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clotpole-art · 3 years ago

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Retrospective: Illustrated Merlin Alphabet Challenge

Finally finished the Merlin Alphabet Challenge, so here's the artist notes no one asked for! See below the cut for comments on each piece by order of creation. Be warned folks, it's a long post.

Before we begin: credit to @merlin-gifs for the challenge, which can be found here. It's awesome, go do it.

First thing you should know is I did probably 80-90% of these while on phone calls or in Zoom meetings and that's reflected in the simplicity of most pieces -- the compositions aren't complicated, the lines aren't refined, the coloring is slapdash. If you noticed variation in quality of the pieces, that's why!

Second: I tried to focus on trying something new for each drawing. Didn't always happen, but this challenge did succeed in helping me push me out of my own comfort zone.

Without further ado...

A is for Arthur Pendragon

Textures, baby! Brushed metal of his armor, scratchy linen texture of his shirt, wispy softness of hair and skin. I'd recently gotten my tablet out of storage after a year of figuring out where the hell I was going to live and this was one of the first pieces of digital art I spent time on. Glad it was Arthur kicking us off!

B is for the Beginning of the End (1x08)

Fun fact, I did not draw this with my tablet. I drew it with my work computer's touchscreen. It was awful, would not recommend.

C is for Camelot

I wanted to get used to different brushes, so landscape of the castle it was! There are brushes that help with drawing grass; I did not use said brushes and my wrist hurt afterward. That being said, I really enjoyed working on this and it was one of the few pieces I didn't do while multitasking.

D is for Daegal

Also drawn on my work computer's touchscreen, not my tablet. I didn't learn my lesson from B and the experience was even worse. This is my least favorite piece which sucks because it's Daegal so I'm slated to redo this sometime in the near future. Gotta do our boy justice.

E is for Elyan

Oh, I adored drawing this. Elyan often gets shafted in terms of fandom appreciation so I made sure to choose Elyan for this prompt and to participate in the Elyan fest. Plus, I love a good ghost story and figuring out a way to include the druid spectre was fun. Didn't multitask on this piece because Elyan deserved my full attention.

F is for Freya

Ho boy. This piece. I have such mixed feelings on this drawing. Really really didn't like it after I'd decided it was done and very nearly scrapped the whole thing. I had a vision in my head that I just couldn't render into reality and it frustrated me SO MUCH. Looking back, I like it much better than I did when I first created it.

G is for Gwaine

What can I say, he's pretty when he's cold. I didn't stretch too much with this one -- it's my normal drawing style, I was just trying to find a brush that mimicked the softness of pencil.

H is for Hunith

Another one that didn't stray too far from my comfort zone. I was stupid sick and slammed at work, so a motherly Hunith manifested herself. I blame the bad brush choice on the cold medicine.

I is for Isolde

I woke up and chose violence! Tried to vary my figure drawing style a little in this piece but my brain resisted, resulting in... this. Not mad at it, but not happy with it either. Poor Isolde.

J is for Juggling

Ah, this lovely piece was drawn during a particularly vexing meeting at work. Fun fact, there's another version of this line art that's less about Merlin's stress and more about mine.

K is for Knights of Camelot

Continuing the theme of doodling through bad news and shit meetings. Like I said above, normally meeting doodles aren't complex because I'm concentrating on something else. This one was more involved because I didn't want to concentrate on the meeting. I have a few issues with this from a technical standpoint (perspective, my nemesis) but it's still one of my favorites. Tried some funky coloring technique, didn't hate it.

V is for Vibrant Colors

And here is where we said fuck the rules and started going out of alphabetical order! This one was really fun to do and I loved kicking off Albion Party with this as my first submission. The colors were a challenge (as I hoped they would be) and this is the first time I had to do some color tweaking midway though and after finishing the coloring process. Vibrant Arthur, my beloved. This started as a multitask doodle but took dedicated time to finish.

O is for Old Religion

The concept for this one was buzzing in my head for a bit before a quote-prompt solidified it. I adore the thought of more visible, tangible representations of Merlin as the son of the elements, of "magic itself" -- not just sun-gold eyes, but sea-water hair and sandstone-skin. A complement to the vibrant Arthur portrait.

S is for Sorcerers

When I said I wanted to challenge myself, I wasn't kidding. Ho boy, this was fun but frustrating. I wanted to completely illustrate a gif. So I did. Will I do something like this again? Maybe. A while from now.

M is for Morgause

See above -- same illustrated gif style so at least I was able to reuse some drawings. Poor Morgause ended up looking a little wretched here because I was mentally done with this when I was drawing her. Love the concept of tarot cards + Merlin but others are doing it so I won't continue this series.

Z is for Zzzz

This one was specifically done to test out some custom brushes I made in Krita to make abstract background drawing easier for me. I think they turned out well! Plus who doesn't love bb iridescent Aithusa.

L is for Leon, P is for Percival

Quick, minimal doodles of the boys! Mentally, I was going for a Brady's-style retro ensemble cast TV show credits feel. Not mad at it! Some boys look closer to their actors than others (I think my brain broke drawing Percy, my apologies to Tom Hopper).

T is for Tristan

It wasn't until after I posted this that I realized there was more than one Tristan in Merlin. Could have drawn Isolde's bf but I drew Ygraine's dumb jock undead brother instead. Had some fun with dark greys and blacks here regardless.

Q is for Queen Annis

Best royal in Albion, bar none. I tried a different coloring technique here and I kinda like it! may make it my go-to but we'll see. Old habits are hard to break. Also: our queen deserved more badass clothes.

X is for Arthur X Merlin

Oh, be still my shipper heart. Doodled and colored during a meeting. I had hoped to spend more time on it outside of multitasking but alas, work is a bitch. This one is slated for a rework sometime in the future; I adore the concept too much to let it go without creating another version of this that isn't an utter mess.

U is for Uther's Ward

And here's my attempt at forgoing line art. Not fun, do not like.

Y is for Young Warlock

Channeled some pain into this one. Those are the dead eyes of someone who had been told that he'd succeeded when his friend died. That the destiny he'd been expecting to carry on his shoulders into old age was done and dusted before he turned 30. Grief plus the existential dread of the aimless immortal. Oof. One of my favs.

N is for Nimueh, R is for Rising Sun, W is for Will

And we end on this sorry offering. I was away from home for a while without my tablet and I just got tired of waiting. So, pen doodles at the airport. This was a challenge in its own right because 1. pen only and 2. I wasn't able to pull Netflix up for a reference on the fly. Which is why Will's face is obscured and Nimueh looks.... not like Nimueh lol.

In summary: this was a goddamn joy to do. I finished 26 letter prompts in approximately 21 weeks, which exceeded my own unspoken goal of filling one letter per week. I found a good, happy corner of the Merlin fandom after a years-long hiatus away from being a fandom creator. If you did make it this far with me, thanks for reading my inane comments and giving this little project even a moment of your time -- I'm so grateful.

#merlinalphabetchallenge #clotpole art #long post #merlin fanart #merlin #bbc merlin #bbc merlin fanart

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tanakavox · 4 years ago

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“Merry Christmas!”

The words echoed loudly throughout the Rose-Xiao Long household as they all felt the Christmas cheer in the air. The house had been active with laughter and cheer as everyone had participated in activities throughout the whole day, while Zwei and all of the adults had made final preparations on all of the gifts for the younger members, while secretly preparing their own gifts for one another. Zwei carefully looked over his gift for Xing one last time, making sure none of the wrapping had been torn in any way and that the ribbons were secured on it nice and tight. Rosemary couldn’t stop the smile on her face as she watched her lover carefully look over the gift for what seemed to be the thousandth time.

“I still can’t believe you, of all people, won that thing in a random raffle,” she said with an amused tone. While she said in a joking manner now, Rosemary was actually in pure disbelief mere days earlier at the fact that Zwei had managed to get his hands on the elusive console, and even more so through a raffle of all things!

“Yeah well, talk about a Christmas miracle,” Zwei scoffed, he himself still a little in disbelief that he had managed to get his hands on a honest to Brothers’ Playstation Five. He was still fretting over the wrapped gift, before his musing was interrupted by an amused Rosemary.

“Oh will you stop worrying already? Your nephew isn’t picky Zwei, I’m sure he’s going to love the gift you got him and that there’s nothing to worry about!”

Zwei glanced over at Rosemary, a skeptic look on his face, before he found his eyes drifting back down to the gift.

“I know, I know, I’m probably freaking out over nothing, I just want this to be perfect for him, you know?”

“Well, I for one think my son is going to love it, and that you’re worrying yourself over nothing Zwei.”

A new voice had proclaimed, causing Zwei and Rosemary to look over to see Yang leaning in the doorway with a smile on her face. Zwei narrowed his eyes at his older sister, before asking her, “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to know that you’ve been acting like a worry wart for the past twenty minutes,” she replied with a smirk, before she walked over to Zwei and took a seat next to him. “But seriously Zwei, Xing is going to love this gift, why would you think otherwise?”

“It’s just a lingering feeling is all, you know,” Zwei said with hesitance, “I’m just worried about letting him down by getting him something that he didn’t want.”

“Trust me Zwei, Xing is going to love it and you’re worrying over nothing,” she said, before she let out a chuckle, “hell, you probably could have gotten him that old Playstation Two you had to get back from that thief and he would have been just as happy!”

Zwei stared blankly at his sister momentarily, before he felt the palm of his hand meet his face.

“Now she tells me,” he groaned out in annoyance, causing Yang only to laugh harder at her brother’s response. It was at this point that Rosemary had quietly slipped out of the room, leaving the siblings along to their discussion.

“Hey, it’s your fault for not asking what Xing wanted for Christmas little bro,” she said with a shit eating grin, “Maybe you’ll take that into consideration for next Christmas, instead of spending three days chasing down thiefs, beating up snobby couples, and scaring poor Junior into a early grave.”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up will ya,” Zwei grumbled out, “Though you wouldn’t be saying that about “Poor Junior,” if you had heard what he said about Xing.”

The temperature in the room immediately dropped as Yang’s laughter was abruptly cut off. The warm smile on her face was replaced with a thin line and her lilac eyes slowly shifted red, burning with a cold, calm, rage.

“...And what did Hei Xiong have to say about my son?”

Zwei gulped at his sister's sudden shift in attitude, before he quickly related to her what Junior’s nasty comment made towards Xing. Yang slowly nodded her head up and down as she absorbed the information given to her, before quietly stating:

“...Looks like I’ll have to pay Hei Xong a visit soon.”

The tone sent a shiver down Zwei’s spine, and he could only imagine what Yang was going to do to the unfortunate information broker when she decided to make good on that next visit. Sure, Zwei was furious with Junior when he insulted his nephew, but he was only going to rough him up a little if he hadn’t either apologized or given him the information that he wanted. But compared to what his sister was going to more than likely do the man? Zwei almost felt bad for ratting the club owner out. Almost.

The temperature warmed backup considerably, and Yang’s eyes shifted back to their normal lilac before she let out an exasperated sigh. There was a moment of silence between the two of them, before Yang addressed her brother again.

“...I never got a chance to say thank you by the way.”

“Thank you? For what,” Zwei asked in confusion.

“For the fact that you went through all the effort to get Xing his gift.”

“Ah come on Yang, it wasn’t-”

“Don’t you start with that,” Yang said sternly, cutting off Zwei’s attempt to brush off her words of thanks, “You didn’t have to jump through all those hoops and spend all that time getting him this stupid thing, but you did and I’m honestly thankful for it. Not because you managed to get it for him, but because you care so much for him that you went to great lengths to make him happy, and for that, I’m grateful to you Zwei.”

Zwei then found himself in a loving embrace, as Yang closed the small distance between the two and held her brother close.

“You’re an amazing uncle, and an even better brother, and I could not be any more proud of the man you are today.”

Zwei was caught off guard at first by his sister's sudden display of affection, but slowly returned the embrace, doing his best to ignore the moisture that was building in his eyes from his sister's words of praise.

“...Thank you Yang.”

The two siblings held each other for a few more seconds, before their tender moment by tiny voices that were echoing throughout the hallway, screaming at the top of their lungs, “IT’S TIME FOR PRESENTS!”

The glee and excitement from the voices of the children(and of course, one Ruby Rose), was enough to cause Yang to chuckle at their antics, while Zwei merely rolled his eyes though there was little heat behind them. Yang got up from her seat beside Zwei, before giving him a smirk, “ready to open some christmas gifts little bro?”

Zwei eyed his gift to Xing one last time, before he returned his sister's smirk with one of his own.

“I don’t know, is Santa fat, red, and jolly? Of course I’m ready!”

A chuckle escaped Yang’s lips at her brother's cheeky response, before she lifted her brother up from his seating position with his gift in hand.

“Well then we better not keep the kids waiting then!”

Not too long after, Yang and Zwei joined the rest of their family near the Christmas tree and the gift giving had begun. As usual, quite a few gifts were exchanged between the Rose-Xiao Long’s and the Thornbushes, and this year was no exception. Ruby had received an extensive amount of custom weapon parts from Jaune and several others, while Jaune himself had received a new Pumpkins Pete’s hoodie and a set of armour from his wife. Yang had received an extensive line up of hair care products and hair devices, along with several different prosthetics arms to be used in the field(the latter gift was planned between Weiss and Ruby). Taiyang had received both a new grill for when the weather had warmed up and a new desk to replace the old one in his study, while Peach had received several sets of rare seeds for her personal greenhouse in Patch and a necklace from Tai. Zwei was gifted Cyberpunk 2077 and several other games from Jaune(called it!), while little Citrine received a Switch with several games and Lilina has received a Tablet for her to write and play games on.

Rosemary had received a similar gift to Peach’s in the form of rare seeds, but was also gifted brand new gardening tools and a pair of earrings’ from Zwei. Daisy had gotten a new drawing tablet, along with several fresh sketchpads and some new pens and pencils, while Forrest had received copies of old movies he’d been looking to add to his collection, alongside some memorabilia from movie sets of some of the more recent flicks he had seen. Aster had received gifts in the form of new medical supplies and instruments for her clinic, courtesy of Peach using both her medical and Huntress connections to fund the expense.

Finally, there was little Xing, who was quietly watching the rest of his family open their gifts while he patiently unwrapped his gifts given to him when it was his turn. He had received several different things, including clothing, toys, even a new prosthetic to replace his current one that he had outgrown. But it had finally come time to open his gift from his uncle, and Zwei couldn’t help but be nervous. Would he like it? Would he hate it? Zwei couldn’t stop the feeling of anxiety creeping through him as he worried over whether or not Xing would like his gift.

However, his worries were put to rest. Because as soon as Xing had slowly finished unwrapping his gift, he let out a small gasp and his eyes lit up at the sight of the Playstation Five that lay before him. A small smile lit up on his face, before he turned to his uncle and said:

“Thanks uncle Zwei!”

Despite Xing’s quiet nature, it was clear to see the sincerity behind his words as he thanked his Uncle for the gift he had gotten him. Zwei felt a great weight lift off his shoulder, before he returned his nephew’s smile with one of his own.

“You’re welcome Xing.”

Yang caught his eyes a moment later, shooting him a smug look that basically said, ‘I told you so,” before covering her smile as he rolled his eyes in response, though his smile stayed on his face. It looks like everything had worked out after all, and as Zwei warped his arm around Rosemary and looked upon the happy looks of his friends and family, he couldn’t help but think that this was without doubt one of the best damn Christmas’s he’s ever had.

‘A Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night…’

Edits done by @thatorigamiguy!

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proper-goodnight · 4 years ago

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Detroit: New Beginnings

Summary: It has been one year since the androids claimed their rights to freedom after the revolution, and one year since Connor has decided to stay on the force at the DPD. The duo are currently working on a case involving androids going missing while Connor grapples with what he almost did to Markus at the peace rally and fearing Amanda’s inevitable return.

Pairing: N/A

Warnings: Violence, Strong Language

A New Start: Partners (01)

Detroit Police Dept.

August 30, 2039

12:30 P.M.

Tuesday

Chris abandoned his wife’s pastries on the counter in the break room.

Over the years, it had become an unspoken rule to not berate him for the fact that Hank could count the people that were brave enough to try his wife’s newest lifestyle kick for that week on one hand.

For all of the employees on the force, that wasn’t a lot. He didn’t need any special probability and statistics program to figure that out.

But, it wasn’t like Hank hadn’t tried. He had, but only once--and couldn’t keep a straight face or control his gag reflex enough to even think about trying it again. Their outward appearance had been what threw him for a loop initially; being made of enough random herbs and healthy shit couldn’t sway the uncanny resemblance between it and actual shit and no amount of Chris promising such couldn’t and would never convince him otherwise.

