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folkloreguk · 3 years

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French Class [6]

A/N: You guys might want to whack out your love song playlist for this one…I cried writing this BYE I'm posting this from my grave!!

genre: optional bias (m) x reader (f), fwb, f2l?, college!au, fuckboy!bias, nerd!reader, ANGST, smut

words: ~ 3.8 k

✽series masterlist✽

taglist (lmk if u wanna be added!): @lovely-ateez, @runaway-fics, @mainexiii, @awfullytiredbuthealing, @erikyoong, @etherealuv, @staysuki, @justcuz-ican, @yeostars, @hyuckthangs, @teenloves, @mexious18-blog, @sunghoonied, @mailobjaeyoon

couldn’t tag: @chorizoek

You: can I come over? I kind of need u

H/N: you need me huh…you’re lucky I’m home alone

It always starts differently. Some other question, or a subtle message of telling him you’re bored, or a flat-out confession of being horny. The ending is always the same. You, naked in his bed. You just had to get there, and things were easy when you were already on his dorm’s doorstep.

The moment he had opened the door, you had fistfuls of his hair between your fingers and attacked his mouth in a feverish kiss. He made a noise between a laugh and surprise but reacted quickly. His lips parted right away, letting you in, and you tasted mint from the chewing gum he liked so much.

“Let me- at least- close the door,” he mumbled. “Jeez, what’s gotten into you today?”

You stepped aside and mirrored his grin. He was acting surprised, but the way he instantly locked your lips after he had shut the door told you he was enjoying this as much as you were. You ran your hands down his torso and along the side of his thighs. His happy hum only poured oil into the fire, and you saw no reason as to why you should have kept your clothes on any longer. In minutes, in the middle of heated kisses and clumsy chuckles, your clothes were discarded, and you were left in your underwear. You stumbled into his bedroom in a tangle of arms and legs and heads barely pulling apart.

“Will you tell me about the date you had today or are we skipping over that part?” he asked, as he pushed you down by the shoulders onto his bed. You groaned a little, not even knowing where to start.

“Didn’t go well, huh?” he asked. Only a few nights ago you had consoled him after his failed date, now the roles were reversed.

“That’s one way to put it,” you said. He was climbing on top of you now, and the weight of him between your thighs still did the same things to you it had done the first time. There was one of his random playlists playing quietly from the speakers, but you were both too occupied to even consider switching the music off. You weren’t in the mood for a chat, not when he was biting and sucking bruises into your chest, pushing aside your bra just enough. But you knew he wasn’t going to let it go this easily.

“Tell me about it or I won’t take one more piece of clothing off your body,” he threatened. You shot him an are-you-serious-look while he only blinked at you innocently, like he was awaiting your response.

“Fine,” you groaned. “But hurry, now.”

“That’s my girl,” he said, before unclasping your bra and throwing it to the other side of the room. “Go ahead, I expect a story.”

You had rolled your eyes at him, but when he sucked on your nipple all of a sudden, and his tongue flicked over the sensitive bud ever so perfectly, your eyes moved to the back of your head involuntarily. And, before he could complain, you started to retell today’s events.

“Alright. First of all, he acted all gentleman-y. Pulling back my chair at the restaurant, letting me have a look at the menu first, letting me order first, asking me if I was okay with our seats because they were in the sunshine, or whether he should have requested we get a different in the shade table, blah, blah, blah.”

With the lewd noises he was making, kissing your chest and fumbling with your breasts, you almost wondered whether he was paying attention to you at all.

“I’m waiting for the plot twist,” he chuckled. “If he had been this great, you wouldn’t be in my bed right now, would you?” He was now on his way to your lower regions. Your breaths came out shaky when he gripped your hips with familiar fingertips and placed a few kisses there, right above the material of your underwear. Nonetheless, you had to continue your story.

“Oh, it’s coming,” you said. “Because I suspect, the only reason he was acting that way was to compensate. For the fact that he was an hour late.”

He stifled a laugh, and you slapped his head playfully. “It’s not funny! I stood outside that restaurant on a busy street like an idiot for an hour. During exam season!”

“I wonder, if studying is so special to you- ,” he said. He tugged on your underwear, and you barely cared about his words when you were already imagining his mouth on your pussy. “Why aren’t you at home right now, doing just that?”

“Too frustrated,” you groaned, spreading your legs, practically inviting him in. “You don’t get it. That was only the beginning of the date. It gets worse.”

“Oh, damn,” he laughed, and you were going to slap him again. Harder, this time. But his tongue kitten-licked over your clit and you didn’t dare interrupt him further.

“First of all, he turned out to be boring. An economics major. And look, I’m not generalizing, I’ve met some cool economics majors. But when I said I never really understood the whole thing with inflation and deflation, I wasn’t asking for him to explain it to me. I know what it means, I just meant to say money is the root of all evil,” you said, little moans slipping inbetween your sentences. He laughed whilst sipping on your clit. You couldn’t be mad at his laughing anymore. In fact, at the sound of his chuckles, your own lips curled into a smile, too. God, he was so good with his tongue.

“But turns out he loved money. Like it was the sole reason he was doing anything. When he showed me his gold watch I almost yawned,” you continued.

“Dating a rich guy can have its upsides too, though,” he said, but you knew he was joking. He was running the tips of his fingers over your core, and you whimpered at how badly you wanted him to put them inside of you. You loved watching him, loved feeling his hair tickle the side of your thighs and having his free hand laying on top of your hipbone. The familiarity of it all, his little habits, made your heart heavy, so full of emotion, all of a sudden. But you had to snap out of it.

“Not this guy. He kept saying these lowkey sexist things I won’t repeat now. It’ll only make me mad again. He was one of those who thought money would buy him a girlfriend. And I was really trying to see the good in him…only there was none,” you said.

“Alright, I’m starting to understand why you needed some cheering up,” he said. “Good thing you’re at the right place. I know just the thing.”

At this, he slid his digits into you. You hummed and dropped your head into the plush pillow. Slowly, you exhaled, happy you finally got to relax after being so upset. But of course, he had to interrupt. Again.

“Did I say you could stop? Was that the end of the story?” he said. How did he expect you to form a coherent sentence? He fingered you gently, but the slowness of it all only drove you crazier. You felt every tiny sensation, every new bit of you he touched.

“No,” you sulked. “Fuck, it feels so good.”

“Go on, then,” he encouraged you, grinning because he was proud of your reaction he had caused.

“Fuck- okay. He was super shitty to the waiter. I’m talking about criticizing everything. This man had the audacity to complain about the food. I’m not a food critic, but I swear the food was amazing, there was nothing to fault at all,” you said, and then whined when he switched from licking your clit to sucking it between his teeth. You knew he was doing this on purpose. To make speaking harder for you.

“Oh my god, H/N. Wait, let me finish this. Not only was he horrible to the waiter in person, but he also made fun of the waiter’s appearance behind his back. And all along he expected me to find him funny. I used to think he had a sense of humor but not after today. Blech.”

“At least you got a free dinner?” he said, and without awaiting your answer, went back to work. Your head was spinning in pleasure, and you could only laugh sarcastically at his suggestion.

“Yeah. And after that train wreck of a date, he really thought he’d get to stick his tongue down my throat,” you said.

“Did he at least ask permission?” asked the boy between your legs.

“Mhm…but I told him I don’t do that on the first date,” you said. “Safe to say there won’t be another date, though.”

He looked up now, laughing more than before. You grinned, mainly because the sight of him was so cute. He folded his hands on your belly and put his face down onto your skin to giggle. In no way could you be upset or urge him to keep giving you head. In fact, you had forgotten about all of that for a while, as he seemed to enjoy your misfortune a little too wildly. You should have been hungry, eager to have the half-naked boy inside of you. Yet, you laughed at the way his breaths tickled your stomach and when he finally made eye contact, it was a wholly different sort of hunger which overcame you. Instead of the heat he usually made you feel, it was a comfortable warmth that was in your chest. It reminded you of a bonfire or of drinking your favorite hot drink on a cool autumn day.

“I want to watch you come,” he said, casually. “Were you close?”

You were so lost in his trustworthy, dreamy eyes, you almost forgot to reply. Quickly, you nodded and hummed.

“I would have already come, had you not pestered me to tell you all the details of my date,” you said. The way his cheeks beamed when he smiled made you feel as if your insides were turning into mush.

“I’m sorry. I’m your friend, aren’t I allowed to ask how your day went?” he asked.

“Of course you are,” you said. The word ‘friend’ echoed off every wall in your head until you wished you could have deleted it from the dictionary.

“I’ll make sure it feels extra good now,” he said, kissing your stomach. You shivered as you watched his gentle lips move lower, to your hips and the insides of your thighs. The touch felt like butterfly wings on your skin, and the tardiness of it made you impatient. When his tongue came in contact with your clit again, you sucked in a breath of surprise.

He tried to start slowly, but then you gripped his hair tightly, and carefully pushed him further. It was something you did often, a way to tell him you wanted more without having to use words. After all this time, he understood perfectly. Your clit was between his lips and his tongue flicked over the sensitive bundle of nerves with just the right amount of pleasure. It felt incredible, creating a funny sensation in the pit of your stomach. His fingers grazed over your slit until you were whimpering and shifting your hips, trying to make him hurry.

One of his digits slid into you easily, curling against your sweet spot, and it hit you only now how much you had missed him between your legs since he had stopped a few minutes ago. It made you feel as though you were suddenly overwhelmed with all of him, but you were willing to let the heat crash over you if it meant you could be close to him.

“Am I making it up to you now?” he asked as he pulled away merely for a breath. “I’ll turn your day into a good one after all.”

In a different tone his words would have sounded like the exact thing one would have expected to hear from a fuckboy in the bedroom. He could have boasted and bragged endlessly about how great he was with his tongue and fingers – he would have been right – but he didn’t mean it like that. You could tell from the uprightness and the authenticity in his voice that he really was doing his best because he wanted to make you feel better and turn your day around. Because you were special to him. Or so you desperately hoped.

Your legs wrapped around his shoulders as if you were trapping him between your thighs. But he was right there, and he would gladly stay for so much longer, and to say it puzzled you was an understatement. The boy who belonged to everybody, who was known by all of the campus, was treating you like you were royalty, and not the other way around. You moaned, his name inevitably falling from your lips. He added another finger and the slightest stretch made you lose your mind for a split second.

“That guy could have never made you feel this good, could he?” he suddenly asked. Your initial response was a helpless whine. You had been so close, and his talking had interrupted the otherworldly bliss for a moment.

“No, never,” you then whimpered shortly. ‘No’ was such a tiny word. It could barely encapsule what you truly meant to say. Which was that it would have never even gotten that far. That other guys couldn’t even have you at all. They didn’t get their turn to try and beat him. Not as of lately, at least. That you didn’t so much as dare to think about sleeping with other guys. That even before you had gone on the date, you had known it wouldn’t lead to anything. No guy could let you develop an interest on him in the same way the boy between your legs had done it. No other would be able to kidnap your brain like that. H/N was always there. Even when it was only you and your sex toys, you would automatically pretend it was him getting you off. You were so far gone that it was embarrassing how long it had taken you to admit it to yourself. But it was a colossal thing to confess to him, and you would never do that. Rejection would hurt a billion times more than whatever it was you two had now.

Your heart was racing as you closed your eyes. You had been so lost in thought, it was wondrous you hadn’t fallen yet. But you were right on the edge, making your breaths come out like puffs and a string of moans and swears sound from your lips. He too had stopped talking, concentrating on the task at hand, and judging by the way your back arched he was doing one hell of a good job.

“Oh my god- “ you whimpered. “I’m so close, H/N.”

This time he didn’t reply, which was for the best. Only a few seconds passed until you started to quiver and whine beneath him. You were going to outer space behind your eyelids as your high rushed through you. Your fingers curled and tightened in his locks while your legs clenched around his head. He was quick to pull your thighs apart again, still not being finished. For long seconds you swam in pleasure, with nothing on your mind but bursting stars. He was heaven, knowing precisely how far he could take it until you were too sensitive to take any more.

When you were at that point, he finally pulled away and looked up at your crumpled form. There was a lazy smile playing in the corner of your lips and your vision was hazy after having had your eyes closed for a while. He climbed up your body until his chest was against yours so he could really look at you.

“I get all of this without ever having been on a single date with you? I’m so lucky,” he said. You only smiled at him, at a loss for words. What were you to say? The two of you were clearly past the awkward dating stage already.

“I’m lucky you let me come over all the time,” you said. “I would have expected the campus fuckboy to be busier. To not have an empty spot in his bed every night.”

“Ah, shut up,” he said. “I’d rather have you here than a girl I don’t know at all. Look, I’m really tired so I don’t know how this will go…but can I?” He was on his knees, a tent visible in his boxers. With a questioning look, he was tugging them down his legs now.

“Of course,” you said. As you watched him roll on a condom, your ears perked up. Did that song have to come on shuffle just now? The coziest, most romantic love song you adored so much? You knew if you looked him in the eyes you’d be done for. But there wasn’t anywhere else to look when he settled between your legs and held up his weight with his forearms. His eyes were deep enough for you to get lost within a second. Distracting yourself was impossible. The one last thing you could do was to reach between the two of you and guide his length into you.

The song’s chorus came on, you looked at him once again, and suddenly you were all his. You didn’t need to tell him so. He thrust gently, almost carefully, like he had never done it with you. Your heart hammered against your ribcage so vivaciously, you wondered whether it had turned autonomous and was now trying to jump out of your body, onto his skin and through it, so it could nestle next to his own heart.

Neither of you spoke. Yet, there had never been so much chemistry, such a heavy amount of uncommunicated emotions between the two of you. You were ready to hang on his every word, should he decide to speak up. In your head rampaged a billion sentiments you needed him to know, but there was no option to express them adequately. Perhaps there were simply no words in the English language to declare your feelings for him.

Small whimpers and moans left your lips only for him to hear. Sometimes he moved a little quicker, gifting you with the most perfect sounds he could make. And to know you were the cause for it sent you into overdrive. His mouth was right above yours. If you lifted your head slightly, you could have kissed his sweet, sweet lips. But you were so afraid. What would he think? You had never kissed him during sex. Not softly, like you wanted it so terribly.

Even worse, you craved so much more than that. You wanted to pull him in, envelope his mouth in your own, crawl over the edge of his lips and reside in his chest for safety. Because that’s what he was. Comfort. Reassurance. Home. How foolish you had been, pretending this little fling would lead to nothing more. You really had told yourself this would work. No feelings. Just fun. You couldn’t deny having fun with him. He was the best company you had ever known, and he had become your most precious friend quickly. It was as if you had only been waiting for the silly, flirty boy to sit across from you in the library and make weak advances towards you.

The love song tuned out slowly, replaced by something more sensual and sinful. In accordance with the new background noise, he gripped your hips a little meaner and went faster. You barely noticed how his breathing had sped up as he was getting closer to his orgasm. A trance had overcome you, transfixing you on his godlike features and how much it hurt to know you couldn’t call him yours. In your head you were made for each other. They always said to date your best friend, didn’t they? You could try to turn back time, go back to your first meeting place, at the party. See if things would turn out different. But you knew they wouldn’t. As much as your fear tried to suppress it – you would take the same path again, stumbling head-first into his arms and letting him into your life like a crashing wave of laughter and heart-crushing conversations.

Now you reflected in despair, how he had taken your heart in a storm, without having to try too hard. And worst of all, you were okay with it. Your heart was secure with him, you thought. The feelings yearned to be spoken out loud, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.

“You feel so good,” he said. “Always, so fucking good.”

He snapped his hips against yours, burying his cock deep inside of you and all you could muster was a hum of agreement. This is what you got for keeping him at arms-length from the beginning. Wasn’t it you who had challenged him to be friends and only that? Perhaps you would be okay, so long as no one else called him theirs either. You could go on like this, letting him use you for sexual relief and making him laugh when he needed it. Gladly, you would take the pain of not being allowed to love him with your whole being if it meant you could see him whenever you wanted. Exposing those silly emotions would wreck your friendship and you wouldn’t let it happen.

He grunted and only then, when he lowered his head into the crook of your neck and moaned your name, you realized he was reaching his high. Softly, you cradled his head in your hands, as if it was the last time you could hold him like this. When he put his forehead against yours, he had his eyes closed and his chest was moving steadier than before.

“You’re the best,” he whispered. “Stay the night?”

Should you have gone home, and missed him all night? Would you have regretted saying no while you curled up in bed with no Cheshire-cat-grin-boy to hold? Or were you to remain in his bed, and pray you would survive the torture of not speaking your mind? His skin radiated the most wonderful warmth and you wanted to trace his lips with your eyes until you fell asleep. That’s how quickly it was decided.

“Okay,” you answered.

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rhyva · 2 years

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hi! so i was wondering about how you drew side profiles actually like any tips, guidelines things like that! idk (im fine at them but only like 2/10 times and its frustrating)

coz i try to see as many artists views and idk little quirks when drawing it. and try to incorporate that into my budding style lol. most of the times other artists version of a side profile in their style doesnt fit for me because its either too non-realistic or too realistic (im picky af) but your style appeals to me so much and like i love your art and thank u for blessing me

(and also like any tips about anatomy and the works if u have any ill appreciate like any and all help. im desperate)

(also yes im the anon from before)

Hello again love !!! Yes definitely, I can give some tips,, ok so this might be kinda long cuz I’m gonna help u as much as I can (reminder that eveehone does things differently and at their own pace!!! Art is art for a reason, everything you make is amazing and I’m still learning myself :)) this is just how I currently do things )

For side profiles, I have two ways which I do them because they are still quite tricky. The first method I don’t use as much anymore but it helped SO much. I recommend at least sitting though some YouTube classes about the planes of the head or studying some skulls before trying this once, but once you have basic knowledge of the head it’s so fun to just practice them for hours and see how many different features you can come up with.

It’s literally just getting a blob of colour, and carving away at it with an eraser till it kinda looks like a face. When you do this, you don’t focus on details and it’s a super quick way to practice digitally. (Sorry it only lets me add one video ugh)

My second way 👏🏻 THICK PENS/ BRUSHES 👏🏻 i found it’s all about ignoring the details when I’m doing my thumbnails or first sketches. Don’t get too caught up on an idea or trying to nitpick something that is supposed to be messy!!

For this I just use a really thick brush to do basic guidelines. I will literally swear by Asaro head until the grave for where to place ur guidelines, it helped me sooo much.

This is really messy because I did it quickly but you see the point. You draw atop of the painted mess to focus on details (I use this now)- if your traditional you can use the flat side of a B pencil very lightly and it’ll work- I hope this helped at least a little Im not very good at sticking to certain methods, I’ve just smushed different ones together over the years 😫

Oh, and anatomy!!! I did a quick sheet for you, I hope u can read my handwriting oh lord. A massive tip is, even if the reference doesn’t, I always exaggerate the way the body is tilting. I will lasso the torso after and move it backwards, and it just makes it a little more dynamic. The second way I said for profiles it’s literally what I use for bodies too, and then define. :)))

Studying stuff sucks in art but it helps so, so much. I hope this helped at least someone a tiny bit 🙏🙏 feel free to dm me if I misinterpreted you or something or you have any more questions :))

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bogkeep · 3 years

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Hey! I'm the one who asked the poorly worded art process question. I'm here to give it another try by being more specific. The problem is . . . that's hard. Because that was about a specific as I can get, since I kind of want to know everything about how your art works.

Big things, like how you come up with ideas, or how you design characters. But small things, too, like what tools you use for drawing, how you balance between traditional and digital art, and how you decide what color to use for your unique and beautiful line art.

I want to be more specific so you can answer, but the question in my head is too vague and broad for me to be specific about it. So . . . here are some subquestions of my question, I guess! Maybe that helps?

Sorry this is so weird, and thank you, your art is amazing

first of all, thank you so much <3

and yes, this is far more answerable! i hope i can satiate some of your hunger for insight without writing a whole book.

HOW DO I COME UP WITH IDEAS?

this is obviously going to be very different for everyone. i very rarely have to dig for ideas or sit down and brainstorm, unless of course i am trying to achieve something very specific, like fulfill art contest criteria or working on a commission. my brain is very visually wired, so a lot of my ideas literally just pop up in my head (i know of several artists with aphantasia - some people don't have any visuals in their head at all and I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT'S LIKE AND I AM IN AWE OF THESE ARTISTS), sometimes i see a character or character design and im like HNNNG i need to draw them, or i just... have a concept i really want to Exist and i'm going to figure out how.

my biggest problem is that often, when i get an idea i want to DRAW IT, NOW NOW NOWNOWNOW, and that's just Not Feasible. sometimes because i'm Literally In Bed, sometimes because i have too many things i need to do or draw first... but i need to clear up space in my head, because my Urge To Draw will be like, beeping and whirring until i satisfy it... so i write it down on my TO DRAW-list! it's a real list that exists on my phone and i have to use it frequently. if i keep scrolling down i start finding weird notes that i have NO idea are supposed to mean anymore, but that's fine. i can't satisfy every Art Urge. sometimes i need to let them pass.

HOW DO I DESIGN CHARACTERS?

this one might vary a bit, but it can often be boiled down to "i sketch around until i figure something that Works." many of my characters, especially my older characters, became characters by accident when i kept drawing them over and over and i was like Ah I Like Drawing You... You Exist Now. that's how sparrow spellcaster happened, at the very least. this could happen because i had school and i would focus in school by doodling/sketching while listening to class. since i no longer go to school, pretty much all of my new characters are far more intentional. Timian and Vinta specifically exist as a result of a "favourite character fusion" challenge, and a lot of iphimery characters started with a Purpose rather than just harnessing the vibe of something i drew multiple times without thinking.

it helps to write down elements or tropes i want to include, like "sturdy-looking" or "VILLAIN OF EVIL SCARY MAGICS but it's a little girl and the dark magic is bright lightning and not shadows" or something. it can vary from a tiny visual detail to their role in the story. whatever i want to Achieve. my Intent. because my brain works so visually, i just really need to sketch somethign repeatedly until i nail it and can be like Yes That's It.

sketchbooks look a little messy but that’s what they’re for.

WHAT TOOLS DO I USE

for digital art, i’m currently using an ipad pro and procreate. i use a lot of the brushes that came installed, like Mercury is my primary lineart brush, and Moorilla is my primary sketching brush, but i also buy a lot of custom brushes on the hunt for More Delicious Textures (DAUB has a lot of good ones, especially if you want some that imitate traditional art). i have also used Huion and XP-pen tablets and generally recommend them, as well as clip studio paint as an art program (i love it very much and if it wasn’t subscription-based on ipad i would still be using it).

for traditional art, mostly just whatever sketchbook i have + my trusty mechanical pencil. i mean i have two: one with softer lead (it comes out darker) and 0,7 mm thickness, and one that’s 0,5 and harder lead for more light sketching, or if i’m going to line it with ink.

i also have a trusty pentel brush pen that i love DEARLY and feel bad for not having used in a while for reasons i will get to.

when i work on calendar pieces traditionally, i like to draw lines with ink - i use a dip pen with exchangeable nibs - and then color with watercolors. i have several sets because they’re all slightly different and i want the Range.

i sometimes travel with a little sketchbook in my bag and an assortment of pens, so that i can sketch Anytime, Anywhere. i think doodling with a pen can be very useful because you gotta become comfortable with the mistakes and imperfections and keep going anyway. if i doodle at work that’s the tools i have - regular ball pens and a bunch of paper lying around.

HOW DO I BALANCE BETWEEN DIGITAL AND TRADITIONAL ART?

currently, i... don’t, really. it was easier when i had school, and i would just doodle freely and then maybe use some of my sketches as thumbnails or concept ideas. it’s harder now that i need to intentionally sit down with my sketchbook, and tbh... the ipad works very well for sketching. it’s so CONVENIENT and i have WORK all the time and my time to create art has become much more limited than it was. i miss going to my weirdo art high school where we would try out a whole bunch of different tools and methods. sure, yes, i had to paint with Acrylics My Beloathed, but getting to play around in different mediums is VERY valuable.

i genuinely want to be able to make more time and space for non-digital art again, but i just don’t have the ability to right now. it’s also different now that i’ve moved away from my parent’s place - i used to have an enormous desk and my mother has a large collection of art tools and there was a lot more storage space for whatever i created. digital art is very convenient and very accessible. ah well!

HOW DO I DECIDE ON THE COLOR FOR MY LINEART?

i usually line in black or a very dark color, and when i’m done coloring + shading i might play around with the colors and see what works. if you lock the layer you can just throw all the spaghetti at the wall you want. i decide on whatever fits the piece. i tend to be pretty fast and loose about it too, sometimes you can probably spot parts of my lineart that have slightly mismatchy color, but it’s like... done is better than perfect! i don’t have the energy to overlook every single pixel of my piece or else i would drive myself utterly mad.

HOPE THIS ANSWERS ANYTHING AT ALL!! THANKS FOR ASKING!!!

#art advice #(tag for archival purposes not to imply my methods are gospel)#everyone has their own ways!!!

