#also seeing this makes me realize i never updated the time zone on my tablet after i moved

[jessfromouterspace]

and if I actually drew out this sketch of fugitive hawke and anders, then what

[bonny-kookoo]

Remedy | JJK x Reader | 💜☁️🔞🤖

Pairing: Jeon Jungkook x Reader

Genre: Android!AU, Android!Jungkook, AI!Jungkook

Warnings: mentions of war, PTSD, Panic attack, confused!Koo, soft reader, like my god I just wanna put her in my pocket and keep her safe, aka that’s what Koo wants to do, protective!Koo, praise kink, unprotected sex but izz fine Kookoo can’t knock her up anyways, soft sex, it’s very soft ngl, there’s a bird, some sad Koo, kook cries here and there, comfort and rehabilitation

Summary: JJK, Or J-Jungkook097 was a tactical fighter-type Android, used in modern war as a simple weapon and nothing more. Now retired after serious injuries, he has to adjust to modern life outside the war zone or he’ll get scrapped; and that’s where you come in, a rare human being ready to take on that challenge.

"Ah, what a waste, really." A worker says, looking the body of the Android over. "You sure you don't want him?" He asks, and the older worker shakes his head.

"I can't let him around my kids by himself, and I don't want him to snap around my wife either. He's not suited for my home and family." He says, looking the male robot over, before he pulls out his phone. "I think I know someone who just might take him." He says, hurriedly texting, before he gets a call back.

"Huh. Is he factory reset, or still running?" You ask, as Seokjin connects cords to the back of the android's neck.

"We tried to have him reset himself, but there's been problems." He explains. "He told us he did already, but that can't be true since he'd need a command to do it- his model isn't equipped with those AI options. Maybe his memory overloaded and deleted stuff as a survival protocol, we don't know. He's a military model, after all, they didn't let us see his original save data- they just downloaded it and went their way, leaving him for us to dismantle if he couldn't reset him properly for a new system." He says, as you type in some stuff, before viewing the screen you hold in your hand.

"So he's technically still running on his original warzone-system?" You ask Jin, and he nods, sighing. You furrow your brows, and the older male looks over at your tablet to see what you're looking at. "Are you sure? This is.. his AI settings are all set to.. look at this; companionable, friendly, all his settings are set to a companion-android, not a fighter type." You mumble, confused by this.

"Wait no no no that wasn't like that when I last looked at him." Jin says, taking the tablet from you as he types in some stuff. "Huh. This is weird." He says, showing you something. "Look at the protocol."

You do. "Huh." You say, looking at the last line of code.

Last change made by: JJK_OSADMIN

"He changed his own system." You say, and Jin is standing up now.

"I'm taking him with me, I can't let him-" He starts, but you do as well, placing your hands ontop of the Androids chest as if you're guarding him.

"NO! I already signed, I own him- Jin, I have to look into this- and he's set to friendly, he won't get hostile that easily." You try to reassure him, and he sighs after a while, taking his jacket from the chair close by.

"Keep me updated." He says, as he leaves you be.

The Android still sitting limply on your chair.

"Alright JJK. Time to wake up." You say, closing the small panel before you sit in front of him, waiting for his system to run the commands you had typed in before unplugging him. It takes a moment, but there's movement after that; his body slowly starting to sit properly, muscles moving into place, and system running it's diagnostics to detect any change in hard- or software made. It marks down his eyes, the small patches of skin re-made, and that his body-liquids had been replaced.

He feels good.

His eyes open slowly, iris moving and focusing in Various degrees before they meet your form. "Hello." He simply says. "Are you my new owner?" He asks, and you nod, expecting that question. He's not been factory reset, which means even though his memory was scattered, and his system had been changed, he was still aware of everything vital. He nods, before he looks around. "I'm now supposed to run on the companion protocol, correct?" He asks, and you shrug. He's confused, as you suddenly smile at him.

"I don't know." You tell him. "Companion, Individual- what would you like?" You ask, knowing it will bring his current system to it's limits. He's not made to make decisions like that, and you think it's quite endearing to see him suddenly think like that.

"I.. choose?" He mumbles, before he looks at you seriously. "I'd like to be given a small time frame to properly research before I come to a conclusion." He says, and your eyes widen.

You look at him, still friendly as ever. "So, you want to figure out what you want first?" You ask, and he nods, a bit hesitantly. "Okay. Just tell me when you've made up your mind then." You say, and he nods.

"What are my daily tasks?" He asks, and you shrug again. "This is frustrating." He says, and you laugh at that.

It's weird to hear it. But he notes it down as a positive response from you.

"Just don't burn the house down while trying to cook or something." You joke, and he seems to take it seriously.

"Why would I set your home aflame while attempting to cook? I'm not even capable of either task.." He says, and you get up, grinning.

"Don't worry so much. Just properly charge for now- we'll see what's gonna happen as it happens." You say.

He nods.

Jungkook knows that around 75% of fatal accidents occur in a mere household. He also knows, that a regular home is the safest place to live. Yet there he was, on the floor, holding his ears as an attempt to block out the sound of his nightmares. "Jungkook?" You ask, as you turn off the microwave. He's still shaking as you sit down in front of him, close- but not touching, unknowing if he would react to that negatively or not. "Can you hear me?" You ask, and he hesitantly retracts his hands from his ears, letting the sound in again. The beeping of the microwave is now gone, only the soft ticking of your clock on the wall and the buzzing of your fridge remain. "I'm sorry that scared you." You say, smiling apologetically as he shakes his head, face serious. His eyes move frantically as they glow an orange hue, showing his system status.

"No, I should apologize." He says. "I don't know why I displayed this reaction to a mere household object." He admits, and you open the microwave to take out your meal, before sitting down on the kitchen floor. "You shouldn't do that- the tiles are very cold-" He starts, but you wave him off.

"Its fine. Both." You say. "You're probably still confusing some sounds and things with your past use as a warzone model. So it's normal- your system has to adapt. You have to adapt." You say. "We all need some time to heal after what you've been through." You say.

He sits quietly after those words, watching you as he goes through his research on you. You're a very unusual individual, displaying a lot of behaviors he hasn't seen before. You take care of everything with a sense of care that makes him come to the conclusion that you're probably treating the machines and robots like living beings. Such as the oldschool robot-dog that he's seen under your living room table. It's currently charging, but he's seen you interact with it- genuinely displaying happiness and excitement at the very basic AI of the pet-robot that's missing a leg.

Its broken, just like him. But you're taking care of it, just like you take care of him.

You're very caring with him, too. He's seen you search for skin patches that match his color almost perfectly, even though they were more expensive than the usual models found in stores. You apologize for 'hurting' him, even though it's sometimes nescessary to repair him. You ask him about opinions, and let him roam around freely around the house.

You're a very friendly person.

And he, unknown to you, starts to create new files inside his system.

You're not there when he wakes up the next day.

He scans the house for any movement, but there is none that would lead him to the conclusion that you're there. There's no sign of you, and he becomes frantic, suddenly.

If his system would've worked properly like it should have, he would've remembered that you had told him yesterday that you would make a small trip to the local grocery store around the corner. But his system isn't working properly, already displaying several scenarios of you getting hurt, or vanishing, or leaving him alone.

He’d seen it before, so many times, hell; he’d been the reason of so many deaths in the first place and it never bothered him. So why was his internal system going absolute haywire at the mere idea of something happening to you? It was to be expected really- with how fragile you are, mentally and physically, it was bound to happen at some point. So why, if he knew it deep down already, did it make his pulse race and his skin feel weird?

You’d told him to stay home, but there was no way he’d be able to let you out of his sight. Because no, there were no emotions involved; they’d been restricted for him at the beginning after all, he was simply looking out for you. Probably a bug, maybe his system thought you were someone to be protected, a new mission to keep him occupied, that was probably it. It wasn’t because you had been so sweet with him, it wasn’t because of how gently you were in correcting him whenever he did something bad, it wasn’t because you were an absolute divine being in his eyes.

“Kook?” You said, an almost painful huff of breath escaping you when he crashed into you, holding you, his arms squeezing you a bit and his face burying itself into the crook of your neck, every sense drinking you in, saving the proof that you were okay, you were real, you were completely fine. “I-“ you started, and his eyes ripped open, suddenly realizing that he may be hurting you. As if burned he reacted, hands hovering over your shoulders as he looked you over.

“I apologize, I’m so sorry, does it hurt bad-“ he spoke hurriedly, eyes already glazing over with tears he didn’t even knew he could shed. Why did he suddenly feel so upset? His entire system was overloading, tears finally flowing and disrupting his sight so badly that he didn’t see your face anymore; sending him into panic even more. “I’m sorry- I’m-“ he pressed out, but there was nothing working anymore it seemed.

Only a few minutes later did he slowly come back to his senses, first thing he noticed being the way you held his body close, softly speaking to him while you were petting his head. It was such a weird sensation, yet it somehow soothed his mind back, as he realized that you were both on the ground. He was way too heavy, why were you doing that? But when he tried to get up, you held him tightly. “Take a Moment, Jungkook. You’re okay, I’m okay, just a breathe, yeah?” You said, and he nodded. “Let’s go back inside then yeah?” You softly said, and he nodded.

“But you need to buy groceries. We don’t have sufficient stock of-“ he started, but you giggled, the sound something he knew he liked. He didn’t quite know what to think of his newly found preferences for things, but he simply let it happen for now.

Because liking you could never be a mistake, he decided.

He calls out for you one day, his hands holding something you can't see yet. His eyes are wide open, his optics moving around frantically as he calls again. "Creator, please!" He calls, as you finally spot him, walking over as he looks at you with a worried expression. "Please- I don't know what to do. She flew against our window and probably has a concussion- you can help her, right?" He says, and you don't get curious as to why he immediately knows the birds gender and diagnosis; he can scan the tiny body, after all.

"Ah, come into the kitchen." You say, and he follows quickly, still delicately holding the tiny body in his palm, careful not to drop it. "Lets put her in a box and a nice quiet place, yeah? She'll recover on her own probably." You reassure him as he watches you place her in an old box without a lid. "Put her where you found her, okay? That way she'll know her way back easier." You tell him, and he nods, determined, as he walks back towards where he had found the bird.

Jungkook, in a way, was slowly changing nowadays.

He was a curious being, always eager to learn about the most mundane things. True to his purpose he picked up on things very easily; learning how to draw and paint very quickly. He had recently gotten interested in a video game you used to play before your work took over your time- and you loved seeing him have genuine fun with it.

He wasn't doing things anymore because they were asked of him. Or because they were an order.

He was developing hobbies, you'd noticed.

Of course you kept Jin updated about all of these things, and he had been happy to learn that his reboot was going well- joking around that he was glad he hadn't killed you in your sleep yet. And while, at first, you were quite wary of him walking around the apartment, nowadays, you couldn't imagine Jungkook even hurting a fly.

Just like with that tiny bird.

He was a gentle soul, simply a bit clumsy sometimes- apologizing over and over after breaking your alarm clock once, the alarm setting off another one of his 'episodes'- moments of flashbacks he got from his past purpose in war. You had reassured him and had let him watch as you fixed it again, praising him along when he gave you the right tools.

Praise. That was something he seeked as well.

And it wasn't just that he wanted aknowledgement of his own achievements. It was more your attention that he wanted. He wanted to be around you whenever possible, even sometimes dancing around the topic of maybe sharing a bed one day- but he had also been wary of hurting you in your sleep, by rolling over or something alike.

Always so thoughtful.

But he would be able to hold you that day; when you had complained about being tired, he had suggested a nap to you. Instantly taking on that chance, you laid down, rolling over as he was still on the couch with you, already having laid down prior. He was unsure at first where to put his hands, until he decided to just go for the common human way of affection; holding you close.

And he made a note inside his system, that he truly deeply enjoyed the feeling.

He finds you on the couch, crying, after an argument on the phone. That in itself isn't the issue he's having, however- it's the sudden wave of protectiveness rolling over him, drowning his senses as he walks over to you, his orange glowing eyes now scanning your form. "What did he do?" He asks, knowing that it was a former partner of yours, constantly calling you asking for money. It's a bad habit of yours that you can't seem to say no; and now that you did for once, he had bitten your ear off with bad remarks and names you'd rather not repeat. "I'll hurt him, just say the word. He needs to feel the same pain you do-" He's shaking a little, you can see it now; his hands unsure where to place themselves, his eyes watching over you, his breathing a little faster. He starts again, and you put a hand on his shoulder to stop his words.

“Jungkook no, he didn’t hurt me in like, a physical way.” You tried to explain, tears now forgotten as you try to calm the Android on your couch down- still absolutely terrified by your state. “I’m gonna be fine.” You say, but he doesn’t seem convinced. Or is it something else?

“But why am I hurting?” He asks suddenly, and your eyes widen. Well, why was he? Technically he was capable of understanding emotions, that wasn’t shocking. What was confusing to you however was just how he was able to share your pain. And it was obvious he did; the way his eyes glistened and his body shivered, overwhelmed by whatever was happening. “Why does it hurt to see you hurt?” He almost whispers, lost with the situation.

Jungkook was indeed a very weird android- you’ve noticed that long ago already. He was emotional, sometimes moody, and slowly began to develop an actual personality the more he was living with you.

Something his model shouldn’t be capable of.

And maybe that should scare you- maybe that should worry you, maybe you should call up support for answers, but you don’t. You do what’s best for yourself and what you think is best for him in that moment; you lean forward, and wrap your arms around him. And it doesn’t feel at all like an android you’re hugging in that moment, because an android wouldn’t cry with you. An android wouldn’t hold you like this, wouldn’t tremble in your hold like this. It makes it easy to forget that Jungkook isn’t human.

And that in itself is absolutely dangerous.

Somehow, his system had bypassed the blockade to his emotional capacities.

He had noticed it ever since you had been out to restock groceries by yourself, but he had been a little unsure back then. He now knows, for sure, that something had happened.

It was confusing, to say the least.

So many things were somehow suddenly starting to fall into place for him; his favoritism to being close to you, or his system failing whenever you weren't nearby. It also makes sense that he's standing right in front of your bedroom door that night, knocking as you open it. He feels a weird sense of protectiveness seeing you tired and vulnerable like that, and he sits down on the side of the bed where you join him. "Is everything okay?" You ask, and he shakes his head.

Nothing is okay, everything is confusing, and he's unsure what to quite think of all of this. "I feel.. confused. Scared. There's.. fear, in me, boiling up and interrupting my thoughts." He explains, and you nod.

"Feeling is scary, huh?" You ask, as he looks at you.

"How do you do it?" He asks, and you lean your head a bit to the side in question. "There's.. so much of it. How do you.. separate it, keep it in order? Its all over the place, and it's.. so distracting. Its so overwhelming- I can't seem to calm down." He mumbles, serious face turning frustrated as his fingers play with the fabric of his pants.

