#sometimes it helps me to just put shapes and colors down. when ive got a pen i get too nitpicky about being perfect/using fancy techniques
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#my art#harry du bois#kim kitsuragi#disco elysium#disco elysium fanart#harrykim#kimharry#or whatever they're called#let this man have happiness or so help me#im a firm believer in harry getting a slow post-recovery glow up alright. it's the least i can do for the guy.#man i was listening to so many banger songs while making this#im still getting back in the flow of painting so most of my stuff is kinda messy still#but i suspect ill find a middle ground between this and my last piece style-wise#gearing up to drawing kim in all his glory too now that ive finished two different side profiles of him. only a matter of time now#also fun little fact. i drew over half of this (~4 ? hours) using just my finger on the trackpad of my laptop lol#sometimes it helps me to just put shapes and colors down. when ive got a pen i get too nitpicky about being perfect/using fancy techniques#sometimes all you need is. finger 🫶#OH!! i forgot to mention someone spotted it in the tags—yes this is based on that one leyendecker piece!!
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Heart Skips a Beat - Part 2
Natasha Romanoff x Reader
Summary: Natasha faces her worst nightmare when a rescue mission goes wrong…
Warnings: Violence, blood
Word Count: 1837
Part 1
Tags: @blkmxrvel @blackxwidowsxwife @marvelwomen-simp
When Natasha sees your eyes close, she finally comes back to her senses. She squirms away from Steve, crawling under an ambulance and making her way towards you. She ignores Steve telling her to stay put and doesn’t hear Clint telling police officers the direction the bullets came from. All she can think about is bringing you to safety.
The ambulance engine is still running, causing its underside to reach temperatures that make Natasha feel like she is hiding in a furnace. She holds her breath from the fumes as she crawls to the front of the vehicle, throwing her arm out and reaching for your hand.
“Y/N!” she screams. “I’m right here! Hold on!” Her fingertips brush yours and she grabs onto your wrist tightly. You’re bigger and heavier than her, but the adrenaline gives her strength. With a massive heave, she drags you under the ambulance. You smear through the puddle of your own blood and it soaks through the back of your shirt.
There isn’t even enough room for her to lift her head, but she grabs onto both your arms, digging her elbows into the ground and crawling backwards. “I got you, Y/N. I got you,” she pants. But the lack of space and your deadweight make it impossible for her to pull you all the way through, so she backs out from under the ambulance. “Steve, help me!” she shouts.
“Move!” Steve says to her, although his shoulders are too broad to fit in the narrow gap. However, his arms are long enough to reach both of your hands, and all it takes is one big tug for you to come sliding out from the ambulance.
Your eyes fly open suddenly, awakened by the agonizing pain coursing through your shoulder like a lightning bolt. You scream, and as much as it makes Natasha’s heart hurt, she’s glad to see that you’re still alive.
“You guys need to get out of here right now!” Clint yells. “Take the ambulance!”
Steve pulls you into a standing position and wraps his arms around your waist, lifting you onto his shoulders effortlessly. You flop over him like a ragdoll, pain pulsing in your stomach when you bump against his chest.
BOOM.
A bullet shatters the sideview mirror of the ambulance.
“Go, go!” Natasha urges, putting herself between the danger and you and Steve. Steve runs with you to the back of the ambulance and flings the door open. There is no gurney, so Natasha helps him lay you on the floor and climbs in after you.
“Stay with Y/N. I’ll drive,” Steve offers, going around to the front. “Clint, we’re taking Y/N to the Quinjet! Hold the scene down!”
“Copy that!” Clint is just as concerned for your safety, but he knows you’re in good hands. Steve jumps into the driver’s seat and throws the ambulance in reverse.
BOOM.
The windshield explodes.
“Let’s go!” Natasha screams, ducking her head.
“Hold on!” Steve backs into a sharp U-turn. The tires screech as they find traction on the road to accelerate forward.
Natasha practically lays on top of you to prevent you from rolling around. From a shelf, she grabs a handful of gauze packets, tearing them open with her teeth. She rips your shirt open and presses the gauze first to your shoulder, then another to the side of your stomach. You’re completely soaked in blood and it continues to pump out of you with each heartbeat. Your face has faded to a sickly pale.
“N-Nat,” you whisper, trying to move but pinned down by the pain. “N-Nat—”
“Shh, it’s okay,” she comforts. “Just keep your eyes open for me, okay?”
You see the blood smeared on her face, her neck, and her hands, too delirious to remember that it’s yours. “A-Are you h-hurt?” you stammer.
Natasha wants to laugh and cry at the same time. You’re so in love with her that even in the face of death you don’t even think about yourself. “No, I’m fine,” she says, grabbing onto your hand and interlocking your fingers. She looks over at Steve, veering through parked cars and roadblocks. “Can we hurry it up a little?” she asks in panic, even though she knows he’s driving as fast as he can.
“I’m trying!” Steve swerves around a fire hydrant and the sudden movement jolts everyone in the ambulance. Natasha presses down on you too hard and you grunt in pain.
“I’m sorry,” she apologizes. “We’re almost there. We’re almost there.”
Your vision fades into fuzzy shapes and blurred colors. Even breathing seems to be too much of a task for you. Steve parks behind the Quinjet and comes around to help carry you in.
“Do you need me to go with you?” Steve asks as he lays you across the back seats of the Quinjet.
“No.” Natasha shakes her head. “Stay and help Barton.”
Steve doesn’t even try to argue. “We’ll find who did this, Nat. I promise.” He goes to the controls at the front and presses a few buttons. “The coordinates for the Tower are set. You’ll autopilot all the way there. Just make sure to update the medical team on Y/N’s condition.”
“Thanks, Steve.”
“Everything will be okay.” He places his hand on Natasha’s shoulder for a moment before jogging back to the ambulance. As soon as he’s off the Quinjet, the door raises shut and the engines blast on. You’re several states away from New York, but at the speeds the plane can travel, you should be there in minutes. You just have to hang on until then.
Natasha leaves your side only to grab more gauze, pressing it against your bullet wounds to slow the bleeding. She rolls you to your side so there’s no pressure on your front or back, but grimaces when she sees that your back looks as bad as your front.
“N-Nat,” you try whispering again, but she is quick to shush you.
“Not now, okay? Just stay awake for me, Y/N.”
You’ve never felt so weak before. It feels like you were hit by a bus and ground up by its tires. Your mind processes in slow-motion—probably a side effect of the blood loss—and you already forgot how you got into the Quinjet. But the physical pain isn’t your greatest concern anymore. You just don’t want to lose your fight and leave her.
Natasha fits an oxygen mask around your face and the cool air is comforting, but you know your time is ticking away. You don’t notice the Quinjet hiss to a landing or acknowledge the team of doctors suddenly hovering over you.
“We’ll do the surgery in room six!”
“Prep a blood transfusion!”
“Two gunshot wounds from a large-caliber gun!”
The doctors move you to a gurney and wheel you off the Quinjet. Natasha holds onto your hand as they take you to the surgery room, but a doctor stops her from entering with you.
“No, Romanoff. You gotta stay out here. We’ll take it from here.”
Natasha doesn’t fight back, letting your fingers slip through hers as you disappear behind the doors.
***********************************************************************
“Any updates?” Clint and Steve finally arrive a few hours later, but you’re still in surgery.
“Not yet.” Natasha paces the kitchen anxiously. Although she found the time to wash your blood off her hands and face, she hasn’t changed out of her uniform yet.
“Nat, you should get cleaned up. Y/N isn’t going anywhere,” Clint says.
“I know, I just…I want to be there when—” She can’t finish her sentence, falling into Clint’s arms and crying into his shoulder.
“Y/N is a fighter, remember?” Clint says, rubbing her back.
“But the amount of blood—”
“Super soldiers don’t go down easy,” Steve reminds her. “Y/N will pull through. And besides, you’ll be there to help with the recovery.”
Natasha nods, pulling away from Clint and wiping her face. “I’m sorry I froze when I saw Y/N get shot—”
“What are you apologizing for?” Clint asks.
“I don’t know—I put you all in danger because I couldn’t get myself out of the way—” she hiccups.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Steve assures. “In fact, you were the one who dragged Y/N to safety, remember? I couldn’t fit under the ambulance and Clint was just sitting around like a duck—”
“Excuse you,” Clint interrupts, and Natasha smiles thinly.
“So, did you find who did this?” she asks.
“Uh—” Clint and Steve look at each other awkwardly. “Natasha, we—”
“Did you find them?” Natasha repeats with more force. Clint motions for Steve to explain.
“That’s the thing,” Steve says. “We don’t know who did this. We scoped out the whole area with the police. We went out more than a mile, but we couldn’t find anything. No shell casings, nothing.”
“Oh, so you’re telling me a ghost shot and tried to kill Y/N?” Natasha scoffs.
“No, we…” Steve tries to find the right words. “We think it was a setup, maybe like a hired assassin or something.”
“Who would want to kill Y/N?” Natasha asks.
“That’s what we need to figure out.”
Natasha knows you have a lot of baggage from your past, particularly when you were forced into illegal covert operations by the government. But it’s been a long time since then. You became your own person and changed your life for the better. Unfortunately, not everyone sees the side of you that Natasha and the Avengers do.
When Clint and Steve leave to shower and change, Natasha finally does the same. She dresses in clean clothes and curls up on your shared bed, inhaling your scent through the pillow and blankets.
Sometime later, Clint visits and knocks on the door. “Hey, Nat? Y/N just got out of surgery—” He doesn’t even get a chance to finish his sentence and is almost run over by Natasha as she hurries over to the medical bay. She doesn’t know which specific room they’re keeping you in, but it’s like she’s drawn to your very presence and finds the correct one instantly.
You lie upright in the bed, propped forward with pillows so there’s less pressure on your back. Your right arm is in a sling and your entire torso is wrapped in bandages. An IV drip leads into the veins on your hand, while a blood pouch sends blood into the vein inside of your elbow. You have an oxygen tube up your nose and looped around your ears.
“I heard the doctor went a little overboard on the anesthesia,” Clint says from behind Natasha, startling her. “You know, with the super soldier serum and everything. Y/N will probably be out of it for a while.” Natasha walks to your side and kneels, gently taking your hand. Your skin is clammy and colder than normal, but your pulse beats strongly.
“I’ll be here as long as it takes.” Natasha raises your hand, mindful of the wires around your wrist, and kisses your fingers.
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Click here for Part 3!
AN: Thanks for the amazing support from everyone! Definitely didn’t think I’d get that kind of response, but I’m extremely grateful for you all. The next part will reveal the identity of the shooter, so I hope you’ll stick around for that. :) Peace out!
#natasha romanoff x reader#black widow fanfiction#natasha romanoff fanfic#natasha romanoff#black widow#marvel
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once again i am answering asks in a big compilation post. included is... gotham, patrick stump, tips about drawing backgrounds, tips about drawing in general, links to my faq, and infinity train
like.... the tv series? No... I’ve drawn dc comics fanart before, though. But it’s been years since I’ve been really into it. I like jumped ship like 10 years ago when the New 52 happened LOL.
AFJHDSLKGH I’m sorry I (probably) won’t do it again??
Actually full disclosure I have a truly cringe amount of p stump drawings/photo studies in my sketchbook right now LOL. He’s just fun to draw... hats, glasses, guitar, a good shape... but I don’t think I’ll rly post those until I can hide them in another big sketchbook pdf.. probably Jan 2022. Stay tuned........ (ominous)
(ominous preview)
These are all sort of related to backgrounds/painting so I grouped them together even though they’re pretty much entirely separate questions.... ANYWAYS
a) How is it working as a BG artist? Is it hard? What show are you drawing for?
I think you’re the first person to ever ask me about my job! Being a background artist is great. It’s definitely labor intensive but I think that could describe pretty much any art job (If something were rote or easy to automate, you wouldn’t hire an artist to do it) and I hesitate to say whether its harder or easier than any other role in the animation pipeline. Plus, so much of what truly makes a job difficult varies from one production to the next, schedule, working environment, co-workers etc. But I will say that I think while BGs are generally a lot of work on the upfront, I think they’re subject to less scrutiny/revisions than something like character/props/effects design and you don’t have to pitch them to a room like boards. So I guess it’s good if you don’t like to talk to people? LOL
A lot of my previous projects + the show I’ve worked on the longest aren’t public yet so I can’t talk about em (but I assure you if/when the news does break I won’t shut up about it). But I’m currently working on Archer Season 12 LOL. I’m like 90% sure I’m allowed to say that.
b) ~~~THANK YOU!! ~~~
c) What exactly do you like to draw most [in a background]?
@kaitomiury Lots of stuff! I really like to draw clutter! Because it’s a great opportunity for environmental storytelling and also you can be kind of messy with it because the sheer mass will supersede any details LOL.
I like to draw clouds... I like to draw grass but not trees lol,,, I like to draw anything that sells perspective really easily like tiled floors and ceilings, shelves, lamp posts on a street etc.
d) Do you have any tips on how to paint (observational)?
god there’s so much to say. painting is really a whole ass discipline like someone can paint their whole life and still discover new things about it. I guess if you’re really just starting out my best advice is that habit is more important than product. especially with traditional plein air painting, I find that the procedure of going outside and setting up your paints is almost harder than the actual painting. There’s a lot of artists who say “I want to do plein air sometime!!” and then never actually get around to doing it. A lot of people just end up working from google streetview or photos on their computer.
But going outside to paint is a really good challenge because it forces you to make and commit to lighting and composition decisions really quickly. And to work through your mistakes instead of against them via undo button.
My last tip is to check out James Gurney’s youtube channel because hes probably the best and most consistent resource on observational painting out there rn. There’s lots other artists doing the same thing (off the top of my head I know a lot of the Warrior Painters group has people regularly posting plein air stuff and lightbox expo had a Jesse Schmidt lecture abt it last year) but Gurney’s probably the most prolific poster and one of the best at explaining the more technical stuff - his books are great too.
e) Do you have tips for drawing cleanly on heavypaint?
@marigoldfool UMM LOL I LIKE ONLY USE THE FILL TOOL so maybe use the fill tool? Fill and rectangle are good for edge control as opposed to the rest of the heavy paint tools which can get sort of muddles. And also I use a stylus so maybe if you’re using your finger, find a stylus that works with your device instead. That’s all I’ve got, frankly I don’t think my drawings are particularly clean lol.
f) Tips on improving backgrounds/scenes making them more dynamic practicing etc?
Ive given some tips about backgrounds/scenes before so I’m not gonna re-tread those but here’s another thing that might be helpful...
I think a good way to approach backgrounds is to think of the specific story or even mood you want to convey with the background first. Thinking “I just need to put something behind this character” is going to lead you to drawing like... a green screen tourist photo backdrop. But if you think “I need this bg to make the characters feel small” or “I need this bg to make the world feel colorful” then it gives you requirements and cues to work off of.
If I know a character needs to feel overwhelmed and small, then I know I need to create environment elements that will cage them in and corner them. If a character needs to feel triumphant/on top of the world then I know I need to let the environment open up around them. etc. If I know my focal point/ where I want to draw attention, I can build the background around that.
Also, backgrounds like figure compositions will have focal points of their own and you can draw attention to it/ the relationship the characters have with the bg element via scale or directionality or color, any number of cues. I think of it almost as a second/third character in a scene.
Not every composition is gonna have something so obvious like this but it helps me to think about these because then the characters feel connected and integrated with the environment.
Some more general art questions
a) Do you have any process/tips to start drawing character/bodies/heads?
I tried to kind of draw something to answer this but honestly this is difficult for me to answer because I don’t think I’m that great at drawing characters LOL. Ok, I think I have two tips.
1) flip your canvas often. A lot about what makes human bodies look correct and believable is symmetry and balance. Even if someone has asymmetrical features, the body will often pull and push in a way to counterbalance it. we often have inherent biases to one side or another like dominant hands dominant eyes etc. you know how right-handed artists will often favor drawing characters facing 45 degrees facing (the artist’s) left? that’s part of it. so viewing your drawing flipped even just to evaluate it helps compensate for that bias and makes you more aware of balance.
2) draw the whole figure often. I feel like a lot of beginner artists (myself included for a long time) defer to just drawing headshots or busts because it’s easier, you dont have to think about posing limbs etc. But drawing a full body allows you to better gauge proportion, perspective, body language, everything that makes a character look believable and grounded.
Like if you (me) have that issue where you draw the head too big and then have to resize it to fit the proportions of the rest of the body, it’s probably because you (I) drew the head first and are treating the body as an afterthought/attachment. Sketching out the whole figure first or even just quick drawing guides for it will help you think of it more holistically. I learned this figure drawing in charcoal at art school LOL.
oh. third mini tip - try to draw people from life often! its the best study. if you can get into a figure drawing/nude drawing class EVEN BETTER and if you have a local college/art space/museum that hosts those for free TREASURE IT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT, that’s a huge boon that a lot of artists (me again) wish they had. though if youre not so lucky and youre sitting in a park trying to creeper draw people and they keep moving.. don’t let that stop you! that’s good practice because it’s forcing you to work fast to get the important stuff down LOL. its a challenge!
b) I’ve been pretty out of energy and have had no inspiration to draw but I have the desire to. Any advice?
Dude, take a walk or something.... Or a nap? Low energy is going to effect everything else so you gotta hit that problem at its source.
If you’re looking for inspiration though, I’d recommend stuff like watching a movie, reading a book, playing video games etc. Fill up your idea bank with content and then give yourself time/space to gestate it into new concepts. Sometimes looking at other art works but sometimes it can work against you because it’s too close.
Also something that helps me is remembering that art doesn’t always have to be groundbreaking... like it’s okay to make something shitty and stupid that you don’t post online and only show to your friend. That’s all part of the process imo. If you want to hit a home run you gotta warm up first, right? Sports.
I should probably compile everytime i give tips on stuff like this but that’s getting dangerously close to being a social media artist who makes stupid boiled down art tutorials for clout which is the last thing i want to be... the thing I want to stress is that art is a whole visual language and there are widely agreed upon rules and customs but they exist in large part to be broken. Like there's an infinite number of ways to reach an infinite number of solutions and that’s actually what makes it really cool and personal for both the artist and the viewer. So when you make work you like or you find someone else’s work you like, take a step back and ask yourself what about it speaks for you, what about it works for you, what makes it effective, how to recreate that effect and how to break that effect completely, etc. And have a good time with it or else what’s the point.
for the first 2, I direct you to my FAQ
For the last one, I don’t actually believe I’ve ever addressed artwork as insp for stories/rp but I’ll say here and now yeah go ahead! As long as you’re not making profit or taking credit for my work then I’m normally ok with it. Especially anything thats private and purely recreational, that’s generally 100% green light go. I only ask that if you post it anywhere public that you please credit me.
