#what do we think should i try to colour this an upload a separate one

[henrybly]

Things had been tense since they’d touched down in Atlanta. As luxurious as the private jet had been (even with Bly money, Henry had never traveled like that before), the wi-fi had been spotty at best, their phones going haywire and pinging with Instagram notifications as soon as they were no longer in the air. He already had a pretty good idea of what everyone had to say with regards to Poppy’s latest Instagram post, and couldn’t help but keep his eyes trained on Diego as the other man checked his phone.

His stomach had dropped as soon as he saw the colour drain from Diego’s face. He knew Poppy hadn’t meant any harm by the photo, and maybe if he’d only known Diego Rodriguez for a few weeks, then he wouldn’t have understood what the big deal was. But he was fully aware of why Diego’s face was a mask of poorly-concealed horror right now.

“Diego,” he started towards him, shivering a little on the airport tarmac with only his hoodie to keep him warm. But then their manager was bustling them into two separate cars, Diego getting shoved into the back of one with Harper and Michael, meaning he got to sit with Poppy in the one that drove behind.

“Pops,” he said, trying to broach the subject as delicately as he could. He rarely ever beat around the bush, even with situations as fragile as this one, forever sure of his step. But right now it felt like he was walking through a minefield. He didn’t know how much Poppy knew about what went on between him and Diego and how their dynamic had shifted in the past few weeks. He’d spent more time in Diego’s bed than anywhere else recently, which would have been nice if he didn’t know the other man was beating himself up about it whenever Henry left. And now, there was a picture of them cuddling on the internet. Something that wouldn’t have been so compromising to Diego if Poppy had taken Henry’s place in the photo.

He cast his mind back to the time Valentina had uploaded photos from her 25th birthday party on Facebook, photo after photo of his sister and her friends enjoying themselves on her feed. He hadn’t been searching the background for anything incriminating, but evidently Stefan had. His phone had blown up with anxious demands that Val delete a certain photo. Honestly, Henry hadn’t known what Stefan was talking about until the other man had sent him a screenshot, revealing a picture of Valentina and her friend, Ariadne, arms slung around each other as they posed for the camera. Still unable to see what was so wrong with that, he zoomed in on the background, realising that the photographer had managed to capture him and Stefan as well, doing nothing except sitting side by side and laughing, except Stefan had his face pressed into Henry’s neck. Again, nothing that Henry had thought people would read into but Stefan had been hysterical.

He remembered marching into Val’s bedroom without knocking, something he had never done before, not because it was some written Bly rule, but just out of respect. He’d told Val, bluntly enough, that she had to delete the photo. His sister had been confused, but brought the photo up anyway. He’d never forget the look that she gave him, a mix of concern and pity as she finally deleted it from the album, and they never spoke about it again.

He had been direct in his approach with Valentina. But he didn’t want to make such a demand from Poppy. He really didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

“Poppy, I think maybe you should delete that photo,” he said, quietly. “A lot of the fans are running wild with rumours and you know Diego hates that stuff. Plus, we should probably give the PR team a break until after the New Year.”

It was a feeble joke that he’d added on, but it did nothing to wipe the confused look from Poppy’s face. Still, they’d already pulled up outside the venue and he quickly reached over to squeeze her hand.

“Please,” he begged, before quickly getting out of the car and jogging to catch up with Diego.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, when he reached the man. He couldn’t help but wince when he caught the tail-end of the Diego’s conversation with Harper, who was loudly insisting that was not me sleeping next to Henry!

#thread: diego2 #diego

[non-un-topo]

They have the power of god and anime on their side

(click for better quality)

#tog #the old guard #nile freeman #nicolo di genova #anyway you can't convince me nile doesn't like anime #they were in the middle of an fma marathon when they got ambushed #also peep @ nile's pusheen slippers and fma hoodie #nicky is wearing luna slippers (from sailor moon) but you can't see the front #i'm so scared to colour this fr. is it boring without colour? #what do we think should i try to colour this an upload a separate one? #siggy draws #also i forgot my signature ffff

[marksinn]

Passion Project: Inspiration

I don’t think I’m starting at the beginning with this post. Keep your eyes peeled for later posts that explain what I’m doing and why.

After a month of thinking about, sketching and painting designs, I have finally done something. Essentially, recently watching two films has pushed me into action, and a part of me is ashamed to admit it. There isn’t a word count or any typesetting to curtail my thoughts here, so strap in.

When I created this brief I figured I’d draw a million wee skateboards, colour a few of them in, then fling my favourites into Adobe illustrator and make them look good. From there I would take the 5 best up to the skatepark and ask some of the patrons there which designs stood out to them. Next, I would adapt the three front-runners and create sweet PhotoShop mockups that would show what my designs would look like as skateboards. If I had the time, inclination or money by the end of the project, I would have the design laid onto a real skateboard (I’ve been looking to buy a new one for some time) and then be proud of myself.

So I’ve drawn some wee skateboards. Then I started upscaling the designs onto the floorboards of my loft:

This was an exercise to let me see how small things need to be adapted to be blown up. Skateboards can have any level of detail that you like on them, I hadn’t considered this until I was trying to draw a semi-perfect triangle for the traffic cone, or until I was using chalk to recreate four cubes. It’s also been fun to work with different media on chipboard - I have learned that most kinds of pencil, paint, chalk and charcoal do not like being used on chipboard. Decorating paint, however, has no such issues. Thanks, Dulux!

And so, with a few of these under my belt, I decided to try some digital designs. So I jumped into Illustrator and totally ignored my sketchbook, coming up with three designs that were all inspired by the day I had just had. The top design, I’ll focus on last, for reasons that will become apparent (unless you follow me on Instagram, where you’ll already know that it’s an absolute hit, with over 19 likes already!). I was told by a guy at the skatepark that he likes decks with very basic designs, just a colour or two, nothing overly detailed. Another skater told me that he often likes the basic wood background with one small emblem or sticker just beside the wheels.

The duo-tone design felt nice, I’m usually one for over-complicating things. I definitely have an attitude of “If there’s more in it, there’s a greater chance someone will find something they like”. The first colour choice put my girlfriend in the mind of a hand-bag she had seen photographed in the arms of Carrie Fisher - it was designed to look like a Prozac pill. So I changed the colours up, and added the separating black lines and textures to give it some subtle character. I then went full meta with the Minimal design. And, if I’m being honest, I’m incredibly happy with how it looks like a wee character. Expect to see that making a comeback in the very near future. But the top design is what really got me going. 

I’ve recently been watching...

...Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and have been loving Miles Morales’ multiple hobbies of graffiti, mixing beats and saving his neighbourhood from a variety of dangers. 

I then went to the cinema to see In The Heights, telling the tale of the Latin community during a blackout in North Manhattan. I found myself wrapped up in the romance, tribulations and music of the cast, and was felt oddly proud of Lin Manuel Miranda - who wrote this as a stage-musical while he was in college, had a modicum of success with it, then went on to create Hamilton, one of the most important musicals of our time. With the success of that particular show taking the entire world by storm, he was given the opportunity to make his old, relatively only semi-popular play into a blockbuster film. You can’t help but be inspired by someone like that.

I often find towards the end of a film I’m inspired by the characters’ journeys: be that from zero to hero, from lonely to loved or from rags to riches. Then I walk out and carry on with my normal life doing normal things. And as the hero of the story’s dreams all came true in the closing minutes (sorry for the spoiler, but it’s a musical, they rarely end in despair), a thought floated across my mind:

I’m utterly sick of being inspired

Now, to my credit, I did figure out in the car home that ‘tired’ would be a far more fitting and rhythmic word to use in this sentence, but this was a mentality that I found resonated really strongly with me. I’m very good at being inspired, I think most people are. We hear stories of people starting their own business, achieving some sporting brilliance or overcoming a personal hurdle and we say “Wow, isn’t that inspiring?” or

“It really inspires you to go out and make a difference!” or

“They are such an inspirational speaker!”

Then we go off about our day, not acting on the inspiration, and, for the most part, remaining uninspired. So I decided to act. 

I did some very quick research (/acquiring of images of graffiti) in order to get the right shapes and textures to create a spray paint effect in Illustrator. I did some very quick research (/confirming the colours) of South American flags, taking the blue and red used in flags of the home nations of Miles Morales from Spider-Man and Usnavi from In The Heights. And I created the top design.

YES! I had been inspired and I had drawn a wee picture to show that - I had acted on my inspirations!

Then I looked to my left and spotted three, blank skate decks that I had bought on a whim from Re:Ply (a wonderful wee company who do a great deal of charity work supplying boards to people who need them, selling boards to people who can afford them, and for a very reasonable fee, providing unusable decks to people who want to use them for artistic purposes). I realised I hadn’t acted on my inspiration, I had just drawn a few pictures of skateboards with the eventual aim of PhotoShopping them onto other pictures of skateboards.

So I took myself...

... into the city centre with a shoddily prepared speech: “I’m looking for some cheap, small cans of spray paint. I’ve no idea what I’m doing, or if I’ll be good at it, so don’t want to invest too much into this.” Hiding behind this self-deprecating shield I barged into multiple art-, pound- and model-shops and pleaded with the staff to help a young idiot out. Amazingly, a very kind shop assistant pointed me in the direction of Fat Buddha, a clothes shop I’d always ignored as it seemed a bit to “...” for me. I don’t know what it seemed, but I knew it wasn't my kind of shop. Happy to prove me wrong, the guys in there were super helpful and they helped me buy my first cans of spray paint. 

Now I’d spent money...

... and as a skinflint, that meant I had to get use out of my purchases. I had tricked myself into being inspired. Inspiration led me to the drawing, inspiration had led me to buy decks and the paint, now inspiration had to make me spray paint.

I’ll stop yammering on now. Essentially, I had planned on creating some analogue designs then digitising them (I’m guessing I should do a post on my brief, yeah? Might just upload the PDF to save me talking more), but then I found that I was doing the complete opposite. Genuinely accidentally. I had played with a few typefaces from various websites to get fonts that represented the ideas I wanted. The top one was semi-stolen (I can’t use the word ‘inspired’ any more in this post) from the end credits of In The Heights. The larger font is something of a nod to inspirational quotes you see on Facebook or on glittery frames in B&M.

I printed those out and cut them into stencils (very impressed that my digital boards have been drawn to a workable scale, thanks Maths). And after putting down a tack-layer (GRAFFITI JARGON (I think)) I sprayed the whole lot in blue.

Next, I tried to get a little fancy. Using cardboard blockers to create straight lines I added stars* (borrowed from the Puerto Rican flag) and made the bottom stripes vaguely reminiscent of America’s Old Glory.

I peeled the lettering off, and I’d done it. I may have to explain the overtly-negative inspirational quote to people, but to me it’s a clear sign that there’s no point in just being inspired, and that’s all I wanted.

A weight I didn’t know I was carrying was lifted from my shoulders. The plan was to possibly end up with a self-designed skateboard. And now I have one.

*Yes, I know they’re crosses.

#pp_hncgd1 #allhandsondecks #skateboard

[fandomsyoulove]

All the events that lead to Sirius running away from his family.

Sirius Black x reader, Sirius Black x Potter reader, Regulus Black x reader.

Summary: A ball in Grimauld Place doesnt end as expected either for Sirius Black or Lena Potter, James´s sister.

Author´s note: Okay, this is a part of a story Ive been writting lately. I never post what I write, but I just felt like sharing it. If someone wants it I can upload more parts. Thank you xx. PD: Enlgish is not my first language so sorry for any mistakes.

Words: 3200. 

Lena breathed deeply standing in the mirror. Regulus had invited her to their family yearly ball and she was mortified. She was so done with that family, they were ruinous, bad people. Her mind drifted to the two brothers. Regulus would be glad she was going, and she also felt that Sirius would appreciate it. After their rendevouz in the Room of Requirements their friendship was as strong as ever. She would spend more time with the Marauders since then, distancing herself from her Slytherin boys, to the Gryffindors joy. She knew how bad the two boys had it and wished time and time again that she had any power over them and she could just bring them home, away from those irresponsible parents.

It was not only Walburga and Orion that she had to worry about, it was also Bellatrix, and Narcisa's boyfriend, Lucius. Pureblood supremacy talk was the usual take in these events and she really dreaded to go. How in their right mind would want to spend hours in the same room as all of those racist supremacists? It was tiresome, to say the least. Still, as always, she couldn't help to want their approval. So she had bought a green dress with some straps on the back. It was silky, and she hoped to blend in. Obviously, she had Reg in mind. She wanted to make an impression on him. They had been together for the whole year and she felt the need to constantly live up to his standards. Of course he had the same pressure, they both shared it, that's why the two had to be perfect.

Ever since the room of requirements incident, in which Lena and Sirius had almost kissed each other, on multiple occasions, she had tried not to think about his words. That confession she was not supposed to have heard. Well if it had been for Sirius, he would have woken her up and told her. But she knew he had his brother to think of. And so did she. Thats why she concentrated hard in being his friend now more than ever. She figured that if she was to keep on with these confusing feelings, she would have to maintain their friendship, not talking would just make her want to see him even more.

All of these thoughts clouded her mind as she was putting on her make up. Her lips a bright red, his eye shadow dark. Just in that instant, his brother made an appearance.

- My, my, sis you look stuning.- he complimented her as he turned her and the dress lightly swayed.

- Thanks, James.- she smiled and soon James turned serious.

- I need to ask you something. - he pleaded, the girl just nodded asking him to continue. - Can you please have an eye on Padfoot?- he asked preocupied for his friend.

- I will, dont you worry. He is my friend as well.- she responded taking his hand.

- I know, I know. Its just, I wish I could be there with him. He never talks about it, just curses his mother over and over again. - the girl nodded.

- I know, dont worry about that. You are a good friend. - she was quick to reply.

- I try.- he smiled once again, hugging his sister before they made their way out to where their parents were hanging out.

- You look absolutely gorgeous.- Euphemia Potter took her in.

- Thank Merlin Regulus is a chivalrous kid.- Fleamont raised his brows.- You really are stunning, Lena. - he complimented. She smiled once again, lightly caressing her curly short hair so it would fall into place.

- I better get going.- she finally spoke making her way to the fireplace.

- Grimlaud place 12.- she shouted, careful not to get ashes on her dress.

When she arrived, the room was abandoned, except for Sirius Black.

- Lena!- he greated smirking as always. He quickly hugged her, not really taking in her appeareance until they backed from the other. His hand grabbed hers.

- You look so amazing! That dress fits you in every place.- he spoke bewilded with the girl who had a large smile on her face.- I wish it were red but hey, at least it has a slit on the leg. - his eyes roamed over her, who was already red from all the blushing.

- You look great as well, Siri. I mean you usually look good, more than good. But that tunic is working miracles.- she began talking, not knowing what had come over her.

- Be careful now. One would think that you wanted some of this.- he gestured to himself. The girl laughed loudly, and suddenly, Regulus was at the door. The two quickly separated.

- Reg!- she screamed, hugging him tightly, not noticing Sirius threatening expression.

- I thought you couldn't be prettier, guess I was wrong.- he looked at her adoringly, just as Sirius had a few moments ago.

- Well I thought the same, none of us was right.- both laughed before kissing. The older brother gagged behind them before making his way to the ball on the living room.

- I missed you.- she spoke while she caressed his face. He smiled at this, finally in comfort in her hands.

- I did too, more than you know.- he replied grabbing her hands and linking them over his chest.

