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harryhandstan · 4 years ago

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onding

onding (n.)-a heavy fall of rain or snow (in this case snow!)

this was inspired by this request and I thought it would be perfect to include in the A Very Merry Styles Fic Challenge! I cannot take full credit for this one as @tbslenthusiast helped guide me as my wonderful creative director, @taintedwonder was my amazing editor, and @bfharry was my lovely beta reader! honestly owe the title to miss tanya @sunflowers-styles cause she was a huge help with that! I appreciate you all so much ❤

hope you all enjoy!!

word count: 1.6k

writing tag | masterlist

Snow falls rapidly from the sky as you and Harry drive to your destination, neither of you noticing just how fast at first. You were both too excited at the idea of getting away from your busy schedules to celebrate the holidays with Harry’s family for the week.

His hand rests on your leg as he drives, fingers tapping along to the Christmas music playing from the radio. Occasionally offering a gentle squeeze to your thigh and a sweet smile; relaxation already flowing through his body and wrapping around you like a warm embrace.

The snowflakes seem to get larger and fall faster as you get closer to your destination and, as much as you don’t want to burst through his bubble of contentment, you begin to worry about the quick escalation of them. Your mind starts running through all the many possibilities that could go wrong at the idea of the weather worsening the further you travel.

“Harry..are you sure we shouldn’t stop for the night? It’s getting a bit late and those snowflakes aren’t getting any smaller..”

He ducks his head down slightly to look out the windshield and a deep sigh falls from his lips as he returns to his upright position. You don’t miss the way his fingers grip the steering wheel a bit tighter when he says, “Hate to admit it but, maybe you’re right.”

He still hums along to the songs filling the space, but there’s a significant drop in his mood as he takes the next exit with the most promising hotel options. Your hand trails upwards to work over the knot you can already feel forming on the back of his neck from the stress of the situation as he decides which place would be better suited for the two of you to stay in.

You know his source of frustration only lies with the fact that you’re supposed to be at Anne’s house for Christmas dinner the following evening. You can only hope that the weather permits you to be able to still make an appearance on her doorstep at the time she requested you be there. You know she would be just as happy to see her baby boy a day later than he promised, but it would hurt Harry’s heart deeply not to live up to his word.

The clerk flashes Harry a knowing look when he hands over his card and tells him he only needs one bed for one night. It has Harry’s own smirk returning to his face and a blush spreading across yours at the implication. You suppress a giggle as the rest of the transaction is processed, but it bubbles up out of you the second you’re in the elevator on the way to the 4th floor where your room waits for you. Your laughter rings through the tiny space and only stops when you let your head fall against his chest. He loops the arm that isn’t supporting his duffel bag around your body to pull you even closer, smacking a kiss to the top of your head.

“Someone’s sleepy,” He mumbles into your hair, “Y’only get this deliriously happy when you’re tired.”

You pull your face away from his chest to look up at him, “Or when I’m spending the weekend snowed in with my rockstar boyfriend.”

“Y’really think we’ll get snowed in?”

You shrug, “Maybe. Would it be so bad to be stuck here together for a few days?”

He scrunches his nose at you, “Nah..we’d miss dinner and presents at Mum’s though.”

“Anne’ll forgive us.”

He nods in agreement, “Yeah, know she would. Can’t control the weather, can we?”

You try to restrain the yawn that creeps up but you fail miserably and cover your mouth as it stretches across your face. It had been a long day; an early morning flight and the new international time zone making your eyes drop closed just until the ding indicates you’ve reached your intended floor.

You keep yourself pressed close to Harry’s side as you make your way down the hallway to your room. He fiddles with the key for only a moment before you almost tumble through the open door and his hand catches your waist quickly to steady you. Luckily the bed is close by and you plop down across the bottom of it, your own duffel tossed aside on the floor, arms extended wide across the cream colored duvet.

He tugs on your wrist and you quietly whine before you peek one eye open to look up at him. Before he can say anything, your stomach growls, outraged at the idea of not being fed since the quick lunch you’d been able to grab much earlier in the day.

“M’hungry, Harry, think we could find some dinner before we crash for a few hours?”

“Doubt anything’s open this time’a night. Let’s do a shower first and then we’ll raid the vending machine, yeah?”

You’re both too tired to do anything much more than actually get clean under the spray of the hot water. It feels like a blessing on your skin and you let it rinse away any worry you might still have about the weather outside. His long fingers work over your scalp to ensure all the suds from your shampoo have disappeared and your eyes droop closed without your consent. You have to splay one hand firmly on his chest to keep from falling into him and knocking you both down in your exhausted state.

He steps out first, careful to keep his eyes on you as he works a towel over his body to dry off, grabbing another one off the small shelf mounted on the wall to wrap you in before he lifts you lightly up and over the edge of the tub.

“Arms up.” He’s already dressed himself quickly in a loose pair of sweatpants and a long sleeved t-shirt and you silently curse yourself for being too tired to enjoy the view. He gently assists you in completing your own nighttime ensemble by slipping your oversized night shirt over your head and guiding your arms through. You sink into the soft piece of clothing as your fingers dance across the hem of the shirt.

“Hey. Y’forgot something,” He chuckles when you look down at your outfit, confused by what he means. “Up here, love. Kiss?” He requests and bends down so you don’t have far to reach up and indulge his offer. It’s a quick peck, mainly to the side of his mouth, but he doesn’t complain; fingers gently guiding your chin to center his lips over yours, a satisfied hum vibrating through his chest just before he pulls away.

You’re more alert now as you make your way to the small vending area that the two of you had passed earlier on your way to the room. He digs some change from his pocket with the hand that isn’t laced with yours, transferring some of it over to your free hand, before jingling his portion around while he surveys the options in the machine. You’re already loading your coins in, poking the numbers on the keypad, and you eagerly await your snack as it makes its way out of the coils to drop down into the slot.

“Knew you’d go for those.” There’s a lazy smile working its way over one side of his mouth as he watches you bend to retrieve the bag of pretzels.

“They’re my favorites,” You mumble and you tear the bag open, unable to wait until you get back to the room. You rest your head on his shoulder while you wait for him to decide on his own snack, “What’re you gonna get?”

“Well seein’ as you snagged the last bag of those, ya g’nna hafta share.”

“Gladly.” You pluck one from the now partly empty bag and bring it to his lips. He bends to accept it, crunching as he finally adds his coins in the machine.

“I’ll get somethin’ sweet for us to split, how’s that sound?”

You hum in agreement, exhaustion working its way through your body again, your brain too tired to form words at the moment. The coils around his selection unwind, dropping it with a clatter, and you move with him when he bends to collect it.

You’re again thankful for the short distance back to the room and a whispered “oof” falls from his lips when you trip over nothing but your socked feet. His hand loosely clutches a handful of the fabric of your shirt to help steady you until you’re falling back on the bed and scooting up to the top. You tuck yourself under the heavy layers of the sheets and duvet and don’t bother waiting for him as you burrow as deep as you can to get warm.

You don’t make it to dessert, passing off the now half eaten bag of pretzels to him, preferring the comfort of the pillow against your cheek over the bite of chocolate he offers you.

“Reckon y’were right about us stopping when we did,” He mutters as he stares down at his phone, the weather app casting a glow onto his face in the now dimly lit room, “Pretty big snow storm blowin’ through. We might be here a lil’ longer than one night.”

“Hmm.”

He knows you’re mostly gone, sleep overtaking any conscious response you may have been able to provide, and he shakes his head at the sleepy smile on your face. Just as your soft snores fill the space between you, his heart swells at the sight of you resting peacefully; knowing there’s no one else he’d rather be snowed in with than his sweet, sleepy girl.

#averymerrystyleschallenge #harry styles imagine #harry x reader #my writing #sorry it’s so short!#hopefully will have a couple of other things done for y’all later

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mirkwoodshewolf · 4 years ago

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Graduation surprise; BoRhap cast x reader

*Author’s note*

Hey ya’ll well I promised this fic when I posted the Queen prom fic so here it is. Now I know it’s not as long as the last one is but I felt like this didn’t need to be super long. Also as another special little fact for ya’ll I was gonna make this a Queen fic as well but then I decided to change it to a BoRhap CAST fic since I hadn’t done one of just them in awhile.

So to all seniors whether HS or college, the class of 2020 CONGRATULATIONS I know it’s not what you hoped it would be but still try to find celebration in this pandemic, you all achieved probably the greatest milestones in your life. So stay safe, stay healthy, stay sane, and be happy :) Lot’s of love from me my darlings!

Taglist:

@waddles03

@psychosupernatural

@plethora-of-things

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels

@ixchel-9275

@simonedk

@queensdivas

@platawnic

@queendeakyy

@geek-and-proud

@kairosfreddie

_______________________________________________________________

Goddamn this year! Just when we think the new decade would be worth our wild, now we’ve got all this shit going on! First there was the threat of WW3, then the next month we’re dealing with wildfires in Australia, and finally to top it off why not add a global pandemic?!

The Coronavirus has literally been all over the news for months, and the fact that our government knew about it since late last year and didn’t warn us about it!? Then when they told us to be on lockdown, everyone starts hording toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and food that no one can buy said items for weeks on end.

But of course my main problem is the fact that I, along with so many other kids and adults around the world can’t participate in their own graduation ceremony. As a college student, I was just longing to finally participate in my final graduation ceremony ever. This was supposed to be my final chapter in school life and now because of this damn virus, that’s gone.

I mean yeah my diploma will be coming in the mail but I wanted my family to all be there to see me reach the end of my school life before I finally begin a new chapter. Plus my cousin’s friends said that they would come and see me and I’ve missed seeing those guys, I hadn’t seen them all since the Bohemian Rhapsody premiere.