(and I reserve the right to ask you to take it down if I see it and don’t approve of it’s use but I think that case is pretty rare.)
a) @lemuelzero101 Thank you!!! I haven’t played Life is Strange but actually that series’ vis dev artist Edouard Caplain is one of my bigger art inspirations lately so that’s a really high compliment lol. And yeah I hope we get 5-8 too...!
b) Thank you for sticking around! I’ve been thinking about Digimon and Infinity Train in tandem lately, actually. They’re a little similar? Enter a dangerous alternate world and have wacky adventures with monsters/inanimate objects that have weird powers... there’s like weird engineers and mechanisms behind the scenes... also frontier literally starts with them getting on a train. Anyways if anyone else followed me for digimon... maybe you’d like Infinity Train? LOL
c) @king-wens-king I’M GLAD MY ART JUST HAS PINOY VIBES LOL I hope you are having a good day too :^)
a, b, c, d) yessss my Watch Infinity Train agenda is working....
e) aw thank you!! i think you should watch infinity train :)
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Blog 6: Tales Along the Senescent Trail--An Unexpected Adventure.
Incredibly, it’s been four hours now!
I’ve been lying on this gurney for so long I think I’m going blind.
Wait! Here comes someone who’s actually making eye contact with me.
“Mr. Thornton. I’m Dr. Jones. I’m working the ER today.”
My throat is so parched, I can only croak an acknowledgment.
“Sorry for keeping you waiting so long, but we get homeless walk-ins all the time. We had to make sure you weren’t just another drug user looking for a fix.”
Hello. I’m wearing farmer Jones bibs with suspenders. Do I look homeless to you?
“We get too many folks trying to get in here every day looking for a quick fix when they run out of drugs, so we had to make sure you weren’t one of them. We try to help them but it's reached a point where we are being overrun."
I sat up. Suddenly I didn’t feel too good. It was getting hard to breathe again.
“Hey, Doc!. I’m having trouble breathing. Can you give me some oxygen or something,” I gasped as I laid back down. I had a pale complexion before I ever came down to the VA hospital. Now I was turning a purplish color.
The doctor made a quick gesture to an orderly standing close by and called for a wheelchair, an IV, and oxygen. They whisked me up to the fifth floor and into a hospital bed there. You know, the kind with the flip-down rails running horizontally along each side.
I began to feel much better after they put a nasal cannula in my nose. The nurse pulled a curtain between me and the guy next to my cubicle. I quickly fell into a deep sleep—the best I’ve had in a while.
I woke up the next day feeling much better. Soon a nurse entered the room pushing breakfast food carts with trays, but she didn’t stop by my bed. I wasn’t very hungry anyway.
The nurse pulled the curtain back, and I chatted for a while with the guy next to me. He was a cheery, talkative young man who very nonchalantly told me they were going to cut his foot off in a couple of days. He stepped on a nail, it seems, and it got infected. Turned gangrenous on him. So, now it had to go.
A little later in the morning, Dr. Smith came to see me. We chatted for a while about my symptoms. He said that he wanted to perform a catheter insertion through my right thigh so we could take a look at my heart. I said sure. Anything was better than going on like before. Not getting enough oxygen to your brain is like slowly drowning where you’re gasping for air but not quite suffocating.
When we said goodbye, I lay down thinking about the stress test I had taken the year before and felt a shiver go up my spine.
When I first started displaying symptoms of fatigue, my doctor at that time recommended that I go to the VA hospital in Atlanta and take a stress test. I had no idea of what I was getting into.
So, at the appointed time, I went to the hospital for the test.
Now, you’ve got to understand that parking at the VA hospital in Atlanta is an adventure all on its own. I tried it once and finally gave up after circling the parking deck twenty-eight times. After that, we utilized the Valet Service at the front door of the hospital. That was really great—if you could ever get to it. Sometimes the valet parking line snaked all the way around the hospital, and even out into the main road at times. It took a long time to get to the front door.
I finally made it and took their redemption ticket. I made my way back to the stress-test room where they determine how your heart works during physical activity. They stuck a bunch of cardiac memory loop monitors all over my chest and put me on the treadmill. I can tell you I wasn’t looking forward to the test because of my angina episodes. I did warn them, but they didn’t seem to be too concerned.
We started out real slow, and things were just fine—until they picked up the speed. I started to huff as the speed increased and warned them I wasn’t feeling too good. They poo-pooed that and cranked the speed up.
I was having trouble holding my own and warned them I was “fix’n to go.”
The male nurse hollered, “just give me another minute . . . just a minute more!”
“I’m fix’n to fall!” I gasped. Then I did. Right down on the still rapidly moving treadmill. I slumped to my knees and grabbed the support bars as my knees dragged out behind me.
A couple of male nurses grabbed me and picked me up and off the machine and set me down in a nearby chair.
“We’re so sorry! We thought you were okay,” the nurse stuttered apologetically.
Yeah. Sure. Like I didn’t warn you.
So now you can see why I was a little leery about having a catheter procedure. As it turned out, it wasn’t so bad. They took me down to a special room where they administered the stent through my inner right thigh and up to my heart with a camera.
It was terribly interesting. I was able to see my own heart beating and all the little black web-like arteries and veins that roped to and from my heart.
The doctor--and I forget his name now--seemed surprised at not finding something wrong there.
“Hmmm. Your heart is only twenty percent blocked, and that’s really good for your age,” he murmured, more to himself than to me. He paused . . .
“I think we’re going to send you to the Nuclear Lab to let them take a Nuclear Lung Scan because I don’t see anything much wrong with your heart. For your age, it’s in pretty good shape.”
The next day, I went in for the scan.
He brought the results back and gave me a strange look.
“Well, it looks like you’ve got three clots in your right lung and two clots in the left one.” he paused, “You should be dead. It only takes one to kill you.”
Thanks for the cheery prognosis. Needless to say, they sent me back to the fifth floor and put me on a blood thinner right away.
Later that evening, the doctor came by.
“We want to keep you here a few more days to make sure everything is going okay (with the thinners).
“Okay,” I said. “Hey, Doc. Do you think I can get something to eat? I haven’t had anything in two days.”
He just stared at me for a moment in total exasperation.
Somehow, they didn’t have my name on the patient list for food so the food cart kept bypassing me when it came to the fifth floor.
I lost fifteen pounds during my stay at the VA. Not by choice, I can assure you. I looked forward to leaving.
This was a real scary brush with death. It wasn't my first, and it wouldn’t be my last. Over the next couple of days, I thought about many of the things I had done—both good and bad—over the course of my life.
It all seemed much clearer now. I knew what I had to do.
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Draco- I thought I was so Deserving
Summary- You and Draco were dating, till he died in the battle of hogwarts. It takes you weeks to go and look through his old stuff, and when you do you find several old letters addressed to you, but never owled. You decide to open it and find something that makes you cry.
☆WARNINGS: veryyyyyyy sad, death., depression, lots of crying, (i cried while writing this so you better like it lol)
It had been weeks since you even looked at the manor, which was basically left to you after draco died, due to the fact that his family fled for no apparent reason. You’ve tried to come back…. Really. It’s just the fact that every time you do try you start to cry. Just looking at the house floods your mind with memories of what it was like to be wrapped in his arms. You miss the feeling of his affection. Draco was never big on showing how much he actually loved you in public, sure he would wrap his arm around you if another boy was staring, or give them a death stare when they would check you out, but NEVER did he once whisper in your ear how much he loved you, the way you laughed, the way you cried, the way you would look at him and he knew you loved him just as much as he did you in public. The way he felt about you was personal, not everyone needed to know just how crazy he was about you. He used to tell you how he used to think so highly of himself till he met you. He would say “I always thought I was so deserving till I met someone who took my breath away and made everything okay for everyone.” Everytime you two were alone together he poured his heart into his words and you knew it was true. Draco’s eyes have always shown his true emotion. Happiness, sadness, love……. They showed you everyone. Everytime he would tell you those things you couldn’t form words, and when you could it was always just an “I love you”. Your feelings for him were so much more than an I love you. That’s the thing you regret the most, not telling him how on more than one occasion you cried at how you loved him so much it almost hurt, at the thought of losing him, how it broke your heart just to see him sad. You longed to tell him that you fucked up in every way possible by not telling him everything you loved about him -inside and out- because you knew how often he doubted himself, by not showering him with kisses every time you saw him, by not kissing him that day like it was the last one you’d ever get, because it was. But most of all you fucked up by trying to help the others and leaving him there to fight for himself.You didn’ t get a chance to comfort him or kiss him, or even tell him how much you cared. You didn’t know trying to help one person would risk two people's lives. Because with every day that passes you realize that Draco was your life. He was your happiness, your grief, your confusion. He was what made you who you are, who you were.
You sob in your car as your mind is flooded with memories of the time you spent together. It hurts to see them, but it hurts worse to ignore them...if only he could be with you, give you one last chance.
You open your car door after you managed to keep yourself from crying. You made your way up the steps of the house and turned the doorknob with a shaky hand. Once you open your lip quivers. You looked at the stairs that led up to his room, making your eyes water. When you both were alone together at the house he seemed so much more care free. He would chase you all the way down the stairs, it was one of your favorite recurring things he did. You were positive there were other rooms up there but they weren't important to you, especially not right now. You blink back your tears as well as you can. You got to the first floor and felt something underneath your shoe. You lift your foot and a pained sound comes from your mouth as you see his ring… just sitting there. Your knees buckled and you sobbed into your hands. After a few minutes you got up, putting his ring on your middle finger since his hands were bigger than yours, and there was no way in hell you were ever losing that ring. Your face was tear stained and flushed. You were positive you looked like a wreck, you know that if Draco saw you he would wonder what the hell happened. He always said you were the most beautiful and happy person he’d ever met. But again, he was your happiness and now that's gone. God you were crazy for him, and how you feel is the proof. You snap out of your thoughts as you walk down the hall to his bedroom. A chill runs down your spine as you place your hand on the door knob. It was always slightly cold in the manor, but you knew it wasn’t that. You were scared to go in. You felt almost as if you touching anything or even stepping a foot in there was going to mess something up, change how he left it. You block your thoughts out as you open the door anyways, the metal on your finger tapping against the cold door knob. You look in and notice everything is still how he liked it, clean and kept. The only difference was that there was a black box sitting on his bed and an envelope laying beside it. Draco’s room had dark brown wooden floors and emerald green walls. On his walls were Quidditch pictures, a light in the shape of a snake, and….pictures of him and you together. You and Draco had been friends since you were 10, so the pictures went farther back than your relationship. There was a picture of him carrying you bridle style, his face buried in your neck as his laughed, making you smile. You watched that picture replay over and over again, just to see him in motion. You sadly smile as you watch him laugh and put his face into the crook of your neck, you kissing his head after he does so softly. A slow tear drips down your cheek as the flash of the camera that took the photo goes off, before you wipe it away quickly. You pick up the photo and place a small kiss onto it, letting a couple more tears escape from your eyes. You grabbed the picture and took it with you over to the bed, and sat down. You wiped your face with the sleeve of your quidditch sweater, hating the stickiness that the now drying tears had made. You looked at the envelope laying on the bed. The ivory color envelope, as well as the box lay against the green, silky sheets that Draco had left on his bed. He told you the reason he liked silk sheets so much was that when he was little he would get really hot in the summer and laying in them would give his body a relieving chill, the sheets were just associated with good memories and comfort especially after the two of you became each other's friends.
You and Draco had sleepovers, both of you laying under those sheets. You remembered that the first sleepover happened when you were both at the manor during yalls first week at hogwarts. After eating dinner with him, and taking showers you both laid down in his silk sheets that always felt so cool and relaxing. You didn’t notice anything was wrong until you look over at the 11 year old and see him lying stiffly under the blanket and staring at the ceiling. You furrowed your eyebrows and say “something wrong malfoy?” He shakes his head and after a moment of thought says “it's just….w-is it not weird to you that you're going to sleep in here with me?” you tilt your head and ask “Is it weird to you Malfoy?” when he shakes his head “Then why would it be weird to me?”. Draco bites his lip and shrugs “dunno… just didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable around me..”. As soon as he said that you scooted closer to him and wrapped your arms around his body, as if that wasn’t enough to freak him out you slung your leg over his waist as well. You snuggled into Draco’s tense body. “Do I look uncomfy Malfoy?” you asked after you rested your face in the crook of his neck. You could feel the first year release tension in his body and smiled as he wrapped his arm around you, pulling you as close to him as possible. Draco felt your smile on his neck and laughed. “Like this do you?” you hummed and said “Honestly dont think ive had anything more enjoyable Malfoy”. You nuzzled closer to his embrace before you heard him say “hey sunshine”as he peppers kisses on you, making your cheeks flush even more, he had never called you that before “could you call me Draco instead? You’ve made me realize that there is a 1% worthy enough to have my name come from their mouth” you chuckled and nodded “I better be worthy Draco”.
Once you notice the same words repeating in your ear you stop staring at the envelope and decide to read who it's for.
Sunshine ♡
You take a deep breath and open the envelope, careful not to cause any damage to something so dear to you. Once you open it the smell of parchment immediately floods your nose. You pull out the paper and unfold it. The parchment was clearly high quality, it seems as though he put a lot of thought into the letter. You do your best to smooth the creases of the paper as you tiredly lay back on the bed and begin to read:
Dear Y/N, You have no idea how many times i've tried to write a letter about all of this, There is a whole box full somewhere, just look. I know I don't seem like the type (and I know you already know this but) God sunshine, you have no idea how much you mean to me. It's just the fact that sometimes i get shy… but I feel like I don't tell you stuff like this often enough. I love your smile… it likes up any room. I know that you don't think I am, but I am extremely jealous of anyone who so much resembles the way I look at you, that loving look. I know I shouldn't be. I mean bloody hell Y/N I'm the one who gets to wrap you in my arms and pepper you with kisses. I just can't help the thought of you ever leaving me, especially if it’s to be with one of those prats. I love you so much Y/N. More than you could ever know. Although all of this rubbish with The Dark Lord is happening you’ve managed to make it actually bearable. God I was so relieved when you believed me when I told you that I didn’t want to. I'm so glad you let me cry into your shoulder that night, I don't do it often but I did need it. You don't know that i could tell, but I knew that you were crying with me… you shake when you cry, I could feel your lip quivering against my cheek as you kissed me and assured me that it was all going to be okay, I believe you Sunshine, I promise i do, You will always be what keeps me going. You're the only person that's even thought about looking through all my smirks and teasing… you're the only one that was able to tell I was broken and the only one to care. You're the one thing about my shit show of a life, but I have one question. How do you love me as much as you do? I believe you do, you can't lie when you look at me like that. Your whole expression softens when you say those three words and look into my eyes. How do you love me when you could have someone that isnt this much of a fucking wreak? I wish you knew how much i care,
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Tell me if you want me to make this a series or a prequel.
#Draco#Draco Malfoy#draco fanfiction#draco malfoy fanfiction#sad#angst#angst fanfic#story#Harry Potter#hogwarts#harry potter fanfiction#harry potter masterlist
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AU-gust Day 6- Hospital
I’m here early! Mostly because I had a lot of this written earlier, so if that didn’t make it obvious enough I really liked this prompt. While it’s a hospital prompt is isn’t especially intense or gory, after yesterday I tried to make this one pretty lighthearted. Honestly I feel like the only really uncomfortable part of this is how much effort I put in trying to make a Pokemon expy. Hehe.
Sorry-not-sorry for more Sin and Bedman, it’s a bit more ‘romantic’ then last time but still pretty much platonic friendship. Enjoy!
Though it felt weird to say, Sin knew his least favorite thing about his father was his charity. Helping out people in need was a good thing, obviously, but a ridiculous amount of his childhood memories involved being dragged along to food banks, hospitals, and shelters so his dad could give corny, well-wishing speeches and lend a hand to those less fortunate, forcing him to help out alongside the other volunteers. Sin had used to wonder if it was because something about having a cute little kid around raised everyone’s morale, or whatever.
Well, considering he was now a grown-ass teenager at the age of sixteen, and Ky was still dragging him along, maybe he’d been off the mark.
At least he’d been allowed to take a break after an hour of schlepping donation boxes up to the children’s wing. Of all the places his dad went to for charity work, hospitals were by far his least favorite. The colorless, sterile atmosphere was just unnerving to be around. As soon as he could, he made a dash for the nearest sign pointing him toward the courtyard.
Sin swiped his guest ID through the maglock, which released with a cheery beep. The white walls and stench of antiseptic gave way to an array of soft colors and the smell of flowers. He took a deep whiff of the aroma and sighed with relief. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his handheld, fully charged for when he got a break and could take a minute to loaf off and relax.
Which game had he left in it this time? He popped out the cartridge and smiled. That was right. Pocket Beasts: Light version. His current favorite. He just needed a comfy place to hunker down and play.
A few stone benches were placed in between bushes and flowerbeds, all unoccupied. The place looked really empty, but it made sense. Everyone who wasn’t already busy was probably at Ky’s speech. At least it meant he’d be able to get some peace and quiet and privacy.
He spotted a pretty lavender flower poking out of the bushes and approached. The ‘flower’ moved, making him realize he’d seen wrong. Sin groaned inwardly at the sight of another person, perched on the short stone wall surrounding the flowerbeds. They didn’t glance up, if they’d even noticed him at all, appearing too absorbed in their own handheld device to care about much else.
“H-hey.” He raised a hand at them, and offered a twitchy half-smile. There were so many ways he knew this could go wrong. Sometimes people screamed at him until he fled, or immediately launched into the most boring small-talk possible. Sin just wanted to play his game, he really had no interest in causing any trouble. “Can I sit down?”
Sin braced himself for a response, but he didn’t get one. “Hey?” He tried again, waving harder. Maybe they were deaf? “Is it ok if I sit out here?”
Eyes glanced up at him, but only for a half-second before they returned to the screen. Well, it wasn’t a ‘no,’ so the best he could assume was they just didn’t care.
Hesitantly, he found a place to sit. If the hospital gown and IV hadn’t already given it away, it was pretty clear that he was a patient, not a visitor. He was scrawny and spindly to the point where it was almost disturbing, his skin was pale and sickly, and the messy bedhead was only slightly offset by the awkward purple hair dye. Why was he out here in the first place, instead of at Ky’s speech?
He knew staring was rude, but he just couldn’t stop himself. Every time he tried, there was another odd little detail that caught his attention. A peculiar little hairclip in the shape of a pink arrow. A purple charm bracelet half-hidden by his standard-issue hospital band. Glittery star stickers on the sides of his handheld, and- hey, he recognized that game!
His expression brightened. “Oh, you play Pocket Beasts too? That’s my favorite! Who’s your starter?”
The only response he got was a couple of button clicks. Sin found himself sinking back into an uncomfortable silence. Well, he supposed it was better than being yelled at. He switched his game on.
Dad said he wasn’t supposed to use the internet at the hospital because it would mess with all the fancy machines, so online matches were out of the question. Well, there was always the battle tower. Maybe he could item grind to kill time. He still needed to finish his Soup Encyclopedia and some of the rare cooking items could only be found there.
Any discomfort he had was wiped away with the familiar music and intro screen of the game. How could he worry when there were battles to be won? All he had to worry about was making the most of his free time.
His avatar flickered into existence, still in the last town he’d visited. As soon as he moved towards the nearest building, though, a little indicator popped up on the bottom of the screen. Puzzled, Sin took his stylus and tapped on the icon.