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kyoomiii · 4 years

Text

♡ Weight Insecurity [hcs]

- ➣. . . ❝ can i request the weight insecurity with sugawara, nishinoya, kenma, and bokuto? ❞

― requested by: @ anonie ―

- ✎ characters ❝ sugawara, nishinoya, kenma, and bokuto ❞

- [ trigger warning(s): heavy mentions of insecurity ]

- ⚘ genre ❝ fluff, angst ❞

❝ i’m so sorry you had to wait so long anonie. but i hope you enjoy this~

๑•́ㅿ•̀๑)ﾉ also i may or may not have gone a little overboard on bokuto’s...

oopsie ❞

-kyo ♡

The gentle breeze that flows through the warm spring air is delightful against your skin, Sugawara’s small hums to an unknown tune filling the space as the two of you walk hand and hand to the vending machine.

Despite the relatively quiet atmosphere, you don’t feel the least bit uncomfortable, rather the opposite really. But, then again there was always something about Sugawara that was so welcoming and soft- even mere strangers couldn’t help but fall into his warmth.

Your gaze trails aimlessly, the thought dancing in your head as you listen to his hum. Quietly, your eyes begin to wander over his features almost absentmindedly.

It’s then you begin to truly realize- The boy is absolutely beautiful. Whether it be his smooth unblemished skin or the tiny little beauty mark that’s settled right next to his eye. His appearance is nothing short of a delicate beauty.

The longer you stare, the more you come to realize just how unreal his beauty is, something so pure seemed to belong to nothing short of a prince from a fairy tale. And though it never bothered you in the first place, you find yourself growing anxious.

Anxious because while you know Sugawara is beyond breathtaking, as shown in his countless admirers from all grades. You’d never truly realized just how gorgeous he is- and though you put him above wanting someone solely based on their appearance, you feel as though he could definitely do better- and maybe one day he will.

And now, as you come to a stop, despite being far from close to the vending machine. The loud thundering of your heartbeat drums through your ears.

You can only watch as a girl- perhaps a 2nd year, catches Sugawara’s attention. Cheeks flushed, and hands folded neatly in front of her. Her lips are moving, but you can’t seem to catch what she’s saying. She’s pretty, big doe eyes, small, and thin- a delicate beauty, just like him.

Drifting in your own thoughts, you don’t even seem to notice as she walks away, somewhat dejected, though seemingly not too upset.

“y/n? Is something wrong?”

The sudden call of your name startles you, but you can’t say that you weren’t expecting it, after all his observation skills are one of the many things you love about him, and with that you know there is no use lying.

“Koushi- am I pretty?”

Wide-eyed and jaw-dropped, he can’t help but stop his tracks, his eyes carefully watching as you observe the retreating girl.

“Oh y/n...Of course, you are. What makes you think you aren’t?”

“...I-... Well. I just think you could find someone better… You know, someone who is prettier- I mean, I’m not exactly… As beautiful as you are. And I think you deserve someone who fits that. Someone breathtaking and… thin.”

Not once, throughout your entire ramble do you look at him. Your eyes seemingly glued to the direction in which the girl has left.

But even so, Sugawara cups your rounded cheeks in each of his hands. His movements are slow and calculated as he turns your attention back to him.

Hazel eyes boring into your own, and suddenly you feel vulnerable. Stripped bare to your insecurities, as his eyes, search what seemed to be the deepest spaces of your mind.

And though you don’t take your eyes off him. You are caught completely surprised as he places a gentle kiss to your lips, his thumbs caressing the soft plump skin of your cheeks as he takes the air from your lungs before pulling away slowly, and carefully as if you were glass.

“You are beautiful just the way you are okay? I love you and only you, and no one can change that, because you are gorgeous both inside and out and I am so so so lucky to have found you. So please y/n… Try not to put yourself down like that ever again. You are amazing, and I’ll make sure you see that every day of our lives.”

The sound of volleyballs hitting the hardwood flooring followed by the shouts of teenage boys seemed to be nothing more than background noise. Your mind too adrift to focus on the intense practice happening just before your eyes.

Instead, you find yourself completely entranced by her. How someone could hold such an elegant beauty was something you felt you’d never be able to understand. Even in the almost suffocating heat of the gym, and the faint smell of sweat, she looked completely flawless- almost as if she were not of this world.

You suppose you could understand just why Nishinoya was completely at her mercy. She was nothing short of perfection, a true beauty- whereas you felt as if you were nowhere close in comparison to her.

And the sudden realization has a stream of worry trickling through your body. You knew she’d never shown interest in Nishinoya, but, even so, she didn’t need to. She had him wrapped around her fingers, whether she acknowledged it or not.

You felt as if you were being paranoid, Kiyoko would never try to hurt you. And Nishinoya, the ever-loving goof who’d stolen your heart was no doubt in your mind faithful, he too would never do something like that. But, no matter how hard you tried to push it away, the small ache that maybe one day he would return to her, settled itself deep within your chest.

The feeling of hands around your waist startles you, shaking you from your thoughts.

A small smile graces your lips at the feeling of Nishinoya’s lips against the plush chubbiness of your cheek.

“Something on your mind?”

Unsure of how to say it, you nod silently. Your lips pursing as your fingers find his own, fiddling with them as you search for how to voice your thoughts.

“Kiyoko-senpai… She’s pretty isn’t she?”

The silence that follows is quickly replaced with the thundering of your own heartbeat as you wait for his response.

But after what seems like an eternity- which was really only a couple of seconds. You can slowly feel yourself being swallowed up by the floor. The walls begin to cave as you subconsciously shift, subtly trying to escape Nishinoya’s grasp.

“She is.”

You can feel them. The tears that gather in your eyes.

“But so are you.”

Turning to look back at Nishinoya, you are met with his signature grin- bright and warm as always, and his eyes- they shine like the sun as he gazes at you.

“Yuu…”

“I mean it y/n… Yes, Kiyoko is beautiful- But so are you. And I have eyes for only you. You mean so much to me, and it hurts to know that you don’t see it. I think you are really cute y/n. Don’t you dare think any less of yourself ever again!”

The tears that wet your cheeks are no longer of sadness as the widest smile you’ve ever had graces your features. It makes Nishinoya’s heart flutter more than he ever thought possible.

“You’re so sweet to me Yuu.”

“It’s what you deserve~”

The soft glow of Kenma’s t.v illuminated the otherwise dark room as the clicking of the controller in his hands followed by the sounds of the video game he was currently playing filled the relatively quiet space.

Your eyes trailed after the small avatar that scurried across the screen. Head leaning against Kenma’s shoulder as you nibbled on the small snack between your lips.

You thought it was silly really. To be jealous of a digital 2d character on a screen, but even so you can’t seem to help it. And the fact that Kenma spent most of his days glued to some sort of device, a pretty maiden with a body of a goddess displayed before his eyes seemed to only worsen that insecurity.

However, you could never find the heart to tell him that, knowing just how much his games meant to him, and to make him feel bad for something he probably didn’t even take notice of, or had the ability to control was unfair. So for his sake you would suck it up.

The gentle tug of your shirt sleeve catches your attention, drawing you from your thoughts. A small smile tugs at your lips as your eyes meet Kenma’s.

“Which outfit should I buy y/n?”

Your eyes trail back to the t.v, the character displayed shifting between two outfits of Kenma’s choice, both equally form fitting to highlight the character’s flawless curves.

You find your smile quickly turning into a frown, however one glance at Kenma has you trying to play it off as if you were merely thinking.

“What’s wrong?”

The sudden question startles you, but then again you should’ve known better than to hide from Kenma’s attentiveness. He could catch even the smallest changes of details in people, especially you- someone he has grown fond of.

That doesn’t stop you from trying though. Quickly putting on a smile and shaking your head.

“It’s nothing Kenma, just thinking I suppose.”

He doesn’t believe you, and he shows it in the form of a scrunched up nose and a small almost unnoticeable pout.

“You’re lying… But I guess if you don’t want to talk about it we don’t have to.”

A wave of guilt washes over your body, but, you can’t seem to find the words you want to say. Instead you curl your legs up to your chest, and to Kenma you look like an absolute ball of fluff as he continues with his game, choosing an outfit at random.

It’s not brought up again, not even as you feel yourself grow increasingly frustrated, nails digging into the plush skin of your thighs.

“-Kenma can I ask you something?”

Startled by the sudden noise, Kenma jumps slightly, looking over at you questioningly, not ignoring the way you stare almost longingly at the avatar on his screen.

“Would you find me more attractive if my body looked like that?”

He’s unsure of what to say, shifting nervously as silence engulfs you two. The only sound for a long while is the music track of the game.

“Oh- I’m sorry… I’ve made you uncomfortable… I- Just forget I said anything.”

Shaking his head, he takes your hand in his own. A small shrug coming from his shoulders as his cheeks flush pink.

“I guess if you wanted to… But truth be told, I like you the way you are y/n. You’re beautiful.”

His words leave you speechless. A small flush matching his own coloring your cheeks.

“Thank you Kenma.”

There was no other way to describe Bokuto other than a pure ball of sunshine. Bright and welcoming with people flocking from all over just to bask in his warmth. And it didn’t hurt that he was quite the looker too. Truly someone special, and way out of your league in your opinion.

In moments like this you wonder how you got so lucky. With your head resting on Bokuto’s shoulder, your gaze directed out the window as he rambled on about something only he could make interesting as the two of you waited for class to begin. The sound of his voice calming, despite the energy that seeps from every word.

You don’t even notice the teacher enter the room. The only thing to catch your attention is the gentle nudge from Bokuto, and the wide grin you love so much before he heads to his assigned seat.

“Today we will be working in pairs.”

Before you had gotten with Bokuto, the announcement would have made you groan. But, one glance at him from across the room seems to make the assignment a little more bearable.

“-I’ll be choosing your partners today.”

And of course you should’ve known better, the feeling of dismay tugging at your lips in the form of a pout as the teacher lists off the pairs.

Disappointed, you can’t help but sigh, glancing over at Bokuto once more who sends you a small apologetic smile as he meets up with his partner. A girl you have come to recognize as someone who was admired by many for her appearance and sweet, sunny personality.

The sight of them together doesn't bother you much, however, the small ball that sits at the pit of your stomach can’t be helped as she smiles up at him with a grin that almost seemed to rival his own… You had to admit, they were cute together.

Sucking it up you decide to push the thought away as best as you can. However, it doesn’t seem to be as effective with the occasional glance in their direction. It was like watching two angels, pure and bright.

Luckily, the end of the class as well as the school day, arrive faster than you had expected it. And with a new found energy you find yourself bounding over to Bokuto- who you find happily conversing with his partner, the topic having changed from school to general personal topics.

And much to your dismay, it doesn’t take long to notice the hand on his bicep. Her small frame leaning in close to his, eyes shining as if hearing about his assignment for a different class were the most interesting she had ever heard in her lifetime.

You watched with wide eyes, suddenly nervous to approach the pair that shone like the sun.

So instead you wait, busying yourself with some other mundane tasks, because surely he’ll be done soon- Bokuto has always been social anyway, it would be rude to suddenly pull him away now, especially when he looks like he’s having a good time.

But seconds quickly turn to minutes, and Bokuto has yet to pull himself from her grasp. And you find yourself growing tired.

Timidly you walk up to Bokuto, hand gently tugging his blazer, which he seems to immediately understand.

“Ah- See you tomorrow r/g/n-chan.”

Bokuto takes your hand in his own, bidding the girl goodbye with a small wave as he practically drags you out of the classroom.

The walk home is quiet, much too quiet for Bokuto’s liking. The tension thick in the air as you walk a distance away from him rather than holding his hand like you normally do.

“y/n-chan? What’s wrong?”

Stopping in your tracks, you direct your gaze to the ground, pout present on your face as Bokuto reaches out to hold you soft jawline, turning your attention towards him.

“Do you like her?”

Shocked his brows furrow.

“Ehhh? What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know… She’s just so pretty and nice- You two looked like you were getting alone… And I figured it was only time for you to want someone… Like her.”

Bokuto frowns, his hands moving quickly to engulf your plump body.

“Don’t you ever say that… You’re beautiful too- if not more. I don’t care if she’s skinny- or whatever! I only have eyes for you, no one else… You’re so silly- to not see just how gorgeous you are…”

“Thank you for making me feel better. I love you Kou.”

“Of course y/n… I love you too- forever and ever.”

“That’s quite a long time.”

“I know, but that’s okay- I want to spend it with you, and no one else.”

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romancandlemagazine · 3 years

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An Interview with Alexander Wolfe, the man behind Pedestrian Magazine

Pedestrian is a magazine about the humble art of walking. In this interview, I talked with the man with the plan, Alexander Wolfe, about his love for this much maligned form of transport, his recent expedition from New York to Philadelphia, and the art of conversation.

First off, you recently walked from New York City to Philadelphia over nine days. What made you want to do that?

The initial desire to walk to Philadelphia came out living in New York City during the pandemic. I was bound to my apartment for a few months with little to do but walk around my neighborhood. I've always had a habit of walking around the city, but the pandemic only made these walks longer and longer, which eventually led to a 23 mile journey from my apartment in Brooklyn, to the Bronx, and back.

Around that time I was reading The Roads to Sata by Alan Booth and started contemplating longer, multi-day walks. I needed a change of scenery and found the idea of traveling by foot and living out of a bag very appealing. I felt like I'd developed a process here in the city (go on a walk, take photos, write a newsletter about the walk, repeat) and needed to give myself a challenge. I wanted to lean further into this practice that I've been developing for the last three years.

I'd never considered my walks to be hikes, so it made sense that I'd keep it in an urban setting. Walking to Philadelphia seemed like a no-brainer. What most people don't initially realize is that most of my time was spent walking through New Jersey. I liked the idea of walking in a place that is commonly misrepresented as the "armpit of America" and typically deemed unwalkable. New Jersey is actually a very underrated state. It might be the densest state population-wise, but it's called the Garden State for a reason. Oh yeah, I'd never been to Philadelphia and just really wanted to visit.

How did the walk go? Quite often trips or excursions can be a fair bit different to how you first imagine them… how did the reality of the walk differ from how you thought it was going to be?

I was presented with a new challenge every day. Don't get me wrong, the walk turned out better than I could have ever imagined, but you can never anticipate everything in advance. This was the first time I'd ever walked with a 25 pound bag on my back, let alone the first time I'd walked 9 days in a row. Originally I set out to average 17.75 miles per day, but thanks to my own curiosity, ended up waking 20 miles a day on average. I mapped the entire route a month or two before leaving, but would always deviate from the path in favor of exploring some neighborhood, road, or park that looked appealing. The first day alone ballooned into 27 miles because I got cocky and thought I didn't need to use my map while walking in Manhattan. I learned my lesson and kept my eyes on the map for the rest of the trip.

Another thing I didn't expect was the sensitivity one develops after walking 6-8 hours for days in a row. The smell of exhaust and gasoline becomes more potent. You realize how violently we've shaped the land to build huge highways and abysmal business parks. So much of our infrastructure is built in favor of the car, which makes being a pedestrian incredibly difficult at times. If the built environment didn't present a challenge, it was always the weather, the gnarly blisters on my feet, or my gear malfunctioning. I quickly learned to accept these challenges. It was just another component of the walk.

A lot of times people go for ‘a walk’, they’re seeking out beauty spots or nice scenery—maybe in nature reserves or the countryside, but your walk was cutting through some fairly overlooked places… industrial estates and small towns. Do people miss out by not seeing the whole picture of somewhere? Is just driving through these places to get to the destination sort of cheating?

I wouldn't consider driving to be cheating – it's just another way we alienate ourselves from the world around us. When we drive, we experience the world at a speed that makes it nearly impossible to pay attention to the fine details. Our relationship to place is abstracted, especially thanks to the rise of GPS. We no longer have to have a physical relationship to these towns. We don't even have to remember how to get to them. Driving around in a car reduces these places to nothing more than a label on a map or a convenient place to stop for gas.

It's important to have relationships with the places surrounding you. The walk has given me an intimate experience with the space between New York City and Philadelphia. I know what it looks like, I know how it feels to be there. I can tell you where residents stop hanging New York Yankees flags in favor of Philadelphia Phillies flags. If I'm watching the Soprano's and Tony references Metuchen, NJ then I know exactly what he's talking about. I think to understand a place, such as New York City, it's just as important to understand the places around it. There are generations of people who once called the Big Apple home, but decided to plant their roots in Jersey for one reason or another.

I suppose you could have read about some of these places on Wikipedia, but being there is a completely different thing. Is experiencing stuff first hand important?

It's very important if you actually want to understand a place. It's too easy to create our own narratives without ever visiting a place. I still tried to do my share of research before heading out. I have friends from North Jersey or the Philadelphia Metro and tried to take their opinions with a grain of salt. I spent some time reading about certain towns along the way on Wikipedia or scanned Reddit to get a vibe. I even previewed chunks of the walk on Google Street View to mentally prepare and know if it was actually safe to walk near some of these roads. I could have spent months preparing, but it never would actually replace walking in these small towns and cities. It's so much different when you're on the ground.

I suppose the main reason we’re talking is that you make a magazine based around the idea of walking. How long have you been making Pedestrian? What started it off?

I released the first issue of Pedestrian back in March of 2018. I was living in Ridgewood, Queens at the time and made friends with a guy named Curtis Merkel (I actually met him while out on a walk). He ran a moving business for a few decades and retired. At 84 years old he opened up a tiny little bookshop to keep himself busy. I'd visit him every weekend to check out his books and eventually we'd just get to talking. He'd lived in Ridgewood his entire life and loved to talk about the neighborhood's history. Moving to NYC also introduced me to a thriving community of zine makers. I wanted to share these conversations I'd had with Curtis in print form, so I decided to start a magazine. I invited a few friends to contribute and the rest was history.

Since then, the identity of Pedestrian has become quite fluid. While it started as a magazine, I would now describe Pedestrian as my own practice. It's a platform that allows me to collaborate with others, produce magazines, write newsletters, go on these long multi-day walks, and produce t-shirts. I have found this configuration gives me the most creative freedom.

A lot of your magazine is about meeting people and striking up conversations. Is this a lost art these days?

I don't know if it's a lost art per se, but there's less incentive to reach out and talk with strangers these days. Thanks to the rise of social media it's just getting easier and easier to stay within our own "bubbles." Starting Pedestrian, in a way, was an excuse for me to speak with those I typically wouldn't reach. It's amazing how having a publication kind of takes the fear out of speaking with strangers. You can do anything when you have intention.

Although walking is something most people do, is it overlooked as an activity? It seems it’s mostly seen as an inconvenience, rather than a hobby in itself.

It depends where you live. In New York City, for example, walking is a part of the culture. The city is built in such a way that makes walking a viable means of transportation. And if you can't walk to your destination, you're likely walking to a subway or a bus. Where I'm from in Iowa, walking is very inconvenient. Everything is spaced out, which makes walking anywhere very difficult. It’s not that people don’t want to walk, it’s just the way we’ve built certain communities has made it very hard to enjoy. It makes people think walking is very inconvenient.

I’m here in Iowa until August and it’s been interesting to walk a place that is so reliant on cars. The other day I did a 13.5 walk around the city. There’s nothing here stopping you from walking (unless the heat gets you. Technically we’re in the middle of a drought. It’s been incredibly hot as of late), and there’s plenty of sidewalk. I think it’s mostly just a mindset people have to develop. It doesn’t matter how many miles you walk, it’s just about getting out there. Your mental health will thank you and you might even learn something new about your surroundings along the way.

Walking is maybe the antithesis to the internet, but Pedestrian also has a decent presence on the World Wide Web, and you regularly send newsletters and... er... partake in the digital world. How do you balance the real world with the matrix?

It’s a relationship I’m constantly reevaluating. I’m not a master of balancing the two yet, but I’m slowly building habits that will protect my time. I often daydream of abandoning social media altogether and picking up a flip phone. I obviously haven’t done that yet, so in the meantime, I’m investing a lot of time in my newsletter. Sending out a newsletter is a much more thoughtful, intimate, and slow experience...kind of like the way I approach my walks out in the world. I understand that the web is a tool and I’m not sure the Philly walk would have gotten the same amount of attention had I not had an Instagram account. It’s cliche, but everything in moderation, right? I try not to take it so seriously.

What next for Pedestrian?

The Philly walk was such a great success and I’d like to keep that momentum going. Later in September I have another big, big walk planned, but I have yet to announce the route. Look for an announcement sometime next month. This one will be a bit longer and involve 3 different cities. I can’t wait.

Once winter hits I’m going to buckle down and produce a proper book for the Philly walk that will include all my writing and photos I took along the journey. I’m already excited to share the finished product with the world. Stay tuned.

Final question, what are your walking shoes of choice? And what's your soundtrack? Are earphones advised for long walks, or do you prefer the ambient sounds of the streets?

I’m a big fan of Hoka Clifton’s. I wore them throughout the entire Philly walk and have two pairs in my closet. At this point, Hoka should probably pay me for how much business I send their way. I’m always recommending them.

I prefer not to wear headphones and just listen to the ambient sounds of the street. More often than not, I find wearing headphones to be a bit distracting and it takes me out of the present moment. Although, I’ll admit I have been trying to introduce music into my walking once again, but few tracks make the cut. Lately Andrew Wasylyk’s Last Sunbeams of Childhood has been on repeat. There’s something about that track...

Find out more about Pedestrian here. Pedestrian is available in the UK courtesy of Central Library.

#Interviews

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sambergscott · 4 years

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Lights Out

Summary: The elevator jolts and the lights flicker, before plunging them into total darkness. There's a Brooklyn-wide power outage, they're stuck in the precinct elevator and Amy is claustrophobic AF. Then her water breaks.

Based on this amazing (!!!) s7 finale theory by @luna-minerva. Thank you so much for letting me turn that into this. I really, really hope you love it.

She has a birth plan written out by her sixth month of pregnancy detailing her preferences for labor — dimmed lights, calming music, an epidural, Jake by her side at all times — laminated in the apartment, her go bag (already pre-packed in their family friendly sedan) and her everyday purse. She sent copies to her doctor, both their parents and Captain Holt, printed one for Jake to keep at work and saved a digital copy in the Notes app on both their phones. Just in case.

(“Single spaced, double sided: Santiago Style,” Jake grins when she hands over the final draft.

“Of course. It’s an important document about the most important moment of our lives. I want everything to go smoothly.”)

And for most of her pregnancy, it does. She sends him out for pierogis, potato pancakes and hot chocolate most nights, cries over every car commercial on TV and waddles around the apartment making sure everything is perfect for when the baby arrives. The doctor assures her that they’re both healthy, but she should take an early maternity leave, given the stresses of her job.

She survives for one day before she’s back at the precinct, prompting several raised eyebrows and whispers from around the bullpen. Ignoring all of them, she hitches her purse onto her shoulder, lifts her head, and marches determinately to her old desk.

“FOMOW?” Jake guesses with an amused smile.

“It’s not FOMOW,” she huffs in annoyance. “I just finished organising the nursery and since I was passing the precinct, I figured I’d come visit my husband, if that’s OK with you.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining,” he holds his hands up. “I’ve missed having a beautiful lady to look up at when my paperwork gets boring.” He wiggles his eyebrows playfully. “I suppose you’ll do.”

She rolls her eyes, sitting down and trying to make herself as comfortable as possible, a difficult task when you’re as big as a whale and your back has been aching all day.

“Peralta,” Holt’s new assistant barks as he leaves Holt’s office, “you missed some signatures on this report.” He drops it on top of all the other open case files, candy wrappers and clutter on Jake’s desk, a welcome change from the way Gina would turn their work into paper airplanes and fly them across the bullpen. As Jake starts scribbling his name, Holt’s assistant notices Amy. “Can I help you, ma’am?”

“Oh, I’m OK. I work here. Well, I used to work here. I’m on maternity leave.”

“Of course,” he nods, realisation spreading across his face. “You’re Sergeant Santiago. Captain Holt mentions you constantly.”

“He does?” She clutches her heart. “Jake, did you hear that? Holt mentions me.”

He mouths “dork” and she sticks her tongue out at him.

“So when’s the baby due? You look ready to pop any day now.”

“Two weeks,” Jake answers on her behalf, sensing danger. The ‘ready to pop’ comment has been driving her crazy for weeks. She is well aware of her size and does not need perfect strangers reminding her. She’s pregnant, not a contestant on America’s Next Top Model. She’s supposed to be big. He shoves the signed documents into Holt’s assistant’s hands and glances apprehensively back at his wife. “You OK?”

“Mm-hmm.” She plasters on a brave face. “Can’t believe I’m saying this but I actually miss Gina.”

Jake snorts and presses play on CCTV footage of a robbery.

She twists her engagement ring on her finger, braids the ends of her hair and straightens a pile of folders on the desk. She is something of a workaholic and not being able to do anything is torture. “Any cool cases you’re working on?” She asks Jake, because what else are husbands for if not living vicariously through their work while on maternity leave?