I sat there in my old room of my house (cause since the University closed down back in March, all students had to leave the college campus and go home so that way we could reduce the spread of the virus. So I ended up moving back in with my parents) just finishing up my final paper for class.

That’s when my Zoom video chat blew up with my cousin’s profile pic. I grinned and clicked on the answer button and soon enough my cousin’s face took over my screen.

“Hey poppet.”

“Hey Gwil, how you holding up?” he let out a sigh.

“As best as I can. Though I should be asking you that, you are the one really dealing with this whole Coronavirus adjustment than I am. How’d you do on your classes?”

“For those that have said online classes are easier, they’re dirty rotten liars and completely incompetent.” He softly chuckled. “But thankfully I finished my last exam paper and submitted it just now.”

“Your dad look over it for you? Cause I know you’re a terrible editor.”

“Oi not all the time. Just when I’m lazy.” He hummed as he raised his brow at me. “But yes I did have dad review it for me. Cause before we got to submit the rough draft and my professor said I needed more analysis to my quotes on why I quoted that specific source. God I don’t know why I took that class to begin with?”

“Because you’re a criminology nut and you have been since you turned 16. God and I thought my horror movie tastes were bad.”

“Hey it’s good to be aware of shit like that!”

“Language missy!”

“Okay Cap.” I teased. He gave me his stern look which made me laugh as I fell to my side on the bed. “Oh by the way I saw that little dating app video you did.”

“And what did you think?”

“I liked it. Kinda makes me wish an app like that did exist in real life.”

“You not just pulling my leg on this?”

“No. Honest and swear to god you had me moved by your performance. Well next to you being Brian May of course.” He grinned. “I swear I still can’t get over when I first saw you in the full hair and makeup, I literally almost had a freakin panic attack.”

“And the fact that Brian was also there to witness that.”

“Oh god don’t even go there!” I groaned as I hid my face in embarrassment.

“So—now that you’re all done with school, what’s next for you?”

“Well any plans I had are put on hold till this whole crisis goes away. And I really thought 2020 was gonna be my year. This sucks!”

“I know poppet, I know. But believe me that it’s not just you whose affected by this. Everyone in the whole world is suffering exactly the same way you are.” I sighed solemnly.

“I know. I mean I should be feeling for you and the guys right now, I mean all of you are out of work till further notice. And all the restaurants that I love going to. Did you know that the little ice cream parlor you and I used to go to when we were kids shut down?”

“No!”

“Yeah, the owner couldn’t keep up the payments because hardly anyone was ordering from them anymore, even with online delivery. So she closed it down.”

“Damn, that sucks. I really loved going to that place with you. That was always our special little time together without the grownups around.” I nodded remembering all the fun times we had together in that little shop.

It was then someone suddenly popped into our conversation. The extra person now on my screen was none other than Joe Mazzello.

“Hey Gwil, mini-Lee!”

“Hello Joe.” Answered Gwil.

“Hey Joe been a long time.”

“How you two holding up?” he asked us.

“As best as we can, how about you? I’ve seen those Youtube videos you’ve been doing on your page.” Gwil said.

“You know those were jokes, especially that last one. I just wanted to get a laugh out of everyone, or have them hate me.”

“No one could hate you Joey.” I said with a smile.

“Aww thanks mini-Lee. How’s classes been?” I let out a groan as I once again flopped on my bed which made Joe laugh.

“I am just thankful that this is all over. At first I thought online classes would be easy but one of my professors was technology challenged. Another one would sometimes forget to do a lesson, and then of course blackboard could barely operate long enough for me to submit an assignment which caused some of them to be late.”

“Well like you said it’s over now.” Joe assured me.

“Oh hey I saw that Jurassic Park livestream you did.”

“Oh did you? How come I didn’t see you submit a question or just say hello? I’ve seen your Youtube page so I know your username by heart.”

“Cause I may or may not have also been working on a project. But chose the livestream over the project.”

“Nice going Joe, you’ve turned my cousin into a procrastinator.” Gwil complained.

“Hey at least she has Jurassic Park unlike you Gwilym Lee! Serious shame on you for not owning it! This is why mini-Lee is the coolest out of the two of you.” I snarked out a mock laugh as I stuck my tongue out.

“Ganging up against me okay I see how it is you two.”

“Oh come now cousin dear, we’re just messing around.”

“Messing around? If we’re messing with Gwil then I want a part of it.” Soon another picture came up and there lying on his side was Ben Hardy.

“Benjamin!” Joe screamed joyously.

“Hi Ben.” I sung out.

“Hey (y/n).” he waved at me with a wink. “Now going back to teasing Gwilym.”

“You guys are officially gonna be blocked right after this.” My cousin groaned. We all laughed when I told him.

“Again cousin, we’re teasing you. So Ben, what brings you here?”

“What can’t I pop in and say hello?” I giggled.

“I see nothing wrong with it. Oh hey get this; I finally got around to watching 6 Underground.”

“And what did you think of it?”

“The first 10 minutes were insane! And truthfully I never really understood Michael Bay films, but this one—definitely my favorite. I loved it Ben, really.”

“Well thank you (n/n). Thank you.”

“Never did I think I needed to see both you and Ryan Reynolds on screen together….”

“Whoa okay easy there (n/n)!” Joe interrupted me.

“Oi you get your mind out of the gutters! And you say it’s the fans that make what you say to the extreme.” I scowled him.

“Trust me, I’ve known him for over 10 years and he still doesn’t grow up.” Another voice stated and soon two more familiar faces popped up on screen, stuck in quarantine together in LA were Rami and Lucy. And then a split second later another face came on the screen, it was none other than Alan Leech.

“Hey, Rami, Lu-lu, Alan!” I cheered.

“Hey (y/n)!” the three of them said as they waved.

“God I feel like I’m getting spoiled, got the entire BoRhap family together for the first time in like—forever.”

“It’s crazy.” Alan said.

“Definitely.” Agreed Rami.

“Maybe when this whole thing blows over we should all get together some time in New York.” Offered Joe.

“I’m down with it.” Ben said.

“Me too.” Lucy agreed with a nod.

“Yeah, (n/n), Ben and I could fly out together.” Said Gwil.

“I’m down with that. Now that I’m done with school, I can do what I want now.”

“So guys now that we’re all here shall we begin?” Lucy said.

“Begin what? Gwil what’s going on?” I asked.

“Well (n/n), when this whole quarantine shutdown and school cancellations started affecting the class of 2020 we all felt bad that you couldn’t graduate the way you hoped you would.” Gwil said before Joe continued.

“So Gwil called all of us up via the Whatsapp chat, as well as our daily zoom calls. To gather us all together on your ‘last day’ of college.”

“To celebrate your own Virtual college graduation party!” Rami cheered. At that point everyone either threw confetti, blew on graduation blowers, or holding up signs that said CONGRATS 2020 GRADUATE!!!

I covered my mouth with my hands speechless and tried to hold back the tears.

“Ohh you guys.”

“Since you couldn’t have a college graduation party, we figure we’d bring the party to you. See not even this pandemic can stop us from celebrating our Mini-Lee’s ultimate milestone.” Ben said as he set down his congrats sign.

“And also expect some gifts within the next few weeks, depending on how the mailing services do with overseas gifts.” Alan said.

“Aww thanks you guys, you didn’t have to.”

“We know, but we wanted to. Let us spoil you even through this pandemic.” Said Joe.

“Thanks guys, this—really means a lot to me.” I wiped a hidden tear that strayed down the corner of my eye. They all awed at me that’s when Gwil lifted up a small graduation cake.

“I know, I know this’ll be ridiculous but just humor me will yah?” I smiled and nodded. He lit up the 2020 candles and held it just high enough for me to see the top part of the candles.

“CONGRATS (Y/N) LEE! CLASS OF 2020!!!” everyone proclaimed at once which made me smile and I blew out towards the screen. Gwil then blew out the candles for me as everyone else cheered and clapped.

“Thanks so much you guys. Really, you have no idea how much this means to me.”

“We’re happy to do it (y/n). If it makes your day a little bit brighter in these dark times.” Rami said.

“It did Rami, it really did.”

“Well hope we can make this even better cause I’ve also got a part 2 to this little surprise. But in order for that to happen, everyone else has got to go otherwise you won’t really be able to see it as clearly.” Gwil said.

“Aww man.” I whined.

“No worries mini-Lee, your cousin added you to our BoRhap Whatsapp chat and I’ll send you a link to our zoom channel if you ever wanna chat with us again.” Joe said with a wink.

“Thanks Joe. And thanks everyone take care and stay safe.” They all waved and bid me goodbye with waves or blowing kisses at me and one by one they signed off till it was once again just Gwil and I.

All I could see across his bearded face was that cheeky grin he does whenever he’s trying to hide something.

“What are you grinning about?”

“Just the fact that I’ll be the best cousin once you see part 2 of your special surprise.”

“What did you do?”

“If I told you it won’t be a surprise now would it? Now let’s see, god I hope they get it.” He muttered the last part to himself. It took a few minutes till finally another screen popped up and standing there in his room was Adam Lambert. I fangirled in my seat and covered my mouth trying to contain my squeals.

“Hey girlfriend!” he greeted with a wave.

“Adam oh my god!”

“How’s it going?”

“It’s been going. Finally submitted my last paper. So I’m officially done with school forever.”

“Yaas Queen!” he snapped. “So how’s it feel to be a college graduate?”

“Well it’d be better if we weren’t in the middle of a pandemic.”

“Understandable, but hey you’ve worked hard for this so be proud of yourself no matter what’s going on in the world right now.” I nodded with a shrug. “And to celebrate your graduation, your cousin whipped up another little surprise for you.”

“Oh my god Gwil you didn’t!” I gasped. He merely raised a brow at me cheekily as he bit his lip back from a smile.