Trainer BEDMAN would like to battle!
>Accept
Decline
‘Bedman?’ He looked up at the little avatar that had appeared, then glanced off to the boy at his side. The messy lavender dye-job was surprisingly close, as was the magenta arrow pinning his bangs out of his eyes. Was it just some weird coincidence? If he wanted to play, he could have just asked…
Despite his confusion, Sin clicked ‘Accept.’ PvP battles were more fun than doing the same grind he had done over and over again. Even if he did lose, it was in a totally unique way.
The usual introductory animations played out as their avatars posed and tossed their first beasts into battle. Sin had to snicker at the disparity between their choices. He always liked sending his biggest and toughest beasts out in the beginning, and pretty much anything looked tiny beside it.
But smaller meant faster, so he wasn’t all that surprised to see the other one attack first. He braced himself for a tough starting move...only to be confused at the sight of a sand cloud being thrown at him.
Enemy Used SAND TOSS!
Accuracy Lowered!
Sand toss? What a waste of a turn! Sin grinned as it switched to his turn. Karate chop, a pretty powerful start, it always hit, and he had the type advantage, what a great way to start a match- !
Attack Missed!
“What!? How did that miss!?”
“Karate chop has a standard accuracy of 100%.” A low, quiet voice spoke up next to him, making Sin practically jump back in shock. “But I lowered your accuracy with sand toss, so now there’s a 15% chance it won’t hit.”
“...Huh.” He looked back at his screen. “Never see people use sand toss out of, like, NPC fights.”
“Most players treat accuracy-modifiers as a waste of time, but if you have a Pocket Beast with a high enough defense, then the turns spent not attacking are made up for when the opponent can barely hit you later.” The strange boy had such a casual tone to his voice, as though they’d been conversing for hours already.
It was a bit jarring, but Sin tried to roll with it. “I guess that does make sense. Sorta like when a beast has the ‘Decoy’ ability and the first attack never hits?”
“Kind of. But a lot of players know which beasts can have Decoy, so they know ahead of time to focus on stat-altering moves or poisoning instead of wasting a turn when they know attacking won’t do anything. Take your turn.”
It took him a moment to process the last bit, but he noticed the battle menu had popped up again. He picked another attack. “Why’d you want to battle me? Did you just pick at random?”
“You were the only opponent available.” Another sand toss. “It’s hard to find people to play with on local, and I’m not allowed to use global matchmaking in my room because it needs an internet connection.”
Sin waited for his two-turn charge move to activate, but before it could be his turn, a swift attack managed to knock his beast out cold. “Damn it! I thought I had that…”
He spotted a triumphant little smirk out of the corner of his eye. “Pocket Beasts is all about tactics. You have to take everything into account. It’s easy to just care about how much damage a move can do, but you’re doomed from the start if you don’t have the right stats, or the best moveset to compliment them.”
He couldn’t help but grin along with him. “Wow, you’re really good at strategy!
‘Bedman’ managed a small, awkward smile. “Well, um, not like I have much else to do…”
“Really?” Sin tilted his head. “I guess it’s good you’ve got something fun to do while you’re here, all this hospital stuff skeeves me out. When do they let you go back home? I dunno how long you’ve been here, but I think I’d go nuts after a couple of days.”
“I’m not sure. I’ve been here a while, already.” A lucky hit from Sin’s beast managed to knock his first one out. “Since...last January, if I remember correctly.”
Last January? Jeez, forget a few days, he was sure he’d be past insanity after a whole year!
Sin donned a look of pity. “That sucks. What’s wrong with you?” The words came out before he could think or realize that it wasn’t an especially nice thing to say. “Uh, shit, sorry-”
“Mmm. It’s okay. At least you don’t mince your words. I have a neurological disorder that affects how my brain processes information. It’s a bit hard to describe. Let’s say a human brain is like a computer, it processes the inputs that are fed into it. Powerful, modern computers can process a lot of information all at once, but if a computer is old, or wasn’t built properly, trying to process too much information can make it overheat and crash.”
“Oh. So how do you keep it from ‘overheating?’”
“Sleep, mostly. I’m only awake for a few hours every day. When I’m awake, and I don’t have tests to do, I like to play games. My sister and I play multiplayer sometimes, but usually I have to play by myself. She has the same problem I do, so a lot of the time one of us is asleep during the times the other’s awake.”
Was it weird to get all this personal information from someone he’d just met? Sin wasn’t sure. But he did like talking to this guy. “Well, want to swap Friend Codes? If we’re registered as friends then local multiplayer should work, then you don’t have to use an internet connection!”
“Where do you live?”
“Central Illyria!” Sin beamed. “Like, half an hour at most. It should still work from there.”
The other boy gave him an odd look. “I’m sure there’s plenty of hospitals closer to you, then. Why did you come out all the way here?”
That got him to roll his eyes, making an exaggerated gagging noise. “My dad. He always drags me along on his charity stuff, carrying boxes and shit. He only let me take a break because he’s making some dumb speech up in the-”
And the regret came just as fast as he saw his companion’s expression shift. He hated the visits, obviously, but he knew it was important to a lot of people. And if someone had been stuck in a hospital for that long, maybe they’d be happy to have someone new come by. He must have come off as such a dick-
Before he could stew on it more, he heard a little laugh. “Yeah. I hate those, too.” Bedman was smiling at him. “You’re Kiske’s kid? That’s got to be awful.”
“Heh. Yeah, it really is.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Never gave you my name, did I? I’m Samson, but everyone just calls me ‘Sin.’”
“I was curious about your name, that does make a bit more logical sense.” His companion nodded. “It’s nice to meet you, Sin.”
“Same! What about you? Can’t imagine your name’s really ‘Bedman,’ is it?”
“More of a screen name, really. My name is-”
“Mattie! Dr. Baldy says you’ve gotta have your IV changed!”
They both jumped at the sudden noise, accompanied by the slam of a door. A girl with shaggy blonde hair and familiar features limped into the courtyard, setting her sights on them as soon as she was visible.
“There you are! I just knew you’d be out here.”
“Well, there’s not many other places I could be…” He said. “When did you wake up?”
“‘bout half an hour ago.” She replied. “Just in time for mom and dad to send me out to look for you.”
The girl’s expression changed when she noticed Sin. “Oh! Mattie, who’s this?”
“Sin, this is my twin sister, Delilah.” ‘Mattie’ pointed to her. “Delilah, this is my...new friend.”
“New friend?” Delilah reached out and shook Sin’s hard with a remarkable amount of strength. “Did my baby bro talk your ear off about his favorite game again?”
“You’re only older by nine minutes, Delilah!”
“He’s really good at Pocket Beasts.” Replied Sin. “It was fun playing with him!”
At that, he realized neither of them had selected anything in a while. He looked down at his screen
TIME UP
DRAW
“Aww, maaaaan…”
“Do we have enough time for another match?” Mattie asked.
“Dr. Baldy looked really serious. We probably can’t make him wait that long.” Delilah shook her head.
Sin tried to bring the mood back up. “Well, we were still gonna swap Friend Codes, right? Then we can play whenever! Either of you have something to write with?”
Delilah pulled a thick black sharpie from her sock. “I have a marker! But no paper…”
“Oh! Hold on a sec.” Sin rolled his jacket sleeve up and held out his arm. Just write it on the back!”
The two of them looked hesitant. “Is that safe?”
“It’s totally fine! It’s a little hard to wash off, but that means it won’t smear before I get home!”
Mattie took the marker and began scribbling on his forearm. “You’re really quite strange, Sin.”
“Thanks!” As soon as the wet feeling on his arm went away, he twisted around to see two series of digits.“What’s this other number?”
“Our phone number. If, um, you ever feel like calling.” Despite his attempts to hide it, Sin could see the faint blush to the other boy’s cheeks. “Do you think you could do one more thing very quickly?”
He couldn’t think of what it could have possibly been. “Yeah?”
“Can you draw something on me? I’ve never done it before. I want to see what it’s like.”
He grinned. “Hell yeah! I’ll try and draw something cool real quick!”
Delilah winced. “You know mom and dad are going to kill you, right?”
“Just say it was my idea!” Sin beamed. Mattie flinched the first time he pressed the marker to his skin, but he managed to still draw a straight line. He couldn’t think of anything in particular to draw, so he settled for a series of sharp, criss-crossing black lines circling his forearm. “How’s that?”
“...woah.” Simple as it was, Mattie looked utterly awestruck. “It’s…
“C’mon, Mattie, we’ve gotta go!” Tired of waiting, Delilah all but dragged him off the wall.
“See ya!” Sin waved as they departed. “You’d better bring your A-game next time we battle, I don’t lose easy!” He folded up his game and tucked it into his back pocket. That was probably his cue to leave, too.
As he hopped off the wall, he could make out a faint voice trailing away to the other side of the courtyard.
“Huh? What’s the deal with you, Mattie? You never look that happy!”
Sin smiled as he turned to leave. Ky was probably waiting for him.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been excited for the next visit.
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im really truly grateful for everyone who’s said such nice things about my art recently, cuz this gal has had a rollercoaster of a time on here, and a PRETTY bumpy start with digital art lol. so i wanna take a stroll down memory lane for a second!!
(also i was sorting old art on my laptop and saw these!! ha)
a bunch of old/new art under the cut for length reasons
(also like. this is 80% for me cuz it’s satisfying to see some improvement over time!!! 2018 seems so long ago but also like. no lmao)
sam and dean, april 2018 vs march 2020
i got so mad at this first one that i quit at the faces!
also i was basically tracing the screencap i based this off of (which is actually a great way to get shapes down!! also blocking and proportions, but using that to go straight into lineart was Not The Best Look here)
but hey!! look at that improvement. an actual style. coloring inside/outside the lines on purpose! HA.
while i definitely have more detailed stuff of sam and dean now, the pose struck out to me when i was going through my old art today! so i had to compare lol
neeeext UP: patience
september 2018 vs march 2020
i used to just use a ton of color palettes because i didnt know how colors worked really... which was good practice for like, color tones and stuff, but i rly didnt know how colors worked very well until GENERALLY pretty recently!
this first patience im still content with, her likeness is there but there’s not much style, and i don’t really like the stiff lines anymore
now this!! i tried a new coloring stule and i rly enjoyed it! i also know how to use colors better (maybe???)
at some point i do wanna get back into doing some color palette things again tho! those were really fun
alex :0
september 2018 vs january 2020
i remember i DEFINITELY traced the one on the right, or tried to. and there look at me trying to blend colors on the left how cute....
these lil wayward drawings are probably some of my favorite!!!
and look at the change, still using a color palette but i THINK i figured out how to use the color to my advantage for the emotion of the pic rather than just. slapping it on (which i sometimes still do lol)
sastiel!
november 2018 vs february 2020
baby’s first sastiel... me just picking out canon moments of them how cute!! also peak how i could not draw sam’s nose right at this point (or cas’ BUT SAM’S POINTY NOSE IS SO IMPORTANT!!!)
this hug.. is probably my favorite thing i’ve drawing recently. i just love them a lot!!!
posing has gotten a lot better . lines too obviously (also the kind of brush helps so so much) also i was gonna color this but i merged the lines with the background like a doofus :/
jack time baybey!
may 2018 vs march 2020
very very obviously tracing/basing off of a pic?? i think. anyways im filled with good emotions still looking at these cuz this was right when i got back into spn and first fell in love with this tiny nephilim CHILD but also. there is improvement to be had ..... (also used a color palette again here)
again with the halo motif. i’ve always loved a good halo motif. SO let’s get into it. the lines!! with the old one they’re very shaky (understandable. i was v new @ digital art) also extremely stiff. no room to breath
new art! while the lines i used could be considered similar (bold lines all the same color, not much pen pressure) things have changed!
i’ve been using brown for my lines recently, makes it look less harsh sometimies, also here i’ve figured out what works for me with where to put less lines, namely the hair! i got the shape, put down some bangs, but not everything is blocked off by a line between skin / hair
also just. another note. ive figured out how to find good highlights/shadows with colors recently and i just! theyre good and bright and im happy abt it (also light purple??? is a good skin shadow???? fun fact)
ok. that all got a bit lengthy but this was very fun for me! if you made it this far I COMMEND YOU ALL THE LOVE FROM ME
#sea talks#oh god what a long post im so SORRY#for real dont read the whole thing if u dont want to obvs#its just me rambling about old and new art#shout out if you've been here since yee olden days#POSTS GETTING 3 NOTES.... LOVE YALL
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Endless Summer Book 4 : Daughter of Vaanu (Chapter 49)
Description: Tahira continues to fight her way out of her own head.
Tagging: @endlesshero1122 @mysteli @feartheendlesssummer @whatmcsaid @xo-endlessmayhem-xo @tigerbryn11
Chapter 49 : A Breath of Water
Grayson
I hold Tahira's hand while the nurse slips the IV needle into her vein, even though she probably can't even feel the prick. She doesn't move at all. Not even a twitch.
The first scan they did of her brain revealed that the blood flow was normal. But there was no explanation as to why she hasn't woken up yet. I don't know whether that surprises me or not. If it really was something on the knife, some kind of poison, is that ever going to show up on a brain scan? Either way, they've decided to do another scan. One that's supposed to measure her brain activity. PET scan, I think. They say they can use it to accurately predict which coma patients are likely to wake up.
I squeeze Tahira's hand, kissing her fingers. She looks so perfect, lying in her hospital bed with her dark hair spread over the pillow, smooth and silky thanks to her mother's careful brushing thirty minutes ago. Except for the tubes and hoses, she looks like she's sleeping.
“My sleeping beauty,” I murmur, stroking her hair. “...I wish you would wake up...”
The nurse puts a hand on my shoulder. “Come on. We gotta leave her alone for awhile so the tracer can go through her system. It's better if she doesn't have any stimulation while that's happening.”
“...You think me being here actually stimulates anything?”
“In the best case scenario, it absolutely does. And since that's what we're hoping for, that's the assumption I'm acting on.”
Tahira
I'm not tired as I climb the path up the mountain, and that still startles me every time I realize it. ...Can I even be startled in this space? I reach what appears to be the top of the mountain, and I am standing on a small circle of rock barely large enough for both my feet that pokes up like an island through an ocean of soft, white clouds. The clouds look soft and fluffy, like piles of cotton balls. I want to dive into them and feel their softness against my skin—even though I know from personal experience that I'll probably just get wet. And possibly fall to my death, since I can't fly in this space. But...maybe I can't die in this space, either. And, I'm here now, standing on a tiny space on top of a mountain. What exactly am I supposed to do now?
Before I can really stop myself, I have taken the step off the edge. I plunge through fluffy, cottony sea foam into a warm ocean. I breathe saltwater and it feels as easy as breathing air. I hear a voice call my name. A sexless voice that comes through the waves and sounds like music. I swim toward it, gliding as easily as I fly through the air in the real world. Something that looks like the sun glimmers overhead, making the water around me shine. Ahead, something waits for me in the water. The rippling waves distort its shape, but the color of it is overwhelmingly red.
I think in the back of my mind, I know what's there even before I get close enough to actually see. Sure enough, as I approach, the thing takes on a human shape. Two legs, two arms, and a head—all concealed within a red spacesuit. ...I've never met the Endless before. But I know who she is.
“...Endless. Are you here to show me how I can wake up and help Alodia? Help...a version of you?”
“I am here to help. But I warn you that I cannot help the way you want me to. I am forever bound by the laws that govern the physical flow of time. If I break them, I will do more harm than good.”
“I'm in no position to turn down help.”
“Then follow me.”
Rochelle
“What exactly are you trying to tell me, doctor?”
They've called in a neurologist to assess Tahira. She's had at least two scans to determine why she isn't waking up. So far, though, the man seems to have taken a lot of words to say not very much at all.
“What I am trying to tell you, Ms. Rogers, is that there is no reason to despair. Your daughter's brain is active. Very active. In all the right ways. Coma patients with similar levels of brain activity recover consciousness within a year more than eighty percent of the time.”
I fold my arms. “...Are you saying that my daughter is in a coma?”
The doctor hesitates. “She does exhibit many symptoms consistent with a coma diagnosis. However, there are no obvious organic causes. And...” He leans over Tahira and lifts her eyelid slowly to shine his light pen at her pupil. “Her light reflexes are normal. When I lift her eyelid, she resists. And when I release it, her eye closes completely and quickly.”
“So...what does that mean?”
“My assessment is that it is most likely a psychogenic coma. That is, a temporary period of disassociation, possibly caused by psychological trauma related to the attack.”
“...'Temporary'...”
“Yes. Most of the time patients wake up fairly promptly after general anesthesia is stopped. Often when they fail to wake up, it's due to residual effects from the drugs. Sometimes, it's neurological or metabolic. And sometimes, it's psychological. Tahira is neurologically intact, and her bloodwork is all clear.”
“So...what do we do?”
“We wait. Keep assessing her regularly, wait for a change. Right now, there is little else we can do.”
Jake
“Lundgren wasn't where we left him. The prevailing theory is that one of his goons found him and got it out, but there's not much of a trail if that's the case. It's...not looking like Alodia and Diego are on the island, either. They've got the coast guard circling, though, in case anything tries to land there. The Vaanti are still lying low for the most part, but Seraxa has a few warriors combing the jungle. I don't know if they can hide themselves like they used to when Vaanu's crystals were still part of the island, but Seraxa seems to think it's an acceptable risk.”
I can't look at Sean as he talks. I stare out the window of my hospital room. The view overlooks the hospital grounds, with the Santo Domingo skyline on the horizon. He seems to be waiting for an answer, but when I don't give him one after a moment or two, he goes on.
“Zahra and Iris have been analyzing the recording from that AI. Iris was able to confirm that the voice print was Alodia's. But most of it was spliced together from recorded voice samples. Like...the time lady that you used to be able to call.”
“'Most of it'...”
“...Huh?”
I keep my eyes on a not-particularly-interesting office building in the distance. “You said 'most of it' was spliced. ...I have a guess where it wasn't.”
Sean hesitates just long enough to confirm that I'm right even before he says, “...Yeah.”
“So where did that part come from?”
“Zahra says she doesn't know that yet. The parts where...Galatea...broke character...those were whole samples, not splices. Iris can figure out that much. But where and when they were recorded? That's gonna take longer to figure out.”
Now I turn to look at him. “What kinda time do you think we have, Sean? She could give birth any day. If Rourke gets his hands on our kid...”
“I know, buddy. I know.”
“...I wanna be there. I wanna be there when my daughter is born.”
He doesn't say anything. What the hell can he say to that? Everyone I know is gonna do everything in their power to get my wife back to me ASAP. Doesn't mean I can rest easy. Not until she's back in my arms.
“...Do you know when you're getting out of here?”
“A day or two. They want to keep me for observation awhile. ...Then I guess I oughta go back to California. ...Or stay here and look after Mike. Don't wanna leave him alone here. ...Don't suppose you two are continuing the honeymoon where you left off.”
“With Alodia and Diego still missing? Of course not. Michelle wants to go back to work early.”