“Hipster coffee shop got broken into last night. The owner was devastated that she had to drink Starbucks this morning like the rest of us instead of her fancy $8 million gold infused coffee blend from Outer Mongolia.”

“At least she gets to drink coffee,” Amy responds snarkily.

“Worth it though,” he grins. “And I’ll be your personal in-home barista once this baby is out.”

“Thanks, babe. You’re the sweetest.” She rounds their desks to give him a chaste kiss (she may not be in work but they are still at work), when something catches her eye on the screen. She instructs him to rewind the video, pointing out that the intruder has the same bone structure and blonde hair as the owner behind the counter.

Jake gasps. “It was an inside job!”

A failing business tries to scam the insurance company; it’s a tale as old as time.

He grabs his phone, gun and jacket in a rush to arrest the owner before they skip town.

“Can I come with you?”

“What?”

“I want to come with you. I’m the one who solved the case.”

“You’re pregnant. You can’t.”

“I’ll walk ahead of you, pretend I’m just a normal customer,” she pleads. “You know I’m good at going undercover. Remember Dora?”

“Of course I remember Dora, Johnny loved Dora, but this is different. It’s too dangerous.”

“They own a hipster coffee shop, Jake,” she deadpans. “They’re not going to hurt a pregnant lady. I’m FOMOWing so bad, I just want to be there.”

“Ames-.”

“Please, Jake,” she kicks her persuasion tactics up a few notches, pulling out the doe eyes and pout that she knows he can’t resist.

“Fine,” he concedes before she starts crying and playing the “I’m having your baby” card. “You can come. But if anything dangerous goes down, you have to get out of there straight away. You can’t get involved.”

“Deal.” She shakes his hand firmly (she took a refresher seminar a few months ago) and retrieves her purse from her old desk, following him to the elevator like old times. Peralta and Santiago off to take down bad guys (and look good doin’ it). Of course, there will be no actual taking down of bad guys nine months pregnant, although she could do it if she wanted to, she’s definitely felt the urge to kick Charles in the shin whenever he brings them disgusting foods or tries to kiss her belly.

Just being there is enough for now.

She speeds up, reaching the elevator before him and pressing the down button first. She smirks at him over her shoulder and steps inside when the doors open. Despite being married and expecting a kid together, their competitive edge has never wavered. In the last few months alone, they’ve bet on the sex of the baby, who would cry first when they heard the heartbeat, what fruit or vegetable their baby is that week and who can put a diaper on a football fastest. Bets are the cornerstone of their relationship — the original bet sparking Jake’s realisation that he liked her liked her — and Amy can’t wait for their kids to join in when they’re old enough.

(Kids, plural, because for some reason, even after difficulty conceiving and morning sickness and FOMOW, she would still go through pregnancy all over again. They don’t quite want eight like her parents, but at least one more would be nice).

Rosa’s black boots stop the elevator doors closing and she squeezes through the gap. “Got an early lunch date,” she explains.

“Oh,” Amy says, sharing A Look™️ with Jake. Rosa hasn’t dated anyone since Jocelyn dumped her, choosing to be on her own for a while since she hasn’t really had time alone to process her almost marriage to Pimento, prison and coming out. Repairing her relationship with her parents has been her #1 priority and this is the first Amy’s heard about her seeing someone new. “Is it... serious?” She tries not to push too hard because otherwise Rosa will just close off (it’s pointless asking about names or jobs or appearance), which is hard because she just wants her to be as happy as she is with Jake, but also knows from past experience that Rosa will eventually reveal the information when she’s ready.

“It could be,” she responds vaguely. “I like her, but she’s a doctor so we both work way too much.”

“Well, I hope it works out. You deserve someone really great.”

Rosa pulls her in for a tight, unexpected hug. “Thanks, Santiago,” she murmurs, her voice cracking as if she’s about to cry.

The elevator jolting and lights flickering ruins the moment. After a few terrifying seconds, it stops completely and they are plunged into darkness.

Amy’s blood runs cold, panic filling her lungs. She’s had this nightmare a million times, having suffered with claustrophobia ever since her brothers locked her in a closet as a kid.

She hears Jake’s “cool, cool, cool, cool, cool” and Rosa saying that it’s probably a power cut, but she can’t speak. She can’t do anything but think about how they’re never going to get out and how the squad will have to send them food supplies through the safety hatch in the ceiling and how they’ll have to raise their baby in this tiny metal box, teaching her to count using the buttons to the different precinct floors.

She feels pain, a fun combination of Braxton Hicks that she’s been having for weeks and panic attack. She tries to focus on her breathing and not on the four walls closing in on her. When the breathing techniques fail, she focuses on Jake.

Kind, funny, handsome Jake. Her husband, but more than that, her best friend. She concentrates on the toothpaste stain on the front of his shirt, his unruly curls that she loves so much, the ring on his finger glinting in the light from Rosa’s phone. His own phone is pressed to his ear and she can only hear one side of the conversation but it’s clear that he’s debriefing Holt.

“- Me, Amy, Rosa -"

“- We’re fine, just stuck -"

“- How long? -”

“Shit.” He hangs up, pocketing his phone. “Power’s out everywhere. Our back-up generators haven’t kicked in, something about air in the fuel system. The fire department are busy with the blackout and we’re apparently not an emergency, so. We could be in here a while.”

“Shit,” Rosa echoes his sentiment.

“Yeah. You OK, Ames?” He turns his attention to her.

She shakes her head meekly.

“Claustrophobic?” Rosa guesses, remembering her reaction to being locked in the trunk when she was trying to get her and Gina to face their fears.

She nods.

“We can play Celebrity to distract ourselves. I’ll go first. He’s the greatest actor -.”

“Bruce Willis,” Amy and Rosa say at the same time.

“Thought I’d give you an easy one to start,” he blushes.

Amy almost laughs despite the overwhelming fear. She loves him, Bruce Willis obsession and all. She takes a few seconds to think of someone good. Then, “They’re in - oh - water -.”

“They’re in water?” Rosa repeats, confused. “You mean like Jaws?”

“Or Finding Dory?” Jake adds. He made her watch the movie with him after Pimento’s Memento disease and now wants to buy a fish and call it Dory, even though he famously killed her fish back when they were dating. “Is it Ellen?”

“No, my water.”

Jake and Rosa both look down in horror. She buries her face in her hands. As if this situation could not get any worse.

“At least this classifies us as an emergency now,” Jake quips.

Rosa does Amy a favour and punches him in the arm.

They notify Holt — who in turn notifies the FDNY — and Jake sends a text to both their parents.

Rosa climbs onto Jake’s shoulders and opens the safety hatch so Charles can lower a care package of towels and bottled water into the elevator.

(He also delivers Sour Candies, upon Jake’s request).

Terry tries to pull the doors apart, but even his tree trunk arms are no match for the heavy metal.

Amy breathes through her contractions, stubbornly determined to stick to her birth plan and give birth in the hospital.

Her body, however, has other ideas.

“Four minutes apart now,” Rosa announces. She punches a wall out of frustration. “Where the hell are those firefighters?”

“They’re not going to make it in time,” Jake responds, equally frustrated. “Camila warned me months ago that Santiago babies come early, fast and are always boys.”

“This baby is half-Peralta and a girl. She might be the exception.” Amy takes a sip of water, ignoring the look of disbelief on Jake’s face.

“Diaz, you went to med school, tell my wife that this baby isn’t going to wait.”

Rosa opens her mouth to speak but Amy cuts her off.

“Diaz, tell my husband that the contractions aren’t even that painful and we have time.”

As it turns out, they don’t have time at all.

She’s feels pressure, the urge to push, and not even the glug glug glug of Rosa’s babbling brook sounds can calm her down.

“I do not want to give birth in the precinct elevator,” she cries.

Jake, on back rubbing duty, exchanges nervous glances with Rosa. She’s fully dilated and with the fire department still busy tackling other emergencies, this is happening. Right here. Right now.

“You know, it’s actually kind of perfect, Ames. We first met outside this elevator, right? And I kept the elevator doors open to let you win the Jimmy Jabs because of my massivecrush on you. And then you let me win to save our car. We fell in love in this precinct. It’s where we had our first for realz kiss, where we got engaged, where we got married. It’s kind of fitting that it’s also where our baby is going to be born.”

She tilts her head back to kiss him, ignoring Rosa’s complaints that they’re gross.

She thinks back to her wedding vows. Not everything is in our control, but as long as you’re with the right people you can handle anything. And you, Jake Peralta, are the right person for me. She can handle this with Jake by her side. She can bring their daughter into the world.

“OK... I’m ready.”

“That’s my girl,” Jake says proudly, shuffling into a better position to hold her hand and see the baby when she comes out.

They all disinfect their hands with Purrell from Amy’s purse and Rosa explains what’s going to happen and Jake jokes that he feels like Sandra Oh in Grey’s Anatomy.

Rosa rolls her eyes. “Christina was a heart surgeon, dumb dumb. You’re thinking of Addison. What?” She questions at their surprised expressions. “I like Grey’s Anatomy! It makes me feel things! I’m not totally heartless.”

Amy releases a string of expletives as another contraction starts.

“We’re going to start pushing on the next one,” Rosa instructs, forgetting her favourite medical drama.

Amy nods quickly.

Jake brushes fallen strands of hair away from her sweat-covered skin and takes her hand. “Squeeze as hard as you need to, babe.”

No amount of studying or listening to her mom’s stories could prepare her for the pain of pushing a baby out. It’s worse than the time her brother pushed her off the monkey bars when she was eight and she broke her arm, worse than the time she got shot in the line of duty, worse than the heartbreak of Jake being sentenced to 15 years in prison. It’s worse than anything she’s ever experienced and when it’s over she has so many questions for her mom, including why on Earth did she do this so many times?!

She’s also going to thank Jake for not complaining once and buy Rosa many drinks for her part in all this.

Having her colleague deliver her baby was definitely not part of the birth plan, but out of everyone they work with, she’s glad that it’s Rosa.

Rosa who’s been there for Jake since the Academy.

Rosa who has always had her back, too, who comforted her when Jake was in Florida, helped get her to her Sergeant’s exam on time and encouraged Jake to ask her out.

(And thank God she did).

Labor is exhausting.

It’s painful and emotional and long.

“You’re so close,” Jake cheers her on when she hits a wall.

“He’s right. I can see her head. One more push, Santiago.”

“I can’t-.”

“You can,” Rosa insists. “1,000 push ups.”

“OK,” she whispers. Rosa doesn’t just throw around 1,000 push ups willy nilly. It means something. And if Rosa is so confident that she can do this, then she can do it.

She pushes and pushes and eventually hears a baby’s cry.

It’s the most beautiful sound she’s ever heard.

When Rosa places her in Amy’s arms for immediate skin-to-skin, all four of them are openly weeping.

She’s the most perfect person she’s ever seen.

“I love you both so much,” Jake murmurs, kissing the top of Amy’s head. He leans down to kiss his daughter, too, marvelling over the fact that he gets to say my daughter now.

They cuddle for a while, quietly bickering over who she looks most like. They decide that she has Jake’s hair, nose and mouth and, when she opens her eyes for a second to see what all the fuss is about, he is thrilled to discover that she has the same beautiful eyes as her mom.

They wrap her up in Jake’s favourite blue hoodie to keep her warm and Rosa snaps their first official family portrait and sends it to their parents, Amy’s brothers and the Nine-Nine’s WhatsApp group. She reads out the messages of congratulations that fly in, making Jake and Amy both cry some more.

Finally she interrupts their family time to cut the cord, pulling out her pocket knife and lighter from her leather jacket.

Jake’s eyes go comically wide. “You’re going to use a knife?”

“Do you have any other suggestions?” She snaps.

He falls silent.

“Thought so.” She sterilises the blade (recently sharpened following Brad Leone’s tutorial from the BA Test Kitchen) with her lighter and carefully cuts the umbilical cord.

“Say thank you Tía Rosa,” Amy coos, stroking her daughter’s tiny hand.

“Tía?”

“Mm-hmm,” Amy hums with a tired smile. “We were going to ask you to be her godmother anyway, but I think you have more than earned that role now.”

“I’d be honoured,” she responds.

After another hour and a half stuck in the elevator, the lights come back on, the elevator doors open with a ping and they are suddenly faced with a crowd of concerned police officers, firefighters and paramedics, little Maya Peralta gracing the rest of the world in the most dramatic of fashion.

The firefighters spring into gear, holding the elevator doors shut while others help Amy into an awaiting wheelchair.

Jake hovers next to the paramedics as they check Maya’s vitals. Thankfully, everything is normal, they clean her up and replace Jake’s blood-stained hoodie with a warm blanket.

“She’s perfect,” the female paramedic tells him as she hands Maya back to her dad, confirming what he knew the second he laid eyes on her.

They then turn their attention to Amy, who is fine — more than fine, she’s the happiest she’s ever been — just a little sore. They decide to take them both into hospital as a precautionary measure since Maya is two weeks early (Santiago Style!), packing up their equipment while Jake and Amy introduce the Nine-Nine’s newest recruit to the rest of the squad.

Terry says something about little girls being the best, Hitchcock and Scully claim not to have known Amy was even pregnant and Holt’s stoic façade crumbles when Maya grips his finger with her entire hand.

Charles’ eyes are red and puffy like he’s been crying, but he’s uncharacteristically calm when Jake asks if he wants to hold her. He nods, of course, and is enamoured with her the moment he feels her weight in his arms.

This isn’t how she planned it —none of it is — she wanted the controlled hospital birth and the grandparents to meet the baby first and she really wanted to catch the perp from the coffee shop robbery, but Jake was right. It’s kind of perfect that she was born here, in the Nine-Nine, surrounded by their second family.

She meets her husband’s eye and smiles.

#b99 fics #jake x amy #my writing #I'm really proud of this so I hope you all love it #also the knife thing turned out to.....not be as big of a deal as I expected #but thank you for your advice anyway #let me know what you think!!!!!

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wewillwriteyou · 4 years

Note

Ok I’m going to send the request. I understand if you don’t want to/can’t do it. I’ve heard a lot of people say Roger looks and sounds like an angel, but I’ve never heard them go beyond that. So do you guys think you could do a fic with Roger as an angel?

Summary: As the request says, what if Roger not only sounds like an angel, but he is, in fact, an angel?

Pairing: Roger x reader

Word count: 1.7k+

Warnings: this is mainly FLUFF, but there’s a tiny bit of ANGST if you squint enough, nothing too strong and it has a happy ending, I swear; mention of sexual intercourse, but once again, nothing graphic; some kisses and touching

Written by: @sweetgcreature

A/N: thank you so much @rogahs-drowse for sending such an amazing prompt!❤😇 Sorry if it took soooo long, but I wanted it to be perfect! And I really hope you’re going to love it as much as I loved working on it!

To everyone else, enjoy! Love you, folks 🖤💫

A growing glare flashes against your closed eyelids. You curve your lips in a small smile and extend a lazy arm to hug him.

You are already anticipating the feeling of the autumnal sun on your body when the roar of a distant thunder fills the air.

Furrowing your eyebrows together, you open a curious and confused eye. And, that’s the moment you see it.

The pouring rain is tapping against the window; the sky is grey, bog clouds are encaging the sun and its rays.

The light that was so sweetly caressing your eyes comes from him.

A bright, yellowish aura glows right behind his head making his already blond hair looks like golden strands. You want to touch them, to lock your fingers inside them, to intertwine your digits there forever. However, you resist to that impulsive temptation, to look at him one minute more.

His lips are parted while whispered breaths escape his mouth, slightly curved to form a small, fulfilled smile.

You smile too, mirroring his satisfied expression.

Another thunder explodes in the sky, causing him to curl his nose and inhale deeply as he rolls on his tummy rotating his face in the opposite direction exposing his back and nape to your adoring eyes.

His circular halo fades a bit before starting to shine again, now completely visible.

You slowly slither closer to his body, propping yourself on one elbow to lay your face on the palm of your right hand.

The skin of his shoulders is pale, almost lucent; every relaxed muscle reminds you of those Greek statues people go photograph in museums or admire on the pages of Art’s books.

Your eyes trace every curve of his back with their gaze until they fall on the two, tiny red lines just above his shoulder blades. A trembling finger reaches and gently caresses them.

He breathes heavily and the circle of light around his head intensely shines, before he stretches his neck and he finally turns around to look at you.

You fondly smile down at him while a hint of red blooms on your cheeks.

“’morning,” he mumbles pushing his face on the pillow while he yawns. You giggle and look at his long lashes, his big blue eyes, and his little rounded nose.

Every detail of his face seems perfectly carved from the hands of the most expert of the artists. And, well, in a sense it is.

He catches you staring. He laughs. A melodious chuckle.

“Who are you?” you ask all blushed and shy when his hand stretches towards your face to trace shapes on your cheek and near the corner of your lips.

The halo is back, its light shines more than the thunderbolt that has just whitened every wall of the room. Another rumble follows.

“’m Roger” he replies in the most innocent tone possible. You roll your eyes playfully and fall on the mattress keeping your gaze focused on the ceiling.

“That’s not what I meant, you know it” your voice comes out low, cracked by the tiniest hint of sadness in it. Roger moves the sheets that are encircling the lower part of his body to slide closer.

You do not dare look at his face, but the corner of your eyes catches the light that comes from him.

“It’s complicated, right?” you whisper turning your head just enough to meet his eyes. The blue in his irises changes: from crystalline, it becomes darker, as a sea ready to welcome a summer storm.

“It’s complicated” Roger echoes you, pushing a strand of your hair behind your ear. You nod to yourself and sadly smile at him.

You can see his halo fading away as he adjusts himself by your side to pull you closer to his chest; you lay your head on his shoulder and let your hand lazily draw circles on his torso.

His hand is intertwined in your hair, and all around you a dull calm is hugging you tightly, in contrast with the pouring rain that falls outside and wets the window’s glass.

You know what is going to happen. You know you have to say goodbye.

“’ll miss you,” you admit, mumbling against the warm skin of his arm. Roger furrows his eyebrows and turns his head to catch at least a little portion of your face.

“What do you mean?” he asks, while his thumb plays with your earlobe causing heavenly shivers to trespass your spine. You sigh a half laugh and look at him.

“You do know what I mean – a shadow of guiltiness drops on his face, so you extend your arm to sweetly palm his cheek – that’s okay, Rog. You made me live the best night of my life, no regrets. About nothing. I’ll never forget you”

You slowly push him down until your lips glue together into a passionate kiss. Roger hums and cups your face to deepen the kiss.

He starts to feel a familiar tingling coming from his back and your fingers have just the time to touch the free skin of his shoulders because in a second a pair of candid wings spread open.

You widen your eyes and with a childish, admiring expression, you start to caress the white feathers that are covering both of you as a shield.

Roger smiles widely and kisses your forehead while the halo around his head begins to shine, as it has never done.

When your eyes meet his, you notice a thin layer of tears that are pooling inside his blue irises; a strange sense of preoccupation fills your heart, and you cannot help but stroke his sad face.

“What?” you ask softly, almost under your breath.

“No regrets” he echoes your words and you nod silently, while the tip of his right-wing tickles your shoulder.

“That’s what I said”

“And I agree. Deeply and truly – Roger adds, depositing a light kiss on your lips again – but I'm sorry”

He abandons his forehead against yours and in a moment, he feels tiny.

Ironically, he feels the vulnerable one. The one who needs protection. Therefore, you encircle his waists with your arms, to cradle him. To reassure him. To have him closer to your body.

He stretches his arms to sustain his weight and look into your eyes. He is crying glistening tears, which simultaneously reminds you of raindrops, snowflakes and little diamonds.

“For what?” you feebly question, already quivering of concern for the answer.

His blond hair has become a single whole with his aura, forming a single golden flare that crowns his head. His blue eyes are simply ethereal, while his wings fully open above your head.

Roger gives you a sad smile, caresses your cheek and kisses your lips one more time, before finding the courage inside his immortal heart to say:

“Because you’ll forget about me”

A white veil falls in front of your eyes. Celestial harmonies fill your ears. Then, nothing.

Black. Darkness.

You wake up in your bed. Alone. Confused.

You rub your eyes when a roaring thunder startles you. The intense, infinite grey sky that is visible from your open-curtains window is blinding your sight and you have to cover your face with your hand.

A terrible headache spreads from your temples and tangled memories of the previous night crowd your mind. You even start to wonder how you have reached your bed and your apartment safely.

You sit on the mattress and pass a hand through your hair, feeling your head spinning like a top.

Suddenly, the corner of your eye sees something: a white, little thing laid on the pillow on the other side of the bed.

You take it between your index finger and your thumb, studying it, making it spinning among your fingers.

The doorbell rings unexpectedly and you flinch on the bed, immediately jumping on your feet to approach the apartment door.

You put yourself on your tiptoes to see through the peephole and smile when you notice the figure of your best friend tapping her foot on the ground, waiting for you to welcome her inside.

“Finally! – she sighs when you open the door for her – what are you still doing in your pajama?! It’s almost three in the afternoon and we have to go!” she exclaims, indicating your once again confused figure.

I never sleep this much. What has happened yesterday night?

You ask yourself.

“We have to go … where?”

You ask your friend.

Her chin touches the floor and she raises an eyebrow, visibly incredulous by your question.

“Are you joking? There is the concert tonight! The Queen’s concert, for God’s sake! We’ve been waiting for this night for months, how could you forget about it?”

A strange warmth showers your body and you cannot actually tell the reason why. Only a pair of twisted flashes from a distant night fill your head for the fraction of a second.

Your friend inclines her head in curiosity and points at your left hand, laying still by your side.

“What’s that? And why are you so lost, ‘re you alright?”

You look down, between your fingers. The white thing you have collected from the bed a moment before is still there.

A white feather.

You look at it. You spin it. And you smile.

A reborn consciousness hits you like an ocean’s wave.

“It’s nothing – you answer to your friend, who is evidently confused – I just had a dream, last night. A beautiful dream” you add, more to yourself than to her.

“Okay – she shrugs and scrolls her head – but now go! Move! Get ready!” and, saying that, she pushes you towards your bedroom as you both start laughing loudly.

“I can’t wait to see them playing! We must be front row! –

She starts and, as you get dressed, begins to fantasize about the concert.

- I have to touch Freddie’s hands! And John and Brian must notice me! Not to mention Roger! He is so handsome”

She sighs and you cannot help but curve your lips in a wide smile when she mentions his name.

“He so good at singing as well! And, believe or not, people who went to their concerts told me that live he even sounds better! He sings like an angel!”

An angel.

Those two words echo in your ears and your heart jumps a little in your chest. You softly caress the feather you have laid on your nightstand, before turning around to look at your friend.

You smile at her and, adjusting your bag on your shoulder ready to go, you friendly pat on her arm and say:

“Trust me, I believe you”

#fluff #a bit of angst #roger taylor imagine #roger taylor fluff #roger taylor angst #roger taylor #queen #queen imagine #queen band #70s roger taylor #80s roger taylor #roger taylor x you #roger taylor au #wewillwriteyou #wewillwriteyou requests #wewillwriteyou ask #sweetgcreature #deakyswhitequeen

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candyshua · 5 years

Note

i’m the anon who asked abt u accepting x1 reqs or not! can u write a seungyoun oneshot — a really fluffy smut maybe? where every lil thing abt the reader effects him? hueheu thank u!

sure thing!! sorry if this isn’t the greatest, most detailed smut lol. i’ve never had sex before, so i based this off of other smuts i have read lmfao. anywho, enjoy!!!

Genre: Fluff, Smut, PWP

Word Count: 836

Warnings: Vanilla sex, light dom/sub themes, foul language, praising

You really don’t know how you got here. Just a few moments ago, you were watching a movie with your boyfriend, Seungyoun, as happy as can be.

Now, you were staring up at your boyfriend with confused eyes, as his entire body hovered over you on the couch you were on.

“Can I help you?” You asked, feigning innocence. Seungyoun just let out an exasperated sigh of frustration.

“God, Y/N!” He shouted while smiling incredulously. You giggled, which made him smile even more.

“Yes, Seungyoun?” You grinned.

“Why are you so fucking perfect?” Seungyoun cracked, gulping worriedly. Now, he was standing up, while you just sat on the couch watching him with humorous eyes.

“I dunno.” You laughed, and he just sat there, completely in awe. You were just so amazing, and Seungyoun was madly in love with you. Whenever you’d smile, laugh, or just do anything remotely in the realm of cuteness, Seungyoun would flip his shit. Why did you have to be so amazing?

“Hey, Seungyoun?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

Seungyoun’s mouth fell agape. Seungyoun then beamed, yet again, because you were just too damn cute.

“I love you too.” He answered, and you just rolled your eyes and cracked a tiny smile. You then got up off of the couch and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. After breaking away from him, he immediately grabbed your waist and pulled you in for another kiss, this time much more deep and intimate. It didn’t take long for Seungyoun to get all hot and bothered. He lifted you up and your legs hugged his waist. He then carried you to the bedroom, excitement prominent in both of you.

