Bonus Angst: Knives Were Thrown By Hughes Who Was Either Possessed By A Homunculus Or Attacked Roy Because

Bonus angst: knives were thrown by Hughes who was either possessed by a homunculus or attacked Roy because he thought Roy was a homunculus.

exam season always gets me in the mood for angst

One of those conversations

(a Royai oneshot)

Roy hurried his way down the stairs. He had hated the rain ever since he put his gloves on. It has always reminded him of how useless he is. The Alchemist was about to exit Eastern Headquarters half an hour ago, but General Grumman felt the need to interrupt him with his unnecessary talks. And a game of chess. Which ended as a draw. Even if Roy wasn't in the mood (just like the weather), he had to admit that ending as a draw against Grumman was like a Philosopher's stone for his mood. However, the law of Equivalent exchange hadn't forgotten Mustang. He groaned as he quickly paced to his car in the spring downpour. After three minutes of rainy torture he got to his vehicle. He was soaking wet.

"If I ever go to Hell, I hope it never rains there", he thought while annoyance was picking on his nerves. Roy started the car after ruffling his already messy and moist hair. He'll be staying at a hotel tonight. He wasn't in the mood to drive or take a train all the way to Central and, as a State Alchemist, he could afford a good hotel. The Colonel was passing next to HQ when he looked at his rearview mirror. The Lieutenant. She was standing on the steps, obviously unwilling to take a step into the rain. A dark brown coat was covering her, not giving much better protection than the clothes underneath. He stopped his car and opened a window.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye!", he called.

Riza was snapped up by his voice and looked towards the road.

"Sir!", she exclaimed and noticed the wave of his hand, telling her to sit next to him. She ran swiftly, a ghost-smile perked up on her lips. A 'thank you' could be heard from her as she sat down next to him. Roy continued driving down the road.

"There's no need to thank me. I am just delighted that you aren't as soaked as I am. What were you doing now?"

"Finishing some work", Hawkeye replied, starting to look at the foggy window. After she wiped it with the palm of her hand so that the glass became see-trough, she continued: "Rebecca then felt it would be humorous to take my coat and make me chase her around."

Roy held back a laugh with a snort. "As expected of her. I really wish I could see your face then."

"We're lucky we didn't get caught."

"I am conflicted about you. It appears like you hated it but you sound like you had fun."

"It was fun hating it."

Roy sneezed. Riza stopped eyeing the city and turned towards him. He had rain in his hair, which made it look like black moss. Parking was always difficult in East City. Or at least around the Headquarters. She decided to exchange her question about his 'unfinished business' for a sentence:

"Colonel, you cannot go on a train like this."

"I won't. I am planning to get to a hotel and stay there. Besides, I can sleep a little longer if I cut the travelling time."

Riza smiled. It was doubtless that being state-certified made life a lot easier. Specially when unplanned troubles jump on the road. Guilt pinched her neck when she realised that Roy went the opposite way of the closest hotel so she can get safely home. He was cold no doubt. Soon they were sitting in comfortable silence. It lasted for a couple minutes which Riza used so she can fiddle with her gun. Roy noticed it and smirked:

"Always ready. Ready and prepared. One among many reasons I trust you with my back." He stopped at the crossroads and turned right.

"Many reasons? I would like to hear about them."

Roy chuckled. He then pondered for a moment. She was the only woman who could make him think about a compliment like he was weighing gold. Neither less nor more. Just as much as the customer says. If he gives more, he'll be damaged; if less, she'll be damaged.

"I would say a smaller one would be because I feel the need to watch your back as much as you do mine. I owe you. You saved me many times in Ishval. And.. I owe my master."

He didn't want to behold her eyes for that second. Riza wasn't very close with her father yet Roy felt like mentioning him hurts her. He gave an apologetical sigh. He's going trough with this.

"You are skilled. Disciplined. Brave. Shortly- you have qualities of a soldier." He paused to look at the Lieutenant.

She was now preparing her other gun. Her lips were shut tightly. Another person would think she was ignoring him. He knew she was paying close attention.

"Breaking the line of those qualities, you have another one. A line of qualities that are human. You are a moral compass more accurate than Falman's memory. You would never allow me to stray, Lieutenant. Furthermore, you grow as a person. You grew from someone timid, nervous and weak. You grew into a confident, strong and calm soldier. Hawkeye that I met long time ago would refuse to shoot me if I lost my way. I can trust this Hawkeye. I know she'll never chicken out, no matter how horrible things get."

"We were in Ishbal after all.", she said. Roy noted that her tone was more explanatory than humble.

