled cheese and chili that he had lovingly made for you. Smiling brighter than before, he quietly closed the door behind himself and made his way out to the detached garage.

Hours ticked by as your heart pounded seeing the deadlines approach you relentlessly. With the final minutes billowing overhead, you hit the submit button sending in the assignment that would either tip your grade one way or the other. Hoping for the best, you closed your eyes before pressing submit.

Opening your eyes, you saw that it was sent in a minute before it was due. Sinking back into your seat, you stared at your illuminated computer screen before you. A weight lifted off of you with a few minutes passing, cleaning up your books and closing the multiple tabs on your computer, you zipped up your backpack before rising from your seat. Returning the dinner plate, bowl and emptied water glass to the kitchen, your eyes lifted to peer out the back windows. Yellow light spilled out through from the opened garage door, seeing a shadow move around the light present you smiled, having an idea come to mind.

Placing the dishes back in their place, you grabbed your sketchbook and a single pencil and eraser, outfitting yourself in one of his oversized hoodies that engulfed your figure as your small shorts peeked out from under the hem of the sweatshirt from time to time. With slippers hugging your feet you exited out the back door. Hugging the sketchbook tightly against you, the cool night air nipped at your exposed arms and legs as you crossed your grassy area to reach the garage.

Rounding the opened door, you stood in the open door as you watched your boyfriend rounded his back allowing his arms to stretch deeper under the hood of his car. Toned muscles stretched up his arm with every twist of his wrench allowing the dim lights in the garage to highlight each precise movement that he executed. Not wanting to disturb him, you carefully walked over to the workbench along the perimeter of the garage. Climbing onto one of the higher worn chairs, you rested your sketchbook on the polished pine top of the workbench. Folding your exposed legs under you, you flipped open to a new page in your sketchbook before you. Scanning the area you tried to gain inspiration to spark a thought to draw. With a perfect model in front of you, you began to sketch with one line at a time, the image began to unfold before you.

Your boyfriend’s hunched over shoulders stayed stationary while his hands rested on the side panel while his eyes followed the lines in the engine to find any other source of error. Standing up and moving away from the car, a dirtied rag wiped off the wrench while his feet carried him over to one of the many multi shelved crimson toolbox, surrounding his project.

Reaching up to one of the mounted lamps sitting along his workbench, your hand adjusted the angle of the light to shine on your sketchbook as the light continued to move to compensate with his movements. Resuming your work, your boyfriend turned his head to the new light that added new light to the garage. Seeing you all cuddled up and cozy in his sweatshirt, he just smiled feeling an impression on his heart reminding him of the first time he met you.

Removing a new tool from the toolbox, he headed back over to his project. Heading over to the adjacent side of the car to get a better angle to work on the problem, he began to contort himself underneath the hood just to adjust his tool in the correct spot in an attempt to fix the hidden problem.

Lifting up your eyes from the page, you tilted your head in confusion. Glancing down at the page once more, you rose your eyes to your subject that you were attempting to draw. Dropping your eyes back down to your paper, you attempted to continue with your sketch. Time passed as more lines were erased then drawn and frustration was increasing with every line you tried to replace or add to your piece.

“Can you move back to where you were?” You quietly asked, almost shyly your eyes almost pleading with your gaze.

“You weren’t done drawing me yet?” He questioned lining his words with a chuckle while lifting his eyes from the engine, yet his hands were still deep within the motor.

“How’d you know?” You questioned, your widening eyes locked with his wondering if he has some superpower or something.

“What else would you be drawing?” Your boyfriend smirked as he tightened a few bolts as you watched the muscles underneath his skin dance with every command.

“I mean I could be drawing your car...” You told him with a smirk as you dropped your eyes to your work of art knowing that you had the nose of the car in his picture too.

“You could… but you would rather draw me” He reasoned with a tilt of his head knowing you all too well

“I could be drawing another guy with a car, you never know” You shrugged your shoulders trying to play it off.

“Ah, well if you are, he must have done something right to catch your eye” Your boyfriend stood up and wiped a rag along his hand as he cleaned off the tool before exchanging the tool for another one.

Hours ticked by as he continued to work on the car, the sound of crickets accompanied the sound of his tools tightening and fixing the problem within the engine. Wiping the oiled rag along each tool, he ran the rag along his hard working hands as his eyes turned back to you. Seeing your head tucked in your folded arms, your pencil still between your fingers and your drawing notebook resting on your exposed legs. Quietly and carefully he walked over to you. Standing beside you, he turned his head so that he could see your art on how you intended people to see it. A smile couldn’t help but form on his lips as he saw the piece that you had been working on for hours. Going over every little detail with his eyes from the shine of the bumper to his muscles tensing under his shirt and not to mention the light hanging from inside the hood. The piece was perfect. His lingering gaze stayed on the masterpiece allowing every detail to get captured and all of your hard work to be appreciated. Tearing his eyes away from the masterpiece, he lifted up one of his cleaner hands brushing some hair behind your ear.