He gently dropped you onto the bed, kissing you again. You smiled against the kiss, feeling nothing but pure love and adoration for him.

He cupped your face with his large hands, and he soon began to undress you. In between kisses, Seungyoun muttered, “God, Y/N, you’re so fucking perfect.”

After your shirt was off, he kneeled in front of you, hovered over you, merely admiring you. He couldn’t help but smile, because you were all his. He attached his lips to yours again, undoing your bra with ease. His hands trailed from your collarbone to your hips, which he grabbed firmly. You shivered under his touch.

He then slipped his hand into your underwear, teasing you. You let out a soft moan, which made him go crazy. He broke the kiss and just looked at you. Your parted lips and soft, breathy moans, along with your disheveled hair and innocent eyes. He just stared at you in awe.

“I love you so much, Y/N.” Seungyoun confessed, finally letting two of his fingers slip into your sensitive heat. Your back arched off the bed, and Seungyoun smiled at you with lust and love in his eyes, wanting nothing else but to make you feel good, to make you feel loved. He quickened the pace, his long digits slipping in and out of you at a fiery speed.

Soon, you felt the tension in your lower stomach snap, as waves of pleasure washed over you. You whined, calling his name while climaxing.

While maintaining eye contact with you, he slipped his fingers into his mouth, your essence all over them. You whined again, since his lustful eyes staring down at you made you even more excited.

He kissed you again, finally pulling your pants down and taking off your underwear. He undid his belt, and soon his hard length was seen poking through his boxers. He kissed you while slipping out of his boxers, pumping himself.

He finally slid into you, making you moan out of delight and shock. He continued to kiss you until he quicked the pace. He continuously hit your g-spot over and over again, making tears of pleasure roll down the sides of your face. You didn’t miss him muttering “I love you, Y/N,” right before he pulled out. He then came on your stomach, while he fingered you to make sure you reached your climax.

You finally came again. After his fingers left your entrance, he cooed “Good girl,” which drove you absolutely insane.

Little did you know, Seungyoun was absolutely over the moon. He wondered what good deeds he did in his past life to help get him in this situation, which was being helplessly in love with you.

Seungyoun went to the bathroom and got a towel. He came back and cleaned you off, smiling at your shy demeanor. You blushed, not wanting to look him in the eye.

After cleaning you up, he snuggled up next to you while kissing the back of your shoulders. His hand snaked around your waist, and you didn’t have much trouble falling asleep. Seungyoun, on the other hand, was still on a high from you.

And in that quiet moment, Seungyoun knew that he was undeniably in love with you, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

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omega-deku · 5 years

Note

So I would love to progress on my art and try comics any tips? ÙwÚ

Hi! I’m so sorry about the late reply. D: I hope you don’t mind if I take this opportunity to address all the anon messages about how we can improve as artists.

I have a tough time answering this question because there is so much I need to learn. I’m super flattered that some of you feel that my art is good enough to ask me for tips, first of all!! So thank you, guys.

It’s a struggle because I only recently started taking up art again. So I’ve forgotten a lot of the things. So I’m probably not the best person to ask about this.

I used to draw all the time as a kid, but after high school, I stopped drawing. I stopped drawing for almost a decade, pretty much. I really regret it. I feel like I could have come such a long way if I did keep going. My parents really discouraged me from pursuing art, even just as a hobby, too. Even when I left home (I’m back now tho), my ex-spouse, greatly discouraged me from doing art too. I mean, “proper” art. They told me my art wasn’t “real art” because it’s not studio art, it’s “sellout” art, like anime/cartoons/fanart. I had even worse self-esteem as I do now, and I listened to them and gave up. I convinced myself I hated drawing.

Please don’t deny yourself things that make you feel engaged and connected. If drawing makes you feel good, if it makes you not realize how much time has passed and makes you feel like you’re accomplishing things, even little by little, please don’t stop. Even if you suffer from depression and feel like things like this are pointless, remember that just doing things in general will help you. Drawing is an awesome way to get into the flow state. To me personally, it’s almost like a meditative state and I find it helpful in dealing with chronic pain and mental health issues.

Anyways, I’ll try to compile some advice sort of things.

ART IN GENERAL

1. Draw what you enjoy! I think the most important thing is to draw what you like. It’s okay if it’s “dumb stuff”. Draw your favorite characters or pairings from your favorite tv shows if that tickles your fancy! You’re much more likely to be spending more time drawing if you’re drawing stuff you like. And as long as you’re drawing, you’re improving. (But still, challenge yourself and get out of your comfort zone!)

Especially for those of you who are planning to pursue art as a career, it’s essential that you don’t view practicing art as a chore.

2. Draw from life. If you really want to take your art to the next level, drawing from life is vital! I think many of us have come across artists who are just amazing, but there are things that look a little “off”. For example, the anatomy doesn’t look quite right, or the perspective is a little wonky. Things like that can be a tell that they’ve learned to draw from other people’s art rather than from life. Or just haven’t practiced the basics enough. (My art isn’t amazing or anything close to that lmao, but it definitely suffers from this. I need lots of life drawing practice.)

There is nothing wrong with learning from your favorite artists, but to really train your “artist’s eye”, you need to strip away all the stylistic choices and go back to the basics. Training that Eye is one of the most crucial things you could do as an artist.

Just take a piece of paper, a pencil and start drawing what you see. If you can, take figure drawing classes at your local community college, or draw the animals you see at the zoo. Sit on a bench and draw the scenery in front of you. Over time, you’ll start to recognize common patterns, simplify/think of things in terms of lines and shapes.

If you can’t afford a class or have the ability to go outside easily, drawing from photographs can be the next best thing. (See the Resources below for an online figure drawing tool.) I’m not experienced enough to definitively say why this isn’t the #1 idea, but from what I hear, there are things that you’ll miss out on, such as subtle shifts in shadows, colors, and other things that will happen from small movements in pose changes, a cloud moving, or whatever else. A different “feel”, if you will.

With the digital art boom, a lot of artists are learning how to do cool digital effects and fancy things, but forgoing basic anatomy, perspective, shading, etc. Which is all fine if you’re just having fun, but isn’t the best idea if you’re really serious about improving. Practice the fundamentals!

(If you have been dreaming about CalArts at one point like I did when I was in high school, one advice I came across from everyone who went there was to draw from life. All the time. It’s not an answer I expected from people who draw funny looking characters all day. You mean all these people who draw such simplified cartoon people and animals can actually draw like masters? Perfectly rendered bowls of fruit? I didn’t realize how much work goes into animating simple characters.)

3. Put in the time.

It’s really easy to get suckered into just watching “how to improve” videos all day and thinking about improving. Watching how other artists work is an important learning tool, but you’ll never actually make progress if you aren’t practicing.

Sometimes, the best thing to do is to not think about it. Just do it.

It’s like when I’m spending a whole lotta time thinking about getting physically fit than just, you know.. just doing it. “Tomorrow for sure.”

It may seem like it’s worthless, but doing those lame 5 push-ups a day instead of the 20-minute workout you wanted to put in, is better than nothing at all. You are making progress, no matter how small it may seem.

Make it a habit to practice every day. That way, you don’t even hesitate. It’s as automatic as brushing your teeth.

All the artists you see who have fantastic, awe-inspiring art may seem like Unreachable Gods sometimes, but those artists didn’t just pull that out of their ass one day. They put in hours and hours and hours of work. Let’s not disrespect other artists by ignoring that and chalking it up to “talent”. No one is born with an innate ability to draw. WE can get there too if we practice!

I want to get good enough to draw the things I have in my head one day!

Some resources that may be helpful:

Draw a Box - This is a site for free lessons for absolute beginners. Look under “Lessons” to learn. The creator of the site is the mod for r/ArtFundamentals. You can post your work there to get critiqued.

Check out Proko’s videos on gesture drawing, art fundamentals, etc. Daily routines of successful artists.

Use this site to practice figure drawing, gesture drawing - Set aside some time to practice drawing people and animals every day. Start trying to see things as lines, shapes, and go big. Don’t get too caught up in the details, and tiny drawings. Learning to draw fast (not draw FAST as in speed, but as in capture the gesture in a post, the “feel” of the movement) will force you to do this more, and with more experience, make your figures less stiff looking.

And it’s okay if you’re aren’t good at it. You’ll make loads and loads of shit drawings until you can get decent.

I’m most definitely in this stage right now, trying to train my Artist’s Eye. As in, I can’t just draw a figure from memory. I don’t really know what goes where without a reference, or how they move, etc. You can tell by how stiff my drawings look.

Lulusketches How to Improve video - She has similar advice, but her point about looking at “Art of” books something I have come across from multiple professional artists; Her advice on worrying about finding your own “style” is really good too. Do challenges like she said!

Her playlist of art tutorials & advice is great. They’re short and sweet. Her beginner digital art tutorial got me started on digital art (the one with Ginny Weasley).

Not free ($30 a month), but these online Schoolism classes look helpful. It’s run by Bobbie Chiu. I saw some great reviews and I want to try them someday. They’re taught by artists in the animation/film industry. But you gotta have a basic grasp on digital art/photoshop for many of the classes, I think? I’m not 100% sure. They’re pre-recorded video lessons.

You can pay more for feedback from the teachers, but you can also just use it as a self-learning guide.

This drawing faces from any angle video was pretty helpful for me. The artist has loads of other tutorials.

COMICS

I don’t feel qualified enough to give much advice on comics. I mean, I don’t even draw the lines for the boxes, haha.. However, these comic books are basically required reading for some courses:

Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics & Making Comics.

I can’t remember which one it is that I read, I think it was Making Comics? But wow, if I remember correctly, it was FULL of really useful things about how to make effective comics. I lost the book while moving years ago, but it was FANTASTIC learning material. I loved every panel of it.

He talks about everything from perspective, placement of characters, speech bubbles, how big panels should be, etc.

If you can afford it, get a used one and start reading! Even if you don’t want to make comics just yet, it’s super interesting.

#art #comics #art reference #art resources #asks #text #okay i fixed some of the links now #added better stuff

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is0gild · 4 years

Text

Ice Cream and Fire Oven Pizza - Chapter 2

Pairing: Elsa x Lea/Axel || Side Pairing: Riku x OC

Summary: Modern AU. She's an introvert ball of nerves who works at Ice Palace, a mall food court ice cream shop. He's the outgoing, sassy goofball who works at the Pizza Planet across the way. Hilarity, snark, and fluffy romcom hijinks ensue.

Word Count: 6,462

PREVIOUS CHAPTER || NEXT CHAPTER

Credit for super friggin’ cute and super friggin’ amazing cover art goes to the super friggin’ talented ky-jane here on tumblr!

The first thought I had when I woke up was…

...who the heck painted my ceiling green?!

Because last I checked, it was a midnight blue… or maybe more of a cobalt blue? Azure, possibly…?

Whatever it was, it was most definitely not green.

I narrowed my eyes up at it groggily before deciding I didn’t care and rolled over in bed, curling onto my side. Which led me to my second question…

...where had this frigging baby crib next to my nightstand come from and what the actual frick was it doing in my room?

No… forget the crib… what was the deal with the absolute mountain of Huggies boxes stacked up behind it?

Either this had to be just one of the weirdest, dumbest, not to mention lamest pranks Anna had ever pulled on me or…

...or this wasn’t my room.

I shot up in bed, wide eyes darting about. Yup, definitely not my room. Not unless I had decided to do a few home improvements in my sleep and say, I don’t know, move my door to the total opposite wall. Or how about the entirely different furniture, complete with a giant shelf packed tight with more baby books than a person could possibly ever need in one lifetime? Then of course there was that heaping pile of toys and stuffed animals stacked in one corner. Did I mention the sheer amount of Huggies? Because dear god, the Huggies…

I was going to have nightmares about drowning in an endless sea of them, mark my word.

It was as I was shuddering at that mental image that it finally all came rushing back to me and I gasped - my wedding! My escape! My shoplifting! My breakdown on Rayne’s doorstep! My-

Wait, wait, go back… Rayne!

...that’s probably where I was. Still in her apartment. But… I didn’t remember this room… not walking into it, not even so much as a glimpse of it, just… not at all...

Placing a cool hand to my forehead, I searched my muddled brain some more for the details of what happened last night. Or, seemingly last night anyway, if the early morning light streaming in through the window curtains was any clue. I remembered… her inviting me in… discovering she was married and expecting, which would somewhat explain the almost disturbing amount of diapers… and then I’d-

Oh dear lord, I had utterly and one hundred percent lost my absolute marbles. Oh gosh, what must she think of me…

I couldn’t remember much after that. Nothing, in fact. My memories just abruptly stopped. Had I... fainted?

Well I wasn’t going to get any answers if I kept hiding in here. Even less so if I curled up into a ball under the covers and waited for the earth to swallow me and my shame up whole, as lovely and tempting a thought as that sounded.

Sighing, I put one bare foot on the carpet, then the other and reluctantly arose. I spotted my… well... “my” ankle boots tucked neatly next to one of the bedpost legs, prompting me to look down at myself to see that I was still in the, erm… borrowed sundress, now thoroughly wrinkled. My hair was still in its braid, though calling it that would have been generous as it was now more just one big frazzled knot. Tossing it back over my shoulder with a sigh, I approached the door, reaching a hand out towards it. My fingers hovered over the knob, hesitating for a split second before twisting it open and stepping out.

A rapid click-clack filled the air as I quietly stepped into the familiar living room from the night before. It didn’t take long to spot the source. Rayne was seated at the table in the dining space, fingers quickly tapping away at her laptop keys. She looked like she had just gotten out of bed, still in pyjamas and her hair thrown into a loose, messy bun at the nape of her neck. She had a pencil tucked behind one ear and the light from the screen reflected off the lenses of her black-rimmed glasses, her entire focus trained on her work.

“Morning, sunshine,” she chirped, not looking up nor putting the brakes on her typing. “Be with ya in just a sec.”

“Take your time,” I murmured, not wanting to interrupt whatever she was in the middle of. I figured it was the very least I could do after having a total core meltdown in her living room yesterday.

Not quite sure what to do with myself in the meantime, I once more reached for the tangled-mess-formerly-known-as-braid that was my hair, idly toying with it as I glanced around. It didn’t seem like there was much more to the apartment than what I’d already seen. To my right, there was a short hallway with three more doors, each closed. Presumably one another bedroom where the happy couple slept, one a restroom, which would make the third a…?

Letting my curiosity get the better of me, I stretched a hand out towards the nearest mystery door to take a quick peek.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Rayne sing-songed while otherwise still fully engrossed in her laptop.

I froze, fingertips brushing the doorknob as I turned my head to blink at her. Then I pursed my lips to one side. “...closet bursting full of baby diapers?”

Her typing abruptly silenced and she directed an eyebrow quirk my way. “Actually, yes. How did you know?”

“Wild guess,” I said dryly. “I’m sorry, did you say you were having a baby or a litter?”

“Shush, you, I’m nesting,” she harrumphed, fingers blurring across the keyboard once more.

For now, maybe it’d be better if I kept my hands to myself. Who knew what other potential death traps Macguyvered out of baby paraphernalia lurked about this place? Hugging myself, I trudged over to the dining table, took a seat opposite of Rayne and waited.

Hardly another minute ticked by before she gave a satisfied final tap to the laptop. “Annnnnnd done!” she beamed, clicking the device shut. She then leaned forward, resting her elbows atop the table and propping her chin on her interlaced fingers as she regarded me. “So…”

“So…” I fidgeted some more with my frazzled knot, averting my gaze. “...on a scale of one to off-my-rocker, how crazy did I sound last night?”

She closed her eyes with a bright grin. “Oh, you were batshit, sweetpea.”

I winced. “That’s... what I thought. Sorry.”

“Don’t be!” she brushed it off with a flick of her hand. “It was the most excitement I’ve had in weeks, so actually I’m a little grateful.”

My mouth twisted into a wry grin. “Well then… you’re welcome, I guess. I’m glad my neurotic episode could brighten an otherwise dull moment in your life.”

“Oh hush, you know I love you.” Crossing her arms, she leaned back in her chair with a sigh. “Now it was a bit hard to keep up, but let me see if I got the gist here. You,” she struck up a finger, “were going to get married…”

I hung my head, “Yeah.”

Another digit rose. “...but realized you didn’t love him…”

My shoulders slouched as I sunk down in my seat, my voice getting smaller as I said, “...yeah.”

Up went the third. “...that you never loved him…”

Grimacing, I slumped forward, pressing my face into the table, “Uh huh…”

“...and so you dumped him at the altar.”

I groaned, banging my forehead against the hard, wooden surface. “I am the worst.”

“Aw, sweetheart, no.” The scraping of her chair against the floor could be heard as she scooched around the table closer to me before I felt her hand rubbing light circles against my back. “You… just got scared is all, and you panicked… I mean, really? You did the right thing.” I turned my head, resting my cheek against the table now as I gave her a dull stare. She pressed on hastily, “No, seriously! If you’d had stayed, you wouldn’t have been happy. He wouldn’t have been happy. It would have been a terrible marriage, your lives would have been miserable… really, you did him a favor! I mean, sure, could you have handled the break up a bit better?” Her face scrunched up slightly before she flung her hands up in the air with a shrug. “...Maybe?”

“Ugh!” I full on faceplanted into table once more. “The absolute worst! I deserve to be locked in a tiny, cramped box filled with spiders and worms and dung beetles and moldy, rotten eggs and, and anchovies and-”

“Sweetie, sweetie, you’re spiraling again,” she cut me off gently, taking hold of my shoulder and pulling me back to sit up straight once more and look her in the eye. “The point is, I’m sure he’ll understand.” My eyelids drooped at her. “Eventually! I’m sure he’ll understand eventually. Just… give him some time, let this whole thing blow over, then you two can talk. Get some closure. Okay?”

I looked down at my lap with a sigh and just gave a weak, noncommittal shrug.

“Okay then. Now,” she hesitated, gnawing her lower lip. “...can I ask… when you made a run for it, why of all places did you come to my apartment? I’m always, always here for you, you know I am, but it’s been… god, I don’t even know how long… years since we even last spoke. You didn’t have someone else, any other friends or anyone you could have turned to?”

I swallowed hard and slowly shook my head. “I don’t… have any friends. Not really. It’s… always been hard for me to make them. I’ve just never been good with people. You remember how I was as a child back when we were at summer camp, all nervous and awkward and hardly able to string two words together.”

She gave me a small smile. “Yeah, and all the other kids didn’t even give you a chance, just figured you were some snooty, rich brat who thought yourself better than them and couldn’t see you were just shy.” Her grin turned a touch wicked. “I pummeled them good though and made them regret ever picking on you.”

One corner of my mouth twitched upward and I nodded. “I was always so thankful for your friendship. I’m… sorry we drifted apart over the years.”

“S’okay,” she waved a dismissive hand. “We lived so far apart from each other, only seeing each other every summer. It’s just something that happens sometimes as people grow older, I suppose. But hey… looks like we’re not quite done with each other yet.”

“Guess not,” I chuckled softly before my face sunk into a frown once more. “I never did get any better at making friends. Everyone I know now… they’re all my parent’s friends… or they're his friends…”

She tipped her head to one side. “His?”

I gave her a pointed look. “Him.”

“Oh. The dumpee. Right.”

“They’re all just… they’re not people I really know, they’re… acquaintances, you know? And they’re all from munny, they’re all from that world, they were all at the wedding, they… none of them would have understood. Except for Anna, but she still lives with Mother and Father, so best she could do was help me escape. But after that?” I fell silent, shaking my head.

Her brow furrowed. “What about your home? Couldn’t you have gone there?”

I gave a derisive snort. “With what munny? I fled in my wedding dress, so I didn’t even have my phone on me, much less my wallet, so it’s not exactly like I could've called an Uber. Besides, even if I could have, that’d have been the last place I went. My parents pay for my condo and after what I’ve done, I can’t face them. Not ever again. I’m never going back… Mother, Father, my old life, all of it... it’s the past now.” My face hardened as I murmured, “The past is in the past.”

She blinked at me a couple times. “Don’t you think you’re maybe being a bit over dramatic? It’s your parents. They love you, no matter what. I mean, sure, maybe they’ll be a lil pissed, but-”

“No, you don’t understand,” I shook my head with a scowl. “What I’ve done… I did it in front of all their friends, their colleagues, their… I’ve embarrassed them in front of so many important people. And don’t even get me started on how much they spent on the wedding that I didn’t even show up to,” I grimaced, now squeezing the giant knot that was my hair. “I had a… we had… they had a plan for me, for my whole future, and I just… blew it all up and threw it back in their faces. So no, they won’t just be pissed, they’ll be furious… we’re talking yelling, screaming, we’re talking Hulk smash, we’re talking end of days, wrath raining down from the heavens kind of mad here. They’re going to cut me off and…” I gulped, slumping down further into my chair, eyes downcast as I whispered, “...and disown me.”

Rayne placed a hand on top of one of mine and I glanced up at her again as she said, “You should call them. But maybe… just give them a little time to cool off first? In the meantime, it’s a good thing you found me again.” She smiled and I couldn’t help a tiny one of my own in return. With a couple pats to my hand, she added, “What luck you chose my town to get hitched in, huh? Talk about coincidence! What would you have even done if you’d decided to pull your lil disappearing act in a whole other city?”

“Actually, we were deciding between a few venues in different cities to host the ceremony in.” I frowned thoughtfully. “But something kept pulling me back to Radiant Garden in Twilight Town. I think… it was because of you. Subconsciously, I was already planning an escape route weeks ago. You were already my way out, my rope made of blankets hanging out a window, it just... took me a while to realize it, I suppose.”

“Well, happy to be your blanket rope any day, boo,” she tapped my nose with a grin. “A lil warning next time would be nice though, kay? Ya know, just a quick heads up, something like, ‘hey, I’m planning on making like a banana and splitting from my own wedding and need a place to crash’ will do.”

I breathed a short laugh. “Noted, though I don’t really plan on making a habit of this.”

“Speaking of plans, any ideas what your next step’ll be? What exactly is your plan here?”

“Ugh, don’t get me started,” I rolled my eyes. “Already had this talk with my reflection yesterday and trust me, she was totally useless.” Rayne stared at me blankly and I cocked my head at her. “What?”

“...context, sweetie.”

“Oh, right.” I suppose there were still a few dots that I needed to connect for her. “Well… after Anna helped me escape, I needed a change of clothes. If I kept parading around town in my wedding gown, it probably wouldn’t have been long before my parents tracked me down. Luckily, first store I stumbled across was a used clothing shop. After I changed into this,” I gestured towards the crinkled mess of a sundress I was wearing, “right then and there in the dressing room is when my panic attack went into full swing and I sort of got into a lively debate with the mirror about where my future was heading. That was about as effective as you might imagine,” I grumbled the last part. “But then I thought of you and asked the person working there for a phone book.”

“Ah.” She looked past me to the coffee table in the living room, where the White Pages had been left, still rumpled but now dried of my tears. “That explains that, I guess. But… it’s a phone book, why didn’t you just call-” She paused abruptly, eyes lighting up as it clicked. “...busted phone?”

I nodded. “Busted phone.”

Her eyebrows knit together now, voice quaking with hardly contained laughter as she asked, “So the next logical step to you was to steal the phone book?”

My eyes darted to the left. “...yeah.”

“As opposed to, ya know, borrowing a pencil and jotting down the addresses on a scrap of paper? Like a sane person?”

I huffed out a soft growl, wrenching at my tangled knot once more. “Hi, have you met me? Not good with people, remember? My brain just shuts down and I get all, I dunno… chicken with its head cut off. And being on the lam after going rogue on my wedding day? Did not help matters when it came to thinking straight, believe me.”

She snerked, ruffling my bangs. “Oh you poor, sweet, socially inept weirdo you! If it makes you feel any better, you’re in good company. As you might recall, I myself am about as eloquent as a potato.”

“But twice as pretty,” a third voice chimed in and we looked over just as Riku used his foot to shut the front door behind him, smirk in place and bearing a styrofoam cup carrier tray with three steaming drinks in it.

“Rude,” Rayne deadpanned, removing the pencil from behind her ear to flick it at him.

He sidestepped it without breaking stride, lips twitching wider. “Not even. You know how pretty I think potatoes are.”

“Dork,” she shook her head as he came to a stop next to her and planted a kiss atop her forehead, depositing one of the drinks on the table in front of her.

These two? Actually kind of adorable.

But also… ugh. Love. Gross.

She smiled, bringing the cup up to her nose with a curious sniff. “Mmmmm, pumpkin spice? How did you manage to swing that this time of year?”

“Aqua,” he said, making his way over towards me now but eyes still on his wife. “She’s squirreled away a secret stash in the back just for you.”

“Bless that woman, she’s an absolute angel,” she sighed happily, blowing on the beverage before taking a cautious sip.

He gave the two remaining cups a quick glance before handing one to me with a friendly grin. “A little birdie told me you’re a fan of peppermint.”