- Well, we shouldn't keep the others waiting should we?- she smiled, trying to cheer him up.

- We will leave them breathless, even Cissy and that Malfoy.- he replied and both laughing made their way to the ball.

The black hall was decorated with plenty of silver and green decorations. Lena stared at the room in awe, and also a little bit disgusted. It was dark, with the black walls and all, the only light coming from the gigantic lights.

The two tried to walk with confidence. Her hand on his, holding it tightly, reasuringly.

Soon everybody's atention was on them. Some compliments from Walburga, Orion being proud of the Slytherin colours, Narcissa loving the hair. All viewed by a lurking Sirius that already had a glass of wine in his hand.

- You love her, dont you?- his favourite cousin stood next to him, in a gorgeous black dress.

- I dont know what your talking about.- he tried to play it cool, drinking some more wine.

- Cmon, Sirius. It is quite obvious. You cannot keep your eyes from her. - she replied, trying to get him to confess.

- Maybe I do. But I cant do anything about it.- he said lowly, dwoning yet another cup, this time champagne.

- It is a terrible situation you find yourself in. Both options ahead of you, you can try to be the good brother, or go for the girl. - she reasoned.

- Where is Ted?- Sirius tried to change the topic but his tone was harsh.

- Shhh, keep quiet will you?- she pleaded hoping that no one had heard.

-Ah, but that is a terrible situation.- Sirius spoke bitterly. To which his cousin just replied.

- I dont care that you are heartbroken, dont mention him here. That is a very sensible topic.- she spoke, serious all of a sudden.

- Im sorry. Alcohol and anger are not a good mix.- he tried to sound remorseful. The older Black understood and just left him.

Over and over again Sirius cursed himself. He should've told her over the moments he had this past year. Why hadnt him? How could he let this happen? Lena was dancing gracefully with Regulus, both laughing at something she had said. His hateful parents stared at the couple grinning. Lena and Reg were the perfect couple and everybody knew it. How could he have allowed this to happen. It should be him, dancing with her. It should be him making her laugh. It should be him, who his parents would gaze at with pride.

But there he was, already having a few too many drinks. Making a show of himself, perpetuating the view his family had of him. It was crazy how much he despised every single one of them. He wanted to take the girl, runaway with her and never turn back.

A few hours passed and nothing seemed to change. Every once in a while his parents would scold him for drinking too much or asking him to stop sulking around. But what else could he do? When the girl he adored didnt leave his brotherss side.

Even Andromeda was dancing with the couple, seeming to be very close with the Potter. Slytherin budies, Sirius thought. He felt betrayed, miserable, this was unberable. He needed to leave, he could only hope that the night would end soon. But oh how wrong he was.

- It seems like you are having a great time.- the only moment he had taken his eyes off her, she had made her way towards him.

- Haha, youre funny. - he resorted.

- Cmon, Siri. Ive seen you all night only moving to grab more drinks. You are the life of the party.- she continued to joke.

- Well this is hell. - he added staring at her with anger.

- I know, right?- she replied laughing to which he raised his brows. - What?- she asked taking his cup and drinking from it.

- You dont seem too bad with Reggie and my lovely parents.- he said bitterly.

- How have you sneaked firewhiskey in here?- she wondered taking another big gulp from it, without ackonwledging him.

- shhh. - he tried shutting her up, but her laugh was contagious.

- Oh Cmon. - she laughed again grabbing his arm.

- Lena, Ive had way too much to drink and I see that you are served as well so maybe try to lay off the booze. - his attempt at being responsible was cut off by the girl.

- Im not that bad, you aren't either. Now, we should dance.- she reached for his hand.

The boy just stared at the gorgeous girl, this was his dream, wasn't it?

- Cmon, Reg is dancing with your mum and I really dont want to dance with your father. So please.- she pleaded with puppy eyes. Sirius felt like he couldnt move, not saying a word, his eyes fixed on her. - Sirius, are you with us?- she asked when she didnt get a response. Finally, breaking from his trance, the boy took her hand and smiled.

- Ive been waiting the whole night for you to ask me to dance.- he whispered in her ear once they linked arms at the dance floor. She just smiled, squeezing his hand tighter. He, in response, gripped her waist. She found it hard to breathe, not daring to look at him. Soon they were waltzing around the room. Neither could say a word, only the music could be heard. Their eyes fixed on the others. They moved gracefully, without paying much atention to the rest. They didnt notice the stranged look on Sirius parents, or Regs anoyed look.

- Im sorry. Ive tried to come to you a few times, but Reg wouldnt allow me to leave his side. - she finally spoke as a slower song played and they continued moving through the hall.

- Dont worry, the wait was worth it.- he replied, and another smile crept into her face. His grey eyes on her hazels. Suddenly, Sirius turned her around, and when they were back face to face, she noticed his stern look, she mimicked him, not knowing if she had done something wrong. - I dont like Regulus treating you like that. - he stated, his eyes everywhere but on her.

- He needs me, Siri. - she quickly replied as they tilted to the side. - Besides, I knew I would be able to see you after some time. - she added. - If I really had wanted to, trust me, I would have come. - Sirius frown became wider.

- I knew the wait would make this more worth a while.- she whispered in his ear, her lips barely centimeters away. He breathed in deeply, closing his eyes, smelling her perfume, she was so close to him.

The song ended abruptly and they separated to applaud, still gazing at the other.

Andromeda made her way towards them looking stunning.

- Im sorry darling. - she referred to the girl. - I havent danced with my cousin for the whole night. Would you mind?- she pleaded, looking at the younger Black that still hadnt processed what had happened.

- Of course, Drome.- she said lovingly to her friend. - Ill leave you to it.- she added smiling, her hand reaching for his arm for a few seconds.

The boy turned quickly when she walked past him, but soon, his cousin moved his head with her hands to fix his gaze on her.

- You are so in love.- she smiled, her dark eyes filled with love for him.

- I cannot help it. - he turned them around so he could stare at her once again. - She is perfect.- he added, lovestruck. His lips parted, adoration clear in his eyes.

- I dont know how this will turn out, but either way Im invested.- Andromeda joked, messing with Sirius hair, making him turn towards her annoyed, but smiling deep down.

A few more hours passed, without much trouble. Sirius had some laughs with Andromeda, Lena was able to dance with him for another long while. He supposed this was the best he could have expected for the night. Of course some of the firewhiskey he had drowned in helped too.

Everything seemed to have turned out fine in the end. That was until he heard Malfoy speak. He had tried to avoid listening to them, staying as far away as he could from them. But he was next to his cousin that was tying her shoe when he heard a name too familiar to him.

- Take Lilly Evans, she is a mud-blood, but she tries to seem smarter.- Sirius was used to them boasting about blood superiority, he could pass that, knowing that if he reacted, only Andromeda and Lena would help him.

- She is a know-it-all. But when we put them into place, theyll know what is good. All of that intelligence wont be worth much.- Bellatrix added, disgusted.

The boy balled his hands into fists, his breathing erratic. If James were here, he wouldnt allow any of this. How could he? He was no better than any of them. He was sick and tired of this. Next to him, Lena appeared grabbing his hand.

- I cant wait for the day those people dont atend Hogwarts. The school would be just as it should be, without mudbloods. Just as Salazar Slytherin would have wanted. - Lucius agreed with the Black sister. Narcissa keeping quiet.

Andromeda stood next to the couple, also trying to think what to do. Sirius parents were on the other side of the hall, with Regulus, talking with some ministry people. The boy felt the anger boiling in him, his heartbeat racing.

- Malfoy, the school wont be perfect until you are gone.- he quickly made his way towards him, the two girls following him.

- Ah, blood traitor, you are the next, after the clensing of the mudbloods. - Bellatrix hissed at him, Rodolphus joining them.

- Im so ashamed to share your last name.- Sirius resorted, going towards her, wand in hand. But Rabastan stepped in front of her and Lena grabbed his arm.

- Sirius, its not worth it.- Lena tried to reason with him, pleading him with her soft gaze and calm voice. The boy began calming his breathing before turning around.

- A blood traitor and a coward, you have it all, dear cousin. Why Orion and Walburga put up with you scapes my knowledge. - Bellatrix lunged for him, ending in Rodolphuss arms, holding her.

- Shut up you crazy bitch!- Sirius didnt have time to think about what he was doing, before grabbing his wand again.

-Sirius!- Lena shouted but he was already gone.

- You dare talk to me like that? Gryffindor.- his cousin kept trying to get him angrier.

Soon Sirius and her were face to face, wand at the other. Everyone had turned to them, including Sirius parents. Their son had his back towards them, one look from his wife and Orion knew what to do.

- Expeliermus!- Sirius ended up on the floor, his wand on the other side of the room. Bellatrix and Lucius laughed while Walburga began shouting at his son.

- What the hell?- Lena screamed, having too much of this family, quickly reaching Sirius.

- Are you okay?- she asked taking his head on her hands, supporting him on her knees.

- My head hurts.- he exclaimed, his hand reaching hers.

- Leave with me. - she pleaded, tears on her eyes. Both stayed like that while the party ended.

The people from the ministry left, and soon only the closest Black family members stayed. Regulus made his way towards the two, after being scolded by his mother on how Lena had acted.

- Lena, you have to go. - he tried grabbing her arm standing, but she yanked him away.

- You should leave. Both of you, come with me, now.- she begged time and time again, her vision now blurry.

Both Black brothers saw her in distress, not knowing what to do. While Walburga cursed his son, and Bellatrix accompanied her, Sirius took her hands and moved them from his face.

- Its okay, Lena. You dont want to be on the other end of her rage. - he said lowly. Regulus just stared, not knowing how to feel.

- I can´t leave you here.- she said between sobs.

- Ill be fine, I always am, arent I?- he tried to smile to the girl that held his heart. She nodded before helping him up.

- I love you.- she whispered in his ear as she hugged him goodbye.

- I love you too.- he responded, before she kissed his cheek.

Then, drying her tears, she made her way to Regulus that was still in shock. When she reached him, he reacted, leading her to the living room. None could speak, both feeling too many things all at once. Rage, horror, impotence, love. They didnt even share a single touch on the way.

- Bye, Regulus.- she said bluntly before turning for the chimney.

#Sirius Black x reader #Sirius Black x Potter reader #regulus x reader

[winterhawkkisses]

943.

“Lose the finger guns,” Bucky said, and Clint made a noise of protest but let his hands fall to his sides. “Put your left hand in your pocket,” he said, and then reconsidered. “Nah, it looks like you’re overcompensating. Just hook your thumb in there, maybe.” 

Clint was grinning at him now, and Bucky scowled and snapped a couple shots. He might be an asshole but he looked damned good doing it, and what else was the point of the exercise?

He lowered the camera, fumbling with the menu for a second before he worked out how to flip back through the shots. 

Honestly, they were fucking devastating. 

They’d taken a few shots framed in the window, a couple in colour but more in black and white. Bucky had asked him to explain the season five finale of Dog Cops, because that was when it had all gone a bit Philip K. Dick, with three separate timelines and the android copy of Detective Rex. In the pictures Clint’s brow was a little furrowed, intent, and he’d been gesturing with his hands. 

The pictures were fucking devastating. Bucky had to work to keep his thumb away from the button that’d delete them all. 

“Are we done?” Clint whined, leaning back on one of the bar stools at the kitchen island and tipping his head back. Bucky almost fucked up the settings, flipping so quickly back to camera mode so he could capture the sprawled length of Clint. 

He looked - Jesus, he looked like sin, and there was no way these pictures were going anywhere near the goddamn internet. 

“We’re done,” Bucky said and Clint lifted his head,rumpled and delighted and grinning adorably, his freckles catching the light. Bucky clicked the shutter with a sense of resignation, and then with some satisfaction added, “here. We’re done here.” 

Even pouting, the guy looked beautiful. 

“Why the hell is this taking so long?” Clint complained. “The site asked for one profile picture, and we’ve definitely got that. It’s not like my face is gonna win any prizes, and you’ve still got to help me write a profile.” 

“The site,” Bucky said, and cursed Tony yet again, “lets you have up to ten pictures, and you want people to get a decent idea of who you are. Which is why we’re headed to the basement,” he said, and watched Clint’s eyes light up. 

Clint had been working on the basement of his building for a while, now. It sprawled past the confines of the building, extending some way under the street, and he’d paid the owners of the next building along to expand some into theirs too. 

As well as the room full of washers and dryers there was a pretty comprehensive gym for the residents’ use. Cecilia was in there when they headed down, the steady tinny thump from her headphones competing with the whirr of the stationary bike. 

The crowning glory of the basement though was mostly just for Clint’s use. It wasn’t that he’da minded sharing, just that no one much save Katie-Kate had use for a top-line archery range. 

Bucky set a couple of the hanging targets swinging idly. 

“They let you upload videos?” he asked, and Clint snorted. 

“Jesus, no one wants to hear me talk.” 

Bucky shrugged, because it was safer than talking just then, a hundred different protests crowding over his tongue in a bid to force themselves out. 

“Shut up and get your damned bow,” was what he settled on, and he had to force himself to capture Clint’s beautiful grin, hating that it was gonna be for someone else. 

*

Clint shooting was beautiful. No surprises that - even with Bucky’s lack of artistic talent - the photographs were incredible, especially the couple where Clint had insisted on taking off his shirt. 

There was one - black and white and shades of grey - where Clint had been teasing Bucky about how long he’d been taking over a shot. His back muscles were defined, the bow held at seemingly effortless draw, and there was a glit of a wicked smile over his shoulder at Bucky, mischief in every line of his face. If Bucky helped him upload it to the dating site it would guarantee contact from every single person that saw it; there was no way Bucky was letting it see the light of day. 

“Okay,” Clint said, coming over and wiping a towel roughly across his face before snagging his shirt to pull it back on. “We going with some kinda profile now?” He smiled slightly, self-deprecating. “The photos better be good, ‘cos I hae no idea what to say. ‘Mostly deaf disaster archer, occasionally saves the world. Loves dogs,’” he said, and snorted. “They’ll come running.” 

“Hey,” Bucky said, setting the camera down on the seat of a rowing machine and circling his fingers around Clint’s wrist. “Quit it. They’re gonna love you.” 

“I don’t want you lying on it,” Clint said, a half-joking warning, and Bucky rolled his eyes. 

“What in hell makes you think I’d need to? We’re gonna tell ‘em you’re athletic and energetic, brave and kind.” Bucky swallowed, mouth a little dry. “We’re gonna talk about how you work to look after everyone around you ‘cos you got a heart the size of Texas, even if you don’t see it yourself. 

Clint had quit trying to tug away now and was just standing there, looking at Bucky. Bucky didn’t want to think about what he could likely see. 

“We’re gonna talkin about you bein’ smart,” Bucky said, fingers tightening a little as Clint made a sound of protest, “and how you could likely make a statue laugh.

“Bucky,” Clint said, soft, and Bucky looked down at his fingers against Clint’s skin, ‘cos he couldn’t look at the guy’s face.

“Maybe we should mention how goddamn easy it is to fall -” Bucky started, but he was cut off by Clint’s fingers tipping up his chin, Clint’s mouth firm and hot and all-encompassing against his. 

#winterhawk #transcription

[margaretroses]

Gif Tutorial

I was recently asked for some tips for making gifs, so I thought I’d make a tutorial show how I make mine. I’m using Photoshop CC 2017 for this, but I think the steps should work for most versions of Photoshop. I previously used CS6 Extended but this version has disappeared from my laptop and left me with basic CS6 which I wasn’t able to gif with.