"We don't." You say. He looks at you for a moment, before you continue. "We just.. let it run through us, I guess. If you don't, it'll make you sick after a while. " You say, and he looks at you.

"But.." He starts. "I fear I might start to display reactions a male android model isn't supposed to openly display." He almost whispers.

"You don't have to openly do it." You reassure him, placing a hand on his shoulder, before moving a bit, body facing him as you open your arms. "It's just me; and I won't judge. You can be whoever you want with me, Jungkook." You say, and he lays down next to you in your arms, momentarily enjoying the quietness and closeness of the affectionate gesture.

"There are no bad feelings, Jungkook." You tell him, and he listens, as he lets them run through him, just like you told him. The sadness, the comfort of your body against his, the.. adoration he feels towards you. Everything, even though it hurts him, physically, something he only ever thought was a artistic way of describing emotions. "There are only wrong actions." You say. "If you feel the need to cry, cry. If you're angry, scream, shout, or find something to channel that into. But if you bottle it up-" You say, "they will lead to mistakes. They will bring pain, and they will bring remorse."

His voice is strained as he talks. "But how do I know when to act on them, and when not to?" He says, and you chuckle.

"You'll learn, Jungkook." You reassure him. "You'll learn."

And he nods against your shoulder, before you can feel him shake a little less, quiet sobs racking through his body until his exhausted body falls asleep to charge.

"Remarkable." Jin comments, as he watches the lines and lines of codes. "He has started to self-code his own system. He's quite literally learning." He says. "All by himself. This is amazing." He says, before he disconnects Jungkook.

"He's still a bit jumpy sometimes, and the microwave is still his worst enemy-" You say, as Jungkook reboots again, eyes slowly focusing as they start to glow again. "But he really is amazing." You say, and Jungkook beams at that, proudly smiling.

It's rare for an android to display such emotions, and he's still often very much void of any clear visual feedback in terms of facial expressions- but he's learning, and he's evolving, growing, in a way. Seokjin closes the panel on the back of Jungkooks neck, as the android stands up to walk closer to you. "Jungkook." Jin says, and the android turns towards the young man. "Do you look after her well?" He asks, and Jungkook nods. "Make sure she stays hydrated during the day, yeah? I highly doubt she's told you she struggles with that." He says, and you whine, as Jungkooks head whips around, eyes scanning your body as he furrows his brows.

"Creator, you need to drink at least 2.5 Liters of water per day. It's vital for your health, which is already very delicate." He says, and you glare at Jin for telling him anything about that.

"I'm fine- and also, please don't call me creator. I'm not anything like that." You say, picking up the walking puppy-robot as Jungkook nods.

"What should I call you then?" He asks, and Jin perks up.

"Call her baby!"

"Jin NO-!"

"No matter what she tells you-" Jin says, holding Jungkooks shoulders as he looks at him seriously. "She likes it." He says, and Jungkook, serious as ever, nods, noting it down, as you groan.

"I hate you both!" You say, and Jungkooks eyes widen.

"You.." He says, voice almost not heard over the laugh of Jin. "Hate me?" He asks, and you immediately regret your words. Jungkook still hasn't figured out sarcasm yet- the entire concept still a little too complicated for his system to grasp, so you walk closer to him, holding his cheeks in your hands.

"No no no, I don't, I could never-" You promise him, as he nods with already glossy eyes. "I just said it as a joke, okay?" You say, and he nods again, biting his lip a little before Jin clears his throat.

"I'll head off now." He says, already putting on his coat. "Thank you for letting me see him- it's really amazing to see him grow like that." He says, and you nod, giving him a short hug before he leaves.

And for some reason, Jungkook feels jealous, watching you so close to him.

Jungkook is in love with you.

He's come to that conclusion all by himself, and he's proud of it, but he's also very unsure about it. He has done a lot of research, scanned every source he could find and validate; and he has found a new interest in activities humans do in relationships to show their partner love and affection. He's not stupid, he knows what intimacy is, and is also aware that he's capable of doing these things with you; but he's also a little unsure, if you'd want that.

After all, there's nothing he could give you.

So one night, he stands in front of your door again, knocking, as you open it.

"Do you think.." He starts. "I'm capable of love?" He asks, and you look at him. "Because I think.. no, I am very sure I love you." He admits, and you get up, but there's no stopping him. "I don't know what it's like for you, but I have observed my newfound emotions, and there's a pattern I've detected; whenever I'm with you, around you, whenever you give me attention, or when you touch me, theres always the same emotions involved; there's this need to take care of you, to keep you safe, to be close." He rambles, and you listen to him as he talks, walking closer to you as his hands find your shoulders. "There's this.. urge, to partake in human intimacy with you. I want to.. show affection the common way, like kissing you, or holding you, things like that." Your cheeks grow a little red. "But I don't know if you are experiencing the same things. My research shows that.. that we could only do these things, if it's the same for you." He says, and then, almost as if hes whispering. "Is it?" He asks, and you struggle to answer. "Do you.. feel the same.?" He asks again, waiting for you to say anything at all.

You stay silent.

Its a sunday when a letter arrives at your home.

When you open it, there's several papers inside; Jungkooks personality tests, official papers that make it possible for him to leave on his own. When he reads them, he's serious, as he watches you smile at him.

"Jungkook, this is great, isn't it?" You say, trying hard to not let it show that you dread letting go of him. "You can finally get an apartment- maybe make something out of your talents, and earn a living. You're free to go now." You say, biting the inside of your cheek as he looks at you with wide eyes.

"But.." He starts, softly. "I'm yours." He states, and you shake your head, swallowing hard.

"Jungkook no.. you're you. No one owns you anymore." You say, and he suddenly shakes his head, throwing the papers in the kitchen sink as he walks towards you, his hands on your shoulders.

He looks at you, serious, as his optics focus on you. "You were the one who told me that every machine should be treated with respect." He states, as you look away from him, his hands shaking you a little as he tries to get your attention back on him. "You said even we androids have souls." He says.

"I did, but-" You start, but he cuts you off.

"And if we do, if we really do-" He speaks, his hands now holding your head, his face drenched in desperation. "Than it belongs to you." He states, and your eyes widen. "It's yours." He repeats. "If having it for myself means I have to leave you, I don't want it."

"I don't.. want to take advantage of you, Jungkook." You say. "You're.. everything is still new to you, I don't want you to regret this-" You start, and he leans down.

"I won't. I've run every possible scan I could, calculated every possible outcome, you know I can't lie to you. I could never regret this.." He says, as he leans down a little. "Can I..?" He asks, and you smile, jumping over your own shadow in a way, as you give him a nod. "I.. can you.. say it?" He asks. "Just once?"

You take his hands in yours, as you lean closer. "I love you, Jungkook." You say, and he gasps, his systems going absolute haywire in the best ways possible. He's again filled with emotions, but this time, they don't hurt; they make him feel light, as if he weighs nothing, they make him close his eyes because suddenly even the slightest light is too bright for his optics.

"Again." He asks, and you comply.

"I love you."

"Again."

"I love you."

He sighs, as his lips finally meet yours.

There's no magical fireworks or anything like that- but Jungkook decides that he doesn't need these things. The feeling itself, the emotions flooding his body are enough to outshine any beauty of reality itself. There's nothing he could ever compare to this, he decides.

He's unsure if Androids have instincts, but in that moment, for the first time, he doesn't care. This seems to be one of those situations to let his emotions run through him, lead him, show him what to do, he decides. His hands roam over your skin, ears catching every sound you make as he moves on autopilot it seems. He's letting go, he's finally doing something he really wants.

And it's all thanks to you- you've given him the chance to be himself.

You've given him the gift of feeling loved, as he finally comes as close to you as lovers ever could; entering you carefully, senses on high alert as he feels your walls around his length. He had been unsure of why pleasure seemed to be described as fun and intimate, but now he can relate to these claims fully. He's so full of love, so overwhelmed, that he simply rests his forehead on your naked shoulder, eyes closed as he simply lets himself feel. He doesn't care about his whines and groans, only focusing on you and your body, on the feedback every muscle sends to his systems, enjoying the way you make him feel.

Its truly magical, he notices.

He doesn't even notice his nor your orgasm at all, but it doesn't matter.

Because at the end of the night, he finally holds you close. Not like before, but this time, as lovers.

"I've given her exactly 0.26 milliliters of a 1 to 1 water and fruit sugar mixture every day at appropriate times." Jungkook seriously tells the vet, as he looks at the bird on the metal table.

"I see. Good job." He praises, before looking at you. "A warzone-type?" He asks, and you nod. "Barely noticable. I have one too, that's how I knew." He comments, before he turns to Jungkook again. "I'd say the bird simply likes your company, Jungkook. She just want's to stay with you That's why she comes back." He explains.

"Like me and Baby?" He asks, and you giggle at the nickname Jungkook keeps using.

"Yes, like you and her." Namjoon says, utterly entertained by you and Jungkook. "So I'd say let her be around. She's perfectly healthy, otherwise." He says, and Jungkook turns around, box in hand, as he smiles.

It's quiet that evening, sun slowly setting and drenching the walls of your shared apartment in a golden glow. Jungkook watches your sleeping form, leaned against him on the couch, as he simply remembers all of the things he's experienced because of you.

He truly is a machine capable of love.

Because you taught him how.

[sophocused]

mindset update | first week into 2021

recently I've been bullet journaling again, but mostly spread of the self-help tips I've compiled from different podcasts and media.

seven beliefs of an emotionally healthy person from savvy psychologist on Spotify helped a lot to write down

especially, "I can do things I don't feel like doing," which taught me about a skill I can practice called mood-independent behaviour. it's a practice where you do the thing even if you don't feel like it, and observe yourself as your mood catches up. Your mood picks up because you start getting into the rhythm and thinking "oh hey I'm doing it! and I'm liking it, because I like feeling like I'm getting things done, therefore I will keep doing it now, and follow through."

It also helped to know that even if the mood doesn't pick up everytime, at least the thing that needed to be done got done.

This has been me for my room, I used the konmari/marie kondo method before the year ended as usual, for my dresser (makeup, lotions, perfumes, jewellry, skincare, etc), my closet (as someone who hates folding laundry oh my goodness have I shifted things for myself and my mood lately by finally getting that done), my desk (notebooks, stationery, washi tape which I gave a lot up to my sister), and finally under my bed.

I have had a CLEAN room for a whole week, the cleanest it has been in almost a year.

There is finally not a basket waiting in the corner to be folded that I would pick my work clothes out of as the weekdays go by.

There is less junk under my bed of old sentimental who-knows in shoe boxes.

The bookshelf has all my new books so I can finally reach for them instead of them kinda just being there.

The dresser has so much clear space now 😭 just the 5 daily things I use for skin care and makeup are out and closest to me.

My desk has my huion kamvas 16 pro tablet, a laptop stand/2019 dell XPS 15, and all the wires sorted and held together, complete with usb dock.

My desk shelves only have what I need in reach daily, the pilot juice pens, some brush pens, Crayola markers, sketchbooks and bujos.

I can finally just see my carpet floor and not be bumping into it, or seeing some clothing item I shed like a snake.

Overall, while I was mindful not the let the new year stress get to me (like the feeling down on myself for not accomplishing much in 2020) and also to not just set unrealistic new year's resolutions, I have still taken the opportunity to begin new habits with the sole goal of wanting to make my mind a softer place to exist in.

A practice as simple as pressing my tongue to the roof of my mouth actively to make sure I don't zone out and subconsciously clench my teeth or jaw has helped me ease my daily anxiety and stresses too.

I'm focused on living and existing purposefully, actively being more present, no more spacing out, but being aware of what I am doing and taking note of the positive things about it.

For example, I could hate riding the bus as it gives me anxiety being in an enclosed space in the pandemic, I dissipate it by saying "I'm calmed that everyone is wearing a mask and the bus never gets too full, and also I have my music to keep me from getting a headache from the bus noise."

Another time from the past week since going back to work, "The students I supervise can be terrible listeners and I feel most of my day is spent saying the same things over and over, and I'm wasting energy and getting cranky." Once again, my after thought is, "yeah they make me cranky but talking to them and making jokes helps lighten the mood and builds their rapport with me, and thus they can listen to my instruction better. Their laughter makes me happy because it makes me feel that I'm doing something right. I like being called by my last name, it makes me feel like my future career as a teacher is closer than I think."

Just today, I had to go to the extended term in-person lab, and it was my first time being in a lab since February 2020. I was anxious and nervous, and I had to bus for 1.5 hours to get to campus. The TA was being incredibly snarky and condescending when we were just starting, and at first I kept thinking of my criqitue in his poor job as a TA to be talking to us like we were idiots. I took a mental step back, realized that I have never done anything personally to offend him, so he was just having a day. With that, I could release myself from the burden of taking his crankiness to heart. I said thank you with every instruction even if he was being rude about it, and just laughed when he tried to be mean. Within the first 20 min of that three hour lab, he became much nicer towards me, and made personal small talk about work and how we dealt with the pandemic, and he helped me do three things at once. He was still being ruthless but I think he recognized that I was not going to let it ruin my day and I'm still going to perform this lab to the best of my ability and have fun.

I started off this week with a lot of dread, but I find myself actively trying to make things happen for myself, doing things with the thought of "I need to be able to name at least one thing that made me smile today and that will be enough". And I find myself being able to lift my mood up with less resistance.

My sleep cycle is next up, I have woken up at 11:30am, then 10:30am, then today 9:30am, I am almost to my back of my mind goal, to just start waking up early again, to have ample time for a routine before my winter term of uni whisks me away. When I am whisked away I want to be sturdy, I want to ride the wave. I don't want to feel like I'm fighting the current or spiraling down the rapids. I want to make myself sane and that's about it. That's the crucks of it all.

(I am aware what is happening in the US, and as someone extremely sensitive to others' misfortune with the susceptibility to fall into a rage about how the world feels like it'll keep taking steps back into our demise, I am being careful not to consume too much of the news, as I need to keep the momentum first of keeping myself in the right mindset)

[halowastaken]

Why I Left (Chapter 9)

Read in ao3!

Summary:

Tony was a man with a mission. Figure what was going on with Peter Parker. He checked every single thing in Peter’s suit to look for any leads, but he didn’t have much luck. Pepper was also digging by her side but she hasn’t had much luck either. It’s been four weeks since he’s been digging info but there is nothing. So it was convenient that today was lab day for Peter, because Tony was gonna start Plan B, which was just interrogating Peter.

---------

Tony was a man with a mission. Figure what was going on with Peter Parker. 

He checked every single thing in Peter’s suit to look for any leads, but he didn’t have much luck. Pepper was also digging by her side but she hasn’t had much luck either. It’s been four weeks since he’s been digging info but there is nothing. 