While Hank may have never cared about what he put in his body, he was still not ignorant enough to test whether or not his tolerance extended to something beyond alcohol or cigarettes. Some days, Connor’s habit of sticking evidence in his mouth suddenly didn’t sound so fucking revolting.

God, if the kid heard him say that…

In that same area of the precinct, a loud continuous whirring of a coffee machine grinded endlessly. DPD staff shuffled around it eagerly awaiting its cycle to complete, and Gavin had ingested just enough caffeine to erupt into his usual cacophony of loud remarks and comments about fuck-all that morning.

Of course the prick couldn’t grant them reprieve for even a few minutes.

Hank supposed if he didn’t then the fucker was either late or… late. It wasn’t like he ever called off.

No, they couldn’t be that lucky.

“No fucking way!” And to complete the morning, here Hank was with a deafening insistence in his tone that left little room to argue over Connor’s suggestion for the umpteenth time that morning. “I have had enough birthdays! I am getting too damn old for this shit!”

In response, Connor looked contemplative, but even more so, unsatisfied with his decision.

Typical Tuesday.

Sitting hunched over his desk, Hank sifted through piles of papers for his tablet. It furthered his incessant personal reminding that he should probably take a few minutes and clear his desk of all of his personal clutter--all of the memorabilia piling up over the years was beginning to make finding anything nigh to impossible, another indication made clear when he bumped a couple of pens to the floor with his elbow.

Cursing, he dismissed it to the abyss below his desk, staring at the screen with faux concentration. The contrast between their work stations was proving more apparent as the days went on, Connor’s completely clean of surface clutter and retaining a fresh sheen despite having claimed it a little over a year ago.

Besides the mess, the spinning yellow circle glaring at him just outside of his peripherals held his focus, having more recently recognized it as a sign of the android’s thinking--thought processing. Whatever.

Connor’s brows were furrowed, eyes fixed on him as if deciding in some sort of situational software that he had of some other option that would help move their conversation into a more positive direction, something that would somehow change it in his favor. He wasn’t getting anywhere, and Hank wasn’t going to take any bait.

The android’s lips parted to speak, but Hank was already turning away, grumbling incoherently under his breath.

And nothing that he would reiterate unless Fowler was going to lecture him about playing nice with his co-workers. Again.

Perched on the only unoccupied corner of his desk, arms crossed over a broad chest, Connor worked a tick in his jaw. If androids had actually possessed the need to breathe--and their biocomponents that simulated breathing were actually functional for that sole purpose--the asshole may have just sighed. For the briefest of an instance, he caught his partner’s stoic expression, tight-lipped and silently asking for some sort of agreement between the pair.

It wasn’t offered.

“I have been researching human cultural practices and I thought that maybe--”

“Drop it. You want to celebrate, then do it for yourself why don’t ya? Celebrate your one year since deviating. That’s in a couple of months.”

Connor almost looked thoughtful, features folding over in confusion as he worked through some sort of response. Hank’s celebration into an even older age was many in the long list of arguments that the two seemed to have, but it was also one of the only topics that Connor seemed ever insistent to talk about that didn’t revolve around a case.

That made it unavoidable.

Goddammit.

“I don’t think that qualifies as the same thing, Lieutenant.”

“Take my word for it. Let’s just go over the case.” To further his point, he swept his hand over the case files that had piled up on his desk the last couple of weeks. One large unorganized mess of manila folders and reports. “If Jeffrey dumps any more shit about it on my desk, I’m going to resign it.” It was a harmless jab in an effort to get Connor motivated, anything involving the words case or leads never failed to catch his attention.

Connor straightening from his rare hunched posture proved that fact rang true.

Even after finally closing the deviancy case.

The conversation, begrudgingly, wasn’t done though. It would be brought up again eventually. Unless the kid forgot or got distracted with something else.

Who the fuck was he kidding?

Connor never forgot. He didn’t possess the ability to forget. Maybe his stubborn nature could be argued with but in the last year or so being his partner, it was something that Hank faced with raw aggression and chose to avoid.

“Could’ve originated from the peace rally.” Hank went on, rubbing at his chin with faux concentration at the various folders opened up in front of him. He didn’t think any of them were relevant to their current case anyway. “The dates between that and the first android incident are pretty damn close together. Then again, maybe it’s just a weird coincidence.” The words unfolded into a low mutter under his breath, slumping back against his chair.

He spinned to the side to assess the clutter, a quick sweeping gaze over the mess and he retrieved the file that they needed and extended it to the android.

Connor’s eyes had followed every movement, and Hank assumed he was judging his lack of organization.

At least he kept his mouth shut if he was.

“Two guys were sent to the hospital last night.” Hank went on.

“According to the reports from Officer Miller, they were walking home from a Red Ice Anonymous meeting.” Connor confirmed.

Of course he’d kept up to date.

“They were jumped. He went to ask them some questions, bust aside from a brief statement, we ain’t getting much out of ‘em right now.” While he spoke, Connor flicked through it with practiced precision while simultaneously picking it apart. For what he already didn’t know, and Hank didn’t figure that was a lot.

And while it would be denied for the rest of Hank’s life, he would never admit that he was even somewhat jealous of Connor. If humans possessed the ability to see anyone’s information by a quick scan or retaining an entire casework of information in a few seconds, the meeting and getting-to-know-you shit of social relationships would be made easier by miles. Then again, he didn’t need any superior programming to know that his time would be better spent at home with Sumo.

“According to their file, Mr. Greene and Mr. Nicholson did in fact have a Red Ice history in the past.”

“That bit checks out with what Chris managed to get from ‘em at least. Not the worst druggies I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with.” A smirk pulled at one edge of his lips. If they were the worst of the worst, his job would have been a lot easier and most cases would be an opened and closed one.

“Possession and usage that earned them a few months jail time.” Connor confirmed, turning a suddenly quizzical gaze in his direction, dipping his chin. His brows pinched. “Wasn’t Detective Reed assigned all cases involving Red Ice?” The mention of their most eccentric detective was enough to pull a look of discomfort from the android.

Maybe it was the ill memory of the beating that he’d been forced to give him in the evidence room last year. Either way, Hank swore that Connor had some kind of satisfaction from it. He didn’t think so.

The bloody nose that he had given Perkins however? Fucking classic!

“He is, but there was Thirium found at the scene. No fingerprints on the weapon that was likely used in the attack. We’re looking at another Carlos Ortiz case except we can push an android through a fair trial now.”

Connor closed the case folder in his lap, his fingers plucking gingerly at the corner. That spinning yellow circle glared accusingly. “If the claims of their whereabouts are in fact correct, then I think that our best course of action is to question them ourselves. Maybe they can recall more when the shock period has passed. Distinct characteristics, how many androids there were in total, even.”

“Not to bust your balls kid, but we can’t scan a serial number like you can. Not to mention all of you androids have the same face. There’s no record of them ever owning an android, but…” Hank threw up his hands in surrender. “Maybe there’s a past history we don't know about. We’ll follow another lead over the next few days,” he decided. “See if they can’t give us anything else by the end of the week.”

With that, Hank breathed out a long-winded sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut as though fighting off a headache. Connor was a headache enough, the case being the migraine. He waved his free hand over his desk. “Take your pick. God knows we’ve got plenty.” A pained laugh slipped past his lips, almost incredulous. Borderline sympathetic.

For them.

Propping his elbow on the chair’s armrest, he leaned his head against a curled fist. His partner’s gaze was distant, even as Hank tried to meet it with a vague curiosity of his own.

He waited.

“What are you thinking, Connor?” No response was offered, that same accusatory yellow glaring at Hank just out of the corner of his eye.

Connor’s features folded, looking to an empty space at his right. Upon further inspection, Hank noted that nothing was there, looking between the two confirming the assumption that he was in some far off place elsewhere. An abrupt snap of his fingers in front of Connor’s nose brought him back. He raised his eyebrows, tilted his head. “Nothing. Nothing relative to our case.”

“Any other time you’re pulling leads out of your ass.” The remark was followed by an exaggerated sigh. His eyes rolled to the side. “This is the first time that you don’t wanna input your opinion? Finally hit a damn wall with enough dead leads, didn’t ya?”

A slight tug pulled at one edge of Connor’s mouth, working a tick underneath a rigid jawline. “Hilarious, Lieutenant.” He mumbled.

“It was a pretty damn good joke in my opinion." With a dismissive hand gesture--a quick slice of his hand through the air--he reached across his desk to retrieve one stack of case files. It didn't account for the other large piles but hell, it was a start.

“That is a personal opinion.”

“What the fuck ever.” Running a shaky hand through his hair--something else that Connor blamed on Hank's poor diet--his gaze never left him, flicking over his rigid form with a blatant curiosity. "We should go talk to Markus. There’s a good chance that he would know somethin'?"

And then Connor moved from his perch. Carefully--stiffly was a better way of putting it--around the edge of the desk. Long precise fingers fumbled for the coin in his pocket. It rolled across his knuckles, coming to a complete stop as it was flicked into the opposite palm. Hesitation made the movement rigid, not as fluent as it normally would be. A tick worked itself underneath a rigid jawline. Connor didn't look at him, and instead passed by to his own desk.

"You haven't seen him since the peace rally," Hank prodded. "I think it's about time we paid him a visit, don't you?"

"I don't know," He answered in what was almost a whisper, voice low. Unsure. "I've assessed the database's files and all of the reports involving our missing androids. I have only come to the conclusion that older models, or new deviants are being reported disappearing from Jericho. That and it's still limited to Detroit and only a few surrounding cities.” He shrugged. “So far."

Connor shook his head in defeat. "My most recent solution was to send a scan parts to Cyberlife, but-"

"All of the missing reports we’ve managed to solve end with the android self destructing and destroying their systems," Hank finished for him. "That and its considered murder with your rights. Can't just go pulling apart an android and not expect to get your ass busted."

"I do not know if an exception can be made for some kind of malfunction. I could probe its memory, but there is no evidence as to how that would affect my own systems."

"Keeping you at a distance makes the shit harder." Hank agreed, and other than nodding in response, Connor offered no comment. "Until we can figure out if it can be spread, there isn’t much that you can do."

"Why don't you take your chances and see what the hell happens?" An all too familiar and unapologetically arrogant voice drew closer to their desks. Gavin came to a full stop at their desks, arms folded over his chest with a smirk that never ceased to infuriate him. Both of them, he assumed.

He grimaced.

Fucking asshole.

"Fuck off, Reed. Don't you have your own case?" Hank grumbled, an edge to his tone that Gavin brushed off a condescending smirk.

"Unlike you and the plastic prick, I've actually made headway." Gavin boasted, his interest in Hank diverted to Connor who watched passively. Most of the time he acted as if Gavin was gum under his shoe that he could scrape on the sidewalk and be done with. Like he couldn't be bothered even when he had a gun in his face and death threats on his name. Hank had been guilty of that look once.

Gavin was full of shit, but Hank wouldn't put anything past him. Even now.

"Hey plastic," Gavin halted in front of the android, squaring up his shoulders. The situation would have been alarming if the difference in height wasn't so obvious. Reed had to look up to address him and Connor responded by raising his eyebrows, tilting his head to the right.

"Hello, Detective Reed."

"I thought that after the walking toasters were suddenly recognized as people you would leave. A detective android prototype hunting androids is still doing the exact same damn thing." He sneered.

"I assessed that it would be appropriate to remain in the android crimes department to further offer my assistance to the DPD." His hands folded in front of him, meeting Gavin's eyes with that usual infuriatingly neutral expression. The little twitch in Connor's facial features gave him away however, signaling his annoyance at the detective's harsh jobs.

Gavin didn't see it, but Hank knew him well enough that it was impossible to miss.

"Yet you're still wearing your Cyberlife threads. I'd almost think that you liked hunting 'em down. Does it give you a sick thrill, prick?"

"Reed!" Hank interjected, rising stiffly from his desk chair. "That's enough."

"I believe that wearing my uniform shows more professionalism than a leather jacket and a relentlessly hostile attitude, Detective." Connor's brows raised and relaxed sequentially, a slight and subtle twitch pulling at one corner of his mouth.

"The hell did you just say to me, tin can?" Gavin leaned forward, hand clenching at his side into a fist that he pulled back and took aim on the android.

"I said that's enough!" Hank barked, shoving himself in between them.

Gavin was shoved back a few steps.

Connor didn't budge.

"Back off! Can't you ignore him for five fucking minutes?"

"Fuck," An enraged gaze flicked between Hank and Connor. Gavin snarled in frustration, one hand slipping seamlessly into the pockets of his jacket, the other pointing an accusing finger in the android's direction like it hadn't been the detective that had approached them with the intention of starting shit.

Hank scoffed.

"I'll never so much as tolerate the plastic asshole. The day there are two of him is the day I put in my resignation." One last threatening glare was thrown their way, the threat released into a spat. Before either could comment, Gavin was storming off, cursing incoherently under his breath.

Surprisingly it had gone better than most of the other times. Hank would have admitted that.

Evidently, every altercation passed by Connor without a second thought. Hell, maybe not even a first. The evidence room incident remained the only time that the android actually retaliated on him. That being that he needed to in order to accomplish his mission.

Still, he caught Connor's expression as Gavin was leaving. He watched him through distrusting slits, LED flashing yellow for a split second before correcting itself. His jaw was tense, something dark stirring within him, something troubled that Hank didn't quite recognize. It was only when Hank actually decided to speak that Connor finally looked at him, eyes softening into something more calm, relaxed. Normal.

"Let's go ask Markus some questions. Any idea where he might be?" In a gesture of reassurance that didn't quite reach him, Hank placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Markus has been overseeing the conversion and stock of dormant androids at the remaining Cyberlife stores. We can pull up those that have yet to be listed as maintenance and distribution centers and start there." And as if nothing had changed, as if the threat from the DPD's most eccentric detective had already been forgotten--at least it would have been if he wasn't squirming underneath a clenched jaw--the task of talking to Markus seemed to unnerve him more. Talking to the deviant leader was a task that Connor was less inclined to do over listening to Reed berating him every chance he got.

The observation was a question for later, and truthfully Hank didn't anticipate an answer.

Connor stepped back to allow him through first, Hank's hand slipping from his shoulder to dangle uselessly at his side instead. Expression falling flat, he waved him through. "After you, Lieutenant."

#detroit connor #hank and connor #detroit become human #post revolution #peaceful ending #one year later #fanfiction #long fic #dbh connor #connor dbh #detroit: become human #hank dbh #dbh hank #hank anderson

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sophocused · 4 years ago

Text

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)

#nina rambles #mental health check

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t0ngue-tech · 5 years ago

Text

Everything Means Nothing Without You

“Namjoon adjusted himself to bring his legs out from underneath the table to you had enough room to maneuver your arms. You stood right in between his knees as you delicately wrapped the silk underneath the collar of his shirt and tied it just right then tucked it behind his vest.

‘Well, well, sir. You’re looking quite dapper.’ You complimented.”

↠ slow burn, arranged marriage AU, friends-to-lovers AU ↞

word count: 3.8k

↠ series ↞

A/N: ah yes, i have arrived with another series LMAO SUE ME. i hope you don’t mind lol. enjoy huhu.

“Mr. Namjoon, I rearranged your schedule for this afternoon.”

“Thank you.”

“The following associates are still waiting for you to forward the building plans.”

“Please kindly tell them that they will be receiving the documents by five oclock.”

“Of course and dinner has been pushed back to eight instead, the location still needs to be decided.”

“Okay, thank you.”

“Oh, and sir?”

“Yes, Mr. Jae?”

“Have a good day.”

It was the same pattern every single day.

Kim Namjoon would wake up at seven in the morning to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and pastries rising from downstairs of his home. There would always be classical music playing softly just as he exits his bedroom after taking care of himself in the bathroom. As soon as he reaches the bottom of the stairs, two of the housemaids were on either side of the banister waiting to greet him.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning.”

His place at the table was already set with his morning coffee ready; a splash of milk and two teaspoons of sugar. Breakfast always varied, but whenever pastries were prepared, he always had two chocolate danishes and a butter croissant. Namjoon would spend an hour eating and going over any instructions his father left for him on his business associated tablet. At this point, his assistant would walk through the corridor to fill him in with any other details Namjoon’s father may have missed in the documents.

This morning routine barely ever changed and just like any other aspect in his life, Namjoon just dealt with it.

Kim Namjoon was the next successor in Kim Corporation. His father, the president of the business, owned restaurants, supermarkets, and now with Namjoon working his way up in the business, music stores were now in the works. Kim Seokjin, Namjoon’s older brother, was in charge of multiple restaurants and had just recently opened up a restaurant of his own.