"Thank you for those words. I don't know what to say." It was true. All the time she spent reading proved fruitless. She could think of an answer but it would never do justice to these words. Her having none wasn't a good one either. However it's an honest reply. That proves it to be worthy enough.

"Say nothing. I wasn't expecting one of those clever replies. Imagine I made a statement on the weather. You either agree or stay silent. I am not accepting negative retorts."

She heeded the advice. Her guns returned to their holsters and she wiped the window again so she could stare at the city. She couldn't do it for long. They were approaching her street and she wanted to fight against his fire with fire. She had difficulty igniting it. Maybe it's the rain.

"There's a reason I wish to guard your back, sir. Your back is ready and strong enough to carry the load of a leader. A man who can consciously carry the weight of his sins doesn't feel difficulties that will lead him to redemption. So you won't feel the difficulty of losing power if it leads to good. Colonel, you can communicate with people who follow. You don't listen because you feel like it's your duty, you listen because you care- you want to hear the other side. Ishval changed you too. You learned about being ruthless towards the Enemy. But, I know you too well to-"

"We have arrived Lieutenant" Roy said interrupting her. He didn't feel pleasant for doing so, but the Flame Alchemist wasn't like the infamous Hawk's eye- he couldn't sit patiently in one place for ages when he felt tense and his entire world was shaking. He decided to excuse himself.

"I am thankful for the praise, but I am aware of what you had in mind. It sounds condescending, but it is sincere. We should stop now, before this turns into a conversation of an improper length", he smiled, "Now, I would rather find a room and dry my wet head than freeze-"

"I'll have to do the interrupting now, sir. Wait here." She got her coat and pulled it across her head. Lieutenant reached her building in a few quick strides. She vanished behind the old, worn door only to return carrying a black scarf and a white towel in her hands. The Colonel gave a confused look as his Lieutenant sat next to him.

"Here sir." She said having in mind everything she didn't have the chance to say. "Wipe your wet head. You'll get sick."

Roy took the towel and rubbed his head roughly with it. Then, when he wanted to say something, Lieutenant interrupted him by enveloping the scarf around his neck. He silently observed her. Her hands, the one that he saw loading a gun, were gently wrapping the cloth around his neck. The scarf had a scent of a strong flower-like perfume. It was warm. Like an embrace. Her eyes were concentrated on tying an ascot knot. She killed many enemies while carrying that look. With this concentration. Words Mustang prepared were stuck in his throat. He should beg her to untie the scarf so he could get done with them. But he couldn't. He didn't want it. Roy wanted her to tie a billion more knots, on top of this one: so he can stare at her longer, if only a second.

Riza felt incredibly clumsy. The kind of tension that is in between them now has always been a mystery to her. She tried to wrap the scarf the best way she knew and then tried to loosen it up. It was difficult and his smell wasn't helping. It was... unusual. Last time Hawkeye felt his scent was the hell called Ishval. When she took Colonel's coat to warm up their sick comrade. It felt like ash...and blood- death. Now a fresh scent replaced it, throwing her off balance. The Lieutenant tried to ignore his alluring presence. To ignore his eyes who were still, like dark onyx stones. The inky stare was making Riza nervous. Those eyes were always so analytical and now they were chained onto her...in a daze? After finishing she hastily moved from him.

"Is it too tight?" She asked stoically.

"No" Roy responded. "Thanks. You really-"

"I know. I didn't have to. Drive safely sir."

Roy waited as Riza entered the building and stared at her, making the most of this moment. Just like every other time the curtain had finally fallen. He pressed his forehead against the steering wheel. The stronger he pressed it, the more he felt it necessary to eliminate the painful regret. Ten seconds felt like ten minutes. The scarf was a warm comfort while the rain pattered on his windshield, unable to outvoice the thought.

He didn't tell her.

Would you ever do a simple tutorial of how you draw horses? I want to make centaur OCs but lord horses are difficult creatures to doodle 😭

Mmmm there are so many guides that cover what I do, and I reallydon’t do anything more than those. Still use the whole blocks and sticks andform building and whatnot. And a buttload of references. Anything I could say different would kinda step beyond the stage of simplicity?

To offer something though I would like, suggest tweaking the use of circles whenit comes to drawing horses. Or anything, really. Circles are great and highly accessible for fast, generaldrawing, but few natural things are perfectly round. Look at a horse from thefront or back - it’s square and flat and meaty and saggy too, depending on yourangle.

So like, I dunno, if you wanna step it up a notch, trychanging your use of building-circles into something like this

And especially practice being able to see these shapes indimension

And then piece them together. The triangle will really help guide the line up. Highly recommend.