I download my video clips from Youtube or screen record from documentaries/other sources online.

1. First open your Photoshop program and go to File > Open and open the video clip that you have saved.

2. Once you’ve opened your video, you need to make sure the timeline window is open, to do this go to Window > Timeline. If you want to use the clip you’re using to make a single gif, rather than taking clips from a full video, then skip to step 5.

3. To save separate clips from a long video you need to adjust the dials below the time markers. To avoid having a gif that’s too large to upload to tumblr and also too long, I suggest keeping your clips to no more than 6 seconds (this may depend on your clip). You can zoom in closer to the time markers to see a more accurate time including seconds by using the slider tool at the bottom of the timeline window. Sliding towards the smaller mountain zooms out (showing the full clip length as in the screenshot), the bigger mountain zoom in, allowing you to see the seconds and create a more accurate clipping. Use the play button to the left of the window to play through your clip and adjust the dials as you wish.

4. Once you’ve selected the clip you want to use, it’s time to save them. Go to File > Export > Render Video. A new window will open, where you can rename the clip and select a folder to save them to. You can ignore the other options.

You can go back and repeat step 3 and 4 as many times as you like to save the clips you want to gif. Tumblr has a limit of 10 images/gifs per post, but some tutorial and resource pages will show you how to put two gifs on to one canvas so you can upload more than 10 at a time.

5. To start giffing, you need to import those clips you just saved. File > Import > Video Frames to Layers. As mentioned in step 2, if your video clip is short already then you don’t need to go through steps 3-4. Once the next window opens, you need to make sure that ‘Limit to Every 2 frames’ is ticked.

6. When I created my clip using step 3, there were some frames left over from the previous shot which I don’t want in my gif. To get rid of these, just select the frames you don’t want and you can either press the delete/backspace button on your keyboard, or click on the little bin icon. Now that you’ve deleted these frames from the timeline, you need to do the same in the layers window. Be sure not to delete the frame with the eye icon as this is now the first frame of your gif. You may need to have a scroll to the last frames in your clip, to check there aren’t any other excess frames you don’t want. If so, just follow these same steps.

7. Next up we’re going to set the time delay between frames. This will determine how fast or slow your finished gif loops. To do this, you need to select all of the frames on your timeline, and click on the arrow next to the number shown (typically defaults at 0.04). The seconds shown in the list will make your gif run super slow - this is the delay between each frame, so if you select 5.0 there will be a five second delay between one frame and another. So, to choose your own time, select ‘Other’. For me, unless my chosen clip is super short where I might want it to loop a lot more slowly, I try to have my gifs play in as close to ‘real time’ as I can. I set my delay at 0.06 seconds and adjust it later on if needed. You can always press the play button and see how your gif runs, but this isn’t usually an accurate playback speed.

8. Once you’ve done this, you need to highlight all of the frames in the timeline window and all of the layers in the layer window. Next, click on the button that looks like three lines, on the right side of the timeline window and select ‘Convert to Video Timeline’. Then, in the layers window, right click one of the layers and select ‘Convert to Smart Object’. This will compress all of the layers into one, but will still be playable.

9. Now we’re going to crop your gif. First, you might want an idea of how what kind of layout you want for your gifs - this will depend on how many gifs per set you want. If you’re just making one gif, then set your crop with to 500px and your height to whatever works best (250, 300, 500 etc). Two gifs per set (if you want them side by side) need a width of 245px, three gifs side by side need a width of 160px. Before you crop, you should make sure that on the top bar ‘Delete Cropped Pixels’ is unticked. This will allow you to move your frame and re-crop the area.

10. Once you’re happy with your cropped area, it’s time to make some adjustments. For my gif, I want it to have a width of 245px and a height of 300px. To change the size of your image you need to go to the top menu bar and select Image > Image Size. Make sure the measurements are set to pixels. Next we need to sharpen the image, so we go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. I always have mine set to 500% for the Amount, 0.3px for the Radius. In CS6, Smart Sharpen didn’t have an option to reduce noise, so I just set this to 100% as this seemed to work best for the quality. It helps if you have Preview ticked, so you can see how the adjustments affect your image.

11. Now it’s time to start applying filters! To keep everything together in one place, you’ll want to create a new group so click on the little folder icon at the bottom of the layers window. Then click on the round icon to the left of it - here are your adjustment options. Have a play around with these and see which ones work best for you. Click on the eye symbol next to the adjustment layer will turn the layer visibility off, so you can see the effect it has on your image and see if you need to make any changes.

I tend to edit all of my gifs in the same style, the only difference being the options I use for black and white gifs, and those for colour. My basic go-to adjustments are Brightness/Contrast, Levels, Selective Colour (W/N/B for B&W, all colours for coloured gifs). To create a level tone for my B&W gifs, I apply a Gradient Map, fading from black into a very light grey. Colour gifs - I play around with Vibrance, Hue/Saturation and Colour Balance. It doesn’t hurt to play through your gif while you’re editing, to see if the settings your using work for all frames and not just the cover.

12. Once you’re happy with your gif, we need to save that masterpiece. Go to File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy). Some version of PS might just say ‘Save for Web’. In the next window, the only thing you need to do is select ‘Forever’ in the Looping Options drop down menu. Here, you can also check the size of your gif and make sure it’s below the 3MB limit. If it’s over, then you may need to go back and cut the length of your clip a little by adjusting the sliders in the same way as in step 3. If it’s a tiny bit over the limit, shaving a second or two off of your clip should be enough. If it’s over by a lot then you may need to split your gif into two. Again, following step 3, you can simply adjust the sliders to split the timeline into two sections. Once you’ve done this try saving again and check the size. When you’re happy, all you need to do is click Save and you’re done! You’ll need to do this for every clip you want to gif. The more you gif, the easier it’ll become and you’ll find your own rhythm where it may take only a few minutes to make one gif.

As mentioned earlier, if your final gif playback is too fast/slow all you need to do is drag and drop the finished gif back into PS and adjust the time delay as per step 7. You can change this and save it again as many times as you like until it’s right for you. 

** TIP ** Never close your tab window until you’re 100% happy with your gif, to the point that you’ve uploaded it. If you’ve noticed a mistake or a problem with your gif this allows you to go back and edit it without having to start over again. Also you can save your work in progress as a PDF at anytime. Trust me, there’s been many a time where I’ve closed my window and had to start again if there’s been a mistake.

#gif tutorial #tp

[cardandpixel]

RocketBook Flip - a rare review and it’s not a game!

Before I go any further, I feel I must point out that I don’t have any financial connection to RocketBook whatsoever – this isn’t a piece that was requested or courted by RocketBook or affiliates and I’m not receiving any reward or sponsorship either in product or direct payment for this article. I just like the damn thing and love it when an innovative piece of tech (in this case quite low key) just works. Hi I’m Paul, and I have a bit of a problem with notebooks – A4 lined, sketch, reporters, Black & Reds (ohhhh the sheer number of B&Rs), goofy ones, serious work ones, battered ones, pristine ‘for best only’ ones – and they all fill at an alarming rate. I make notes on everything. Working as a sound engineer and designer, there’s always mix notes, soundscape plots, ideas, VO notes and scripts, SFX ideas etc etc. At home it’s a very different story – it’s much worse. Game notes; blog notes; hurriedly scribbled quiz questions spurred by watching another episode of Mental Floss’ 500 facts about cheese; RPG notes and story ideas; my own script writing; world building; sketches; other creative ideas; song/music notes and ideas; and that’s before we get to to-do lists; and the dreaded ‘things I must remember’. So my journal life is many, varied and plenty. The usual issue is… ‘what frakking journal did I put that amazing idea in????’, and that’s way before we get to the utter horror that is possibly losing a whole journal or forgetting to bring one home from work. I’m 53, I forget more than I recall, and journals help bring some semblance of order to a massively chaotic and fertile brain. What I’ve needed for a long time is some way of organising all this info or centralising it in some way. Sure I’ve looked at apps – I used Things, Evernote, Notes, and One Note for years, and they are really, really good, but they relied on either having a charged device exactly when I need it (yeah – me too) or net access, which for a new-ish theatre, is surprisingly a bit of an issue at work. And the most important part – I actually enjoy the physical act of handwriting long-hand. I still write actual physical letters to people, it’s adorable and a bit creepy in this age, but I call it charming and leave it at that. Handwriting, for me, allows me time to think and process in a way that typing just doesn’t. Handwriting is slower, I rarely cross anything out, and so I always have the whole of the thought. So what I’ve ideally wanted for years, was a reliable way of organising all my notes and storing them electronically so I have access even without the actual journal, with OCR so they’re editable, and still being a tactile handwritten experience. I’m naturally a sceptic (I actually subscribe to Fortean Times – yeah – I card carry!) and so online ads and particularly FaceAche ads are a field day for critical thinking triggers. I don’t think I’ve ever received from Wish, exactly what I ordered from Wish. And so when an ad from RocketBook constantly kept popping up on my timeline a few weeks ago, I was naturally “it’ll never work” But their website looked legit enough – they had a dedicated UK shop, it was relatively steep to buy in but not so wild that if it didn’t work I wouldn’t be crying too much about the money wasted, and at the end of the day it was a 10th the price of a ReMarkable 2 which is actually what I thought would solve my problem. I’m furloughed at the mo and though I could argue the case for £300+ notebook (test me, I could), I just couldn’t justify it now. And RocketBook had a good summer intro offer. I ordered on the Wednesday, and the impressively glitzy and graphic-design-playbook poly package was dropped on my doorstep just 2 days later by my cheery postie who yelled up the drive “Package for ya, looks very exciting!!!!” I like that our postal service is still invested in the hopes and dreams of their customers. It was exciting. All the instructions for getting started with my new Teal RocketBook A4 Flip were right there before you even open it. The main body houses the pad and a cleaning cloth, and a clever little side pocket houses the supplied Pilot Frixion pen.

RocketBooks come in several models, all configured slightly differently. I have the Flip which is a top spiral-bound softback pad with 21 double sided ‘pages’ giving 42 pages in total. The Flip has lined paper one side, and dot paper on the reverse (great for D&D maps, impromptu tables, mixer channel plots etc)

DELIVERY & FIRST IMPRESSIONS The pads are nicely made, with sturdy covers (available in some really nice colours too) and a solid, thick plastic ring binding. Initially, The RocketBook does feel a bit odd. Its ‘pages’ are actually a synthetic polyester blend and feel quite shiny to the touch. The sort of surface you just instantly feel is not going to be great for ink! Each page is edge-to-edge lined or dotted with a heavy black border. At the bottom is a prominent QR code used for scanning and some very feint icons. These 7 icons are the key to the ease of use of the RocketBook series. But more later.

THE APP

The pads work with a companion app, that is absolutely free and available for Apple & Android. In fact, RB even do downloadable printable pages so you can try the whole system absolutely free before you buy – I didn’t, I just bought one, y’know. The app allows you to set up your destination locations, your preferences and does the actual scanning. Just one quick note, I have the app on both my phone and iPad and had to set-up the app the same for both, there appears to be no way of swapping preference settings between devices, though I can see why this may be intentional.

Currently, the RocketBook allows you to choose from the following locations to send files to: GoogleDrive, box, EverNote, DropBox, slack, OneNote, iCloud, OneDrive as well as simply to an email (or multiple) addresses and iMessage. Impressively, these are not fixed either, so you could choose your 7 destinations to be 7 email addresses of team members. These 7 locations are the icons at the bottom of each page. To select a destination for your file, you just make a mark in that icon box (tick, circle, something unsavoury) and that page will be sent to whichever you select. This makes the system very flexible indeed as not every page is necessarily sent to every destination. You always decide every time you fill a page. Change your mind on a second revision? No problem, add or change icons at any time and re-upload.

There’s a really handy table on the inside front cover for you to note what icon sends what where. This is also wipeable, so can be changed anytime.

I have mine set by default to:

Rocket > main email address (either as PDF, JPG, OCR embedded or as separate txt file)

Diamond > GoogleDrive (you can specify exactly what folder too)

Apple > iMessage

Bell > OneNote

That actually still leaves me 3 spare: shamrock; star; and horseshoe.

The app took me maybe 20mins to set-up, that included decision time for destinations and setting up a few target folders. It also included a few ‘test firings’. I didn’t get everything right first time and a few things didn’t send, but crucially, a tiny bit of digging revealed very simple troubleshooting (including the aforementioned issue with no sync’ing of phone and iPad), and all in I was finding the files in all the right destinations within about 30 mins. The website, FAQs and community are immensely helpful with any other issues as well. I had a tiny issue with OneNote seeming to take ages to sync, but I think that’s an issue with my OneNote settings, everything else was almost instantaneous. You can also handily set the app to auto-send as soon as it scans, or allow for manual review.

CLEAN UP ON AISLE ROCKETPAD The main reason I wanted to look at the RocketBook was the issue of reusability. My journal shenanigans are by no means the biggest ecological disaster on the planet, but if we are to believe Tesco (who probably issue as many receipts at our local Tesco Express in a day as journals I’ve ever used), every little helps. If I could find an ecologically better solution, I should at least take a look. The RocketPads work by partnering with Pilot pens called Frixion. The really clever bit is RB’s paper technology and how it works with the Frixion ink. At present, the pads only work with the Frixion pens – except the RB Colour which works with Crayola’s dry-erase crayons. When you write on the ‘paper’ with a Frixion pen, it remains wet for a few seconds and then dries pretty quickly. There’s no smudging whatsoever in transit, which is pretty cool. From then on, it may as well be permanent, until you have transmitted your page and decide you don’t want the text anymore.  To wipe the page clean, you can dampen the supplied cloth and just wipe the surface clean, it’s weird but it works! But then damp cloth in your bag? So I use kitchen roll to dampen, then wipe dry with theirs. Others even have an adorably kitsch spray bottle in their kit. RB reckon if you are not going to use the pad for a few months, to clean the pages as the ink can get trickier to shift after a long time, but for day-to-day use, I’ve tried writing and wiping well over 20x and the page hasn’t become discoloured or tarnished at all. The only pad different in the range is the Wave which cleans by microwaving! Do NOT do this with any of the others, bad things will happen. The ink doesn’t take scrubbing or any time to come up, I clean my pages in about 10-15s. The page can feel a little tacky when it’s damp, but leave a minute or so and the page will be back to normal. RB do say that odd things can happen if the book is left near a heatsource or in a hot car, vis-à-vis, the ink can completely disappear horrifyingly enough. They say that putting the pen or the pad in the freezer for a little while will actually restore the ink, but I’ve not tried it yet so can’t confirm or deny how that goes. Handy for spies in hot countries though, so there’s another target market. If you are always going to send your pages to the same places, then don’t erase the marked icons, and the page is ready for new notes straight away, otherwise, scrub them too.