It was absolutely exhausting following Seokjin around like a lost puppy in the business world, but Seokjin encouraged him to express himself and make a name for himself rather than having their father decide everything for them. Namjoon knew what he meant, which was why he convinced his father to be open to owning music stores. Still unsure if Namjoon truly understood what he meant, Seokjin supported him nonetheless.

Despite being the son of the chairman who owned multiple business chains, receiving a degree in business was mandatory in their family. Their father could have easily taught them everything himself, but college was a must.

Namjoon had classes at a university from eleven in the morning to four in the afternoon with a one hour break between his third and fourth class. Going to class was just another routine that he went along with because it was what his father wanted and it was his duty to listen to his father.

“Hey, Namjoon. My dad wanted me to congratulate you on securing the bag on a location for a music store.” Min Yoongi, a long time friend, joined him during his break.

“Thanks, Yoongi. Give him my regards, but things aren’t really set in stone yet.”

Yoongi waved a hand in front of his face. “Stone, shmone. The developers are pretty much going to approve since it’s coming from Kim Corp.”

‘Coming from Kim Corp.’ A free one-way ticket.

“Anyway, you busy later? I’ve been wanting to try out your brother’s restaurant.”

“Sorry, I have dinner reservations at eight.” Namjoon replied flatly.

“Oh, so your dad finally found you a willing bride?”

As old school as it sounded, Namjoon’s father was keen on arranged marriages. He believed in knowing what was best for his sons, the business, and the future ahead of them in terms of family and class.

Seokjin was arranged to marry Bae Irene, whose family owned a law firm, and the two got married last spring. They lived together with Namjoon in a Kim family home and as corny as it was, their marriage was as sweet as can be despite being arranged. They were extremely compatible and gag-worthy-in-love, but Namjoon really liked Irene, she always treated him kindly and with respect.

Namjoon thought it was a waste of time. Why would he take out multiple hours of his day to go on dates with some girl his father picked out for him? It all seemed to be tiring. Being single was his best bet, but his father thought otherwise.

“Definitely not. Just dinner.” Namjoon shut his laptop. “I’ll text you when I’m free so we can go to the restaurant. I have to go to class.”

Swift, chic, and to the point.

Hours ticked on and Namjoon was now in his office of the main corporation building in a joined conference call with his father and another developer. Apparently things were smooth sailing and Namjoon needn’t worry about having his proposal rejected. This was how things usually went and it wasn’t a surprise. His father made such a name for himself that many businesses were eager to be working alongside Kim Corp.

“Did you forward the building plan?”

“Yes, father. I just sent them.” Namjoon touched the trinkets around his desk and spun a pen between his fingers.

“Perfect. Mr. Choi, we are delighted to do business with you.”

“Likewise sir. I’ll be taking my leave. Good day sir, Mr. Namjoon.” Mr. Choi spoke.

“Goodbye, sir.”

The line clicked dead and Namjoon sucked in a deep breath. He stared at his laptop screen barely reading the documents he promised himself to be familiar with. His eyes trailed from the screen, to his name placard, to a framed photograph of a sixteen year old Namjoon and his mother. He reminisced how his mother used to bring him snacks up to his room while he did schoolwork and talked about her day. She always made sure her sons had at least a few minutes of break time between any sort of work because she knew how hectic their father made their schedules. She reminded both Seokjin and Namjoon to relax before they overworked themselves to the grave at such a young age.

If only she followed her own advice.

“I hope you’re proud of me mother.”

Namjoon’s phone lit up on his desk.

“Hm?”

↠↞

“Next week?! I need the fabric by this weekend.”

“I know, Ms. y/n. Before you have a bird, I instructed them that you would take your business elsewhere if you don’t get it by Friday.”

“Thank you so much, Hye Jin. You know I hate acting that way, but Minzy is coming back from Paris on Sunday evening and I need her to approve the fabric and design herself.”

“It’s tough being a designer, but you’re doing great, y/n. Don’t be afraid to put your foot down. It’s your brand, honey. You’re in charge.”

“Thank you and you can leave for now, I’ll call you if anything comes up.”

The only reason why mornings were always so difficult for you was because you cherished sleep more than anything. You did love drinking a cup of coffee first thing in the morning, but the process of dragging yourself out of bed and exerting energy always pained you.

Mornings were never easy, but you enjoyed having your breakfast on the gazebo when the weather was right. You loved partaking in conversation with your family’s gardener and you always encouraged the other house workers to join you for a meal, but they usually declined due to their duties and you respected their decision.

Being the daughter of a famous beautician and a designer of high-end boutiques was always an adventure. Your mother found solace in trying out new hairstyles on you and dying your hair from time to time while your father always gives you access to new clothing he was going to release when the seasons rolled in. While you followed your father’s footsteps, your brother, Jung Hoseok, was your mother’s apprentice. Your parents never pressured you or Hoseok to follow in their footsteps, it just came naturally to the both of you.

Life was a roller coaster of traveling and fashion shows and you enjoyed every second of it no matter how stressed out it made you.

“Hey, you’re really not going to your classes today?” Hoseok walked up the steps of the gazebo with his fading red hair tousled in all sorts of directions.

“Yeah, it’s fine. Mom and dad are still in Milan, so they don’t have to know.” You offered him some of your breakfast, belgian waffles with an assortment of fruit. “Plus, I have a lot to do for your wedding.”

Your parents didn’t want to control either of your lives, but if there was something they had to control it was an arranged marriage. Your grandmother, your mother’s mother, was raised in that manner which was then passed down to your mother who was constantly encouraged (more like pressured) to raise both you and Hoseok the same way.

Five months ago, Hoseok became engaged to Gong Minzy who was a model for high end brands. Your father introduced them after a fashion show and they instantly clicked. Minzy also came from a family of money and reputation so her parents were more than happy to allow her to marry someone with a reputation like Hoseok.

You really loved Minzy for your brother. She always brought out the best in him and she also modeled any experimental design pieces you created. Due to how close you were with Minzy, she had personally asked you to design her wedding dress, the maid of honor and bride’s maids’ dresses. It was a huge honor. There was no way you could say no.

“Thank you again, by the way. Minzy is really elated that you agreed to do this for her.” Hoseok ruffled your hair.

“It’s my pleasure, dude.” You took a peek at your phone. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have silk samples I have to look at at the office.”

Unlike Hoseok, marriage was nowhere near your agenda. It wasn’t because you weren’t interested, but because you were pretty much married to your job and the last guy you went on a date on was a huge pervert. You didn’t have time for disgusting creeps. Your entire focus was on your well being.

Some of the employees were confused as to why you were in the office which you begged them not to say anything to your parents. Entering your office, your assistant, Hye Jin, was already laying out the silk fabric samples for you to take a look at. The fabric was for the ties of Hoseok and his groomsmen’s suits. He never asked you to do it, but it was a small wedding gift that you wanted to give him.

“Is this from the Italy shipment?” You fingered through the small stack of fabric.

“Yes and this,” Hye Jin laid out a sleek box with a deep royal blue tie tucked inside. “This is the sample design.”

Excellent, excellent.

You gently slipped it out of the box and carefully examined every stitch and fold of the tie. Hoseok was your dear brother and he deserves the best so you needed to make sure everything was perfect.

“Okay, I need this to be sampled on someone.” You carefully folded the tie back into the box. “Hye Jin, can you send a text from my phone. Let him know to meet me at our sushi restaurant, he’ll know what I mean.”

“Consider it sent.”

You were so indulged in sketching out the wedding dresses that you almost lost track of time; fortunately Hye Jin was a punctual person so she made sure she had your evening outfit ready for you on the couch in your office. Instead of a loose t-shirt and saggy mom-style jeans, you were now dressed in a pencil skirt and long sleeved blouse that flares out at your wrist.

The sushi restaurant was a high class place you frequented so you recognized a lot of the patrons inside once you walked in. They all greeted you politely as you made your way to one of the private sections. Waiting in one of the sections was a certain ashy-blue haired fellow who you could easily pick out of a line up if you were just given the shape of his shoulders. It was none other than--

“Hey Namu, sorry, I got caught up with my work.” You slid into the seat across from him and took a good look at his outfit. You instructed him to wear a light gray suit with a matching vest and a white button down shirt beneath. “Nice, you’re wearing everything down to a T.”

“It’s no problem. I took the liberty of ordering your favorites, so our food should be out soon.” Namjoon explained cooly.

You scrunch your nose. “You don’t have to talk all proper around me, you know? We went over this.”

He chuckled and flicked a few locks of his hairs out of his face. “Sorry, force of habit. Anyway, may I see the tie?”

“Nope, after dinner. If our food is coming out soon, I don’t want any uni or spicy mayo on it even if it’s just a sample.”

Namjoon didn’t protest. He humbly agreed to your decision and his politeness was something that bothered you since the two of you were in high school. Both Seokjin and Namjoon were childhood friends to you and Hoseok because your fathers were friends since college. Growing up as kids, it was natural to fight and play all the time but he changed when Namjoon turned sixteen. The both of you were just months apart in age and you always wondered why he stopped picking on you or gave you any sort of attitude. He later explained to you that it was because of how he was raised to act more proper as he got older and you thought that if you prodded at him a little while going through the motions of your high school years then maybe he would feel comfortable in acting more like a friend than a robot. It did make a small change in him, but he always still reverted back to his usual attitude.

You spoke to Namjoon about your brother’s wedding as he was one of Hoseok’s groomsmen and you expressed the stress you were dealing with because although your main worry was being a designer for the wedding, you were also working side by side with the wedding planner. This gave you a lot more work than you actually planned, but it was going to be rewarding at the end.

“Seokjin said he’s willing to do the catering or cooking for the wedding. It’s the least he could do.” Namjoon poured you another cup of tea.

“That’s so sweet. I’ll be sure to pass down the message to Hoseok. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”

“Well, how about you? Anymore creepy guys your parents have lined up for you?”

You laughed knowing that Namjoon wasn’t trying to insult you or anything. This was him being comfortable around you. It was a rare sight to witness so you soaked up the moment whenever it presented itself.

“Ugh, no. I absolutely don’t have enough time for that, but I have a feeling that when my parents get back, they’re going to give me a phone number of someone they met during the fashion show or some big meeting.” You scoffed.

Namjoon chuckled as he signed the receipt, paying for the meal. “Most girls would be excited for marriage and spending the rest of their lives with the one they love.”

“Yeah, but I’m not most girls, Mr. Kim.”

“I know that far too well.” Namjoon raised his cup and clinked it against yours. “Ah, y/n, the tie.”

You tanked your tea, completely forgetting how hot it was, and reached into your purse. Even if the tie was a prototype, you were still nervous showcasing it to Namjoon. You spent a lot of time being nitpicky about the design—it was a damn tie, but it had to be the perfect tie.

“Allow me.” You gestured.

Namjoon adjusted himself to bring his legs out from underneath the table to you had enough room to maneuver your arms. You stood right in between his knees as you delicately wrapped the silk underneath the collar of his shirt and tied it just right then tucked it behind his vest.

“Well, well, sir. You’re looking quite dapper.” You complimented.

Namjoon smiled then looked down at his chest. “Thank you. May I see it properly?”

You gave him room to stand before taking a head-to-toe photo of him on your phone. He examined the photo and hummed contentedly.

“You’re sure this is just a sample?” He questioned.

You laughed and straightened out the fabric against his chest. “I’m sure. I still have to finalize the fabric. This particular fabric is no good for long term use and I want all of the groomsmen and my brother to use it normally rather than just for the wedding.”

Thank goodness the design looked decent on the chosen colors and thank goodness Namjoon was always available to be one of your male dress up dolls. You stepped back to take one more look at him and nodded your head.

“How about you keep this tie for keepsakes, Joon? I’m changing my label once I get all of the ties and dresses finalized, so this is the only item in the world with this label.” You plucked the tie out and pointed at a small cotton tag that had “Yours.” embroidered in cursive. “I was thinking of changing out the cursive to a typewriter kind of font and making the base color black instead of white.”

Namjoon touched the silk and thumbed the tiny tag that you pointed out. “Thank you. I’ll gladly accept this. I’ll be sure to return the favor.”

He flashed you a warm grin that made you wish you could take a picture of. This expression was rare and just like a lot of his less serious emotions, you soaked it all in.

“There’s no need, Joonie. We haven’t seen each other in a while, so I guess it’s also an apology for being so busy.” You brushed off his shoulders and straightened out his tie once more.

“I also apologize. I guess work and school keeps getting in the way.” Namjoon stroked your hair. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

↠↞

“Let’s have dinner again soon, okay?”

Namjoon opened your car door and gave you a tight hug before helping you settle inside.

“Of course. I’ll text you when I’m free. We can go to the steakhouse in the hills.” He shut your door and waited for you to roll down your window. “Drive safe.”

Just like that, you drove out of the parking lot and Namjoon let out a long sigh.

I guess that’s two dinners I have to fit into my schedule at some point.

The drive home felt a lot shorter than usual and it made him wish he took the long way home because it meant being away from any work related duties. He wanted the world to stop for a second to take a breather. It seemed like no matter what, he couldn’t escape the grimy clutches of work. Even during his dinner with you, the conversation ended up leading towards his floor plans of his music store. A break seemed like a dream that he couldn’t grasp with his own fingers.

Pulling into the driveway, there was a plain black sedan parked out front and it only meant one thing.

“Ah, Namjoon. Welcome home. Join us for tea.”

Sitting in the living room was Irene, Seokjin, and none other than their father.

“Good evening. I apologize, I already had some during dinner. Please excuse me.”

He quickly said his greetings to a few of the housemaids that were on his way to his room and flopped down onto his bed once he reached his destination.

Floor plans, item arrangements, item shipments, mock proposal for business, notes for economics, dinner with yoongi and y/n.

Namjoon’s hands flew to his face. He could already hear his mother’s voice nagging at him to take a vacation somewhere. Oh, how he wished he could erase his schedule at the snap of his fingers, but that only existed in a realm inside his mind.

He sat up and strode across his room to take a look at himself in the mirror. If it wasn’t for Irene’s holy grail skincare recommendations he would be looking like a 50 year old man. His eyes traveled to the tie you gifted him and again, he let out a sigh.

Your schedule and hardships weren’t a secret to Namjoon. You usually vented to him about everything that’s anything and even with the weight of the world on your shoulders, you still managed to smile. Your personality was completely different from his and he was a bit envious. While he moped around and kept to himself most of the time, you usually walked with a pep in your step and smiled as if you just won the lottery. It was appalling how you could easily make the decision to drop whatever you were doing to take a spontaneous two hour drive and have coffee at a random coffee shop.

Your personality clashed with his in a positive way. You encouraged him to put himself first and you always made time to have dinner with him whenever you had the chance because it meant distracting him from work. Taking personal breaks was barely ever an option, but he always agreed whenever you asked for his company. This was why his friendship with you was incredibly important. He appreciated you to the highest degree. You made him feel human.

Three knocks were heard from his door. “It’s open.”

“Namjoon, I’m taking my leave.”

Namjoon turned and made eye contact with his father. There wasn’t any bad blood between them, but there was always something in the air whenever Namjoon was alone with him. It’s been that way since his mother passed away so it was pretty much normal.

“Okay. Drive safe, father.”

His father stood there for a few seconds and took a step to leave, but turned back. “Did you have dinner with a client?”

“No, I was with y/n.” Namjoon answered.

“Oh, y/n.” His father nodded his head slowly. “Are her parents back from their trip?”

“She mentioned that they were taking a detour to New York after Milan, so they’re probably going to be back next week Thursday or Friday.”

Again, his father nodded his head and drummed his fingers along the door frame.

“Alright, don’t forget your meeting with Mr. Choi at your chosen location after your classes tomorrow. Good night.”

Namjoon slumped his shoulders forward and ran a hand through his hair after his father closed his door. Another thing was added to his to-do list.

“Good night, father.”

It was never going to end, was it?