Honestly I just follow the same gist of Hubedihubbe’s quicktut (please check it out, very good points made, much cleaner, actually labelled) so I kind of feel like I’m parroting here but.. I break down the rest inlines and diamonds.

As a personal preference, I like marking in the shoulderblade to elbow and the hip to knee, as they create pretty important shapes towardshorse recognition. If something keeps looking off, check your leg length. A super rough way to get a close idea of what you need can be found in using most of the shoulder block for a landmark? It’s not perfect maths, it’s a rough tell. The hind legs are then worked out via the red line, setting the hocks above the intersection across the knees 

And uh, it goes on from there. You gotta look at pictures, dothe study, and learn the meats. No real other way around that part.

There’s a horse bod.

But the reason of learning how to see those shapes indimension is so that you can push your poses further! Try piecing it together with your front-view knowledge. Andlook at references, always! 

Shoulders are pretty narrow compared to the belly and hindquarters, unless you start looking into the draft breeds - then both ends more or less square up together. But moving on, more leggies are slapped on that thing

And fleshed out with all that meat knowledge :P (I know I haven’t gone into heads but this was about centaurs anyway. This guy just felt like he needed one)

And when it comes to practiceand learning, don’t be afraid to simply drawthese shapes directly over an image. It will help familiarise you with howthese base forms interact with one another, how far they can squash and stretchand look at a whole variety of angles. It’s just practice!

Doing that helps to gain asolid concept of the subject, so that when you do set out on your own you canfind that convincing territory.

So hey, this has been a very long and terrible not-tutorial. More like insight or something, and would only be helpful if you’re somewhat familiar with horses and already got the fundamentals of drawing down pat, since I skipped over a lot. 

Haven’t drawn a horse before though? I recommend you the Shrimp method

Anyway, hope all this was kinda interesting

Actually

The question I get the most is how I write characters that feel like real people. 

Generally when I’m designing a human being, I deconstruct them into 7 major categories:

1. Primary Drive 2. Fear: Major and Secondary 3. Physical Desires 4. Style of self expression 5. How they express affection 6. What controls them (what they are weak for) 7. What part of them will change.

1. Primary Drive: This is generally related to the plot. What are their plot related goals? How are they pulling the plot forward? how do they make decisions? What do they think they’re doing and how do they justify doing it. 2. Fear: First, what is their deep fear? Abandonment? being consumed by power? etc. Second: tiny fears. Spiders. someone licking their neck. Small things that bother them. At least 4. 3. Physical desires. How they feel about touch. What is their perceived sexual/romantic orientation. Do their physical desires match up with their psychological desires.

4. Style of self expression: How they talk. Are they shy? Do they like to joke around and if so, how? Are they anxious or confident internally and how do they express that externally. What do words mean to them? More or less than actions? Does their socioeconomic background affect the way they present themselves socially?  5. How they express affection: Do they express affection through actions or words. Is expressing affection easy for them or not. How quickly do they open up to someone they like. Does their affection match up with their physical desires. how does the way they show their friends that they love them differ from how they show a potential love interest that they love them. is affection something they struggle with?

6. What controls them (what they are weak for): what are they almost entirely helpless against. What is something that influences them regardless of their own moral code. What– if driven to the end of the wire— would they reject sacrificing. What/who would they cut off their own finger for.  What would they kill for, if pushed. What makes them want to curl up and never go outside again from pain. What makes them sink to their knees from weakness or relief. What would make them weep tears of joy regardless where they were and who they were in front of. 

7. WHAT PART OF THEM WILL CHANGE: people develop over time. At least two of the above six categories will be altered by the storyline–either to an extreme or whittled down to nothing. When a person experiences trauma, their primary fear may change, or how they express affection may change, etc. By the time your book is over, they should have developed. And its important to decide which parts of them will be the ones that slowly get altered so you can work on monitoring it as you write. making it congruent with the plot instead of just a reaction to the plot. 

That’s it.

But most of all, you have to treat this like you’re developing a human being. Not a “character” a living breathing person. When you talk, you use their voice. If you want them to say something and it doesn’t seem like (based on the seven characteristics above) that they would say it, what would they say instead?

If they must do something that’s forced by the plot, that they wouldn’t do based on their seven options, they can still do the thing, but how would they feel internally about doing it?

How do their seven characteristics meet/ meld with someone else’s seven and how will they change each other?

Once you can come up with all the answers to all of these questions, you begin to know your character like you’d know one of your friends. When you can place them in any AU and know how they would react.

They start to breathe.

References

FADWA BAALBAKI Couture Spring/Summer 2017

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