“You remembered,” my eyes crinkled as I looked to Rayne, who merely winked at me. I felt the pleasant warmth from the cup seep into my fingers as I inhaled the aroma deeply. Sure enough, it was some sort of minty mocha blend. I gazed up at Riku, managing a shy, tiny smile. “Thank you. I’ll pay you back.”

“Don’t even worry about it,” he brushed off. “By the way, we haven’t officially been introduced yet. I’m-”

“Riku,” I nodded. “That much at least managed to slip past the fog of crazy and reach my brain yesterday… nice to meet you. Looks like you already know me by now,” I held up the drink he’d gifted me, pointing to where Elsa was scrawled in sharpie across it. Then I grimaced somewhat as I put it down on the table, fingers playing with the coffee sleeve wrapped around the cup. It had a grinning feline face printed on it with the words Lucky Cat Café printed underneath. “...sorry by the way... about last night.”

“Don’t be. You have nothing to be sorry for. Sounds like you were in a tough spot and needed a friend.” He stood beside Rayne once more, resting a tender hand on her back as she leaned into him a bit. “And any friend of Ray’s is a friend of mine. Happy to help in whatever way we can.”

“Thanks…” I murmured, still staring hard at my to-go cup. The side opposite of the logo had a small blurb of a story recanting how before it became a chain, the first Lucky Cat was a humble little shop in San Fransokyo run by a woman and her two nephews. “...you’re both too kind, really…” I paused with a sigh and a shake of my head, “but I’ve imposed on you both too much already. Thank you so much for letting me stay the night, but I couldn’t possibly ask for anything more from either of you. In fact, I should just go. Just… give me a few minutes to get myself together and then I’ll leave you both in peace again.”

Rayne narrowed her eyes at me. “You will do no such thing!”

I rose from my chair, “No, seriously, it’s okay. You don’t have to worry about me, I’ll be fine. I’ll figure something out.”

What though? Good question. Was still working on that part.

Her eyelids drooped as she set an elbow on the table and leaned forward. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you still have a bit of a munny problem, as in you don’t have any.”

I gave a weak laugh and shrugged, “Psh, details.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “And just where do you think you’ll sleep while you’re broke off your ass?”

“I have… prospects…”

“...that wouldn’t have anything to do with the box you mentioned yesterday?”

My eyes shifted. “And Carol, can’t forget about her.”

Somehow, Rayne did not look reassured. “And Carol would be?”

Boy, were my fingers really getting tangled in my frazzled knot now. “A… a cockroach?”

“A cockroach,” she repeated, voice flat.

“A hypothetical cockroach,” I clarified with a nod.

“That doesn’t make it better,” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Look, there’s no way I’m letting my friend live in a box-”

“Not just any box! A Rolex box,” I interjected hastily. The silence stretched and I floundered a bit under her unamused stare. “So… you know, like… a really nice box.”

She scoffed. “Yeah, no. Not happening. You’re staying with us.”

I shook my head, waving my hands back and forth in front of me. “Oh no, I couldn’t possibly! I don’t want to be any more of a burden than I’ve already been and besides, you don’t have any space for me, not with the baby on the way and-”

“The jellybean won’t be here for another six months at least,” she cut in, looking down to place a gentle hand on her belly. “We were going to turn the spare room into a nursery, but we can clear all the baby stuff out for now and you can use it at least until the kiddo arrives. If you need it for longer, well then, we’ll figure it out at that time.”

“But-”

“Oof!” Riku grunted as Rayne shoved him forward with a smack to his rear. Rubbing his posterior, he looked from her to me. “We, er… we ask that you-” He hissed in pain as she pinched his arm, narrowing her gaze up at him. “I mean, we insist,” he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, whispering, “insist, right?” She gave a firm nod. Clearing his throat, he continued, “We insist that you stay with us. We, uh… won’t take no for an answer.”

Well… when one makes such a super sweet and super coerced offer like that, how could I possibly refuse?

Still I hesitated, worrying my bottom lip between my teeth. “I suppose...only if it won’t be too much of a bother… and this’ll of course only be until I can find a more permanent solu-”

“Then it’s settled!” Rayne leapt up from her chair and I staggered as she tackled me in a death-grip hug. “Welcome to your new home, roomie!”

I couldn’t resist a small smile at that. It was fleeting however as the corners of my mouth turned down once more. “That’s only one problem solved though, what about the million others? There’s still my parents, my ex, my- oh gosh, I have an ex now. My first ex. How weird is that? What am I supposed to even do with an ex?! Like what, do I… send him cards now? Like around Christmas? Or is that too impersonal? Maybe this is more of a fruit basket situation... Oh! And munny! I have to figure out what I’m going to do about that now, not to mention my whole life and future and-”

“Stop,” she put a finger to my lips, silencing my babbling. “Breathe. Why do I get the feeling I’m going to be reminding you to do that a lot now?” she huffed softly. “Just… baby steps, okay? I know it all seems like a lot right now, everything is one big fat question mark, but it’ll all get figured out. You’ve already made a little progress already.”

I blinked. “...I have?”

“Yes! For starters, you’re not homeless! But also, think about it… you’re already doing better than you were last night. I mean, at least you’re no longer a complete basket case.”

“I suppose that’s true,” I muttered, absently wringing my hands together. Not a complete basket case… now I was only like twelve percent of one.

Okay, fine, more like sixty percent.

“See? It’s still scary, yes, but not as scary and overwhelming as it was yesterday! All you needed was a little space along with a good night’s rest to gain some perspective.”

I slowly eased back down into the chair. “I guess you’re right… things don’t seem as bad today. Still bad, very, very bad, but… not as much as last night. Heh… it’s funny how some distance can make everything seem small.”

“And it’ll just keep getting easier, believe me,” Rayne rubbed my shoulder as she too took a seat once more. “Just look at this as a new beginning.”

My eyebrows knit together. “A new beginning?”

She nodded. “Yeah, like… okay, what was your life like before? Before you flew the coop, before this whole mess when everything was all status quo, what was it like with your parents?”

A low hum escaped me. “Well, I guess I always just did as I was told. I got the grades my parents wanted me to get, socialized with the groups my parents wanted me to socialize with, went to the university my parents wanted me to go to, dated the guy I thought my parents would want me to date… never did any wrong, always followed the rules… I was always just the good girl I felt I had to be. Being their eldest child, I felt I had an image to maintain, that I must always do what was expected of me, that I owed it to Mother, to Father, to the family name.”

“Okay, sure, but now all of that?” She smirked at me. “You can just forget about it! No more right or wrong and you can take those stupid, stuffy rules and just throw them out the window! This is a new start for you. Now you get to decide what you want for yourself, no one else. You’re free!”

I stiffened at that, blinking a couple times as her words sunk in.

...no right, no wrong… no rules for me?

I’m… free?

That… actually sounded kind of amazing.

But also totally and utterly terrifying.

Where’s a rock to hide under when you need it?

“Earth to Elsa, come in please.” Rayne snapped her fingers in front of my face and I flinched, wide eyes focusing on her once more. “Sorry, I could just already see you drifting off into worrywort mode so figured I had to reel ya back in quick. Look, I get it. Going from life as practically royalty in a gilded cage to being thrust penniless and clueless into the real world would sound scary and daunting to anyone. But you don’t have to do it alone.” She wrapped her arms around her husband’s waist, hugging him close. “You have Riku and me. Just consider us your Real World for Dummies book!”

That… was actually super comforting to hear. I could already feel the anxiety beginning to ebb a bit. “Thanks, I… that means a lot to me,” I smiled faintly before breathing a small sigh. “Okay then, where should this dummy start?”

“Alright, lesson one,” she struck up a finger. “Everything costs munny. Solution? Get a job.”

One eyebrow shot up my forehead. “A job?”

“Yup! I mean, you’re gonna have to pay for rent somehow!”

My other eyebrow rose to join the first. “R-rent?”

Okay, anxiety back now, and cranked up to a thousand!

“Of course. What, did you think this was gonna be a free ride? Pft, please. I’m your friend, not Mother Teresa. It’s for your own good, you’re going to need to learn how to provide for and take care of yourself. But don’t worry, you won’t owe us anything until you land an actual job.”

“Oh… okay.” That didn’t sound too bad, I suppose. However… “Just one question: how do I do that?”

Her head tilted to the left. “Do what? You mean… get a job?”

“Yeah,” I nodded vigorously, “that.”

“You’re kidding me, right? Have you never had a job before?” You could almost hear the non-existent crickets as I just stared owlishly back at her. Finally she facepalmed. “What am I saying, of course you’ve never had a job. Why would you? You have enough munny to make Tony Stark look like chump change… er, rather, you had. Oi, this might be harder than I thought,” she grumbled, rubbing the nape of her neck.

“What were you going to do?” Riku piped up.

I looked up at him with a frown. “What was I…?”

He crossed his arms over his chest, “You know, as in your career? What were your goals, your ambitions, your plans for the future?”

My fingers were back at it again, getting ensnared in my bedraggled knot. I really needed to see about disentangling the stupid thing. “Well, I… I guess I never really thought about it…”

“What?!” Rayne’s head rocked back at that. “How could you not?! Didn’t you say last night you just graduated? What were you going to do now that you were out of school?”

“I was going to get married!”

Were these people even listening to a word I'd said?!

Riku rubbed his chin, “Let’s try a slightly different angle here. What about your major? What were you studying?”

Here I cringed a bit. “Art History.”

Rayne clapped her hands together once, “Well then, there you go! You can apply to a museum or something.”

“But I hated it. Another thing I did only because my parents encouraged me to. I don’t want to work at a museum or sell art or teach it or have anything to do with it!” And once again, I was slumping forward. Hello table, my old friend. Don’t mind me, I’ll just be banging my forehead against you a few times. “Ugh, why did I have to waste four years of my life on that?! Stupid, useless major!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she tugged on my knot, forcing me to sit back up once more. “It’s not that bad, really!”

“Not that bad? I have no skills, no experience, nothing! No one’s going to want to hire me, I’m about as qualified as a frigging kumquat! Scratch that, the kumquat is more qualified because at least it can be made into a smoothie. Can I be made into a smoothie? No! I can't do anything!”

She puffed out a breath, “Calm down, there’s plenty you can do! You’ll definitely figure this out.”

I tucked in my lower lip as I looked down, mulling it over for a second. Then I glanced back up at them hopefully. “...what do you two do for a living? Would either of you maybe be able to get me a job?”

“University professor,” Riku said, jerking a thumb into his chest. “My field is astronomy, not that that helps you one way or another. You said teaching was out.”

“And I’m a reporter for Meteor Publishing.” Rayne looked away with a low growl, “Though lately I’ve been relegated to online editing work from home because somebody thought it would be a good idea to put me under house arrest ever since we discovered I was pregnant.”

Riku held his hands up in a placating gesture. “Hey now, it wasn’t just me. Vyv agreed with me.”

She scoffed. “Stupid useless boss. In any case, I can’t really be of assistance either, I’m afraid. You kind of need the experience and background to work in journalism. You got anything like that? A course you took for fun in college? Wrote for your high school paper? Anything?”

“I’ve never even so much as kept a personal dairy,” I sighed, eyes downcast once more. “It’s hopeless!”

“No, sweetie, it’s not hopeless! There’s still plenty out there for you! Lot’s of entry-level jobs that’d be willing to train you. It probably won’t be anything glamorous, but you gotta start somewhere! Not gonna lie though, it’ll probably be retail. You know... customer service.”

“Meaning…?”

Looking me dead in the eye, she intoned one single, solitary word that rang out like a funeral toll. “People.”

I blanched.

Okay, this was it.

My nightmare.

She cupped my hands in hers and when she spoke, her voice was gentle. “Sorry, but there’s just no way around it. It’s either that or putting that Art History bachelor’s of yours to work. Pick your poison.”

If you hadn’t gotten the memo by now, me and people? Did not go together. Something about being around them caused my muscles to lock, my heart to freeze to ice, my insides to shrivel, and my soul to exit my body. If it were up to me, I’d have become a hermit a long time ago. But I’d never be able to pull it off... I couldn’t grow that iconic beard that was basically required hermit dress code. Bleh, being a hermit was such a male dominated field, it really wasn’t fair.

All that said, however…

“If I were to go the Art History route,” I began slowly, “it would be kind of like I was still letting my parents dictate my life since they’re the reason I majored in it. No… I want nothing to do with that stupid degree.” My expression hardened. “So, customer service it is then. I’m going to make it on my own, this is just something I have to do. It… will be good for me.” Despite myself, my tone lost some of its edge as I asked, “...right?”

Rayne grinned big at me. “Absolutely! Besides, it’ll only be temporary, just something to give you time to land on your feet and figure out what you really want to do with your life. And remember, we got your back every step of the way. I can help you with the job search and filling out applications. Riku’s definitely more of the social butterfly, so he can prep you for interviews.”

My back stiffened. “Interviews?”

Riku gave a light snort. “You know, as in the thing that will actually land you a job? Resumes and job forms are great for getting your foot in the door, but they’re not enough on their own. Employers actually want to meet you, see if you’ll be a good fit, get a feel for who you are, stuff like that.”

Oh dear…

Was it too late to backtrack and get married?

Zip it, brain, I don’t want to hear that kind of talk! Stay strong, girl!

“Why don’t you give her a bit of a trial run right now, hun?” Rayne suggested, standing up and offering him her chair. “Give her an idea of some of the questions she might be asked.”

“Alright,” he took a seat across from me, scooting forward slightly and plastering on a blinding smile. “Hi, I’m Riku, I’ll be interviewing you for the position we’re hiring for.” He offered me his hand and I twitched back from it slightly. Blank stare darting back and forth between his outstretched palm and his face a few times, I at last tentatively took it to shake. He cleared his throat, looking at me expectantly. I blinked at him. He sighed, “...and you would be?”

“Oh! Um… Elsa… pleasure, to uh… to make your acquaintance?” I ventured.

“Likewise,” his hands folded in his lap. “Now tell me, why do you want this job?”

I straightened up, “Oh, this one’s easy. For munny.”

Riku spluttered and coughed into his fist. Choking back a laugh, Rayne said, “Tact, sweetheart. Try not to be so blunt.”

“Oh.”

This whole interview thing was sounding harder and harder by the second.

Having regained some composure, Riku tried again. “What would you say is your greatest weakness?”

My gaze shifted to the right as my fingers fiddled with my knot once more. “Oh gosh, I have so many, it’s hard to pick just one.”

He gave me a dull stare. “Maybe consider… honesty is not always the best policy.”

“Also remind me later that we really need to boost that self confidence of yours,” Rayne muttered behind him.

“Alright,” Riku lifted his chin, “Where do you see yourself in five to ten years?”

Was he joking? “I don’t even know where I see myself in five to ten minutes, let alone years!”

He smacked himself in the face, dragging his hand down. “We… have our work cut out for us.”

And so it went. Riku tried a few more questions on me, but the rest of my answers continued to go about as well as you might expect. As he and Rayne did their best to prepare me for the real thing, I had to keep telling myself that despite my fears and doubts, this was what was best for me. Sure, it was going to be hard but in a way, that was good. My life had been too easy so far, with everyone making decisions for me. Everyone, that is, except for myself. I had been limiting myself and taking the easy way out this whole time, never realizing my full potential. But not anymore. It was time to see what I could do, to test those limits and break through. This was going to be the new me, not that old fake persona I’d always put on because it was what my parents had wanted. It was time to learn who I really was. And above all, I just needed to keep reminding myself that now…

...I’m free.

Author’s note: Whew, answered a lotta questions this chapter and we're done with the setup for the most part! Please just bear with me a little longer and I promise things will start to pick up and heat up more by the end of next chapter! You probably noticed a few not so subtle drops both this and last chapter of lyrics from Let It Go sprinkled in. I'm just a dork who's doing her best to parallel the whole running away/Let It Go scene from the movie with Elsa nopedy-noping outta her wedding in this story xD Also, not sure if it sounds weird for Elsa to say "frigging" or "frick" (she's gonna do it semi-regularly-ish) but trust me, there's a reason she does! There's always a method to my madness, I swear! …and sometimes those methods are stupid, but still, what matters is that there IS IN FACT a method xD

Anyway! Next chapter, Elsa gets a job (take a wild stab in the dark as to where, given that the story title, summary, and cover art are NOT subtle), she meets a CERTAIN someone (well, she's gonna be meeting a LOT of new someones, but there's one in particular we've all been waiting for, you know who :3) and at last the true fun, adventure and mayhem can really begin! Thank you so much for reading, and an extra BIG thank you to those of you out there who liked and reblogged last chapter, seeing that always brings the biggest, goofiest smile to my face!

PREVIOUS CHAPTER || NEXT CHAPTER

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houseofvans · 5 years

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ART SCHOOL | INTERVIEW WITH JUSTINE JONES

Baltimore based artist and illustrator Justine Jones creates her vein of psychedelic fantasy horror drawings–filled with tiny black lines and an occasional pop of bright colors–which have been featured on the covers of Kobold Press and Warlock magazine. Using the hashtag #VisibleWomen to amplify the voices and portfolios of women comic artists, Justine has be able to do more illustrative work and character design. We’re excited to find out more about Justine’s artistic journey, her love of role-playing games, comics, art, her influences and much more. . . Take the leap!

Photography courtesy of the artist.

Introduce yourself? Hi, I’m Justine! I’ve lived in Baltimore Maryland for the past decade and currently live in a small apartment downtown with my partner and my shiba inu Mo, who is a cool and grumpy guy.

How would you describe your work to someone who is just coming across it? I used to call it storybook surrealism, but now I guess it’s more like psychedelic fantasy horror? Monsters and Wizards. Lots of tiny black lines, sometimes with lots of bright intense colors.

How did you start from doodling and drawing to what you do now? I feel like it sort of happened organically. When I was younger, I would do just pencil drawings, and then in my late teens, I got more into using micron pens. I didn’t really discover color until a few years ago, so I’m a huge color noob. I think a lot of it also came from working in comic shops for years and going to conventions. Seeing all of these amazing artists grow, and thinking hey, I could maybe also do that! I first started with t-shirt designs because it just seemed really fun, and I used to have a really hard time selling prints. People don’t need more prints, but they can always use clothes! Now i’m getting more into illustrative work and character design, and I’m loving it!

Who and what were some of your early artistic influences? When I was a baby, my dad hung an Aubrey Beardsley print over my crib. My mom thought it would make me deranged, and maybe it did, but it also made me love ink work and Art Nouveau style haha. I was obsessed with sword and sorcery stuff and loooved cartoons like He-Man and She-ra, and later, Pirates of Darkwater. I also spent a lot of time in elementary school copying sexy comic book ladies from 90s comics, and I know that is pretty far from what I do now, but it’s honestly how I learned to draw. I also copied a lot from children’s storybooks when I was little.

What are some things that inspire the drawings you make? What are some of your favorite creatures and beings you like to explore in your art? Video games are a huge inspiration to me, from SNES JRPGs, to games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne. Also folklore and mythology from around the world, and fantasy artwork from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. Basically anything fantasy. My favorite things to draw are wizards and monsters. I love body horror, anything disgusting and beautiful at the same time. I take a lot of inspiration from Manga, like Berserk, or anything Junji Ito. I’ve done a lot of Illustrations for Clark Ashton Smith stories, which I find endlessly inspiring, visually. Just like, fantasy/ sci fi/ dying earth type stuff.

When did you start collaborating with Kobold Press on creating some awesome fantasy art covers for their publications? I remember getting the email from them when I was on the way to Necronomicon Providence in 2017. I thiiiink they found my stuff through the visible women hashtag on twitter? I was very excited because I owned some of their adventures from back in the day when I played Pathfinder!! Plus, I have always always wanted to draw things for table top RPGs, so it’s been really cool to actually do it! The Warlock mag that I’ve been doing covers for is awesome because it’s going for an old school DND vibe, but it’s all things that are made for 5th edition. You can get it on their patreon, and I hiiiighly recommend it to anyone who plays 5e dnd!!

Take us through your artistic process? What’s a typical day in the studio like? Haha extremely chaotic! I don’t even have a real set workspace, which I really need to change, I just draw where ever. Just chill out, listen to music or a podcast, and draw. If I’m further along in a drawing and don’t need to focus so much, I’ll watch movies or video gameπ– let’s plays while I’m drawing. I also love to listen to/ watch things that are in theme with what I’m drawing, to give me some inspiration. I try to go to coffee shops to change things up sometimes! Basically I just do a bunch of sketches until something materializes, and then I will just slowly refine the sketch. I guess it’s not that exciting, but it’s cool to see the first sketch and the finished product because in my head, the sketch always looked like the finished product, but when you go back to look at it, it’s usually just indecipherable scribbles.

What are your essential art tools and materials? 90% of my art is just done using a .05 mechanical pencil and micron pens. I also draw everything on smooth bristol. If I have time and want to make my lines super crisp before I scan them in, i will use a light box. Then for color, I generally use Kyle T Webster brushes in Photoshop with my Wacom tablet. If I’m on the go, I like to draw things in Procreate on my iPad Pro, but I’m definitely not as good at doing detailed lines digitally.

What do you do when you’re not drawing or working on projects? How do you unplug? Haha, I wish I ever truly unplugged, I think my brain is now melded into the internet! But mostly I love to play video games. JRPGs and anything From Software/ Soulsborne (currently obsessed with Sekiro!) I also love comics and manga. I’ve been reading The Girl From the Other Side, which is a beautiful dark fairytale Manga by Nagabe. I also just got one called Witch Hat Atelier, which has the most amazing art! My partner also owns an insane amount of board games, so we play a lot of those. I’m obsessed with coffee, and work part time at a coffee shop, and my favorite thing in the world to do is eat good food.

What has been the most challenging project you’ve worked on? How did you overcome those obstacles and what did you take away from it? I made a kind of cosmic horror short story in mini comic form last year for SPX, I had very little time, and it was my first time actually writing a story/ dialogue to go with my pictures. It was insanely challenging. I ended up with a finished product that I’m really proud of and that I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on. I think it really drove home the fact that I just need to stick with things and finish them, even if I don’t feel like they’re perfect. I’m never going to have the time that I want, and I’m never going to feel like anything is perfect. I can still make a great thing!

What advice would you give someone who wants to follow in your footsteps and pursue art? Don’t spend 4 years doing nothing, but playing World of Warcraft (Or doooo?). Uhhh, believe in yourself. Be nice to other artists. Draw all the time! Immerse yourself in things that inspire you! Also, like I said before, things don’t need to be perfect. Let go of perfect, because sometimes it’s an unattainable ideal. Just do as good as you can, and don’t beat yourself up so much! I’m horrible at advice!!!

What’s your best Art School tip that you want to share with folks? Haha, I moved to Baltimore to go to MICA like, 14 years ago, and then realized I was poor, and would never be able to go to MICA… sooo… I never went to real art school. I wanted to go so bad, and I still wish I’d had that experience, but I want other people who can’t afford it to know that you don’t NEED it. Things are a bit harder, but you can find so much free info online if you have the drive, you can teach yourself so many things. Don’t get discouraged just because art school isn’t gonna happen for you.

What are your favorite style of VANS? I love my lavender/ sea fog Authentic Vans, because they basically go with anything, but I am always eyeing those Sk8-His.

Anything you can share that is coming up? Ahhhh, I have some realllly cool things that I can’t share yet, but just everyone keep an eye out (It will be very exciting, i swear)!! As for things I can share, I’m working on some new t-shirt designs, and another comic, and also plan on drawing some more cool wizards in my spare time. So if you wanna see some cool wizards, uhhh, come to my Instagram–you guys! Let’s hang out and look at wizards. And talk about wizards. And if you don’t like wizards well, don’t come I guess.

FOLLOW JUSTINE: INSTAGRAM | WEBSITE | TWITTER | STORE

#Art #Vans #Vans Art #Justine Jones #Vans Girls #Comics #illustration #Art School #Interview #Baltimore

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lopez-richter-fangirl · 5 years

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So. Homecoming. Holy fuck. It’s taken me this long to even start to get my thoughts together. Very spoilery post under the cut. Like, as much as I can possibly remember of the show spoilery. Also rambly. And long. Ridiculously long. So you’ve been warned.

Also disclaimer, this is just homecoming to the best of my recollection and it might not be 100% accurate. So first of all the setlist (this was everything they sang but the order of songs in act 2 is a bit hazy, I think it’s about half right. Also I don’t think hardly anyone at the show could tell you exactly because it was just so overwhelming). They did medleys for all the non-Potter shows in act 1 in reverse chronological order, act 2 they did full songs from all the Potter musicals.