“Hey guys you there?!” Adam called out and soon enough two more screens came on and the picture revealed to be both Brian May and Roger Taylor. Brian sitting on his couch while Roger looked to be in his basement with his drumkit.

At this point, I had lost my shit. I was fangirling to the max at this rate but tried to calm down.

“Hi (y/n), congratulations of graduating.” Brian greeted me.

“Major achievement there love. Congrats.” Roger added.

“Oh my god…..Gwil this is—how……”

“I knew you’d love it (n/n). Plus I knew this would cheer you up after our last conversation we had last week. You really needed some cheering up.”

“So guys are we ready to do this?” asked Adam.

“I’m ready to go if you both are.” Said Brian as he took his Red Special and set it on his lap and Roger twirled his drumstick.

“(Y/n), this is for you love. Hopefully when this whole mess is over, you can finally go out there and reach your dream job. Till then we hope you enjoy this.” Roger said.

It was then both Roger and Brian began playing the tune for ‘we are the champions’ but as Adam began singing the song, it turns out that they were actually singing their new song, ‘You are the champions’ dedicated to the first responders worldwide.

But now they were playing it in my honor as a college graduate. As they continued to play the song, I allowed the tears to flow down my face as I laced my hand over my heart.

God—never did I think that through this pandemic would I be happy. From having to never see any of my friends I made in college again, to not having my whole family come to the house to celebrate, or going out to party with some of my friends. But this—right here and now, my cousin made it all up to me all the way from London.

At this point, I knew that I was officially the luckiest person in the world. All thanks to my favorite cousin, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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eleanor-writes-stuff · 6 years ago

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chemistry (my heart’s a city you’re out to destroy) - [ii/iii]

Kylo Ren - superhuman, mercenary, and the world’s most dangerous man – has recently resurfaced after a mysterious three-month disappearance.

Rey Niima, listicle writer by day and investigative reporter by night, is way too busy to worry about that. Seriously, she’s got a million things on her plate - she doesn’t have the time to think about anything else.

Especially now that news editor Benjamin Snoke has returned to the office and seems hell-bent on making her life… interesting.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s chapter two of my superhuman!Kylo/reporter!Rey AU! Get ready for five thousand words of the world’s dumbest love triangle ever. Poor Rey.

Chapter 1 Also available on AO3. And hey, maybe check out my Twitter and Ko-fi?

Enough has changed about The Outpost in the last two months to put Rey on edge.

The skeevy club looks the same as always, but it’s the unfamiliar faces slipping out through the back entrance and disappearing into the dark alley that have Rey on edge as she hides in the bushes across the street and strains her eyes to make out distinctive features through her crappy Amazon binoculars. Even worse than the unfamiliar faces are the familiar ones, the ones she’s only ever seen in dossiers detailing crimes that make her stomach turn, and it’s almost enough to make her pack everything up and rush back to the safety of her home.

But this is what she’s been waiting for, this is what she’s spent the last six months looking for–

Her blood turns to ice as her ears discern a rustling of leaves from behind her, and Rey reaches for the knife in her boot just as a gloved hand claps over her mouth.

“Still playing Lois Lane, I see,” Kylo chuckles in her ear, voice distorted by that awful modulator of his. Rey allows herself a sigh of relief before she nips at the fleshy part of his palm and turns around to greet him with a scowl.

“Sadly you’re no Superman,” she huffs, willing her heart rate to return to normal as the last bit of terror drains away. Would it really kill him to just announce his presence? Or maybe have the decency to approach her rather than drop out of the sky with no warning?

Kylo shakes his head as he settles in next to her, heedless of the grass stains forming on his suit. “Hey, I might be getting there.”

Rey sets aside her binoculars in favor of studying him. The mask gives nothing away, it never does, but that just means she’s spent the past two years learning to read every other bit of him. The way his shoulders tense when he’s being particularly vulnerable; the way his fingers curl into and then away from his palm when he’s frustrated or hesitant or even scared; the way his head droops sometimes because even if she can’t see him he can see her, and there are times when he just can’t look her in the eye–

“Is… is that what you’re doing? Are you one of the good guys now?”

It feels wrong, reducing things to black and white, good and bad after everything she’s learned about him since the day they first met. To suggest that Kylo was bad before, that he was ever entirely bad… it’s way off the mark, and Rey knows that better than anyone. But she can’t think of any other way to describe this sudden shift in his MO, allegations of murder suddenly replaced by acts of vigilantism since his return a week ago.

Kylo shrugs, his eyes – well, his mask – fixed firmly on the exit she’d been so closely monitoring just minutes ago. When he speaks, his voice comes out in a low rumble she’s learned to recognize as a whisper. “Everyone loves a good redemption arc, don’t they?”

He keeps his eyes on the club even as Rey stares at him so intently she’s almost surprised she hasn’t burned a hole into the side of his helmet. But she can’t help herself, entranced by this puzzle just like any other.

Because here stands – or squats – Kylo Ren, leader of the world’s most dangerous team of operatives, a five-person superhuman team capable of regime change overnight, of broad daylight assassinations, of heists that should not be physically possible. And now suddenly, after a three-month disappearance he still won’t talk to her about, he’s a lone wolf dropping off wanted criminals at the local precinct’s doorstep and… ‘liberating’ confidential records leading to the downfall of key players in the city.

He’s always puzzled her but this… this is new. This is more than anything that has ever come before, than everything that has ever come before combined, and Rey can’t even begin to make sense of it, of him.

Eventually, Kylo turns to her. “What?” he asks, and Rey hates that she thinks she hears a smile in his voice but can’t see it, can’t see him. In the early days she’d been desperate to figure out who the man under the mask was for all the reasons one would expect of a journalist, but then that desperation had turned to frustration when she couldn’t put a face (or even a real voice) to her midnight fantasies, and eventually that frustration had morphed into unreasonable hurt as the days turned into weeks turned into months turned into years and still he refused to share anything of himself with her.

And it’s only gotten worse since his return.

“What made you change your mind?”

Kylo is quiet for the longest time, and with every passing second of silence a lump grows in her throat and sits heavy on her chest. Will he ever tell her anything again? Did he even tell her that much to begin with? Throughout their… whatever the hell this has been, Rey has eagerly taken every tiny crumb he’s tossed her way in the hopes of eventually puzzling him out, and all along she’s been too busy slotting the tiny pieces into place to ever take a step back and realize she barely has anything.

“I didn’t,” Kylo finally says, and his next words are so predictably vague Rey can’t even bring herself to feel disappointed. “I just finally became my own boss.”

But then who was the boss before? Why did she not know there was one? The whole world thinks he’s the one in charge, he’s the one pulling the strings and leading the rest of the Knights – and where are the rest, anyway? Did they decide not to come back from their break? Were they the reason for the break?

She opens her mouth even before she’s picked out a question to begin with, only for Kylo to hush her and pull her down to the ground.

“I think that’s enough investigative work for tonight, sweetheart,” he says as gunshots pierce the silence of the night and trigger a symphony of chaos.

This, at least, is familiar to her – yet another one of the many little skirmishes that frequently break out among the lower-ranking members of the gang who like to hang around the club. Rey doesn’t even need to look up to know that no one of interest is involved here, or even on the scene; all of her targets know better than to hang around such a spectacle.

Kylo tugs at her arm and motions for her to follow his lead, staying low to the ground just in case. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to your car.”

Rey turns back to gather her equipment only to find that he’s already handled it, her ratty canvas backpack bouncing against one shoulder with every move of his arms.

“No car tonight,” she whispers back as they crawl away. “I took an Uber.”

He stills and turns back to stare at her. Rey can almost imagine the look of exasperation on his face – a featureless one, composed of ever-changing eyes and lips and noses. “Rey,” he groans, and the note of concern he can’t quite hide even with the modulator squeezes her heart in the most painful way.

“It’s less risky than having someone recognize my car.”

Kylo concedes her point with a huff, and they continue to crawl until he deems them a safe distance away. “Let’s get you out of here and somewhere safe enough for an Uber driver,” he says as he helps Rey to her feet, and she brushes away blades of grass stuck to his front to buy herself some time.

The offer’s been on the tip of her tongue for months now, and one of Rey’s greatest regrets when he disappeared and she didn’t know if she’d ever see him again was not just blurting it out when she had the chance to. But now that she’s here, and he’s here, and she can feel how warm he is even through the leather of his suit…

She takes a deep breath, forces herself to look up at him. “Or you could walk me home.”

His sharp inhale crackles through the modulator but he doesn’t look away, and even through the mask Rey can feel his eyes on hers. Lately she’s been thinking they might be brown. Not the dull kind, but a rich, deep tapestry of mahogany and chocolate with little flecks of amber, dark but expressive, stern but kind, so easy to misread until you get close enough to realize–

Kylo drags her back before she can get too distracted. “Would you invite me up for a nightcap?”

Blood pounding in her ears, Rey forces a laugh as she swats his bicep and ignores the little thrill that runs up her spine from smacking against a solid wall of muscle. “I’ll have you know I’m a third date kind of girl,” she protests even as her lips twitch with a smile and she feels herself leaning into him.

A big, warm hand curls around her waist as he laughs. If she could just hear him laugh for real, just once, without that goddamn device… Rey thinks she might die happy.

“I’d say we’re well past our thirtieth at this point, sweetheart.”

It’s ridiculous, really, that she made it through the entirety of her teen years without once experiencing that heart-skips-a-beat, butterflies-in-stomach sensation all her friends gushed about only for it to hit her now.

“So we are–?”

A drop of water splattering against her nose silences her, and Rey looks up at the dark sky just in time for the heavens to open up and unleash a storm none of her seven weather apps predicted. “What the hell?”