I snort, a rueful, mirthless laugh. “Tell her it's outta the question. She just went through a kidnapping for fuck's sake.”
“You're suggesting I try to tell Michelle what to do?”
“Okay, yeah. I see how that's a bad idea.”
“...She needs to feel useful. And...truthfully right now, it may be that the best way she can help us get Alodia and Diego back is by being at work.”
I feel the frown settle onto my mouth and forehead as I stare at him. “...You don't just say a thing like that without having something to back it up.”
“Tahira was attacked. About the same time as all of us were abducted. She had emergency surgery, but she hasn't woken up yet. ...Before she went under, she managed to get across that the one who attacked her was a Vaanti.”
Caleb
It's probably stupid as hell for me to keep coming back to the compound where Tahira and I were once prisoners. The cops are probably still looking for me, and the compound being the site of a stabbing, they probably aren't far off. Though, truth be told, I'm not sure if they've actually managed to figure out where she was actually stabbed.
Thing is, I find myself wanting answers. I want to know who decided to stick a maybe-poisoned knife in Tahira. I got a nagging feeling whoever it was knows her identity. In the dark, with a flame dancing on my fingertips to light my way, I follow the spotty trail of dried blood from inside the compound to the alley where the initial splatter seems to be and stare at the stain on the filthy concrete.
Avanti...who the hell is Avanti? Sounds like some pop diva wannabe. I'd say a pop diva wasn't capable of leaving this kind of mess in an alley, but I'm old enough to remember Haley Rose.
“You're not going to be able to hide forever.” The taunting purr is unmistakably Gigi. I grit my teeth, but I don't turn to face her right away. “You have to realize that sooner or later, the cops are going to find you.”
Don't ask me why this is the straw that breaks the camel's back. But whatever the reason, I can't take it anymore. I whip around and lunge at Gigi, grabbing her by the throat and shoving her against the wall, a fireball in my free hand poised threateningly over her. The dancing orange light reflects genuine fear in her eyes as she grasps my wrist in both hands. At the moment, I'm too pissed to enjoy it.
“I've had e-fucking-nough of your bullshit, Gi,” I snarl. “You can threaten me with your child army or the cops all you fucking want, because right now, all your underworld power and influence, all your loyal followers all mean jackshit compared to my hand on your throat and this fireball over your head, so start fucking talking, bitch!”
Her eyes flick from my face to the flames licking my hand and back again. I feel her squirm, but I've got her pushed high enough that her toes barely touch the concrete.
“What—should I talk—about?” she finally gasps. I pull back just enough to give her a little more air.
“What do you know about what happened here?!”
She smirks, even as I feel her hands trembling on my wrist. “I know Dragonness can bleed.”
So she does know Tahira's identity. I tighten my grip again, bringing the flames a little closer to her skin. They lick upward enough that I am not worried about causing any damage I don't intend, but I see the sweat blooming on her forehead. I press my face in closer.
“...Who's Avanti?”
Her eyes widen. “...What?”
“Avanti. Is she one of yours? Someone new?”
“...Where...did you...hear that?”
“Tahira said it was Avanti who stabbed her! Who is that?!”
“...So. …The plot...thickens...”
I shake her, hard enough that she lets out a strangled yelp. “I told you to talk, bitch!”
“Avanti isn't a name!” she shrieks breathlessly, struggling against my grip. “It's...not...coincidence!”
“What's not?!”
“Any of it! Same day Dragonness is attacked, Alodia Chandler is abducted, and Silas Prescott escapes!”
“Yeah, that doesn't seem like coincidence. So what do you know about it?”
“Barely more than you, I would wager,” she croaks against another increase in pressure from my hand. “...But I know that Avanti is not a name. It's a thing. A creature. From La Huerta.”
“...What kind of creature?”
I feel a hand come down on my shoulder, gently but firmly. I spare a glance, and the hand on my shoulder shines golden brown in the light from my flame.
“That's enough, Caleb,” Talos murmurs. “Let her go.”
“Fuck that! Not until she tells me what she knows!”
“There's nothing she could tell you right now that I couldn't also tell you.”
I sneer, tightening my grip. “What about her plot to steal the Prism Crystal?”
“It clearly hasn't been set in motion yet, since the Prism Crystal is secure. And trying to get the plan out of her is likely going to prove an exercise in futility. There are more important things to worry about at the moment.”
I want to argue, how the fuck is the Prism Crystal not important? ...But it's not. Not when compared to finding Tahira's attacker. I slowly release Gigi and let the flame on my hand go out. Gigi staggers back from me, coughing and rubbing her throat. I can see I've left marks. She's not gonna forgive me for that. But right at this moment, she's looking at me with genuine fear and I can finally feel a twinge of satisfaction for it. Of course, she does her best to disguise it as quick as she can.
“Looks like I've got my own knight in shining armor,” she sneers, her voice hoarse. “Too bad he appears to be running with a traitor.”
“You should be the one running, Gi,” I snarl. “Before I change my mind about letting you go.” As I summon flames to my palms for emphasis, her eyes widen. She closes her mouth and slinks into the shadows without another word. I let the flames die and lower my hands, turning to glare at Talos. He sighs.
“Don't give me that look. Interrogating her would have cost us time we don't have.”
“You can't know that she isn't involved!” I growl.
“Of course she's involved. Even if it's indirectly. She was on La Huerta at the same time as Alodia. But look me in the eye and tell me that you think she would give up any information in a timely manner?”
“I could have burned it out of her,” I mutter.
“Torture is unreliable,” he replies simply. “...The Prism Crystal is secure. You can take my word on that.”
“Why should I?” I'm just being stubborn at this point. I don't know why the hell Talos would lie about that.
“...Because if it's lost, I lose my source of liquid prism. And liquid prism is what's going to save me if you ever decide to stick a flaming sword through my gut again.”
“...Fine. Fair point. ...So what now, huh? How do we find this Avanti thing?”
“First of all, it's not Avanti. It's a...Vaanti. Two words. ...Let's go somewhere private, Caleb. I think it's time to explain.”
Jake
Rebecca and my folks show up in the small hours of the morning. They have Varyyn with them, his hologram disguise in place. They try to sneak into my hospital room to avoid disturbing me, but it's not like I can sleep anyway. Varyyn hangs back while my parents tearfully embrace me, but I watch him through the space between their heads, and I can see his tepid expression.
“Hey, Varyyn,” I murmur after my parents and sister have given me a moment to breathe. “...How are you holding up?”
Varyyn twitches slightly, and I see a guilty flush creep into his cheeks. “...I am glad to see you are safe, Jake...” He trails off, looking away.
“...But I ain't your spouse, am I.” I offer him a sympathetic smile. “...I ain't mine, either.”
His mouth twists miserably, his eyes shimmering. “...They are together,” he whispers. “They must be together.”
“God, I fucking hope so...” I look desperately at my sister. “Tell me the cops got something, Bex. Anything...”
“There is something. ...One of Alodia's students came forward. Said she had been waiting to be picked up after class and Alodia was waiting with her to go to lunch with a friend. ...She gave a description of the woman Alodia left with. Said Alodia called her 'Jeanine,' and that she didn't seem happy to see her.”
I try not to show disappointment. Three people in this room were already aware of this information, but as far as my folks know, this should be a new development. I hope I can blame my lukewarm reaction on the concussion. The odds are probably better if I can manage to say something to convince them I didn't know the kidnapper's identity already.
“...The only Jeanine I can think of that we know is someone I used to serve with. She was there on La Huerta, and she was definitely hostile to Alodia, but...” What did we all agree happened to her? What did Mike and I say at Lundgren's trial all those years ago. “...We thought she was dead.”
“Varyyn told them that the name was familiar,” Rebecca says, giving me a meaningful look behind our parents' backs. “That you had mentioned her as someone from your Navy days you had fallen out with. But since he wasn't there on La Huerta, he doesn't know the whole story.”
Oh, is that the story we're going with? Seems fucking weird to think of Varyyn being from anywhere but La Huerta, but I guess now that he has a fake ID and he can mingle in the real world, he's got to have another backstory.
“...There is one other thing,” Rebecca continues. “Whoever took Diego and Alodia, they were prepared. For the most part, they managed to stay off the security cameras both at the college and the dance school. ...But not entirely.”
That does make me snap to attention. Well, as much as I can in a hospital bed. “So there's footage?”
“There's footage of what the police believe is the ambulance they drove. Enough frames between the two sets of security footage to get a license plate. The vehicle hasn't been found yet, but...”
“...But it's something.”
It's enough to keep hope alive, even if it feels like fear is suffocating it. Fear can't really smother hope, though. As long as I am afraid, I still have hope. It's when fear starts to turn to despair that I'll have really lost hope. When I start grieving Alodia and Diego instead of being afraid that I will have to grieve them in the future.
“...When you're discharged,” my mother speaks up, covering my hand with hers, “would you like us to take you back to California? Or would you rather come stay with us until there's more information?”
I shake my head. “...The moment there's a real credible lead, I'll be wherever my wife most needs me to be. ...But for now, I can't leave Mike. Not until I know he's okay.”
“It's up to you, of course. We can get a hotel room for awhile. But they did tell us that his family has been informed.”
I hum noncommittally. Of course I trust Mike's family to look after him when they get here. But I still don't want to leave without word of Alodia. ...How can I think about going anywhere until I know where she is? Without her, I'm adrift. I'm spinning my wheels in a blizzard, and I can't even see the road ahead, even if I could get myself unstuck.
Tahira
“So...are you actually the Endless? Or are you just a manifestation of...some aspect of me that's taken on the form of the Endless?”
The red-clad old woman does not look back at me as we slog together through what has become a mucky swamp, thick with vines, water plants, and algae.
“A little bit of both. Vaanu is communicating with you mentally. I am an alternate version of Alodia, who is essentially a manifestation of some aspect of Vaanu. Unlike the Alodia you know, however, I never lived as a human in this world. I am the Alodia who was born of Vaanu's energy and my Catalysts' needs. But I never gave myself back to Vaanu, so I never merged the timelines, and thus I was never reborn on earth as the child of human parents. I am the Alodia who never lived in California. Who never attended Hartfeld. ...I am the Alodia who rejected Vaanu, and yet I am now the Alodia who is joined with him.”
“...That was...a long-winded answer. But surprisingly straightforward. That's not to say that I totally understand, but I was expecting you to be more...cryptic.”
“Unfortunately, this straightforwardness cannot last. ...I do not know where Alodia is, and neither does Vaanu. All we have is scattered knowledge to impart to you that may or may not help you find her. In fact, my main purpose here is to help you purge the poison from your body.”
“What kind of poison is it?”
“An ancient kind. Something toxic to those from the Crystal Dimension.” She pauses, turning toward me. “Have you ever been baptized, Tahira?”
“Baptized? No. My mom was never religious, and I never got into it either. ...I did see a friend of mine get baptized once...”
We were teenagers, I remember, and she invited most of the girls in our class, and I went mostly because it meant something to someone I considered a friend. Her church had a baptismal pool, and she and the other baptismal candidates waded in one by one to speak their vows, dressed in loose white robes. Then their pastor covered their face with a towel, took them in his arms, and rocked them back into the water while speaking the ritual words before drawing them up again. The ceremony meant nothing to me, but it was interesting to watch. Before I can ask the Endless why she wanted to know, I get my answer when she takes me in her arms and gets my legs out from under me to immerse me in the water around us. But I don't have the benefit of a cloth over my face, and the Endless doesn't seem to be drawing me up again. I try to find my footing, to get my head above the water, but she isn't letting me. Or something else isn't letting me. Either way, I start to panic. But then I remember my experience earlier, and I slowly still. Cautiously, I take a breath. Water flows smoothly into my lungs, and out again, easy as air.
“Good,” the Endless says soothingly. “Just breathe. Relax. Listen. Watch.”
I try to do as I'm told. In one of my middle school art classes, we made an optical illusion toy out of a circle of cardboard and two pieces of string. On one side of the cardboard was a picture of a bird, and on the other was a birdcage. The strings attached to opposite edges of the cardboard circle, and when you wound up the string and spun the toy, the images flipped so quickly that the bird seemed to appear inside the cage. Watching the images flashing in front of me on the surface of the water feels like watching that little bird hop into the cage. Or maybe like thumbing clumsily through a flip book where some of the pages are out of order.
I see the Endless with her helmet down, flames dancing above the skeletal claw that is her bionic right hand. I see Caleb superimposed over her, and they both close their right fists to extinguish the flames. I see Minuet holding out her hand to extend a slow-motion field over an unseen opponent. Then she morphs into Alodia, wearing a haunted expression as she holds out her hand and the wind that was stirring her yellow hair stills. I see a massive tree that I think must be Elyys'tel pulsing with light. And then the light fades and the tree withers as the sky turns gray, but lights are flashing in wild neon colors behind it. The images start coming faster. I can't keep track of them. But some do get through. Vaanti. Blue-skinned males and verdant females, dressed in masks and leafy garments, with tattoos decorating their powerful, glistening bodies. Then they're gone. Replaced by a steampunk-looking tribe who hunker around a fire in a post-apocalyptic desert, their pointed teeth tearing into the raw flesh of some unfortunate animal, blood sluicing down their chins.
...Anachronists...those are Anachronists! I mean, Alodia never told me they had fangs and ate raw animals, but...the steampunk outfits give them away. I open my mouth to say as much to the Endless. But now there's a problem.
...Suddenly, I can't breathe.
#Jake McKenzie#sean gayle#Diego Ricardo Ortiz Soto#raj bhandarkar#aleister rourke#Craig Hsiao#playchoices#choices stories you play#pixelberry choices#Endless Summer#hero#michelle nguyen#quinn kelly#estela montoya#zahra namazi#grace hall#dax darcisse#poppy patel#kenji katsaros#grayson prescott
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Light The Candle (Xellina)
Fandom: Slayers
Characters: Lina Inverse/Xelloss
Word Count: 1514
Warnings: xelloss, unbeta’d, vague allusions to Lina being Lon’s host, mazoku flirting
Summary: Her eyes slide closed and she laughs wryly, leaning imperceptively into his touch. "What a pain, I don't want to be a monster magnet."
Notes: for the Slayers Secret Santa 2019 hosted by @slayersweek. This goes out to you @glittercanblog! I’m sorry it’s late-ish and kinda short, but I hope I managed to get your prompts well enough! I feel like I’m slowly building an out of order xellina verse dsjhsdjsdhj. I didn’t lift the title from it, but this fic was written to Carino by The Marias.
i.
"You're alone," Xelloss says, dark eyes sliding open slightly, a glimmer in the gloom of the forest. Lina's fearless gaze catches his, unintimidated by the predatory appearance his split pupils give his carefully pleasant smile. He stretches out on his seat high up a towering tree, lounging across a thick branch. Making a show of looking around, searching for Gourry and the others; he tilts his head and makes a curious noise low in his throat when they fail to appear, "How unusual."
Lina's mouth purses into an unimpressed frown. "Yeah, well sometimes a girl needs her alone time for treasure hunting."
Laughing softly, Xelloss drops from his perch and wanders into her space, circling her slow and wolf-like. He puts his hands up in mock innocence when Lina snaps him a smoldering glare. "Now, now, Ms. Lina, no need for ugly looks." He rounds her left side, catching the edge of her cloak and tugging it playfully. "It's just refreshing to see you after so long."
Lina arches an eyebrow but besides the low zest of irritation, Xelloss feels no fear or trepidation from her. She crosses her arms over her lithe chest, hip jutting out and foot-tapping as she keeps him in her line of sight, "Just what do you have planned now, fruitcake?"
Xelloss smiles. "Thwarting boredom." His main body unravels in the astral plane, a thin piece of himself sliding from his physical shadow, a tendril of formless black. It threads itself with her hair, braiding into the red strands and tugging playfully.
Lina jumps with a short, startled yelp, her hands flying to her hair. Instinctively spinning around to see what it was, she turned her back to Xelloss, losing sight of him. Cutting the connection with his shadow before she can catch sight of its source, he moves in like a predator taking its chance. Curling around her right shoulder while tapping her left, making her spin in another circle, growling as she does. Wrapping his arms around her, he cups her cheek, ruffling his gloved hands through her hair, he chuckles. "It seems you've got something stuck behind your ear, Ms. Lina."
"Wha- Xelloss-" she growls, stiffening in the cage of his arms. Lovely embarrassment and annoyance blossoms up from her skin like warmth from the hearth. It tastes smooth and sweet, like a confection. He chuckles again, willing the shadow into shape and pulling it free from red strands.
Holding a dark petaled flower in front of her nose, he unravels from around her and presents the flower properly with a flourishing bow. "For you, Ms. Lina," He says, winking cheekily at her. The flower is a terrible thing, its stem dark and withered like a dead tree branch, the bloom itself the color of a fresh bruise, red veins running through each petal. At its center protruded a small cluster of white filaments, the peeking anthers like tiny fangs, giving the flower the appearance of a tiny fanged maw.
Lina twitches, her expression flattening. "That's horrible," she says, flicking careless fingers at the flower still being held up to her.
Not bothering to feign a pout, Xelloss smiles wider. "I think it's rather lovely."
She shakes her head, surprising him. "The flower's fine," Lina snorts, snatching it away from him and pinning it recklessly back behind her ear. A thrill goes through him, feeling a piece of himself being handled so roughly. Being kept so close. Her prideful, unwavering gaze finds his once more, pinning him in place like the flower. "It was that two-bit birthday party sorcerer's trick you pulled." A disgusted scoff leaves her, a vehement sound from such a little body. "Something behind my ear? Ugh, that's bad, even for you."
Stomping closer, chin held high and looking down her nose at him, Lina pokes him roughly in the chest, digging in her finger. "That's why I'm demanding emotional compensation."
ii.
"I'm surprised you're helping me," Lina says, her eyes intent on the faded runes embossing the spines of the two tomes in her hands. "Or rather, I'm surprised you're helping without giving me the runaround, this time."
Xelloss taps a finger to his chin, smiling vaguely. "Well, of course, Ms. Lina. We're comrades, aren't we?" After a moment, his smile widens, pleasantly grating at the corners as he slides another tome between her line of sight. "And you did ask, didn't you, Ms. Lina?"
Shoulders hunching up to her ears, Lina snatches the book away from with a snort. Her thin hip checks into his, irritation flowing over his pallet refreshingly, a little tart when surprised pleasure lances through the annoyance as she reads the rune titles.
Like the strawberry lemonade he had once in the outerworld.
How fitting.
Bright eyes slide his way, something not quite like a grin quirks at the corners of her mouth. "I did ask, yeah," she begins, clever fingers flicking through the pages. The tome's ancient spine complains as she lays it across her forearm, flipped open to a diagram.
Power whispers from the page.
iii.
"You're always watching me," Lina says. There's no anger or accusal, just calm fact and maybe a little exasperated amusement. "I don't get it. What's the gain here? Your lord can't possibly care about one bandit killer that much," She points out, stretching out without a care, her chin propped on her palm. Her fingers and cheek are covered in smeared ink. In the low lantern light, the ink catches the flickering light, dark and glimmering.