Act 1 TGWDLM, Join Us And Die, Show Stoppin Number We Got Work To Do, Make The Most Of It Ani, With My Own Eyes, Back On Top Gone To Oregon, Naked In A Lake, Speedrun No One Remembers Achmed, A Thousand And One Nights, Happy Ending Holy Musical B@man, Rogues Are We, Superfriends Status Quo, Kick It Up A Notch, I Wanna Be Me And My Dick, Listen To Your Heart, Ready To Go Act 2 Going Back To Hogwarts Harry Freaking Potter To Have A Home Different As Can Be (and reprise) Coolest Girl Cho’s Song Hey Dragon Granger Danger Guys Like Potter Wizard Of The Year To Dance Again Sidekick Voldemort Is Going Down Everything Ends Not Alone Days Of Summer Not Alone (reprise)

Thursday 25th The more I think about it the more I realise I really had no idea what I was expecting from the show. We’d been planning before they even announced what it was to fly out for it, but we had very few details. I didn’t even know they had an orchestra until like two hours before. I’d barely been able to watch any of their rehearsal stories. But I don’t think I’d ever been more excited for anything in my life. I was super excited for AVPW but also, it was my first time seeing any of them, the whole thing felt like a dream, and I had no idea how much it was gonna mean to me so it didn’t even hit me properly until the last night. Whereas I already knew exactly how special this would be, it was entirely once in a lifetime and I was nearly shaking.

Outside the theatre I’ve said it before but genuinely my favourite place in the world to be is surrounded by Starkid fans. Seeing people in cosplay, in merch, talking about the same shows and people I love, I just get such a sense of ‘this is home’. There was the classic waiting-in-line going back to hogwarts singalong. And some la dee da da day thrown in for good measure. Liam was walking along the line filming and doing interviews for the bts. Tessa got out of a car right next to us, we saw Jade and Traci and their friend Bella. They’re all gorgeous it’s insane and unfair.

Inside the theatre Spent over $100 on merch but honestly could have spent so much more, really I showed a lot of self restraint. They didn’t have the programmes though which I’m still heartbroken over. Saw Denise Richter which I was maybe too excited about. Didn’t speak to her or anything but even just to see her she exudes kindness she’s the best. Then we were hanging out in the lobby and Tessa was talking to everyone and hugging them and taking selfies and jumping in people’s group pics and I love her. Like she made my night even without me talking to her because she was SO sweet to everyone she spoke to and I was stood there falling in love with her by the second. Also, let’s talk about how cool the venue was? It looked unbelievable and they had a bunch of posters up with AVPM quotes. And the stage? Y’all have seen by now but they made it look like an actual homecoming dance and it was amazing. Considering how far back our seats were it was actually a very good view, it helped that I had an aisle seat so had a clear view of the entire stage. I’ve posted the pre-show playlist here, it was perfect, especially the JATP like, hell yeah to celebrating all their various projects. At this point I literally thought I was gonna die of excitement. AJ and Clark came on stage and as much as I was having great fun freaking out with the groupchat about how soon the show was I couldn’t wait to put my phone away cause that meant the show was starting. And then the lights went down.

Darren Very pleased to say it was not the Darren show, even though he did give the opening and closing speech. And as much as I have opinions about him, when he walked out for the first time it was a pretty special moment because it’s like, this is it this is really happening. The amount of energy in that room when he came on stage my god. You would not have believed there were only 1600 people there. The whole show people could barely get a sentence out without cheering, which in hindsight was probably annoying but it just shows how incredibly loved they are, and we were as grateful to them as they were to us. I loved the atmosphere in both shows, it was completely different both times and I’ll obviously get to the Friday night show, but there was something special about being in a room of majority backers, all of us seeing these show for the very first time, it was totally new. Again, literally no idea what to expect and it was the most exhilarating feeling. Darren did a little ‘look for your exits pretend we’re at Disney’ which was cute after being at Disney for two days beforehand. Classic starkid fashion, he told us they had no idea how long the show would run for. He made a G.L.E.E. joke so it’s nice to know he’s still on our side at the end of the day. I don’t know if it was him that talked about Starkid performing with a 13 piece orchestra for the first time, but I’m gonna bring it up here anyway. I’m so grateful they were overfunded and that they were able to have the orchestra, because it’s probably something they really wanted and it’s also something they 100% deserve. I’d sell my soul to hear every starkid song with that orchestra, it was magnificent. I really hope we do get an album because it all sounded SO GOOD. Unsurprisingly don’t remember much else of what Darren said because I was just so excited for the show to start.

TGWDLM medley So as soon as the opening started playing even as Darren was still introducing people went insane, literally within two seconds I knew undoubtedly that this was gonna be the best two hours of my life (also the fastest. Often watching theatre shows I lose attention a little bit but there wasn’t a single second of this show that I wasn’t 100% in the moment they’re completely captivating, and it went by way too fast). Oh wow this is where we got to see Joey and Lauren for the first time. Fuck. I cannot describe to you how good they looked. Pictures do not do it justice. Thank god the mustache was gone. Thank god Lauren didn’t wear the boots. She was wearing my favourite hairstyle. Joey’s hair looked great. Their outfits were incredible. They literally could not have been more perfect looks for me and I’m so grateful. I could have cried happy tears at seeing them. This in itself could go on for five pages so I’ll leave it there. They all did the whole iconic zombie pose entrance. Corey sang Joey’s astronomical line which was kinda a shame cause I love the way he sings that line however I’m glad they did it like that cause Joey got to sing a lot in the show (still not enough for my liking but then again my liking is Joey and Lauren singing the whole show so I’m good). Wish they did Lauren’s ‘pines after a cute lil barista’ bit. Also kinda wish they did inevitable so Jon could sing because I love him and he deserves better @ starkid when are you going to hire me. However they made up for that when Jaime went ‘it is time’ and the room was absolutely electric because everyone knew exactly what was coming. That note had me shook from the moment I heard it on the digital ticket and I feel honoured to have heard it in person. Jeff was still her hype man. Jaime’s voice is honestly out of this world, she’s the person I’d most heard sing live but it was still mind blowing. She’s incredible I love her so much. Then Robert came on stage so like, room exploded again. Joey and Lauren should have been on stage doing their bit for show stopping number but again, what do I know? This song was 100% pandering but as much as it’s overhyped it is a good song and Robert fucking killed it, he actually impresses me so much. His voice? He did the hip wiggles, maybe even more than were in the show, and people went absolutely wild for it. He did the working boys bit and of course everyone lost their minds. And I loved it, I loved that atmosphere of everyone being entirely obsessed with every tiny thing these people do because that’s what connects us all. Jon did get to be a working boy (as did Mariah) and sounded great. They actually sang so much of this song holy shit definitely pandering. But they really were giving Hamilton some competition.

Firebringer medley Lauren Walker introduced this one, do I remember what she said? No, I was too busy wondering if they were going to sing Climate Change. They didn’t. You sang three songs from every other show but two from firebringer and one of them wasn’t climate change? Okay sure. This sounds like I’m complaining I’m not this section was still gorgeous and I loved every second of it. Hearing music from firebringer was amazing because it has some of my favourite music from all the starkid shows, and also because apart from TGWDLM which was so recent it’s the only show we hadn’t heard anything from since. They sang we got work to do which again, pandering and not even to what most people actually wanted if we’re being honest. But I’m happy about it because hearing Lauren sing that first line was a spiritual experience. Her voice? No words. So good. Can’t believe I got to hear it live? Properly?!? Also Joey got to be in this bless his heart and I couldn’t stop watching him doing the choreography. Lauren’s little expressions throughout the whole thing are adorable god I love her. Meredith sounded so good. Rachael got so much of a cheer when she sang her bit. Joey comforted Joe after the shadow bit. Then they sang from the proposal bit of the finale. Brian was pretending to be jealous when Meredith was singing to Lauren which made my life, p.s. Joey step up your game. The first time hearing Lauren sing ‘this is the dawn’ literally took my breath away. And with that orchestra!? (Will I ever shut up about the orchestra? The answer is no). The CHEERS for ‘we are womankind’. Hell yeah. And then Lauren did the arm thing like way to literally flex on us Lo. Not okay. They did the little Molag dialogue bit and Denise did the being-blessed-with-knowledge face. Watching Denise off to the side was honestly one of the highlights of the whole show.

TTO medley

Now I’m questioning my memory but I think Jaime went offstage after Firebringer when she wasn’t supposed to because I’m sure I remember her not being on stage for this at first. Like everyone else was there and there was a moment where I was like ‘I feel like someone’s missing...’ and then Jaime walked on late. She did mention Julia having to remind her of her cues. Anyway. Gone to oregon was first and I was reminded what an actually good performer Jeff is. He’s great in that show. Corey got the cheers he deserved at his ‘wisconsin’ bit. Lauren singing Naked in a lake was beautiful. Even if not enough people sang with her when she asked for help (spoiler, we stepped up Friday). She was definitely trying to get us to sing the high bits cause her voice was tired and she didn’t want to but that’s fine. This was one of the songs from that show I really wanted them to sing and I’m glad they did, it’s so much fun. Also Lauren does kinda steal the show but watching everyone else in this song is great. Shoutout to the sax guy, I’m glad we as a fandom always appreciate the band/orchestra. I still can’t believe everyone just lets Lauren sing a whole song about skinny dipping but I’m here for it. Then they did speedrun which was. An experience. Still think Joey should have sung wagon on fire but would I have passed out most likely yes so maybe it was better off this way. I’m glad Rachael got a moment. The ‘faster’ bit was fucking insane I don’t know how they had the breath for it. Everyone clapped pace and I’m pretty sure we clapped faster than the song ever goes so, sorry guys that you had to go through that? I think I have a newfound appreciation for this song. It was either in this or possibly in Naked in a lake that Joey did something stupid and Lo looked at him and shook her head. There were a lot of little looks throughout the show and trying to catch each other’s eye across the stage and it was very cute and probably won’t make the cut even though it should it’s the best part of the show.

Ani medley Moses introduced it and he was wearing like the jacket that’s one of his costumes and he wore in the final SK10 livestream idk you guys I’ve seen that show twice. The Ani band is fucking great, they had Mark, Nick Gage (?? idk there was definitely a fourth person I was mostly watching Meredith let’s be real here), Clark and Meredith all sing. Meredith had the biggest smile on her face at all times it was a joy. Ani is such a fun song so many starkid songs are so fun. Also they added a key change (was it even a key change? I’ve never studied music whatever they did it sounded good.) Actually the whole arrangement of this medley I loved, I hope it makes the people who don’t appreciate the music in this show appreciate it. With my own eyes is my favourite song in that show and I’m very happy they did it. They should have had Denise do her choreo when they did Back on top tbh. I love Meredith in this song though.

Twisted medley Joe came out to introduce it but kept hyping everyone up about Ani first. I really miss Joe he has so much onstage energy. I knew they were doing No one remembers achmed but I was still so excited about it. It’s such a good song. And the whole ‘you ooze sex’ bit in the flesh? That’s all. Obviously the best part was everyone yelling tigerfucker. Experiencing that in person is unbeatable. Then they had Britney and Carlos sing their version of 1001 nights and it was beautiful, I very rarely listen to that version of the song but I should, Britney is unbelievable and I love her so much. I can’t believe she’d just flown in and had such a rough time right before the show, you wouldn’t have known it. Dylan walked out and I kinda thought they were gonna have him and Meredith do a quartet (starkid when are you gonna hire me??) but then he sang ‘and with my wife beside me’ and I was like :’) this is good. That part of the song always gets me and Dylan’s voice is a goddamn gift. I love the overlapping parts at the end of Happy ending too so it’s always a good choice. But why they didn’t sing dream a little harder when Alex was right there I do not know.

HMB medley Pretty sure they had Julia introduce it? Guys it’s been a week gimme a break. Either way she definitely introduced something at some point and I’m glad everyone cheered so much for her because she was the glue of Starkid for a while. Nick Gage sang HMB and they had a reverb (again, is that the right term? not a clue) and he looked so pleased with himself every time we laughed. Then they sang rogues are we (rogues medley would have been better but in fairness that would have ruined the whole thing they had going). I do love Lauren singing we are the harlots and the hussies. A lot. But Denise does it so well. And Jaime’s ‘we’re rising up from the underground’?? I don’t think I have a single thing to say about any of the men in this song and I’m not sorry. Superfriends sounded very cool. It doesn’t matter how many times I see it, I always love the matching tattoos bit, and seeing Meredith’s story afterwards about how she was directing hers at Jade made it even better. I don’t even remember who sang Robin’s lines because I was too busy watching Lauren do the dance, she’s adorable. It was funny watching like five of them doing it cause they were the only ones who had learned it before and the rest not knowing it. Also, I don’t know which makes me happier, when they point into the audience for ‘I wanna be your friend forever’, or when they point at each other. Both are good.

Starship medley Denise introduced the show and um hi I love Denise she’s so cute. She said the thing about her mom calling Starship a show for dreamers and I still think that’s the most adorable thing. I will say for the rest of time that having Alex and Mariah sing Status quo was a weird choice. Also made me pissed that basically no one cheered for Alex but of course everyone went fucking crazy for Mariah. Not even that Mariah didn’t deserve it, but she didn’t deserve it more than Alex. Just saying. It did sound very good with the orchestra and they both have good voices, but I still think we deserved it sounding good with JOEY and the orchestra. I would have died to hear Joey sing that song. Moving on though. Kick it up a notch is always better in rogues medley but I do adore the Jim Brian and Jaime trio anyway. And it’s SUCH a good song. Then they sang I wanna be which I was psyched about I love that song (it was straight from Brant’s verse though like hello what happened to Joey rights). Hearing the older songs makes me wish so much they’d remount them because they all sound so good now it would be amazing. Joey’s voice is legitimately a blessing from the gods.

MAMD medley Brian introduced the show and walked away from the mic before he said dick, which was funny but also reminded me of how they said this would be the most PG show starkid had done which is laughable. Joey did a whole bit in the beginning that reminded me a lot of his jekyll and hyde performance in shitty broadway. I love that man. Again, we deserve a remount of this show if only for Joey’s voice. Then we have maybe the most iconic moment of the thursday show which is when Joe had way too much excitement for his entrance, fucking sprinted on stage, knocked over the mic stand and had to rescue it, spraining his ankle in the process. And recovered BADLY, he was trying to figure out what to say to pull it back and Joey basically had to tell him to just sing already. I feel a little guilty now because it looked pretty bad, but it was really fucking funny. And then the cheer at the head tilt, why do we all love it so much??!? Then Joey sang Listen to your heart with AJ (him and Brian are a better duo fight me). I loved their little added dialogue, with Joey being like ‘do I smell?’ and AJ being like ‘so bad’. I always always love the little dance break Joey is the sweetest boy. I think I remember something like ‘am I doing it?’ ‘not even close Joey’. Then Alle Faye and Ali came out for ready to go and it went from their bit. It was really nice seeing them back together again. It wasn’t like nearly ten years had gone by at all. God it’s weird how nostalgic I was/am for something I wasn’t even there for. The ‘we’re finally ready’ bit sounded so gorgeous with the orchestra, I had it stuck in my head for days. They slowed it down, and we had everyone on stage, and it was just beautiful. The perfect way to end the act, which was over way too soon, and I was already feeling sad about the show nearly being over even though there was so much good to come. Wait how could I forget to mention the ‘my hormones are freaking out’ bit. Fuck all of them for that. Even if I pretty much just watched Lauren with a quick glance at Joey, which is an accurate description of what I did for a lot of the show.

Intermission First quick thing to say, as much as I wish we’d heard some more full songs from the non-Potter shows, I think I like that they kept it separate. The first half was celebrating everything they achieved since where it all started for them, and the second half was pure nostalgia. And even though I wish it wasn’t the case, more people know the potter shows so it was kinda nice that everyone was even more united than they had been for the first half. Secondly, what I should have done during intermission was used the time to recover, because the show was a whole lot of excitement and emotions and I knew it was only going to get worse in the second half. But instead I yelled to the groupchat and met @starkidmelly. More JATP was played, everyone was buzzing, I couldn’t believe I was there. I think it was a long intermission but it did not feel it, Nick came out on stage and it’s like oh shit here we go again.

Nick’s speech He worried me because he said he wanted to take a minute to get sentimental, and I’d already cried a couple of times it was too early in the show to do it again. But then he just talked about the movie Starkid and how it was a bad movie and made us all laugh which I appreciated. What I really did love was how much people cheered for him when he came out, and also for Matt in the audience when Nick shouted him out. Especially on that first night the happiness on Nick’s face at everyone cheering made me want to cry it was so special and he deserves every bit of it and you could tell it still comes as a surprise even now. Also I’ll tag it on now because I don’t remember exactly at what point it was, but at some point in the second act Corey was telling people to stop filming, which kinda made me mad cause they’d asked people not to film and he looked so mad, but was also kinda funny because like, it’s one thing being stopped from filming by an usher but it’s a whole other thing being stopped by Corey Lubowich himself. I probably would have volunteered to leave the theatre if I disappointed Corey like that tbh. But anyway back to Nick, he introduced GBTH with the original cast of AVPM and everyone fucking lost it.

GBTH So you already know what you’re about to be blessed with and then you hear that opening note and people are impossibly screaming even louder and Darren comes onstage and crouches down and it’s like nothing has really changed at all. I’ve been in a room of people singing this song before and it was magical, but this was even more people and even more special. This is where it all started, and there we were ten years later. And it was so surreal actually hearing them sing this in person. Darren put the glasses on and people went insane. The amount of anticipation I felt for Joey’s entrance was ridiculous, and he got the cheers he deserved (almost. he always deserves more). And no matter how many times we see it or how long it’s been it always makes me feel a lot of feelings seeing Darren and Joey on stage singing this together. Joey messed up the floo powder a bit and it was cute. Still iconic. It was deafening when Bonnie came out, which I guess was to be expected we haven’t seen her in nine years. I will say that she did look genuinely happy to be there, and they looked genuinely happy to have her there. Plus the line ‘why do you have to be such a buzzkill’ was so much more funny with the irony of her pretty much bringing the house down. The nostalgia factor ramped up even more here and it was pretty awesome to have that original trio back on stage after so long. Again, so much but simultaneously so little had changed in ten years and trying to articulate those feelings would require a hundred page essay. I didn’t expect them to change the original but I still think they should have kept Lauren’s altered ‘that would be cool’ line. It’s better. But I digress. Jaime got to do her bit and it was a masterpiece. But rest in peace to the whole Cho Chang and Cedric bit, you were deeply missed. Lauren’s entrance, do I even need to say more? Fucking iconic as ever. One of the best moments in all of history. I’m glad they kept in most of the dialogue-y bits although I do not remember what her accent was like. People delivered on ‘whatever I say’ and I love how that’s become our thing. The train bit always makes me emotional, even more so this time with so many people old and new onstage. I always think of Lauren saying she hates the train move but she should have told her face that. Dylan did his entrance from the back of the theatre aka right by us and it was magnificent, he held the note all the way down to the front. They added in the lines about sorting here so Tyler got to do ‘hufflepuffs are particularly good finders’ which was a good choice they did good on that one, Dylan’s ‘what the hell is a hufflepuff’ was drowned out by people still cheering for Tyler, it was a pretty great moment. I may have cried a bit at ‘it’s all that I love and it’s all that I need’. Just a bit. I loved so much that they got everyone to be a part of this song.

Harry Freaking Potter Have I lost all my memories of this song? Maybe. I remember it being amazing. Predictably I watched Lauren a lot, it’s very hard not to she’s so cute when she’s dancing. It’s funny to me how they hold out the mics for the last ‘harry freaking potter’ but most people are already cheering so they get nothing. They should have learned by now.

To Have A Home Was possibly next? I know I got teary again pretty early on in the act (saved the full crying at this song for Friday though stay tuned). I know I’m very far from being the only person who felt the most at home I’ve ever felt. How can you not, surrounded by so much support and mutual love for these incredible people who’ve done so much for us. Starkid is a huge family and it’s tangible in moments like that. And ‘to know this is real’ hits hard. Especially because you can really feel it from Darren, as famous as he is now being on stage with his friends is truly home.

Different As Can Be There’s just something about this song that brings so much energy and Joe and Brian are an iconic duo. And they brought the Quirrelmort vibes strong. Loved everyone shouting ‘prevails’. I’m super glad they did the reprise too. The reaction when they go back to back is incredible. Also, Joe’s ‘Quirrell’ was impeccable.

Coolest Girl I will say to Bonnie’s credit that she did a very good job opening this song, considering how many people were there and how much pressure there must have been seeing as she’s suddenly making a reappearance after so many years. And she did get a lot of love for it. But Meredith coming out to duet with her actually made me cry, she looked so happy and they did a cute little ‘hi’ and I really truly consider this Meredith’s song, even if she didn’t originally sing it, so I’m glad she got to do it. It was a special moment having them sing it together with no resentment or jealousy. And then Meredith confirmed that Bonnie was pregnant again at the end of the song.

Cho Chang Of course Darren sang this. Of course. What would a starkid show be without Darren playing his dumb songs on guitar. But nothing beats a room full of people shout-singing ‘that’s in canada’ (side note, why did this stick so much? every time I saw it on the map when I flew to Canada it’s all I could think of). But also, idk why Darren introduced this song by saying he wanted to test if we knew the words like buddy pretty sure we know the words to your songs better than you do but sure.

Hey Dragon More of Darren playing dumb songs on guitar but this is also a pretty fun song so we’re letting it slide. Also he did say that he didn’t want to do this song and said they should cut it to make time for better songs but that everyone else made him do it, which does not surprise me. He obviously had to call out his own songwriting abilities from ten years ago, it makes me laugh every time he does it but this time he really came for himself with how bad the rhyming was and how the lyrics are dumb. I love that he can’t get through the song without laughing because it is pretty stupid but we love it anyway. They trusted us on the ‘la la la’s and I think we came through.

Granger Danger Okay. OKAY. So after all that Darren was like ‘let’s take it to a school dance’ which did not register for me at all because that song has gone way beyond that and now it’s just Joey and Lauren’s song. But then Darren’s playing it (which I found ??? sweet?? for some reason? idk it was good) and Joey and Lauren are on stage and I’m like here we fucking go. This is what I’m here for. Cannot begin to describe how happy I was to hear this song. I literally had said I refused to die before I heard them sing this live and now it will forever be one of the highlights of my life. The amount of power on that stage. Also the amount of attractiveness. They honestly are a power couple. The most iconic duo singing one of the most iconic songs. Their stage presence just blows me away. And it always makes me feel things too because they’ve done this song so many times and when they were first performing it they had no idea where they’d end up and now they’re fucking living the dream together and I can’t believe how far they’ve come. This is a hole we don’t need to go down though. It absolutely is a crime that they haven’t had more songs together but it does make this one particularly special because it’s fucking THEIR song and there’s no doubt they love performing together and their chemistry is so good anyway anyway I swear I’ll get back on track. This song with the orchestra??!? Holy shit you guys it sounded so good. They managed to take a song I love with every inch of me and make me love it even more. They came out and did a handshake because they’re fucking dorks. My heart genuinely felt like it was about to pump out of my chest, the adrenaline rush from seeing this live was crazy it’s a fucking experience. Joey was remarkably in character when it got to Lauren’s bit but she could not be in character for the life of her when he was singing my god she just did not give a fuck. Her heart eyes were off the charts I swear to god I couldn’t believe that dumb girl. Also Lauren was practically making love to her mic stand half the song which was honestly unnecessary but I love her. And her looking at her crotch murdered me. And then Joey was looking at her for most of the ending and she didn’t look at him once so she sucks. As always the last note was heavenly. When do we get a two hour concert version of this song??

Guys Like Potter Maybe came next? I love the apocalyptour arrangement of this song but it was nice to throw it back to the original and Tyler’s great. Joe tried? We’ll leave it at that.

Wizard Of The Year I think this followed after purely because of AJ saying something like ‘that’s enough about that Potter boy’?? And then he only went and did the whole fucking mouse monologue. And the entire time I was sat there having an internal conflict between ‘this is one of the funniest things I’ve ever witnessed’ and ‘they could have used this time to do climate change’. Honestly hearing him pull that out was wild. But then he sang the song and some of the girls came out to do the ‘gilderoy’ bit (which was the best part duh).

To Dance Again The beginning of this song is always iconic. Most important thing to say here is how I’m even more impressed now with Joe’s dancing after seeing what his ankle looked like. Also, hearing all the tapping (thudding) from the audience brings me inexplicable joy. Lauren ran on stage before her cue when Darren came off and had to book it back off and I feel a bit bad immortalising it because I’m sure she’s glad they weren’t filming that night. While we’re on the subject, the Thursday show was a little messy but like, there were no HUGE fuck ups apart from maybe Joe’s in MAMD and it was all surprisingly well rehearsed considering they’d had barely two days of rehearsal and they’re all so so impressive. Still think they should have had a 40 person kickline but the three person Joe Darren and Brosenthal kickline was still pretty good. Also, I remember someone doing a very cool harmony? It maybe sounded like Holden? His voice is underrated.