Kylo slips his hand into hers. “Come on, let’s make a run for it.”

Alternatively he could just do that disappearing thing he does so well, as long as he takes her with him and brings them somewhere dry, but before Rey can suggest that he’s tugging at her hand and breaking out into a run she can’t help but keep up with. At some point the sight of Kylo Ren running in the rain and turning to her every minute or so with a quiet laugh makes the experience bearable, and she decides to just go with it until they find themselves standing in front of a closed café with a tiny roofed patio.

Raindrops are tracing little paths down the curve of Kylo’s helmet and dripping down onto his suit, and for some reason the sight brings to mind the image of a drenched cat. To his credit, he doesn’t react when a breathless Rey suddenly doubles over with laughter, just waits until she eventually straightens up again before he brings one gloved hand to her face and brushes her clumpy, wet hair away.

All lingering humor evaporates into the air as she stands stock still, holding her breath as his hand slowly moves down to cup her cheek.

Rey darts her eyes down to where his lips would be as her heart rate suddenly triples, looks back to where she thinks his eyes are as her throat goes dry. The same brown eyes from before, from her dreams, flash in her mind and she finally recognizes them just as her eyes begin to flutter, gives Kylo the tiniest of nods and parts her lips even as something in her hesitates–

He caresses her cheek with his thumb, and then drops his hand back to his side. “Call a car. I’ll make sure you get home safely.”

She blinks, eyes still stuck on his mask as he presses something – her soaking wet backpack – into her hands. “Wait, what–”

Kylo’s gone with a single leap into the night sky, black leather impossible to pick out in the darkness.

And Rey, Rey is left alone to deal with the same old frustration and loneliness she’s taken to bed with her for the past two years.

Two weeks pass without any sign of Kylo at their usual haunts. She’d be wary of another months-long disappearance, but every other day her Twitter feed is spammed by pictures of him going about his vigilante business all over town. He’s saving little old ladies from muggers, he’s dropping off criminals at the precinct’s doorstep, he’s sneaking into top-floor offices to ‘liberate’ incriminating evidence… he’s everywhere except their usual haunts, running into everyone but her. Part of Rey – a huge part of her, really – wants to feel angry and betrayed and sad, but… but she’s got better things to focus on.

Like the fact that the top dogs in the Guavian Death Gang are now hanging around The Outpost. Plus her article about imposter syndrome has now been trending for three days straight. And she’s pretty sure Ben’s been leaving muffins on her desk every morning.

That last one is on her mind as she wraps up another late-night meeting with Amilyn after her third stake-out – sans Kylo Ren, who apparently can’t be bothered anymore. “Hey, Amilyn?” Rey hesitates at her editor’s door, hugging her files close to her chest.

“Yes?”

She turns away from the door and walks back into the office. “Can I… can I ask you about Ben?”

Amilyn gives her a knowing smile. “He’s quite a looker, isn’t he?”

Oh yes, so much so that her subconscious has decided to give dream Kylo his eyes and hair, but there’s no need to tell her editor that. “No, that’s not– well, I mean, yes, but– it’s not about that,” she declares firmly, slumping into her previous seat even as Amilyn raises one delicate brow in skepticism. “It’s just… when I first started here, I heard some stuff about him. A lot of stuff, really, from almost everyone here. But now that he’s actually here, none of that really matches up.”

“Oh?” Amilyn asks, leaning forward as her eyes gleam with interest.

“He’s… he’s sweet,” Rey mumbles, looking down at her hands as her cheeks heat up. “And he does these things… just little things, really, but…”

“Ben…” her editor sighs after a moment of silence. “Ben’s never been the friendliest person, but he has so much to offer once he warms up to someone; I wish the rest of the office could see that. But I will say there has been a change since his father passed away.”

“His…” Rey gapes at her. “His father passed away?”

Amilyn frowns. “That’s the reason he was on leave, dear. I mean, we all referred to it as family business, but I thought everyone knew.”

“Well, no one told me.” But then again, it’s not exactly the kind of thing you just throw into casual conversation, and it’s not like Rey had ever asked. She’d been told on her first day that the news editor was taking some personal time off, and that had been that. “Oh my god, poor Ben.”

“At the risk of sounding indelicate… I honestly think this might be one of the best things that ever happened to him.”

Rey finds herself staring at her boss, completely speechless.

“It sounds awful, I know,” Amilyn hurries to explain, “but they never had the best relationship. In fact, Ben used to come talk to me all the time because he had no one else to turn to and his father was so overbearing it drove him up the wall. But ever since he came back, he’s been… lighter. Freer, I think, and maybe even happier.” She offers Rey a shrug. “But that’s just my opinion.”

“Right,” Rey says faintly, her mind elsewhere as she tries to process this information and make it fit with the rest of the puzzles pieces she’s collected so far. So Ben had a bad relationship with his father, but it’d taken him three months to deal with his death. And she’s heard all kinds of things about him since she first joined Raddus, but maybe all of that is outdated now that Amilyn says he’s changed? And are the muffins – and the shy little smiles he gives her when they catch each other’s eye – part of that new change?

Hell, the first day they met, when they bumped into each other and he so rudely walked away – had she been too quick to judge? Maybe he just wasn’t prepared to talk to anyone yet, maybe he was overwhelmed by being back at work after so long, maybe he was thinking about his father…

As always, Ben Snoke remains a giant question mark in her mind. Everything about him – from the sudden change in his behavior towards her to his appearance in her dreams – confuses the hell out of Rey. She gets up and bids Amilyn good night in a daze, completely distracted by her reframing of every interaction they’ve ever had. It’s only when she hears the clatter of someone dropping a spoon into the sink that Rey looks up and sees a light on in the upstairs breakroom.

Somehow, she knows who she’ll find in there before she even decides to check it out.

“Another after-hours meeting with Amilyn?” Ben asks as she appears in the doorway, large hands wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee as he leans against the kitchen counter.

“Yeah, I, um… couldn’t wait to get her approval on this article about… poisonous butterflies?” Rey offers weakly, internally cursing her complete inability to lie for the thousandth time. This is exactly why she’s hesitant to move into the undercover work part of her investigation.

Ben stares her down.

“What?” she demands defensively even as her skin prickles under his observation.

“You’re hiding something, Rey Niima,” he announces casually as he lifts his cup to his lips.

Rey’s heart stops. “Am not,” she shoots back unthinkingly, only for Ben to laugh and shake his head at her.

“I saw you, you know. The other night at The Outpost. You need to be more careful.”

Oh, this is bad. This is so, so bad. “How did you– who else– wait.” Her panic comes to a screeching halt as she narrows her eyes at him. “What were you doing at a strip club on the wrong side of town?”

“I–” Ben hesitates, falters, falls silent for a beat as Rey watches his throat work. “Why else?” he finally says with a rueful little grin on his lips, but–

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Rey confidently refutes as she walks further into the breakroom.

Ben laughs, a curt little puff of air that’s more self-deprecating than amused. “I’m a single, straight man, Rey. I’m pretty sure it makes all the sense in the world–”

Rey shakes her head. “You do realize there are at least ten people in this office who’d jump at the chance to get with you, right?” she asks with a frown. Actually, now that she thinks about it, Ben probably doesn’t spend nearly enough time with them to see the way Poe’s always checking his ass out or hear the things Jess says about climbing him like a tree. “You don’t actually have to–”

“What about you?” Ben asks abruptly as a flush creeps up his neck and stains his cheeks pink. Oh. He’s shy. That’s… strangely adorable, made all the more so by the fact that she catches sight of one red ear when he runs a hand through his hair.

“Me?” Rey blinks. Oh. The strip club. “You know, I just happened to be in the area–”

Ben cuts her off almost immediately, and she can’t even blame him; in a lifetime of bad lies, that one might actually be bad enough to make it into the Hall of Fame. “No, not that. I meant… what about you? Would you… would you jump at the chance?”

For the second time in less than ten minutes, Rey’s heart stops.

But this time… this time it’s not ice-cold fear that fills her veins and lungs. This time, it’s butterflies in her stomach.

“Oh.”

Ben sets down his coffee without looking away from her. “Or not. You don’t have to, you know, jump at the chance, just maybe consider it–”

“Oh.”

This is… this is unexpected. This is new. Worst of all, this is nice, and Rey can feel herself starting to smile, and how dare her stomach get butterflies over someone other than–

“Never mind,” Ben mumbles, looking down at his feet. “Just forget it. Sorry. That was stupid of me, I’m just… I mean, I’m no Kylo Ren–”

He gives Rey as wide a breadth as possible as he walks past her, and all she can do is watch, paralyzed by the mention of Kylo, by the reminder–

The reminder of what? Of how she’d put herself out there only to be left wanting? Of dreams that’ll never be anything more? Of almost-moments that he always shies away from at the last second? Of two years of waiting, and hoping, and dreaming like a foolish, deluded child scaring off one prospective family after another because she couldn’t go with them, couldn’t leave, not before her real family came back–

No. No. Rey’s ruined her life once before waiting on a dream, and she swore to herself years ago that she’d never make that mistake again.

So she turns around and lunges after Ben, wraps her fingers around his wrist and tugs.

“You’re no vigilante superhuman,” she agrees, voice weak and wavering but growing more certain with every word, with every passing moment, “but you’re something better.”

Ben turns around and looks at her with stars in his eyes, and it hurts because all she’s ever wanted was for Kylo to look at her that way but she doesn’t know if he even looks at her at all, will never know how he looks at her or how he feels about her or anything.

But Ben… Ben looks at her like she’s a little miracle, and Ben leaves muffins at her desk, and Ben stops by sometimes to teasingly rib her for her latest listicle.

Ben is real, and here, and he wants her. He wants her.