So it was convenient that today was lab day for Peter, because Tony was gonna start Plan B, which was just interrogating Peter.

When the kid came into the lab, Tony immediately stopped what he was doing

“Hello Peter” Tony greets with a smile. Peter only raises an eyebrow and takes off his backpack

“You look like you haven’t slept in three years” Peter points out which makes Tony’s smile drop

“My sleeping schedule is perfectly fine...Kinda...Whatever” Tony says giving up. Then Peter grabs a tablet from the desk

“So, you know how I have a history of getting hit by the dumbest things ever while I am Spiderman? I think I figured how to make a webb formula that heals wounds. Do you know where the surface sterilizer is? And I think I will need some potassium and-” Peter raised his head and Tony was just staring at him “Did I say something wrong?”

“If you need any help with your project I am here to help” Tony said staring at him. Peter was so confused about what was going on but instead of asking he just started working. Time passed. Peter is in the zone and Tony is just checking Peter's suit for any clues for, like, the fifth time “How are the parkers doing?” Tony asks starting the interrogation

“Ben is fine. He got a new job so we don’t talk much, and May is fine I guess. Doing extra shifts in the hospital and all of that” Peter answers without even thinking it. It seemed pretty normal for Tony, who was recording the conversation just in case

“Sounds like you’ve had a lot of time for yourself then” Tony says and Peter scoffs

“Yeah I guess. Spiderman has been busy lately for the same reason” Peter says, but that couldn't be right. There’s no record of the suit even leaving Peter’s department.

“Fun. What about school? How is that going on?” Peter then goes to where the microscope is and looks into something

“It's been great. I mean, it is school. There’s not much fun in that, but I guess it’s fine” Peter said, still working on whatever he was doing. It was annoying for Tony because he wanted the kid’s full attention

“That’s great kid. So? Anything new you wanna talk about?” Tony asks

“Oh yeah. There’s this new Spanish food place in Manhattan and I was thinking maybe we should try it out. Ned says it was really good when he went with his mom” Peter says typing something on his tablet. Tony was frustrated

“Sure. We can check that out” That’s when Tony got an idea “Any plans for the summer? School is about to end, isn’t it? What plans does Mrs. Parker has in mind?” 

“Nothing really. Ben doesn’t want to go out” Peter says which makes Tony roll his eyes

“Why is that?” Peter finally turned around and tilted his head

“Did I do something wrong Mr. Stark? Because you are asking a lot of questions today” Peter says teasing

“Not at all kid. I’m just curious. Why? Do you think you did something wrong that I should be worried about?” Tony finally asks with a smile on his face. That makes Peter raise an eyebrow

“I grabbed a pack of fruit snacks from the kitchen before I came here. Does that count?” Tony’s smile drops

“It’s fine Peter. You are literally  the only one that eats those in here” Tony says and Peter leaves the tablet in the table

“Then I think I am good” Peter says turning around to keep working

What was going on? Peter doesn’t lie! And when he does, Tony can tell in a matter of seconds! But Tony now wasn’t sure. Peter was acting normal and relaxed. 

“Wait, if you are busy with Spiderman, why hasn’t the suit been tracking info?” Tony finally asks. Peter turns around and looks confused

“It hasn’t? That’s weird. Maybe it needs an update or something. Wanna look into that later?” That made Tony finally give up.

“Sure. I’ll start the update while you finish up with that” Tony says looking into his own tablet to stop the recording to then send it to Pepper

He was being paranoid. Everything Peter said matched with the facts. Maybe that day May was just busy or something and Ben was tired. He wasn’t sure but maybe he was just overreacting. Peter wouldn't lie to him if something was going on. Peter was a good kid. 

Minutes passed and they both kept working in their own thing. Tony had already gave up, when he received a call “Gotta take this” Tony said and he answered his phone “Stark”

“She’s dead” That was Pepper. She sounded like she just ran a marathon. Tony was worried now

“What?” Tony asked confused

“She’s dead! She’s been dead for four months now!” Pepper said causing even more confusion

“Pepper calm down. You are just confusing me. What are you talking about?” Tony asked

“After you sent me the recording of Peter I looked into Ben’s “new job”. Tony, he’s been unemployed for four months now! Then I called the hospital where May works and I asked if she was there right now. Tony, they told me that May got killed four months right around the time Peter got grounded!” Tony’s eyes widened. He turned to see Peter who was working so innocently. 

“Are you sure about it?” Tony asks trying to stay calmed

“Tony I have the death report. May Parker is dead. Are you with Peter right now?” Pepper asks 

“Yeah, we are in the lab” Tony says trying to stay as calm as he can

“Do not let him leave. I am going up there right now. We need to figure out why he didn’t tell us” Pepper says before hanging up. Tony was mad. He was worried so he was mad. He was also shocked.

“Hey Peter, what are you doing?” Tony asks in a passive aggressive tone. Peter was typing something in the main computer that controlled the main lab.

“I need to see the code of something real quick” Peter said. Tony raised an eyebrow

“Why would you need to see a code for the web fluid?” Tony asks and Peter scoffs taking out a usb from the main screen

“I am done with that project. Right now I copied some codes that I will need later when I am gone” Peter says grabbing his bag

“Kid where do you think you are going?” Tony asks and Peter rolls his eyes

“Out of here before Mrs. Potts gets here” That’s when Tony realized. Peter knows that Tony knows about May

“No you are not” Tony said

“Are you gonna stop me or something Mr. Stark?” Peter says as if he was furious. Before Tony could give one more step, Peter shot his webb to Tony’s feet “Yeah that will do” Peter says

“FRI-” Then Peter interrupts

“Quiet Mr. Stark. FRIDAY, initiate ‘sicko mode’ please. And I need you to stop all the elevators till I am out of here

“FRIDAY override whatever that is” Tony says but doesn’t get an answer

“Yeah, I don’t think that’ll work. You see, when the protocol is on, all live info just deletes itself and, well, they only answer to me” Peter says opening the lab doors

“Peter what is going on with you?!” That makes Peter stop “This is not you kid!” Peter turns around and gets near Tony

“You never cared. Why do you care now?” That sounded like a threat. Tony was used to those, but not coming from Peter “You don’t know me Mr. Stark. So here is what is gonna happen. You stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours” Then Peter walked out of the lab leaving Tony alone.

[argyle-s]

The Shape of Things to Come Chapter 3/?

Rating:  Mature

Read at Ao3

Start at the Beginning

After a year in the past, Kara makes her public debut as Supergirl.

Chapter 3 - Rebirth

Notes:

In this story, Kara will occasionally lapse into Kryptonian. The first instance of this happens in this chapter. The Kryptonian in this story is taken from Doyle Kryptonian which is where most of the Kryptonian used on the show is taken from. Translation was done using the resources at Kryptonian.info, and I suspect the quality of the translation will vary widely.

In the earlier drafts of this story, I either didn’t use Kryptonian, or I wrote the sections in English and set it off using special formatting, but I was unhappy with that, so I went back and rewrote them in Kryptonian. The problem with that is, the Kryptonian sections were written out of order and my skill with the language (such as it is) has improved considerably over time.

I’ve tried to go back and fix any errors, but:

1). The dictionary is fragmentary and I’ve had to work around holes in the language, or when I couldn’t, construct new words with guesswork.

2). I am absolute shit at learning languages that are whole and functional, so one that only exists in fragmentary form is even worse.

Any errors are mine. Any weirdness with the language and phrasing is either me being an idiot, or an artifact of my take on how Kryptonian culture and religious beliefs would influence speech patterns. My Krypton sticks as close as possible to the show, but I have made huge changes from comic canon to make Krypton fit more closely with our current understanding of what the reality of life would be on a planet in order around a red sun.

Most translations are fairly literal translations, though the order of the words is different, because English uses a Subject Verb Object sentence structure, whole Kryptonian uses Verb Subject Object sentence structure (example: The sentence "Kara punched Maxwell Lord" would be "Punched Kara Maxwell Lord" in a Verb Subject Object language like Kryptonian). In some cases however, the meaning in English can vary from the literal translation. In those cases, I will give the literal translation first, followed by the Semantic Translation.

Two final notes.

1). I take it as a given that Alex speaks Kryptonian, because she grew up with Kara, and she spent two years fiddling with Kara's pod and the hologram, and anything in canon that says she doesn't will be cheerfully ignored because it's bullshit.

2). Kara *does* know how to swear, but she’s only good at it in Kryptonian.

Update: This story has now been betaed by @ifourmindbeso.  Any remaining mistakes are entirely my own.

Kara Danvers’ Apartment. National City. Earth 38, October 8th, 2015

(One Year Later)

Kara opened the door to find a very annoyed J’onn standing there, glaring at her.

“Good morning,” she said brightly, waving him in.  She walked over to the kitchen and pulled down a package of Chocos and a glass, which she filled with milk.

“You do realize the DEO is not eHarmony for aliens, right?”

“Compatible Partners,” Kara said as she took a bite out of her pre-breakfast bagel.

“What?” J’onn asked as he picked up a cookie and dunked it in the milk.

“eHarmony only does listings for straight people.  Compatible Partners is the one for Gays and Lesbians.  Besides, I use Chemistry.com.”

“I don’t care if you used gayalienbootycall.com.  This arrangement is not so you can vet your dates.”

Kara sighed.  “J’onn, I am not *dating* Maggie Sawyer.  We’re just friends.”

“Oh, so you aren’t meeting her tonight at some place called Girlbar?”

“Well, yes, I am.  But I don’t date women who are still heartbroken over their ex-girlfriends.  Think of it as recruitment.”

J’onn held up his finger and started to say something, then stopped.  He started to speak again, but stopped, before finally just shaking his head.  “First you wanted me to do a full security clearance on that little computer nerd.  Now this.  How does any of this help us with your friends from Fort Rozz?”

“Winn helps because Winn is one of only six or seven hackers on the planet that can go toe to toe with a Coluan and come out on top, and unless you’ve suddenly managed to convince Victor Stone, Felicity Smoak or Rabiah Zinoman to sign up, we don’t have a lot of other options, because Tim Drake and Barbara Gordon are serious no-fly zones and the other two people who could potentially pull this off are definitely not on our side.  Maggie Sawyer, on the other hand, will give us an in with NCPD, which is going to be incredibly useful when it comes time to lay the smack down on Maxwell Lord.”

“You know, you keep talking like you’re in this fight, but so far, all you’ve done is sit on the sidelines and feed us a few names.”

“You’re mad about the armored car last night,” Kara said.

“You’re damn right I am.  Two agents in the hospital.  One of them may never walk again.  You could have stopped it, but instead, you’re fetching coffee for some-”

“Don’t finish that sentence, J’onn,” Kara said.  “You know nothing about Cat Grant and much as I like you, if you insult her in front of me, I will put your green ass through a wall.”

J’onn sighed and held up his hands in surrender.  “Fine.”

“Besides, you’re every bit as capable as I am, and you didn’t do anything to stop it either.  We both have our reasons for keeping secrets.”

“Yeah, but your case is a little different.”

“It is,” Kara said.  “But it would expose me while the leader of the escapees was away.  If that happened, there would have been open war in the streets.”

J’onn sat down on one of her stools and picked up another Choco, dunking it in his milk.  “You keep talking about this leader like you know him.”

“Her,” Kara said.

J’onn froze, with the cookie half way to his mouth.  His eyes narrowed.  “You do know her.”

“I do.  General Astra In-Ze, War Leader of the House of Ze, Daughter of In-Ze and Myara Bar-Ul, and twin sister of Alura Zor-El.”

“She’s your aunt?” J’onn said.

“Yes,” Kara said.

J’onn popped the cookie in his mouth and started chewing, and Kara watched the emotions playing over his face.

“I didn’t tell you until now, because I thought you might decide I was a security risk.”

“Then why tell me now?”

“Because this is the last thing I need from you before I openly declare myself.  Once Alex is safely out of the way in Geneva, little Kara Danvers is going to take the first of Astra’s heavy hitters off the board.”

“You have a plan?” J’onn asked.

“I do.  You’re probably not going to like it, but I do.”

He reached up and started rubbing his temples.  “What else is new?”

***

She smiled at Winn as he approached her with his tablet, walking beside her on her way to her desk.

“Did you see this?  There was an armored car robbery last night.  Now, there were no witnesses except this homeless guy who swears the perp had horns.”

“Thanks,” Kara said as she excepted a shipping tube from Brad with the proof of the new bus stop poster Cat needed to approve.

“Like, on his head,” Winn said as she turned back to him.

“Well, that’s usually where horns go,” she said.  “But you’re sure it wasn’t just a prominent brow ridge?

“Come on Kara, it’s an alien.”

“I don’t know, Winn.  I mean, Superman’s an alien, right?  He seems to look pretty normal.”

“Well, how do we know?  He could be hiding anything under that suit.”

Kara shrugged.  “Isn’t James Olsen taking over the art department today?  Maybe we could ask him.  They seem close.”

“Now you’re just making fun me.”

Kara shook her head as she sat down.  “Never.  Well, except for when you lose at Small World.”

“Hey, your sister cheats.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“Fine,” Winn said, as he went over to his desk and sat down, pointedly turning his back to her, which gave her just enough privacy to zap Cat’s Latte with her heat vision.  “I won’t invite you to go see ‘The Martian’ with me then.”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah,” he said, turning back to her.

“I can’t,” Kara said.  “Maggie and I are going to Girlbar.”

“Really?” Winn said, a grin on his face.  “When are you gonna introduce me to your hot cop girlfriend?”

“Winn,” Kara sighed.  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

Winn shook his head.  “I never should have started you on Rizzoli & Isles.  Now I’m destined to lose my gaming buddy to some tall, dark Italian Detective with a smoky voice.”

Kara laughed.  “I told you I’m into blondes, but the medical examiner thing is just icky.  Besides, Maggie is Latina and shorter than you are, which is saying something since I’m pretty sure you get carded going into PG-13 movies”

“That hurts,” Winn said, putting his hand over his heart.  “That really hurts, Kara.”

“You were asking for it, standing there, being so short.”  She paused for a moment, then looked up.  “She’s here,” she said as she stood up, picking up her tablet and Cat’s Latte.

The elevator door opened, and Kara’s heart gave the same small little flutter that it always did when she saw Cat.

“Good morning, Ms. Grant,” she said, letting every bit of the happiness she felt come through.  She’d been in the past for a year, and seeing Cat walk off that elevator never got old.

She saw the small tug of a smile that pulled at Cat’s lips before she started on her tirade.  “The only reason I bought this building is because it has a private elevator.  That way, I don’t have to get soaked in cheap cologne every morning getting to my office.  Find out who used it, and have them reprimanded, or bathed.  I don’t care which.”

Kara just nodded as she followed Cat into her office.  “Here’s your Latte, Ms. Grant.  Hot.”