I CAN’T READ YOUR WRITING – ARE YOU A DOCTOR? Initially, the RB pads send their files as scans of the pages in high contrast monochrome (colour is available) when you snap the page in the app (which auto-frames for you and takes maybe 10s to capture). The formats are either as images or PDF. If that had been it, I would have been quite happy, but the RB pads have another trick up their sleeve. Firstly, they have a function called ‘Smart Titles’ which allows you to name your files directly from the page by writing a filename between double hashtags ie ## this is my scrawl 24/8/20 ## and the file will pop up in your destinations with the filename “this is my scrawl 24/08/20” – this is insanely handy – there’s no protocol except your own and the hashtags, and it makes your files super easy to search. You can even send groups of pages as a single PDF. But the notebooks go even further. They actually offer full searchable OCR which the app can be set to send embedded in the PDF or image, or more usefully, as a companion separate .txt file. Now, my handwriting isn’t the neatest, but it’s not bad so I was prepared for some editing to be necessary, but impressively again, the OCR was about 90-95% accurate. In a page of text it missed maybe 3 or 4 words and even those not badly. This is all considering their full OCR is still only in beta! It gets confused with diagrams on the page, but that’s to be expected.

Text Generated by OCR: ## Blog post och test Aug 2020 ## This is a little demonstration of the OCR capabilities of the Rocket Book pads and app. I've told the lovely people that the hit rate is about 90-95% so please dant let me down here flip pad. Hopefully the file name will also prove another point further up in the section and not make me look like some charlatan or snake-oil salesman.Hope you enjoyed this demonstrahen, now go away and leave me to write the next great novella.Bye!

HOW MUCH? On average, I pay anywhere from £4-8 for a decent A4 notebook/journal, so at £30-37 (dependent on model), the RocketBook pads are not a whim purchase. That said, I get through a lot of journals in a year, and given that I would expect to easily get 2-3 years out of a RocketBook pad, then I’ve saved money. Will it replace all my notebooks? No. You need to be thinking of carrying this round as a kit: pad, Frixion pen (at least 2), and cloth.  RB do a series of portfolio sleeves for the pads but it does push the price up a bit still, but for a rep, engineer or salesperson, this still makes sense. They’re less bulky than a normal A4 pad too. What I would say is Tesco and Sainsbury’s currently stock Frixion pens and at much better prices than buying them from RB directly, I just paid £3 for 3 pens on offer at Tesco compared to £10 from RB. You get one pen with the pad, but you’re going to want more soon, so stock up next time you’re shopping for truffle oil crisps. If you use whiteboards a lot, RB also have you covered. Instead of the pad, £16 will get you a 4 pack of ‘beacons’ – little self-adhesive triangles that effectively do the same thing as the QR code in the pad. You don’t have the icon options obviously, but if you’re looking to distribute quick meeting or group notes, this would be a boon. CONCLUSION Considering this was a fairly speculative purchase on my part, my early experiences with the RocketBook Flip have been really impressive. The flexibility, the ability to store every page in a different location if you really wanted to make it fantastic for organising my notes, which can save me hours of finding the right ^^$&^$&$ notebook in the first place, then scouring that for the one paragraph I was looking for etc etc. The searchable text facility, in-app history for re-sending etc and last but no way least, functional handwriting OCR, makes the RocketBook not only novel, but actually useable! Would I buy another? As a second notebook – yes. I look forward to seeing what the actual longevity of the product is once I come off furlough and start cramming my day bag with all my junk and a notepad again, but yes, I’d probably just have one at home, and one for work, but make the last 5 mins of each day, scanning and sending work notes so I have them with me wherever. Impressively, the RocketBook Flip just works and it works well. ‘Er Across The Table has already sold several folk at her work on the idea and she doesn’t even have one herself yet! I love it. It’s taking a little adjusting to, but it’s all good. The most important thing though is the writing experience, and I have to say, the combination of the Frixion pen/ink and the polymer technology of the Flip, again, just works. It’s smooth, doesn’t skip or smudge for me (I know some right to left users and left handers have reported some issues) and feels great to write on. If anything I have to slow down a bit as the contact is so smooth that your writing can get a bit ahead of you! RocketBook have produced a cracker of a product. It might not seem like much, but if practical working journals are your thing (ie not create and keep things) then I can highly recommend the RocketBook series.

[kuro-von-shitsuji]

My Process

Not too long ago someone requested a colouring tutorial from me. Honestly I have no actual knowledge of colour theory and the techniques I use are far from being the only correct way to colour. In fact actual artists will probably cringe at this post. BUT I like doing it and have found a way that works with my limited skills so this is the process I use. This isn’t meant as a complete tutorial but rather just some of the steps I keep in mind while colouring.

To start with, I use an old ass graphics tablet with practically no pen pressure and the desktop version of Medibang Paint Pro, which as far as free art tools go is pretty damn good. You’ll also need access to good quality scans of the panels you’re colouring. I recommend getting the newer chapters on Kobo because you can zoom in on each panel without losing too much clarity, unlike iBooks. I’m not sure about the other sites, but Kobo I can vouch for. 

Now first and most importantly you need to separate your line art from the background. There are two approaches to this. Some artists redraw the line art from scratch, which (if you can do it) gives their work a crisp, professional touch. I can’t do this and don’t have the time nor patience to learn how so I use this method:

menu --> select --> create selection from layer/brightness

This will automatically separate the line art. All you need to do is choose whichever colour you want your line art in (I start with black) and paste it in a new layer.

Add a white layer in between the two and you’re good to go! Afterwards you should be able to draw under the line art layer like this:

This might be obvious to some of you but it literally took me years to figure out. The downside here is that you have to play with Toboso’s screen tones and her occasional mistake. You also have to contend with whatever she left out to make it look good in black and white, like Mey-Rin’s eye in the example colouring. Whichever method you pick is totally up to you.  

Next we have to apply base colour. There’s no trick to this, just pick colours as they look right. Generally I like using desaturated colours but experiment and find what works best for you. Don’t use straight black or white because you won’t be able to shade/highlight over them. Also, make sure to put all the colours on different layers, it will make shading easier.

I also recommend naming your layers, but I never actually do it. I just wing it and curse myself later. This particular colouring had close to two hundred layers and I realised upon uploading that I hadn’t shaded Ran-Mao’s eye so I had to sift through those two hundred unnamed layers to find the base colour. Don’t be me. Learn from my mistakes.

At some point you’re either going to find yourself squinting at the lighter tones trying to differentiate them from the white background or you’re going to find lots of gaps in your colours later on. Or at least, I always do. To avoid this switch up the background colour as you apply your bases. I usually use a mixture of red, blue and white depending on what contrasts clearer with the colour I’m using. For example: below on a white background I thought I’d finished Sebastian’s skin. This is how it looked when I switched to blue. If you do this sooner rather than later it will save you time in the long run.

After base colours are applied it should look something like this. For some edits this might be the look you’re going for, especially if the panel is more comical than this one. Personally, I prefer to add my details in the shading, which is in the next step.

Shading is the part of the process that makes the least sense for me on paper because I just follow my heart and bam it’s done, but I tried to think through my process this time. I tend add shadow close to the line art and apply highlighter liberally to open areas. I also find I’ll add multiple shadow layers to a base colour for more depth. Say if I had three shadow layers on a skin tone it would start with block shadow, then finer detail, then the tiny details. All of these have different opacities. Again there might be a more efficient method but on the layer front I say go hard or go home.

I do all shading and highlighting on layers clipped to the base colour. For shading I set the layer to ‘Multiply’ and for highlights I set it to ‘Add’ and play with the opacity for both. This is a method I like to call cheating, but it gets results. Remember: highlights are just as important as shadow. It makes the whole image that bit more dynamic.

I do most of this step with the wet watercolour brush. In this colouring the brush was set to 9% opacity the whole time, but I often mix it up. I’ll sometimes switch to texture brushes for hair and very occasionally for fabric, but often the watercolour brush is enough.

I pick my colours for this step purely based on what my base colours are doing. Because this particular colouring had a lot of people in it (and therefore a lot of details) I stuck to shading with pink and highlighting with yellow, but if a colouring has less detail I’ll often vary the colours to match closer to the base colour. Try to avoid shading with black-- it’s not wrong but it does create a washed out look. Also try to avoid overuse of gradients. I use very faint gradients in each character’s hair and often in backgrounds, but they don’t give you much control over a light source, nor the freedom to shade wherever you like as freehand allows. But again, that’s personal preference. 

Once shading and highlighting is done mine looks like this:

 As with the base colour, at this stage you could call it finished. However, I am a perfectionist and like to colour the line art. Well, like is a strong word. This is my least favourite part of the process. Colouring the line art feels like someone has forced you to draw while wearing thumbscrews because it exposes every error imaginable, but for that same reason it’s worthy doing. I try to use very dark colours when colouring over regions with heavy screen tone because it’s amazing how much it’s going to lighten your colours. I pick the colours for this step by eye dropping the darkest shadows and then darkening it further. In the end it’ll look like this:

Finally we just need a background. To do this properly you need to strip down and dance naked under the full moon in a shallow spring made from the tears of nymphs. Make an offering to the spirit of the waters, and eat some of the nourishing moss she presents you. You will know you the colour to use. Alternatively just pick a pastel and slap some stars on it like I usually do. In this colouring I spent like half an hour flicking though shades of orange before settling on a gradient. You can skip this process by knowing which colour you want to use in advance. Or if you’re really flexing you can actually draw a background. If you can do this you are already far more powerful than I. You can also just skip the background altogether, but again I’m a perfectionist. 

This is my final result!

Ultimately though, there is no right or wrong way to go about any of these steps. There are some amazing artists out there who I’m sure have processes completely unlike mine. Don’t take every word of this to heart: these are just the things I’m mindful of when I’m colouring.

Most importantly: do what looks best to you, and create something you’re proud of!

#kuroshitsuji #black butler #tutorial #manga coloring #request

[ayakashiramblings]

Dawn and Twilight’s Social Media Accounts

Kuya

@NevermoreButSnore.

1230 followers.

Yes, I copied Edgar Allan Poe. Yes, I’m not sorry about the rhyme. Or calling him out. 

Not that he really cares.

Insists that he is a headcanon creator on Twitter 

Everyone who follows him knows that he is lying. 

If we really had to classify him as a writer, it would one who posts those way-too-accurate posts about writers complaining about writing. 

Like the notebook hoarding one. Not that anyone here in the fandom is guilty of that, haha... haha... ha.

Ironically is one of the more popular ones out of the whole group. 

His flat responses and laziness are way too prominent to NOT be noticed. 

If you actually tentatively sneak into his DMs though, for writing tips, he will patiently listen and... rather bluntly advise you. 

It’s still advice though and is always the type to check out and reblog any short fanfics.

It just has to be weird, sporadic hours because he is the type to fall asleep with the phone on his face. 

Koga Kitamikado

1230 followers.

@CapitalKayKay

Listen, there is a reason why a lot of successful businesses chose Instagram as their social media so Koga is no exception. 

What makes his account stand out, as you can see from his rather cheeky username, is that he is willing to be an open book. 

So he isn’t constantly shoving down any products he is sponsoring or whatever piece he is endorsing. 

It’s more of genuinely wanting to hang out and explore what the world has to offer. 

Whenever he posts a picture of the gang together, he’s the one tagging all of them, even the ones with hard usernames.

And there’s always a nice comment thanking whoever hosted the fun time or being appreciative of the area and the locals.

It helps that he has a sense of humour so the memes are always just the right amount of teasing but nothing too bad that will deter potential clients.

Because of his down-to-earth nature, he reels everyone in.

Uses the space to invite everyone following him on any celebration/casual outing.

The thing is... he has a lot of followers.

So... good luck.

Aoi

1150 followers.

@DeredArtTooTsun

Look, even he knows he is a Tsundere. It’s a small victory getting him to acknowledge that, let alone use it to brand himself here.

But god, he’s the man I’m most jealous of on Tumblr.

PERFECT BULLET JOURNALS AND SKETCHES.

Got the spreads that literally define ‘aesthetic’, a perfect lineup of art materials even with pencils that have their numbers faded, and somehow, the emotions can pass through the paper and screen.

Even does tutorials on perspectives, positions with cute annotations. Just don’t praise them for being adorable though and focus on improving your skills, dummy.

Ironically though, it’s his mindless vents that get the most number of notes.

It helps that the pics include him, a very cute... I mean... manly boy screaming at very, very hot men.

A bit baffled but whatever it takes to get commissions. 

That’s right, he takes them. At least there is a back-up option should the restaurant ever go out of business. 

Spoiler Alert: Still doesn’t get paid as much. People, have you seen the number of talented artists here? Aoi might be in the rankings but it’s still hard attracting business.

Support your fandom artists, everyone!

Ginnojo

1000 followers. Just nice.

Ginnojoz

Poor grandpa didn’t intend to put that extra ‘z’ letter, it was a typo because scales don’t get along with haptic touch. 

And unfortunately, doesn’t understand how to change it. 

Once, he was huge on Vine before it died. The end of an era that he has to witness again. RIP.

Gin-Gin, it is RIGHT. THERE.

Expect to find his super short self-defence videos and Book Club Readings on YouTube.

Girls actually appreciate his instructions and attempts to provide help even if they are alone. 

He did try to respond to the nice ones and actually succeeds. 

It’s always easier getting to know the language of women when you don’t really see/touch them.

A deep baritone is perfect for some sexy excerpt of a historical novel... 

Until he corrects the setting.

In fact, he sometimes rage-quits and rewrites it. 

Unlike Kuya, him doing those established ideas actually catches on. 

Yura and Gaku

1500 followers.

MelodyandTheBeat. 

... Tik-tokers. Tik-Tok people? 

WTH do you call them?

As you can see, they are the most popular since it’s combined stardom.

Look, their covers and music mixes are beautiful.

They always have their own version that somehow combines traditional Japanese music... with k-pop.

And of course, food porn. 

Just be grateful there isn’t that awful squelching sound you hear when you consume jelly or the breaking of chilli seeds. 

Listen, I usually separate them because it’s never nice to be grouped as having the same activity as your twin. 

But in this case, being both equally beautiful AND talented sells their uploads. 

Even the cringy ones made because Yura is such a Luddite. 

Like just turning his head and being amazed his hair can turn so many colours, being impressed with each tilt until he gets to a black shade. 

Suddenly hurls the phone away. Gee, wonder why? Guess black isn’t the new... black for him?

Gaku sometimes even introduces new filters he created based on Yura’s random requests that strangely get circulated on the site. 

Oji

550 followers all know Oji-Sanz

Unlike Ginnojo, he deliberately adds the ‘z’ letter to sound cool.

You wanna know what’s worse? 

He actually uses Facebook. 

Aoi decides to give up on him. Nobody blames the poor student.

It’s apparently some old form of social media? Never used it, no sirree. 

Always changing his relationship status but at the end of the day, he’s single and ready... 

To post about all the lovely ladies destined to enter his restaurant. 

He thinks it’s great publicity. 

It really isn’t but one good thing about Oji is he includes EVERYONE.

This man respects his customers and always helps advertise their wares, especially if their connections lead to more resources. 

And less grocery shopping on his part.

Does post the recipes he and Aoi created but will never use because the Milk Hall had a certain style to follow.

Officially makes Aoi his son... on Facebook at least. 

Aoi now tolerates the account. 

Barely. 

Toichiro Yuri

WhatheMeSay has 1231 followers! 

In your face @CapitalKayKay and @NevermorebutSnore!!

You know, I’m so glad that there aren’t any users with those names because I’d be so scared of accidentally tagging them.

Also, geddit? Because... What the fox say? 

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding... yeah, I’ll stop.

Pinterest Guy. And actually does spend on his ‘hobby’ to show off to everyone.

It does boost you and your father’s sales so there is nothing to complain about. 

His boards are always alliterated just to sound super catchy and it works so long as he gets the right emoji. 

Kabuki plays better be promoted or else.