♡ rae jagi

#bangtan boys #bts #bts scenarios #namjoon #namjoon scenarios #bts slow burn #bts arranged marriage AU #bts friends to lovers AU #namjoon slow burn #namjoon arranged marriage AU #namjoon friends to lovers AU #she bacc again #20200130 #dimplemon #rae writes

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bryan360 · 4 years ago

Text

Part 5/Final - Installation with my Fintie Tablet Case and Conclusion for my new ProCase Tablet Case

This is it. It's gonna be the last tablet case related post to talk about my thoughts to my new Procase Tablet Case that I already use it as of today. But before that, Thought I could also show another Installation part for my Fintie Tablet Case from yesterday; Reasons since I haven't think of seocnd thought to show through my old case back in May 2019 after gotten it. So why not that I'll be showing it today after already did on my ProCase Tablet Case back from Part 3? Link Here

51th and 52th Image

Took some time to take off my Samsung Tab E from the ProCase Tablet Case, despite being tricky which I'll get to that later. I slip my tablet into my one year old case and being honest that it was easy to slide through than for my new one. Must be a right leather material to smooth sliding into, but strange for the new one had or different kind that it's little hard to slide in or out of my tablet. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that's nothing.^^*

53th and 54th Image

Now for the back from my old tablet case; along side this flap that I taped on from months agos cause of it ripped from overuse many times. Looking into it was a good one; mostly seeing on camera and speaker are inline through the holes from the tablet case itself. Unlike from my new tablet case which is almost inline, but at least it didn't bother me so.

55th, 56th, and 57th Image

Finally for placing the standing angle....although one or two of them that my old tablet case just had one flap. I did the second one by placing it down and it could work, but I had to go with standing up straight cause it works of wether watching YouTube videos or checking through my art and comments from everyone. I can also use it by holding it up, but annoyance me when my palm of my hands are accidentally touch on "Recent Apps Key" and "Back Button" sometimes....

My thoughts for this is that was good for doing the second installation tablet case test. The material for the inside is easy to slip through my Samsung tablet and properly close up nicely than what is my new tablet case, but both closes just fine. Now that my old tablet case installtation test is done, I wanted to jump ahead to my next thoughts about my new tablet case being made by ProCase.

58th Image (last one)

Owning this ProCase Tablet Case was a good accessorie for my Samsung Tab E that I'll be getting; promised of right materials to hope for the best: will last long, different angles to place to choose than one from my old tablet, and a unexpected but good bonus item which I could save it on other post soon. Well, I did check through from my posts and it was the right tablet case to owned. It only had few flaws like not seeing the inline holes for the camera and speaker needs to be in perfect fit. Another one is it needs to close it up nice and shut instead of leaving it open; even trying to push it hard to close the lid with my hands all day. Lastly, it's hard to get it in and out for my Samsung tablet to handle and I needed to be careful with. It was a troublesome yet good tablet case with right size, but needs work for the material part for the inside like easy slipping through it or needs proper designs for the close lid. How about my main OCs reactions?

🐰🖌Maxwell: It was a good looking ProCase Tablet Case you gotten from your mom, but understanding that it would've have things to fix of its material and designs a little.

🐰👊💥May: It's a not bad tablet case that fits your Samsung Tab E very nicely. Still can't help to notice how it size are almost indentical, but just asking.

🦊⚽️Sam: That new tablet case does had some flaws, but the end it was a good fit for your Samsung tablet nonetheless. Also cool pen item accessorie included! *thumbs up*

And for that, I can give my ProCase Tablet Case 4/5 stars 🌟. I think that's all for my related tablet case postings and I'm knowing that I can now rest to checking one of my P-Pal's latest posts. However I'm not done for my upcoming Tumblr postings just yet and sadly it'll be another week of absent for my DeviantArt page, but just hoping one week left til if I can show my artworks once again. As for my upcoming Tumblr post that I'll be bringing though? I would continue my next topic for my YCCTEAM video game controller since I left off my latest post with the comparison part back in October 10th. Also my P-Pal asked me about if I'll do the headphone test since I got three of my headphones; wired and wireless. It's gonna be another week to focus those from my devices I earned, but I'll tried to see how I will go through. Hope to like my last related tablet case post, by the way. ^^*

#procase #procase tablet case #procase galaxy tab e tab e 9.6 case #vintage stand folio case cover #tablet case #samsung tablet case #new accessorie #my new accessorie #of 2020 #part 5 #finale #final part #fintie #installation #november 2020 #november 16th 2020

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goodnightkisseu · 5 years ago

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Time To Heal - Chapter 5

→ pairing: sehun x reader

→ genre: fluff, angst, struggling musician sehun x rich reader

→ word count: 3,396

→ warnings: none

→ summary: you had your life planned out for you ever since you were a little girl. However, when your friend, Baekhyun, takes you with him to his old hangout, you meet someone, someone you were willing to risk your parents’ criticism to be with. His name was Oh Sehun. But, in the end, what you really should have asked yourself, was if Sehun was ready to face your parents…

→ masterlist // exo masterlist // time to heal masterlist

→ [prologue] [ch.1] [ch.2] [ch.3] [ch.4] [ch.5] [ch.6] [ch.7]

→ updates taglist~: @chanyeolol @meryljill-111192 @sehunscutiepie @hi-cupid

note: I was asked about this story recently, but with the month of october being utter chaos in my work life, I didn’t have time to update. however, I finally managed to find some time for this chapter! Hopefully I can keep posting every Friday for the next few weeks...

Also, please let me know if you would like to be tagged in this story~

- ash <3

Time was supposed to heal all types of pain. Whether it was physical, mental, or emotional, the passage of time should have made it better. Yet, you had to admit, it was a slower process than you wanted. In the months following your breakup, all you could think about was Sehun. When something reminded you of him, your thoughts would be flooded with the way you remembered him reacting to it. On some nights, you would even dream about him. Your mind recalling his intense gaze as he approached you, or the way his voice would always send a chill down your spine. It remembered that smile that turned those eyes into two crescents.

However, every time that Sehun crossed your mind, everything would feel heavy. You were quickly reminded of why he wasn't in your life anymore, of those harsh and venomous words that he so promptly threw at you. You knew that it wasn't healthy to think of him, to be so emotionally attached to someone that didn't feel anything for you, but your heart had a hard time letting him go. Time wasn't healing your pain fast enough.

In a desperate effort to distract yourself, you found refuge in your work. Initially, it had been hard to shift your focus, to ignore the throbbing pain in your heart, but soon, it became easier. You engrossed yourself in the latest fashion trends, did research on what was currently popular as well as what was soon to be popular. You became active in the workplace, taking the initiative on specific projects. With this new mentality, you worked your way up the small company, bringing its vision to light.

Focusing on work meant that something had to give. You sacrificed the time that you used to spend with others to make it happen. You didn't go out like you used to, didn't meet up as often with the people that used to be a big part of your life. The only one that really stuck around was Baekhyun, and it was only because he made sure that he was present. He made himself available, whether it was by stopping by your office or deciding that the two of you needed to have dinner together. Other than Baekhyun, you became isolated, only focused on this world of work that you had built.

And before you knew it, two whole years passed in the blink of an eye.

After helping your current company reach some of their longtime goals, you felt like it was time to move onto something else. When a position to lead a new team at your parents' company opened up, you decided that it was time to switch over. However, your application there came with strict stipulations from you to your parents. They were in no way to interfere with your interview process. Of course, being your parents, they had protested, saying that they could get you in with little hassle. However, when you threatened to apply elsewhere if they didn't comply with your request, they conceded. Your parents were aware of how good you had become at your job, and they weren't willing to lose your expertise because they were too headstrong. In the end, you aced both the interview and the portfolio review.

It was inevitable that your relationship with your parents would change drastically after your breakup. Your parents noticed that their daughter no longer wanted to have a conversation with them. Before, you would speak up if it was necessary, but in the last few years, you were more likely to excuse yourself than to try and make your point. The change was jarring to your parents. What was even harder for them to get used to was that your weekly dinners no longer happened. You had cited work as the main reason for your absence at first, but it was evident to everyone that you no longer felt welcomed at that table. Being in that house made all of those memories come back, and you had a hard time being there without feeling a certain way.

To be fair to your parents, they had tried to apologize, in hopes that things could go back to normal, but any apology they gave fell short. They were unaware of why they needed to apologize, to begin with, and their words were hollow, just said to save face. However, no attempt to reconcile worked, and the three of you limited your interactions to the workplace. It was hard, but it felt like the right thing to do until you could all sort through how you really felt.

Though you had limited interactions with your parents, your communications with Sehun had been nonexistent. The only time you ever heard about Sehun was if Baekhyun brought him up. Every now and then, your friend would give you updates on how your old friends and ex-boyfriend were doing. And honestly, they seemed to be thriving. According to Baekhyun, the band managed to sign a contract with a relatively well-known label a little over a year ago. It wasn't a significant name in the industry. Still, they did reasonable work and gave their artists creative liberty with their work. They didn't become overnight celebrities, but from what Baekhyun had told you, they were slowly working towards their goals. The band had long since left behind the rundown buildings and small club shows. They now played at festivals and small concert halls. It seemed like a good start for the boys, and honestly, you were happy for them. You were glad that Sehun had proved your parents wrong, that his hard work and the hard work of the other boys, got them to where they were. There was always something special when they performed, and you were glad that others were realizing it too.

Sehun's success was not lost on your parents, either. They had heard that the band was signed, and though they still preferred for you to be with someone in their industry, they would lament that it was a shame that you couldn't keep such a hardworking young man by your side. Though you were courteous with your words towards your parents, their own commentary was like a thorn to your side.

At one point last year, with your emotions were in a better state, you had considered getting in contact with Sehun again. You were unsure where the two of you stood, but you at least wanted to congratulate him on all of his success. Yet, every fiber of your being had told you that it wasn't the right time. Every time you thought of speaking with him, you'd be reminded of his attitude that night. You would remember how cold he was towards you, how he acted with no regard towards your own feelings. Your heart would hurt as you thought of those razor-sharp words. No, he had made it clear back then. Sehun didn't need you in his life. You should respect that decision and not cross the line.

"You work too much, you know that, right?" Baekhyun inquired. He had seated himself in one of the many chairs that littered the usually busy office space. The walls were covered in first-pass designs and inspiration for the upcoming fashion line. Currently, everyone was out at lunch, taking a much-needed break from their work. Well, everyone except for you, of course.

"I hate to break it to you, Baek, but some of us don't have the luxury to take a long break after shipping a product. In fashion, you have to be constantly working," you shot back. Baekhyun looked up from his phone and stuck his tongue out at you in protest. This only earned him a light chuckle from you.

On his days off, Baekhyun would often hang around your office. You figured that it was his way of keeping an eye on you to make sure that you were okay. Part of you appreciated that he cared about you that much, but you also knew that his sudden appearance made some people at the office talk. They wondered about your relationship with each other, and though you had told countless people that you were just good friends from college, you knew that about half of them didn't believe it. At least you tried to clear up the rumor. "Why are you even here, silly? Shouldn't you be at one of those hot vacation destinations, partying it up with bikini-clad girls?"

Baekhyun rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to party it up on some yacht while my ride or die is stuck in her office working," he pointed out, fingers sliding across his phone screen. "It's gotta be both of us, or it's a no go. Plus, it's no fun without you."

You scoffed, gently placing down your tablet pen as you looked over at your friend. "Baek, I haven't been fun in years," you teased. "Plus, if I remember correctly, years ago, when you were completely drunk out of your mind, you confessed that someone else was your ride or die. It wasn't me."

Baekhyun scrunched up his face, hearing you giggle in the process. "You remember it all wrong," he protested. However, a light sigh left his lips when he realized who you were referring to. "You really haven't spoken with him since, have you. Not even once after that night?"

You shook your head, eyes scanning over the design before you. "There's never been a reason for us to talk after that night. I think that he made it pretty clear where I stand in his life. Plus, he's doing well now. Sehun and the guys have a contract, they're actually making a name for themselves. He doesn't need me messing that up for him. Nor does he require my support or approval for anything..."

Baekhyun had grown quiet, aimlessly hitting his phone screen as he clicked through his mobile game. He had a lot of thoughts on everything that had happened between you and Sehun, but there had never been a good time to really address it. The one thing he did know was that it was weird seeing the two of you apart. Maybe... "Hey, they're playing at a small concert hall that's nearby tonight. We should go!" he suggested.

"Byun Baekhyun, what did I just say to you," you replied flatly, but your friend was already at your side.

"I know what you said. Look, I'm not suggesting this because I think that the two of you seeing each other will lead to something. We don't live in a drama. Just being in each other's presence isn't going to allow you to magically make up in an explosion of repressed feelings or something. What I'm saying is, it's been a while since you've seen them perform, right? Why not go and see them play again, for old time's sake? Chanyeol gave me two tickets to the show a while ago, and they're just sitting around. Come on, let's go support our friends, hm?" he insisted. "Plus, you really need a break. Let's do something fun for once!"

Though you were hesitant, you also couldn't deny that Baekhyun was right. You did work too much, and an evening off would do you wonders. Lately, you had been working, even if your off-hours just to make sure that deadlines were met. Taking a break for the evening could be your chance to recharge. And your friend was correct. You did love to watch the guys perform. Maybe it would be good to see them play again? It's not like they would be able to find you in the crowd. Plus, you weren't obligated to hang out with them after the show. What harm could it cause?

"Alright, I'll go. But, I swear, Byun Baekhyun, if you dare to come up with some crazy plan, I will end you."

A giant smile appeared on his lips. "I would never dream of it," he said, though you were doubtful of his honesty in the matter, you let it slide, for now, returning to your work…

========

The initial plan of seeing the boys play had been exciting. However, now that you were home and getting ready, the reality of where you were going finally set in. You had agreed to go and see the person who had broken your heart. Sure, it was supposed to be about hearing the guys perform again, but you couldn't help but be wary about being in the same place at him. You wondered what he would think if he saw you in the crowd. Surely he had forgotten about you. He would just think that you were another face, right? There was no way he would act in any other way except full-on disinterest. At least, that's what you told yourself as you got into Baekhyun's car.

The drive was a relatively short one, and with much coaxing about how good the show would be, Baekhyun managed to get you out of the car and through the front doors. The concert hall was a good size, a bit bigger than you had expected. Still, by your estimate, it likely held a bit over a thousand, and that was a respectable amount of fans. And not only that, it was already packed when you and Baekhyun arrived. The stage was already crowded, people trying to find the best possible spot to enjoy the show from. Baekhyun took the lead as he usually did and meandered his way through the crowd with you close behind. When he found a suitable spot, he situated you in front of him, making sure that you wouldn't get jostled by others moving around.

The two of you talked while you waited for the show to start, your longtime friend reassuring you that you were going to have a good time and enjoy yourself. You managed to give him a small smile, but he was quick to notice how forced it was. Baekhyun reminded you to not overthink the situation. However, before you could reply, the lights started to dim, and the people around you began to cheer as the chords of the first song rang through the venue.

The moment the roar of the crowd and the guitar riff filled your ears, you had all but forgotten your earlier concerns. You were determined to have a good time, and as if a switch flipped in you, you found yourself jumping along with the people around you, getting lost in the music. Every now and then, there would be a push from the people around you. It was usually the result of fans trying to push forward to try and touch one of the members' hands as it extended into the crowd. Baekhyun made sure that you stayed in front of him so that he could mediate the shoving. All of that aside, the show was proving to be pretty amazing. They were always good at hyping up a crowd, even back when they had very little. But now that they were given the proper time to practice and better equipment, it only helped to amplify that natural charisma.

The show came to an end with a song that you were all too familiar with. You had heard it countless times. It was their encore song for every show they played, and it was one you had heard them practice over and over. You sang along from memory, cheering loudly with the crowd. However, when they came forward for their final bows, and the lights were turned on so that they could properly see the audience, you felt yourself sinking back. You hoped that if you made yourself small enough, the boys would overlook you. However, standing in front of Baekhyun did you no good. You could tell that his friends were scanning the crowd for him, and unfortunately for you, it didn't take Chanyeol long to find him. At first, the tall male threw his old friend a thumbs up, but when his eyes landed on your small form in front of Baekhyun, his eyes widened.

At the look of recognition spread across his features, you sank further back, hoping to obscure yourself behind the people moving forward to get a better look at the band. You were extra careful in moving around when you saw Sehun's eyes scanning the crowd. On his first pass, his gaze went right over you, and you inwardly let out a sigh of relieve. However, on his second scan of the crowd, his eyes locked on Baekhyun immediately, and it didn't take him long to realize your small figure in front of his friend. There was no mistaking that he recognized you. Time didn't slow, but your eyes remained locked with, and it only took the band being rushed off the stage for that gaze to be broken.

As you followed the large crowd of people out of the concert hall, you felt Baekhyun swing his arm over your shoulders. "So, what did you think?" he asked as he led you along with the crowd.

You couldn't help but let out a small sigh. You knew that your friend already knew your answer based on his tone, but he obviously wanted to hear it from your lips. "Baek, they were amazing, just like they always were. Actually, if anything, they've gotten even better. What did you expect me to say?" you retorted, seeing that grin spread across his features. The pair of you moved out of the way of people exiting the venue as Baekhyun tended to some text messages. "It was good to hear them play again after so long, though..."