Cat took it from her.  “As always,” she said.  “I have a meeting with the board today at lunch, so cancel sushi with my Mother.”

“Got it.  Should I also cancel your therapist, since you aren’t seeing your Mother?”

“Good idea, Keira,” she said, then took a sip of the Latte. “Hmmm…  This tastes different.”

“Noonan’s was out of hazelnut so I got you almond instead.  I hope that’s okay.”

“I don’t hate it, but do have a talk with the management down there.  If they’re going to take up space in CatCo plaza, they should at the very least be able to keep their supplies stocked.  Also, I’ve emailed you a list.  Prepare termination letters for the Tribune as noted.”

“Oh.  Ms. Grant, I’ve been thinking about that and I’d like to make a recommendation.”

“You’ve been thinking about a decision you knew nothing about until ten seconds ago?” Cat asked.

“I’ve been thinking about it since the financials came in back in January.  The Daily Planet’s the only print newspaper that isn’t taking a beating, and that’s pretty much entirely Superman’s doing.  They put him on the cover something like fifty-three percent of the time.”

“Are you going to tell me something I don’t know, Keira?”

Kara nodded her head.  “Well, we already do a lot of content sharing with digital, but I was thinking, why not merge the Tribune with digital entirely and try doing an interactive newspaper.”

“And how, exactly would that work?”

“A smartphone app.  We could put QR codes at the end of each story, which link up to a digital expansion of the story.  It’s sort of a hybrid monetization model.  Digital gets the basic story for free, but people who buy the tribune get free access to the expanded story content, but digital-only users have to subscribe to get the expanded content.”

“Hmmm…  That’s actually an interesting idea, but it doesn’t solve the immediate issues with circulation and it will increase the editorial load.”

“Not if we’re sharing the content across digital and print.  We can even tie in to broadcast by including video segments as part of the expanded articles behind the pay wall.  And the best part is, we can do a hybrid subscription model as well.  Customers can choose to watch an ad before the video segment and have inline ads embedded in the expanded article, or they can pay for the content to get it ad free.  We’d have to eat the losses on the Tribune while we restructured and built out the new workflow, but it would save a lot of jobs and we’d be ahead of the curve on digital and print integration.”

Cat stared at her for a minute, then nodded.  “Hold off on the letters for now.  Type this up as a proposal and go get me the layouts from the new art director.”

Kara grinned. “The proposal is already in your drop box.  I added it last night.  I’ll go get you the layouts now, Ms. Grant.”

***

She stepped into James’ office with no small amount of trepidation.  Her relationship with James was one of the biggest regrets of her previous life.  It wasn’t that she hadn’t been attracted to him.  She liked guys well enough, from a purely physical stand point.  She mainly told people she was a lesbian because homoromantic bisexual was confusing to a lot of them and that was before she even got into questions of species.  The problem with James was, she’d been more in love with the idea of him than she had been with him and James had been more in love with his idea of her than with her.  Things might have gone differently if they’d gotten together before Myriad and her death ride with Fort Rozz, but that day had changed something inside Kara.  It had burned away so much of what Eliza and Jeremiah and society in general had saddled her with in terms of expectations of who and what she wanted to be and left a truer, purer version of herself behind.  Her feelings for James had been part of that, but it had resulted in a lot of awkwardness and hurt feelings on James’s part.

It didn’t matter, because Kara was determined not to not make the same mistakes again.  No dating James and no Battle of CatCo plaza, either.

“Mr. Olsen, are you here?” Kara asked.

“I’ll be just a minute,” came a muffled voice.

Kara stepped a bit further into the office, and spotted James digging through a pile of boxes.

“I’m just here for the layouts,” she said.  “If you tell me where they are, I’ll get out of your way.”

“No trouble.  Just let me finish here and I’ll get them for you.”  He looked up from the box of trophies and plaques he was going through and stopped for a moment.  “Hey,” he said as he stood up.  “I’m the new guy.”

Kara nodded.  “James Olsen, I know.  Clark speaks very highly of you,” she said.

“You know Clark?” he asked.

“Of course.  Oh,” she stuck out her hand.  “Sorry, I’m Kara Danvers.  Clark’s my cousin.”  She saw a bit of surprise in his face, probably at the idea that Kara would be so open about their relationship.  “Don’t tell anybody though.  Cat would probably think I’m spying for the Planet if she knew.”

James laughed and took her hand, shaking it.  “Now that does sound like the Cat Grant I know.”

Kara looked over, and let herself smile as she caught sight of the print of James’ photo of Kal.  “And there’s the photo,” she said, letting go of James’s hand, and stepping around him.  “You do good work.  This almost looks like he posed for it.”

“He did,” James said.  “Don’t tell anyone though.  They might take away my Pulitzer.”

“Couldn’t have that,” Kara said as she lifted the print.  “I’ve got to ask.  What what’s he really like?”

This time James smiled, and Kara wanted to kick herself for not seeing the way he felt written on his face the first time they’d had this conversation.  “He’s everything you want him to be and more.  I mean…” He chuckled.  “I was scared to move out here, but, uh, he told me the biggest risk was never taking any, so…”

  Kara nodded and looked down at the print again, running her fingers over the image of her baby cousin in all his heroic glory.  It was easy to let the longing shine through.  She hadn’t seen Clark since she came back, and before that, he’d been dead for years in her personal timeline.

“Take it.”

“Hmmm?” she said, looking up at James.

“Take it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Kara smiled.  “Thank you.”  She looked down at the print for another moment, then back up at James.  “Layouts?”

“Oh,” he said.  “Yeah.”  He picked them up off the light table and handed them to her.  “Nice to meet you, Kara Danvers.”

“And you, James Olsen,” she replied, taking the layouts.  “I’d better get these back before Ms. Grant fires someone.”

***

In the year since Kara’s trip back from the future, she’d mostly avoided dating.  She hadn’t done it at all in the first month or so, but Eliza had kept hounding her.  Finally, during Thanksgiving Dinner, she’d just told Eliza she didn’t want to be set up on a blind date with her old college roommate’s son because she didn’t want to date men at all.  That had gotten Eliza to back off for exactly two weeks.

It wasn’t terrible, but Kara always felt a little guilty since the dates weren’t going anywhere.  She wasn’t really over Sara and the Supergirl thing was coming.  She knew what that would do to any potential relationship.  She dated mostly to humor Eliza, and to help Alex keep Eliza off her back.  She’d actually made a  handful of casual friends she hung out with now and then and she’d managed to talk Cat into adding an LGBT-focused section to the CatCo website and to the magazine, which had done so well Cat was considering launching three topic-focused print magazines, and five topic-focused websites.

Maggie, though, had been one of the few good things that had come out of the dating thing.  She knew the woman from the previous timeline of course and never would have agreed to a date with her, because dating your sister’s future wife was surely against some rule somewhere.  But she’d been sitting in a bar, nursing her third virgin strawberry daiquiri after one of her Eliza-arranged blind dates had failed to show, when Maggie had sat down next to her and ordered a whiskey.

Kara couldn’t believe her luck.  She’d struck up a conversation and for the last four months, she’d spent almost as much time with Maggie as she did with Winn.  There wasn’t anything romantic about it, mostly because of the future Kara had lived through, but also because Maggie had been going through a long and nasty break-up with a girl named Darla, so Kara had spent a lot of time being a shoulder to cry on.

It hadn’t even really been much of a decision to bring Maggie into the fold earlier than before, because Maggie was amazing.

Tonight though, was something Kara had arranged carefully.  She’d checked to make sure the bar had TVs that ran local stations so she’d get the news.  She’d also set up news alerts for flight 237 Geneva and National City Airlines and directed them to her burner phone.  The driver’s license in her purse was a duplicate, and the glasses she was wearing were a pair of cheap reading glasses she’d picked up at a Walgreens.  The purse had a few other odds and ends in it.  A spare lipstick, and a tube of lip gloss, a half empty tin of breath mints, a couple of tampons, an expired can of pepper spray left over from her college days.  A couple of Noonan’s receipts, a bit of loose change, 62 dollars in cash, and a prepaid debit card.  Nothing she couldn’t afford to lose, on the off-chance Maggie reacted poorly to finding out she was an alien without almost a year of history as Supergirl under her belt, but enough that it looked like it was Kara’s actual purse.

The whole thing would look careless to Maggie, like she was in a blind panic.  Maggie, being Maggie, would try to return the purse and that would give Kara a way to induct her into team Supergirl.

She spotted the woman sitting at a table, checking her watch.  When she looked up, her eyes fell on Kara, and Kara waved as she walked over.

“Hey, Maggie,” she said as she dropped into the seat across from her.

“Hey,” she said.  “You look great.”

“Thanks,” Kara replied.  “Not too bad yourself.”

“How’s Cat treating you?”

“Oh, you know.  Same old, same old.  It’s a good week though.  She’s only fired me twice.”

Maggie laughed.  “Only you would consider that a good week.”

Kara shrugged.  “It’s not like it ever sticks.”

“What’s the count up to?” Maggie asked.

“One hundred and ninety-eight.  Looks like Kelly from fashion is going to win the pool.”

“I bet Winn will be disappointed.”

“Probably,” Kara said.  “How’s the X-Files treating you?”

“Oh, you know, same old, same old.  Men in black apparently abducted a birdman in Chinatown last night, and a Klingon with a glowing axe jumped the fence at the airport.”

“Sounds like a fun week,” Kara said, but she felt a small moment of worry.  The Klingon with the glowing axe sounded a little too close to Vartox for comfort.

“Yeah.  One more day and it’s over,” she said.

“Any plans for the weekend?”

“Not really,” Maggie said.

Kara rolled her eyes.  “You are not going to sit at home and mope over she who will not be named.”

“I’m not moping,” Maggie said.

“No, you’re not.  We’ll do something.”

“Like what?”

“There’s a women’s volley ball tournament down at National City Beach this weekend.  We could go watch.”

“More like go so you can drool over the players.”

“I was thinking something more along the lines of me being your wing woman.”

“Kara, you would make the worst wing woman in history.”

“I would not!”

“Oh, do not give me those puppy dog eyes.  No one is going to take a second look at me if you’re there.”

“That wouldn’t be an issue if you’d let me introduce you to my sister.”

“Your sister is straight,” Maggie shot back.

Kara snorted.  “My sister is in denial,” she replied.  “Trust me, she’d take one look at you and there would be an Alex-shaped hole in the closet door.”

“I’ll pass on the sister and the volleyball.  Seriously, I-”

Kara held up her hand as she turned around.

“If you’re just joining us, shortly after take-off, National City Airlines, Flight 237 bound for Geneva is experiencing some loss of altitude.  The pilot seems to be circling the city after apparent engine failure.”

Kara turned back to Maggie as she pulled open her purse, and took out two twenties.  “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go,” she said as she threw the money on the table.

“What?  Why?”

“That’s my sister’s flight,” Kara said as she started towards the door.  She didn’t wait to see if Maggie followed her.  She didn’t need to.  She heard the scrape of the feet of the bar stool as Maggie stood up.  Heard the sound of the soles of her shoes hitting the ground.  Felt the disturbance in the air as Maggie chased after her.

Kara moved more slowly than she could have.  She knew she had time to spare.  She’d picked the bar because it was along the flight path, and this time, she was neither out of practice flying, nor was she unfamiliar with the aircraft in question.  She was already pulling her jacket off as she ducked into the alley, and she could sense Maggie coming around the corner as she tossed it aside.  She ripped off the cheap drug store glasses and threw them in the same direction as the jacket as she ran, then she bent her knees and kicked off.

She nearly laughed when she heard Maggie scream, “Holy shit.”

Then she put everything out of her head but the task at hand.

She approached faster this time, her flight skills fresh and practiced from her regular runs out to Sanctuary, which is what she’d named her own not so little Fortress of Solitude.  When the engine broke free, instead of plowing through it and showing the city with flaming debris, she caught it, and with a deft spin and shove, sent it splashing down gently into the bay.  She wasted no time trying to push against the wing.  Instead, she flew up under the plane and punched through the skin, grabbing the frame member tightly, and pushing up.  There was no desperate turn to keep the wings from getting clipped.  The plane cleared Otto Bender Bridge easily, and then Kara started a slow, gentle turn.  The plane cleared the bridge a second time, before Kara guided it down gently into the water.

Once it had settled into the water, she kept pushing, sliding it along the surface, using her x-ray vision to make sure she didn’t hit anything until she ran it aground near the I-210 off ramp for National City Bay Beach.  Once the nose of the plane was pushed up on dry land, Kara let go of the plane, and swam out, climbing up on the right wing.  She stood, watching through the skin of the plane as people took movies and snap shots, before she gave Alex a nod through the window, and shot into the sky.

***

Kara had gone back to the alley, not at all surprised to find her purse, jacket and glasses gone.  She’d known Maggie wouldn’t leave them.  She’d been a bit worried she’d find the detective at her door, but as luck would have it, she was alone.  She’d showered, eaten an order of fifty buffalo wings, and was most of the way through her large supreme pizza, while watching the news coverage.

“The passengers of Flight 237 appear to have a guardian angel.  When, what many report to be a female flying form rescued them from certain death.”

“Leyna Nguyen is live at the scene.”

“Thank you, Rick.  Guardian Angel would appear to be right.  Not only did she rescue the passengers from a tragic end, but reports also indicate that she caught one of the plane’s engines as it broke free and kept it from falling on the city, and prevented the plane from hitting Otto Bender Bridge not once, but twice.  Then, after setting the plane down in National City Bay, she pushed the plane up on shore, making rescue efforts and clean-up easier and much safer.”

“Oh, my god,” Alex said.

Kara hopped up from her spot on the couch and hugged her sister, careful not to bruise her this time.  She stepped back, holding Alex by her shoulders.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, thank you.”

She watched as Alex rubbed her forehead, and did her best not to sigh.  She knew what was coming, and she’d been dreading this part of the night.

“Let me get you a drink,” she said.  She walked over to her small kitchen and poured Alex a glass of the Johnny Walker Blue Label Alex kept at her apartment.  She put the glass in Alex’s hand, and waited for her to drink it.

“So, let’s hear it,” Kara said.

“Hear what?” Alex asked.

“The part where you yell at me for exposing myself to the world, and tell me I can never use my powers again.”

“It sounds like you already know what I’m going to say,” Alex said.

Kara nodded.  “You know, given how much you complain about Eliza, you sound just like her.” It was a low blow, and Kara knew it, but the flinch from Alex still made her wish it hadn’t been necessary.

“Because she’s right about this, Kara,” Alex said.  “It’s not safe.  What if people figure out who you are?  What you are?”