If Xelloss had a human's penchant for wishful thinking, he might have imaged the ink to be ichor, the burning blood of the gods and their servants. "Modesty doesn't fit you, Ms. Lina," he chides. "You know you're much more than that to the monster race."
Lina traces her fingers over the symbols, the shape of a name older than creation. Her eyes shutter, lashes fanning over her cheekbones, bronze over ivory. The silence dreams between them and Xelloss thinks of ashes and gold. He reaches out and touches her cheek, his thumb sliding over the corner of her mouth, tracing the bow of her bottom lip.
"How did you know?" Lina asks, not pulling away. Her question could be for a hundred things, from the significance of the tome, to knowing what she truly is beneath that mortal shell of hers.
The answer is all the same. She is Lina Inverse, and she has touched the golden nothingness behind creation. That's all that matters.
Xelloss smiles. "That's a secret."
Her eyes slide closed and she laughs wryly, leaning imperceptively into his touch. "What a pain, I don't want to be a monster magnet."
iv.
"Ms. Lina," Xelloss says, dark eyes burning.
"Don't talk," she scolds, head buried in the pillow of her arms. Red hair falling sprawling atop the desk and books, framing her like a halo of flames. Her bare, pale, lithe spine curves into a fascinating arch and Xelloss traces his gloved fingers down the length of it, stopping at the waistband of her tights. The wings of her shoulder blades tense, sliding beneath her skin as he drags the ink brush from her nape to the dip in the small of her back.
"Ms. Lina," He tries again, leaning forwards, pinning her down with a steady, deceptively strong hand. Nudging his mouth against her ear, tucking back the fall of thick waves, he makes a soft, tutting sound. "I can't finish the seal if you keep squirming."
Shifting on her knees, the chair creaks beneath her, a shudder running through her tiny body. Her shoulders hunch, and she turns just enough to glare at him, red-cheeked and scowling through the veil of her hair. "Oh just get on with it, I know you're almost done." Her eyes avert, sliding to the grain of the wooden desk. Her embarrassment perfumes the room, but a sigh passes through her, and she relaxed.
A soft hum leaves her as Xelloss swirls the brush, taking care to write the runes. A stopgap, a very small one, against the inevitable. Even Lina, as fascinating and bold as she was, couldn't fight creation, couldn't fight the void. "This is what you wanted," he reminds her, slowly, deliberately using his index finger to wipe away a stray line on the small of her back, causing her to twitch and arch under his touch. "Nothing would have stopped you from taking the manuscript and having one of your friends do this," he points out, chuckling when she hisses, tucking her hands beneath her chin, not arguing for once.
"You know why I chose you," She says, finally.
In a fit of what would be vanity in any other being, Xelloss signs his work with a small, toothy flower above her hip. Touching the drying ink, willing power through it, letting it sink into all that pale skin like a brand, like a claim.
Like a promise.
"Because even when you're all alone, I'll be here," Xelloss answers.
Like a threat. Like a claim. Like an oath.
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Remnants, Part IX
Chapter Summary: This chapter is transitional, so bear with me. I’ll be borrowing some ideas from the NATM movies, but mostly doing whatever I want to the plot to make it more Ahk-centric. Part X will be the final, action-packed chapter, but I do have an epilogue outlined, too.
Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII
Story Summary: You are in the midst of formulating your dissertation, but you’ve hit a wall. Your doting aunt, Rebecca, has a solution that brings you face to face with Ahkmenrah, Fourth King of the Fourth King. As the connection between you and Ahkmenrah grows, and as the secrets of his ancient tablet unlock, the once-king will find himself faced with a difficult choice.
Thanks so much to @kitkatcronch @kpopperotp12 @seafrost-fangirl @sassystrawberryk @perfect-rami @txmel @limabein and @rami-malek-trash for reading : ) If anyone else wants added to the taglist, let me know. I’ve greatly appreciated the feedback!
Warnings: None
It was mid-April, and you smiled as the sun warmed your skin. Although the air still held a chill, it was clear from the budding trees lining the courtyard that summer would soon make an appearance. It had been a particularly brutal east coast winter, and even though the thought of summer brought forth deep pangs of nostalgia, the sun was a welcome change.
“Okay, Y/N,” Chelsea said as she flicked a long strand of hair over her shoulder. “One more time from the top.”
You began the introduction to your thesis defense for the tenth time that afternoon. In two weeks, you would be in front of a room of both your current and potential peers delivering your defense. The details of your work had drawn a lot of curiosity, so your chairs warned you that it would be a full house. You felt your work as a TA prepared you pretty well for addressing a full auditorium, but you knew that you probably wouldn’t sleep properly until this was all over. To secure job offers, your delivery needed to be stellar.
In addition to professors, a variety of museum directors and field experts, including the museum director of Cairo, were flying in to listen to your defense. Thanks to Ryan, your name had become familiar to the director in Cairo, and he began to closely follow your publications. If your defense went well, you could be fielding offers not only from all over the states, but globally.
After Ryan’s six months in Africa, he transferred to The University of Sydney to finalize his thesis and finish his PhD. You always had a hunch that he’d return home, and you sent a text congratulating him, wishing him the best. He’d responded something similar and that was the last you had talked to him in a while. As much of a presence as Ry once was in your life, it was shocking how quickly you could put a person behind you.
Unless, of course, you were still in love with that person. Despite Ahkmenrah’s last words and his desire to no longer see you, your feelings had not waned. The days did get easier, and you were actually prone to smiling and going out with your friends, but when it got quiet, when you ran out of things to keep your mind occupied, your mind flooded with your memories of him.
It had been eight months since you had seen Ahk, nearly double the time you had actually spent with him. That was one of the reasons you knew your feelings were real, unlike anything you had experienced before. Normally, like with Ryan, when someone was out of your life, they were just that—out. You thought of them less and less until you never thought of them at all. That was the nature of life—people came and went, just like in that verse from the “Prufrock” poem by T.S. Eliot: “In the room the women come and go. Talking of Michelangelo.”
You still had to work every single day to keep thoughts of Ahkmenrah at bay.
Chelsea finalized her markings in your notebook and handed it back to you.
“I really think you should stick to opening with that in-depth description of the Nile—the sight, the sound, the smell—it’s riveting. It sets up the scene for the Egyptians acceptance of Akhenaten’s proposal—one river that gives life, one god that gives life.”
You nodded, drawing a star by Chels’s note.
“I’ll rework the PowerPoint tonight. Can I buy you dinner as a thank-you?”
Chelsea laughed, “You don’t need to keep feeding me. I’m happy to help. God knows you’ve proofed enough of my papers over the years.”
You grinned and shrugged your shoulders.
“Does that mean you aren’t hungry?”
Chelsea shrugged into her backpack and said, “Hey. Let’s not get hasty now.”
The two of you giggled together as you decided on a place for dinner.
* * * * *
After latching your door and sliding the deadbolt into place, you dropped your backpack by the coffee table and headed to the fridge to grab a water. You wanted to make Chelsea’s suggested change to your PowerPoint presentation and then settle in to do yet another round of edits.
You nearly had each slide memorized, but when you got to the part of your presentation that challenged your field’s previous notions about Egyptian royalty and argued that the emergence of monogamy in marriages made for a natural evolution to Akhenaten’s monotheistic cult, you paused, your mind swirling with thoughts of Ahkmenrah and his parents.
You knew once your mind began swirling with memories of Ahk that your proofing skills were rubbish after that, so you shut your laptop and made a cup of tea, sipping it while you watched some light television.
This was your nightly routine; the more you could push away your thoughts of Ahkmenrah and the museum, the easier it would be to fall asleep.
You settled into bed, and after about a half an hour of tossing and turning, you fell asleep.
~ ~ ~
The cat in your lap purred, its sleek, warm body a welcome weight. You smiled as you stroked the fur behind its ears, noticing that the cat was curled tightly in your lap, settled on your white linen dress that fluttered around your ankles; golden bangles intermixed with brightly colored beaded bangles adorned both of your arms and jingled pleasantly as you moved.
As you looked up from the sweet creature snuggled on your lap, you smiled as you took in the scene before you. Below, the Nile sparkled in the sun, its lifegiving waters reflecting a deep blue that reminded you of a stormcloud plump with rain. Palm trees littered the banks, grouped in clusters that shaded the grass underneath.
A strong, but soft hand, one that you knew well, slid over your bare shoulder. Your eyes closed to your husband’s loving touch, his fingers eliciting goosebumps as they slid down your upper arm.
“Still so sensitive to my touch, love?”
“Mmm,” you hummed, eyes still shut as Ahkmenrah’s presence enveloped you.
“Would you like to join me for the meeting with the builders? They believe they have figured out a way to extend irrigation channels into Fayyum to revitalize the fields there.”
“Oh? That’s excellent news!”
Ahkmenrah returned your grin, reaching to take your chin in this hand, his fingers grasping the point to tilt your head up. He leaned down for a kiss, sweet, at first, but with a quick swipe of his tongue across your bottom lip, it occurred to you that it was odd for the king to be visiting you mid-afternoon.
You licked across your lower lip, relishing in the taste of him.
“Is there something else that you wanted, my king?”
“I missed you,” Ahkmenrah said with an earnestness that squeezed your heart.
“I always miss you,” you said, gently prodding your sleepy companion until they leapt off your lap, allowing you to stand and stretch before turning to face your husband.
You slid your hands up his biceps and locked your eyes onto his. His eyes were particularly blue today, not unlike the Nile. Words weren’t needed as you looked at each other, love etched across both of your faces.
Ahkmenrah pulled you close to him and closed his lips over yours once more. Soon, you were lost in the passion of the kiss, in the way his body felt against yours, and in the warmth that radiated from his love.
~ ~ ~
You gasped as you bolted upright, sweat pooling at your lower back and across your temples. It was the third night in a row that you had this same dream and its vividness continued to overwhelm you. Similar dreams had plagued you over the months, but there was something about the clarity and the purity of emotion within this dream that made it much worse than the others.
The tears were already formed and as you laid back down, they silently spilled onto your pillow. You knew that no matter the results of your dissertation, you would have to put distance between yourself and Ahk.
When you loved someone, sometimes you really did have to let them go.
* * * * *
Normally, you weren’t one for big parties, but the laughter and spontaneous emission of congratulations along with the buzz of the bar, the clang of glasses, the din of the band in the next room, were all a welcomed cacophony. You hadn’t a clue how many drinks had been bought for you and even worse, consumed by you, but you were the happiest you had been in months.
You passed!
You earned your PhD and you had a small pile of job offers to sort through, although you already knew which one you were going to take. It wasn’t quite as much money as some of the others, but it was your dream; and even better than fulfilling your dream, you would be able to give something back to the person who had helped you in your hour of need.
After you had presented your defense, as you were shaking hands with Dr. Omar Gamal, the director of the Museum of Cairo, an idea took shape and you weren’t ashamed to think that it really was brilliant.
As you finished the drink in your hand, you gathered everyone’s attention to announce that you were taking the job in Cairo. Cheers erupted and you couldn’t stop grinning as your friends and family took turns congratulating you and peppering you with questions.
What you didn’t tell anyone was that you already knew exactly what you were going to do once you got there, thanks to Ahkmenrah’s papyruses and your journey through his memories. If you couldn’t be the one to bring happiness into Ahk’s life, then perhaps a reunion with his parents could.
* * * * *
By early September, you were well settled in Cairo. Finding Merenkahre and Shepseheret proved to be easier than you expected. In the basement of Cairo’s museum, there was a repository of unidentified mummies, most proving to be average Egyptians who had just enough money to build a decent tomb.
Apparently, as a final insult, Kahmunrah had buried his parents as commoners to ensure their afterlife would be the opposite of the glorious affair normally reserved for the royals. To Kahmun, a life without luxury was the true punishment, so you really weren’t shocked to find that he did bury both of his parents together. Of course something like love wouldn’t have been valuable to him.
Villains. In the end, they’re all the same.
At first, Omar thought you were crazy, and you thought that you were going to for sure get fired. One of the most prominent kings of the Middle Kingdom and his beloved wife were Unidentified Mummies #17 and #18? Impossible.
But after extensive tests, you were able to prove that the ages and the causes of death matched that of Merenkahre and Shepseheret. What you weren’t able to do was reveal your exact source. It took a lot of cross referencing and circular explanations, but Omar was diverted when you made your proposition for an exciting new exhibit, and even more diverted when you made your proposition to reunite Merenkahre and Shepseheret with their son, Ahkmenrah.
Omar’s dream was to return all major Egyptian exhibits to their homeland in order to declare them property of the Museum of Cairo. Lending them out to travel the world was one thing, but it was a true indecency when colonizers were the ones who still owned what was taken from the Egyptians’ land.
You had sketched up a proposal of showing the three layers of royal Egyptian life—the throne room, the Royal Wife’s garden, and the prince’s chambers. The only hitch in your plan was that to raise the funds for a permanent exhibit in Cairo, you had to build the exhibit at the British Museum of Natural History. If they held the first rights to display, they would fund a permanent exhibit in Cairo.
The British Museum could also secure the rights to display Ahkmenrah because the American museum was willing to trade Ahk for the mummy of Ahmose-Meritamun; the Americans would then be able to create a female-centric display, something they had been looking to do to showcase the prominence of women during the Ancient Egyptian empire.
The only thing left to do was to ensure that Larry and Rebecca helped to keep your surprise—when Ahkmenrah was ready to be moved, he should know only the scarcest of details.
For the first time in a long time, everything was going according to plan.
* * * * *
After Omar popped the top of the champagne, the cork skittered across the floor and you and your team laughed as you held out glasses out to catch the bubbly alcohol.
Merenkahre and Shepseheret’s exhibits were a smash hit. Your PR team had been hyping the return of Ahkmenrah next month to complete the triage of Egyptian royals and opening night had already been sold out.
The current exhibit of Merenkahre and Shepseheret had been featured in multiple publications and the detail of each layer of royal life had cemented your place as one of the top anthropologists in the world. You never forgot that you owed it all to Ahkmenrah, and you never forgot that you were really doing all of this for him. Within the next month, he would be reunited with his parents.
Your phone rang, its music invasive and interrupting the happy atmosphere.
You sipped the top of your champagne before it could overflow and checked the screen.
Larry.
Larry never called. He was a texter, and it had been a long time since you talked. He was still working as the night guard, but he started going to classes to get his teaching degree. Aunt Rebecca was proud of his initiative, and she had kept you up to date on his progress; had she been calling, you wouldn’t have thought twice about letting it go to voicemail and checking it later. But Larry calling . . . something wasn’t right.
“I gotta answer this—be right back!” you said as you moved away from the laughter and the even happier chatter.
“Hey Lar—what’s up?”
“Y/N! I’m so glad you answered. Look, I’m not sure how to tell you this, and he doesn’t even know I’m calling you because he’d probably sick those jackals on me if he did find out and we all know—”
“Larry. You’re babbling. What’s going on?”
“Ahk’s sick.”
“Sick? He’s a regenerated mummy. He comes back to life in perfect health, perfectly restored. How could he be . . . sick?”
“It’s the tablet. I think the tablet is . . . dying.”
You had made your way to the end of the hallway where a large set of stairs led up to the display. You sat down, hard, on the top stair, your body numb, your mind whirring—you were so close to giving Ahkmenrah his parents back. He couldn’t be dying, for fuck’s sake. He just couldn’t be.
“Tell me everything.”
#Ahkmenrah#ahk#ahkmenrah fanfiction#NATM#natm ahkmenrah#ahkmenrah imagine#ahkmenrah x reader#female reader#rami malek#rami malek's character#ahk x reader
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different anon, but heck yeah u should definitely infodump about lucid dreaming!! im really interested in it
aaaaa okay !!! uh hold onto ur ears yall im abt to talk em off lmao
so !! if u didnt know, lucid dreaming is basically when you become aware that you’re dreaming while youre in a dream. once you’re aware, you can take control of the dream in literally any way u want — u can do anything, go anywhere, meet anyone, all with the knowledge that nothing can hurt u and nothing can stop u
its a fascinating concept and, the feeling when u actually become lucid for the first time? its better than anything else in the world. its the most invigorating thing u can ever feel, i think. but actually becoming lucid is, ,, , , hm. a time and a half.
putting the rest under a cut bc, hooooo boy this is gonna get long
first things first! you absolutely have to keep a dream journal. forgetting ur dreams is all well and good when ur not trying to accomplish anything in them, but if you become lucid and then wake up with only the vaguest memory of what you actually did? thats painful.
u can either go all out and get a fancy journal and write them down physically each morning, or u can do what i do and just download an app. i personally use the app Dream Catcher, which lets u tag ur dreams for easy organization. just get in the habit of writing down your dreams every morning, and if you really, really cant remember anything, just write down that you didnt dream anything that day. you’ll train your brain to remember your dreams better
secondly! reality checks! are absolutely imperative! the idea behind them is that, if you do something throughout the day that “proves” your reality, eventually you’ll start doing it in your dreams as well. for example, a common thing in my dreams is that i’ll have extra fingers, so i check my hands a lot throughout the day.
it can’t just be a casual thing, too. if all you do is glance at your hands and b like “yo looks normal, we gucci”, then you’ll do the same in your dreams even if you have Weird hands. trust me, Dream-You is an idiot, you gotta be obvious with this stuff. take a few moments, look at your hands, count out your fingers, and really think to yourself “am i dreaming?”
try to get in the habit of doing that at least 15 times a day, and eventually you’ll start doing it in your dreams too.
now, if you just stick with doing those two things — which is what i’m doing right now — your chances of becoming lucid will raise astronomically. even just those two tiny things can train your brain into realizing when the world around you is real and when it isnt. you can also attempt something really easy called a MILD — a mnemonic-induced-lucid-dream — which can help your chances even more without upping the effort
whenever you go to bed, just take a few moments — even just five minutes can help — and just. lay there. and think to urself, again and again “the next scene will be a dream” or “i will become lucid in my dreams tonight” or something similar. get ur brain really focused on lucid dreaming right before you fall asleep and chances are, those Vibes will bleed over into ur dreams and you’ll become lucid
practice those three things consistently, every day, and pretty soon you’ll start becoming lucid. it takes time, though! dont be discouraged if you end up not becoming lucid for the first few weeks, or even months. sometimes your brain just needs a bit of extra training
that’s what ive been doing for the past year or so — bc damn do i Not have the energy to actually put in too much effort — but!!! there are other techniques!!
my personal favorite is the WBTB, or wake-back-to-bed method. with this technique, you set your alarm for roughly 5-6 hours after you go to sleep so you’ll wake up inside of one of your REM cycles, specifically one where your dreams will be the most vivid. dont do anything, just roll over and go right back to sleep.
you can even use a MILD along with this, repeat whatever mantra u usually use as you fall back asleep. you should start to see hypnagogic imagery — blobs of color and vague shapes floating before your eyes. just observe them. at one point, they’ll start forming more familiar shapes, and places, and maybe even people — and there should be a moment, a snap, where you go from observing these images to actually being in the scene. you literally build the dream around yourself, its magical
i have read that WBTB can cause sleep paralysis, but i’ve never personally experienced any problems with it, aside from the fact that im always tired the next day.