"I'm sure that they would appreciate hearing that from you," he answered, though, as the words passed his lips, a look of recognition did as well. "Though, I'm guessing you aren't ready to see them again, huh..."

Slowly, you shook your head. "I... I think it might still be too soon..." you confessed, and your friend nodded in understanding. You continued to follow Baekhyun, though you soon realized that you were headed down an unfamiliar hallway. Before you could bring it up to Baekhyun, you came face to face with a security guard. The man seemed to recognize Baekhyun and let the two of you through. What was your friend up to exactly?

"Well, I know that you're not ready to see them yet, but they did want to hear what I thought of the show..." he explained gradually. "But if you don't quite want to see them yet, maybe you could wait for me here? I promise no one will bug you. I'll make it quick, I swear."

A soft sigh left your lips. Of course, you were backstage now. You should have known by the number of ridiculous turns the two of you took. Still, though you felt unsure, you weren't going to stop Baekhyun from seeing his friends. Teasing him, however, was not out of the question. "I swear, if you leave me stranded here and sneak out to go drinking with them, I will beat you up in the morning," you warned, and though Baekhyun smiled, he promised he wouldn't do such a thing. He gave you a quick and reassuring hug before he disappeared behind the door, leaving you on your own.

You busied yourself with your phone, checking messages from work, as well as anything else that interested you. When you heard footsteps approaching, you had assumed it was Baekhyun and spoke up before your eyes even left your screen. "You're back a lot quicker than I had expected, Baek. You know that I was joking, right? You could totally go drinking with the guys if you want," you said with a gentle giggle, though the individual didn't answer.

Instead of giving you an answer, the person called your name instead. And that simple action was the one that finally pulled your eyes upward. That voice wasn't Baekhyun's. No, that tone wasn't even close to your longtime friend's voice. You knew it, though, and as soon as your eyes shot up and came face to face with the individual, you let out a slight gasp. He as the last person you were expecting to see.

"So it was you, in the crowd with Baekhyun…"

"S-Sehun…"

#oh sehun #sehun #exo #exo scenarios #kwritersworldnet #exo fiction #exo fanfic #exo imagines #sehun scenarios #sehun imagines #kpop scenarios #goodnightkisseu series #gnks: time to heal

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eirian-houpe · 5 years ago

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What the Actual Fuck! - Chapter 4

Fandom: Cobra (TV 2019), Once Upon a Time (TV)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationships: Belle (Once Upon a Time)/Robert Sutherland (Cobra)

Characters: Robert Sutherland (Cobra), Belle (Once Upon a Time), Neville (OC) Anna Marshall (Cobra)

Additional Tags: Angst, Betrayal, Extramarital Affairs, Politics, Drama, Eventual Smut, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Violence, Explicit Language, UST, Adding to this list when necessary

Summary: Prime Minister Robert Sutherland is feeling pressured, and isn't prepared to acquiesce to the repeated challenges from within his cabinet nor the wider circle of those around him. He resorts to drastic measures to ascertain who can be trusted, turning to an 'old friend' to help him separate the wheat from the chaff. Said friend promises to send in his best operative to assist the PM, the trouble is the operative finds out more than Robert necessarily wants to know, and all this just as all hell is breaking loose around him; people hurt, Britain in chao and multiple deaths push him into making some hard hitting decisions in order to safeguard himself, the country, and the people he cares about.

Read more on AO3

[Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3]

Chapter 4 - Press Call

Prime Minister Sutherland watched as his Chief of Staff sat on the other side of his desk taking notes. He didn’t say anything just yet… only watched, but there were some things he had on his mind, and he was damned if he was going to let her leave before he had satisfactory answers. Not that he was angry with her, just that he had… questions, and he didn’t like it.

She was dressed for the afternoon press conference; power dressing. It was form fitting, and v-necked but revealed little, cinched by a belt at her waist, and when she’d walked in he noticed her shoes were also black and shone as though recently polished; a medium heel so as not to overshadow him - not that he cared. It took more than physical height in excess of his own to make him look small. The only splash of color she wore was a blue silk scarf tied carefully around her neck, its ends tucked in on itself. He wondered.

“What?” she asked without looking up.

“Hmm?” he made a sound of query as he snapped back to his office, to the piece of paper he had in front of him of which he hadn’t read a word, and the realization that he had been staring.

“You’ve been looking at me like fucking judge, jury and executioner for the past ten minutes, Robert,” she said. “If you’ve got something to say,” she finally looked up at him, “come on, out with it.”

He sat back in his chair, tapping his pen on the papers on his desk before he set it down and then asked bluntly, “Why wasn’t I informed of the change in staffing?”

“Staffing?” she echoed.

“My aide,” he said. “I heard that Dennis took emergency family leave, and I clearly have a new aide, so,” he spread his arms, “why wasn’t I informed; consulted, even.”

“Christ, Robert,” Anna said, “If we informed you on every single staff change in Number 10, you’d have to employ someone to run the country.”

“I’m not talking about every staff change, Anna. I’m talking about my aide. My aide, who is in and out of this office, sees to my needs, picks up the domestic slack - don’t you think that’s one staff change about which I should be consulted?”

“Is there a problem?” Anna asked. “Don’t you like her work. I assure you, she was fully vetted.”

“It’s not about security,” he said. “It’s about who might accidentally walk in on me with my freshly dry-cleaned suit when I’m—”

Anna laughed dryly. “Seriously?” she asked, “All of a sudden you’ve gone… shy and prudish?” He didn’t answer. Merely gave her a look that was twice as dry as her laughter had been. “It was my call, and she came highly recommended.”

“She’s very competent, actually,” he said.

“Well then,” Anna tipped her head to the side slightly, “just… make sure to tell her to knock.” She sighed. “Do you think we can get down to some real business now.”

“The psychological comfort of the Prime Minister is real business,” he said, not exactly serious in his complaint - he’d said his piece and he would move on, but he wanted to give Anna a hard time, so he made it sound as though he were, eliciting a ‘what-the…’ face from her before he went on, “but if you’re referring to this afternoon’s press conference ahead of the arrival of the European Minister for Public Health and Safety, I’d be happy to.”

“Oh, so you remembered then,” Anna remarked, sarcasm clear in her voice.

“Of course I remembered,” he quipped, “Not quite senile yet, despite what some in the cabinet might think.”

She gave him a tight smile, and asked, “What is it now?”

“What do we know about Eleanor James?” he asked. He made it sound off hand, absent, but he might have known that Anna wouldn’t fall for it in the slightest.

“Still on the war path, Robert?” she asked, frowning. Then she shook her head and said, “She’s solid.”

“Are you saying that because you know,” he asked, “Or because she had your back over the whole, Tosumbegovic… thing?”

“Well thank you for that ringing endorsement,” Anna snapped. “It wasn’t a thing.

“Poor choice of words,” Sutherland answered, though without a hint of apology, “but you know what I mean.”

“I have no reason to doubt her,” she said, “either before or after I went to her about Edin.”

Robert shrugged, and murmured, “Fair enough.” He wasn’t sure he was convinced.

“What brought this on?” she asked, but he shook his head.

“Maybe I really am still on the war path,” he said. Then, sitting forward again, said, “So… press conference?”

Anna evidently recognized that she wasn’t going to get anything else out of him on the subject, so she followed his change in subject.

“All right,” she began. “Well, we thought we might take advantage of the good weather, and hold it out front… Number 10 in the background, that kind of thing. It’ll be good for the public to see you ‘out of doors’ as it were.”

“Or are you trying to—” he broke off, as the irritating tickle in his nose suddenly became a full on irresistible urge, and he reached over, only just in time to grab a tissue from the box on the corner of his desk, before he sneezed violently. “Fuck!” he hissed.

“Trying to?” Anna prompted.

“Well I was going to say ‘rub the noses of the remaining dissenters in it.’” He answered, “but under the circumstance…” He shook his head, and leaving the sentence hanging, tossed the tissue into the trash, and then reached out to squirt some hand sanitizer into his palm, carefully applying it to the rest of his hands, before he got up, and went to close the cracked open window. “I’m really fucking starting to hate this time of year,” he said as he returned to his seat.

Before Anna could answer, there was a soft knock at the door, which didn’t open until his invitation allowed it, and his new aide - though he supposed not new any more - came in carrying a tray.

“See,” Anna remarked, and he couldn’t tell whether she was teasing or not, “already well trained.”

He frowned, his jaw tightening slightly as he said, “So, you want to hold this press conference outside, on a day like today.”

“Yes,” Anna said. “It will be good for morale.”

As they spoke, Miss French came to the side of his desk, and carefully unloaded the tray of its contents, being obviously careful not to set anything down on his papers as she brought him lunch. He glanced up at her, but she seemed to be concentrating so hard on her task that she didn’t meet his eyes; didn’t or wouldn’t and he wasn’t sure which.

“Whose, exactly?” he snapped, looking back at Anna, until, from the corner of his eye, after Belle unloaded the last of the items from the tray, he saw her slip her hand into the pocket of her dress, and pull out a small packet, which she set beside his lunch. He turned his head to look over, and noted, not without a good deal of relief, that she had set a packet of antihistamine tablets onto his desk and said a quiet, “Thank you, Miss French.”

She gave him a barely there smile and a nod, before beginning to withdraw, and turning his attention back to Anna, he said brusquely, “At least someone in this fucking building is paying attention.”

Belle French took her job very seriously. She always had, and believed that was what made the difference between a good operative, and the best operative. After the incident with the vase of flowers the previous day, she’d made it her business to learn why the Prime Minister wanted to avoid having cut flowers at the formal dinner, and it wasn’t hard to guess, but guesswork wasn’t part of her her purview, and so she made a point of making sure, and after that, to do something about it.

Neville had told her to have the PM’s back, to find out just where loyalties lay in the way she had perfected in her few short years of service. To her, that went deeper than just snooping around in people’s offices for evidence as to whether they were for or against Sutherland. She’s been told to take it, ‘all the way,’ not just to people that made up his cabinet and members of his party, but everyone: his estranged wife, his daughter… all of them, and she had her doubts about the wife… his daughter had been a puppet, a pawn. Beyond that, she had her doubts about Anna Marshall.

Not that she believed his Chief of Staff would ever betray him. As far as it went, Marshall was one hundred percent for Sutherland; loyal and on his side. She was, however, sometimes so self-involved that she was clueless and blind to the little things, no matter how sharp she was about the big picture. It was the little things she overlooked.

After delivering lunch, Belle went upstairs to begin the process of setting out the suits and other items of clothing that the PM would need on his upcoming trip, ready for his approval - and by approval, she’d learned, it meant that he would pack them into the suitcase, or not, as the case might be - hanging the suits near their respective suit bags, and laying out the shirts, ties and other clothing on the top of his bed.

As she worked she let her mind back and forth over what she knew, like the shuttle on a weaving loom, slowly slotting the newly acquired pieces back into place and weaving the tapestry as it should be woven, the complete picture. She was so engrossed that she didn’t hear the door open behind her, or register the presence until his voice made her start and bring her back to the moment.

“Miss French,” he said quietly. “I hoped I might find you here.”

She turned slowly, composing herself from her slightly startled state, and the thought that, at the sound of his voice, her body had begun to hum with the memory of her dream, and the reality of standing alone with the man, in his bedroom… and the words he’d spoken.

“Prime Minister?” she queried, then at his expectant expression, added, “Did you need something?”

“I wanted to ask if you’d mind coming with us when we go north,” he said, and she could tell by the lingering expression that asking directly if he needed something was not what he had been waiting for.

“Is that usual?” she asked.

Sutherland shrugged. “I don’t know that there is a precedent for these things,” he said, “It’s… entirely up to you, of course, but… I would appreciate knowing that there’s someone around that I can count on to bring me a decent cup of tea when I’m up too late at night.”

She raised an eyebrow, suspecting he was teasing, and answered, “Well, in that case, I’ll make sure to pack the Yorkshire.”

He laughed, a deep, throaty laugh that went right through her, and sent the lingering hum in her belly into a tingling overdrive.

“Yorkshire it is then,” he said. “I um… I have to run, damned press conference, otherwise I’d stay and give you a hand.”

“I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “Almost done, anyway,” she added, indicating the few small piles on the bedspread.

He nodded once, and then turned as though he were about to leave, but instead stopped and said, “One more thing.”

“Robert?” she asked, forgetting herself and the attempt she’d made to maintain formality as a defense against her quickly growing, inappropriate desires for the man in front of her.

He turned back to her with a warm smile on his face, and a sharp, almost wicked twinkle in his eyes, and asked, “Could you make sure we pack the pinstripe?”

#sutherelle #angst #cobra #once upon a time #eventual smut

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demaury · 6 years ago

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Some kind of mistake (cha. 3)

Ever since Eliott first came across the new resident of the apartment 320, he made peace with the fact that Lucas ‘Big Blue Eyes’ Lallemant would, one way or another, turn his life upside down. Thing is, he hadn’t expected that Lucas’ wife and Lucas’ daughter would play a part in it. Because, you know, he didn’t know they existed until it was too late. (ao3 link)

When Friday rolled around, Eliott was still unable to make a choice on whether or not he should be freaking out about having Lucas over. It was one thing to wait for someone to give you the answer you wanted, but it was entirely something else to figure shit out about what you were expecting in the first place. They had met a handful of times, talked about as many, and it wasn’t because he had blue eyes and nice comebacks that he would suddenly decide they were meant to be. The best thing was to keep everything casual. Casual and under control. That was the plan, and he might add, a nice plan.

Which, naturally, flew out the window as soon as Lucas stepped in, Eliott’s parcel tucked under his arm, his baby-blue sweatshirt making his eyes pop and his dark skinny jeans fitting him in all the right places.

“Hey. Look what I got,” Lucas said, grinning, and it made Eliott’s insides twist in a way they weren’t supposed to. So much for keeping it casual.

The last hour had already been lost trying to deflect Idriss’ attempts to get him to come to Sofiane’s later in the evening, all the while hiding the fact that no, he didn’t want to come, yes, he had other plans, indeed it involved someone cute, and actually yes, he was usually mad at them for constantly ditching him.

At least his most recent purchase made for a good distraction. Eliott smiled back as Lucas handed him the parcel, with all the solemnity of a Holy Relic. “You mind if I open it now? I just want to check if there’s nothing wrong,” he asked as he made way for Lucas to step in and closed the door behind him.

Lucas nodded. “Sure. No problem.”

They both sat on the couch, and Eliott took the time to crack open two beers before opening the cardboard box — because he was polite, and that’s what polite people did. From time to time, he could see Lucas glancing around from the corner of his eye, when he thought Eliott wasn’t paying attention.

“And there she is,” Eliott drawled, pleased, when he finally got rid of the last protective package a couple of minutes later.

He straightened onto his seat, turning the object for Lucas to see.

“I bet it’s nice, but, like, what is it exactly?” Lucas enquired, frowning a bit.

“That’s a graphic tablet. You know, to sketch things and stuff,” Eliott explained, waving above the tablet as he talked. Lucas’ eyes followed his movements as if it was the most interesting thing in the world and it made him self-conscious all of a sudden. He cleared his throat, and started to put the tablet back into its package. “I’m a graphic designer,” he added, “we don’t really do the whole ‘sketching on paper’ thing anymore so, it’s, like, kind of a big deal.”

Lucas cocked an eyebrow and craned his neck to look behind his shoulder, above the backrest of the couch. “What about these?” he asked, pointing at a bunch of old sketches that were hanging on the wall.

Eliott followed his gesture. Maybe he should have tidy the place a little bit. Thing was, he had been so caught up into not making a big deal out of this (whatever that thing with Lucas was) that he had forgotten his apartment probably looked like a mess, for someone who had never been there before. Sofiane, Idriss and the others were all, more or less, used to seeing his drawings everywhere, even the old, quirky ones, back when he was drawing people as animals. It was something he had started doing when he was perhaps 13; it was a way of talking about his life, about his feelings, about others, without having anyone meddling in. It was like a coded diary. At worst it just made him weird, and he could live with that. It wasn’t like covering pages and pages of ‘I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay’, until his pen ran out of ink. It was more subtle, something people didn’t really pick up on like a red flag as soon as they laid their eyes on it.

“Old stuff. Things I used to draw back when I had more time,” Eliott waved.

“And this one? Yours too?” Lucas’ voice sounded intrigued, as he gestured at a framed drawing from the bottom of his beer bottle.

Eliott swallowed the sip he had just taken from his own and snorted. “I wish! C’mon, don’t tell me you don’t recognize him.”