“Then they figure it out.  I didn’t travel two thousand light years to be an assistant my whole life.  I had a mission, and maybe, yeah, it was already over when I got here, but that doesn’t change who I am.  /.nahn khuhp w ,kahrah,zor,ehl  .nahn khuhp w tiv inah ewuhshehd im ,kryptahnium,  .nahn khuhp w aonah wukhaiiu zrhythrev ,ehl,/  My mother was Alura In-Ze, the chief Adjudicator of Argo, my Aunt was Astra In-Ze, a General and the War Leader of the House of Ze.  I am the granddaughter of In-Ze, Myara Bar-Ul, Seg-El and Nimda An-Dor and descended in direct line from Erok-El and from the War Queens of the House of Ze.”

“Do you know what that means?  My people, my culture, my entire world may be dead, but I am still a child of Rao.  /.nahn ,rao, i chahvehd shokhpahs w pahdh tiv aorghahs ni waila/  I have not forgotten, and I will not bring shame to my house by hiding who I am like some coward.  There are people out there who need me.  People who I can help.  If that means I have to take a few risks, then I will take those risks.”

“Kara-“

Kara held up her hand.  “No.  No, you should go.  Go home, get some rest.  Get used to the idea that this is happening.”

Alex huffed, in that special way all big sisters have when they want to let their little sister know they’re being annoying and unreasonable.  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Alex said.

Translated from the Kryptonian:

.nahn khuhp w ,kahrah,zor,ehl I am Kara Zor-El

.nahn khuhp w tiv inah ewuhshehd im ,kryptahnium, I am the last daughter of Krypton

.nahn khuhp w aonah wukhaiiu zrhythrev ,ehl, I am the eldest child of the house of EL

nahn ,rao, i chahvehd shokhpahs w pahdh tiv aorghahs ni waila Rao’s first law is to make the universe whole.

[mshellbrat]

Hey guys! Got my submission finished early this week. This is both my submission for @thebookjumper Olicity Hiatus Fic-A-Thon for the Prompt: Malfunction and the next installment in my "Here or There" verse. Thanks for reading and I would love to hear what you think!

Summary:  Thea's having some iPhone problems and she comes to Felicity for help...because why wouldn't she? And if they catch lunch and get to know each other in the process? All the better!

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I own NOTHING!

Here goes...

It wasn't like a date or anything. Not like a date date or anything anyway. That's what Felicity kept telling herself. Sure, Oliver and Sara had apparently ended things (cue the internal happy dance), but that had nothing to do with this. And Felicity had nothing to do with said ending of things. She'd been perfectly happy for them. If they brought each other comfort, gave each other some shred of peace in their painful lives, who was she to judge just how selfish and twisted the whole situation was? Felicity was, admittedly, no Laurel fan even though she barely knew the woman personally. If Oliver and Sara wanted to dump salt on an obviously still gaping wound while the woman was already struggling with grief, guilt, and addiction issues...well that was their despicable decision to make, wasn't it? It was none of Felicity's business and she'd stayed nice and out of it.

But anyway...SO not a date! It was just a marathon. A friendly marathon between friends. There was no reason to stress and over-analyze every single little thing. No reason to type up a detailed two page itinerary...and she was totally going to delete that...in a minute.

“Felicity?”

Felicity jumped and immediately reached up to downsize the word document filling her screen. She painted on her professional smile and looked toward the door. Then she frowned confused. “Thea...I mean, Miss Queen?” Why was Thea Queen standing before her desk...and talking to her? It wasn't unheard of for Thea to visit Oliver at the office, but she never stopped to speak to his blonde EA. She barreled straight ahead through to Oliver. Felicity was beneath the younger Queen's notice...or she had been...before today. Felicity was honestly a little stunned that she even knew her name.

The blonde genius looked toward Oliver's empty office and realization dawned. “OH! I'm sorry, Miss Queen,” she told the smiling brunette, “but Oliver's currently in a meeting with a VP from Accounting. They're in the conference room and he won't be back until this afternoon. He's been dreading it all week. Can I take a message for you?”

“Oh no,” Thea waved away her concern and that mega-watt smile didn't dim one bit, “I'm actually here to see you.” She walked around to the side of the desk and hopped up to sit on the edge. Wearing a beautiful navy jacket, a slinky cream top, skinny jeans, and matching cream heels, Thea somehow looked both fashionable and lethal. Her eyes never left Felicity. “You are Felicity, right? Is it okay if I call you Felicity?

The blonde blinked...and gulped. Why was Thea Queen smiling at her? Why was she speaking to her? Why was she here to see her? None of the Queens, save Oliver, had any use for Felicity. In fact, she had it on good authority that Moira Queen hated her guts...and wished her serious bodily harm. Was this a trap? This had to be a trap, right? Some scheme to prove she was incompetent and deserved to be fired and then physically ejected and permanently exiled from Starling City? Oh great google! Where was Oliver when she needed him? Oliver needed to save Felicity from his pit bull of a little sister! She did not sign up for this!

When she realized Thea was still waiting on a response, Felicity gave a quick nod. The brunette smiled even wider if that was possible. “Great! So...I've got this problem.” She reached into the purse slung over her shoulder and pulled out a phone. She held it up to the blonde. “I'm having an iPhone malfunction and I heard you were the girl to see.”

Felicity blinked. “Have you also heard of the Apple Store?”

Thea pursed her lips. “Yes, but I was hoping you might be able to help me out...seeing as you work for my brother and all.”

“I'm his EA,” Felicity told her.

Thea cocked her head to the side and lifted her brows. “Aren't you like a genius?”

“How do you...”

Thea shrugged. “Ollie said something.” She looked to the side and started kicking her feet back and forth. “Anyway, so I was loading this new update on my phone and things started going totally wonky. Some of my apps disappeared, and then my code didn't work, and then it wouldn't read my thumb,” she held up said thumb in example, “and I'm almost positive if I have to set it back to factory defaults it's going to delete all my pictures of Roy.” She turned big sad eyes on Felicity and pouted like a true drama queen...pun intended. “And I never saved them to the cloud and I can never get those memories back, you know? Is there any way you could find it in your heart to help me?”

Felicity gaped at the girl a little stunned.

Thea shrugged again and sighed. “Okay, so I might be having a few problems.”

And Felicity really didn't know what to say. She still wasn't entirely convinced this wasn't a trap, but this was Thea! Oliver's Thea! And if she could help the girl, then shouldn't she? It wouldn't be the first time Felicity had wrestled with a cantankerous iPhone. They could be stubborn boogers when they wanted to. And Felicity liked Thea even if the other girl didn't know her or like her in return. She liked Roy, too. Wasn't helping Thea out the least she could do?

Her mind made up, Felicity finally nodded. “I can't make any promises, but I'll look at it for you. Do you want to pick it back up this afternoon? Or maybe Oliver can bring it back to you?”

“Oh no,” Thea waved her hand in the air, “since you're being nice enough to help me and all, I thought I could treat you to lunch. You can look at it at the restaurant and we can get to know each other in the process.” She smiled widely again.

“You,” Felicity said, “you really don't have to do that, Thea. I don't mind helping you.”

“I want to,” Thea said. “It'll be fun.”

“But...I'm at work,” Felicity said.

“You get a lunch, right?” Thea cocked a brow. She pointed toward the clock on the wall. “It's about lunchtime now.”

Felicity gaped at her. “But...your brother...”

“Is going to be in that meeting until later this afternoon, right?” Thea said.

Felicity whimpered as she ran out of excuses.

“Great!” Thea clapped. She hopped off the desk and spun back to face the blonde. “Let's go!”

Thirty minutes later both women were seated in a booth in a trendy new sandwich shop in downtown Starling. Honestly Felicity would have preferred Big Belly, but her sandwich was okay and Thea insisted on paying for the meal. Felicity was earning her keep by tackling the issues with Thea's phone.

Bypassing the key code hadn't taken long but now Felicity was running a diagnostic of the software. Somehow Thea had lost all but the standard permanent apps and utilities. Thankfully all her photos and videos seemed fine and the remaining software wasn't corrupted, but Felicity couldn't figure out why she'd lost the content to begin with...or why her key code would change.

Normally Felicity would write it off as a glitch, but this was the Queens they were talking about. What if someone had tried to hack Thea's phone? What if they sent her spyware and she'd inadvertently given them a backdoor into her personal information? Personal ID, credit and debit accounts could all be connected to your phone these days. Not only that, but with the lingering threat of Slade...there were just too many dangerous possibilities to ignore them all.

Felicity dug in her bag and pulled out her personal tablet. She used Thea's charger and connected the phone and tablet so she could take a closer look at the software. She hummed under her breath and bit her lip as she settled into her zone.

“So,” Thea drawled, “how did you and my brother meet again?”

“Uh,” Felicity shrugged but never looked up as she continued to dig through the lines of code, “he spilled a latte on his laptop. I worked in IT then.”

Thea snorted. “Sounds about right. Ollie is notoriously bad with technology.”

“He's not that bad,” Felicity defended him automatically. “Oliver lets people underestimate him. He uses it to his advantage.”

“That's surprisingly insightful,” Thea noted. “You know my brother pretty well, huh?”

Felicity looked up and smiled. “I think I do. I know I didn't know him before the island, but I think in some ways that's a good thing.”

The younger woman seemed to be studying Felicity. “You don't judge him for his past,” she realized.

“I never knew Ollie,” Felicity explained, “and I think Oliver appreciated that he had a clean slate with me. He didn't have to meet any expectations. He didn't have to worry about disappointing me.”

Thea nodded and her expression was thoughtful. “That's why he's close with Mr. Diggle too, isn't it? You both see him for who he is and not who he was.”

“I think so,” Felicity told her gently, “at least partially anyway.” She paused, but then decided to continue. She really wanted Thea to have a better understanding of her brother. “But John's also a soldier. He's lived through...some pretty horrible things. I think Oliver can relate to that.”

Thea winced and looked down. Felicity returned to her work on Thea's phone and allowed the younger woman to collect herself. The blonde was almost through double checking the code when Thea finally spoke up again. “So, why haven't you and Ollie ever dated then? Since you understand him so well and all.”

Felicity's head snapped back up and she stared at Thea wide-eyed. “I...uh...what?”

Thea grinned and her eyes sparkled. “You do find him attractive, right? So what's stopping you?”

“I'm me and he's Oliver!” Felicity told her. “We are two totally un-mixy things!” She took in the amusement in Thea's eyes and huffed. “Your brother does not see me that way, Thea. We're just friends...and...and he's my boss! That would be totally inappropriate.” She paused and then thought of something else. “Also? He just got out of a relationship. He needs time to heal.”

Thea snorted and rolled her eyes. “First of all, that thing with Sara? Totally not a relationship. More like a train wreck...a repeat train wreck.” The younger woman leaned forward against the table and closer to Felicity. “And secondly? There is absolutely no way my brother only sees you as a friend while you run around wearing those dresses.” She indicated the bright purple dress with cutouts that Felicity was currently wearing. “Ollie may have changed but he hasn't changed THAT much.”

Felicity gulped and looked desperately back down at Thea's phone. She needed to be back at work...like NOW!

When the elevator doors opened, Oliver was leaning over her desk frowning. “Felicity, where've you been? Rogers wants those projections you worked up for the project with S.T.A.R. Labs. I can't find...” he finally looked up and immediately zeroed in on Thea. His eyes narrowed and his mouth tensed. “Thea...”

Thea smiled at him sweetly. “Hi, Ollie! Sorry, I kinda stole your gurl. I needed tech support,” she waved her phone at him, “and Felicity here was nice enough to help me out. I treated her to lunch for her trouble.”

Felicity frowned and walked briskly toward her desk. “Thea's software update messed up her phone.” She leaned over and typed in the commands to pull up the report Oliver needed. She hit print and pointed toward the printer as it came to life. “That should be everything you need for Rogers.” She poked her finger into Oliver's chest. “And don't let him question the numbers. I triple checked and my math is right.”

“I'm sure,” Oliver nodded but he was still staring down his sister. “Your phone didn't seem to be giving you any problems this morning at breakfast.”

Thea shrugged. “I installed the update later. No big, Felicity fixed it for me,” she smiled again at the blonde, “and we got a chance to know each other in the process.” She focused back on her brother and canted her head to the side. “You're always saying I need new friends.”

“That's not exactly what I meant,” Oliver muttered.

Now Felicity frowned up at him. “You don't want me to be friends with your sister?”

Oliver winced and turned her way. “That's not what I meant, either.” He studied the blonde with affectionate eyes. “I think Thea could definitely benefit from a positive and supportive female friend, Felicity. Anyone would be lucky to count you as their friend.”

Felicity's stomach fluttered and she smiled at him. “Thank you.”

“Awesome!” Thea cut in. She skipped forward to stand across the desk from them. “Then we're definitely on for manis and pedis, right?” she asked Felicity.

Oliver looked back toward his sister suspiciously, but Felicity nodded. “Sure. You have my number.”

“Yes,” Thea grinned at Oliver as she nodded, “yes, I do.” She motioned between her brother and the blonde. “I'll let you two get back to work now. I've wasted enough of your very valuable time.” She spun on her heels and headed back toward the elevators. “But I'll text you later, Felicity. We'll set up the details for this weekend.”

“Okay,” Felicity nodded. She still felt a little overwhelmed by Thea's sheer presence and exuberant personality, but she liked the girl and she wanted to know her better. Thea seemed to be giving her a chance and Felicity was determined to take it. Besides, just knowing how much Oliver loved and adored his sister, Felicity couldn't help but feel affection for the younger woman.

Felicity didn't understand, however, why Oliver suddenly looked so worried. She cocked her head to the side and looked up at him. “What?”

“I...just...” Oliver lifted a hand and ran it over the top of his head and down to the back of his neck. “Did Thea...say anything...”

“About what?” Felicity frowned as she studied his face. Was he, was Oliver Queen, actually blushing?

Oliver squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “Nothing...nothing.” He blew out a breath and motioned toward the printer. “I should really get that report and head back to the meeting.”

Felicity nodded. “Okay.”

The two of them maneuvered around until Oliver could move over to the printer and Felicity could slip into her chair behind her desk. The blonde genius had just spun back to focus on her monitor and her work when Oliver cleared his throat and drew her attention back to him. She looked up to find him grinning at her. “By the way?”

She blinked. “Yes?”

“The itinerary for our marathon?” He cocked one brow. “I'm impressed. Very thorough.” He stayed long enough to watch the bright red blush rise from Felicity's chest to cover her neck and cheeks. Then he winked at her, turned, and left.

Felicity groaned and thumped her head down into her hands. “I swear, these Queens are going to be the death of me!”

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the story!

@thebookjumper @olicityhiatusficathon

[admesser]

Hello everyone!

To kick off my new series of interviews with authors, artists, and creators, I want to introduce you to Seth Greenwood and Angela Zhang.  I have been following their work for a couple of years now, and find the story intriguing and the artwork incredible.