Filled with candid pictures of his victims all taken at different angles you didn’t know were possible and in varying degrees of hilariously misunderstood positions.

He even supplies a donation link, heavily leveraged by his followers, since there are incentives tied to it like early access.

A bit suspicious the photos look like cropped out parts from Koga’s posts and some of the text resembles Kuya’s... er... wisdom?

He takes an unholy amount of selfies when he thinks no one is looking and so they are always surprised upon finding them on the Selfie Board. 

There is a locked board that no one can access, even his followers who are his comrades in real life. 

It’s actually just one picture in there. 

It’s you smiling and giggling at a joke of his. Not even you know it’s been taken. Guess he is as soft as his fur, eh? He better come out soon or else.

Kuro

Kuroruohtumbling

Ginnojo is unfortunately just old enough to have grown up with Scooby-Doo to understand the reference.

Snapchat, like a snapping snake! Hiss!

Unironically loves the puppy face.

Ok, but the glimpses of his stunts help show snippets of the circus life. 

He and his whole troupe family will even don costumes best suited for certain filters.

Sometimes ropes in Ginnojo... and by sometimes, I mean enough for everyone to start wondering if the stoic man is part of the act. 

To be fair, he randomly hugs people and ranks them here.

You, of course, were number 1. 

Now, if only he didn’t use the bloody song to announce it but you forgive him.

Maybe even risks revealing his ayakashi form before deleting the message to you.

Loves making international fans and learning various languages through each post, sort of like flashcards but animated and more fun!

And with 1200 followers, he might become a polyglot like Koga.

Shizuki 

Everyone bans him from creating one. 

Because they know the power of his roasts is too great. 

Little do they know he goes undercover. 

Underground.

And under their noses.

That’s right. His rant town on... MySpace. 

Unapologetically uses a good chunk of his salary from serving the House of Yuri just to get nifty themes that help with the whole burning process. 

Look, there’s a reason he and Oji are friends. 

This is why. 

Their taste in women seems fine but we really have got to do something about their affinity towards DEAD PLACES.

To be fair, he made the whole thing drunk but that doesn’t mean he should maintain it SOBER.

He just feels that it is a waste of space if he doesn’t utilize it. 

And it also becomes kind of cathartic. From the intrusive hugs to his master and Sir Gaku irking each other to no end, he needs it. 

Zero followers... but only because it’s super private. 

It becomes 1 the moment you jokingly create an account. 

#ayakashi romance reborn #ayakashi rr #ayakashi aoi #Ayakashi: Romance Reborn #AyakashiRR #ayakashi ginnojo #ayakashi kuro #arr kuro #kuya #gaku #ayakashi kuya #kuro #arr kuya #kuya the tengu #ayakashi koga #koga kitamikado #arr koga #toichiro yuri #arr toichiro #ayakashi toichiro #toichiro the kitsune #arr shizuki #shizuki #ayakashi shizuki #arr aoi #aoi #ginnojo #ayakashi oji #arr ginnojo #Oji

[suney]

@annabellioncourt asked: 11 and/or 16!

11 - things you said when you were drunk [3/5] < prev | next >

Both Amanda and Christopher inspect the drink sliding her way. It's whiskey, good whiskey. So good neither really know if they could appreciate it. Likely not Samuels with his lack of taste; and absolutely not Ripley, for a very similar reason. 

“What's this?” 

“Across the bar. Black hair.” The bartender says politely, enjoying this perhaps a little too much. “You have an admirer.”

Amanda follows his direction to the opposite end where a stranger sits. A tamed but bushy face, a leather jacket, leaning easily over a motorcycle helmet. “Oh.”

She lifts up the glass with a grateful nod, squints, and disrespectfully shots it. The corner of the man's lips quirk. 

“He can see you have company. Am I suddenly invisible?” Samuels is convinced he may have just left reality altogether as his friend seems to ignore (or hopefully just doesn’t hear) him. 

Amanda leans on the bar, mouthing something across the way Chris can't quite see the entirety of, but catches a “-what can I do for you?”

The stranger writes something down on a napkin to deliver with the next drink, and the bartender who looks chuffed to finally be selling the higher end stuff, grins as he places it down, definitely having snooped the message on the way over. 

Just drink it looking pretty. X

Amanda, even to Christopher's standard, does just that. She sips gently, a little more appreciative of the vintage this time around. Eventually, she turns to him, brushing her fingers through her hair and pushing it back over her shoulders. 

“You- look-” Samuels wonders why he had opened his mouth in the first place, trying to find something to deliver in the place of 'nice', 'aesthetically pleasing', 'beautiful', even 'hot'? “You look very proud of yourself.” 

“I am.” Amanda takes another sip. “Not everyday you have a man who looks like that taking an interest in you.”

Christopher supposes not. “I can give you some privacy, if you need.”

“Privacy? What for? We've been sleeping in the boot of a car for two and a half months, we're way past that. Besides, it turns out you were the one hacking my phone and camera while repairs were being carried out so God knows what you saw me doing, and I was the one who didn’t actually mind.” Amanda raises an eyebrow. “I can’t believe I’ve never asked you how the hell you did that?” 

“I uploaded myself into the Torrens, when the reactor purged it reset security for seven minutes. Everything came back online, even comms. Even me. I essentially piggybacked over on your connection with Verlaine, and from there it was a lot easier to get around from device to device. An old… friend, of mine in security told me how to do it. For the record I only hacked you when you were by my body. Otherwise, I was completely offline.” 

“You, piggybacking.” Amanda chuckles, clinging to it of all things. “That would be a sight, I don't think there's a human on Earth who could lift ya.” 

“Maybe your friend back there could, being so great and all.”

Amanda leans away with a double take, eyeing him over. “What's gotten into you? You okay?” 

“Yes.” Christopher feeds his hands into his pockets with a shrug. "I- I- don't know. Sorry, that was quite unnecessary.” 

“It's fine.” She mumbles, turning back to the bar.

“No, it’s not. Actually, I may start heading back to the wagon if you don’t mind.” Christopher barely gets a sideways glance as he hops down off his stool. “I won't wait up.” 

She catches him by the shoulder. “Are you sure?”

Christopher's expression and only somewhat figurative heart falls. 

“You're okay- I mean, are you sure you're okay?”

“Of course.” He feigns a smile. “Enjoy yourselves.” 

Samuels pretends to not see her visit the other side of the room as he takes a last glance back through the door. 

The walk is slower than he’s used to. The streets are quieter than the bar, fairly understandable for a Monday. Every night is Saturday night to the unemployed uncommitted Amanda and himself. Amanda and himself. That was wrong, there is no ‘and’, certainly no ‘we’, they are separate. By age, by mind, and by species? If he were to be generous in calling what he is a species rather than a device. A gadget or contraption. Not even an individual custom model at that, with their unique bodies and faces, but just another cog in the Company Machine.

“Chris!” He turns on the spot as voice calls out, footsteps clomping towards him at a run. “Wait!” 

“Ripley- what-?”

“Ugh,” having caught him, she holds her stomach and leans back against the brick wall, “I don't feel so good.”

“I'm not surprised. Do you need to find a bathroom?” 

“No, no, just- ugh, running after drinking straight whiskey on an empty stomach. Not good.”

Samuels waits, half watching to see if their new acquaintance is to come around the corner at any second. Thinking rather peculiarly if they intended to use their car for a rendezvous he may be inclined to light it on fire come morning.  

“Earth to Chris. Literally,” Ripley clicks her fingers in front of her face with a smile, “what are you doing?”

“Is your friend not coming?” 

Amanda scoffs. “What? No. He's so far out of my league it's tragic, besides, he was just a rich flirt with a thing for brunettes. I knew it straight away.” 

“Oh, I thought-”

“You thought he was trying to pick me up?” 

“You went over to see him.”

“To say thanks. And bye!” Amanda laughs nauseously, colour running from her face, she closes her eyes and rests her head back. “No one is stupid enough to look at me and think 'oh yeah, totally wouldn't mind that headfuck knowing where I live, might take her home with me', Chris.”

Samuels frowns and taps her side with his elbow. “I do, every day. Not the head-F’d part.” He pauses but doesn't give her room to interrupt. “And for what it's worth, you won't ever sway me into believing you're not considered an absolute catch. To other people.” 

“Oh, the man flatters too. Keep that up and you really might be taking me home after all." She covers her eyes with a disgruntled scoff. "Sorry, that was- God, I'm really fucking drunk." 

“I know. It's alright.” It really is. “You know I could- if you wanted to?”

Amanda peeks through her fingers, eyeing over a cautious looking synthetic. Wondering if the cheeky shine in his gaze is coming from the street lamp. 

“W- what? You can't be serious?”

“Totally serious.” Christopher gestures to his back. “You’re too unwell to walk yourself, so I’ll take you home. Hop on.” 

Amanda breathes a sigh of relief, thick with something else more like disappointment…? “You had me going for a hot minute there.” 

“You should know me better than that by now.” In his voice is a smile as she’s lifted off a nearby trashcan onto his back. Arms feed around his neck and he presses his chin into them. "I would never be so crude."

“Yeah, you're right.” Amanda pokes her head over his shoulder to kiss his cheek. “But, y'know Samuels, for what it's worth, if anybody in the world was actually going to take me home, I would want it t’be you anyway.” 

'Blood' rushes to Christopher's cheeks, paling him immensely. Had he known that, he wouldn't have offered just a damn piggyback.

#ripuels ask fic

[harrybridgers]

i was tagged by @pattern-pals to answer these 11 questions so i’m going to try and do that somewhat legibly 

1. When do you use memories in your writing and when does that feel too fragile or dangerous?

i think i use my memories quite often, for things big and small. sometimes it’s bits and pieces of dialogue, other times its significant things or people that i channel into what the story is about. i suppose putting real bits of real life into fiction always feel a little bit fragile and dangerous but i also think that if i didn’t feel slightly nerve-wracked and vulnerable when i’m writing then there wouldn’t be much point to it anyway!!

2. I’ve stopped writing a WIP because I realised that I’m still processing the main theme I’m writing about. Do you find it easier to write about what’s on your mind or about something you’ve already had time to reflect on? 

definitely after reflection, but having said that, going through the motions with a fic is also an experience in itself!! i definitely grew along with shelter as we go and that turned into one of the best things i’ve ever written, so maybe it’s not a case of what’s easier vs harder, more just what the context of the fic is and how i personally feel about whatever theme it is that i’m wrangling with. my current wip is wrestling me into the ground atm but i’m hoping i’ll come out on top lmao

3. Which of the five senses is most important to you to describe in what setting?

oooooh this is a hard one...but i think it’s between touch and sight, maybe leaning more towards sight. i rely so heavily on visual cues and colour and light when it comes to story telling so getting that right is more the key for me than dialogue ever seems to be. first impressions are always important and i like to make all of those impressions from what can be seen and felt right from the word go

4. What scene would you love to go back to and change? 

ooft...this is a little left of centre but the breakfast scene from HITA, when they see harvey. when i read back on that i feel like there’s noooo depth in what should be such a big and important moment, i’m so mad that i didn’t really take it anywhere lmao. also the ending of kiwi; i was so rushed and out of my mind when i finished that fic, i think i uploaded it at 3am with little to no editing sjdfksg

5. What scene are you most proud of? Why?

there’s a few!! the final beach scene in i could dream all night is something i still think about. i just feel like everything in that fic built up so perfectly and that scene was the very essence of where i wanted the fic to go! the fight between sully and louis in the bar in shelter as we go and the argument that follows between fergus and louis afterwards is i think one of the best bits of action vs dialogue i’ve written and i’m super proud of it. the scene in the apartment towards the end of dissolve when harry is trying to force zayn to let them apologise to each other. and of course, the end of HITA.

6. What story of yours would you most like to read as a graphic novel?

i think strawberry swing would be soooo so amazing as a graphic novel...and now that i’ve thought about it, i desperately want that in my life omg. i think because that fic is basically colour/description dependent as a cue for time passing, it would work really well! and it’s also nice and short. i’d love shelter as we go as a graphic novel but i feel like that’s excessive 

7. Is there something you feel like you can’t write into fic? Whether you fear others would find it #problematic or it’d be too personal for you?

aside from the obvious things, no. i think i’ve already put enough of my heart and soul into my fics to take it back now, and i’ve never tried to shy away from much because i feel like trying to sugar-coat or gentle something that would never be gentled for the people that it happens to in real life for the sake of caution in my fics is unrealistic. all or nothing!! 

8. What have you learned about writing or yourself since starting your latest story?

that maybe i do need to actually edit properly after all sfhsdkjfh no but in seriousness, in regards to the story and the plot itself, as time goes on and as it grows bigger, i’ve noticed bits and pieces of myself in places that i hadn’t realized i’d put myself into, and vice versa, i’ve seen bits of the fic reflected into real life, which is what i had hoped for. i find that a lot of the time you can unknowingly grow and learn things from your fics and its not until you reflect and read back that you’re like...oh....shit......thats what that feeling was

9. What would I have to read to understand the way you think about love?

that is...a hard question for me to answer because i think of love in a lot of different lights/forms. maybe a mixture of crush, a separate peace, island, and lots of rumi. and all of the fics i have bookmarked on ao3 skfhsjkh

10. What fic has made you cry recently?

i made the mistake of re-reading slide by @this-onegoes a few days ago, thinking that i’d read it enough nOt to cry this time, but alas. it got me again. also i went on a dangerbears binge and it HURT 

11. Which fic would you want to write fic of?

i think i’d want to write a version of the fox you’ve been waiting for because i want another 100k words of that story and it still wouldn’t be enough for me ugh

tagging anyone who wants to do this!! and i’m keeping nina’s questions because as always, she has the Best ones

#answered #now i feel like reading fic instead of writing it #today has been a case of me vs an open google docs page

[mrsren]

Pansy and Neville drabbles #51 , #37 and #19 please and thank you.