The sketch showed a raccoon, climbing up a weeping willow branch. It seemed to confuse Lucas, who turned to him with a furrowed brow after a good minute of helplessly staring at the drawing. “Should I?”, he asked again, carefully.

“Wow,” Eliott deadpanned. “What happened to your basics? It’s Meeko.” There was a short silence and he cocked an eyebrow pointedly as he elaborated. “Disney. Pocahontas. Rings any bell?”

Lucas huffed a laugh and took another swing from his beer. “I was more of a Pokémon kind of guy, to be honest.” He smirked when Eliott let out a groan of protest. “Aren’t you a bit old for Disney anyway?”

Eliott’s eyes almost bulged and he shifted on the couch, turning his body a little bit more towards him. “First of all, no. Second of all, no. No one’s ever too old for Disney, otherwise humankind would disappear after a generation, because there wouldn’t be anyone to create new Disney content and kids would literally die from boredom.”

“Wow, okay, touchy subject, I see,” Lucas grinned, his eyes gleaming a little bit. “You seem really passionate about it.”

Eliott shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. Now that was a little bit embarrassing, because without having too much difficulty talking to new people, it wasn’t exactly his style to go off on a rant like that. Maybe Idriss and Sofiane were right, maybe he needed to meet new people, just enough to remember how basic interactions worked between civilized people.

“Well, it was kind of my dream, growing up,” he admitted.

“To be a native American princess?”

Eliott gave him a look and Lucas chuckled. “Given the chance, I’d pick Meeko anytime.”

Lucas hummed in response, and shifted on the couch as well, mirroring Eliott’s position. “I was never really much into the whole fairy tales thing to be honest,” he confessed, tracing the seams of the cushion. “I grew out of it pretty fast.”

“Someday,” Eliott said, somewhat quietly, “you’ll be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” The words had rolled off his tongue so naturally that he hadn’t thought it’d be weird for him to start speaking English in the middle of a conversion. Lucas looked up at him with a curious look, and he felt the need to add: “It’s a quote. From C.S. Lewis.”

“It’s a nice quote,” Lucas said.

Eliott didn’t really know what made his heartbeat rise up.

There was a moment where it was just the two of them looking at each other, and he couldn’t really bring himself to look away. He couldn’t prevent his eyes from tracing the lines of Lucas’ face, falling down to the mole at the corner of his mouth, then going back up to his eyes, looking so bright yet so dark. The flat was silent and the traffic down the street strangely quiet for a Friday night.

Maybe he should make a move.

Maybe.

The question answered itself when Lucas broke eye-contact, leaving Eliott to feel equally relieved and disappointed. He stared back at the framed picture of Meeko. “So is it like, an original?” he asked, voice a little rough. Eliott nodded. “How much did that cost you though?”

The atmosphere shifted to something lighter, and it was as though a weight was lifted off Eliott’s chest. He shook his head a little, laughing quietly. “A lot more than I could afford at the time. Trust me, you don’t want to know.” He leaned forward to set his empty beer bottle onto the coffee table. “If you consider that a grown man getting passionate about Disney is weird-”

Lucas gave him a small kick in the calf from his foot. “I never said that!”

“Alright, lame then.”

“That’s not true. It’s just- I don’t know,” he shook his head, huffing a little. “It’s kinda surprising.”

Surprising. It could be all good or all bad. There was no middle ground. But somehow, it didn’t sound like he was being judgmental, and Eliott didn’t feel like keeping up with that topic. A part of him didn’t want to find out whether or not Lucas had meant it the way he inexplicably wanted him to.

“What about you then?”, Eliott asked, cocking his head a little.

What kind of surprising things are you capable of, he almost added, but he restrained himself. It sounded weird. Embarrassingly obvious. As a grown-ass man he didn’t know why he still felt the way he used to feel when he was trying to tell his first girlfriend he liked her, back in middle school. Grown-ups should be capable of talking about their feelings, period.

On the other side of the couch, Lucas shrugged, shaking his head. “Oh, clearly, I don’t have the same level of passion,” he said, teasing, and Elliot tolled his eyes. “I’ve never really known what I wanted to do, and- well, things became a bit complicated in high school, so I started working right after graduating, you know, just to make ends meet.” He looked back up. “I used to work as a delivery man. Crazy job, if you ask me,” he commented before taking the last swing of his drink.

Eliott offered a small nod. “And what are you doing now?”

Lucas pulled a face. “I’m an accountant. Well, technically, I’m just an assistant. It’s boring but it pays rather well considering that the most I do is filling paperwork and sitting behind a screen.”

Eliott smiled. “I never pictured you as… Well, to be fair, I never pictured you as anything,” he confessed, and Lucas quirked a brow, looking mildly offended.

“And how do you think I’m surviving then?” he scoffed.

“Frankly? I thought you were a student on some Campus living off mommy and daddy’s money.”

There was a short pause and Lucas’ smile seemed to tighten a bit, but it lasted only a second — so quick that Eliott barely had time to process. He eventually let out a snort. “Well, you thought wrong.”

Eliott chuckled, then gestured at the beers from his chin. “Want another one?”

“Sure. Maybe you could show me a bit of what you do,” Lucas added as Eliott stood up and collected the empty bottles.

He glanced behind his shoulder with a cocked eyebrow. Okay, no. There was no way he was going to Sofiane’s tonight. There was also no way they both made it out through the evening with their clothes on.

The creature sitting on his couch had been specifically designed for him.

“Alright, let’s see about that then,” he said on his way to the kitchen.

Years of practice were paying off, at least he was nailing the casual tone. Literally the last thread his dignity was hanging off of. He grabbed two more beers in the fridge and walked back to the living room, only to find Lucas staring at his phone, typing away at light speed with his brows furrowed in concentration.

“Everything alright?”, he enquired after Lucas had hit the send button.

Lucas glanced up, eyes a bit wide. “I think I’ll have to go,” he winced, rubbing the back of his neck and Eliott’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I’m so sorry, it’s super rude.”

Eliott was still standing in the middle of the living room, the cold drinks in his hand. “Oh,” he said, taken aback. “No, it’s, uh- it’s fine. I just hope it’s nothing serious?”

Whoever had crashed this better have a good excuse for doing so, he almost added, but he bit it back, because he didn’t want Lucas to feel bad — or worse, embarrassed because it wasn’t technically a date. Lucas was already standing up from the couch, each step he took making it clearer and clearer that things were stopping there and then, no matter if Eliott foolishly, selfishly wanted him to stay.

“No one’s dying, at least I don’t think so,” he mumbled, making sure he wasn’t forgetting anything, and Eliott remembered that his hand was starting to freeze, so he put the beers down on the coffee table.

“I’m so sorry, really,” Lucas said again as he retreated towards the entrance.

“It’s fine. We can still meet another time,” Eliott said, trying so hard to erase the interrogative note in his voice. They would meet another time. That wasn’t a question.

Lucas nodded, twisting his mouth a little as he opened the front door. “Definitely.”

And with that he was gone.

“Eliott.”

Idriss’ voice startled him, making his face snap to the right. He was met with his friend’s quizzical stare. “Sorry, zoned out,” he mumbled, rubbing his eye.

He had ended up going to Sofiane’s, against all odds, and now that he was replaying his time spent with Lucas over and over again in his head, he was seriously starting to doubt the validity of his decision. He had yet to decide what felt more alien in his situation: the fact that he was now finding himself here, or the fact that Lucas coming over to his place had happened at all in the first place.

“I saw that,” Idriss rolled his eyes, nudging him in the shin. “What’s up with you? You’re always there, making us feel bad because we don’t hang out enough and when we’re together you zone out on us.”

Eliott shrugged, dismissive. “I just had a rough week, is all.” He stretched out his arms to make his point crossed, but all he got from it was a less-than-impressed look from Idriss.

“How many nights did you spend out this week though?” Before he could even answer, his friend twisted his upper body on his chair to glance at Sofiane, who was rummaging through the cupboards in the kitchen to bring out more snacks. “Sof, let’s start a bet.”

Eliott offered him his best glare in return. “None,” he bit back, “I had lots of work to do. You guys don’t have the monopoly of being overworked.”

“Yeah, right,” he snorted inelegantly, shrugging as he reached for his phone and scrolled through it.

Sofiane brought back a bunch of colorful packages and dropped them onto the coffee table. Because he hadn’t been raised by the wolves, Eliott instinctively reached for several of them and started emptying them in various bowls Sofiane had grabbed in the kitchen.

Eliott took his eyes away from his potato chips package and glanced up when Sofiane said, conversationally: “Are you seeing someone?”

He blinked a couple of times, stopping his task before spilling everything onto the carpet. “What?”, he blurted out, and all of a sudden, Idriss seemed way more interested by the conversation than his phone. “Where is this coming from exactly?”

Sofiane shrugged nonchalantly as he kept emptying whatever type of nuts was in the green package between his hands. “Well, it’s been a while since you dated anyone.”

“Dating someone and seeing someone are two different things,” Eliott objected.

“So you’re seeing someone,” Idriss chimed in, grabbing a handful of chips from the bowl Eliott was filling.

It earned him a slap on the hand and Eliott glared back when Idriss shot him a dark look of protest. “I never said that.”

“No but you’re drawing a line between the two,” Sofiane remarked, sitting next to him.

“Because there is a line.”

Idriss shook his head, stuffing his mouth with more chips as he spoke. “Sof, you agree with me, he’s seeing someone.”

“He’s seeing someone.”

“Oh fuck off,” Eliott protested rolling his eyes and slouching back against the backrest.

“C’mon,” Idriss said again, resting his elbows onto his knees. “Tell us who they are at least.”

Whoever said that you had achieved true friendship when you wanted to strangle your friend at least once a day had never found themselves in this kind of situation. He was usually pretty chill about most aspects of his life, particularly because dating wasn’t his priority and hadn’t been for a while, but whenever Idriss started to go on a rant about it like a man on a mission, Eliott wanted to strangle him at the very least once a minute. Sofiane looked a little more reserved, but he was staring with just the same intent as Idriss, and so Eliott ended up sighing heavily.

“My new neighbor,” he gritted. “We’re hanging out, there’s nothing more to say. We aren’t seeing each other, we aren’t dating each other. We’re just hanging out. That’s all.”

There was a terrifying minute where Sofiane and Idriss exchanged a look without saying anything — Eliott wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean, but damn he hated that —, then Idriss grabbed his phone again and after unlocking it with a swift movement of his thumb, asked without even looking up: “So, what’s Lucky Boy’s name?”

Eliott gave him a suspicious look. “Why do you care?”

“Instagram, duh.”

He huffed. “I’m not doing that! It’s cheating.”

“I thought everything was low-key,” Sofiane piped up nonchalantly, and Eliott glared at him.

“It is low-key,” he snapped. “I just don’t want to end up comparing myself to whoever he’s been dating in the past five years. You know it doesn’t sit well with me, and as my two best friends, I thought you had at least more delicacy than that.”

Idriss pursed his lips but set his phone down nonetheless. “Alright, if you think it’s best, then we will roll with that.”

“Thank you,” Eliott responded haughtily.

The worst part was that he had meant it. Instagram was cheating. Instagram was finding out about his center of interests all at once. Instagram was finding out about his favorite song in his most recent story. Instagram was about finding out about all the people he had dated in recent years. That kind of thing put too much pressure on him, and now that he knew his limits, it was easier to handle, or so he thought.

He was wrong.

Because the following morning, as he was coming back to his apartment complex after dragging himself out painfully early to buy some rolling tobacco, he found himself glancing absent-mindedly at the short brunette standing by the main entrance of their building, her hand nonchalantly resting on the handbrake of a stroller. The door swung open, and next thing Eliott knew, Lucas was there as well, chatting with the brunette.

It wasn’t strictly the fact they talked that made his pace falter and his stomach churn painfully.

The baby Lucas was carrying on his hip and smiling at, however, definitely was.

#skam france #elu fic #lucas lallemant #eliott demaury #mine #*#*skm

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kuvvydraws · 5 years ago

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Gabriel (Good Omens) x Reader

The Chicken That Finally Crossed The Fucking Road

Chapter 2

Having someone move in with you within a day was an adventure, and one you wouldn’t want to partake in ever again.

The easy part was the talk with your landlady, and the woman was happy that you were no longer living on your own with how dangerous London was for young people like you, gullible and vulnerable; her words, not yours. Her husband, on the other hand, found heavily immoral that your roommate was a man and that you both were single, and he made sure his opinion was listened by the whole neighbourhood.

One would say that dealing with the people responsible of your housing was the difficult part. It was a difficult part indeed, just not the only one.

Dealing with Gabriel was a Whole Thing on its own.

You know those old people that have a hard time coping with technology and new stuff and just complain when nothing goes their way? That was Gabriel. While eager to learn, he behaved like every object was invented yesterday and everyone in the world got together in a secret meeting to learn how to handle it just so hey could spite him. You were sure he believed all the blenders from all the kitchens in the world were out there to get him. At least he was polite about it.

Having him moving in was a poltergeist experience. He had no problem with the flat’s layout, and you, expecting some snide comment from his rich ass about your minuscule place of residence, felt much more at ease. The issue with his wardrobe was a bit more pressing. He had nothing but the clothing he was wearing the day you two had met, and that was more like a Trojan costume for a thematic party than anything else. It did match his old fashioned aura, and reinforced that feeling you had about him not belonging to any era in history, but that was about it.

“Oh, the wardrobe shall be no problem at all” he said pleasantly. The very next day, when you came from work, he had his closet filled with the most expensive, most comfortable outfits you had seen in your whole life. Bitch clearly had in his possession a money tree.

He wanted, he had told you just after settling in, the whole commoner experience. If you translate that into poor dialect, it meant that you had to accompany him to get every piece of the top notch technology available at the market. He was slightly familiar with cell phones and tablets, but computers turned out to be far trickier for him.

He said he desired to start from point zero and you had no idea, at first, about what that implied. After seeing him fumble with the keyboard of his shiny new smartphone, you concluded that the guy didn’t even know what YouTube was. You wished you’d had a camera at hand when you had showed him, because his expression was priceless.

A puppy with a new squeaky toy wouldn’t had been more excited.

He also had the tendency to call you ‘human’ or ‘mortal’ instead of your name. You found this to be hilarious. He would add some dumb adjectives in front of it and seriously, it was like watching a pair of too sweet teens figuring out nicknames fused in one big, clueless businessman. His favourite so far was calling you ‘tiny’. Kind of unfair, yet very fair at the same time, since the top of your head barely brushed his shoulder.

Cohabitating with Gabriel was easy, unsurprisingly. The moment he had learnt how the vacuum and the mop worked, your stress about the house being indecent midweek flew out of the window. Gabriel found great pleasure in organizing things. You had agreed on a common budget for food too, instead of separating the shelves inside the fridge and he had classified all the groceries by alphabetical and nutritional order. Of course, to be functional, you two now had to cook together.

Gabriel had obvious issues with food. It was clear that he did not enjoy eating. The cooking process was another talk altogether though. It implied following established steps, times and measurements, and he had even bought a colourful apron for, what he said, was the proper attitude and mind set for cooking.

That sentence, coming from the mouth of a man that hadn’t known what a whisk was three minutes prior, made you cry in laughter. *

You were incredibly useful, Gabriel discovered. Not only willing to provide with all the bothersome necessities his body now had, but with living quarters and explanations about what happened around him.

It had been a long time since Gabriel had had to stay on Earth for more than a few hours, and the world had evolved in ways he couldn’t always comprehend. Things were faster, noisier or more silent, everywhere he went was crowded with people and the air smelled weird, congested his nose and, in some occasions, when he was too close to the back of a car of bus, it irritated his eyes.

He was still getting used to the body, to the sensations and nerves and strange inner reactions and noises it would make. Being so far from divinity had also taken a toll on him, and due the forced tiredness he had to lay down on a bed -his bed now- and sleep. He wasn’t sure he liked sleeping. He didn’t dislike it per se, but he was aware that his surrounding were not part the real world, and that time was a mockery. He would remember moments of his angelic existence, mostly, but also dreamed with new, made up, things. He wasn’t sure he was comfortable with that.

He didn’t sleep every night, and would spent his time reading or watching videos. You had books all over the flat, as if a library had exploded in the centre of the room. Some were in English, some were not. Those fascinated Gabriel. He could guess the general intentions when in a conversation with someone no matter the language, but reading was another matter. You also had no preference about topics, and the novels, encyclopaedias, dictionaries and collections of poems would mixt with the astronomy, art and engineering books right under the pot of that thick leaved plant you had growing near the windows. After thoroughly dusting the area, Gabriel found the mess didn’t bother him that much.