Seth Greenwood

Angela Zhang

1) Please discuss your creative background. Who are you, and how did you get involved with your art?

SG: I would love to tell you some quirky little story of how I got involved in writing comics. But I am afraid the answer is very simple. I was a dreamer, a poet, and a blogger when I traveled to South Korea to live for a year. One of my co-workers kept telling me about all of these ideas he wanted to make into comics. At that time I was 27 or so and I didn’t know the first thing about comics, and to be honest I had never even read my first comic book. I was always into reading novels and watching films. You might even say that I was disinterested but I believe I finally decided to do it because a friend needed my help and I felt I had the ability to make it happen. Stories are stories, right? So when I said yes, I jumped into research head first. I learned how to write, and format scripts. I started reading many comics from the past and present, and ultimately I started writing my first script for a P.A. piece called “Covenant”.

AZ:  While I didn’t realize it back then, I was making wordless comics on the back of my mom’s PhD thesis drafts since I was 7 years old. When I grew up,  I thought academia and teaching were the only viable career paths for artists. So I ended up going to art school and then completed a master’s in Art History. I realized that reading theory and writing about art really wasn’t my thing. I ended up working in administration full time for a while. It was during this time that I discovered there are people who will pay you to draw if you were good enough. So I kept working on my art on the side. (I spent a whole year waking up at  5AM before work to practice drawing and I am NOT a morning person hahaha!) In 2014, I quit my job to pursue freelance illustration. It’s been hard, to say the least, but no doubt creatively rewarding. So far I’ve done storyboards, concept art, architecture illustration, product design, book covers and of course comics!

2) How did you two meet and collaborate on the Gale Project?

SG: Long story short? “Covenant” never happened. I decided to try my hand at screenwriting since I had such a bad first experience. I realized quickly that even with the best of friends, partnerships can be very difficult to maintain. One night I posted a snippet from one of my screenplays on a blog and tweeted the link. I never expected to get a reaction but that script reeled in one of my favorite artists to this day! Angela Zhang tweeted me and said that she liked my style and to contact her if I ever wanted to do a noir style comic. I didn’t know if this was an empty gesture, but I immediately replied that I knew just the story for us. The rest is history. Angela and I have known each other for a little over 3 years now and we have been moonlighting Gale ever since.

AZ: My big dream has been to make a long-running comic series. But I’m not a writer.  As an adult,  I really got into comics through the works of Craig Thompson (Blankets) and independent creators like Rich Barrett (Nathan Sorry), Lora Innes (The Dreamer) and Jason Brubaker (reMIND). The first comic that I posted online was a realistic, drama that focused on character acting, mood and atmosphere.  I didn’t think anyone else would be into this kind of story until I came across Seth’s writing online. He has a knack for natural dialogue and I can imagine his character’s emotions through their words. I honestly didn’t think anything would come out of our tweets. But it was his persistence and speed that convinced me, yes, this guy wants to make a comic as much as I do.

3) What is the inspiration for Gale?

SG: Oh wow! A lot! The idea of Gale, whether I knew it or not, first started to form in 10th grade when I wrote a free verse poem about a man at his father’s funeral who had obviously been murdered for some mysterious reason. The rest of the story comes from my experience with the world that I grew up in. The things I noticed that were beautiful on the outside were actually rotting on the inside. I started writing about those things you don’t introduce yourself with and immediately start talking about. Politics, civil rights, class consciousness, you name it. It’s all in Gale, in a quasi-dystopian alternate reality. I don’t intend to present my solution to these issues in Gale. In the end, it is a fictional story that will hopefully both entertain and inspire.

AZ: In terms of art, Seth and I met over Skype where he would describe his vision. Gale’s world is a mix of the old and new in American culture. The vehicles and architecture are based on 1940s design and they coexist with our everyday technology, like cell phones and laptops. When we visit Ned Norman’s mansion, there’s a touch of gothic horror. I researched Hollywood movies between the 1930s and 1950s. My library has a collection of classic films. I would rent Hitchcock and Dracula to see how directors in those days composed dramatic shots, knowing that the output would be in black and white.

4) Please describe the visualization process from script to screen. How do you imagine it as a writer, and how do you imagine it as an illustrator?

SG: Would it sound too unreal if a lot of what Angela does is almost exactly how I see it in my head. It’s almost as if she downloaded my brain onto a Wacom Tablet. But the process is much harder than that! It’s why I am the writer and she is the artist. Every once in a while she will suggest something and most of the time it makes it better or translates better to the comic medium. One thing that I had a problem doing at first, was getting out of the habit of writing scenes and getting into the habit of writing still panels. Angela did a wonderful job showing movement and expression.

AZ: I’m grateful that Seth trusts me and gives me a lot of creative freedom to put his words into comic form. We have  over 50 posts on our Patreon blog detailing the process from script to panel (collecting reference, thumbnailing, layout, word bubbles etc.) To be honest, these days I don’t even think about my process, because drawing Gale has become more intuitive for me. I think what lead to this magical understanding between Seth and I is that we’ve built a solid friendship. If you get to know Seth, you will see that he’s truly caring and generous. We chat almost every day. Seth sends me photos, writing and videos related to Gale and we talk about life too. The more that I think about it, our conversations allow me to have a better understanding of where Seth is coming from and deeper insight into the characters and the world of Gale.

5) Talk about the heart of Gale’s storyline. What challenges does it face?

SG: Angela may want to elaborate, but I believe this sums up the storyline.:

Gale is a drama, mystery and suspense story that draws inspiration from film noir. Rookie attorney Gale Norman is determined to seek out the truth behind his father’s mysterious death. As Gale’s suspicions grow, buried memories of his mother’s disappearance resurface and he refuses to hide from his dark past. With the help of his childhood friend, Laurie Gambill, Gale attempts to solve a seemingly ordinary mystery that may eventually lead him in a downward spiral. Will he uncover the truth to his parent’s demise or will he become further entangled in a web of lies?

As far as challenges? Well here recently my life has been unpredictable. Being a full-time soldier in the US Army and trying to write, update social media and maintain a valuable connection with our audience has been hard to say the very least. We have had to try to remain very flexible. I have had to re-dedicate myself over and over again. It’s something that plagues me but at the same time it is something I can’t and won’t leave.

AZ: Making the characters relatable is one of the challenges that Seth and I are always thinking about. At first, I had a hard time describing Gale to people because the story has many layers. Gale also comes from a wealthy upbringing which is pivotal to the story but  I can’t relate to it.  After I completed the scene where Gale kisses his childhood friend Laurie, I started relating to them in a real way. I thought about how the 20s is an interesting period to explore the loss of innocence. Unlike adolescence, the loss is more of intellectual awakening. In Gale’s case, it’s about dealing with death, discovering the truth about his past, getting friend-zoned by the only one he trusts and feeling alone in the world. As the series progresses, Gale gets caught up in more and more unbelievable situations. I think as long as we’re grounding the story in an emotional truth we’ll overcome the challenge of making the characters relatable.

6) What are some difficulties you have experienced with the project and how did you overcome them?

SG: I’m glad you said “some”! Let’s see here. The decision to publish Gale independently was not always considered. We did that when we realized the publisher would really not have much more to offer us and we wanted complete freedom for the project.

Angela had issues with me not being patient and almost jumping the gun a couple of times before we were ready. That is just me. I am a little too ambitious at times. She was always the voice of reason when it came to the business side of things. A lot of times she had to pull my head out of the clouds.

We have had to push back launch dates because of our day jobs and we have had to cancel convention appearances for the same thing. The way we overcome obstacles is to keep pressing on, remain flexible, and continue to create this wonderful story that’s brought so many people together. It’s persistence, more than anything, it is always persistence.

AZ: I think Seth and I have an interesting dynamic that I’ve come to appreciate. In the beginning, we had a bit of friction because we didn’t understand our working styles. I have to think things through from all sides, create a plan and put a process in place to execute. Seth, on the other hand, will act immediately when he gets an idea. I don’t think Gale would have the following it does today without Seth’s fearlessness, tenacity and enthusiasm to try new things. However, self-publishing a comic to our standards of quality has a lot of finer details that require time and planning. What I love about Seth is that he’s open to feedback, he’s always willing to improve and that inspires me to do the same.

On a personal side, I was very slow at drawing Gale pages in the beginning. It would take me a month to finish a page. Seth probably worried at some point whether I was cut out for this job and he’s been really flexible and patient with the project. Some people told me I should simplify my art for comics. But I pushed myself to keep going in the style I have for Gale and I reinvented my process along the way. I’ve learned that just because you have an ounce of talent, it doesn’t entitle you to anything except hard work. Now I can produce 3-4 pages a month alongside my full-time work.

7) Please discuss your creative process. Do you follow a schedule? Set deadlines? How do you get the creative juices flowing for your project?

SG: I am chaotic! Ask my wife. Despite my military experience, I can be somewhat all over the place. The reason why Angela is much more than the artist and she carries the title co-creator is because she keeps me on point. She keeps us on schedule. I write when I am inspired, I send notes to Angela and forget to save them in the shared file so she does it for me. If it was not for her I wouldn’t have come this far. No other artist would have taught me how to maintain good order in this line of work.  As for creative juices? I read books, watch some character driven NETFLIX shows, and study people and cultures. I love Sociology, Anthropology, and Psychology. One thing that is most important in this process, however,  is reading. To be a great writer, you have to be a reader first!

AZ: I actually have a militaristic approach when it comes to creativity. If you’ve ever read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, you’ll get where I’m coming from. In the past, I’ve struggled with time management and it has a lot to do with fear and procrastination. I now manage and track my creative time through a pomodoro app. It’s basically an interval timer that alternates between a work and break period. When that whistle sounds for the work interval I’m not checking email or rummaging through social media. The app allows you to export an excel spreadsheet so you can see how long you spent on a task or project. I base my schedule and deadlines around the data and strive to be more efficient over time.

On the other end of the spectrum, I think it’s important for artists to recharge their creative juices to prevent burnout.  Although I’m rigid and structured during projects, I’m the complete opposite when it comes to downtime. I like going for aimless walks, cooking, watching movies, reading manga, and comics and playing video games with my fiancé (who by the way has been super supportive of Gale).

8) What is in store for Gale? When will it be released?

SG: I don’t want to steal Angela’s thunder. Most of this is her brilliance. I will let you take the reigns for this, co-creator!

AZ: As Seth mentioned, we’re going the self-publishing route and playing the long game of making a series one page at a time. Instead of releasing Gale when it’s all done, we’re inviting people to follow our journey of making comics by sharing the process, what we’ve learned through trial and error and how we’re constantly striving to improve. I think that’s more fulfilling for us creators to relate to readers every step of the way then just popping up one day and saying ‘hey here’s  our product, buy it.’

Last fall we completed Chapter 1: The Calm and launched it on Webtoon and we’re also currently posting it panel by panel on Instagram. We’re halfway through Chapter 2: Storm Chaser and aiming to finish it by the end of this year. Next year, we’re going to explore Kickstarter as well as comic book conventions.

9) Do you have anything you would like to add to the article?

AZ:  I want to thank anyone who took the time to read our interview. Although we’re small and at the beginning of our journey, I’m super grateful and touched by all the support that Gale has received.  I also want to give huge thanks to the Savannah Quill for having us and putting all of this together. I deeply appreciate this opportunity to share our thoughts and  process

SG: Same as Angela, thanks! Also, look out for Gale on Webtoon and make sure you stay tuned for a short we have contributed to Red Stylo Media’s newest upcoming anthology; a collaboration of artists and writers paying tribute to the band, Forence + The Machine entitled “Cosmic Love”. The Kickstarter for the main print run will launch sometime this Fall. Just look for the announcement on IG “Stories” or on Twitter!

www.thegalecomic.com

IG: www.instagram.com/thegalecomic/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/thegalecomic

Webtoon: http://tiny.cc/mnwrxy

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/galecomic

©2019 Adam Messer. All Rights Reserved.

Inside the minds of The Gale Comic creator and artist. #indie #author #comicbook #artist #adammesser #sethgreenwood #angelazhang #thegalecomic www.adammesser.net Hello everyone! To kick off my new series of interviews with authors, artists, and creators, I want to introduce you to Seth Greenwood and Angela Zhang. 

[allenvooreef]

Year three of daily drawing - my experiences

Read about my first year HERE and my second year HERE

Wow! Three full years of daily drawing, all done. When I started out I didn’t even think I’d make it past the first week. I’m still baffled, to be honest. Time to look back on this third year, and on the challenge as a whole. I have a LOT of thoughts, let’s see if I can make some sense of them under the cut.

What was the plan? At the end of last year, I said this about my plans for 2018:

Do more studies, for real this time. I’ll be keeping a tally in my bullet journal of value, anatomy, landscape, portrait and material studies and aim to do at least twenty of each this year. Aside from that, I’m actually pretty happy with how my developement has been going this past year so I aim to just keep that up. I want to do at least one more year of dailies, because I just really like the number three and it means I’ll have over a thousand total. 

And how did that work out? Well, I made my study goal! 100 total, and 20 in each listed category. Though, as expected, I ended up making the bulk of them in the last two months to catch up. I think I learned a lot from doing those, but looking back, I feel like I only scratched the surface. See the way studies work is you copy first, then try to reproduce it without reference, then implement the techniques in an original artwork. I stopped at copying, meaning I learned about a third of what I could have if I had taken a bit more time. 

Something else I wanted to work on in 2018 was to stop letting these dailies cut into my sleep time. I set a timer on my phone for 8pm everyday to remind me to start drawing, and used my bullet journal to keep track of all the days I was in bed before midnight. While it definitely didn’t work *all* the time, I do feel like it made a significant difference. The feeling I got everytime I was in a late train home from band rehearsal and I realized I’d already made my daily earlier that day was priceless.

Time to quit? I already predicted I’d probably want to stop after my third year. Turns out that once I’d formed that thought in my mind, I suddenly started to *really* feel like quitting. I mean, I wasn’t about to quit before I’d reached the three year mark, I’m way too stubborn for that, but I did notice a significant drop in my motivation around April. I had an increasingly hard time coming up with things to draw, often lacked the mental energy for more ‘finished’ looking sketches, and overall started to feel like it was a chore instead of something I enjoyed. Near the end of the year I often spent over an hour just hovering my pen over my tablet before actually drawing anything. A sure sign that this challenge was no longer serving its purpose and it was time to stop.

Besides that, this year also brought along some pretty big life events for me, meaning I had little to no brain space and energy to spare for art for a while. Though forcing myself to draw through that exhaustion wasn’t fun, I’m relieved to notice that it didn’t kill my love for creating. If anything, it fueled my longing to make more elaborate artworks, to spend more than just an hour on something, to allow myself to let something sit for a few days before returning to it. 

