Tokyo was a city that never slept, people stacked so high one on top of the other that you could hardly see the city between their shoving bodies. Every year a new young gaggle of hopefuls stepped foot off the train platforms to flood its core, lured in by movies and song lyrics and pastel palette animes, ready to begin anew. In Izuku’s experience, they only replenished the gaps left by the grey suited ghosts that had already given up, prowling through the dim underbelly of the city in a foggy daze—pachinko vouchers held tightly in one fist like a lifeline, cheap 7-11 beer and canned coffee in the other.
It wasn’t like Izuku didn’t understand. Maybe if he had been brought up somewhere else, in a house with eaves and a garden, like the little homestead his mother had grown up in. But he had been born in Tokyo, couldn’t sleep without the sound of its traffic fifteen floors down from his open window lulling him to his dreams, the sky outside a milky white from a billion shining lights diffusing through the smog. There had been that half year he had spent going to school in a small town of four thousand, and rather than enjoying the idyllic green grass and morning birdsong, he had spent most of it wrecked by anxiety from the lack of people, lack of anonymity.
The little coffee shop had been his dad’s idea, before he had finally left for good. It would be a good way to keep some stability, he had reasoned to a reluctant Inko, some small guarantee that their live savings wouldn’t be squandered away by the whim of the stock market. They poured everything into it, not that Inko had planned to wager things like family heirlooms and Izuku’s future on essentially a glorified Starbucks—but what was she to do when the furnace sputtered one last time, or the machine wasn’t working—their rent dependent on every cup sold, every pastry baked?
Comments: art block continues
sketches don't turn out right, writing seems forced and strange. Just posted a bunch of failed attempts at the theme today. I'll finish one of them on of the the makeup days I think.
Comments: repost since i did all my art on the first day :>
Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 11:10 pm
Day #20 Theme: improve on earlier work
Comments: I know this doesn't seem like it, but it is an improvement on this piece lol. I've been struggling with her character because I just... couldn't draw it right for some reason.
Anyways, proves to me that art block is a real thing. looks like I drew them two years apart when its been 5 days and I'm just in a better art mood. the spirit challenge really helped imo
Comments: had a very specific look i wanted to go for and no matter how many sketches it didn't look right, this came the closest. will probably revisit on a improve/finish day
Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 8:10 pm
Day #24 Theme: theme park
Comments: Theme parks will always make me think of Tropical Land (especially since Movie 10 is my favourite conan movie ever)—another Conan reference! Except this time it's Ran Mouri's iconic outfit in episode 1, when Shinichi goes missing. I always wondered what it was like, when Shinichi ditched her and she felt, inexplicably, that it would be the last time she'd see him. Even though she was always cheerful and sweet I felt like her walk home, after being ditched by her friend and the boy that she liked and felt unexplained anxiety towards, must have been very lonely and sad. So I drew her like that~
If you decide to draw for this day, please post your art below this message. Thank you!
day 25 placeholder
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2019 8:26 pm
Day #26 Theme: bathhouse
Comments: one of my favourite things about the bath house is how iconic it is to see girls with wet hair and big floofy bathrobs sitting about on their phone.
Izuku grimaced, thrusting One for All forward until the needle-sharp point rested in the hollow of Kacchan's throat, an unspoken threat. The blond laughed, throaty and low, and maybe it was Izuku's imagination or just a by-product of the raw ache of bone seated familiarity, but he could hear it clear as a city bell despite the howling wind that swirled around them.
"You gonna bring me to that b***h traitor ice king of yours?" Kacchan laughed, teeth bared. "Gonna string me up like a ******** pig, chop my head off and take Musutafu for the glory of Retsu and Midoriya? You stupid c**t, should've always known you were a little snake."
Izuku narrowed his eyes, gripping the hilt of One for All so hard that it hurt.
Comments: a part of my omegaverse ancient asia fantasy AU that will never see the light of day but, y'know, i still love and think about all the time
bonus:
He swore at first, thrashing against the stiff silk that bound his wrists, shoulders pulling taut and muscles straining as he threw himself repeatedly against the straw covered floor. The guards ignored it, their round helmets gleaming in the torchlight.
Izuku’s voice rose in tandem with his desperation, the words melting into an animalistic gibberish. A high pitched shriek eclipsed the crackled edge of his lips, the imminent death cries of a sow on the butcher’s block. Throat dry, hair matted with blood and mucus, he cried out until every minutia of his soul had bared itself, every wordless curse and terrible thought threaded into a howl so loud that it seemed to shake the foundation of the stone walls. He called out for Uraraka, for Iida, for Todoroki—but mostly, he called for Kacchan.
It persisted, relentless, drowning out the low moaning from the other inmates of this grim, damp place—or perhaps they had quieted, either out of fear or pity or respect, maybe even reluctant commiseration.
And then it halted as abruptly as it began, with him limp and broken on a cell floor sprinkled with rotting hay. It could have been hours, it could have been a single flicker of candlelight. Sobbing, he could only breath out indistinct whimpers, too exhausted to even open his eyes fully, his clumped lashes barring his vision in a cruel burlesque of the cage around him.
It was only then that Katsuki appeared before him, tall and regal with his clothing so blinding in the perpetual twilight of the stone fortress that Izuku could finally see him for who he was, could finally understand the mythos of his being in a way that he had never managed to grasp before. Katsuki was the Son of Heaven, the manifestation of a furious god on mortal earth, an infinite being on a finite plane. He had ascended, no longer held back by the morality of man.