Sidekick I cannot remember for the life of me if this is actually where this song goes?? I don’t remember if Joey went offstage or not. I just know that he ended up alone on stage and I damn near lost my mind. I know I’ve said it before but Joey’s performance of sidekick genuinely is a show stealer and I never in a million years thought I’d get to see it live so I feel extremely privileged that I did. God bless whoever included this in the setlist you have my eternal thanks. It’s what Joey deserves (and what I deserve). His voice!?! The high notes?!? Still love the irony of Joey singing this song. Classic cheering at ‘am I the hottest’ because yes you fucking are. He messed up a bit and sang ‘am I the one who takes you home’ twice but we love him. He absolutely killed it and being reminded that they’d not long got back from SDCC and finding out he had a fever made me even more impressed because you literally wouldn’t have known it.

Voldemort Is Going Down More on Joey continuing to kill it (but maybe not in this order). It was good to hear this song again, it slaps. And they all sounded so good too. And there was a super cool little piano riff at one point. This song makes everyone so hype I love it so much.

Everything Ends Haha tear time (jk just about managed to save them for Friday). But it is very much when things get sad because you can feel that the show’s coming to a close. This was Robert’s duet with a person he’d never sung with before and it sounded beautiful. We got the return of Joe’s snape voice or am I imagining that? I don’t remember what he said but I’m sure he said something and it probably made me sad. Literally the whole end of the show is just a blur because I couldn’t believe it was almost over so quickly.

Not Alone Jaime. Just, Jaime. Incredible every time she sings this song. Also, so many AVPW feelings because this is what they came out and sang and this song has been extra special to me since. So I was in tears from the get go tbh. God I’m really really really missing AVPW today so this is a lot just thinking about it. And personal feelings about Bonnie and also how much I love newer arrangements of not alone aside, it was unimaginably special to see the original four singing this together again.

Days Of Summer We knew they’d save this to the end (or at least so we thought) but it was still a bit of an asshole move ngl. Like, do you enjoy our suffering? Seeing everyone on stage together singing this song that’s at the heart of starkid, if there was anyone who didn’t cry I applaud them. Darren gave a closing speech where he didn’t thank half the people he needed to because he hadn’t rehearsed. I wish I remembered more of what he said because it wasn’t exactly the same as Friday, it also didn’t make me cry half as much which I guess was a bonus. They did the little going back to hogwarts reprise probably partly to make us all feel a bit better and got everyone on their feet for it and as much as I never know which house to say I still love that moment of everyone yelling their house. Then they had “curtain call”, except they faked us out because Brian stayed on stage with his fist in the air and I’m like okay what are these idiots up to now. And Nick came out to tell him they sang all the songs and Voldemort’s dead, which of course meant ‘dead?! *skips stone*’ and we all needed that laugh. And then Joe came out and they did the ‘okay is good’ bit so I was sad again and god they really messed with our emotions. And everyone came back out and did the not alone reprise and literally stomped all over my heart because ten years ago they did the exact same thing, except now they were on a bigger stage with a bigger audience and a bigger family and they’ve all grown so much and achieved so many amazing things in their careers and their personal lives and they’ve grown up a lot but they’re still these college kids at heart who love performing with their friends and making people laugh and I didn’t want to leave my seat after they all walked offstage because it really felt like my soul had left my body and I was just completely emotionally drained. And unbelievably happy that I was getting to experience it all again the next day.

Friday 26th The one thing I have to say about the line this time round is shoutout to the kid handing out red vines, I don’t know how many people actually wanted one but it made me smile. As we were waiting in the lobby we saw Denise x2 (Joey’s mom still looked like the embodiment of kindness and Denise always seems so happy to be there I love them both).

Anyway when we got to our seats I just sat down and was internally screaming because we were So Close to the stage and I was like how on earth am I going to survive seeing this much beauty. Also I knew that some people had different outfits and I was trying to figure out if Lauren and Joey were wearing the same thing cause that was the most important thing so it was an anxious wait. Then when they came out being that close to the crop top nearly killed me and Joey looked even hotter in that red shirt than he did on Thursday so like, I want that image tattooed on my eyelids.

Oh and we saw MK, Sean, Sarah and Whitney up in the balcony before the show started. This is how the conversation went down... Sophie: is that MK up there? Me: I think so, that looks like Sean Sophie: it doesn’t look like Sean? (spoiler alert, it was Sean)

Also to quickly go back to the live atmosphere, Friday night was INSANE oh my god. Whether it was that it was the last show or whether it was being closer to the stage but the room was absolutely electric, it seemed like so many more people - including me this time - were singing and fucking reciting all the lines like it makes me so happy that we’re all fucking nerds who love these other nerds to death and memorise all their shows. As was my plan, the first night I took everything in and then the second night I just got to enjoy it and make the most of it. So the Thursday show it was kind of like I was observing everything but Friday I was LIVING it, and I really was living. It was a fucking party. And I could anticipate what was coming and it somehow made it even more exciting than witnessing everything fresh for the first time. I was literally sat there having the time of my life for two hours and I hope they all saw it, they would have just seen me with a huge fucking grin the whole time (apart from when I was crying we’re not talking about that rn). Maybe the most fun I’ve ever had. It made all the money I’d spent to get there 10000% worth it because as amazing as the DVD is going to be and you bet I’m getting it (well the digital download shipping’s an outrage), you can’t buy the atmosphere in the room and it was incredible to be there.

Okay y’all know the drill now so this is gonna be quickfire:

Act 1

Seeing everyone doing their crazy eyes in TGWDLM up close was an EXPERIENCE. Jon was a stand out. Also Jaime. Being so much closer the energy was so much higher for Join us and die. I think that was really my main thing about Friday, aside from how emotions were even higher, was how crazy the energy was it was SO MUCH FUN. And Robert is pretty great.

Have I mentioned Lauren’s look nearly killing me? Yes? Good. The gay came out full force in Firebringer. Lo’s talent is out of this world and I feel so lucky to have witnessed it live.

So many more people sang for Lauren in Naked in a lake and she looked so happy my baby. I made eye contact with her at one of the points she was holding the out mic for the audience to sing so I’m glad she saw me (quietly but extremely enthusiastically) singing my heart out for her. Joey made Lauren laugh when they were dancing during speedrun and it’s the most adorable shit I’ve ever seen. Those two are genuinely in their own world half the time they’re on stage together and I live for it.

Carlos wasn’t there this night so I think Dylan should have filled in for his verse of 1001 nights but my ideas are worthless right? Oh have I mentioned how much I live for over a thousand people yelling tigerfucker? And Robert smashed ‘he fucked a tiger’. Also I’m sure they did it the first night too but I noticed even more Denise and Meredith encouraging everyone to cheer when Joe was doing the dialogue bit I adore them.

Brant got so out of time on I wanna be my god Joey looked like he was trying to telepathically tell him to slow down but he never really recovered. But the chaotic energy felt appropriate? It’s not a starkid show without a mess up.

Joe’s MAMD entrance was more controlled this time but honestly it’s a shame the fuck up won’t be on the filmed version because it was definitely a highlight (I hope you’re okay Joe). Mere and Brian had their arms round each other when they were singing ready to go and I was hit with the ‘oh my god they’re getting MARRIED’ feels. Look how far they’ve come. They were also making faces at each other during one song, I don’t remember which one, and giving Joey and Lauren a run for their money for being in their own world. Still not nearly as bad though.

Intermission

I remember even less of this intermission than the first one. I was just in total shock. Also when we came back from the intermission Nick went ‘two people just got engaged’ and almost literally stopped my heart like I KNOW that’s not how it’s gonna happen but where did he expect me to go with it. And then he wanted to be reminded of their names but someone shouted ‘Joe and Traci’ so he had to be like ‘no I’m not talking about them’ which made me laugh a lot.

Act 2

GBTH was somehow even better this time round. It’s actually a spiritual experience. 100% my happy place. Also Joey didn’t have the headband the first night and I didn’t know I needed it until he came out wearing one on Friday, it was weirdly emotional.

To have a home was worse this time around because I had to come to the realisation that I was gonna leave this home behind. That’s always the worst part, it was the same with AVPW, it’s not just that I miss it it’s also that it’s this happy, safe little bubble where everything feels okay and it’s so sad to lose that. So yeah, cried a lot this time. Also Darren went offstage on Thursday too in the instrumental but this time he went offstage and ran round to the other side to come back on which was so much better good job Darren.

When Lo and Joey shook hands for granger danger they both had such cute smiles my HEART. Lauren still had heart eyes for Joey singing, she was just stood there grinning at him the whole time she loves him so much jesus christ. Also she was staring at him when they were both singing the ‘falling in love’ bit just saying. And they got super close to each other for the end but kept alternating looking at the other person and the audience so they were never actually looking at each other and it KILLED me I hate them. I also didn’t even think twice about singing Lauren’s part during granger danger until halfway through oops and now I kind of want to apologise, Mr Joey Richter I love you.

You could tell there were a fair few people in the audience who’d seen one or both of the other shows and knew what was coming so actually shouted out ‘what’s your fantasy’ when AJ was working up to the mouse monologue which made it even better. It was just as insane and funny the second time, but I still couldn’t believe they actually put it in there.

Back to Mr Joey Richter, he brought the house down with sidekick even more than on Thursday. He’s so talented y’all. You’d expect more cheering for ‘am I the one who takes you home’ but the urge for everyone to yell ‘definitely not’ is too much and it cracks me up. And he pointed at the very least in my direction when he sang the last ‘I love being at your side’ so I’ll take it for SURE.

They got everyone standing even earlier on in the show (during voldemort is going down) and I just felt a sense of elation, the whole show but at this point in particular, because everyone was there having a fucking amazing time and pouring out so much love, from our direction and from theirs, and I feel like that song really does do what it’s supposed to and make us feel united.

Everything ends made me cry a lot because it actually was the end this time, and starkid have some fucking heart wrenching goodbye songs that are supposed to make you feel better but really don’t at all. Not alone made me cry more, obviously. Days of summer was so much worse because it really was goodbye, me having to say goodbye to seeing them and one of the best experiences of my life, them having to say goodbye to each other. SO. MANY. TEARS.

Random point, Lauren looked so fucking cute when she came out in her varsity jacket with the sleeves pushed up because it was too big for her I just wanted to hug her.

Joey and Lauren kept looking at each other during Darren’s speech, Joey in particular kept trying to catch Lo’s eye which killed me he’s too soft. And Lauren pulled a face at the mention of a twenty year reunion like she felt way too old for that and he was smiling at her I hate them.

There were a lot of tears, Joey and Tiffany especially and Lauren pulled her trying not to cry face. In the speech Darren said something about starkid bringing about this group of friends and Joey’s wide eyed already-crying-but-trying-not-to-cry-even-more-face was both heartbreaking and funny and I hope it makes it onto the DVD. I don’t remember much else of the speech other than that it was incredibly emotional and it very well summed up a lot of what we were all feeling about the show and how special starkid was. Also I made eye contact with Joey when we were both crying and we smiled at each other (tried to) and honestly that was a bonding moment for us.

And we saw Bob and Denise on our way out which caused a whole lot more feelings because those are their kids up there performing with all their other honorary kids and yep we’re done here.

I don’t really know how to bring this all to a neat end. I don’t really think there is one. It’s an experience that can’t fully be put into words, the emotions it brought up aren’t ones that I can properly label, and it’s going to stick with me forever. But it was a reminder of how special starkid is. Watching their shows at home, scrolling through their social media, of course it brings me so much joy it’s my reason for living. But getting to see them live and feel the impact they’ve had on so many people? Getting to do it with a friend I made because of them? I just wish I had the words or the time to give them the thanks I wish I could. I really hope they felt the sheer, deep love we all feel for them over those two days.

Anyway, I know this was way too long and half of it wasn’t information people care about but I’m done now. And I’m so excited for the DVD and (hopefully) album so I can experience it all again!

#homecoming spoilers

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mostlymovieswithmax · 5 years

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Classic Doctor Who (S2E1) - Planet Of Giants [spoiler review]

After many months and numerous extended breaks from watching the very first season of Doctor Who (or at least what I was able to watch), originally aired in the latter months of 1963 and through most of ‘64, my impression of the show in its infant stages is that it seemed to want to lean into being quite educational and to show historical events from around the world, while also showing off a bit of space travel as well. With a number of episodes missing from this season, it’s difficult to get the full picture but I’d say I liked it just enough to finish it and begin season 2. The problem I have with these early episodes (or serials) is that each is composed of multiple parts. It’s like in a school test where the teacher tells you there are only 8 questions, meanwhile each question has other sub-questions so for this show the end result winds up being 2-7 sub-episodes for each complete story: a serial. For comparison, each sub-episode is around 24 minutes long so an episode with 6 instalments will roughly take as much time as three modern era Doctor Who episodes, but tell just as much of a story as one of them. Going into season 2 is a similar affair, with its first serial, Planet Of Giants clocking up to only three episodes in total, which I feel is a nice way to ease someone into the show. But is this story any good?

Planet Of Giants deceptively takes place in what I can only assume is the 60’s equivalent of modern day Earth, where companions Ian and Barbara belong. It is not in fact a different planet inhabited by giants, which was a little disappointing, but The Doctor has a cloak now, so it’s all good. The twist however is that the Who crew has been shrunk due to the doors of the TARDIS opening before they’ve fully landed. They explore the land a bit; Ian gets lost; a man dies; all the bugs are being killed from insecticide; everything goes crazy and the gang have to find Ian and also stop the murderer before getting back to the TARDIS and returning to their normal size. This episode is more or less decent in terms of the quality of the show at the time and overall I would say I enjoyed it. Everything in these sets have to be bigger than the main crew composed of The Doctor, Susan, Ian, and Barbara in order to realistically depict how small they all are and it works a treat. Everything looks super cool. These set and prop designers had to make huge match boxes and sink plugs and insects that moved and what have you, for the characters to interact with. I had a lot of fun watching these scenes play out and see the way the environments were utilised. Certain details are set up that seem quite smart, such as the idea that they, as tiny people, wouldn’t be able to talk with regular sized people due to it sounding much in the way a mouse would sound to us. Or that exposure to insecticide would harm them a lot more than it usually would due to their immune system being too small to combat such a relatively high dose. A common issue I’ve noticed with these early Doctor Who episodes is that the writing can often be quite bad. I don’t mind these characters at all but the things they have to say is at times difficult to take seriously. An example of this is an interaction between The Doctor and Ian. Doctor: “Yes, that’s it! We’ll cause trouble! Start a fire, my boy!” Ian: Yes, but can we start a big enough one to do any real damage?” Doctor: “Well we can try anyway, hehe, there’s nothing like a good fire is there!? Hahaha!” Like what the hell? I mean don’t get me wrong, that was hilarious when I heard it but it’s not meant to be. It makes The Doctor sound like a maniac! A recurring detail of this show that I’ve noticed so far is that characters often stumble on their line delivery. They will audibly get mixed up with words or start a sentence, get it wrong, then redo it. In this day and age, it isn’t something I’d tolerate, but here… it’s almost charming. I’m amazed that I don’t mind it. With the film they were using to record the show, I doubt they had the money to stop scenes simply because of a slight line mix up, which would have required a lot more editing and wasted money to account for more film reel, so I can understand why these mistakes are left in. To compare it to, say, Selfie From Hell, the worst movie from 2018 I’ve seen so far, when the woman says “He is really a bad man” in a fake whimpering voice, it served to be ten times worse than any instance of a character in Doctor Who literally messing up a line and saying it again. With Selfie From Hell being filmed on digital, there’s no excuse not to re-record with better acting and writing. So I suppose with older media, I afford some leniency in that sense.

The characters themselves, as I said, I don’t mind. Having watched the newer episode, ‘Twice Upon A Time’ at the end of Capaldi’s run, I expected Hartnell’s Doctor to be infuriating with how misogynistic and out of touch he is in that episode but he is nowhere near as bad as in Twice Upon A Time and I understand now why there was such an influx of people defending him. Don’t get me wrong, there are elements of those traits with Hartnell’s Doctor and sometimes it gets to be rather “eeehh” but mostly he’s played without that being a defining part of his character. If I had to describe the first Doctor, I’d say he was quite playful but strict at times and he definitely loves these adventures but he’s more focused on educating himself from a scientific point of view with each new challenge that comes along, rather than getting stuck into the cultures. Susan, The Doctor’s granddaughter is someone I needed time to adjust to over the first season. As it stands now, I do like her as a character. I think there’s a lot of mystery behind her, what with mentioning her and The Doctor’s home planet a couple of times. At first, she really grated on me because any time anything would go wrong, she would scream. It hurt to listen to. She still does it in Planet Of Giants but I’ve learned to tolerate it. Ian and Barbara are decent. After every outing, they think they’re going to be taken back home and that’s basically the through-line to every episode so far. Every time they open the TARDIS doors, they think they’re going to be back where they belong but each episode is an elaborate way of telling us that The Doctor has no idea how to pilot the TARDIS. Generally, they’re okay with going on these adventures and they do take joy in it but the need to go home always evaporates when they get to a new environment. Unfortunately in more than a few instances, Ian and The Doctor are seen to be more competent than Barbara and Susan which I wish wasn’t the case, but it is more of a symptom of the time it was made and it could have been a lot worse.

As an episode, there’s not a whole lot to say. Planet Of Giants is fun and relatively short. It falls victim to a lot of recurring problems as well as some specific to this episode. There’s not a lot of spatial awareness when it comes to getting characters from one place to the next. The music hits very suddenly when anything that could be considered ‘scary’ happens. Like a stick falling over. I think it succeeds at what it wants to do however. The plot is slightly secondary to the fact that the characters are small now and everything else is big which I don’t mind too much but I’d have liked to have seen a more interesting story being told. As the first episode in the series, it does a good job at letting people know what the show can be about, but as this aired at the end of October in 1964, there wasn’t much of a gap in between seasons, as the last episode of season one aired mid-September during the same year so this feels relatively the same in terms of the overall quality of the episodes. As one of the shorter serials, I’d recommend Planet Of Giants if you fancy having a taste of how the show was back in its early days with the very first Doctor and the very first companions.

#doctor who #classic who #planet of giants #dir: mervyn pinfield #dir: douglas camfield #review #tv #60's

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askhamotzi · 5 years

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Hi Sammy! Sorry if this has been asked before, but I'm trying to work on my first digital comic and I was wondering if you have any tips to share? Your work is so beautiful and the composition is amazing and so inspiring! I usually work in CSP when I draw, and I've done some paper drafts, I'm just starting the digital process now :) thank you so much! And I hope that mine will come out to be even remotely as incredible as yours!

hi there, omg thank you so much!!

for me, the process i’ve usually been doing for digital comics goes like this:

1. planning/research - this can go on throughout the entire process of making the comic, but it’s a good idea to get a big chunk of it done before you start so you have ideas and know what you’re doing! grab ref photos if you need, look stuff up on the internet, do whatever

2. write script and create characters (usually i write scripts in microsoft word, but for “dream” i worked off of an account i wrote up on the notes app of my phone after i woke up from the dream, and improvised the script page by page) - i frequently make up characters before i even have a story, but if i do have a story in mind i tend to do the characters at the same time as the script

3. sketch comic, insert placeholder text - i do all of my comics in FireAlpaca! i use the box/shape tool to lay out where i think i want panels to go and what size they should be. i usually work at the same size i would be printing at, but you could work bigger! i usually combine the sketch stage with the thumbnail stage because it’s easier for me to layout panels on the actual page so i can see how they fit instead of tiny thumbnails. here i sketch out placement of objects and poses, and make sure perspective makes some kind of sense, and any other important things i don’t want to forget in the lining stage (or coloring, like lines where i want certain shading to go). i also include placeholder text that may or may not be final, but i highly recommend laying out words as early as possible bc they can take up a lot of space you need to account for

4. draw comic - i go right into ink/lines! i don’t do a pencil stage (the pencil stage is the same as my sketch stage). to start i always draw the panels by hand (i don’t use a tool because i like an organic line, but to make sure they’re somewhat straight i use the boxes from before as a guide). i also do the word balloons by hand, and then i do figures/backgrounds. sometimes i leave out details that i will include in the coloring stage, like certain textures (texture of trees or grass, for example)

5. color - i start with flat color and then shade! usually i hand pick the colors i want to shade with instead of using a multiply layer or something like that, but for really complicated things i do tend to use different kinds of special layers.

6. (this is throughout the process) but sometimes i will take the FireAlpaca file and put it into photoshop to use their guide tools to adjust things, or use a textured brush for something, or to insert text. for “dream” i went back and forth regularly with FireAlpaca and photoshop

TIPS

- for composition, i like to consider mood and keeping the eye interested. lately, i don’t tend to break the mold of the grid without a reason (this is just me, you can do whatever you want!! tons of people don’t adhere to the grid and do other really cool stuff. i’m still learning!). the reason for breaking it could really be that i just need more room for words or to show something and i’ll extend the panel into the margins or bleed area. or maybe the shape of a panel needs to be changed bc it’s a dream or a flashback, or maybe you need to go into the bleed area bc something dramatic is happening! you can also mess with the colors of your panels, and the colors of the margin space. consider too, if you like the look of the page overall as an individual piece!

- if you plan on printing your comics, make sure you print out your sketched pages/layouts at actual size so you can make sure the panel sizes and font sizes are legible when a person is going to read it! this can take a lot of attempts, but once you find what you like hopefully you won’t have to do it a million times again

- for longer comics, i recommend creating a palette of colors that include all the ones you use most frequently so you don’t have to constantly eyedrop them from other pages

- don’t get too hung up on any 1 panel, remember that the average person spends something like 6 seconds (probably less) looking at one panel before moving on

- i work at a very high dpi, like 400, which has always been fine (so far), i always recommend working higher bc i think it’s safer, even tho it does make bigger files

- remember to save your work, and save it in MULTIPLE places!! back it up!

- this is just a taste thing but i love comics with custom type/handwritten type styles! you could try out doing a handwritten font or something! i used Calligraphr for mine, and i’ll prob use it again to make more

- i think it’s important to try and best recreate how your audience will experience reading your comic! since it’s impossible as the author/artist to see your own work for the first time as a finished piece, make sure that before you call it done, you give it a couple days without looking at it, and then come back to read it with fresh eyes. see if you think you’re getting the effect you want and if you like the flow! sometimes this can be hard to see/feel though, so you’ll have to just trust your gut sometimes haha!

that’s all i can think of for now but you can always ask me if you have more specific questions!! good luck with your comics!!

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zeroglitchtic-blog · 5 years

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Here To Change It All...

Hey Guys -

So hmmm… What can I say? Ok, well I have been working on this Business Plan for the past 13 years. I took the past 13 years and developed a final plan to solve Homelessness, Poverty, and Sexual Exploitation. It took me around 3 years just to get an idea about and to learn how Crypto Currency can fund the entire business. Unfortunately due to Crypto Currency Mining the video cards I need for it are about $4,500.00ea. And I need 20 of them to complete one Build. On another note I invented a game app and the other night I invented another App idea too. It will be cool to get them made for real. Right now I’m kind of in an obsession with this Pastel Goth look and I want to create my own look by taking some Bell Bottoms from this company called Gypsy Rose and a cool Hoodie and then order Bulk Boxes of the same color Boas and a Hemp Back Pack and some clothing LED Lights and to sew them on to the clothing really carefully to get an amazing look and to buy some books on Cosplay Makeup, Glam Makeup, and Tutorials on Makeup for Black People and create my own Glam Goth look. I want to produce the images into products for my new store when I open it. I have worked for over a decade on my plan to rescue the homeless, people in need, exploited kids and adults and it took me three years of researching Ethereum Mining to0 figure out how I would fund my company. One NVIDIA.com Video card will cost me around $4,500.00 to get the best one they have and the most profitable of them and my build that I designed takes 20 Video Cards and brings in around $10K/mo. So I’ll make Hundreds of Thousands of them and fill every business location I gets basement with as many Builds as will fit and warehouses full of them too. Once I get going a lot of people will want for little anymore. I told my fiancé that I would set him up with another personal place of his own, like a loft or something and have several Ethereum Miners there just for him and I’ll show him how to use them and make money with them so that we’ll be on more equal footing and I’ll have legal documents setup that will supply him with his own place and no matter what our relationship turns out to be that I can’t cut him off or affect him in any way to upset his stability and financials. I hope to have it setup before we get married. I plan on having several locations to live over time but one of the very first locations that I get and setup is going to be a three bedroom apartment that I’ll setup to be displayed on my company’s home page in the same way that a 365 degree display of Real Estate Property is displayed except that I hope to use the help of Ad Agents to have special products setup, like displays from Coca Cola, and other Brands and to get the Companies displayed to provide donations for the advertisements.