another thing that could severely increase your chances of being lucid but also involves Effort — meditation. specifically mindfulness meditation. the act of bringing full awareness to your Existence, honing in on just Your body, Your mind, Your breath, will make you a more aware, mindful person, which in turn makes you more perceptive of dream signs. also, the ability to clear your mind and center yourself with a moment’s notice really comes in handy when the dream becomes destabilized and you have to take control
if ur an adhd lad like me — or neurodivergent in any way, really — the idea of meditation can be,,,, terrifying. honestly, i havent meditated in like six months now, because it really wasnt?? doing anything for me?? mostly because im absolutely incapable of sitting still for that long without Something to stimulate me
so! loophole! guided meditations. having someone else guide you through the process can make it a bit easier to focus. just find one that works for u on youtube. there are even guided meditations made specifically to prime ur brain for lucid dreaming!
so thats how you get lucid. now for when youre lucid
at first, lucid dreaming is going to be extremely hard. dreams fall apart very easily — if you get too overexcited or if a dream-character looks at you the wrong way or if you cant seem to do what you want to do, your lucidity can fade and you’ll either go back to being your normal dream self or you’ll wake up. dreams are volatile and hard to control, and even harder to master
thats where meditation comes in handy. youll have a much easier time controlling your dreams if you can look at the world around you, take a breath, center yourself, and know that you can control it. that being said, you can absolutely learn to take control without ever having meditated a day in your life. its all about your mindset!
you have to go into it with confidence. the key to controlling your dreams is knowing that they’re your dreams. you cant forget that you’re in control. thats why i feel like learning to lucid dream doubles as a lesson in self-confidence — you have to learn to trust yourself, trust that you can handle any scenario thrown at you and come out on top.
if you can achieve this mindset, you can literally do anything. ive had maybe 50 lucid dreams since i started learning about them — which… is honestly a really low amount, but. i havent really had the time/energy to really throw myself into it as much as i want to. but just in those dreams, ive flown, ive shapeshifted, ive met my sides, ive teleported to vast, gorgeous lands and seen some of the most beautiful things ive ever seen. anything is possible in a lucid dream; thats why its so worth it to put in the effort
but when youre first starting out, itll be extremely hard to maintain that mindset. like i said, Dream-you is dumb as shit — you’ll forget youre dreaming, you’ll be unable to control anything, you’ll wake up before you manage to accomplish anything. more often than not, the dream will destabilize, which is Not Fun
if the dream starts to destabilize — basically, if things start going fuzzy or vague, if you suddenly cant see, if you can feel ur body in bed, basically anything that points towards you waking up — there are ways to fix it. literally just spinning around helps for some reason? spin around, fall down, run ur hands along anything u can find and feel the texture, or just demand that the dream stabilize itself. most of the time, thatll work
and if it doesnt, dont be discouraged. theres always another night to dream
so basically: start a dream journal, do reality checks, mmmmaybe meditate if youre up for it, and your dreams will become like. at least 10x more interesting. trust me, try flying: its literally the best feeling in the entire world
its just !!! such a huge, incredible thing, and its so fascinating to learn about too. all the different ways you can train your brain, all the different things you can do, all the studies done on the subject. i suggest reading about Steven LaBerge or keith hearne. hearne led the study that proved lucid dreaming existed in the first place! he got a lucid dreamer to signal to him that he was conscious while asleep using REM (rapid-eye movement), because lucid dreaming happens during the REM state. also, robert waggoner’s book Gateway to the Inner Self is really fascinating too!
hm wow i really went ham here lmao
thanku for giving me a chance to infodump im very happy rn
#me: /spends a full half-hour infodumping abt something most people havent even heard of/#now if only i could remember this much when it comes to schoolwork lmaooooo#ty for the Infodump Permission im !! vibin rn#lowkey highkey this makes me wanna get back into it. . . might do a wbtb tonight...#personal#logan talks#lucid dreaming#Anonymous
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Escape: Aftermath Ch: 3
Waylon X Eddie
Summery: After escaping the hell that is mount massive, Eddie and Waylon had been patching them self's to fix the damage. Murkoff however is not willing to release patients that easy. A new Murkoff CEO is hell bent on getting their two experiments back.
status: complete
rated: M - fowl language, sensitive topics, and gore
previous chap: Escape: Aftermath CH: 2
next chap: Escape: Aftermath CH: 4
_____________________________________
~Ch:3 System shutdown~
Barker was sitting in his office, the place darkened. Only the lights closest to the door were still on. the other half of the room, with his desk, was in shadow. He was rolling a small jar on his desk, back and forth. Staring at it with a emotionless face. He stopped rolling it, holding it still when someone knocked on his door.
“come.” Barker said, keeping a serious tone and stare on the jar. A man walked in quietly, stopping when he was 6 feet in front of the desk. Barker looked up at him slowly, a glare forming. He was never happy to be bothered by lower ranking workers. They were all morons who wasted his time.
“we found no body’s.” the man said.
“where are they?” Barker asked coldly. He expected a real answer, or else.
“the river they went down lead to a town. We think they could be there.” the man answered.
“where are they in the town?” Barker asked. He knew they didn’t know and that his time was being wasted again.
“we don-” the man started, jumping when a cracking noise was heard. Barker had cracked the liquid filled jar under his hand.
“did you ask the towns people? No, wait, you didn’t. Because if you did you would be telling me wouldn’t you?” Barker interrupted with a annoyed growl. He set the jar upright from its side, wiping his wet hand on his suit. The man catching a glimpse of something floating in the dark jar when moved.
“we did, but no one would talk.” the man said.
“did you really try? Iam sure a white threat would make them be more talkative. Or did you try and bribe with muffins?” Barker said, looking at the jar. The man swallowed.
“i should have done the talking. Humans are so easy to read, such horrible liars. Simple body motions can give everything away about them. A simple glance of there eyes can tell a direction to search. Eyes are the window to the soul after all.” Barker said, popping the lid off the jar and reaching in. wrapped around his hand by the red roots coming off, was a fresh looking eye.
“they cant lie.” Barker said, playing with the eye in his hand. The man looked away, feeling sick at the image.
“ill go make the troops ask again.” the man said, taking a step back.
“why in such a hurry? It makes me think you don’t like my company. Why don’t you sit.” Barker said in a pleasant manner, gesturing for the man to sit in front of his desk. The man nervously pulled a chair out for him to seat.
“people don’t seem very comfortable around me. I wonder why?” Barker said in monotone, pulling something from his desk. In his free hand he held a sharp blade meant for slitting open packages. The blade had stains that were faded, but still dark.
“just, worker intimidation.” the man said, wanting to just leave.
“could be, but I think its something more. … eyes can be so delicate. Without a delicate hand they could be crushed like a grape and deflate from there nice round shape. They also need to be kept in a fine solution of liquid, or else they dry up and shrivel away. I used to make that mistake, putting them only in plain water. They would lose the beautiful color they had.” Barker said.
“you cant take them out for long either. Its sad, because you can only appreciate them fully when out of the jar. Or … when they're still in the skull.” Barker said. He looked at the color of the eye one last time before dropping it into the jar. The eye making a plop noise as it hit the water and sank to the bottom next to the other.
“ ive never met a pair of ugly eyes, always beautiful. I sometimes have trouble resisting my urge to pluck them out then and there. That would be rude though, I should at least wait till they're fully dead first.” Barker laughed. The man looked beyond disturbed from his chair. Barker stood from his chair, coming around his desk, holding the packaging blade in his hand.
“i cant just pluck them out either. Mite accidentally crush them. I have to carefully pop a blade behind the eyes and gently move it till the eye is removed. Smoother things like a spoon would be better, but a knife is needed to cut the roots.” Barker said, disappearing from the mans view as he went behind him.
“The roots are tougher then they seem. even if its messier to use a knife, I think its worth it. Don’t you think?” Barker said.
“y-yes.” the man, said. Startled when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Barker patted his shoulder.
“good, glad you agree. You may go.” Barker said happily, walking back to his desk. The man got up quickly with a sigh hidden under his breath.
Barker heard the door close as he grabbed the cracked, slowly dripping, jar. He smiled at the eyes floating in the jar. He walked to a metal door behind his desk, opening the door to a brightly lit white room. The room was filled with tightly packed shelf’s. Covering them were neatly placed, lighted green, jars with a pair of eyes in each. Some having labels with names on them.
Barker went over to a narrow cabinet. He opened it and pulled out a liquid filled empty jar. He switched containers for the eyes, bringing them over to a lone empty space on one shelf.
“if his eyes were just a bit brighter. You would have had a new friend.” Barker said to the eyes, a grin growing as the orbs floated.
*meanwhile*
Waylon was rubbing the back of Eddies neck. he was sleeping above Waylon again, tangling him in his arms. He would have rubbed his back, but was afraid of catching the stitches. It was still early in the night, but Waylon couldn’t sleep since he woke up.
His mind had been buzzing with thoughts. A single question haunting him.
“should I stay with Eddie?” Waylon questioned. Waylon was beginning to doubt the love between them to. His mind keeps telling him that he does, but is it true. What if it was just because of Stockholm syndrome. When he thought about it, was he afraid of leaving because he would be truly heartbroken.
He couldn’t think of that as the main reason. He was just too afraid of Eddie to leave. that was more a sign of spousal abuse then love. He could sneak away, but other things were stopping him. He was having a war with two parts of his mind, one wanting to leave the other to stay.
“you cant leave him, not after everything you’ve been through.”
“yes you can, you don’t owe anything. You both went through hell, but that’s all. Other patients suffered it, should you be with them? You're just afraid to leave him.”
“no iam not.”
“yes you are. You’re afraid that he'll attack you, and that once you leave you’ll be alone. That’s a unhealthy way of thinking. You could meet other, normal, better people. You wont be alone out there.”
“i cant live a normal life with people. Things have changed.”
“whats really changed? You're scarred and have PTSD, but that’s a normal healthy reaction. What about Eddie? He hasn’t changed either, hes still sick. You can heal and become normal again someday. Eddie cant, he will stay sick and abnormal forever. You cant change him and one day ... his sickness will win over you!!”
“no, NO!!” Waylon denied in a painful whisper. He closed his eyes as they started to tear up.
“you could run away. Go and find a hospital and claim amnesia, they'll believe it. They’ll help you be normal again. They'll heal you and let you truly be free. Not a prison you keep trying to cover as a loving relationship. Sick people don’t love, they just obsess over things they consider property. Run and escape him.” his voice growled deeply in his mind.
Waylon gripped onto Eddies shirt tightly, crying into his chest. Hearing Waylon in distress Eddie woke up, concern coming over him. He moved his arms to be wrapped around Waylon, gently shushing him. Waylon buried his face more, unable to stop crying.
He didn’t ask questions from Waylon. assuming he suffered something involving the engine. The engine affects were unfix able. Printed onto the brain in a scarring manor that would never fully disappear. It effected some more then others. Eddie had seen some people turned into unresponsive zombies, or thoughtless attackers. If Waylon had been there for another 4 months he would have been one of them.
Eddie reached up one hand, putting it behind Waylons head and brushing through his hair. Waylons crying slowly died down till it was small whimpers and a few sobs. Eddie gently shushed him some more.
“its okay.” Eddie spoke gently. Hearing Eddies voice calmed Waylon down faster. Waylon swallowed down his depression for a moment.
“iam sorry.” Waylon spoke, muffled, into Eddies chest. He held Waylon tight, kissing the top of his head. ignoring the compulsory feeling to entangle Waylon. It made Waylon feel a little more safe, despite the war in his head.
“you’re not safe. Hes sick, diseased of the brain.” Waylons brain warned, before it shut off for sleep.
*early morning*
Waylon was gently shaken awake by Eddie. He opened his eyes, seeing the bag with everything packed nearby. He was confused by the sight of it. He rose from the bed, still exhausted. The early morning blue light coming through the curtains made Waylon groan. How early was he awakened from his calming sleep.
“time to get up. We're leaving.” Eddie said.
“leaving?! Leaving where?!” Waylon questioned, pausing mid stretch at what Eddie said.
“people know we're here. So we have to leave for a different living space.” Eddie said.
“where would that be?” Waylon questioned, getting angry that Eddie was forcing them to leave.
“next town over.” Eddie said, putting the bag on. Waylon choked on his own spit.
“the next town?! Do you know how far that is?!” Waylon said.
“yes, but its safer there, and we'll be farther from Murkoff.” Eddie smiled as he helped Waylon up.
“he is diseased.” Waylon thought with a growl. He didn’t want to trudge through the cold winter whether to another town. They were safe where they were, but Eddie was paranoid because of 1 kid. He sighed as he followed Eddie out the door.
They walked outside of town, hidden in the vast thick forest. A thick layer of frost had formed on every surface. The crunching of frozen pine needled under his feet made Waylon feel colder.
“this is ridiculous.” Waylon thought. He glared at his breath, watching the thick fog he made drift off. It was early morning, freezing winter weather and they were going to walk 60 miles to the next town. Going through the forest, that Waylon was sure had mountain lions and bears.
“its never too late to run.” his mind spoke. Waylon rubbed his head, irritated and obtaining a headache. He was getting sick of the war in his head. He couldn’t leave Eddie, he just … couldn’t. Nothing was stopping him from running ... so why didn’t he?
He made up excuses and his mind broke them. A lot of people suffered in mount massive. what made Eddie special to keep in company with? Only that they escaped together and both survived. Waylon could go to the hospital, give a excuse of amnesia. Doctors couldn’t look up records if he didn’t know his name. Murkoff wouldn’t be able to trace him under a hospital assigned name or code.
“ staying out of pity?” Waylon thought. He did feel bad for Eddie after hearing his story. Maybe that’s why he stayed, he didn’t want to be known as another to abandon him.
“hes not a stray to be cared for. Hes a rabid dog. Someone abandoned him for a reason.” his mind spoke. Waylon was shocked by his thought, almost stumbling. It seemed to come out of nowhere. How could he possibly think that. It was disturbing to him, it couldn’t have been his thought. He could never think so negatively about someone. He felt sick, his thoughts were getting a bit more “carried away” then normal.
He wasn’t paying attention and walked into Eddie. He backed up annoyed, why did he stop. He looked up Eddie, expecting for him to look at him. When he wasn’t, Waylon got nervous. Did he accidentally say his dark thought out loud? Waylons heart skipped a beat.
“Eddie …?” Waylon said, barely above a whisper. Eddie quickly shushed him, not even fully looking at him over his shoulder. Waylon was a little taken back by the sudden shush. He looked around Eddie. All the color in his face vanished at the sight of a Murkoff blockade up ahead.
“head back to town.” Eddie said, facing Waylon and gently pushing him to walk the opposite direction. Waylon quickly walked, feeling sick and light headed at the sight. At least they weren’t seen, but how long would that last?
“they must be searching towns.” Waylon said.
“told you that girl would mess with things.” Eddie said.
“i don’t think this would be from a kid. Murkoff heard about two injured strangers in town after only 12 hours?” Waylon said.
“rumors and gossip spread fast, dear.” Eddie said, being alert of they're surroundings.
They made it back to the hotel. Waylon was feeling beyond ill when they made it and had to vomit in the bathroom. Eddie checked on him before he went to watch the window. Waylon stood back up and leaned over the sink, splashing water on his face.
“we cant leave the city, but we still have to leave here.” Eddie said. Waylon growled to himself, still leaning over the sink. He was still exhausted, the added stress not helping. He sighed going back to bed and covering himself to block the rising sun.
*a few hours later*
Waylon frowned as he felt himself being moved in his sleep. He didn’t want to wake up so Eddie could move them again. He ignored the light movement. He refused to get up till Eddie forced him up. The movement stopped and Waylon thought Eddie had given up.
Waylon became concerned when his face felt cold like ice. Becoming alarmed when that cold sensation was now feeling a bit suffocating. He opened his eyes, wrenching his head up to gasp in some air. Eddie was holding him under a shower head spraying freezing water down on his head.
“why did you do that!!!” Waylon snapped, wiping the water from his face. He expected Eddie to pull him off the bed to wake him up. Not put him in a freezing shower.
“you wouldn’t wake up.” Eddie said, holding Waylon up.
“that’s because I didn’t want to wake up.” Waylon grumbled.
“i tried for an hour. You had a serious fever.” Eddie said. That caught Waylons attention. He looked down and examined himself. His clothes were covered in a light sticky layer of sweat. Only the area around his head being soaked from the shower. He noticed the fever he had now. His skin felt on fire with no relenting moments from it. Eddie released him when he had his footing.
“iam going to get you medicine.” Eddie said. Waylon felt some panic about that.
“you cant go out there, Murkoffs here!!” Waylon said.
“your fevers high. If it doesn’t get better, you'll cook your own body. Take a cold shower while iam gone.” Eddie commanded as he left Waylon in the bathroom. Waylon couldn’t argue with that. It took a cold shower to wake him, he was wet with sweat and his skin felt on fire. After hearing the front door close, he stripped to take a cold shower.
He stayed in the shower for what felt like forever. He felt tired, light headed, and constantly thirsty. His burning skin felt unaffected by the water, still burning underneath the shower. To satisfy his thirst, he drank from the water pouring down on him. He thought it was a little disgusting, but it was better then guzzling there whole bottled water supply.
He looked away from the stream to the closed bathroom door. Waylon wondered where Eddie was and if he was okay. Something abnormal formed in the room. He didn’t catch it at first, his mind took a moment to recognize it. When he noticed he looked away from the door. next to the door, above the sink, was a mirror. In the mirror was a corpse resembling him.
Its skin was a sickly, pale, darkened green. The eyes were unseen in the black sunken in circles. Its face resembling more of a skull with its tight darkened skin. its whole body anorexic, bones pointing and gliding under tight skin. Its hair was dark and dull, somehow not falling out and sticking together.
Waylon stared at the creature in the mirror with wide eyes. The creature was looking away till Waylon looked at it too long. It turned its head to look at him with crackle noises of its neck moving. It looked at him and slowly opened its mouth with a threatening growl hiss. Inside its mouth were multiple sharp teeth and blackness. The skin on its cheeks splitting apart from the force of opening its jaws.
A scream got caught in Waylons parched throat. He jolted himself back against the other end of the tub/ shower. He hit the wall and hid behind the dark blue curtain at the end. He stayed still as he could, his body shaking with fear. He stayed there silently, listening to the sound of bones crackling and snapping. When the room went quiet, excluding the shower, he peeked out from the curtain side.
He was still shaking when he looked. He saw himself, looking at the mirror in the reflection. He let out a deep breath of relief to not see the decaying creature. He didn’t want to shower anymore, getting out quickly and changing. It didn’t take long for his body to sweat through the new clothes. He stayed in the bathroom, leaning over the sink.
He barely remembered getting changed and how, or why he was at the sink. He looked up at the mirror, staring at it for a moment. He heard something like a hiss and was startled. He looked around the room, fearing the creature returned. The hissing happened again, being more clearly this time. It was whispering.