An unexpected obstacle was a sudden bug in Photoshop, or my tablet, or both, that messed with my pen pressure. Meaning that for every 10 pen strokes I did, about 8 or 9 would come out as gross hard-angled black blobs. I have no idea what triggered this, and still no idea how to fix it (I use a pirated version of Photoshop so I can’t update it), so it meant that every drawing took at least twice the effort since I now spent over half my time ctrl+z ing until I could draw the line I intended. Seeing as my motivation was already dwindling, this certainly didn’t help in keeping these dailies fun to make.

Am I happy with the things I drew? Looking back on the things I drew in 2018, I think I’ve further solidified my workflow, having a clear preferred method of sketching and coloring. I sometimes tried turning off the line layers to see if it could work without, which was fun to see, but overall I think I stayed inside my comfort zone a lot (except for the studies). I don’t think I mind, though. Now that I know how I like to work, I can do it much more efficiently than I could before, and that’s a valuable time saver. I also focused on making my drawings look a bit less flat, approaching it as three-dimensional shapes rather than lines. There’s still a lot more work to be done in this department, but I’m happy with the steps I’ve taken so far!

What did I set out to learn, and did I? For 2018 specifically, it was ‘to make great strides in my mastery of anatomy, value, materials, portraits and landscapes’. As stated above, I feel like I haven’t nearly learned enough from the studies I did. Making these studies did give me more experience in a painterly workflow, and I noticed my eye for value and color getting sharper over time, but to really make the kind of progress I’d been looking for I’ll have to go the extra mile. Maybe I’ll get around to that now that I don’t feel obligated to post it all. 

What did I learn that I didn’t expect to? That even when I’d made a habit out of daily drawing, I can’t and shouldn’t go on forever. I thought the reason I’d quit eventually would be because I’d simply be bored with it. I don’t think I expected to have as much trouble finding the energy to keep it up, nor did I realize the time spent on these dailies meant less time spent on larger artworks. 

Looking back on the challenge as a whole:

What did I set out to learn, and did I?

1. To get over my fear of creating bad art I obviously didn’t 100% shake that feeling, but then again I’m starting to feel like I shouldn’t aim for that. As long as it’s not holding me back anymore, that bit of frustration when something doesn’t work as well as I hoped it would is the thing that’s going to drive me to keep improving. And looking back on how utterly stuck I was before starting this challenge, I’d say this goal has definitely been achieved. Now, I know creating something imperfect is always better than creating nothing at all, and I’ve also experienced that a lot of the time things work out better than I’d feared. 

2. To make better art Oh that definitely happened. I’ve improved way more in these past three years than in the three years before that. Some of the dailies I made in an hour are better than the artworks I’d spend multiple days on back then. As intended, the sheer amount of practice resulted in a better eye for cohesive proportions, and it allowed me to finally get comfortable with a certain style. Even though in hindsight I could have done way more to improve through this challenge, I’m very happy with the skill upgrade it did bring.

What did I learn that I didn’t expect to?

1. That I can actually do this It sounds silly, but trust me when I say I never *ever* actually believed I was going to last for longer than a week. I always thought I wasn’t the type of person who could keep up with resolutions. What I learned is that apparently I *am* stubborn enough to keep up with challenges, as long as I feel like I have something to prove to myself. And as long as I’m the one who set the rules. That way I can’t complain about them, after all! ;) 

2. To be self-indulgent There was a clear shift somewhere halfway through the challenge where I realized I had been holding off on drawing too much of the same thing, because I felt like my followers would be fed up with it. I felt like I wasn’t ‘legit’ when I was only drawing fan art. I realized that was holding me back, because now I was spending time and energy on figuring out the proper subject for my dailies before even putting pen to paper! The moment I let go of those expectations, and allowed myself to be as self-indulgent with my drawings as I’d like, my art improved. As did my love for art, and the response I got from you! 

Plans for 2019

I figured it was best for me not to jump right into a new challenge after this, so I’ve been spending my time just recharging. As I write this, it’s been 13 days since my last daily, and I haven’t felt the need to draw since. I’m taking it slow, getting a feel for where I stand now and what I’d like to learn next. I treated myself to a Schoolism subscription during their Winter Sale, meaning I have access to amazing course material all year, and I can’t wait to see how that will help me grow. 

I look forward to making sketches without ‘having to’ post them. Meaning I can copy art by other artists to learn from them without plagiarizing. Meaning I can decide to continue a sketch the next day, with fresh eyes. 

One thing I will still consistently do, is make a monthly Patreon illustration. I’ve rearranged the reward tiers to make the most out of the time I have, and I look forward to keep creating and improving with the help of my lovely Patrons.

I’m making a booklet with all the dailies in it, as well as some more in-depth reflection and tips & tricks. Partly because some of you expressed interest, and partly because I feel like it’s important for me to have a physical thing to show for all my efforts. I’ll let you know as soon as pre-orders open!

Right, I think that was about it! If you’re considering a daily drawing challenge and are wondering if it’s for you, feel free to message me if you have questions! If you decide to do daily drawings because of me (which is just... wow), I’d love it if you tagged me in one so I can check them out! 

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for sticking with me through this challenge! Your enthusiasm encouraged me to keep going, and seeing your tags and comments in the mornings was one of the highlights of my day.

I’ll leave you with some links:

Check out every single daily in my daily drawing tag

If you’d like, you can support and be involved in my art journey through my Patreon

If this information was in any way useful to you, or you’d just like to make my day, you can buy me a coffee

Find me on twitter and instagram too!

[mysticsparklewings]

Europe’s Eclipsing Sensation

Ta-da! This is the infamous school project I was working on a while ago. Funnily enough, it took about three weeks to complete, and it took about three weeks after before I could post it, partially due to me wanting to wait until it was graded so it wouldn't look like I stole it from myself, and also because I just haven't had the time to give this description the attention I think it deserves. And so, here we are. So who and what exactly is this? The Master of Mystery before you, if you don't recognize him, is none other than Harry Houdini, the famed magician. And here I have recreated this photo of him completely out of text, and photoshop brushes made from individual letters and characters to speed up the process once I realized how slow-going typing out words and them using the warp tool to shape them was going to be. (Mostly because I've been having some lag issues with Photoshop I have no explanation for.) Now, loyal watchers of mine will likely notice this is pretty far outside the realm of things I normally make. Firstly, it's photo-realistic. Secondly, since when have I ever made images out of text like this? The reason this thing is so abnormal is that I was given certain projects to choose from and re-creating an image out of text, among those options, was the one that appealed to me the most. It was also the only project on the list that was digital, which I thought would really play into my strengths, give me a chance to use my drawing tablet (which was still pretty new to me back in August) and would be a good option to ease me into working in the classroom environment with a project close to what I'm used to doing. As they say, it's better to set yourself up for success, so that's what I tried to do. The funny thing is that while this project is pretty different from Painting, I actually ended up listening to a lot of advice the teacher was giving. For context: There are three levels of Painting and my Design class going on in the same classroom at the same time. Which sounds like a nightmare, but it's actually kind of nice. I'm not much of a painter, but I believe the advice I'm overhearing to be very solid, and the overall environment...Let me tell you guys, more than once already I've wanted to cry tears of joy because compared to the high school art classes I'm coming from, this is so much better and more helpful. It's made me realize just how toxic those previous classes really were; that it wasn't just me dragging my feet in the mud when I didn't like them or saw problems. This class is so much healthier a learning habitat for an artist! Anyway. When I inquired about the project, the teacher told me to pick someone iconic, and then proceeded to tell me that people like Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga are not what she considers iconic. I will agree to disagree on that, at least as far as Lady Gaga is concerned. This was mildly disappointing because I knew my choices were going to be limited, and I did not want to pick someone I had no interest in spending a lot of time studying. Already I was traveling outside of my comfort zone in a few ways, and I know it shows when I'm not passionate about or remotely interested in a project. Other "icons" I tried before landing on Houdini include; Pharaoh Tutankhamen's funeral mask, Willy Wonka, Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Elphaba from Wicked, and Edgar Allen Poe. Because things that I consider iconic and also actually like are not two categories that overlap terribly. And I wanted to do something a little unexpected or unconventional. Something I could have fun with. I forget how exactly I thought to try Houdini, though I think I was thinking of things I had an interest in and magic (both as in shows and as in fictional) came up, and Harry Houdini is arguably one of if not the most famous magicians of all time. And while I won't bore you with all the details here, if you look him up he turns out to be a pretty interesting character in general. So as far as constructing this thing went, I started by using the original photo to create a general outline, then had it and my working canvas set up side-by-side in Photoshop pretty much the entire time I was working, so I was never without the visual aid. Then I started with a rough layer of words to get a general idea of where different shades of gray would go and to get a rather unsteady feel of how the whole process was going to work. (Fun fact: The words I used were words I thought you could association with either Houdini himself or magicians in general, including Spectacle, Magic, Illusion, Escape Artist, Facade, etc.) It didn't take long for me to realize that going about it that way, while an interesting idea, was going to require more time and patience than I really had to give. So I pulled an old Photoshop trick out of my sleeve. I typed out certain letters and characters like (), T, o, i, H, and then made brushes out of those letters so that I could still have the textured look of the, uh, text, while getting a feel closer to normal brushes that I'm more used to using, and it sped up the process dramatically. After I figured that out, it was pretty much a back and forth of adding layers of black, then adding layers of white until the area looked how I wanted it to look. I focused on smaller sections at a time, and out of the different sections, the face is probably the one I spent the most time and effort on. There are layers, upon layers, upon layers that were built up all over this thing, but the face got three primary major alterations in the hopes of making it look like the original, because the first time around it was very, very off. And speaking of things that were very, very off...Hands in art, in general, are not my strong suit and are generally agreed upon as one of the more difficult parts of basic anatomy, at least from what I've seen. However, in my defense, the hands in the original photo are...strange...And even after a lot of contemplation, I'm still not quite sure why, beyond the simple answer of it being an awkward position because of the handcuffs. The experienced students in the art class and the teacher had the same general consensus. So, if you were wondering, here is your explanation as to why the hands look so queer. Take it or leave it. There are some minor differences between what I've done here and the original image, namely the texture (which is a product of how this was made, so I don't count it and actually really like the visual interest it adds) and a few small differences in shading. Most of that was done at the teacher's suggestion because anyone who knows me knows that when it comes to a recreation of this nature, I am usually a stickler for accuracy first and foremost. But I can't say it's a bad thing here. It works, and it adds more than it outright changes to the look of the original. Overall, though it is still very outside my normal scope of artwork, I am satisfied with how it turned out. And hey, I got a 99 on it, so at the very least I can be happy I got a good grade for it. I do wish it hadn't taken me so long to get around to posting it, but given that Inktober has come and gone and I'm struggling with this year's NaNoWriMo big-time, it is kind of a good thing I have a few things in reserve to post while fresh content is a little sparse. Oh, and a fun little tidbit about where the title for this came from: Turns out there's a poster for one of Houdini's shows that features the same pose as my reference photo, and that's the headline at the top. But I was stuck between that and what appears to be the most common phrase in his advertising, "the Master of Mystery." What made my decision for me is the interesting part. There's this book I read in grade school called "Hocus Pocus," which is told by a sort-of real-life magician who worked on some of the Harry Potter movies, Paul Kieve. In the story, Paul meets a lot of famous magicians from the past (they literally pop out of the posters he has!) because they want to help him be a better magician. It's really fun and you can actually learn a few tricks along the way.  I ended up with my own personal copy (I originally read the school library's copy sometime after I ran through all the Goosebumps books they had) and there's a little folder stuck inside the back cover, which I remembered having not only a few cards for some fun visual tricks but also a few postcard prints of the magician posters. On a whim, I decided to check and see if there was a Houdini in there. And wouldn't you know it! The poster with this pose was one of them! And thus, my decision was made for me.  (I'm tempted to bring the card to class tomorrow to show the teacher, but she's usually pretty busy as it is, so...) It sure is funny how life works out sometimes. Next up: Likely another colored pencil review I've been meaning to post, I need to update my Meet the Artist picture, and I have a couple of text-oriented ideas I need to figure out what to do with. And also probably a commission I finished the concepts for today. (And maybe maybe maybe some NaNo stuff? I have an idea to get back on track...but we'll see.) ____ Artwork (c) me, MysticSparkleWings I do not own the original reference image. ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[raystart]

No Clients, No Limits, No Deadlines—Welcome to the Hell of Redesigning Your Own Website

Redesigning your company’s website should be the ideal design experience—an opportunity to highlight your proudest achievements without a pesky client looking over your shoulder—but it’s often the one task every agency employee dreads. There’s no shortage of excuses. An agency’s site is a vital tool for generating new business, but it’s the only project that doesn’t end with an invoice, so it’s constantly competing with paid work. And when 30 or 40 cooks are messing around in the kitchen, a few food fights are inevitable. If there’s any truth in the old trope about the cobbler’s children having no shoes, then the design industry has barefoot kids running rampant.

We spoke with several agencies that emerged from the experience with plenty to say.

In the fall of 2016, Threespot’s chief creative officer William Colgrove noticed their website had gotten a little stale, so he created a simple one-page “front door” with a graffiti aesthetic that announces: “We help progressive causes make the world a better place.” The approach is consistent with the founders’ history of performing together in Washington D.C.’s punk scene in their younger years; and when Donald Trump was elected weeks later, it seemed even more appropriate.

“One of our clients recently told me, ‘I hire you so I can put you in front of people and you can say unpopular things that they need to hear,’ so that ‘rebel’ aesthetic makes sense,” says Colgrove, who believes too many agencies construct bland, soul-less portfolios for fear of putting off clients in search of versatility. Colgrove sketched out Threespot’s punk aesthetic on his own, then brought it to fruition with the help of a creative director steeped in UX design.

“The idea was to make it like a Ramone’s song—a tight, catchy, two-and-a-half-minute song that you’ll remember.”

Once the design was locked, staffers selected six of their favorite projects just before launch. Animations were added as an additional touch, later in the process, and the site was coded from scratch, without a CMS.

Ammunition (in Brooklyn and San Francisco) also realized the need to add energy to its site, which includes a portfolio of industrial design, brand identity, and user experience work.

“In the past, we’d always created beautiful renders of our work on a grey background with drop shadows, which was all we could really do the day a product launched,” says Aaron Poe, VP of digital. “But we realized that we needed to show the Square stand in a cafe, a Lyft driver out in San Francisco, and Beats headphones worn on a subway because brand development is about all those touchpoints, not just a logo.”

Homepage layout, courtesy of Agency Leroy

Helsinki’s Agency Leroy took a distinctly Scandinavian approach to its site (surprise, surprise), echoing the sparse design of Tumblr with scrolling series of images introduced with one or two sentences of copy—and that’s it.