The nights he did sleep were not always good. He would wake up covered in cold sweat, a scream choked inside his throat and his body painfully taut or trembling uncontrollably. He tried to be silent. As an Archangel, he feared nothing, and no stupid machination the human world would make him stutter. The pictures of Hell affected him differently though. So he kept quiet. He took a shower every time, scrubbing hard, and by the time he was done and on his way to rest on the ugly couch at the living room, the light of the kitchen would already be lit.

You sat with him every time, at his left so you wouldn’t obstruct the view from the window, and handed him a mug with tea. He never looked at you, and you never spoke a word.

Gabriel tried to keep his body strong, now more than ever. His lack of celestial influence was no excuse to grow soft, and he had created an exercise routine. He woke up at sunrise everyday and went for a run, and then followed some exercises before showering. You usually emerged from your room at that time, clad in pyjamas, shoved you feet in some ugly and ragged trainers Gabriel refused to even look at, put on a jacket and went to the coffee shop on the opposite side of the street to fetch some coffee. You always brought the same tea for yourself, claiming you had a delicate stomach at such an early time, but Gabriel’s beverage changed everyday. He was starting to pick some favourites.

You went to work daily, too, and returned very late in the evening. Your shifts were scheduled oddly, and you spent the majority of the day out. Gabriel was social by nature, and, while his purpose on Earth was to learn, he had to do it from real experience, not only books. So he took his tablet -you had bought him a protector for it decorated with a pair of what humans thought were angel wings, and Gabriel didn’t now if to laugh or to cringe, although he thanked you nonetheless-, a notebook, some far too expensive pen and a book, and went outside to read or take annotations on particular behaviours.

He was always home by the time you arrived, exhausted, from work. *

You groaned, every step of the stair high as a mountain. You lived on the last floor, the fifth, in the building. You just climbed up to the first one. Life was a terrible thing. By the time you reached upstairs, you were panting like a congested fifteen-year old bulldog, and you bag-pack weighted a ton of bricks.

You crossed the doorway, kicked your shoes to one side -Gabriel would had your head for it-, the bag to the other, and face planted on the couch, the armrest digging sharply in your stomach. Gabriel, sitting straight as a broomstick on the other side of the cushions yet looking incredibly comfortable at the same time, gave you a sideways glance before returning to his book briefly to dogear it. On his lap rested his faithful notebook.

“I see you have returned. How was work today?”

He was like a therapist at his hour. He let you ramble while going to close the door. It’s not like he could understand you, your face buried in the fabric as it was, you socked feet on the air. This time, you just grunted. It’s been a lot like that recently.

“I’m in severe pain at this very moment” you whined, not daring to move a muscle “. And I’m hungry too.”

Your arms were heavy, and so were your legs, like you had attached weights to them and then went to win a marathon. Existing was a bit too much right now; for some reason, the restaurant you worked at had gotten surprisingly popular in a very short time, and the clients wouldn’t top coming. You were stressed every second of it, now not having time to even joke or chat with your co-workers between servings. Everyone but the manager was jumpy, and grumpy and the bad mood in the atmosphere increased with each passing day. The cooks at the back would bark at you waiters for being two seconds too late, and today you had slipped with something -you swore it had been that damned child from table seven throwing a spoon full of ice-cream at your feet- and landed heavily on your wrist. You hadn’t twisted it by pure luck, but it still ached, and an ugly, throbbing, purplish mark had found its home in the area.

You saw Gabriel’s white crocs pass in front of your face -the best fucking purchase you had convinced someone to make- and he handed you a kitchen towel with ice. He was a businessman in his own house too, dressed sharp and elegantly. A month after becoming roomies and you hadn’t seen him in pyjamas yet. You drew the line at some point though, and it was located at the exact time you had noticed he would wear formal shoes even inside. Getting him to discard his scarf and coat hadn’t been that hard.

Gabriel claimed the crocs were the ugliest thing he had the disgrace to glaze upon. You had agreed wholeheartedly. They were too white and the creator had decided to sprinkle holographic glitter on them too. They were positively horrid. And you had been dying to see Gabriel wear them.

Poor Gabriel, bless his soul, had obliged. He had forced you to buy what he considered the most atrocious thing in the store besides his new shoes. It was socks. Fluffy, sprinkled with pancakes and the face of the Grinch -of all things to put with pancakes- all over and you had fell in love. You only put them inside the house, and Gabriel cringed every time he would mistakenly look at your feet now. For someone with Gabriel’s sense of style, your mere existence was abhorrent. It was not that your fashion inclinations were all over the place, it was that you had sold them for a chewed corn chip at the flea market on a Sunday afternoon. He had seen you in pyjamas, in teared pants, in shirts with corny messages and in those puke inducing socks, among other atrocities.

Right now, bent over the sofa, you were wearing what Gabriel believed to be your best clothes. You had an oversized hoodie -you had thousands of those, Gabriel believed- from which neck protruded the white collar of a dress shirt, your previously pleaded pants, now wrinkled, still maintained the ironed fold somehow, but your socks showed now two holes, one each, at the front part. You would have to throw them out again. You destroyed a pair every two weeks and Gabriel was sure half of your income was sorely designated to acquire socks.

He cleared his throat and you sent him your deadliest glare. Gabriel stood there, unaffected, hands comfortably resting in the pockets of his pants. On the crook of his elbow hung his apron. “It’s dinner time” he said “. Go change, we have soup tonight. I’ve bought onions, and eggs and bread.”

You had told him about your mom’s recipe a week ago. Gabriel, a big hater of anything more solid that jelly, had discovered the metaphorical Garden of Wonders in soup. He loved soup. He locked eyes with you and made a show of putting his apron on. You grunted again and stood, heading tiredly to your room to change. You would shower after dinner.

Cooking was methodical -Gabriel wasn’t very fond of physical contact and you always kept enough distance as not to make him uncomfortable- and an actual approach at conversation. You did get some commentary on anecdotes that happened today while Gabriel chopped veggies with a surgeon’s accuracy. He always pointed that he wanted to listen, learn about what people did with their dull lives and whatnot.

Gabriel made sure to have time to listen to you. He never, ever, made you feel dumb for mispronouncing a word and would always give you helpful tips with grammar. You appreciated it immensely. You would be reading, wouldn’t understand a term and he gladly explained it to you, or spelled a word you didn’t catch right from TV and, in short, let you ramble and corrected your grammar whenever you had a question about anything.

You were so fucking grateful for having him.

You weren’t anxious or self-conscious about your language skills around him. You didn’t have to be on guard 24/7 because of judgement and you didn’t have to worry about him laughing at you behind your back. He was far too good for that. Had he not been a snarky, rich bitch, you would’ve thought him an angel of sorts.

Angel or not, you thought looking at him, he’s dumb as fuck.

The aforementioned angel had just taken a huge bite out of a red onion and now his eyes were, quote-unquote, ‘leaking’. His face was getting very red.

You ran to get him a glass of water. *

Gabriel thought he would feel lonely here on Earth, or bored. He had a lot of labours up in Heaven, very important duties. He was sure Michael was now taking care of them, but he felt kind of bad for relying so much on her. Upstairs decision or not, Michael had her own duties too. He hoped Sandalphon was helping her.

As an Archangel, he was basically the representative for the Higher Powers among the other, lesser angels. He was to assign protocols, check the security and make sure that everything in Heaven, from the upper spheres to the organization and distribution of newly arrived souls ran smoothly. He was very good at his job and took pride in its effectiveness.

He had had to find new people to be around daily now, during your absence. Coffee shops and little restaurants were his usual spots to find a loner human willing to share a conversation, no matter the age or gender or whatever -Gabriel wasn’t very sure what gender was, but many humans seemed to believe it was a huge thing or something, and after some well aged people screamed at him for indecency and tried to call him out for his sins, which he did not have, he had decided that it was better to leave some topics untouched.

He had not felt that necessity with you yet. You relied on him when you had doubts and random things to ask about anything and it made him feel so fucking appreciated it was unbelievable. From the simplest of questions regarding his day -you always made a point to ask him about his day, even if his routine was always the same- to you screaming his name so he would come ad watch a cool thing on a video or a show you thought he could be interested in.

Half of the time, Gabriel didn’t know what you were talking about, and you would pause the video and explain the general context to him, which would cause a new landside of questions and, maybe, three hours later, you would return to the original topic. That didn’t happen most of the time but it didn’t seem to bother either of you.

Existence on Earth wasn’t as shabby as he would have thought it to be.

It was kind of... tolerable.

-----------

Chapter 1

#good omens #gabriel (good omens)#gabriel (good omens)/ reader #gabriel/reader #gabriel x reader #reader #the chicken that finally crossed the fucking road #chapter 2

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i-draws-dinosaurs · 7 years ago

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Hi! Do you have any tips on getting into digital art? I'm getting an art tablet soon, but I don't know where to begin. I want to draw animals if that helps

Congrats in advance on getting a tablet! I’m still pretty new to the whole digital art thing myself (I only got my first tablet like one-and-a-half years ago), but I’d be happy to give some tips on getting started!

1. Don’t try to create a masterpiece the first time you use the tablet. This might sound a bit obvious but the first thing you should do with a tablet is a lot of sketching and messing around to be able to get the feel of using a tablet, which can be a pretty unfamiliar sensation. If you expect yourself to be able to create a beautiful digital painting the first time you use a tablet, you’ll probably be disappointed. Just playing around with little sketches is a much better way to get accustomed to digital drawing.

This is the first thing I ever drew with a graphics tablet. Just a sketch of an Allosaurus head with which I then proceeded to attempt an obscene amount of detail and gave up after I barely started. It’s okay to start small!

2. Play around with the brush settings in your art program. Most art programs have a wide variety of brush settings that you can fiddle around with to adjust size and transparency based on pen pressure, as well as different styles of brush that give different effects. I’d recommend messing around with these a bit while you’re doing your practise sketching to find a brush type that is most comfortable for your style of drawing.

You can get a ridiculous amount of variation in brushes by fiddling around in the settings. I use Photoshop, but other drawing programs probably have similar tools. There are plenty of tutorials online on how to create your own personal brushes on different art programs, which can be a fantastic way to personalise your art and make it a bit more special.

3. Practice shading and highlights. One of my absolute favourite things about digital art is that it gives you the ability to easily create strong, bright highlights over your drawings, which is something that you just can’t do easily with a lot of traditional media such as coloured pencils. If you put in the time, effort, and practice to get this right, you can create really solid, three-dimensional-looking art. I can’t offer a lot of great advice on this since it’s still something that I’m working on myself, but there are plenty of tutorials on the internet on shading and highlighting in digital art that are really worth checking out and studying.

This Teratophoneus is probably one of my proudest achievements in shading and highlighting so far. The ability to draw light colours on top of pretty much anything is incredibly useful for creating good, solid highlights

4. Don’t feel pressured to be amazing at digital art immediately. There is definitely a learning curve to becoming good with a graphics tablet, and you almost certainly won’t be able to create beautifully-lit, photorealistic art right away. I’m still very early on in my digital art exploration, so I know that it can often be disheartening to see accomplished digital artists creating amazing pieces of art while you’re still trying to figure out how to use the lasso tool. The important thing to remember is that these artists probably have years more experience than you. That being said, if you put effort and care into practising digital art, you will improve at it, just like any other art form. Your first attempts will probably not be all that impressive, but your first attempts do not reflect what you will develop into as a digital artist.

Two dinosaur heads, drawn by me, roughly 1.5 years apart. I only just found this really old drawing today, and I am honestly shocked by how far I’ve come. Art improvement might be hard to notice as it happens, but it’s so rewarding to look back and see where you came from.

And finally, the two most important ones (in my opinion):

5. Experiment with whatever you feel like. Digital art is an amazingly versatile medium. You can essentially make your artworks look like anything you want to. That can sound quite daunting, but it’s a great opportunity to spread yourself out and challenge yourself artistically. Want to draw something simple and cartoony? You can do that. Want to draw something so detailed it looks like a photo? You can do that too! Want to just go completely nuts with colours and see where it takes you? Guess what, you can also do that!

Don’t be afraid to try doing something new with digital art. I have at least three very different digital art styles that I can use interchangeably whenever I want it, and I feel like that’s the real power of digital art. The ability to create whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it, however you want to do it. The ability to diversify and branch out and explore completely new styles and methods without having to worry about resources or media or buying lots of expensive pencils or paints that you might never use again. Whenever the mood strikes you, just sit down and start creating anything you want.

ABOVE: The many digital art styles of Tas. From abstract graphic design to realistic, anatomical illustrations, digital art is an incredibly broad medium.

6. Keep practising traditional art. This is something that I think is essential as an artist. Digital art should not take over any traditional art methods that you already use. Instead, it should be treated as something to expand your range, not replace it. I’ve raved about digital art quite a bit in this post, but to me there’s still nothing that feels better than a graphite pencil on a sheet of paper.

I drew a series of Triassic reptiles in graphite last year, and they remain some of my favourite restorations of prehistoric animals that I’ve ever done. Don’t underestimate the humble HB pencil.

The great thing about doing digital and traditional art is that one method informs the other. You might figure out some cool new technique with watercolours, graphite, coloured pencils, or whatever you prefer to use, and then use that same technique in your digital art. Likewise, digital art can also influence how you approach your traditional works. I have personally learned a lot more about shading since I started creating digital artworks, and I’ve been able to apply that knowledge to my traditional pieces as well.

This Bi-stahieversor is my most recent traditional artwork, and almost all of the shading and texturing techniques are based on things that I’ve learned from doing digital art. I highly doubt I would have been able to learn these as well if I hadn’t done a lot of shading practice in digital art.

Well, this has turned out to be significantly longer than I thought it would be. If anyone else has any other advice, please feel free to add it! I’m sure there are plenty of more experienced artists out there who have much more to teach than I could at this point in time.

Good luck with your new tablet, Anon, and best wishes in your artistic endeavours!

#ask #palaeoart #art #digital art #long post #I did not expect to write this much #but here we are I guess #hopefully this isn't too unreadable #art advice

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wade98martin-blog · 6 years ago

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acaseforpencils · 6 years ago

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Jason Chatfield.

Bio: I grew up in the far flung suburbs of Perth, in Western Australia, and used to spend my paper route money on MAD Magazines (I cheaped-out and stole my dentist’s waiting room issues of the New Yorker. I think I was the only kid who looked forward to going to the dentist).

I moved to New York in 2014 and started pitching to the mag in person. I’m not sure Bob liked me, so I went back to pitching via email. Then I went in on his last day and finally sold my first piece. I feel like it was his final f—k you to the magazine. “Here! Have a Chatfield!”

Find this print here!

The cartoon was a goofy play on Vlad the Impaler.

I didn’t sell to the magazine again until last month, but I’ve had a handful sold as dailies. And I’m published in MAD often, so they’ve clearly done away with any of their standards.

When I’m not drawing gag cartoons I write and draw a syndicated legacy strip called Ginger Meggs which I took over 10 years ago. It’s been around since 1921 and now appears daily in 34 countries. He’s kind of an Australian version of Dennis the Menace, except he predates him by about 30 years.

Tools of choice: For drawing/roughs, I use a Prismacolor Turquoise clutch pencil with a red lead and try to find some paper with a little bit of tooth. The mixed media pads at Blick do the trick nicely.

I ink using a Uni-ball Vision Elite Stick Roller Ball Pen… or a Pigma Micron 03.

DO NOT use the Uni-Ball Vision Rollerball Pens, Fine Point (0.7mm) if you’re traveling. They explode on planes. And ruin your copy of The New Yorker.

For a wash, I just use watercolor and whatever brush is lying around. Nothing fancy. There’s a scanning app on my phone called “Adobe Scan” which does a nice job of scanning line-art into a PDF when I’m out of the studio and need to email in a quick rough.

I use a Wacom Mobilestudio Pro for finished artwork. I like to get out of the studio and work from a bar or restaurant, so it helps that I can take that with me. I use a little glove that I got on Amazon so I don’t grease up the screen, and the felt-tip nib that comes in the pen-holder makes the friction between the stylus and the screen more like pencil on paper. Unfortunately, they’re not waterproof, as I found on a recent vacation…

youtube

My wife plays piano and sings at bars around the city so I’ll often sit at the bar during her sets and draw. Digital/Traditional depends on what deadlines are most pressing. (She has a weekly residency in Astoria —if anyone’s interested in going, let me know!)

A lot of people email me for advice about tablets —I’ve been trialling/demo-ing Wacom products for 15 years— I think they’re great. If you’re married to doing stuff by hand but want to colour digitally, you can get a decent tablet without going broke. Depends on your workflow.