This is written for SleepyGrimm, who is just one of my favorite people, and I so hope you enjoy this. It's....long. 3500 words, and hot off the presses. I'll upload to FFN & AO3 in the morning because I'm tired. I might have overdone the drabble...so here, have a oneshot, my lovely friend. The pagebreaks are probably fucked up. Pairing: Neville Longbottom x Pansy Parkinson. "I wish I could hate you." "Is there a reason you're naked in my bed?" "I've seen the way you look at me when you think I'm not looking." Following the war, he didn’t hold with the ideology that everything was going to fall into place. As nice as that would have been, it was wholly unlikely. No, he was used to everything going completely fucking sideways. For a moment, the summer really, he thought it was routine. He visited his parents in St Mungo’s. Alice Longbottom liked to hold his Order of Merlin, and he was content to leave it to her. Frank gazed at it, his eyes glassy with the briefest look of recognition, and Neville couldn’t imagine not leaving it to the two individuals who taught him what being a hero was all about. It only made sense, didn’t it? He wasn’t expecting much from returning to Hogwarts. He’d already gone through his seventh year once as a warrior; he wasn’t sure how to repeat it as a student. He imagined he would still keep one eye over his shoulder, his wand gripped tightly in his hand. There were some horrors that could not be scrubbed away by fundraisers, galas, and galleons. Gods, the money — he couldn’t stand it. The Ministry was in the thick of it these days. Officials were either slamming former Death Eaters - those who could escape a Kiss - or the families thereof with fines, or they were giving their thanks in monetary value. Neville donated the money he was awarded before taking out a spot in the Daily Prophet with the single quote: Change Not Currency. As much as he liked to think it was witty, it really wasn’t. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~His grandmother was overjoyed when he received what he hoped to Merlin was his last Hogwarts letter, and a pin fell onto the dining room table. It was scarlet, and gold, the same colours he’d been sported for years now. Head Boy, he mused before glancing at the letter. His counterpart was Hermione. As if he’d thought it would be anyone other than her. His grandmother set to talking about him - never to him, it felt these days - of his accomplishments. Slaying Voldemort’s snake, his ruddy Order of Merlin, and now Hogwarts’ Head Boy. He could feel the bile rise in his throat. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~The first week was the hardest. The Sorting Ceremony was painful as only a fraction returned. Ron and Harry were noticeably absent, already in auror training. Hermione sat at his side, her enamel pin shining proudly at the front of her robes. It was the smallest class he’d ever seen sorted, and it was a damn shame. As they ushered students to their dormitories, Neville stopped to help a small Slytherin who had seemingly been left behind. “Hi, sweetheart,” he murmured, crouching down. His fingers brushed against the ancient stone of the castle. “Lost?” She nodded, her eyes brimming with tears. “Unfortunately,” she muttered, bitter. “I was with my brother. He’s in third year and he promised he wouldn’t let me get lost. Little liar.” Neville chuckled. “I’m sure he just got separated. I’m Neville, what is your name?” Blue eyes widened and she hid her face behind tendrils of blonde hair. “Everyone knows who you are. You cut off the snake’s head.” He snorted. “Heard about that, did you? Did they mention I have the tendency of tripping over my own two feet?” She looked positively aghast. “Well...no. They didn’t put that on your chocolate frog card actually.” Right, he forgot about his likeness on the cards, a moving photo of a moment that truly wasn’t sorted for children. She continued. “Oh, Merlin! What if you’d tripped during the Final Battle? What if you’d landed on the sword?” He blinked. He actually hadn’t thought of that. “Good thing I didn’t. Let’s get you to the dungeons.” Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “Is it really so gross down there? Oh, my name is Leana.” Neville smiled as she held on to the fabric of his sleeve and he led her through the winding staircases, and into the dungeons. Of course, he couldn’t go any farther. “Parkinson!” he barked, recognizing the familiar curtain of black hair. She pivoted on her foot to face him, her dark eyes narrowing as her mouth set into a thin line. “Yes?” All he really saw was the woman who attempted to give Harry to Voldemort. Neville glanced down at Leana, who was bouncing on the balls of her feet. Right, be the example, house unity. He sighed. “Leana got lost. Would you please show her to her dorm?” Parkinson gave a stiff nod, and stepping forward to take the young girl’s hand was the closest she’d ever been to him. Neville didn’t turn to leave until he was alone in the corridor. Old habits died hard, but he was struck by a thought - She really wasn’t deserving of the cruel nickname Pug-Faced Parkinson anymore. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~They had Potions together. Followed by Defense Against the Dark Arts. In a gross twist of fate, they were permanent partners for the year. “Don’t catch the cauldron on fire.” she hissed in Potions. “Missed your step there,” he smirked when he cast a jelly legs hex at her in DADA. It wasn’t the best way to spend to back to back hours, but - He found himself looking forward to them way back when he didn’t realize it. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~Neville almost - should have, he corrected - gave her attention when he caught her out after curfew. At the tail end of his rounds, she should have been grateful he was the one to come across her in the Astronomy Tower rather than Hermione. It was a shifting point, but neither of them mentioned it. The next would remain the same with the verbal sparring she would win in Potions and the literal sparring he was getting quite good at. She was crying, her shoulders barely shuddering as she hung her head. Parkinson didn’t say anything when he silently sat beside her, his legs mirroring hers as they dangled off of the side of the stairs. “Are you going to give me detention?” she asked. Parkinson didn’t wipe her eyes. She only glared at him, daring him to poke at her. At the shake of his head, she froze. “Why not?” “Do you want me to give you detention? I mean, I wouldn’t be against it, but we all need a place to hide sometimes, don’t we?” He expected her to snap at him, to tell him how he was too whimsical in his thinking, too soft-hearted. She murmured, “I’m not hiding.” Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the level beneath her. “I don’t hide.” Neville dipped his head. “Of course not. It was rude of me to assume.” ~*~*~*~*~*~*~It carried on, but now their routine was out of order. His eyes drifted to her in between classes, even as she never spared him a second glance in the corridors, and meals in the Great Hall were the worst. She wasn’t eating, but he wasn’t in the position to point it out to her. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~During another moment, he’d traded rounds with Hermione for good, in the Astronomy Tower, she was forthcoming. “Why did you come back?” he asked, legs tucked beneath him. She shrugged. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and there were purple rings beneath her eyes. Clearly, she wasn’t sleeping. “I wanted to prove I had nothing to be ashamed of.” It sparked his curiosity and he rose his head to glance at her. “Are you ashamed?” “Yeah.” she replied, her hands fidgeting in her lap. “Why did you come back? From what I hear you could have gone on for whatever. All of you could have.” She didn’t have to say who she meant. Neville had given it a lot of thought over the eight weeks they had been back. He still didn’t have a straight answer. “I’m not sure. I think part of it was that I’m comfortable here. I want to go through auror training like my parents, but...this is more than you wanted to hear, isn’t it?” She surprised him. “No, I think I’d like to hear it.” ~*~*~*~*~*~*~He didn’t ask her to Hogsmeade, no matter how it looked. And it definitely wasn’t that he would have minded if they had gone to Hogsmeade together, but this - fuck, they always ended up with the other it seemed. “Butterbeer?” he asked when she slid into the booth across the table from him. Her cheeks were stained. Neville wasn’t at all used to the sight outside of midnight, outside of whispered meetings. “What is it?” “Slytherins,” she moaned to herself quietly. “They’re out for their own skin, not mine and —” His eyes narrowed dangerously. “What happened?” Parkinson’s head snapped up at the harshness of his voice. “What’s it to you, Longbottom?” He didn’t offer a reply. She sighed. “Malfoy is just being a ponce. He was going to visit the Astronomy Tower as well last night, but he saw us.” He tilted his head to the side. “Is it a problem for you that you’ve been seen with me?” Neville asked. His heart rate had picked up as he waited for her reply. Her pale lips parted. “No,” she replied quickly, shaking her head. “He’s just…” she trailed off. “He isn’t dealing with the new term all too well and I’ve always been a pillar for him. But now I’m not.” “You’re barely able to be there for yourself.” Neville pointed out, not unkindly. “He can’t expect you to put him before yourself.” She shook her head. “He doesn’t, but he believed if I needed anyone that I would go to him.” Funny, though he liked the thought of it, he hadn’t considered that he was the metaphorical pillar for her. Really, he was only a bit selfish and she saw him as more than the guy who lopped the head off of a snake. “What did he say?” Her breath caught. “He mentioned that I was the one who tried to hand over Potter and that I was only trying to be so close with a Gryffindor to put myself in a better light. His house rivalries are very much still present.” Neville took a long drink from his tumbler before setting it down. “Is that why you’re around me?” She scowled. “You know what, if that’s what you really think, I think I’m better off on my own!” In hindsight, he could have phrased it better. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~He could time it to the exact second Parkinson became Pansy, that just another Slytherin became a pretty black haired girl with pale pink lips, and eyes that were dark enough to resemble the night sky they often stared at. “Neville!” she screamed as she walked into Potions the following Monday. He spluttered and dropped his wand into the bubbling cauldron. “Bollocks.” he muttered. “What?” Neville snapped, squaring his shoulders and towering over her as she jabbed her wand into his sternum. Their peers were watching partly in amusement, partly in anticipation. Her eyes flashed. “Draco has been in the hospital wing all weekend.” He nodded. “I heard. Unfortunate thing, really. Bloke should really watch himself.” “You hexed the shite out of him!” she shrieked, a smile curving both sides of her lips that he was so fixated on. “Huh,” he murmured. “You’re right. I did do that.” And then her head tipped back as she laughed. Oh, he was fucked. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~At Christmas, he did ask her to Hogsmeade. Unofficially of course. She rolled her eyes and told him they were getting firewhiskey instead of butterbeer. She was dressed nicely. Wearing a dress that cinched around her waist, and a pair of heels, Pansy dared passerbys to say anything about them. His eyes were drawn to the necklace that fell to her breasts. Somehow he was pretty sure the placement was intentional. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~“I wish I could hate you.” Pansy told him when she came back from the holidays. “But I don’t, not even a little.” They sat shoulder to shoulder in the Astronomy Tower. He thought it was curious how a place that held so many bad memories had turned into one of his favorite places. The admission stung. “Why do you want to hate me?” Pansy didn’t meet his eyes, but she laid her head on his shoulder. “My father wants to plan a marriage for me.” He nodded, laying his head against hers. His lips brushed her hair. “Is that what you want?” “It doesn’t matter.” “It does.” he rumbled, smoothing his fingers against her spine. Her shoulders slumped. “I can’t do anything to stop it. Lately, it’s all he talks about in his letters. I’m no fool; I’ve never expected him to care about how my term is going.” He blinked, and bit his lip. “What if I promise I won’t let him marry you off?” She sat up so quickly he nearly bit the top of her head. Hissing, she massages her scalp. “Are you mental? You couldn’t —” Neville shrugged, smiling. “I could. Haven’t you heard? I’m the guy that killed the snake.” Pansy didn’t grin often, but gods, when she did. “You hate when people mention Nagini.” she paused. “How would you stop him?” Quietly, he opted for making her laugh rather than discuss the worst things. But at the end, before they parted ways, she murmured, “I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I’m not looking.” ~*~*~*~*~*~*~Valentine’s Day. She wasn’t quite his girlfriend, but she was more than his friend. He wasn’t sure what to refer to her as when he’d spent nearly all of his nights with her discussing anything from herbology to the war to the future and to what was waiting for them when they graduated. All Neville really knew - and he didn’t like to admit it - was that she was important to him. She was beautiful, funny and far too intelligent for him. So when the day came, he ate his breakfast nonchalantly, occasionally looking across the Great Hall. An owl delivered the parcel, swooping low and dropping a rectangle box in her lap. She opened it carefully, tugging on the scarlet ribbon. Pansy smiled, lifting her head and meeting his eyes from across the room. It was all very cliche, but he thought it was worth it to see her chat excitedly as Daphne Greengrass turned to her. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~“Is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?” The words left his mouth before he could decide to not sound like a bumbling third year. She grinned, sitting on her knees and letting his sheets fall from her chest. “Well, if you must know,” Pansy said wickedly, “I thought that since you were kind enough to buy me something, you deserved to see me wearing it.” “I did earlier —” She crooked a finger, motioning him toward the bed. “I know you saw it earlier, fool. I meant you could see me wearing only it.” The bed dipped below his weight. Neville had imagined kissing her more than he would like to admit. Were her lips as soft as they looked? Would she be harsh and demanding, or would be let him take the lead? It was the second. His fingers cupped the nape of her neck, threading through soft strands of her hair. Pansy whimpered as his tongue traced the seam of her lips. He laid her backward, his hand slowly sliding between her breasts. “More.” she demanded. He chuckled. “There’s my witch.” Her nipples stiffened below feather light touches. Her back arched prettily when his tongue flicked over them. If she noticed he was inexperianced, she didn’t mention it. His fingers found her clit, slipping between her folds and rubbing. Neville paid attention to just how she liked it, the pace, the way she mewled and threw her head back. He liked to lessen the pressure just to see her squeeze her eyes shut and listen to short pants of, “Neville, please, I’m so —” Watching her fall apart was exquisite from the vantage point between her thighs, his mouth on her cunt while she writhed beneath him. Pansy crawled to her knees, still shaking, and didn’t wait for him to kick his trousers off. Instead she straddled his hips while his sat with his back to the headboard, his hands gripping her hips while she slid down her cock. He would never tire of the way her head fell back, exposing the hollow of her throat, and the way she rolled her hips against his. “Merlin,” she gasped. Neville tightened his arms around her waist, slowly picking her up and pulling her down, fucking her torturously slow from under her. He took one nipple into his mouth, flattening his thumb against her sensitive clit. “One more just for me?” Neville rasped when she told him she couldn’t possibly come again. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~He hadn’t paid attention to the reactions of the students when Pansy grabbed his hand in the corridor. Nor had he bothered when she grabbed him by the lapels of his robes and snogged him in the middle of the corridor. He was rather dazed really. “Not that I’m complaining, but what was that?” She made a ‘hmmph’ sound while she folded her arms across her chest. “Girls stare at you.” “Do I have something on my face?” he asked. Pansy looked like she could hex him. It wasn’t far from the realm of possibility and he took a step back. “Like you’ve said, they remember that you’re a war hero, and that you’re rather fit now. I’m not a war hero.” His features softened. “You’re fit.” She swatted his chest. Neville tugged her close, looping an arm around her middle. “You’re lovely, and the best part of my life. If anything, you’ve made returning for this term worth it.” Pansy mumbled something against his chest. “What?” “It’s not important.” she replied, her red cheeks betraying her lie. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~She sat on his bed, her shoes kicked off, while she chewed on the end of a sugar quill. “Are you still planning to enter auror training?” The sight of her plump lips around the sugar quill was detrimental to his sanity, and his throbbing erection. Neville cleared his throat. “Yes, but I think only long enough to capture the Lestranges.” Pansy’s eyes widened. “I hadn’t even thought of that.” “There’s no need to apologize. I don’t think I want to be an auror for the rest of my life. What do you plan to do?” She swallowed. “I was thinking I might like to be a healer. Father is against the idea since he wants me to marry and stay home to pop out heirs. Can you imagine? All he wants is for me to lay on my back and get properly knocked up.” The topic hadn’t come up in months. It made him angrier the second time around. “Marry me?” he blurted. She giggled. “What?” Neville’s face was surely red. “Nothing.” he stammered. Pansy leaned across the bed to kiss his cheek. “I know what you meant. It’s just rather adorable to see you blush. You don’t have to marry me, not yet anyway.” She winked. “Eventually?” he joked, but there was a very real hope that crossed her face. And just as quickly, it was gone. “Pansy?” “Yeah?” “Nothing.” It wasn’t the right time. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~The right time turned out to be the last day the would set foot in the castle as students. “What are we doing here?” she asked, gazing over the railing. Simple answer: this was the place that brought them together. He couldn’t forget it, not even it was the site where their former headmaster had fallen. “Neville?” He cleared his throat. “I wanted to come here one last night. We’ve spent most nights in my dorm now.” She nodded. “Spit it out.” “What?” Pansy rolled her eyes. “You’ve never been too clever. Not to mention you’ve been muttering to yourself all day. If you have something to say, then just tell me.” “I want it to be perfect.” She gave a short laugh. “If it’s coming from you, it’s perfect.” Pansy said. He arched an eyebrow. “That’s sappy.” Pansy threw her hands up. “You’ve rubbed off on me, I guess you coud say then.” She was all smiles as she stepped toward him. “And to be fair, I think I’ve been waiting on this for a long time.” He had it planned, the flowery prose to describe just how much she meant to him. But then his mind went blank. “I love you.” he murmured, pressing his lips to her forehead. Her hands slid up his forearms. “I know.” Pansy pressed her lips to his throat. “I’m so fucking in love with you it scares me sometimes.” she paused, pulling away to look at him. “Are you going to tell me about the keys to the flat in London, or do I have to wait for that too?” He grinned. “Cheeky.” Not for the first time, or the last, he was wrong. Things did fall into place.