So Rey takes a deep breath, and lets go of everything she’s held onto for so long. “Kylo… Kylo Ren’s great and all, but he’s… he’s a fantasy, isn’t he? He’s like a Marvel superhero or a Disney prince, something everyone wants, something out of a dream. It’s a nice dream,” she acknowledges, taking a second to remember it fondly before she shatters it to pieces.

“But that’s all it’ll ever be,” Rey finally admits to herself, and even as a part of her dies there’s a bigger part that can finally breathe again.

“But–” Ben begins to say just as Rey steps closer and moves her hand up to his forearm.

“He’s a fantasy,” she says again, and the words come easier this time. “But you…you’re something better, Ben. You’re real.”

Ben stares at her for the longest time. He’s holding his breath, she can tell, and he’s looking at her like she’s the single most terrifying thing he’s ever seen, and his bare skin under her fingertips is better than any dream she’s ever had.

And then finally he speaks, words spilling past him in a single breath. “Would you like to go out sometime?”

Rey smiles, and slowly, hesitantly, so does Ben.

“How about this Saturday?”

Three days before her date with Ben, Rey goes on one final stake-out. It’s the last one, she promises herself, no more getting scared or backing down after this, it’s high time for her to move on to stage two–

A hand covers her mouth.

“I see someone’s back for more.”

This time, Rey swats his hand away and scowls at him.

“And I see someone’s finally deigned to grace me with his presence,” Rey bites back, pausing just long enough to give him a scowl before she turns back to her target.

She told herself she wouldn’t do this, wouldn’t let Kylo catch on to any changes in her, but now that she’s buried all… pleasant thoughts about him deep, deep down, there’s nothing to distract her from the nights she wasted hanging around a closed museum, waiting and hoping and worrying, only to finally trudge home with disappointment weighing her down…

When Kylo steps closer, her throat fills with unexpected bitterness. It’s not his fault that she’d allowed herself to be a delusional, pining fool for two years, not his fault that she’d taken his obviously casual flirting as something more, but all the same she hates him for being able to make her feel things just by stepping into her personal space.

“Rey, about last time–”

She tenses and grits her teeth, keeps her eyes fixed on the club. “Don’t–”

And that’s when The Outpost explodes into a million pieces of flaming shrapnel, a significant amount of which seems to be headed in her direction.

Kylo pulls her behind him before any of the burning projectiles can make contact, and within seconds he’s sweeping her into a bridal carry and getting them the hell out of there. He stares straight ahead, completely focused on navigating the darkness at high speed, leaving Rey to look up at the harsh angles of his mask as a lump forms in her throat.

Their first meeting had gone a little something like this too. A disgruntled former employee of First Order Funds had threatened to blow up the entire financial district, and the city watched on in slack-jawed shock as the Knights of Ren, previously spotted only in grainy security footage in the dead of night, showed up in the middle of the day to handle the threat. Most people were happy to watch the event play out in the safety of their homes, news chopper footage streaming live on their phones, but of course Rey hadn’t been prepared to let this chance pass her by.

While the police set up an evacuation parameter and enforced it, Rey stealthily crept closer and closer to the action until finally she was just ten feet away from Armitage Hux’s turned back, half-hidden behind a car as she fiddled with her phone and looked up–

Only to find Kylo Ren looking at her. Well, at the time it had been hard to tell, what with the mask and all, but somehow Rey just knew he was looking directly at her – which is probably why he moved towards her the second Hux hit the detonator and quickly scooped her up before he set himself to the impossible task of outrunning the flames that were rapidly consuming one closely-packed building after another.

As soon as he deemed them far enough, he set her down and called her an idiot, and she poked him in the chest and called him a monster, and they’ve been something like friends ever since.

Or more.

Rey loses herself in her memories and only comes to when Kylo starts snapping his fingers in front of her face. They’re far from the club now – she can’t even see the fire – and at some point he must’ve set her down because she’s back on her own two feet, a safe distance away from him.

“Rey, are you even listening? You need to stop doing this, it’s too dangerous–”

She bristles at that. “This is my job, Kylo. And you don’t get to tell me what I can and cannot do,” Rey states with a scowl as she crosses her arms over her chest. The nerve of him, honestly. Too dangerous. If it hadn’t been for him distracting her, she would’ve spotted the bomb and gotten the hell out of there in time. Perfectly fine, and with her scoop, and all without Kylo Ren.

Who softens at her words and curls a warm hand around her waist. “Sweetheart, please. I just… I don’t know how I’d live with myself if something were to happen to you.”

Even through the modulator she can hear the sincerity in his voice; even through the mask she can see the concern in his eyes. It’s everything she’s ever dreamed of…

And it’s about two weeks too late.

Rey shrugs his arm off and steps away, steels herself for her next words. “You… you shouldn’t touch me like that anymore. Or say stuff like that.”

Kylo steps forward. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Rey nods. “I’m… I’m seeing someone now. Well, I mean, not yet, our first date is on Saturday–”

“How exciting,” he says, and the truly awful thing about it is that he means it – she can hear the smile in his voice, the teasing note that isn’t all too different from the one her friends had used to react to her news.

It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does – the realization that Kylo really doesn’t care, that maybe he never cared at all. Why should it matter to her, after all, when she’s already let go of him and is truly, genuinely excited for her date with Ben?

“Yeah, so, um… this, us–” Except there was never even as us to begin with, was there? “– we should stop. I just, I really like this guy, and I’d hate for him to see pictures of me running around with masked men in the middle of the night, you know?”

The only thing that assuages her guilt is that she really, truly means that. No matter how confused she is about her feelings right now, she knows with absolute certainty that she would never want to hurt Ben that way.

“I understand,” Kylo assures her. He’s much more serious this time, but there’s still that hint of a smile in his voice, completely devoid of disappointment or jealousy or hurt…

But that’s not what Rey wants, anyway. She’s not some high-schooler trying to use jealousy to bait her crush into making a move. She’s a grown woman setting boundaries with her… work friend? Acquaintance? Almost-lover?

It’s all too much to think about, especially here and now. “Thanks,” she tells Kylo. “Okay, I… I’m just going to go now.”

He nods. “Get home safe, sweetheart.”

She always does. He always makes sure she does, and something tells Rey that’s not about to change. After all, as far as he’s concerned nothing’s changed between them.

But then, just as she’s about to turn away–

“Rey?” Kylo reaches for her wrist, his voice unusually gentle. “He’s… he’s a lucky guy, your date. I hope it works out for you two.”

He’s not you, Rey almost says. He’ll never be you… but I’m starting to be okay with that. Instead, she gently withdraws her hand from Kylo’s and gives him a small smile. “Yeah, me too.”

A moment passes between them, one last chance for either of them to say something.

“Good night, Rey.”

And then it’s over.

Rey nods and turns her back on him. “Goodbye, Kylo.”

Oops, it's been a week. In case y'all were wondering, this is why I usually stick with one-shots.

Another reason I stay away from multi-chapters: more opportunities to mess up and ruin the story! I'm really uncertain about this chapter and how fast things are moving (and that's after I adjusted my original outline and tried to slow things down), so I really, really hope I haven't messed up. Oh well, in any case: it'll all be over soon, friends. Only one chapter left!

As always, thank you so much for reading and I hope you liked it. And please don’t hesitate to like/reblog/comment!

#reylo #rey x ben #kylo ren/rey #rey/kylo ren #rey/ben solo #star wars #rey #ben solo #kylo ren #fic: chemistry #my fics

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justanotherlokiwitch · 7 years ago

Text

Office AU - Part 5

Summary: It is about two months later. The main character confides in Loki that even though things are going well with their relationship, she still has trouble with disturbing thoughts. Loki does his best to help.

Word Count: 1,963

Warnings: Mental illness, disturbing thoughts, self-hatred, suicidal ideation. Potentially triggering.

Other parts of this story (as well as other stuff I’ve written) can be found here.

Taglist: @1800-fight-me @asheslokisgirl143 @sarahivi @namelesslosers @markusstraya @ablogoffanfics @onebloodypoet @sheris532 @ruffdog921 @myclock

The snow was melting now, and some tiny signs of spring were starting to appear. It was somewhat warmer outside, the buds were swelling on the trees outside the office building, and she was happy to see more birds hanging out in those trees and chirping like mad when she walked from her car to the front door each morning.

She had been seeing Loki for a couple months now, and things seemed to be going well enough. But that little voice would come back every now and then, the one that told her he was going to become frustrated with her and leave, and soon.

She sat in her cubicle, bored as usual, trying not to let the uncomfortable thoughts get into her head, but she was failing miserably at it. The little voice was beating her up pretty badly this afternoon, telling her all sorts of hurtful things. You’re fat and ugly. You’re worthless. You’re nothing but a burden to everyone. He’s going to leave you, and it’s going to be your fault. You have no reason to be alive.

These were the sorts of thoughts that she had to fight off almost every day. Some days she was able to ignore them well enough, but other days, if she was feeling vulnerable like she was today, they really got to her. She could feel tears starting to form in her eyes. She hated having to cry at work. She always worried that her coworkers would see her and think she was weak. Or worse, ask her what was wrong and then she’d have to try to make something up that sounded much less silly than I’m having distressing thoughts.

She looked at her phone. It was 3:00 p.m. Two hours to go. Could she make it, even though she really had nothing to keep her busy and distracted from the thoughts?

Maybe I should text Loki, she thought. But what if he’s busy? I don’t want to interrupt him if he’s doing something important.

She picked up the phone and opened the messaging app. She tapped on Loki’s name and started typing a message. “Are you busy?” She put the phone back down, fully expecting not to hear back for at least a few minutes.

The reply came almost immediately. “Not extremely. What’s up?”

“I’m having some bad thoughts and can’t seem to break the cycle,” she wrote back.