I hope to land contracts that are with like laundry soap and cleaning supplies and brands of Pre-Paid Credit and Gift Cards, and Electronics, etc. To use only their brands at my locations for special discounts or with some kind of residual donations from them, so things like Bed Bath and beyond and Companies that sell bedding and so on. I hope to get special accounts or even to open Hundreds of Reseller Accounts and purchase from my own accounts. I’ll have fractureme.com High Def Glass Photos hanging on the walls that display images of homelessness and people living in poverty, etc. As the artwork and otherward the location will be setup with Height of Technology in i9t and Luxury and excellent decorations and renovations with new smart appliances and if possible in home laundry too. The entire apartment will be setup to look as if a family lives there that has two kids, a boy and girl and the rooms will be fully setup and stocked with clothing and desks and school supplies, software, text books, reading books, game stations and games, CDs, DVDs, Anime, and Desktop and Laptop on the bed with MP3 Player and cell phone on its charger and even a few pieces of trash in the trash cans and so on, even the adults rooms will be setup the same with a Home Office and files in the living room, etc. Every room will come with their own safes and have finger print and key pad locking doors and in the safes will c0ome an envelope full of cash and several types of pre-paid cards. The computers will be top of the line and Extreme types, totally maxed out, with extensive external Hard Drives and full of useful software that is fully paid for and more. Once the 365 degree walkthrough Video is made than everything will be packed into specially positioned glass cases for display, so like the laptop, cell phones, digital cameras, camcorders, Gift Cards, and some other things will go into displays so that when there are walk trough's to help gain donors less can be stolen easily. I will spend a lot of time setting up the location with a simply safe security system and register everything in the apartment with renters insurance and register them with their own individual companies. I’ll have the entire place setup with services and each room with smaller Ethereum Miners that work and are actively earning money and have monitors on the walls that display the earnings and exchanges pricing in each room. But the apartment will be maintained by my financial Company that I get. Every Account would be active, the lease, the cable, the Home Phone, mobile phones, Internet, and all the individual emails, and all the software will be registered to those emails and even Turn-Key online businesses and so on setup as examples and displays for the apartment and newsletters, and more with ads for the Turn-Key Businesses. The files in the Offices and kids rooms will hold the Hard Copy files of all the Accounts and Registration Info and Gamer Info. Emails and Advertisement info and more, including the online versions, Browser favorite links, and profile saves, address books filled out and more. It seems like a lot but every tiny detail will be through of from every item being photographed and filed with their own insurance, registrations, and receipts, to even unique personally searched out and handpicked USB Drives that are installed with PortableApps.com software and paid versions of the software on those apps and all of it filed and registered both digitally and in Hard Copy.

And there will be a personalized welcome Manual for each person and all their accounts and how the apartment works, the Wi-Fi locks, the smart TV Accounts, their personal safe’s codes, and every computer log-in, how and where to find all their Hard Copy and Digital Account info and if something comes up missing or breaks how to file for renters insurance to replace it and police reports and how to contact their financial Agent for financial Aid and for when they want to go to college or to file a new bill or account for them to manage and also how their personal Ethereum Miner earns them their own money so that they are not tied to their financial allowance’s leash. There will be so much attention to detail because it will be the display house/apartment used for fund raising. It will be decorated and setup with extra details like Artist’s Piggy Banks around the rooms to collect donations and drop safes for people to donate Pre-Paid Cards and Checks and Cash, cell phones and I’ll have a Turn-Key Business in the home that people can buy and donate gift cards and cell phones, clothing cards, and tablets, laptops and to donate money by credit cards too. I’ll even setup cat climbing towers in all the corners and High End cat walks and rests on the walls and toy holders, etc. even Automatic cat boxes that clean and wash their own litter and cat supplies and dog products if the apartment allows dogs and more considerations that are suited for hosting gatherings and even just ease of today’s technological society like a moveable arm under a cabinet in the kitchen that holds a water proof tablet that is dedicated solely to cooking sites, and Home Food Delivery services. There will be cool little personal touches too from unique USB Drives to interesting lamps like this collectors Yoda Lamp and displays of air plants and even like on the desks will be pencils and pens with my company’s custom website on them and possibly even Antique Typewriter on a typing desk with several boxes of extra ribbon and Company Letterhead Quality Paper stacked next to it, possibly with a sheet in the type writer with the beginning page of one of my novels on it or a letter addressed to my First Business Location. And a typed and stamped addressed envelope next to it. I’ll do things like add magazines to the coffee table and things like expensive items will get locked inside display cubes or fastened to where they are. But most of the place will be meant to be fully interactive and the greeters and Hosts of the Donor Parties will be able to show the guests the fully interactive features of the apartment and all of its services, etc. From Posters on the kid’s walls and little Anime and Action Figurines to online Gamer Merchandise of in-game-content from the most popular games like Fortnight and stuff and most of the Books and movies will be excellent Sci-fi Hard Copy Novels of the Greats and books I’ve Loved. The Anime will be Deluxe Full Seasons with all the extra content and really cool 0ones and really good DVD Collections that are kid appropriate and in the parents room they will have more Adult titles like the complete Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal TV Series and Dexter Series, and John Wick Series and other Good Ones and in the kids room will be Ultimate Gamer Setups in a relaxation area away from sight of the desk so the kids won’t game and watch TV while they do homework and out of the bed area so they can have a shut down time and not game and stuff while they are supposed to shut down and sleep and they’ll have an Xbox, Play Station and Gamer Computer with all the VR and Bells and Whistles and even google Home Video Slate Devices on their Desk and By their Beds. The home will have several of them by each sitting area and then the Dot versions mounted on walls around the halls and a water proofed one in the bathroom so that there is whole home connectivity along with all the Tablets and Laptops and PCs connected to the Norton Secured Network as well as smart lights and even security cameras and a Door Peep Hole Device that Projects a large Video of who is at the door and takes photos of who comes to the door and sends it to the owners phone and that also allows for smart lock activation. The apartment will be the epitome of Beauty, Luxury, and Comfort and people that come to the home will be able to view installed manikins that are wearing company uniforms for all around seasons and types, the most expensive being the Winter ne that comes with heated gloves and socks and shoe insoles and Extreme Cold Military Boots and heat shell Jackets and full snow outfits. The outfits will come with their own pedestals that will have fliers on them that explain what the services that they go to are and the equipment needed for each one, like the House Keeping one, the Personal Assistant, the Odd Job, and snow removal, the Food Delivery one and like how much it will cost for the work vans and trucks and snow blowers and shovels and painting/cleaning supplies and the storage unit rentals for the equipment and cost of the uniforms that will each have my company Logo Embroidered on them and on each will be an employee Tag just like all employees will have. Another presentation will be video presentations played on loops on the screens in the living room that explain how my company will hire students fresh out of colleges that are entering the fields of nursing, psychology, and social work, legal aid, and about the services that will come with my company that will help any homeless person with absolutely nothing and addiction issues fully recover their lives with personally adapted services and complete financial support so that even if they are dealing with drug issues that they won’t need to sell their new property or prostitute for funding and that they will receive full support while they attend to their rehab needs as well as fully paid trade and college schooling and financial investments that are everything from timed trust payouts at major age milestones, to retirement and regular funds for travel around the world. There will be full employment programs inside my company and in the mainstream markets and my company will pay companies to keep employees hired and to hire people in need as well as options for customers that do things like use our yard service as incentives to keep my employees hired like getting major yard work done, in ground lawn sprinklers installed and landscaping, home repairs, and other improvements and upgrades to their utilities and home like the best water heaters, Hot Tubs, new Fences and so on to keep my company on contract for lawn care and snow removal and housekeeping and food delivery and so on. It will all be done by professionals in the fields when done and then my clients will up keep it with a flawless and no questions asked insurance and replacement process in case something is ever broken or stolen and there will be tons of other services since everyone in the world suffers from some state of poverty and need, that my company will collect even my customers into my fold and provide them with financial aids, paid schooling, debt payment, and doing things like picking up car and home payments and medical needs. Some families that have Autistic Children or Severally Handicapped family members or people with major medical needs or who are getting too old to take care of those family members, my company will search out and supply them with things like 24/7 live in Aids and money for uncovered medicines or experimental Treatments that their HMOs won’t cover and cosmetic Treatments and more. My company will do more than just that. I’ll use schools of Architecture to create fortified locations of Housing for over 100 Ethereum Miners that will bring in over $1 Million per month and have them built into schools so that teachers will be able to receive Top Pay and the schools will have more than enough for the best in school supplies and equipment and teaching Aids and like an example would be that the limited language learning classes would have a full computer network setup with every language that Rosetta Stone’s Language software offers and every student will have the ability to choose what language to learn. There will be funds for every extracurricular activity and my plans are to adopt the Chinese and Japanese attendance unit where kids swipe in and out of classes except I’ll make it so that kids will actually get paid cash to attend classes and to do homework and extra credit and science fairs and if they aren’t doing well to get tutors and to help others and that it will do things like give economics classes real money and be able to do real things with the money and learn firsthand and school papers and news how to do very real publications and run ads and more. My company will invest in local Mom & Pop shops and the community and get them to keep selling at rock bottom prices but selling High End Products so that the struggling community that uses them will suddenly be able to afford things like really good toilet paper, and snacks for their kids and eat well every day and even though I won’t be able to reach everyone and help the whole city, by proxy the community will become happier and their mood change will make the community better as a whole. I’ll do the same for places that serve food and coffee shops too so that they can drop their prices and use better quality foods and cleaning supplies and decorations and pay better because than the community will be able to come out and eat more and have more family experiences to build a healthier family around and memories and the community will become stronger for it. I’ll do things like take a Digital Camera and GoPro and go to every run-a-way shelter, and battered woman’s shelter and Underground Railro0ad project and Drop-In Center and Teen Challenge Center and photograph the entire area and interview everyone and find out what they need and what needs fixing and what they wish they could provide and install the best beds and most comfortable sheets and fluffiest comforters and turn them into wonder locations and expand their services and get all the kids and people new clothing and school supplies and make it rain and put them on above comfortable expense accounts. I’ll do the same for Orphanages and Un-Adopted kids that are too old, all the while setting up Luxury Apartments and Auction Houses and emptying out every shelter and soup kitchen and giving these Betrayed Souls what society should have done for them from day one. There are a million tiny things that I’ll be doing and I’ll write you all about them in upcoming letters. It took me 9 years to figure out how to do all this and it will take major Donors and Corporate Donors for me to afford to build enough Ethereum Miners to afford to do it quickly. But I’m going to dedicate the rest of my life to thi9s. Mommy Anne is giving me a $10,000.00 Trust and I’ll put it into my first beginner Ethereum Miner and it will only earn me about $2K/mo. And I’ll have to save and buy more of the best NVIDIA Video Cards and add to it. My build will hold 20 Cards and cost me around $88.505.70 to complete and make me around $10K/mo. when done. My goal is to reach 100 builds as fast as possible using Kickstarters.com and every crowd funding site on the internet and every social media network from around the globe. My work won’t just start and stop in Minnesota or even the USA. Once I am at a point where I have enough Ethereum Miners I’ll be able to expand them at a rate of 50-100 or more at a time creating $1 Million/mo. Jumps in income and higher with more donors and my work will jump boarders and I’ll hire kids and young adults from ar0und the world to locate and rescue their needy and sexually exploited and Brothel Children and people living in Poverty. I just hope I can do it fast enough to see it all happen before I die. I would start gofundme.com and kickstarter.com and dozens of other crowd funding sites and spread them across every social media and network possible but I need a cell phone. I’d also write to several Ad Agencies and give them a rundown of my plans and what I want them to do and have them create the Crowd Funding Ads for me because each site is different, has different formats, options for photos and Banners, and voice and the amount of words for each site and burn them onto disc for me and label them so that when I get out all I have to do is cut and paste and upload image 1,2,3 into spot 1,2,3 and know that there’s no grammar errors and I don’t come off sounding like a scam artist but I have no money for that. I’d also like to get Uncle Steve to help me setup my Business Financials so it’s fully tax exempt and so I can do angel giving like write random checks or give out cash or life time paid phones and more and write it off but he refuses to acknowledge me. Anyways… I haven’t written or spoken too many of you in over a couple decades and I wanted to tell you about my new life. Oh I’m an ordained Minister now too. There are several fun things that I want to do that are just to do because they are fun and good for the kid at heart and things that all kids wish they could do. I want to invest a lot into kid’s lives and their fun factor so I want to do things like get big into street fashion from around the world and to create an opportunity for kids to dress in amazing outfits from Japan and that are High Fashion and Cosplay styles and totally awesome so that going to school and dressing up crazy and amazing just becomes a daily part of life. In schools I want to start Drone Racing Programs with Regulation Drones and awesome courses. I want to get schools into robotics and nautical robotics and aerial Drones and to inspire kids to create water cleaners and air cleaners and alternate fuel and to program the most popular Virtual Reality World Communities as classes and to setup classes that have real life work training to them like how to use complicated office copiers and corporate email systems and multi-line phone setups and digital faxes and to change toners and create orders and write and produce proposals for meetings and run projectors and make digital presentations transfer from your personal office to the proper conference room on time and run flawlessly and to be able to do it using multiple types of software and types of the leading tools found in companies today.

I want to create several Safe Zone Houses in Drug Zones that were “Trap Houses” where people use drugs or sell drugs out of and clean them out and fix them up really well and set them up to be locations that street kids can come and Game and to get Hot meals and Great sandwiches at any time Day or Night and that people can come and get Hot Showers and wash their clothing and get Hygiene Products and fresh underwear and new clothing and shoes and Back Packs and school supplies and can get medical care from the nursing staff and have emergency beds Sometimes prostitutes and Drug Addicts need a hot shower, some good food to eat and a place that is safe to sleep at night behind a door that locks where they can feel safe for a moment in the Hell they are experiencing and a locker and safe to lock their property in so that they know that they can actually fall completely asleep without fear that someone will go through their pockets or demand sex. I want to setup each room with as much luxury and comfort as I dare with addicts coming and going and kids without safe homes. I want the beds to be super comfy and to even have weighted blankets and body pillows because weighted blankets give people a sensory feeling of safety and comfort and body pillows allow people to cuddle with someone who takes nothing in return. That is important. The bed must be super comfy and cozy, with too many pillows with a sitting chair that has a throw on it and book case filled with great novels and Manga Books and Built in Computers with a wide variety of Downloaded music and complimentary MP3 Player and paper for writing and an Antique Typewriter with Letterhead typing paper and Envelopes with a sign that says “free mail service down stairs.” I’ll have a laser printer attached to the computer and scanner and hookups for phones available. There will be a decent sound system and gaming counsel with downloaded and installed games on it and Xbox Live Account Active and setup, all secured so it can’t be stolen. There will be an intercom system and by the bed sweets and pamphlets for my Life Recovery Services. The rooms will not be meant for long term stays, usually just one-three days unless there are special and extreme cases. In the common areas will be ultimate gaming setups and multiple mounted TVs that have the ability to connect to wireless headphones so people won’t have to compete for sound if they are watching multiple TVs at once. In the back area will be a full computer lab and education center setup for kids and I’ll have staff that can help anyone with school work they need to get done. Like I said there are a million little things that I plan on doing with my Business. I found a vending company that allows for digital pricing and for an extra $900.00 I can add a credit card processer to it so I’m going to set several types up in different locations. I’m going to use retro ones that take coins and place them in apartment complexes that dispense single serve laundry detergent boxes and fabric softener packs and snack machine pop machine mixes. Than in some locations I’m going to use sources of pre-painted and sculpted fingernails that you can buy off line like on Etsy.com, Tumblr.com, and other sites and put them in machines that are at like malls and possibly schools and arcades and places kids go and have them wired to process credit cards and then put in random packs Pre-Paid Credit Cards with High Balances and advertise the chance to win one. I plan to run donation funding campaigns so that I can afford to supply them free and laptops with paid wireless PCI Cards for free to the kids at St. Jude’s Cancer Research Hospital and other Hospitals and Mental Health Programs that can’t afford to provide them for their patients but who’s patients need a distraction from their extreme illnesses and to do something with their families when they come to visit and for patients to be entertained by with their families. Something that happens to every person with a mental health issue that goes into the mental health system is that they end up losing every possession that they own and their entire apartments full of their lives get tossed in the trash. It’s happened to me 13 times and when I was young and pretty I ended up prostituting to replace over $26,000.00 of property some times. And so do many others. So one thing I’ll do is setup an apartment and property cleaning and packing service that washes all the dirty clothing and sheets and dishes and surfaces and professionally packs everything properly in bubble wraps and garment bo0xes and move and packs the entire apartment, moving it to self-storage units that the patients social security will pay for and for the paranoid patients photos and videos of the process will be taken and delivered on DVDs and the entire apartment will be cleaned and painted back to white with fire resistant paint so that their deposit will get returned to them. Because the mental health system never slows down from sending people back to mental hospitals the business will be a stable service from the start. I want to do some really cool things for kids in schools and all around on buying they super amazing clothing from Japan and China and other fashionable street looks that they normally couldn’t get or are too expensive for them and their families. There was this young boy that actually did it for his school but he got suits and proper fashion and I think it’s really important for kids not to lose that childhood part too soon so instead of suits I want to buy them awesome clothing that fits their aesthetic and that is beyond their reach financially and make it really fund and cool to be able to dress in their own uniqueness and not the regular jeans and T-Shirts. I am also going to download countless tutorials on how to do Beauty Tips like nails crafting, Hair and Makeup techniques from the simple to the extremely complex and to create DVD Collections of all of them and put them in special DVD Cases that hold 10 and 20 DVDs and maybe over 100 Tutorials and then sell them in Genre collections in magazines like Teen Beat and 17 and Girl Magazines. I’ll also do the same for people that are into crafting from the easy to really technical and some from landscaping to building computers and smart mirrors and more and collections of clothing patters and fashion techniques and cosplay techniques and more and sell those in collections in their genre of magazines too. I’ll do the same with cooking tutorials and recipe collections that are all both video and photos and print .pdf formats. I’ll do genres of Home Design and Projects from hanging pictures to making gardens to extreme projects like building underground Prepper Bunkers. Most of these collections I’ll build up over time I spend surfing the internet. I do a lot of Data Mining and read and learn a lot because I'm curious but now I’ll have focused products to create. Something else that I’ll do is assemble teaching tools for classrooms by using paid accounts on sites like curiosity stream and locating lectures and explanations on sciences and other subjects from simple math to high level theoretical math, sciences, biology, space science, robotics and AI, Virtual Worlds. I’ll even put together sex education presentations of different types and present them to multiple schools for review. Some schools don’t allow real sex education, some teach abstinence, others only teach STDs and so on. It will be a balancing act. Some might want diagrams and some might actually allow real images of sex organs and then there are practices of different cultures to consider and explanations of circumcisions and the Muslim culture that clip or burn off female baby’s clitoris and the explanations of their shawls. There are the full stories behind puberty and when females go through maturity and what they need to do when that happens. The changes in Boys and Girls the ages they change at, Birth Control, options of rape pregnancy pill options and the ways that people can give up a child if it’s too much for them instead of killing it. How adoptions work, the options of sperm donations, egg donations, and surrogacy, the birth process, C sections, and vaginal bi9rths, the drugs (epidermal) the effect of drugs and alcohol that will go through breast milk into the baby and HIV and how HIV is inside Breast milk. Types of parenting same sex parenting and relationships and even same sex rapes and domestic violence and more. The healthy beauty behind same sex relationships not just straight ones. Also things like medical issues, Handicaps, Autism, and more and pre born and medical dangers that can happen and what to do, ways to prepare for if your baby has a disability and more. It may take a ton of work to do but once a school accepts the educational program the work will be worth it. I want to create Job skill development programs and more. I want to actually change the entire education system. And the Prison Reform system. I’ll write more about those things in another letter. I (have a ton of personal experiences that give an insight into the world that most people don’t have and motivations that people don’t understand why someone would spend a fortune only to give it all away again. The thing is that money and wealth mean nothing to me. It’s just an annoyance and an obstacle and a social retardant. My Business will solely be about making people and their lives and futures and not about making profits and products. My entire life has consisted of setting up stages and being an advertisement so that I could make money and void of friendships, love, or connections, not even to my own family which has been my greatest sadness. Mommy Anne has been my only connection to hearing about my family’s lives and what’s going on with them my whole life and Aunt Barbie writes me about her farm life but that is about it. Rarely do I get a letter from Julia or Aunt Beverly. Once I went 5 whole years without coming into physical contact with another person or speaking to anyone and I think it really freaked mommy Anne out that I’m not talkative or Haggier but I’ve been conditioned as a child and again since the age of 11yo. When I entered the mental Hospital Systems and group homes never to touch or hug anyone because it’s not supposed to happen in hospitals and group homes which is where I was raised for 89% of my life. I’ve maybe spent 10 hours with my own Brother during my entire life and maybe spoken with him about half that without having actually any meaningful exchanges other than casual polite conversations not counting just being in the same location at the same time. And dramatically less with the rest of my family. I mainly just dressed nice and sat around waiting to be talked to or asked questions. I faced Addiction, Mental illness, multiple sexual assaults, rape that left me with HIV, Contracting HIV, Homelessness twice, forced prostitution, Two Attempted murders on me, a Home invasion and six suicide attempts and child abuse and a laundry list a mile long including starvation and eating out of dumpsters because I refused to prostitute alone without even a card from my family like “Hey sorry you got HIV” or “Too bad you ended up with a mental illness for 30 years” or “Hey heard you are struggling with addiction, that’s rough.” or “hey your homeless, it’s not much but here’s $20 get some dollar burgers at McDonalds.” or “hmmm… raped! Rough.” or “Hay when you are going to bring a boyfriend to X-Mass?” or “Suicide, wish you wouldn’t do that we like having you around.” Once I went into the Hospital after a suicide attempt that involved 3 cop cars pulling me off a ledge on the side of a parking ramp and I weighed 118lbs. I usually weigh 175-180lbs and that is skinny for myself. I know things like friendships and Love from a boyfriend and happi9ness because of the absolute void of it in my life. I know it perfectly and intimately on a deep level because I have never experienced it. It’s an odd kind of knowledge to have. I use to watch YouTube videos and Troll peoples feeds, not so much as to observe their lives as much as to see what they had on their bedroom walls and what they wear and what was around them and try to figure out what it was that gave them all the feelings and excitements and joys in life that I never knew. All my life I never had a single poster on my wall or anything that wasn’t a tool for survival, no plants, no color paint on my walls, nothing that would display warmth or comfort or personality or a Home. And it was all trappings of a stage set that I occupied but never truly lived in. The only thing that had decoration or meaning of any kind was inside my Computers and Hard Drives and my Data Mining Collections of Music, .pdf files, photos, and social media and blogs and modeling photos. Outside of the digital world I had nothing but pain and suffering, rage, and sadness, and isolation, and complete loneness and mental and emotional damage that eventually became so vast and so deep that I had to use as much drugs as possible not just to fight it back and numb myself to it but to even remove myself from the equation, for many years I just stayed alive out of spite of it all. It was one thing that broke me out of my inner bondage and that was a homeless man that I’d passed over a dozen times and he always sat in his spot and I saw him that morning while going to a client’s house and then that night after dancing into exhaustion at a club. It was late and the snow had started to fall but in a ring around his body was a bare circle from his body heat and he hadn’t moved all day. Across the street was a Target and the man had nothing, no food containers around him, nothing. People had walked by him all day and shopping at Target and no one thought once to go across the street and give him a pop or can of soup and I had been a prostitute for years helping dozens of homeless kids and minors with a safe free place to stay, even pulling tricks to pay other people’s rent and maxed out two credit cards buying a fellow meth addict food and toiletries and that one man sat there all day, every day and no one helped him and Target Managers never gave him a job. Shortly after that I came to this Center and for the last 13 years here in this long term treatment program, every single day for hours a day and deep into the night I have written thousands of pages in Journals, collected every magazine and catalog I could find, filled over 45 journals with notes and resources and links and scrap booked and spent my Dad’s entire $4,800,00 inheritance money from when he died on Business Manuals and researched Crypto Currency for 3 years, read 5 books on it and spent years going to every site in the books and checking them out, watching YouTube videos, going onto bulletin boards and blogs until I learned what I needed to learn to design the most powerful Ethereum Miner possible all the while with a goal to end Homelessness, Unemployment, sexual exploitation and to improve the world and fought for years just to have the right to use my free time to write and study. And I solved it. I figured out a social service Business that will fully recover almost anyone's life and it has finally given me an ounce of peace. Now I just need the people here to give me the chance I need to get out and do it and to live a better life than the one that was quickly killing me. I’ve spent 13 years working on my plans and there are a lot of them and I hear repeatedly to focus on one thing but what people don’t understand is that it is all one thing. I’m not helping one or two people. I’m helping over 30,000 homeless people and exploited kids and people living in poverty. One thing can’t solve that. An entire population of people not only need money but a place to live, jobs to support themselves, and other help and those helpers need to get paid and other communities need fortifications to help the rest of the population that is in need and it’s not for one summer or one year or even 30 years. Every year hundreds of kids become exploited, thousands become homeless and more live in poverty and the cycle will continue long after I’m dead. I have to start building the strongest foundation possible that will last and support generations of people now and long after I’m dead and that won’t happen with me getting a pizza delivery job or a lawn mowing business going. I have to start something so revolutionary that those that pick up where I leave will one day be able to change the lives of Millions of people in need and people in need around the world and it will take Huge Donors and Crowd Funding and rewriting of policies and dismantling of antiquated industries and building new ones.

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