[stagnot]

POST REJECTION: FIVE TIMES SOMEONE ASKS GENDRY A QUESTION AND HE ISN’T SURE OF THE ANSWER, AND THE ONE TIME HE IS.

for @xneedlepoint because i guess we love pain ????

i.

“ye’ sure ye’ want t’ do this?” mya asks.

gendry isn’t really listening to her. the sound of the coffee is still brewing behind them. gendry hasn’t showered yet. he doesn’t like not having showered yet. he was supposed to go to work, check out his emails for new projects or the red keep, and she was supposed to come on over if she hasn’t already filled her schedules with spending them with her family. her snapchat video that she sent of her and bran at the dog park has been something he rewinds so many times, he’s certain his phone stopped workin’ with how much he’s exhausted it.

but that isn’t true. it stopped workin’ ‘cause gendry never really charged it again. the new phone — huawei, not iphone because they’re rubbish, gen, edric had argued when he had come over the other day, and they’re only robbin’ you off your money, is all — is sitting there idly where mya had plugged it in. it’s purple in colour. gendry doesn’t know why it’s purple in colour. he wants t’ take a picture of it and watch her laugh her arse off before lyin’ through her teeth about how maybe he could pull a purple phone off. he couldn’t, and they both know it, but he’ll tell her the password for everything on it, anyways. it’s his now, as much as it’s hers.

except it isn’t. not anymore.

gendry runs a hand down his face. he wants tea more than coffee, but he doesn’t have the heart to tell mya that after she drove all the way from the vale — again — just to take care of him for the third time this week. 

“no.” gendry says, voice cracking a little bit, “but i 'ave to.”

she’s leaving in a few days but everything about this place still reminds him of her. gendry isn’t sure, but the boxes are coming in anyways. uncle renly’s letter of the new job is in a file he keeps along with other documents his mother wouldn’t have cared much for and tobho mott would’ve hid away only to forget if he asks. the moving truck has been called, and the new tenant have already approved of gendry and is waiting, he is, on the date they’ve agreed he’ll come. gendry isn’t sure, no, never - but he has to be.

ii.

“you sure you’re alright on your own?”

loras is kind. maybe a bit too kind. gendry doesn’t mind kindness. stormlands is different than king’s landing. the land of it is only slightly older, but already the architecture and landmark of the place showcases more ancient structure and olden streets. they’re very well maintained though, and the culture so far is way homelier than the slums of fleabottom had been. gendry likes it. but he’s alone. lately, always so alone. and loras is kind, gendry knows that, but how kind can loras be if gendry starts shaking his head and beg, plead, cry to never leave him like this: in a vacant house with only half-a-bed made and boxes of his life stacked one by one, spilling into every corner, and a heartbreak the size of her planted at the heart of his chest?

maybe not so kind.

it’s a good thing gendry’s never been much of a sharer. aye, true, he wears his emotions easily on his sleeve, he’s been told - but he can be quite stubborn in making sure his mouth is shut when he wants them to be.

gendry only ever told arya everythin’, hot pie had said once when they had a pizza-and-bad-movie night. they called it that because lommy would google the top hundred worst movie’s ever made and they would all collectively groan and cuss at the extremely horrible movie effects. gendry had thought it was absolutely bonkers that anybody would ever spent time watchin’ films that have been rated and reviewed so negatively - until he realises the simple activity o’ it was quite therapeutic.

i bet there isn’t one thing gendry’s never told her about before.

gendry looks at loras now, blinking. by the door, he can catch uncle renly’s shadow as he animatedly talks into the phone. they’ve actually got a date night, the both of them, by seven. renly’s assistant had double-booked and jumbled the schedules between a free day and the day they were supposed to help gendry moved in. gendry’s been told it’s an exclusive restaurant that’s difficult to secure a reservation for, but they can, if they have to. we’ve given them fake names for security sake, but m’sure if one of us reveals our true names, we might be able to shuffle a few things around, loras said, confident and charming, but gendry had felt bad anyways.

“don’t worry about me. have fun. both o’ you.”

when the door shuts and the scenery of the new city stares back at gendry, he thinks about this one thing hot pie is wrong about.

iii.

“who’s this?”

gendry has no idea how he’d agreed letting the crew in. he’d only been working for six months, going seven, and while he isn’t quite actively hated as he’d predicted he would’ve been - gendry isn’t quite the sort, no, to just have offered his place as a venue of hangin’ out. yet, it’s three am and beers are being passed around as if gendry’s been anticipating this turn of event all along. jimmy burps so loud in the livin’ room that the ripples o’ it in the air shakes the wall, gendry thinks, and garland uploads the video on his instagram story.

it isn’t too bad of a night, no matter how much gendry thinks he might regret this thought later, until linda starts pickin’ at his drawers.

linda is pretty. dark hair and wide, curious eyes. she manages a lot of their projects and makes sure all of the steel the team is expected to create goes according to what the client wants. when the team makes a mistake, linda is swift in defending her co-workers. when linda showed up one day with a different shade of lipstick, gendry had told her she looked nice. linda blushed so high up her pale cheeks that gendry believes he spent the next five minutes mirroring her actions and thinking he’d said somethin’ wrong.

“nobody.” gendry lies. in the polaroid picture, arya is over his shoulder. gendry is laughing. in his ears, he can hear her laughing with him too. the corner of his mouth is covered in the frosting where arya has smeared her seventeeth-birthday cake. he looked ridiculous. arya was wearing that skinny jeans that he liked. “a friend. old one.”

“what happened?” linda puts the polaroid away, turns to him. gendry is suddenly aware that she’s on his bed. open. vulnerable.

“we grew up.”

i asked her to stay, and she didn’t want t’.

“i moved away.”

“ah. that happens.” linda starts talking about a high school friend that she loved but had to be separated away from. she’s got a few kids now, if you can believe that, linda adds. sent me christmas cards and everythin’, but it’s never the same, y’know? no. gendry doesn’t know. because linda doesn’t understand. nobody does. arya isn’t - some high school friend that he had a fallin’ out with. isn’t some girl that he shagged or dated a few times but it all went wrong. she was - everything. she was his best friend, she was his only friend sometimes, and he fucked it all up. got drunk and misty-eyed and bloody proposed when he’d never as much taken her on a damn date or asked her if she has even liked him like that. she’s gone now and gendry can never have her back.

linda and the crew leaves. gendry learns to always lock his door when there are guests around.

iv.

“do you know what date it is t’day, mate?”

gendry sucks in the cigarette, squints. when he huffs out the smoke, he pretends it’s all the bad particles of the activity that’s killing him. not his own chest caving its bones in towards his heart at the reminder.

her birthday her birthday her birthday her birthday her birthday—

he shakes his head. “no.”

v.

[Are you sure you want to delete this?]

the message on the phone blinks back at him. 

gendry’s eyes are blurry from staring at all of the messages that he never sent.

[Sick view. Bet you wish ur here.]

[Bad day. Want to see that vide of you falling on your arse. Or fencing :( ]

[Got the gas in today. You coming to try cooking at mine for once, right?]

[Hope your day’s better.]

[Rough time. Tom’s sick. Work got heavy. Haven’t shaved. I’m hungry.]

[Wish you’d call. Wish you’d know this number.]

[I shouldn’t have said what I said. I’m a bloody idiot. Forgive me?]

[Should’ve sent you off like I promised.]

[Tried baking. Didn’t turn out bad. Hot Pie seems satisfied.]

[Lommy called. He wanted to come visit. We’re watching Exorcist II: The Heretic. It’s supposed to be REALLY BAD. Maybe we can stream it together. Like one of those conference calls.]

[Rita was harsh today. Tired. Might hit the gym before I hit a person.]

[Did you see the new Gucci commercial? Sick, wasn’t it? Think I should grow out my hair like Jared Leto?]

[None of the girls I met would want to kick my arse like you do.]

[Come back. I’m sorry. I’m stupid.]

[Arya.]

gendry bites his lips. are you sure you want to delete this? he reads it again. gendry presses no.

+ i.

“are you alright now?” myrcella asks, eyes wide and voice small. gendry hadn’t seen her in months. maybe a full year. her hair’s grown. “i’m really, really sorry, you know.”

“i know.” gendry smiles. he reaches out one hand to her head. brings her in and kisses her temple. myrcella hugs him back. They stay like that for two minutes. He wonders how the queen would react if she found out. gendry hopes she won’t ever.

“but i’ve lost my best friend, ‘cella. don’t think it’s something i’ll ever be alright with.”

“i understand.” she says, squeezing him back.

she doesn’t, but gendry accepts it anyway.

he wants to tell her that he’s beginning to forget arya’s number. the other day he was repeating it back to himself and he mixed up three of the digits. three. it’s not - exceptional. but it’s something. a progress. a slow one. but it’s happening. gendry doesn’t say anything though. it hadn’t felt like a victory - no matter how much gendry wanted it to be.

he sits through the dinner regardless, eyes always watching out for arya - but no. she’s not there. not anymore. the steak gendry was served tastes a little bland.

#xneedlepoint #GOD THIS WAS SO LONG #BUT HAVE THIS #CAUSE I #HAVE FEELINGS OKAY #IC DRABBLE.

[craftmanatee]

Fantasy, is good, bad and ugly.

DISCLAIMER: Most of what I am writing here is for myself and not much consideration will take place. This is just a write up of all the things ive experienced and researched on put together as concisely as possible. A practice essay of sorts.

I do find myself to have finally separated what makes Fantasy what it is from Escapism or just Entertainment and how it works, especially for us today. Fantasy is used incredibly vaguely, going between its natural definition (Something akin to Imagining or daydreaming)  to a specific genre in storytelling or visual or description of something. These are just methods of using the word that change based on how it is used, but it has been used often and vaguely to the point that it looses its original intent. A lot of what you use the Word on can already be better replaced with other words such as escapism, daydreaming or imagining, surrealistic etc.

Here is my addition to the definition of Fantasy: “Fantasy is an imagination derived from the Real World in order to better understand it.” Or “An explanation of the Real world”

This means that Fantasy can be negative, or positive. The imagination, or simplification or replacing of the things you dont know with things you do know. It is what we use to explain many things to children and people alike, especially if the specifics of the explanation will not suffice to the target person.

As soon as you put together this intent in which to understand the Real World through Fantasy, you can better identify what makes good fantasy, bad fantasy and Ugly fantasy.

To put Ugly Fantasy away real quick (As it is an entirely different subject). Ugly fantasy in the case of this writing is fantasies that abuse the uneducated, gullible or any person prone to fall for some kind of falsehood that flips their belief of the real world into something bad. So ideologies, fanaticism or any kind of prospect that changes how you perceive anything, into something that is not even remotely fundamentally real of that said thing.

Good Fantasy is fantasy that manages to convince, persuade or anything to you of the subject that they are trying to convey, but in a way that affects you. An example is simple folk tales told to Children such as “Hansel and Gretel”. Stories like these are meant to scare or teach kids of things to avoid, not do, etc. In a way, the same way how a Slasher Horror movie shows us what is stupid, or dangerous, such as splitting up.

Bad Fantasy is simply just fantasy that dont follow real world implications and as such could be misinterpreted. An example is Pornography. Therefor, for anything that is identified as “Bad fantasy”, its good to learn to not take in any implied effects, be it emotional or educational as true. But rather for entertainment purposes mainly. A better name for this would be “Simple” fantasy or “plain” fantasy to better describe it into the current definitions of Fantasy.

But for now, it should be Called Bad Fantasy as it is often used and is what people think Fantasy is in aspects of media today that I will point out.

Fantasy today is not Fantasy. It is escapism. You pick something up, it could be a book, movie or a game and you know how it is fiction and thus escape into it. Depending on your preferences, some things are suited to have you escape more into it than others simply because of either familiarity, or a deeper understanding of the subject. Movies as an example combine many aspects between visuals, story and music to have you have certain senses put your guard down and fall for whatever fantasy the movie has in place. There are many people who adore movies and have seen so many to the point where these cinematic tricks no longer work on them and they then happen to see how flawed the fantasy is. But that does not mean that it cannot be enjoyed.

This is where we separate Escapism and Fantasy from each other. I hate how (ex:)Toy Story 3 or a majority of animated films play out, but I do enjoy watching them. I know what comes next, but just maybe, I will still find something to like about it. This is me just liking a piece of Fiction for my own reasons, this does not apply to everyone.

But I can still identify how in Toy Story in general, has an amazing fantasy about better taking care of your belongings, or in this case, Toys. (I just think that the Fantasy can be enhanced if it did not fall slave into typical cinematic story beats)

But what we have majority of the time is fantasies that play an exaggeration to something. Such as power fantasies. Or fantasies that is exactly what you want. These are “Bad” fantasies that dont really add to any understanding, it is simply for entertainment purposes and feeds whatever “Sin”(Lust, greed whatever, lol) that you have in an innocent light. But I will claim that these fantasies are eroding Fantasy in general by the chance that these “Bad” fantasies can be misinterpreted and be wished upon. The reason why there is so much bad fantasies is because of misinterpretation of prior fantasies.

Here are some examples as to what is good Fantasy and what is Bad fantasy and what is Escapism, and how they surmount to themselves.

Lord of the rings is a story told and derived from the real world that puts conflicts into some kind of characterization. The fantasy tells of something very deep to the point of some kind of spirituality, religious or subjects of fate in general. But the Escapism is how the world is dressed up in these characterizations such as the different races and creatures. It is easier to buy in on a story of grand fate if it has appealing subjects. But, simply having elves should not be enough, there needs to be rules set in place and functions. Because of this, you then also buy into the characterizations. Basically, LotR didnt have what it had without reason. I do believe Tolkien did this in reverse however. He first had a Fantasy, but dressed it up later to better escape into. It is how Elves are Elves, and not just a different tribe of humans.

UnderTale is a good modern fantasy example and leads into a different subject such as modern intelligence! People today are a lot more educated than before, and thus when they want to escape into something, the fantasy needs to be really good in order for people to buy into it. Folk tales have been updated time and time again because of innovations such as writing, books etc that demanded more explanation in these stories. People asked more questions as stories get re-told which finally revealed cracks in these old stories. Undertale, however is a different kind of medium. Undertale tells of a pretty typical fantastical story of hope, but, it is the method that it tells it that gets people to buy into the story. As a Videogame, Undertale directly addresses the player for its actions. It also subverts videogame expectations in order to have you truly appreciate the message that undertale generally gives out. Even when the player disobeys this message, undertale still plays in on its fantasy that it is a Videogame. And as such, Undertale very well uses modern intelligence and expectations to the point of players realizing into listening and understanding what it has to offer.

The Marvel Cinematic universe is nothing but colourful escapism. It takes a simple fantasy of becoming truly special, and stretches it out far and wide. The best quote from a superhero film is probably “With great power comes great responsibility.” Just as a quote, this is the fantasy that Superhero fiction plays with even without the knowledge of this quote. Fundamentally and purely, this is what superheroes end up doing. Their power also becomes a responsibility. But, despite this. The movies, comics, etc mostly play with  “ With great power..” portion of the quote. When a supehero character finally reaches a paragon status and finally realizes the full quote within its character, there wouldnt be any more stories to tell with that superhero. This is why we keep seeing reboots and rehashes. They keep starting over, witnessing the journey that it takes to fully realize that one quote again and again. And therefor, they are mostly being retold again for the fantasy of having super powers, or great power.