“Can you leave your desk right now?” Loki texted. “I can meet you in the lobby and we can walk around the building for a few minutes.”

She thought for a moment, then replied, “OK.” She got up and headed for the elevator. At this time of day it wasn’t crowded and she had a quiet ride down to the lobby. When she got there, she didn’t see Loki yet, but she figured he was probably waiting for the elevator.

She was somewhat surprised when the door to the stairwell opened and Loki appeared.

“You took the stairs all the way down from the eleventh floor?” she asked him as he walked up to her and took her hand.

“Didn’t want to wait any longer than I had to,” he replied with a smile, and they stepped out the door into the early spring sun. “So what about these thoughts you’re having? Tell me about them.”

“It’s a lot of self-hatred,” she replied. “I’m not good enough, I’m ugly, worthless, I’ll never amount to anything. Everyone hates me. They all think I’m a freak and a bitch. I should just give up.”

“Hmm,” Loki said. “So why do you hate yourself so much?”

She thought about it for a moment. “I really don’t know,” she said. “I don’t really have a reason to hate myself. I just do. It must be the depression talking, right?”

“Depression and low self-esteem do go hand in hand,” Loki said. “But your ‘low self-esteem’ is a bit extreme. It makes me wonder if you weren’t abused in some way when you were younger.”

“Abused?” she said. “Not really. I had a pretty standard childhood, from what I can remember. No one ever hit me or sexually abused me or anything. No, I’ve been over this with my therapists. They seem to think it comes from when I was in high school and was bullied a lot.”

“Ah,” said Loki. “That makes sense.”

“Yeah,” she said. “You know how teenage girls can be. It was pretty devastating. And you know what’s weird? Now all those girls who tormented me in high school all want to be my Facebook friends. It’s like it never happened.”

“You didn’t friend them, I hope,” Loki said.

“No,” she replied.

“That’s good,” he said, and looked at his watch. “I suppose we should head back inside.”

They rode the elevator up together. At the eighth floor, where she had to get out, Loki gave her a quick, sweet kiss on the lips before she exited. She turned around and watched the doors close before she headed back to her desk.

She still found it hard to believe that Loki wanted anything to do with her. He seemed like he could have whoever he wanted, and yet he wanted her. She didn’t think she would ever understand why.

That evening, she had to go see her psychiatrist for her periodic check-in. It was a bit of a drive from the office, about a half hour, and she never liked having to be in the car for that long. These days she made use of the time in the car by listening to audiobooks, which was a suggestion from Loki. It did help quite a bit to pass the time and keep her from getting too upset. She found that she particularly enjoyed detective novels, and she had just downloaded a new one from an author she liked, so she was looking forward to getting started on that.

The sun had gone down by the time she reached her psychiatrist’s office. This particular office was open late a couple days a week, which worked out well for her schedule. She walked up to the second floor, signed in and took a seat in the waiting area. There were a couple of other people waiting as well, probably to see their therapists. There was a teenage girl with her mother, and an older man reading a magazine. She wondered to herself why they were there. Were they depressed? Did they have ADD? Were they bipolar like her?

She always felt a certain sense of shame when she sat in the waiting room. Here she was, a mentally ill person, needing to see a psychiatrist. Yet why should she feel any shame in that? She thought it was unfair the way that most mentally ill people were made to feel ashamed about their illnesses. How was it any different from, say, diabetes or some other chronic medical condition? It made her angry knowing that she couldn’t tell people at work about her illness, for fear it might affect how her coworkers and bosses treat her. People like Loki, who accepted who she was despite her illness, were few and far between.

Her phone beeped. It was a text from Loki. “Let me know how your appointment goes,” it said.

The doctor appeared at the interior door and called her name. She got up and followed him into his office and took a seat across from his desk.

“So,” said the doctor. “How’s everything going?”

“Not bad,” she replied. “About the same, except I’m seeing someone now.”

“Oh?” said the doctor, “And is that going well?”

“So far,” she said. “He’s a really great guy. He seems to tolerate my symptoms pretty well.”

“So he knows you’re bipolar?”

“Yes,” she said. “And he seems okay with that.”

“What does he do?” asked the doctor.

“He’s a writer and editor for a psychology publication.”

“Ah,” said the doctor. “That’s helpful. Well, I wish you the best with him. Now let’s talk about your meds. How do you think they’re working?”

She thought for a moment. “I think they’re working all right. I’m able to function like I always do. I don’t think anything’s out of the ordinary.”

“No thoughts of suicide or self-harm?” asked the doctor.

“No,” she replied, although that was a bit of a lie she always told the doctor when he asked that question. Truth was, she always thought about death, especially when that little voice started attacking her, telling her to give up. She frequently felt like she would be better off if she just didn’t exist. But she didn’t think that was urgent enough to tell the doctor about, because she didn’t ever really have the guts to go through with any sort of attempt at taking her own life.

“Good,” said the doctor. “Then we’ll keep you where you are and you can come back in a couple months.”

The doctor wrote two prescriptions on his pad and handed them to her. She thanked him and walked out to make her follow-up appointment.

When she got back out to her car, the pulled out her phone and texted Loki. “Just got out of the appointment.” she wrote. “All good. No changes to the meds.”

“Good,” Loki texted back. “You going home now?”

“Yes,” she wrote. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” he texted back. “Drive safely. Text me when you get home.”

When she did finally get back to her apartment, she did her usual stop at the front door to make sure there wasn’t any noise coming from the next apartment. This time she could hear the neighbor talking, probably on the phone, and she sighed heavily. Her neighbor had the type of voice that really carried, and she knew she was probably going to need earplugs tonight if he didn’t stop talking anytime soon.

She took off her coat and shoes and went to the kitchen to make herself something to eat. She threw a frozen meal in the microwave and while it was cooking she picked up her phone and texted Loki.

“Home,” she wrote.

“You going to eat something?” came the text back.

“Making something right now,” she wrote.

“Good,” Loki texted back. “How are those thoughts?”

“Still there,” she wrote. “Still kicking my ass.”

“Listen to your book then,” Loki replied. “It’ll distract you.”

“OK,” she wrote. “Hey, can I call you?”

The phone started ringing.

“Hi,” said Loki on the other end. “This is much better than texting.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Talking on the phone was never my strong suit.”

“What’s on your mind?” he said.

“Is it weird,” she said, “That when my doctor asks me if I’d had any suicidal thoughts, that I tell him no even though that’s kind of not true?”

“Have you been having suicidal thoughts?” Loki asked, a bit of concern in his voice.

“Well, I always do,” she said. “It’s kind of my default. When the thoughts start going, one of them is that I’d be better off dead.”

“You know that’s not true,” said Loki. “No one is better off dead.”

“I know it, and you know it,” she said. “But that doesn’t stop me from thinking it when the depression hits.”

Loki didn’t say anything. She wondered if he was worried, or maybe he finally found something he didn’t like about her.

“Loki,” she said. “I’m not going to do anything. Don’t worry. I don’t have the guts.”

“Please,” said Loki softly, “If you ever feel like you want to hurt or kill yourself, call me immediately. Don’t worry about interrupting me. You’re more important than anything else. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I can do that.”

“Thank you, my darling,” Loki said.

#loki fanfic #loki imagine #loki fanfiction #loki laufeyson #loki #marvel fanfiction #marvel universe #au #office au #fanfiction #tom hiddleston

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slowlynuttyobservation · 4 years ago

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Mac Mini For Photoshop

The entry-level Mac mini offers a 3.6GHz quad-core i3 processor for £799/$799 which may not fulfil the needs of the typical designer, but the £1,099/$1,099 version offers a 3.0GHz 6-core i5. Apple FINALLY updated their Mac Mini product line late in 2018 (with a minor update in March 2020), making it a pretty good option for photographers to run Lightroom and Photoshop. This buying guide provides insight into which model and what configuration options photographers should consider. The best budget Mac for photo editing is the 2019 Mac Mini for about $900 and the best budget PC is the Dell Inspiron 3670 for about $650. Add the ViewSonic VA2719-2K-SMHD 27 Inch display for about $220 and a 4TB hard drive for another $100. So you are a photographer on a tight budget in need of a computer to run Lightroom and Photoshop. Hi John - The PA272W-BK-SV 27' 16:9 IPS Monitor with SpectraViewII from NEC comes equipped with the NEC SpectraViewII color calibration tool and features enhanced color accuracy covering 99.3% of the Adobe RGB color space, 94.8% of the NTSC color space, and 146.4% of the sRGB color space. With a variety of input connectors including DisplayPort, Mini DisplayPort, HDMI, and DVI-D Dual-Link, you.

Mac Mini For Photoshop Cs6

Mac Mini For Photoshop Software

What is Final Cut Pro X like running on a new Mac mini? We take a look at the new model, its features and how well FCPX performs. It even beats an iMac Pro in one of our tests!

Before we plug the new Mac mini up, it is important to understand that this version of the unit has changed. Changed a lot.

Back in 2005, the Mac mini was designed for switchers from PCs. It didn’t come with a screen, keyboard or mouse and keeping the price down helped make the transition to Mac OS 10.3 Panther and a PowerPC processor as painless as possible.

Times and technology have changed, no need now for the DVD slot or a spinning hard disk for storage.

The switchers of today are buying MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros as their first Macs, not the mini.

So this gives Apple a chance to change and retarget the use of the Mac mini. Consequently, that’s exactly what they have done with the new range of models.

But instead of offering (To quote Steve Jobs) a ‘stripped down Mac’ they’ve actually put the logic board on steroids!

The fourth generation Mac mini now has a choice of quad and 6-core processors, up to 64GB of Ram, up to 2TB of SSD storage and the option of a 10GigE port over the standard GigE.