Waylon listened, looking around in fear to find the source. The whispers slowly became clearer and clearer. He swallowed down what little was left of the moisture in his mouth.
“ what?” Waylon asked, feeling they were trying to say something important.
“its spreading … its spreading … its spreading ...” the voices whispered repeatedly. Waylon was going to ask them what was spreading, but stopped. He noticed something dark moving on the bottom of his arm. He turned it over, his stomach flipping when he saw darkness spreading through his veins and up his arm. Where it spread the skin turned into that sickened green the corpse was. He panicked, turning on the faucet, trying to scrub it away with hot water. It only slowed the spread.
“cut it out … the disease … cut it out …” the voices whispered. Waylon didn’t know what else to do. He ran into the main room to the backpack. he tossed things aside and out till he found his hunting knife. He returned to the bathroom, slightly happy to see the disease hadn’t spread much. With a shaky hand he started gouging into the infected area. He shredded through his arm, feeling no pain from it, watching red blood flow out and pour into the sink.
He frantically cut through more of it. He became hysterical as he saw the infection continued to spread up his arm. The whispering turning to yelling as it wanted the disease carved out. He began hyperventilate and was about to amputate his infected arm when a hand grabbed the knife away.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING??!!” Eddie yelled at him, yanking the knife away and pinning him to the wall. He came into the bathroom, finding Waylon shredding his arm open. The whole white sink was coated in thick red blood, dripping off to the tiled floor. The walls were also splattered from Waylon yanking the knife out. It all looked like a murder scene happened.
“its spreading!! I have to cut it out!!” Waylon said being strongly upset that Eddie stopped him. He struggled and thrashed under Eddies hold.
“whats spreading?!” Eddie questioned, holding Waylon and keeping the knife far away from his reach. Waylon looked at his arms to say “that”, but went quiet as he saw no infection.
His arm was its normal skin color. The middle area down the bottom of his arm shredded open. There were long varying cuts that blood poured from. Waylon started to silently cry at he stared at the mutilation he just did. He wasn’t sure if the crying was caused by relief that the infection was gone, or from pain swarming in. he heard Eddie grumble something as he took him to the other room by his good arm.
He made Waylon sit on the bed and hold a towel to the bleeding wound. he sat quietly, staring at the bloody towel with a blank face, his mind void of thought. Eddie searched around the room for medical supply’s. Waylon tossed things all around the room and Eddie had to regather them.
Finding everything, Eddie treated Waylons mutilated arm. Cleaning it out and bandaging it. Waylon by his own stupid luck, missed the very important tendons in his arm. If those were damaged, his hand would have been useless. Eddie pulled out a bottle of medicine from his pocket, sitting next to the still blank Waylon. He read over instructions and poured a cap full of syrup. Eddie almost coughed from the strong smell as he gave it to Waylon.
“drink this.” Eddie commanded. Waylon stared at it blankly, unmoving. Eddie thought that Waylon didn’t understand him and was about to help him. Waylon poured all the medicine into his mouth with one large tilt of the cup. Waylon gagged on it almost spitting it out. Eddie grabbed his mouth, keeping it closed so he couldn’t spit.
“swallow it.” Eddie commanded with a growl. Waylon swallowed it down roughly, having a coughing fit after. Eddie picked him up again to move him back to the bathroom. He needed another cold shower to keep his fever down and to wash all the blood away.
Eddie will stay with him, not trusting Waylon to be good on his own. He stripped Waylon down with little struggle from him. The sickness and lack of blood making him a disoriented being. Able of doing only very simple tasks on his own. He left Waylon in the shower while he cleaned up the bloody sink area.
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If requests are still up, may I request Aizawa and his crush, the reader, coming across a child who has a strong mix of their features and who keeps following them and kinda annoying and it's later revealed that this child is their future kid together who has the quirk of being able to teleport to the past. This fact, which only Aizawa learns, prompts him to gain the courage to confess to reader that he loves them.
[this was actually super adorable and fun to write! Admittedly this one is a long one, it took me a while, but hopefully it still came out rather decent and hopefully you still love it! I’m sorry if it’s not the best work I’ve put out, I have t really ever done anything like this but I really enjoyed the challenge!]
Twenty children was where Aizawa drew his line. The maximum capacity of children the man could handle before his patience wore to their absolute thinniest was twenty. Not twenty one. With a set of uninterested eyes, he looked down at the little girl who was now rested happily in his arms, a sigh of irritation passing his lips. Truthfully, he didn’t know where this extra child had come from. When he arrived to his classroom this morning, the small child was stood in the center of his room whimpering and crying. From a glance the child didn’t look to be more than three years of age, which only peeked his curiosutiy. How did a toddler manage to break seemlessly into the most secured school in the area. He tried to see if the child would pass any information his way, but upon realizing this was just a typical child, lost and frightened, he put his quest for answers on hold.
So now here he was, baby sitting a much more calmed toddler, the girl resting contently in his arms. It was strange to him just how relaxed the child seemed in his arms compared to how she reacted with others. Upon discovery of the girl his first instinct was to drop the child in Nezus company, but that plan immediately fell to pieces when the girl refused to released the growingly agitated teachers neck from her hold. Giving a sigh his eyes met with the child’s while his brows furrowed a huff passing his lips, “I can’t carry you around all day kid, I have things I need to do. You’re going to have to sit with someone else while I do them.”
The child gave a grunt of disapproval, her little legs kicking and stretching as she grabbed ahold of the man’s scarf, curling her little fist around it. “No!”
Great, just what he needed. A child with an attitude. He didn’t have the patience for this, not today at least. He needed to find someone to pawn this child off on to. It was clear that she wasn’t acceptant of any of the male teachers he tried to pass her along to, maybe someone with a very maternal instinct would work. Carrying the now fussing and sassy little monster down the hall, he made his way to your classroom giving a hum as his attention fell to the toddler in his arms. “Tantrums aren’t a way of getting what you want.”
His heart clenched when the child gently shoved at his chest, she pulling her lips into the sweetest pout. “No!” He knew that pout, but not from seeing it on this child’s face. Often times when the habitually uninterested man would deny you his attention or his time, you often gave him the same pout. It struck the softer strands of his heart, considering the feelings he’d managed to build for you. Though to no avail, much like when you presented the strict hero the same pout, the child got no where.
Letting his hand knock once at your door before sliding it open, he felt a wave of relief flood his body when he saw you sitting at your desk. Clearing his throat in an attempt to grab your attention, he gave you a gentle hum when your eyes finally meet. His heart jumped, smacking viciously against his chest as he felt the warmth and care they spread take over his body, he all but forgetting how to breathe in that instant. “Hey, shouldn’t you be teaching?” You chuckled, eyes slowly making their way down his side to the child in his arms. “Oh my god Shouta she’s so precious, is this your daughter? You didn’t tell me you had a kid” It hurt your heart a little to entertain the idea of the man having a family already, seeing as to how you managed to develop quite the crush on the stoic and stuffy pro hero. Part of you hoped he’d answer no to your question, but you highly doubted he would considering just how much the small girl resembled him. She had the same cute little nose and her face shared a similar shape. Even her hair fell similarly to his, while it was a different color, it sat and looked a lot like his.
Unable to maintain his feelings, a soft peach began to fuse its way across his typically mute cheeks. Pressing his lips together, he nervously tried to swollow his embarrassment. “No she isn’t mine. What would make you think something crazy like that?”
Relieved to hear, you let a hushed sigh pass your lips as you moved to reach for the child, who for the first time today was eager to leave Aizawas arms. Chuckling at the girls excitement, your heart couldn’t help flutter at the smile she gave, it looking so similar to the man’s in front of you, well when ever he did smile. You grinned and moved to tuck the child, who very instinctively moved to press her head into the side of your neck, against your chest as you gently shifted your weight as you began to rock them softly “I don’t know, the fact she looks just like you was my main thing” you smiled watching as the child’s eyes began to close, a thumb popping into her mouth as she moved closer to you.
Amazed by your motherly instinct, Shouta breath hitched in his throat as he stood unable to tear his eyes off of you. Not only were you incredibly tough, talented and smart, seeing this whole new nurturing side of you really solidified the feelings he had for you. It took his brain a moment to realize he had been staring at you for what some would consider far to long. While he stood gawking at the sight in front of him, he couldn’t help but notice the subtle details of the child’s face that reminded him much more of you then they did himself. “I can see some resemblances, but now that you’re holding her it’s very uncanny just how much she looks like you..”
You gave a snort of disbelief as you looked down at the nearly sleeping child that moved to curl as close as she could against you. “Ha ha, very funny. So if she isn’t you’re child who is she then?”
Flustered by your response, his eyes cast to the ground, fingers crawling across the back of his neck “Thats the thing...I don’t know who she is. I came in this morning and she was standing in the middle of my room. Ive had her since then, she hasn’t let me put her down until now. You’re the first person she’s willing left me for, and the only person she stayed calm in front of. I was hoping you could watch her, just until we figure out what to do with her. 1-A has progress testing for their quirks today, i don’t want her caught in the crossfires. I can come back for her once I’m done.”
The shock pooled in your features as you took in all of the information provided to you. How did such a sweet innocent angel manage to find herself stranded in the center of a U.A high school class. Even if she was left here, who would it be by? It’s not like many people have access in and out of the school. Left with just as much confusion as the other, you gave a hum as you pushed the little girls hair from her face. You supposed you could watch her for a bit while the other attended to his teacherly duties. She was a cute little thing after all, and despite Shouta minor horror story, she seemed like a sweet girl. You gave him a soft smile, your heart pounding when the child in your arms gave a gentle yawn and fluttered those big eyes of hers up at you. It gave you a chill, you could understand what the other meant when he claimed the girl did resemble you just as much as she did him. Tugging the child protectively against your chest you let your chin rest on her head, “I’ll watch her for now...we can figure out who she is and where her parents are when you get back, though if we can’t figure it out she may just have to come home with one of us.” You sighed, finger gently caressing the toddlers cheek as she dozed off.
Nodding in agreement, the 1-A teacher crossed his arm, a heavy sigh rippling past his mouth. “Hopefully it doesn’t come to that. I’ll be back a few hours, if I’m lucky my class will get through these tests manageably and quickly.” Though with how competitive those students could get sometimes, he never held out to much hope.
-
As agreed upon Aizawa returned to your room once his exams were complete, breathing a sigh of relief to see the small child behaving for you as well as she bahaved for him. It was heart warming for him to see just how much of a family the three of you looked like. Admittedly while you and him worked together to find more information on the child, he may have smiled just a bit more than he typically did, his stomach fluttering to see the way you and the child interacted. Seeing him smile made your heart soar just as much.
After hours of searching to both of your disappointments, there seemed to be no trail of who this child was. It looked like the girl would be staying with one of you for the night. It was getting late, the time now about five in the afternoon. Seeing as to how the small girls patience began to run thin, she resorting to tantrums you both dame to the conclusion that it’d be best for the child to stay with him for the night. Sighing, the not so happy erasure hero grabbed the small girl up in his arms, “Lets get you home, your probably starving, huh.” Gathering the child and his things, he gave you a smile thank you for the help today. You gave him a smile in return, a blush poking onto your cheeks when you told him if he needed anything to just call. Appreciative of that aizawa nodded his head. He didn’t think he’d need you, the child seemed fairly attached to him, how bad could it be?...
Assuming the situation was under control was the worst move on Aizawa’s part. Once he’d arrived home and the child realized you would not be joining them, her little mouth didn’t seem to shut. She cried endlessly for what seemed like hours, she sobbing at the top of her lungs. God, Shouta hadn’t heard sobbing this loud since the time Yamada forced him to watch Marley and Me. Panicked, the new step in father covered his ears staring at the child with fear in his eyes “What?! What! Why are you crying please stop!” He pleeded, all but shouting in attempt to speak over her.
The child now crying more, he tried to relax and think rationally about the situation, hands fishing into his pockets to immediately call you. As he listened to the dial tone, he threw the conversation onto speaker so you were sure to get an earful of the same torment he was getting. It wasn’t long before you answered the phone call to the child’s screaming, you not even waiting for the question you both knew was coming. Informing him you’d be there as fast as you could, you hung up the call, not even waiting for his response.
As soon as the phone call dropped, the exhausted and weary man moved to scoop the crying child into his arms. Doing his best to imitate your movements from before, Shouta hushed and rocked the child on his hip, lowering his voice as he spoke “please stop crying now or tell me what you want. I don’t know why you’re crying.”
The small toddler rubbed at her eyes, she still sniffling and whimpering as she managed to choke out “mommy! I wan’ mommy.”
That was strange, the child had been with you and a Shouta all day, but not once had she mentioned her mother or father. Now suddenly when she was left alone with just him she was calling for her mother? Chalking it up to the late hour of the night and the child feeling vulnerable and scared, he gave a sigh and continue to soothe the child until you arrived a half an hour later.
Happy to hear your knock, Shouta swung the door open, relief flooding past his lips as he handed the child your way, he giving the heaviest sigh. “It’s been non stop since after we ate. I tried to get her ready for bed and since then she’s been screaming ceaselessly.” He grunted hands now moving to rub at his temples. “Do something. She seemed responsive to you back in your room.”
Taken aback by the child being hoisted immediately into your arms, you gave a grunt. For some reason hearing this baby scream the way she did really broke your heart. You hated to see the face that reminded you so strongly of Shoutas drenched in tears. Her small little cheeks were no longer the soft pale they were the last time you saw her, they stained red from the crying. Pressing your lips to the top of her head, you twisted your body back and forth hushing the toddler, “shhh shhh it’s okay...you’re safe. I won’t let anything hurt you, your okay...”
It didn’t take more than a minute before the child seemed to stop, she clinging herself to you in a way that was much more demanding than before. The way the child seemed to curl around to your body was almost more than just looking for safety. You seemed to noticed she felt a connection to you, almost similar to the bond a child would have to her mother. Strange, considering you’d never met this girl before in your life.
Blessed to hear the crying had stopped, aizawa let the breath he was holding release, he looking to you with soft eyes. Shortly after calming the girl down it became clear that the child wanted both of you around, not just one. It being the only way to keep the girl in check, the two of you decided that you would spend the night here, just until tomorrow. You and the kid would take the bed while aizawa would rest on the couch, if he decides to sleep at all, which honestly he didn’t think would happen. Even though he was exhausted both physically and mentally he couldn’t sleep. Nothing about the situation was adding up in his head, it making his brain to overworked to shut down. Unable to sleep he stayed up. Setting his computer on his lap, he checked through some assignments he had fallen behind on grading. Since he wasn’t sleeping he may as well work. Though after a few hours of reading papers and grading work sheets, his body managed to fall asleep, his work surrounding him.
When he came to, the first thing he did was check on both you and the child. Though when he opened the bedroom door and peered into the room the only body laying in the bed was yours. His heart stopping in his chest, he scampered around the house frantically like a maniac. He tore the rooms apart to find the child, but there was no signs of her. She was gone. There was no where she could have left the house on her own...was it possibly her quirk? Did she break out exactly the same way she broke into the school? Unlikely. Someone would have noticed her. Nervously gnawing his fingers, the realization of the situation began to hit him. The child’s irrational clinginess to both him and you. The chilling resemblance of both of you in the child’s face. The way the child cried for her mother and stopped the moment you arrived and held her. It was all beginning to make sense now. If his face had color to drain, it would have at the realization aizawa had made. That was his child. Not just his, but your child too. She was a child born from both of you. Not much shocked this man, but right now you could knock him over with a feather. While he was fuzzy on the details of how the child managed to find you two well before being born, he knew one thing for certain. He wanted everything he’d felt yesterday to be a reality. While he’d been busy trying to fight the feelings he had for you, the day you spent with him creating this mock family was all to real for him to hide from. He wanted everything he’d just experienced with you. Affirmed by his feelings, the instant your eyes were open he would admit everything to you. His feelings, his thoughts, everything about how much you mean to him. Though, the small discovery he’d made would remain his little secret. One day you’d find out for yourself what he already knew. Walking quietly back to the bedroom, he stood watching you from the door way, arms crossed as he sighed. He loved you, and when you woke up he couldn’t wait to tell you.
#aizawa shouta#aizawa x reader#my hero academia#toshinori x reader#toshinori yagi#hizashi x reader#yamada hizashi#bnha requests#eraserhead#bnha aizawa
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Shadows of Hyrule | Chapter 75
Link noticed the brightness first, but he couldn’t find the source of the light. It was making his head hurt and all he wanted to do was turn it off and stay in the dark. He groaned and shifted, noticing only then a solid presence against him. He felt a warm hand on his arm and realized how cold he felt. He turned his face towards the form beside him, but still only saw a strange, bright red color.
“Link?”
He tried to speak, but no sound came out. He wasn’t even sure if he was moving his lips to make any words form. And then it hit him; his eyes were closed. He opened them slowly, and the light only seemed to get brighter, but the red color disappeared. He blinked quickly, allowing his eyes to adjust, and as they did, shapes and colors started to come together. He looked down towards the voice to see Mipha laying against him. Her concerned gaze met his, and though his head pounded, he smiled reassuringly at her.
“Hey.” His voice was hoarse and it hurt his throat. He closed his eyes and sighed.
“Hey.”
He could hear the smile in her voice and couldn’t help but to let his mouth turn up once more. He tried to clear his throat, but did not open his eyes. “Where… when… what’s up?” He couldn’t quite figure out what he wanted to ask first.
Mipha laughed. Her fingers moved between his. “Where? You’re in a hospital. When? It’s been two days since you and Zelda sealed Ganondorf away. I’m Mipha, you’re Link, and you were so delusional you tried to hit on a male nurse.”
“Hm.” Link nodded. “I don’t remember that.” Or much of anything, if he were being honest, but he didn’t want to worry her anymore.
“You’ve been in and out of consciousness,” Mipha said, her voice softer.
Link settled into the bed and wrapped his arms around her. He pressed his cheek to the top of her head. He let his fingers play with her hair and she sighed.
“I guess it’s all over now,” she said.
Link nodded and kissed her hair. He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. “At least we still have a few weeks left of summer break.”
Mipha laughed. “Guess we will have to go back to our ordinary lives.” She pulled away slightly and met his gaze. “Are you even going to try this year?”
Link shrugged and grinned. “Guess I don’t have any more excuses.”
Mipha fell silent. Her gaze lingered on his for a moment, the tears quickly filling her eyes. She pressed her face against his neck and moved her body as close to him as she could.
“I thought you were dead,” she sobbed softly. “You were dead!”
Link pressed his face against her. He had no answer for her, for he was certain that he had died.
“I can't fix dead,” she said, her voice shaking.
“It was you or me,” he muttered, but Mipha only slammed her fist against his chest, and he winced and grunted.
Her sobs quieted, however, and after a moment, she turned her face up to him. “What happened to you?” she asked softly.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
Mipha shook her head and let her head rest against his chest. “Not now,” she said with a sigh. “A story for another time.”