“How’d I get so lucky?” He whispered to himself as he carefully removed the pencil from your grip, the notebook from your lap and placed the notebook on the workbench and the pencil sitting on top.

Admiring you for a moment longer, he carefully wrapped his arms around you as you adjusted to being in his arms. Lifting you from the chair, your arms wrapped around his neck as he continued to hold you. Flipping off the lights in the garage, he made his way out with you cradled in his arms, as a single light basked on the artwork that you had created representing all of the time, patience, and not to mention mistakes and rough patches but that every stroke that was seen held a story and the mistakes made the artwork tailored to that piece.

That this once in a lifetime love can never be recreated the same way ever again, and no one will ever match you and our story together.

[eorzeasntm]

Cycle 8: Week 4 Results!

The end of Week 4 has come, and let’s see a little recap of what we asked.

This week I asked then to show us the areas they love most in the new zones around Stormblood’s release!

The overall favorite for Week 4 is:

Nicol Grunenberg

Congratulations! You have saved your home, and taken first place this week!

Critiques:

Rongi/Katarh did Nicol Grunenberg M’telihgo Feilyon Zetsumei Tsunarashi

Rongi:

Nicol: Hey Nicol, welcome to Round 4! Last week, I really enjoyed your shot! The browns and the dark blue, plus the placement of you and your partner were done really well. If I can get nit-picky, I would have liked it if you moved the camera down just a tiny bit, so that the NPC behind you's feet weren’t cut off at such an awkward place. But other than that, I liked it and appreciated the simplicity. This week is another great shot from you as well. It is risky to do a back shot, but this worked in your favor. I like the over-all composition, the two layers we get in the front and the back, and the big open sky is great. I wonder what it would have looked like a little bit more zoomed in, just so you aren't being overtaken by all that background, but I like this shot as well. My advice for you next week is to really look at your zooming, and try and find the perfect amount of zoom in that will please all the judges. I know it’s hard, haha, but keep trying! Good luck!

M’telihgo: M'telihgo!! I am so proud of you this week! Last week, I was, again, disappointed by your background and foreground composition. It is cut off at the top of the building in an odd area, and I think your partner would have looked better completely in frame instead of half cut off. Your glamour also left me with something to be desired. But I saw you in the discord chat asking for advice, and I heard that you got some from a previous winner. I don’t know exactly what she told you, but you submitted the best image of you so far, this week! Look at that image!! It's beautiful! You are off to one side, you've got a tilt going that makes the image more interesting, you've got a nice Asian glamour to match the Asian scenery, the fade from white clouds in the corner to dark rocks in the opposite side give the image a nice flow...it's great. I am so proud, and I hope you see as well what an improvement this is! You are in my top 2 this week! I am just blown away by how much you improved in just ONE week! Congratulations! I cannot wait to see what you bring next week. My advice this week? Keep. It. Up!!! Good luck!!!

Zetsumei: Welcome to Round 4 Zetsumei! Let's start with last week's photo! Amazing. Everything about it was amazing. The composition, the framing, the effects, the glamour’s, just perfect. One of my favorite pictures in ENTM history. Congratulations. This week's shot is quite impressive as well, but I feel like it's a small step back for you. The effects, the glamour, the mount, all the pieces are there, but your background composition was lackluster compared to previous weeks. I love this picture but I wish you hadn't been dead center OR that the background had some sort of rhyme or reason to why it is there. Maybe something is behind you that made this background choice your number 1 pick, I just can’t see it because of your position. But this is by no means a weak picture. It's just hard to go from your Round 3 shot to this shot. Seriously, last week was AMAZING. My advice for you next week is to simply keep on doing good. Watch those backgrounds! I wanna see something like your Kugane post card shot and your Double Trouble shot every week! Good luck!!

 Katarh:

Nicol Grunenberg: This is by far my favorite shot from you yet.  This looks like a Renaissance painting.  I love it so much!  Fantastic usage of the location - good weather (I like the contrast of the partly cloudy sky against the castle) and good decision to make the location itself the primary focus.  Following the rule of thirds, my eye is immediately drawn to your character, and to the castle, and the triumph that is radiating out of that fierce pose.  The only tiny suggestion I can think of is zooming in just a hair more to cut off the excess ledge near the bottom, but that also might have been tough to do and keep the whole castle in view.  Overall great job!

M’telihgo Feilyon: An excellent shot this week from you as well.  The concept is great and your execution is excellent - you look very pensive overlooking the ruins.  I would have liked to see just a bit more of your face, though - getting the three quarters turn and still looking out over the vista might have been tough, so perhaps a slightly tighter zoom might have achieved it as well.

Zetsumei Tsunarashi: This shot is quite lovely, but I think this week might have been the week where "less is more" should have been your guiding thought.  Yes, it's Kojin of the Red.... but everything is so red I can barely see the location behind your bird!  I think you have some limbal darkening in red, and that along with the zoom being too tight on your character means the location itself, which should have been the star of the shot, has been washed out.  I do like your choice of glamour for this (since it comes from the zone's dungeons - and has red!) and your choice of mount to emphasis the red theme.