“With copywriting, the shorter the text, the longer it will survive,” says creative director Janne Hänninen. “If you say, ‘This year, we did this…’ and launch into the details, it’s going to age faster than something more neutral—and every case should be pretty self-explanatory, anyway.”

“For us, the goal is to promote the attitude of the agency itself rather than explaining every single case.”

Agency Leroy also has one of the simplest staff pages you’ll find, eschewing colorful portraits of employees for a simple listing of names, titles, and contact info. “The photo archive of our personnel is never quite complete—someone always says, ‘My hair doesn’t look like that anymore,’ and it’s just one more excuse to avoid launching your site. Remove those obstacles and lower the threshold—that’s my design philosophy.”  

Perhaps that’s why the design process was led by a two-person team that included Hänninen. “We kept the rest of the agency aware of what was happening, but it was presented more as, ‘This is the direction we’re going in. If anyone has anything to say, now is the time,” he says.

“The process was intentionally forced [to move quickly], because we know that this site will be run over by the next design pretty soon, anyway.”

For its part, Ammunition worked hard to keep people within the agency informed, so they’d feel more comfortable with the changes ahead. “We were very transparent throughout the whole process” says VP of marketing and communications, Sara Munday. “We didn’t want to go away for months, do the work, and come back with this big ‘Ta-da!’ moment.”

Project page layout, courtesy of Brand Union

Of course, it’s a fine line between checking in and being beholden to dozens of opinions, a lesson that Brand Union’s digital creative director Marta Swannie learned quickly. “When we began our redesign we had a lot of people involved, but in the end we narrowed it down so that key decisions were being made by two people—the CEO and the chief product officer—and that really sped things up,” she says. “With the size of our network and so many people in different time zones, it was the only way to [keep things moving forward].”

Move quickly, yes, but don’t mess it up. Swannie was tasked with the redesign her first week on the job in London, making her first client the company’s global CEO, no pressure.

“We treated our site design like a proper client project: we had to reconcile the budget every week, check in with the worldwide client director, and we had a full team [assigned to the work].”

When the design team needed content from offices, official briefs were sent out to staff and followed up with a note from the CEO. Ammunition took the same tack, advertising the project as a “nine-month labor of love” that started with the typical stakeholder insights they’d pursue with any substantial project.  

“We discovered the site itself was being viewed 82% on desktop and only 18% on tablet and mobile, and we thought there was an opportunity to improve that,” says Poe. “But we also learned that a lot of our prospective clients were viewing everything on 27” monitors, so there was a big opportunity to fill that gap, literally, with richer images and more animations so the site didn’t feel so static; those findings were key to making the site look the way it does now.”

Building the site is one thing, but once it’s live, whose job is it to add new work and updates? Unlike a typical client project, there’s no hand off and walk away at the end of your own site redesign. “In managing Ammunition’s previous site, I was the only person who knew how to upload new content, which was a lot of work,” says Munday. “Our new site has a more comprehensive content strategy that requires editing images and wrangling video, so we had to discuss how things would work in practice. In the end, we created a team of people to help out.”

Homepage layout, courtesy of Ammunition

Once Ammunition’s site launched, account reps continued to schedule five hours a week for upkeep, which includes creating assets for the blog, writing copy for new projects, and photo shoots of client work “in the wild.”

Making the new site easy to update was also a top priority for Agency Leroy. “We made the backend so straightforward that it’s impossible to fail,” says Hänninen. “There are no options and no layout decisions to be made. For creative people, the self-criticism is so bad, we put the threshold for publishing as low as possible.” Hänninen admits that the simple layout means that small projects and huge projects all receive the same treatment, but it’s a small price to pay.

“I believe agencies should think of their own sites like a magazine—there’s always going to be another issue. You’re going to have to re-do the entire site in a year or two, and that should lower the pressure; it doesn’t need to be perfect.”

You will make mistakes. You may waste time, and you may waste money. And you’ll probably argue over quite a few things that don’t really matter all that much. Just take note, for the next time.

Brand Union’s lesson was a simple one: add a little more padding into the schedule before flipping the switch. “We were about to go live and I remember realizing that we were still waiting for client sign-off for several of the case studies,” says Swannie. Clients had all asked to see the design in situ, which means there was little alternative to waiting until the last minute, but when you’re juggling dozens of approvals over the course of months, the very last one can easily slip your mind.

Threespot’s Colgrove looks back on the project and wishes he had been a little more forthcoming early on. “Sometimes I have a very clear idea how a site should look, from the language to the design and the tone, and I haven’t been clear with my staff, because I wanted to give them a chance to run with their own ideas,” says Colgrove. “But I’ve learned I should be more honest and more direct early on—I shouldn’t be afraid to say, ‘This isn’t good’ or ‘I don’t like this typeface. If you’re particular, then you’re particular—own it.”

[actionadventuretime]

La-Mulana

After an unintended, rather lengthy hiatus, I’m back. I’m going to be abandoning the grading system I used for my first few reviews and just discussing the various areas that make up an action-adventure game without binding myself to having to grade them.

La-Mulana is a sprawling side-scroller action/adventure platformer (aka Metroidvania) created by independent publisher Nigoro. It was originally released as freeware in an 8-bit style reminiscent of the popular Japanese computer system, MSX. In 2012, it was re-released with an updated, 16-bit style as Wii-ware and on Steam.

The game is absolutely massive, featuring 9 different areas, each containing a front side and a back side, which is kind of like the Dark World from Link to the Past. Puzzles will frequently take you across many multiple areas over the course of one puzzle chain or line of exploration. This game is definitely not for the faint of heart - even with extensive help from a walkthrough/wiki, it took me 14 hours of ingame time, and twice that of application time (any time you die and have to reload, it isn’t counted against your ingame time, but Steam still tracks the time the application was open) to make it through the game start to finish. Without external aid with the game’s many puzzles, it can easily take 40+ hours to complete.

Story: Story is probably La-Mulana’s weakest point. You’re thrown into the world with a little bit of guidance of “go explore the ruins of La-Mulana, because you’re an archaeologist and that’s what you do.” You get a few snippets of plot throughout, but the majority of the story is dumped on you in a couple of conversations near the end of the game: There’s a god-like being named Mother, she’s responsible for the creation of all life. Her children have always tried to return her “to the sky”, but have failed. The previous generation of children realized this could never happen, and instead they’ve got to kill her to put her to eternal rest. Lacking the power, they create humanity and wait for the chosen one to prove himself in La-Mulana, which is actually Mother’s body. In order to put her to rest, the eight guardians must be defeated, and, for each one, a wedge must be driven into Mother to  weaken her. Finally, when she has been forced into our world, she can be exposed to the “medicine of the mind” and the fully-empowered holy grail to enable her to be killed.

The ruins themselves don’t make a lot of sense either. Sections have wildly different influences, like ancient Meso-American, Egyptian, or Indian, while others are high-tech and futuristic. Bosses include a a living statue, a literal dinosaur, a high-tech flying knight, Baphomet, Tiamat, and a demon out of Russian folklore.

Plus, you discover the holy grail in the first area of the game. Instead of peacing out to go show off this discovery to the rest of the archaeological world and bask in fame and adoration for the rest of your life, you use it to warp between save points and keep delving deeper.

Aesthetics: While the main character and various NPCs you interact with are fairly unimpressive, the backgrounds of every room are laboriously detailed and attractive, and bosses are huge and imposing. The music is fantastic as well, with separate tracks for every area (front and back), most of which are catchy.

Controls: Another area of relative weakness. Controls are intentionally hamstrung in order to increase the difficulty of platforming. Horizontal aerial control is extremely limited - you cannot change directions mid-jump (even after you have double-jumping) except under specific circumstances. If you’re falling not from a jump, you can’t move left or right at all. Any time you are hit, you’re knocked into falling and can’t move or attack until you hit the ground. Controls entering and exiting water/lava can be frustrating. Requiring two separate start menus, one for most functions and the other for the map and warping, is an added frustration as well. At least cycling between weapons and subweapons is easy.

Combat System: Combat is fairly standard in La-Mulana. One button swings your primary weapon - Whip, Dagger, Axe, Katana, or Keyblade - while another uses your subweapon, one of a large assortment of ammunition-requiring items with different trajectories and damage ranges. Upgrades come steadily throughout the game, and it’s rare that you feel completely outclassed by an enemy.

Item System: La-Mulana’s item system is an odd one. There’s a huge number of items in the game. Some items are purely combat based - like most of the weapons and subweapons - but occasionally these are called upon to solve a specific puzzle, like needing to throw a Chakram through a hole to hit an object on its return, or blowing a wall open using Bombs. Other items provide a bonus like reduced damage, increased subweapon damage, faster attacking, etc. There’s also Software that can be equipped to perform various functions like translating tablets, receiving email hints, or warping to backside points, as well as special software combinations that can increase damage, extend mercy invulnerability after taking damage, and other bonuses. However, the majority of items in the game are used in the solving of puzzles. There’s no Zelda-esque system of “oh, here’s a cracked wall, time to break out bombs”. Instead it’s more like, you find a Woman Statue, and maybe remember that way back in the third zone there was an engraving on a wall of a similar-looking statue, so you head back to that area. On the way, you see that one room has weird confetti in it now, and maybe realize that those are supposed to be sperm, so you hang out in that room until the Woman Statue becomes a Maternity Statue. Then you take it to where the engraving was, and it unlocks a ladder letting you drop into a uterus-looking section. And then you can maybe figure out from clues (though, good luck) that you’re supposed to open the map menu and wait until your character falls into the sleeping animation to solve the puzzle and unlock a treasure chest. Oh right, and you’ll need the Woman Statue as a Maternity Statue at one other point a little later as well. And this is a pretty standard La-Mulana puzzle.

Character Advancement: Like Metroid, your character advancement is tied solely to items. There are ten Sacred Orbs scattered across the various levels, each providing a +32 bonus to life. Weapon upgrades come from across the game as well - there are two direct upgrades to the Whip that increase its damage, as well as several alternative weapons that offer better damage at earlier points in the game, a gauntlet that increases attack speed, and software that can increase your damage as well.

Exploration: By far, the game’s strongest point. The ruins are huge, largely non-linear, and steeped with secrets. Playing an unguided game, it’s not unreasonable to expect to spend hours just wandering around, trying things, looking for changes any time the Shell Horn chimes that you’ve solved a puzzle or trying to plug in a newly-discovered item into a puzzle that was abandoned earlier. There’s a locked chest in one of the first half-dozen screens of the first area that can’t be opened until much later in the game when a specific Seal and Subweapon have been claimed, while other chests appear to be inaccessible but can be unlocked right away with the right combination of actions.

Dungeon Design: Tied to exploration, dungeon design in La-Mulana is off the charts. You’re not going to find any Zelda-like dungeons where you just need to hit the halfway point and unlock the dungeon item to be able to clear all of the puzzles you’ve seen so far, but you can work your way through many areas and solve one specific path, and then have another chunk of that area show up a bit later in the game as part of solving another path. Overall, the scale of the game is really unparalleled, and it puts even games like Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night to shame in that regard.

Enemies: Basic enemies come in all different shapes and sizes, often requiring different strategies to beat. “Titans”, for example, are turbaned elephant men who can shrug off direct whip blows to the face, but will be stunned if axed from above, enabling several hits. Other enemies spit fireballs and require you approach them with a shield up. Some are slow-moving but with a lot of hitpoints, requiring a fast-hitting weapon like the dagger to land a number of fast blows.

The bosses are phenomenal as well, each requiring a unique strategy to defeat. Some are relatively simple, requiring that you just maneuver around platforms to avoid attacks and strike them in their weak points. Others transform the fight, sticking you on a boat, minecart, airplane, or vertically-scrolling shaft of platforms, forcing you to adapt to a rapidly-changing environment while trying to figure out how to kill them.

Difficulty: This is really going to be the deciding factor for whether or not you want to play this game. La-Mulana is HARD. The rigid controls make many of the platforming sections hair-pullers, where one missed jump or brush with spikes results in having to redo the whole frustrating section. These sections are fortunately few and far between. Several of the bosses are going to require multiple attempts to beat, even after you figure out their patterns of attack and weaknesses. The most difficult part, however, is largely the optional one due to the existence of FAQs - the puzzles.

Let me give you an example: There’s a puzzle that is required to receive the final whip upgrade. You enter a room with a large scale, and after reading a tablet, a gem appears in a chute at the top of the screen, with a dais appearing on either side. You can place a weight on either dais to make the gem drop onto that side of the scale, after which another gem will appear. After all seven gems have been dropped, you can drop onto one side of the scale to balance it, and if you are successful, the Flail Whip chest unlocks. Once you’ve been in the room and read the tablet once, the puzzle will not reset. You can reset it once after beating the eighth boss, if you know the location of a secret shop in a secret area, or by reloading an old save. So how do you solve this puzzle? Well, scattered throughout the ruins on tablets are clues. One tablet lays out a mapping from colors to emotions, i.e. “The joyful heart is pearly white”. Another tablet lays out mappings from emotions to numbers, i.e. “The joyful heart is 20″. Four other tablets lay out mappings from gemstones to colors and emotions, i.e. “The white opal represents joy”. Notably, there are pieces of information missing that must be filled in when you have collected the information from all six above tablets to deduce all seven weights. However, that’s not even the complete picture, because how much does the player weigh? Well, figuring that out is a puzzle in and of itself. There’s a scale in an obscure corner of the second area that can’t be reached until the player can wall-cling or double-jump. Standing on this scale reveals the player’s weight.... in La-Mulanese. In order to determine what the revealed glyphs mean, they must be compared to the symbols shown on the entrances to and from each area. Once the player has all this information, they can run the numbers to determine how to best lay out the seven gemstones and the player to balance the scale. Or, you could just look it up in an FAQ.

Other puzzles involve things like waiting until an enemy teleports into an area you can’t reach to step on a switch, placing a weight on objects that you normally cannot like skeletons or giant’s feet, scanning objects in the background, NOT PLACING a weight on a place where you normally should, destroying walls that give no indication they are destructible, walking through walls that appear solid, talking to a specific NPC you haven’t needed to interact with prior/in a long time, or taking a specific fairy that has a 1/20 chance of spawning whenever you find a fairy point to that spot to unlock it.

Final: For hardcore puzzle-lovers who really enjoyed games like Zork or Myst that require you to figure out some truly obscure logic, this game is going to be amazing. For Zelda fans looking to stick the hookshot into the hookshot-shaped hole to advance to the next area, the puzzles in this game are going to be indecipherable, dense, and either force them out of the game or force them to follow along a FAQ literally every step of the way. And hey, there’s no shame in that if you want to play a deep, challenging Metroidvania for its platforming and combat. Overall, I enjoyed it a lot, even though I had to turn to the FAQ quite often.