Fantasy is incredibly vague today, and I do feel like my added definition has you better deconstruct a fantasy from anything. Fantasy has started getting wishy washy near the 80s and onwards, and is why there is so many “Bad” fantasies today. With the advent of video games and new generations of people, it will become more clear and easier to seperate Good fantasy from Bad fantasy and Ugly Fantasy. Even movies, shows and games have a little Ugly fantasy that needs to be made aware of. Such as how Overwatch, a game that pandered to the LGBT community, making it all feel insincere, a complete opposite effect of fantasy.

After so long, I have read and researched on certain genres and going into deep analysis on them has made me discover a philosophy, or a new genre I will try to develop on. It is called Punk-Fantasy and that is a Write up I will make continuing this one. (And after that write up, actual proper content will be uploaded...)

#essay #real talk #fantasy #undertale #lord of the rings #folk lore #marvel #overwatch #movie #book #videogame #game #fiction

[epicfics]

HUMANS one-shot: HEAVEN RAINING

So this is a scene I envisioned for episode 8, even though I know it won’t happen because we can’t have nice things. Anyways, if you haven’t seen episode 7 I’m not sure if you want to read this.

*This is the second time I’ve used first person POV for a Humans fic, the first time for first-person, past tense. I chose a Leo story because I really like writing for him...everything’s so serious and observant yet at the most random times he’ll say/think something hilarious. Plus, I found it really cathartic going inside his head and thinking about things the way I thought he might be.

                                    HEAVEN RAINING

 Dusk was fading in. Cloaking all that the sun touched with the colour of crushed forget-me-nots, I thought my eye caught the spark of a falling star as it took in the balcony jutting high above my head. The sight moved the ground under my feet, turning it to air and water until I was dizzied. And, as though by a time machine, I was home.

My mother was in front of me, pointing past my open bedroom window into a world of velvet black sky. Beaming down at me, she said, “Heaven is raining, love. It’s time to make a wish!” Then she scooped me into her arms and carried me outside to the balcony. Her laughter was contagious as the meteor shower soared like fireworks, and I must have wished for what any child would wish from a star. More toys, more sweets. Maybe a unicorn.

“Beatrice!” Strong as a brass bell, my father’s voice echoed from behind us. “Bring him back from the railing, now.” 

Mother gave me a soft kiss on the cheek and turned us back to face him. “Don’t tell him what you wished for, Leo,” she whispered.

“Leo.” Another voice pulled me to the present. Another mother. One whose daughter I had, in more ways than one, ruined for life. Laura’s furtive glance at me said all of that, as well. When she’d summoned me from amid the power crisis at the railyard, she’d said almost as much. “I know what’s going on over there is urgent, but Mattie’s situation is – quite directly – your responsibility. So move it, I’ll give you an address.”

For sure, she had an admirable way of working a conscience. It must have made her a brilliant lawyer. Not that I’d needed so much convincing, granted – even with Max, Mia, and Sam at low battery life, I was ready to turn myself in for Mattie’s freedom.

But rather than the door to a police station, we were standing in front of one to a mansion.

“Who lives here?” I asked Laura.

“A scientist. I worked with him on the commission.” Her voice was both quick and hushed, like a small deer disappearing into the wood. “He helped engineer Operation Basswood.”

So we were seeking an audience with the man facilitating the murder of my family. My insides pained with a longing, torn between saving them and doing what was right. “I thought we were here for Mattie.”

“We are.”

“Laura, please, just hand me over to Scotland Yard.” I felt hoarse with nerves – with hope, really – to leave before Dr. Death opened his door. “Tell Mattie I’m sorry for everything, and that I want her to be happy. Just let me go.”

Laura Hawkins’s eyes held a shine under the starlight. It was both wary and thoughtful. “Do you love her, Leo?” she asked suddenly.

The words in my head were vanquished by her question. “I what?” I said, sounding as stupid as I felt.

Mattie’s mother sighed. “I said, do you love my daughter?”

I had no answer for her. Did I love Mattie? When there were so many forms of love, what did she even mean? My memories flashed from my childhood to a more recent one, of pleading with Mia to give me the location of her flat. To my surprise, she’d said no, and told me to figure myself out. Figure out what I wanted. As though by divine symmetry, I’d looked up at saw her. A girl who’d been there for me, in a way that few had been lately. And I enjoyed her company too, in a way that I rarely did with anyone. Mattie was my first real friend in this world.

But did I love her?

The door opened, revealing a greying, thin-haired man with a bottle of scotch in his hand. “Laura,” he greeted her while side-eying me, both of us receiving the tone I supposed was reserved for hikers that ran afoul of irritated grizzly bears. “I was sure you wouldn’t be back, now that you’ve got your answers about Basswood.”

“This is about something else, Neil,” Laura told him, and within moments of being ushered inside I had to suppress a wild urge to laugh. Marble countertops, satin curtains, and cherry wood everywhere. What was it with scientists and their lavish homes?

The scientist, Neil, waved an impatient hand at me. “Who is he?”

Before I could speak for myself, Laura said, “This is Leo. He’s a friend of my daughter’s.”

The man raised an eyebrow in realisation. “So this visit has to do with your daughter?” Laura nodded, and the oddest thought struck me at that moment. Neil and I both were learning why Laura had brought me to him at the same time. It could have been…was she expecting a decision from me that even I was not yet planning?

A shadow passed over Neil’s face, and I heard his words before they left his mouth. “I canna do a thing.”

Because he already knew about Mattie.

He half-shrugged, downcast. “Between the news on the telly and Lord Dryden himself calling, I heard about this an hour after she was taken in. Laura, I’m sorry, but you know what this is for me.”

“No,” she said quietly, “I don’t. What is this for you? Justice for losing your son?”

Neil shook his head, his neck taught as he drank from the bottle.

Though I was paying close attention to this interaction, my chest heaved with impatient breaths. What was I doing here? There was only one sure way to help Mattie, and Laura wasn’t letting me do it. Instead we were in a pointless session with a man who blamed my friend for the loss of his son, when it wasn’t even…

Ah.

I stepped forward, clearing the tickle in my throat. “Hey if you want to punish someone for that, try me.”

Although Neil blinked in surprise, Laura didn’t even cast a glance at me. She knew this was my card to play.

He folded his arms. “So that was your code then?”

More or less, though I wouldn’t say it yet. “Mattie got it from me. We didn’t know…we didn’t mean for any of the tragedy on Day Zero to happen.”

Finally angry, Neil snapped at Laura, “Why’d you bring him here? You should be telling the police, not me.”

I shot him a helpless, wry smile. “My thoughts exactly.”

Now Laura looked annoyed. She held up a “one moment” finger, pushed me to the foyer, and said, “What are you doing?”

I shrugged. “What am I supposed to be doing?”

“Open up to him!” she hissed, her eyes slightly wild with desperation. “Tell him your story.”

I frowned. Give the man who was throwing a lit match on everything I had left to care about an autobiography? Laura was a smart woman, but sometimes she made no sense.

She sighed. “I asked before if you loved Mattie. Do you know why? Because she’s heartbroken, Leo. I don’t think it’s going to make her condition any easier if she never sees you again. Neil’s a behavioural scientist, which means out of everyone we know he’ll have the best chance at figuring out how to keep everyone out of prison.”

Earlier, Max’s duplicitous friend Anatole had nearly bashed my head out, and my face looked like it met a bad day with a razor. But that was nothing to the wind Laura Hawkins had just knocked out of me. Then she threw at my unprepared psyche, “If you tell me that you never want to see her again, I’ll turn you in myself.”

Never see Mattie Hawkins again. Never share the jokes that we had about being friendless, never confide in each other the things that no one else would understand. Never share a cup of tea under a sky of shooting stars.

Did I want that?

I shook my head and marched past Laura into the kitchen. She was just starting to follow as I said to Neil, “My father gave me that code. His name was David Elster, and he created the prototypes for five conscious Synthetics for me.”

Neil squinted at me like I’d just dropped from his ceiling. “Excuse me? David Elster…?”

“Right,” I said, hoping he could keep up before I lost my nerve. “I was traveling with four of the conscious Synths three years ago when we got separated. After my father died, they were all the family I had, and then Mattie brought me one of them. Mia.”

I stopped then because he shot a startled glance at Laura, which meant he'd at least heard about the first Synth to rent a flat in London about as much as the next person.

He wasn’t going to break my momentum, though. “Mattie helped me figure out the code my father had left behind, and when she uploaded it, it wasn’t to create chaos or death. I’m sorry for your loss, truly, but when Mia’s system was crashing Mattie did it to save her. None of us imagined the consequences.”

I looked away from the scientist now, and the lawyer, and imagined it was just me saying this to myself. “But if you need a pound of flesh in the face of all this truth, it should be me. Mattie’s a good person – the best I know, in fact. The guilt of this has been eating at her for a year, and she nearly turned herself in last week for it. But in another year,” I drew a deep breath, finally ready to say it, “she’s going to be a mother. I hope the anger from losing your own child won’t destroy the life of another.”

Neil’s eyes widened at this revelation, and he said to Laura, “Why didn’t you just open with that line?”

Laura smiled at me, tentatively. “I don’t know. I wanted to cover all my bases with you, Dr. Sommers.”

He shook his head, half-marveling, half-outraged. He jabbed a finger at me and said, “Aren’t you dead, lad?”

I raised my eyebrows, not ready to go into that. “I’m not anymore.”

Neil groaned. “What a headache you’ve given me. I’ve finished my scotch. One of you owes me a drink.”

“Will you help us?” asked Laura breathlessly. For someone who was counting on it, she sounded like she could scarcely believe it now.

 “Aye,” said Neil, but his gaze was on me alone. “It all falls to you, Leo. Coming out with this information will alter public perception, Day Zero will be seen as a misguided heroic attempt rather than as a cyber terror attack, and the girl will likely get pardoned. Especially with the child. Yours, innit?”

 I nodded shortly, then repeated, “Likely?”

He scowled. “You like my odds, or the ones stacked against her right now?”

Laura said, “I’ll take it. Thank you Neil.”

But the scientist shook his head. “I’m not doing this for you, Laura. With all due respect, but you lied to me. You’ve used me for information, and you’ve used my loss against me. But your daughter dinna do any of that, and it sounds like if I’m gonna use my heart instead of my head for once, it might as well be for a pair of kids who dinna know any better.”

Truer words were never spoken. Mattie and I hadn’t known any better, and if we had then a lot of terrible things probably wouldn’t have come out of it. But then again, perhaps something good had come out of it too. Earlier, I’d been remembering my parents. A mother who loved me, but couldn’t care for me. A father who could have cared for me if he’d wanted, but couldn’t love me.

And if I had a child, was I really incapable of either caring for or loving it? Is that what I was afraid of? Because if there was one thing of which Anatole reminded me, it was that I wasn’t David Elster. I imagined going back to that balcony of my childhood and knowing my wish. It was the same wish I’d made moments before going into Dr. Neil Sommers’s house.

 Meanwhile, Neil was staring at me. “You know, not to be a downer, but you will have to say goodbye to nearly any form of privacy you’ve ever known. Cameras in your faces twenty-four seven, doling your life story out to jurors, journalists, and random hatemongers alike. There’ll be death threats.”

Sounds like fun. I swallowed and said, “Yes, I understand.”

“Hmm. Mattie must be something precious to you.” Another knowing glance at Laura.

Do you love my daughter? she’d asked me more than once. Did I love Mattie, my first and only real friend, the one who’d stayed at my side while I was comatose and who’d shared her life with me…who’d shared everything she could with me? Someone who was a far better person than me, and made me wish I was better in return? Did I love the woman who was carrying my child?

I’d wished for a family, whole and complete. Don’t be an idiot, I thought as I saw her soft-featured face in my mind.

 “I love her very much,” I spoke out, my voice clear, palms unsweaty.

 And as Laura and Neil shared a smile, I knew things were never that simple. Did I love Mattie as a friend, or as family? Or was I madly in love with her? But there were many forms of love, and I didn’t have to pick which category Mattie fell under yet. The best thing that ever happened to me didn’t come from a shooting star. It came from her.  

THE END

#humans #humans fanfiction #humans spoilers #potentially #leo elster x mattie hawkins #leo elster #leotilda #hcn #humans creativity night

[gracexharrisx]

Evaluation week 3

This week was hard and stressful week as there were so many elements to include whilst only having 2 studio days because of the D2D taster days. We continued with developing our skills on Adobe illustrator but instead of making logos we got to make a manifesto and a brand guide as well as start designing prototypes for packaging and merchandise for my brand. When creating my brand guide, I found using illustrator easier as I had gotten used to in in the previous week and in am starting to learn my way around the program. For my brand guide, I was very confused on what sized artboard to do so I first decided on a square one, but I didn’t really like it, so I restarted it and changed it to an A4 frame.

To start this, I added 7 art boards and added a pink ombre background to show a feminine side of it which I got from the internet. Because I was working on a mac, I could just drag the images from the internet to the artboards which made it less of a hassle to create as I didn’t have to save everything and then uploading it. Each artboard had a different title which shows what was on each page these pages were brand guide, mood board, colour palette, typography, logo, and brand statement. This is so I know what thing goes on each page. Overall, I found this easy, but the process was quite long as I had to take my time and think about what I want to put on each page and once everything was completed, I had to remember to save it using separate artboards as out just be saved as one JPEG. I also had to remember to make sure that the colour was set to RBG and not CMKY as it would make everything more vibrant, I know this because I accidently did this as I forgot to check the setting and when I made my book everything was the wrong colours and I had to go back and export it again.

With the brand statement page, I didn’t have to create it because on Monday’s lesson I took my time to browse the internet and look at different types of sports and art manifestos and analysis them so I know what kind of element I should be including when I write my own manifesto for my brand. I also used Monday’s studio time to research what a manifesto is and what it should include, and I found out that a manifesto should be about their aims and values whilst still trying to communicate a message to their audience as they want to draw them in and have an impact on their lives. When creating my own manifesto, I was unsure that it would be appealing to an audience, to know this I asked my peers around me to read it to see if it was good enough to attract an audience and to see if it has the right message being communicated across.

During this week, I also created some prototypes for my brand because next week we are going to be making them. To start of the process, I investigated packaging that brands used and saw a arrange of packaging being used for certain packaging in brands. I designed plastic packaging and boxes that would be sent out if someone orders post and bags that would be used in the shop after a purchase. I also a tag that would be attached to my merchandise when shopping for an item. These were all done on adobe photoshop from a template that I downloaded from freepik and changed the colour, sizing and added my typeface to it and my logo. I found kit hard using photoshop as I don’t really understand how to use it by every time, I use it I’m learn from my mistakes and making sure that I have a better understanding of the programme.

To start creating mock-ups of my merchandise I decided to design tote bag, hats, phone cases, t- shirts, keyrings, hoodies, water bottles, sport bras, joggers and legging on to PowerPoint in the right position and add my designs to the products in a certain angle, position, and size, when creating these I also went back to my work on week 2 to the 3 sideway S on to some of the clothing and objects as well as my work on week 1 with the puzzle piece heart logo for the phone case and keyring. By going back to my previous work, shows my development process within my work and my designing ideas. Each individual idea is different and it also shows some ideas that I didn’t like but still included it.

#evaluation #prototype #analysis #adobe illustrator