Nads and Vaughn did Samuru Lantis Destiney Delvanguard Gangly Zilla Leviathan Seagreen Linmei Quan 

Nadede:

Destiney Delvanguard: Destiny, this is probably one of my favorite shots from you thus far. The place that you picked to read your book is one that I would pick for myself personally. While I like the image you have taken I wish that I was able to see your feet as well as it feels a bit odd having your feet cut off. While I like the idea of having the sakura effect in your image, I wish that you could see a bit more of the effect as it is barely visible. I encourage you to keep listening to critiques that are being said, not only for yourself but for others as well. I also would encourage you to keep playing around with your lighting some more and with limb darkening. The limb darkening will help with drawing viewer’s eyes to you.  This is really a big improvement over your image last week. Keep it up!

Gangly Zilla: Gangly, I normally love what you come up with week after week, I feel as if you stepped a bit back this week. Your glamour I feel goes well with the atmosphere of the area that you are in and the expression on your face does have the look of being very cautious as one would be in a new area unknown to them. The tilt also helps give that feel of uneasiness. I feel that the effect filter used detracts from your image. I am wondering if perhaps another choice of filter effect or color filter would have been a better choice that could convey the dreamlike state you are going for. Last week’s image I liked the lighting used and how you had your hand outstretched was inviting the viewer to join you and your companion in a scary realm. I can’t wait to see what you come up with next week.

Leviathan Seagreen: So, are you happy to be back in your homeland finally after I’m sure has been a very long time? I like how with your hair and skin tone being light along with the lighter colors in your glamour makes you pop out against the night sky. I also how the lighting makes the image have a softness to it and the use of the limb darkening helps draws viewers in. While there are things that I do like about the image I wish that you could see more of the Au’ra villages in the background. You are from that area, be proud of it and show more of it 😊 I also liked your image from last week as well. The only detractor I could find from that was that you were dressed in a dark attire while your companion was dressed in white. You just want to make sure that if you have another in your shot that they don’t try to take the spotlight off of you. Keep up the good work and looking forward to what you come up with for next week.

Linmei Quan: Linmei, you have been improving week after week. The colors within your glamour goes with the colors within the background to give a cohesiveness to your image. While I like the lighting in the background of your shot, I wish that you played around with the lighting closer to you to help you pop out some more. I am also finding that the heart in your image and your feet cut off a bit of a distraction. Maybe having you zoomed out to just where your toes touch the edge of the image would have been a better choice? Your shots appear to have the same mood, color tone, etc week after week. I challenge you to try to blow me out of the water with your next set of images and to come out of your comfort zone by changing something up, be it your style of glamour, hairdo, lip color, maybe no tattoo, etc. Don’t be afraid to ask past judges and contestants for advice. Now, can you be up for the challenge given? Hmmmm. Can’t wait to see if you will or not! :D

Samuru Lantis: Such a contrast with this week’s image compared to the one last week (which btw I liked). I liked how it took the past critiques and used them to help improve your images. While your background is very bright I liked how you used the dark rock to help make you pop out against the background. The colored marker filter also helps bring the plant life around you pop out as well. While I like your image and the lighting in the background works with the overall image, I just wish I could see what is in the background a bit more. Play around with the limb darkening and see if it will help bring your character out more. Keep up the good work and looking forward to next week.

Vaughn:

Destiney Delvanguard - This! This is what I've been waiting for from you! One of the most gorgeous models finally bringing her game up! The overall image is one I could see in a fairy tale. Bright colors, blue sky, white clouds, and a distant image of a castle? (I know it's not, but run with me here!) You chose a color for yourself that compliments the entire image while making you stand out, refusing to let you blend into the dream. Everybody better watch out for you in the upcoming weeks!

Gangly Zilla - I look at this picture and see Alan Wake. Dusty, misty, desaturation with a tiny glow in the distance. You must also enjoy horror games! Strong camera tilt adds to the overall nightmare setup of the image. I'm almost scared of what's going to pop out at us!

Leviathan Seagreen - I have yet to be disappointed by any of your shots, and this is no exception! While the background is dark, you can still see the little details, and that sky is phenomenal! With you in the forefront, shirt the same color as the sky, it brings the whole image together. Bravo!

Linmei Quan - Keeping up with the strong images! The depth of field and tinted limb darkening really help make you pop! Great use of the camera tilt as well. Not too little and not too much, just enough to give this shot dynamic. If there is one criticism, it's your hair blends into the trees a bit. However, it does't distract too much. Keep this up!

Samuru Lantis - Ahh, this is the Samuru I expect! Placing yourself against the darkest part of the scene is the best choice, and I'm glad you did it while still setting a bit against the background to tie the contrast together. This is definitely a serene image, and I know I'd like to be meditating while staring off into that misty distance with you!