Link frowned but didn’t argue further. He didn’t particularly feel like talking about it, anyway. He brushed her tears away and pressed his lips against hers. But to his dismay, they were not alone for long. Revali happened to walk by, and seeing Link was up, burst into the room with Daruk on his tail.
“My bitches,” he said cheerfully. “Are you awake for real this time? Or are you going to try to get in my pants again?”
Link hesitated and met Mipha’s gaze. She grinned and shook her head quickly.
“Don’t ruin all my fun,” Revali whined. “What’s the point of having a delusional friend if you can’t exploit him once in a while?”
At that moment, Urbosa’s head poked in around the corner. Her gaze landed on Link and she grinned. “So, this is where the party’s at.”
“Mipha already pooped on the party,” Revali said, crossing his arms.
Mipha rolled her eyes. “Your presence ruined the party, Revali.”
“Hey,” he snapped at her. “I am the life of the party.”
Urbosa put a hand on her hip and leaned against the doorway. “Zelda’s up, too,” she informed them. “Looks like we can all get out of here soon.”
Link’s brows furrowed. But before he could say anything further, Daruk spoke up, his tone serious. He met Link’s gaze.
“We’ve gotta get you both caught up.”
“Caught up?” Link echoed. “On what?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Revali said. He turned his gaze to Urbosa. “I thought you were bringing along that little thing with you.”
Urbosa raised a brow. “Thing One or Thing Two?” She grinned and looked over her shoulder. “They’re on their way.”
But Link didn’t have to ask who, as he heard their loud voices coming from down the hall. The sound of skipping soles on tile grew closer until Riju and Aryll both skidded to a stop in front of the doorway.
At the sight of her brother, Aryll flew through the door and threw herself onto Link, ignoring his pained grunts as her arms clung around his neck. “Finally,” she exclaimed. She poked his nose with a little finger. “You take too long to get up all the time!”
Link smiled sheepishly at his little sister. “Sorry.”
“I don't like being here,” she said, crossing her arms and pouting slightly. “Can we go home now?”
“Soon,” Link said. “I'm sure we can go soon. Why are you here, anyway?”
“Where else am I gonna be?” she said as if it were obvious. “I wanted to be here with you and Dad until we could all go home together.”
Link turned a nervous gaze to Mipha as Aryll continued on.
“Urbosa and Riju tried to make me leave with them, but I didn't want to, so Mipha said she would stay here with me.” She turned to Mipha and grinned at her.
“He's fine,” Mipha assured him, and Link visibly relaxed. “We got caught up in... some trouble. He saved us.”
“Oh.” Link's brows knit together as he tried to put the pieces together. So much had happened in that battle; so much he was unaware of, and it made him feel uneasy. He turned his attention back to his sister. She had retrieved the Master Sword from the table across the room and was holding it carefully, sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed. She was smiling and speaking to it quietly.
“I bet Fi took good care of you,” Aryll said, looking up and meeting her brother's gaze with a smile. “She promised me she would.”
Mipha sat on the edge of the bed and raised a brow to the sword. “Fi?”
“That's her name,” Aryll said proudly.
Mipha turned to Link and grinned. “Is that what you named her?”
“I didn't name her that,” Link muttered. He crossed his arms. “It's just her name.”
“Sometimes I think you like that thing more than me.” Her grin widened playfully.
“Maybe the same,” Aryll said, running her fingers along the dull of the steel. “She's special.”
“Room three-sixteen,” Revali said over his shoulder as he made his way out of the room. Urbosa and Riju followed suit, making their way down the hall, Riju speaking excitedly about the hot doctor she saw earlier in the day. Revali made a comment, and judging by the yelp that followed, Urbosa had hit him upside the head.
Daruk smiled and shook his head. “See ya later, brother,” he said before following his friends down the hall.
Link turned another questioning gaze to Mipha, but Aryll answered his unspoken question.
“That’s Daddy’s room,” she said. She placed the sword down at the foot of the bed and jumped off. “He said I had to come over here and annoy you so you would wake up. You must’ve known I was comin’, Link!” She grinned up at him.
“I heard you a mile away, Ary,” he said.
Aryll jumped up, clearly pleased to hear this. “Okay, I’m going to play with Riju, now,” she said. She brushed her hands together. “My job here is done!”
“Stay out of the closets!” Mipha shouted at her as she ran out of the room. “And no running!”
Link snorted. “You’re such a mom,” he said.
Mipha blushed and crossed her arms. “Someone has to be,” she muttered. “Without you or your dad, she’s been running around like a cucco with its head cut off.”
“Wasn’t that Riju’s job?”
Mipha rolled her eyes. “Please. You know how well that had to have gone.”
He turned to the wires that seemed to come out of every place on his body, and he frowned. He pulled gently at the one on his arm; an IV that seemed to be simply pumping fluids into him. He groaned lightly - more like whined - and settled back against the bed.
“Get me out of here,” he murmured. He was beyond done with hospitals and anything that was even remotely relative to the battle he had endured just a couple of days ago. He wanted to stretch his legs, and more importantly, see his father. And Zelda, though the thought of that made him inexplicably anxious. He stretched his legs and wiggled his toes. “I’m so done with hospitals.”
Mipha stood and stretched her arms. “Me too,” she said with a sigh. She tilted her head and smiled at him. “I know you’re fine, but,” she shrugged, “you know, logistics.” She turned and made her way to the door. “I’ll hunt down Impa and get things moving. Don’t go nowhere.” With one last smile, she stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind her.
Link looked around the room. He checked his body quickly, ensuring that he was really all in one piece, then found the control for the tv that hung on the wall. He clicked through it with a bored sigh, but most of the channels were still abuzz with news reports of the battle that had taken place in the city.
On one channel, a female reporter stepped carefully through rubble and debris in the city streets. The palace stood tall in the background of the shot. She looked around her as she spoke, occasionally turning her eyes to the camera.
“There’s still no word on the number of casualties,” she informed her viewers, her gaze somber. “King Roham’s statements, however, seem to hold true. Despite the chaos that took place just two days ago, it seems Hyrule has fared better than expected.” She went on to mention reports that came in from other reporters from around the kingdom, and the screen flashed to another reporter. The clip was dated nearly twelve hours ago as he, too, reported on the Faron region.
Link clicked off the tv. He had no interest in hearing anymore about the battle, though he knew he wouldn’t be able to escape it so easily, especially once he stepped foot out of the hospital. He was sure reporters would be waiting to shove their microphones at him. Not only that, they still had to find and close the fourth and final portal - or the first one, however they chose to look at it - and apparently, there was much more to be discussed.
Link sighed and closed his eyes. Though he had seemingly slept most of the last two days, he felt exhausted, and all he wanted to do was sleep some more.
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Art theraphy (OMOMTRTA)
(This is a story about the latest shall we date game Obey me! One master to rule them all. I don’t own the game just the Oc I made to be the MC Also if you haven’t played the game..back out the hell now.cause SPOILERS LINK TO THEM IN THE BIOOO)
Lucifer was minding his own damn business when he noticed a box. it wasnt a scam box,or the latest weeb, it was a box loaded with art supplies. he knew who it was so he picked it up bending with his knees and took it there. and when he placed it down he began texting.
Lucifer: Christina...Did you order anything?
Christna: Oh yes! I ordered some art supplies to help me with my theraphy. Did they arrive? Ill go get them.
Lucifer: No need they are at your door now. And if you tried to lift them you might hurt your back.
Christina: Thanks Lucifer! Youre the greatest!
This did make Lucifer blush. He did like it when Christina praised him. It was like when Lilith did when she was around all those eons ago. He smiled seeing her door open and her squealing excited at the box and quickly scanning her room for a box cutter. when she found one she was extra careful opening it and began inspection on each item. "Lets see..1 set of scented ink in the colors of the rainbow..check. Water colorss..check. chinese paintbrushes and brushes in a pinstripe tip with a metal case to match..check..Sketchbooks that can tolerate ink and water color..and books on the weather of Devildom...check and check...400 Grimm well spent on theraphy." Lucifer almost cringed cause Mammon and Asmo and their spending habits but,if this was for theraphy and the shopping itself wasnt theraphy he will stomach it. "May i help you with this 'Theraphy' of yours?" He asked. Chrissy made a happy gasp and nods cause the point of it was talking out your emotions while drawing them.
Lucifer sat down and saw her put the things about happily humming and looking at a prompt list on the internet. "So you do this to make you happy? When did it start?" She hesitated and went silent.. "Lucifer...Lord Diavolo has punishments in each area right? The places i cant go i mean." She asked. Lucifer nodded not knowing where she was going with it until she asked "Where do abusive fathers go? I know ive seen people like me here in phases of hell. cause you and your brothers have..fun with them or to me..curse my name being the meaning of purgetory.." she laughed making Lucifer chuckle a bit. "Okay how about as your drawing you tell me what you saw around my brothers. and ill tell you where your father might go." Whoever this dirtbag was he was gonna judge him himself. Didnt he know what a gem he had. Who does he think he is Henry the 8th?! "Welll Asmo gets alot of fan visits...and he has no respect for the thickness of the walls...or the floor..." "NEXT" Lucifer said facepalming. He knew their was gonna be a boom soon no thanks to him. No wonder poor chrissy gets creeped out by him. "Well Beels football team will do somthing nice when i bake cookies to help fund the team. They buy all by cookies before Beel eats them all.Somthing about Dining hall being a Warzone." Lucifer realized she only comes to the house to eat and not the dining hall. Thank hells she didnt see the last food fight. "Oh but you know that Mammon got a job right?" This was a small surprise to Lucifer and looked at her. "It was only for the day..we worked at Hells kitchen for a while..I was a waitress with Belphie and Mammon was a Fry coo-" That did it...Lucifer was laughing..good thing Chrissy was the only person listening. "I-im sorry continue.." Chrissy nodded "Now um i was wondering if my dad can go there since he robbed me,,,treated me like crap...malipulated me..." she went on and on about her abuse and not know Lucifer..even though was listening and was calm..and didnt know jack about this man..wanted to end his BLOODY LIFE.
That was then and nowadays the place was quiet and the men were mopey..Mammon did steal but not that much. Even levi was lonely. That was until their phones were ringing
The house of Lamentation(7):
Chrissy: Hey guys did you miss me?
Mammon: CHRISSSSYYYYY*crying*
Levi: How is it in the human world? You are collecting mangas for me right? And the latest Kpop stuff?
chrissy: I missed you guys too and yes Levi im keeping my promise.
*Shows a picture of her library and there was her normal books and her whole collection of manga and her fairy garden full of minitures*
Satan and Levi: So...many...books.:heart:
Chrissy: And most of them are autographed with notes from the authors and or voice actors. I can give you a tour of my house?
Everone: YES PLEASE
Thus began the video call. so in the call they saw each part of her room starting with well the house and outside. It was an domed roofed Eco manor on 10 acres of land , featuring solar pannels,Silo for her animals food, a inground pool, a nearby lake, a circular driveway with some oddly burned in treadmarks, and a stable. She began getting passionate about her horses and comparing some of them to the brothers. Alll of them wondered if they could they can get her to breed with one of their Hell horses..just to see what would happen. Then she showed inside where they are in her living room/kitchen area. It has leather couch,her gaming systems in a heart shaped cabinet, a flatscreen television and her bass guitar, and is open to the second story with a balcony overlooking the floor below in the living room area.The kitchen had two ways to get in from the living and dining area from the looks of it, a kitchen island, a rainbow of cake spactulas, cooking supplies and more. Beel was loving this room just as much as Levi loved the living room.There was even a Yogurt and cupcake machine!Lucifer was just happy she was following her Keto diet seeing the Keto cookbooks.then they saw Angel, her service dog, and her cat Sir snowball and her trying to calm them. They all did laugh at that and then mammon got excited seeing a beaut of a Mazda decaled with an angry unicorn in space on it. He could also tell it had carbon fiber hoods and roofing. She was MADE to race!
Chrissy: Mammon stop drooling over Winter..
Mammon: But shes beautiful!
Chrissy: And i dont want you Crashing her.
As the tour continues She showed her mermaid themed bathroom with 2 tubs 1 tub for the pets and 1 jucuzzi sized one for herself, A walk in shower raised on a platform, a freestanding hairdryer and a small electric fireplace in the corner that changed color.Asmo was getting ideas but it was cut off by a "Dont you think about it" from chrissy. Asmo pouted. All that was missing was a mini nail salon. Then the best part for all of them..her ROOM. Where she was sleeping for sometime. It features a large loft bed, freestanding mirror, fireplace and 3 full-length windows overlooking the ground below. The walls are decorated with all of her paintings and photos of them in poses she asked them to do which made them have the Feels. Cause they realized in almost every room there were these types of paintings and photos. And they saw her walk in closet that had some clothes all off them gave her and her vlogging gear. She did claim about having guest rooms but they were mostly storage at the moment. In the end of the tour she showed her editing room, Art room and smiled at them sadly when she said she had to go. Most of them whined but lucifer said. "Dont worry guys. she will call back at least we know her theraphy is making her feel alright." Then Lucifer was shocked when she asked "You guys will visit right?" they all nod and Chrissy hung up excited to show them around
#obey me one master to rule them all#obey me mammon#obey me leviathan#obey me mc#obey me lucifer#obey me satan
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atissi
replied to your post
“it kinda makes me sad when artists giving out tutorials on character...”
oh could you talk more about this? :o
ABSOLUTELY thank u for enabling me to go off about designs i love this shit this may get a bit long so its going under a readmore (sorry if ur on mobile i hope it works)
gonna start this off with im no expert Nor have i taken any sort of official art class this is me just analyzing characters from what i found that makes them memorable to ppl (most of these examples are going to be from games sorry i got them on my mind)
ok so basically making a memorable revolves around personality and appearance now theres different ways to go about showing these things and i think from consuming media you like will help narrow down how you wanna go about it, basically thinking about your character inside and out!
SO shapes and hyperstylization is a good way to get a fun appearance across in a cartoon esp media and is often what a lot of artists stress on an example of using shapes and a good silhouette to make a memorable character is sonic!(specifically comic sonic)
(had to google idw sonic for a non...u know image)
but not only do they use lots of triangles for this hedgehog they also made him blue! you’d be more likely to remember a blue headgehog over a realistically colored one!(also almost all of the sonic characters have a combination of fun shape + unusual color to help you remember them! the designs werent afraid to use color to make a bold statement)(he’s also segas mascot so of course they put a lot of work in his design)
now sonics appearance is not the only reason why people like him or remember him so much he’s also got personality! he’s cocky, fast, always getting into trouble, “you’re too slow!”, accompanied by shitty butt rock and a cool guy persona ie he’s got personality! and they weren’t afraid to give him some weird interests(see the butt rock) and he’s not perfect( see arrogance) if youve ever played a sonic game you have almost always remembered the crush 40 theme that went with it
all in all to go with his unusual appearance he’s got some unusual traits! it helps make him believable! admittedly he’s not the most embarrassing of the sonic crew (see knuckles or shadow) but he’s definitely rounded and not boring from an objective standpoint(you can not like sonic or his games i dont care)
(another example of something that requires good shapes is pokemon altho they arent really like very depthy since there are 600+ and some only have like a pokedex entry worth of info but still they have good and memorable designs)
NOW something that doesnt have the most “good shapes” design off the top of my head is link
now in the most recent zelda game his most memoriable physical attribute is that he’s on the androgynous side w his longer hair and smaller build but in his older designs he looked something like this
(art for a loz:link to the past)
not really that much of a striking silhouette, but what do we look at and kinda leaves an impression on us? his hair and hat! its very silly to see someone in such a big green hat with that big of bangs/mullet, the hat at least became so ridiculous of a look that in botw nintendo didnt include his hat in links main outfit bc it was too hard to make look good, its silly! thats good! its fine to have a normal human looking characters because sometimes stories are about humans, but if you want us to remember them include something that will strike us as strange for them
also probably a good thing to note is the noises link makes when he swings his sword, jumps, pushes something, ie any action they have always been something that has stuck with me
(another example similar to this is in mgs solid snake in mgs is this cool super spy but is rocking a full on mullet which is considered a joke hairstyle. this leaves an impression on us. a spy with a mullet! how ridiculous! another example is raiden who was specifically made bc a woman wrote that she didnt want to play as an “old man” so the protagonist of the super spy game is a longer haired pretty boy (with a huge ass))
now ive explained a little on a character with good shapes and personality and a character with a more “boring” shape design that makes up for it with almost quirky design choices but i feel like theres another series thats what originally got me thinking about how even a memorable silhouette doesnt need hyperstylization
ace attorney! (which is out on switch now if u havent played it i would def recommend it)
if you dont know the protagonist is the guy in the blue suit(phoenix), which well he looks like just a guy...with ridiculously spikey hair enough so that in his silhouette you can recognize him but also his posture (the pointing) makes for a sticking recognizable image bc if you’ve played the games you can practically hear objection just from looking at phoenix’s silhouette
which is another thing id like to talk about! not only are a good shape a way to have a good silhouette but posture is also important! how the character holds themselves can say alot about them just from a glance! such as meekness, arrogance, confidence, sadness, anger, happiness its a very important too especially when you arent relying on stylization
now onto the characters of ace attorney ive gone over phoenix's design a bit but theres a few others id like to look at with some Weird style choices that make us remember them(just going to glance over them since this post is so long)
now, this woman, franziska von karma, she dresses kind of strange for a prosecutor but her outfit is not too out there and her silhouette is not striking
but you see that whip? remember how i said she was a prosecutor? yeah she will strike people in court for getting off topic and will even hit phoenix when he starts breaking down her witnesses testimonies, which what literally strikes up about her
another prosecutor, godot, now his hair could provide a somewhat memorable shape but what we first notice is the strange mask on his face which is weird, but not the Same weird as franziska bringing a whip to court thus having both of these prosecutors being Weirdly memorable for different things (another note is his liking of coffee that he does not give up even in court ha ha)
now onto the other protag for the aa games
apollo! who also has weirdly spikey hair, but even if you put a silhouette of him next to phoenix you could tell there some was a difference between the two! its showing a pattern with the protags while also keeping them distinct enough to be able to tell who is who! although you cant say the pointy haired guy from ace attorney and not get just One answer unlike saying the prosecutor who has a whip but still they are distinct to people who have little experience with the series
sorry i dont have any sort of conclusion on this this was just sort of me rambling on about character design, but my main point is if you are discouraged bc all your characters dont have wildly different silhouettes thats ok! there are other ways to establish a good memorable character! dont be afraid to make them a little weird! give your character pink hair in a medieval setting, have them be ridiculously in love with tigers they have a striped shirt and pants, let them love childrens tv shows and have them never miss an episode, give them wacky hair or an extreme love of gum, show us some personality!! but dont forget about how they act and their values and dont forget that posture can go a long way for establishing a first impression
there are also many other methods to making a good character! like colors and dress!
silly is the way to go! have fun with it!!
there isnt just one way to make a good character!! theres plenty of more series that have good character design that i didnt mention pay attention to why you like the characters you like! also watch this video bc its really good
#atissi#im sorry this is so long and incoherent#im sure this is hard to parse so im realyl sorry if i end up confusing ppl
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