Writing Desk: My wife and I were living upstairs in 5A when my neighbour in 4B died. He was a brilliant poet and had an incredible old writing desk. It’s the only thing that was left in the apartment, so I’m looking after it ’til his grandson moves in at the end of our lease. I work for countless hours at this old thing. It’s beat up, but I’ve patched it together enough that it won’t collapse and bury me mid-brushstroke. I’ve stuck a few of my favourite toons on the top of it.

Tool I wish I could use better: My brain. It really is a sack of cats. Whenever I want to sit and do work, it clocks off. Then it comes up with a pearler of an idea at 3 in the morning when I’m trying to sleep. I write it down in my phone, but autocorrect makes it indecipherable by morning.

I like working with my writer friend, Scott. We both do comedy at night and have developed a nice short-hand. We also seem to have the same library of references and can build on each others’ premises, which tames my sack-of-cats.

Tool I wish existed: The Deadline Extender.® I’ve never missed a deadline, but that said… an extra 3 or 4 minutes to allow for a terrible wifi connection, or a errant scanner wouldn’t go astray.

Also: The Deadline Extender® PREMIUM: Let’s you go back in time to when you were procrastinating and slap yourself in the face. $30 p/month.

Tricks: Ok, well. This is going to sound a bit Dalton Trumbo, but bear with me: I do my best work…in the bath.The most productive 3 hours of my week are during Scotchbath Sunday; an immoveable chunk of time on Sunday evening whereby I lock myself in the bathroom, run a bath, lug my drawing stuff onto a bit of wood that sits over the bath, and just write and draw. Nothing else. I write weeks worth of my syndicated comic strip (Ginger Meggs), I write New Yorker cartoons, scribble up roughs for dailies— and when I feel like I’ve earned it (usually 2 hours in) I tap the side of the bath three times, and my wife peels herself from her piano and I unlock the door to a nice big glass of scotch. It’s a hell of a carrot on a stick to work towards when you’re stuck. (PS. Lest you think I’m some kind of Don Draper-era misogynist; the scotch reward part was her idea. I think she realized it keeps me in the bath and out of her way.)

Anyway. It’s a great way to switch gears creatively. It’s like being on an aeroplane. No wifi, no phones — just the work you need to get done. Get involved. #ScotchBathSunday.

Oh! And if I get my deadlines done for the week, I have a small budget for a solo lunch somewhere where I can eat cheese and draw. I really didn’t know cheese ’til I moved to America. (And yes, I’ve already been to Wisconsin. Good Lord.)

Tips? I always tell younger artists to not even think about touching a drawing tablet until they’ve learned to draw by hand first. Otherwise they’ll always be drawing away, knowing they have the insurance of the CTRL+Z key at their disposal if they screw up a line. That’s not a good habit to have when you’re working to a deadline. But, once you do know how to draw, by all means dive head-first into the digital realm. It’s incredible. Procreate, Sketchbook or Photoshop are all great.

Misc: One of the hangovers from working in advertising illustration is that I’ve had to be a bit of a chameleon style-wise for the last 15 years and haven’t allowed myself to just settle into one style. Lately, I’ve just decided to say “Bugger it!” and try and find a loose, consistent style that I’m comfortable with, that’s an apt conduit to my silly ideas.

I always loved George Booth’s line, and his ability to create a scene with so much movement but just at the right moment in time. Also Sam Gross’ dark, hilarious cartoons with perfect line-economy. And I’d give my left arm (I draw with my right) to know how Barry Blitt has so much control with his washes…

Chatfield’s portrait of Sam Gross

While I’m geeking out, I love seeing younger cartoonists find their feet and thrive in a style that just feels like they’re speaking to you— Ellis J. Rosen, Sofia Warren, Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell, Jason Katzenstein, Amy Kurzweil, and a seemingly endless list of talented younger artists who are putting in the work are a big inspiration.

I know it should be Steig or Thurber or Addams, but my favourite cartoonist is Sergio Aragones.

I was always so enamoured of MAD growing up and studied the lines of Jack Davis, Mort Drucker, Al Jaffee and the Usual Gang of Idiots. I remember being so frustrated I couldn’t even come close to getting my work to look like theirs, but I think I found a style somewhere in between when I fell short.

I think Wil McPhail’s poses are masterful, and I wish I knew how how the hell he did that. One day I’ll trudge up to England and knock on his door to ask him. I find myself doubled-over at John Cuneo’s Instagram, and Ed Steed’s absurdly funny gags. I have a slew of toons I’ve torn out of years’ worth of magazines and taped to my studio wall, or my zillion year-old writing desk. I’m constantly humbled by how generous and welcoming the existing crop of New Yorker cartoonists have been to a goofy Aussie immigrant — Joe Dator, Matt Diffee and Pat Byrnes, Mort Gerberg and an ever-growing list of prolific, talented cartoonists who make the 99% weekly rejection tolerable.

I’ve made some of my closest friends and have been lucky enough to meet my cartooning heroes through the National Cartoonists Society. I got to spend a lot of time with Sergio at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in the UK last year which made my year. We were signing together for a whole afternoon and I spent more time geeking out with him than signing.

Okay. Enough drooling. Sorry.

I’m a fan of cartoonists.

Website, etc. I have a weekly podcast where I throw around ideas for New Yorker cartoons with a fellow comedian and writer, Scott Dooley. It’s called “Is There Something In This?” It’s a bit of fun. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the art of writing gags very seriously. It’s an extremely difficult skill to master, and we’re virtually zygotes at it. We have lots of listeners now, which is bewildering. Talking about drawing is like dancing about architecture, but here we are. Anyway you can find it on iTunes or wherever you waste time listening to podcasts.

My website is jasonchatfield.com and my comedy stuff is up at jasonchatfieldcomedy.com ( I’ve been doing stand-up comedy for 11 years. If anyone wants to come see a show, hit me up! I’ll put you on the door). My instagram is @jasonchatfield. I’m still trolling the British chap who has the @jasonchatfield handle on Twitter to no avail. To that end, I’m @jason_chatfield on Twitter.

If you want more art supplies in your life, A Case for Pencils is on Instagram and Twitter. You can also find me, Jane (the person who created/edits this blog), on Twitter here, which is where I stick the paintings that I’ve been doing instead of interviewing people consistently (I needed to balance working on other people’s work and my own work!). Oh, and If you’d like to support this blog, which is always very appreciated, there are many different ways to do so, which you can find here!

#Jason chatfield #how to draw New Yorker cartoons #artists on tumblr #art supplies #drawing process #artist interview

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indiawebcommsolutions · 4 years ago

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Intuos And Intuos Pro

How to Make Writing a Breeze with the

Wacom Intuos

No, not handwriting, although it’s useful for that too.

This will be a guide to how to set up the Intuos — or any Wacom tablet with four buttons — as a powerful productivity aid for noveling, freelancing, coding, teaching online, or just general office work.

http://india-iws.in/Back before working for Wacom was even on my radar, I used a 2013 Intuos Pen & Touch as a full-time mouse replacement for four years. I now use a Cintiq 16 HD for art and a Logitech gaming mouse for everything else. The Cintiq is the best art tool I’ve ever used, but I recently realized I miss using the flat tablet for work. Partially because the interface was more efficient, but I think a lot of it was also psychological: What do we associate more with writing than pens? Just using it, even for ordinary articles, seemed to put me in creative mode.

Yes, holding a pen for several hours on end takes some getting used to. Your hand might be sore for the first few days. And you’ll want to practice tucking it into your thumb crease while you type to make the switch between navigating and writing faster. But once you’re fluid with it, it’s more efficient, ergonomic, and fun than a mouse. It’s very satisfying to scroll by hovering and flicking your pen, highlight text the way you would in a book, physically drag paragraphs down the page to reorder them, and cut and paste with one tap of a button.

If you’re an artist as well, it also helps you keep in practice holding and making fine movements with a tablet pen even when you’re not drawing.

I don’t have the Pen & Touch anymore; I gave it to a friend whose tablet was stolen. But I currently have a new Intuos Small, so in this article, I’ll unbox it and recreate my old setup.

In the interest of monetary honesty, this one was given to me by a manager a year ago and has been sitting in the closet neglected since then, so using one I got for free is less daunting than the idea of buying one for the purpose. But this model, a Small, retails for $95, half the price of a Medium, so if you’re interested in trying a tablet, it’s not a huge investment for both a mouse alternative and a capable drawing tool. Figuring out what size tablet you need can be tough, but the small is perfect for this purpose. It’s the size of a mouse pad but more precise than a mouse, so you have more room to move in the same area. Even with a dual-1080p-monitor setup like mine, it feels fine.

Anyway, inside the box are the tablet, the pen, a Micro USB cord, and a very thin manual.* Don’t worry, you won’t need it until you change the nib: Once you install the universal driver from our website, It’s plug-and-play, and automatically detects whatever Wacom tablet you use.

—

Note

If you look up any guide to setting up a tablet for drawing, they’ll tell you to put it in front of your keyboard so it’s also directly in front of the monitor, not to the side like a mouse pad. But for writing, feel free to do the opposite.

—

Setting preferences

I’ll walk you through the configuration process as if you’ve never used a tablet before, because maybe some people reading this won’t have. If you’re experienced with them, some of this will seem redundantly basic. But some of the other tips and shortcuts, you might not know as well. So bear with me.

Once you’ve installed the driver, open Wacom Tablet Properties. For anyone who hasn’t used it, there’s a lot more than meets the eye here.

When you install it, it automatically creates profiles for your installed image editing programs — or the big ones, at least — and everything else is covered under All Other. Any programs you add will copy this profile by default, so let’s punch in some foundational settings, starting with Mapping:

We’ll leave it on Pen Mode despite using it as a mouse. You want to get used to mentally mapping your tablet to the elements on your screen, and Pen Mode is far more precise anyway. Not to mention you’ll never lose your cursor again.

If you’re using one monitor, turn on Force Proportions to match your tablet’s aspect ratio to your screen’s. You’ll need this for drawing, anyway. If you’re using two monitors, leave it off or it’ll reduce your tablet’s active area to a tiny sliver. You’ll need it for one type of program, but we’ll get to that later.

Set the lower button to middle-click instead of its default scroll. When it’s on scroll mode, you have to drag the pen across the tablet to scroll up and down. If you set it to middle-click, you can simply click once and navigate by hovering. Middle click also lets you quickly open and close Chrome tabs, and everything else clicking the scroll wheel does in other programs.

Writing program settings

Now, Tablet: For this step, we’ll be adding a writing program and a browser. Clicking the + brings up a list of a list of all the programs you currently have open, so you can create a separate mapping profile and shortcuts for each one.

I do my fiction writing in Scrivener and my article writing in a Google Docs desktop app, with different settings for each, but for simplicity’s sake, I’ll demonstrate with MS Word.

Those four buttons, FYI, are called ExpressKeys, and any number of program or navigation functions can be assigned to them. For writing, we’ll do keyboard shortcuts. For the top left one, go to Keyboard > Keystroke, and in the popup window, hit Ctrl-X in the top field and name it Cut in the bottom one.

Keep adding basic shortcuts until you have this, or whatever alternative suits you:

Note that one key’s still on default: Since cut, copy, and paste cover my basic editing needs, I’m left with a free space. I’ll use it to create a shortcut menu for my common formatting functions. So, let’s pop over to On-Screen Controls.

As you’ll see, this lets you create infinite toolbars. They’re program-independent, so you can create one general “writing” one to use the same shortcuts across different programs.

There are two types of menu: Grids and Radials, and grids come in horizontal, vertical, or square. I’ll make a new single-column vertical grid for all my common shortcuts in order of use — Ctrl-I, Ctrl-E, Ctrl-K, Ctrl-B — and creatively call it “Writing.”

And I’ll assign it to the final ExpressKey. Menus normally disappear after you select an option, but you can use the pin icon to make it a permanent toolbar. From now on, I’ll stick mine to the margin of whatever I’m working on.

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Important

If you’re using Windows 10, uncheck “Use Windows Ink” in the Mapping panel for all your writing programs, or else you’ll get that infuriating Handwriting popup every time you place your cursor.

If that still doesn’t work, you can turn the box alone off through Windows by searching for “Pen & Windows Ink” settings in the taskbar, and changing this one from “When the keyboard isn’t attached” to “Only in tablet mode.”

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Browser settings

We’re going to do one thing different here. There’s one capability that’s still missing: zoom. The normal Intuos doesn’t have any equivalent to a mouse’s scroll wheel. Some other Wacom products have a touch ring that can be programmed to serve that function — The Intuos Pro, Cintiq 13HD, ExpressKey remote, and various older models — but not this one.

But don’t worry, the Intuos has a workaround. An inelegant one, I’ll admit, but it’s better than switching back to the mouse every time you need a closer look at something.

Besides image editing programs, Chrome is probably where I need to zoom in the most for things like Google Maps. Since I don’t often cut when browsing the web, and I can just use Ctrl-X when I do, I’ll set the first key to Navigation > Pan/Zoom.

While the button is held down, hovering the pen will scroll, and dragging it up or down on the tablet will zoom. You could simplify things and just program this function to the lower pen button, but then you’d lose middle click functionality for things like opening browser links in a new tab. It’s a good idea for any program where middle click doesn’t do anything, though.

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Also important

You’ll need to turn off Windows Ink for Chrome and any other Google apps, too. It causes a pen tracking glitch. Same with Discord, for some reason. In fact, you really only need to leave it on for Photoshop.

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Image editing settings

Of course, I’ll still use the Cintiq for any serious work, but for simple cropping and color correction, it’s sometimes more convenient to just bang it out on the flat tablet. Any artists present will already know to do this, but for Photoshop and any other drawing or image editing programs, set the active area to one monitor and turn on Force Proportions.

If you’re using two monitors, don’t worry, all you have to do is click your Windows taskbar to navigate back to the non-photoshop monitor.

Services & Saving

If you’re on Windows, occasionally your computer will fail to detect your tablet, in which case you’ll have to reset the Wacom driver through the Services window. This is something everyone should know how to do. Every problem I’ve ever had with a Wacom device has been fixable this

You can also use the stop and start icons at the top of the window. You can pin services to your taskbar once it’s open, too.

But once in a blue moon — every few months, perhaps — this might wipe your preferences. So once you’ve set them, make sure to save them through the Backup Settings panel in Wacom Desktop Center. You can either save them as a .pref file to your hard drive, or upload them to the free Wacom Cloud, then restore them with the very next button.

Impressions of the

Intuos

Zoom hitch aside, this is an even better mouse replacement than the 2013 Pen & Touch was. The P&T had a smooth plastic surface that constantly reminded you that you were using a computer peripheral. The current gens have a rubbery textured surface that genuinely make it feel like you’re somehow using a ballpoint on a notebook to control your computer. And the pen helps with that too: It’s lighter and thinner than either the P&T or the Cintiq, just 5½ inches long by 1/3 inch thick, smaller than a Bic.

But my favorite feature is the Bluetooth. Once the tablet’s charged via cable, you can connect it wirelessly and regain the use of your USB port. I didn’t see the point of this before I tried it — who uses a tablet further than a cord’s distance from the screen? — but now that I have, I never want to go back. It allows a lot more freedom of movement: I can slide it across the desk from one monitor to the other if I want to switch to another project on a different screen, without messing with the cable, or when I need the mouse for a game, I can simply turn the tablet off and set it aside. And once we can do these things again, it’ll be easy to slip into a backpack to use outside at a coffee shop, bookstore, or while traveling. It can be charged with any Micro-USB cable, so if you run it off Bluetooth, you can use a wall charger. It takes a few hours from empty to full, but it has a battery life of fifteen, meaning it’s good for two workdays or one brutal one.

Finally, in an interesting last-minute twist, I was surprised to find it compatible with the Cintiq — I could even draw into Clip Studio Paint with both at once — meaning I won’t need to switch them out. I don’t think an overabundance of Wacom tablets is a problem the average reader is likely to run into, but for example, if you ever find yourself graduating from a flat tablet to a drawing monitor, but aren’t quite ready to sell your old one, you can repurpose it as a mouse.

As for me, I’m going back to dailying the Intuos for my writing.

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Finally

If you teach or tutor online, we’ve been putting out a lot of articles for educators lately — in fact, this article was originally intended as a guide to set up a tablet as a teaching tool, I just realized halfway through that the setup would be the same for any job that works with words. If you’d like to know more about teaching with Wacom products specifically, check out All You Need to Know to Teach with a Wacom Tablet, Recreating the Physical Classroom in a Virtual World, or the entire section of our website on using tablets for education.