There are also four USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports fed from two controllers, an HDMI port that supports 4K and two USB 3 ports. So yes, you can plug your own keyboard and mouse in without having to buy any adaptors.

Can the user upgrade the RAM in the new machine? Yes, it is possible, but it is not a case of flipping up a slot and exchanging the cards out.

You have to remove the cooling fan and then slide out the logic board. Make a mess of it and you’ll invalidate the warranty, so it is best to stick to an Apple approved centre for the upgrade. Should you want to get your spudger out and see the insides of the new Mac mini, head over to the excellent iFixit site.

The machine on test is a 3.2GHz 6‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i7, 32GB 2666MHz DDR4, Intel UHD Graphics 630, 1TB SSD storage and the 10 Gigabit Ethernet option.

If the colour of the Mac mini looks familiar, it is exactly the same as the iMac Pro and (after seeing them side by side) the Blackmagic external GPU. This also makes sense of the decision for Apple to sell the black keyboard and mouse and also probably hints at the new Mac Pro colour. (And possible footprint- a skyscraper sized oblong trashcan?)

Connecting it up

I’m lucky to have 2 10GigE connections on the back of my QNAP NAS. Final Cut Pro X needs fast drives to be able to build the ‘always live’ waveforms and thumbnails.

Plumbing the Mac mini into the edit system is easy and I’ve detailed how to do point to point 10Gig connection before if you haven't got a router/switch.

If you need the internet on the machine, a cheap USB to Ethernet adaptor from Amazon for $15 works as well as anything else. Run a speed test to make sure you are accessing the NAS via the higher speed route.

I powered a 4K monitor from the HDMI port; this works well and avoids any more dongles having to be bought.

After 25 years of Mac ownership, I have enough keyboards and a spare mouse to finish off the system!

Power On

The machine comes with Mojave installed and defaults to dark mode on the now silent boot. The machine is very quiet and can’t be heard over the fan of the nearby QNAP, which isn’t that loud either. This machine could easily sit on your desktop and not annoy you or your co-worker.

I read a recent review that the sound was pretty terrible out of the Mac mini. I’d disagree. It isn’t great, but it isn’t bad either. I’d say it was better than the old cylinder Mac Pro, but not in the league of the Mac notebooks. You wouldn’t want to use it as edit monitoring.

The Mac mini does have a headphone socket and I can see many editors sitting in offices with the machine on the desk and headphones on editing all day.

Although I worked the machine hard with rendering, the shell didn't get too hot. However I did feel the warm rush of air out of the back of the machine which caught me by surprise when the mini was angled away from me.

I wouldn't have it in this orientation for continuous use, ie situated under a central monitor post with cables pointing at you. Instead I suggest putting the cables and heat exhaust to the back. It will make plugging the headphones in a bit trickier, but I hate sitting in draught!

Final Cut Pro X Performance!

Let’s give it a real test and put it up against an iMac Pro!

I thought I’d dive straight in with a 4K Project and use a Library with a short minute and a half sequence with large still images, transitions, multiple title and adjustment layers.

It is in a Library that I duplicated to both machines with the media staying on the QNAP. The cache was set to both desktops respectively as the RAM in both runs at up to 3Gig speed.

Mac Mini For Photoshop Cs6

Although I didn’t time it, it felt like the thumbnails were taking a longer time to draw than I’m used to on the iMac Pro. All render files were deleted before all tests.

Unrendered, the Mac mini played the sequence back in Better Performance, but dropped frames on Better Quality. The iMac Pro played back in both settings without a problem.

Skimming seemed just as fast as the iMac Pro and it didn’t feel underpowered when navigating the timeline or browser.

The iMac is an 8 core machine with 64GB of RAM and more importantly a Radeon Pro Vega 64 GPU.

Both machines are connected to the same storage via 10GigE and renders and exports went to the respective desktops. (Ok I know it is NBase-T which supports 1Gb, 2.5Gb, 5Gb and 10Gb)

Render time Mac mini 7’03” iMac Pro 1’43”

Mac Mini For Photoshop Software

4K ProRes 422 Export Mac mini 6’45 iMac Pro 1’40”

As expected here as FCPX uses the GPU for image processing, the much lower powered Mac mini takes a lot longer.

Compressor Convert to HEVC 4K 8Bit Mac mini 54” iMac Pro 55”

Well, the Mac mini beat the iMac Pro! This is because all of the conversion is done on the CPUs.

Not really worth testing for Motion as apart from a few things like particles, Motion almost lives on the GPU.

Compressor Clusters

No, not a new breakfast cereal, but Compressor allows you to share the work out over connected machines.

I didn’t realise that the ability to set up a cluster of machines running Compressor was easy to do. Well, when I say easy my first attempt failed, but that might be down to my slightly quirky network topology with the QNAP.

To build a cluster, on the machines you want to add, open up a copy of Compressor. In the preferences, turn the option on for other computers to process batches.

Then on the host machine, make a cluster from the available machines in the list. Here you can see we have got something very wrong! We will be revisiting this topic with the issue fixed when we have more time.

Then having named your cluster (or other single machine), you can then toggle the processing destination in the dropdown menu on the bottom of the host machine's Compressor GUI.

To work properly and fast, all the machines need to be connected with 10GigE via a 10GigE switch. The costs of this networking is now a lot cheaper, Netgear and QNAP make a suitable budget switch.

There is no limit to the amount of Mac minis you can have in a cluster. You'll probably run out of switch ports first!

One note here. For distributed processing, it has to be a self contained movie that gets automatically diced and sliced and sent off to the cluster machines.

Conclusions

Not what I expected. I guess I was in the state of mind thinking that the Mac mini wasn’t a serious machine for anything other than web browsing, Plex serving or basic Photoshop.

It’s a lot more than than. It is a component in building a modular system, which is a new thought considering that Apple has been criticised over the past few years for lack of upgradability in the Mac Pro and iMac Pro.

There are two reasons for this new direction. The first are Thunderbolt 3 connections giving the option of using an external GPU and therefore factoring out the limited onboard Intel offering.

The second is the option of a 10GigE port. Being able to connect to high speed shared storage without going through an adaptor is a huge plus.

Why? Take sever centres for example. Every App on the iOS App Store has been compiled on a Mac. Rack up rows of Mac minis connected with 10GigE and you have a facility that can get apps ready quickly. No need for costly large GPUs here, all the work will be done by the CPU cores. Once set up, the Mac mini is more than happy to run in a headless mode. I've worked with a few producers like that.

This is also true of building a small Mac mini cluster to do the hard work of making all the different deliverables of an FCPX exported finished movie - while you carry on editing something else with your main machine. It would make sense for a large production or facility house to have a rack of these that everybody could access when needed.

Put five or ten of these together in a rack and you have a very fast DIT tool for making proxies and dailies on set. The Mac mini above gets its first on set DIT experience tomorrow!

I’ll leave you with a final thought.

Spec up a 6-core Mac mini with 32GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage and the soon to ship Blackmagic RX Vega 56 eGPU and you have a machine that’s not too far from the base model iMac Pro, wait for it... with over £1,200 left spare.

Granted, you’ll have to supply your own monitor, keyboard and mouse, but if upgradability is important to you, this could be a very clever way of getting the power with the flexibility.

Hopefully we will have an eGPU to test soon :)

Peter Wiggins is a broadcast freelance editor based in the UK although his work takes him around the world. An early adopter of FCP setting up pioneering broadcasts workflows, his weapon of choice is now Final Cut Pro X.

You can follow him on Twitter as @peterwiggins or as he runs the majority of this site, you can contact him here.

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creative-splurges · 4 years ago

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Shot on iPhone

It has been quite a while since my last ‘proper’ post on this site. Over two years, in fact. That post, Dancing in Kensington, was itself published a year after the pictures within it were taken, and depressingly represented one of my most recently edited set of photographs (the only exception being my images from RTX London in 2017, which were rushed out to capitalise on interest in the wake of the event itself, showing that when I set my mind to it I can actually shoot, edit and post relatively quickly).

That lack of editing has led to a decent-sized backlog of images, even though over time the use of my DSLR has waned (an inevitable consequence, perhaps, of getting out of the habit of editing and posting – as much as I enjoy actually firing the shutter, the real reward is in the results). Although I’m still working full-time from home during the coronavirus pandemic, thanks to my newfound lack of commute I have a decent amount of additional free time which I’m using to go through that backlog, but it is going to take some time. I’ve basically gone all the way back to July 2017, where my earliest batch of unedited photos seems to be, and I’m working my way forwards from there. For the first time, I’m working on multiple posts concurrently. Instead of edit, write, publish, edit, write, publish, I’m editing multiple assortments of pictures, working through all of them chronologically, pausing only to export logical batches and upload them, then when the mood strikes I’m writing whichever of those posts takes my fancy. Whilst this is not going quite as expediently as I had originally hoped when lockdown started, my plan is still to get back into a regular posting schedule – but don’t be surprised for them to come out in a bit of a sporadic order.

It would be entirely wrong, however, to suggest that my decrease in use of my DSLR and the increased neglect of this site in some way represents a wane in my love for photography. If you follow me on Instagram you’d have seen I have still been shooting and posting images relatively regularly, only with my phone – so it makes perfect sense to me that this site should come back to life with a post representing the main kind of inspiring photography I’ve been doing over the last few ‘wilderness’ years.

Modern-day smartphones are amazing devices, and the cameras on them are often positioned as key selling points. And rightly so – my phone is always on me, I can quickly and easily snap and edit pictures using a variety of apps (including lightweight portable versions of Photoshop and Lightroom) and post them directly online without any faffing around with SD cards or ‘real’ computers, or even needing to return home. It certainly helps that smartphone cameras these days can produce incredible results, and the faux depth-of-field technology often produces results that are indistinguishable from the real thing – unless you look really close. Even on the occasions I’ve been out with my DSLR, I’ve often gone straight to my phone to take photographs because it so much more convenient – especially the the sorts of stylistic image that would require a change of kit, which can achieve similar results with an app.

Since the dawn of the smartphone era I’ve been using an iPhone. These days I tend to upgrade every year, and the cameras are a huge part of the reason for that. Currently I’m shooting with an iPhone 11 Pro, although the images in this post will have been shot with a variety of devices. Although the cameras in the phones has varied over the years, they are fixed cameras, so the focal length and aperture information doesn’t really change from image to image. As such, I’m doing the EXIF data under each image a little differently for this post: I’m listing the phone I used and which lens (as each phone has multiple), the shutter speed and ISO setting (since these vary a lot), what mode if any the camera was using, and what software I used to edit the image. If there’s no mode or software listed, it means I was using the stock modes and photo editor – or I forgot what I used and couldn’t figure it out from the image data. I will go into the modes in more depth later in this post.

I want to stress, every photo was both shot and edited entirely on an iPhone, either in the stock camera and photo editor or using third party software. Most of these images have been through a desktop computer and Lightroom only to be resized and watermarked and then uploaded, and quite frankly that’s only because I hadn’t bothered to do enough research into it before I started – I’ve since figured it out and now have an Apple Shortcut that will resize and watermark my images, so the last images at the end of this post have not even been through a ‘real’ computer. In keeping with that spirit I’ve even used an iPhone app – Metapho – to look up the EXIF information for each image, and all of this post was written on an iPad.

The images in this post all generally come from one of three devices: the iPhone X, the iPhone XS, and the iPhone 11 Pro.

iPhone X

Most of the images in this post start from only a couple of years ago, with the release of the iPhone X. This was the first iPhone that came in what I’d consider a reasonably pocketable size with a dual camera system on the back (previously this had been limited to the larger size ‘Plus’ phones, which are too large to be practical for me). The dual camera system features a wide angle lens (roughly equivalent to a 28mm lens on a 35mm camera) and a telephoto lens (equivalent to a 52mm), and brought several advantages: first, the wider angle of the two has optical image stabilisation, aiding sharper shots in lower light (considering how often I’m photographing scenes inside, especially cats being cats). It also enabled Portrait Mode, which as I’ll go to more detail in a moment, enabled a faux depth-of-field effect which adds a certain something to images to enable them to stand out.

iPhone XS

At some point in late 2018 (admittedly probably pretty close to when it came out), I upgraded my iPhone X for an iPhone XS, primarily for the camera upgrade it offered. As is often the way, just when I start to notice and hate something about my phone, Apple come along and highlight how the new one doesn’t do that any more, and such was the case here, with the camera specifically touting improvements in harsh lighting conditions just when I’d had a few images suffer from blown out highlights. The fundamentals of the camera were largely unchanged, still with a dual camera system featuring wide angle and telephoto lenses.

iPhone 11 Pro

The iPhone 11 Pro added a third camera to the mix, bringing an ultra wide angle with an equivalent focal length of 13mm. Not only has this brought the ability to take wider angle shots generally, it also adds the ability to use portrait mode with the standard wide angle lens. On top of this there were general improvements to the other cameras, such as wider apertures and improved HDR and image processing thanks to the phone’s improved processor (which makes a difference on a phone that does a lot of image processing) and the addition of Night Mode (not that there’s any night shots in this post, sadly).

Let’s kick things off with an image of one of my colleagues, on a snowy day in London when we had the misfortune of needing to move between buildings.

iPhone X telephoto lens, 1/160sec, ISO 16, using Portrait Mode

And of course, inevitably to test it out I would use a camera to take a photo of my cat.

iPhone X telephoto lens, 1/160sec, ISO 160, using Portrait Mode

This shot is an example of one shot using Portrait Mode, so the blurred background in this image is computationally generated. It shoots the actual image with the telephoto camera, and uses the stereoscopic effect of comparing the images from the two lenses to figure out what is the foreground, and how to realistically blur the background artificially.

I find one of the main tells when comparing photographs taken with a ‘real’ camera to one taken with a smartphone is the depth of field in the image. As a result of sheer physics, due to the thinness of your modern smartphone, you do not get the usual bokeh effect you’d see with a traditional camera. As a result, smartphone images have often looked ‘flat’ in comparison. The Portrait Mode effect – because it doesn’t just uniformly blur the background but aims to create a true bokeh effect by blurring more distant objects more than those closer to the foreground – solves this problem and helps create images that are closer to images taken with a ‘proper’ camera.

It isn’t perfect, of course, but as you can see with the image of Freddie above, who as a walking ball of fluff presents about as much of a challenge as the system is likely to face (as well as people with loose stands of hair of course), it works pretty well.

The added bonus of this system is that, as by and large it is software-based, it can be improved over time by system updates.

This next image is one which I took with my phone whilst shooting a set with my DSLR. That set will be along in the future, so you’ll be able to compare a shot taken with a phone to what I was achieving with full-size camera. This is a chocolate skull made to celebrate the day of the dead.

iPhone X telephoto lens, 1/70sec, ISO 640, using Portrait Mode

Of course, one of the main uses of my phone is to grab those shots when a cat is being cute, and getting up to fetch my big camera would only disturb them.

iPhone X telephoto lens, 1/25sec, ISO 125, using Portrait Mode

The front camera on the iPhone X, despite technically being a single camera, is also capable of portrait mode effects, because the camera array is basically a miniaturised Xbox Kinect capable of sensing depth using an infrared dot projector and IR camera.

Also built into the iPhone operating system is a number of portrait effects, which don’t really work in standard images, but works great for images featuring people. These can boost facial features, or in the more striking modes, remove backgrounds all together in order to create the illusion of being in a studio. I love playing about with it, but as you’d expect, I’m the main person I get to practise on. The shot below was taken outside on a picnic table, but the only clue to that is the reflection in my sunglasses.

iPhone X front camera, 1/120sec, ISO 32, using Portrait Mode

Portrait Mode doesn’t just work on people and pets – it also does surprisingly well on abstract objects, such as the back of my car covered in drizzle.

iPhone X telephoto lens, 1/140sec, ISO 16, using Portrait Mode

There are various methods and practises I use to edit photographs on my phone, which have varied over the years as software has been updated, released or even discontinued. For the earliest of the images in this post, I would most often take the images straight from the camera and put them into the mobile version of Lightroom, in order to add some sharpening, some vignette, and perhaps some particular filters, such as in this image.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/25sec, ISO 640, using Portrait Mode

I would also use the same technique when looking to make images monochrome.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/25sec, ISO 640, using Portrait Mode

I’ve obviously shared a few images of my own cats. After we moved at the start of last year we discovered a local cat apparently liked to spend time in our garden, made worse by the fact that our own cats were locked inside during their months-long ‘this is where you live now’ orientation lock-in, so all they could do was stare at him from the back doors.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/120sec, ISO 100, using Portrait Mode

As is always the way, moving house was chaos. We moved the cats first, a day before the movers came to pack up all of our stuff in our old flat, in the hope of minimising the stress. They still had to put up with an hour drive in the car, which they hate at the best of times, but managed to avoid the movers for the most part. After the move was over, and the house was still full of boxes, the cats remained in hiding for the mst part. These shots I took of Freddie were among the first times they seemed to be truly settling in at their new home.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/30sec, ISO 800, using Portrait Mode

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/25sec, ISO 500, using Portrait Mode

It may have been brought up before, but Freddie is absolutely my cat.

iPhone XS front camera, 1/120sec, ISO 64

In recent years, my wife has taken up crocheting. One of her early projects was a little bunny for me to take to work, seen here in an image that helps show that portrait mode also works really nicely on objects as well as people (as long as you’re using a multi-camera iPhone – the single-camera iPhone XR still offered a portrait mode with the rear camera, but this was based on machine learning trained to look for people so didn’t work on objects or pets).

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/90sec, ISO 125, using Portrait Mode

It turns out, the iPhone XS is actually pretty good at all sorts of objects. This image is from a walk we took on Ditchling Down, another case of me grabbing a couple of iPhone shots whilst mainly shooting with my DSLR (so you’ll see the rest of this set further down the line).

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/1250sec, ISO 16, using Portrait Mode

I haven’t talked a huge amount about our house move on here, not least because this site is not intended as a blog on the minutiae of my life, but also of course because of the lack of posts I’ve been publishing due to 2019 being unreasonably harsh to me. I would no doubt have talked about it a little more if there were regular photo-based updates to be had. Luckily this post contains a little cross-section of my life over the last few years so you’ll get to hear about some of it, if you’re interested in that sort of thing. If you’re mainly in it for the photography then I presume you’re not reading this paragraph in the first place. One of the great benefits of our new home is we have our own garden, something which only Cookie has previously had. This has proven to be invaluable as Cookie can’t jump so good any more. We have a lovely set of french doors to get into our garden, so we can all walk outside easily (I’ll get to the view from the garden at some point later).

Such quick easy access to the outside – in our old flat we had access to a lawn, but it involved all of us climbing out of a window – means it’s been easier to get quick shots of the cats in the garden, like this shot of Freddie enjoying his first spring in the Sussex countryside.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/120sec, ISO 25, using Portrait Mode

Another big difference with our new house compared to our old flat is the light. Our flat was often a dimly lit place, with the living room particularly dark of a day, even though it had a big window. By comparison, our new home is brilliantly bright and airy. Whilst this brings many benefits, of course the main one that matters is the ability to take better photos inside.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/55sec, ISO 400, using Portrait Mode

It also helps that the default camera app obfuscates the ISO you’re shooting at, and takes over a lot of the post-processing you’d have to do with a photo shot at high ISO, such as noise reduction (although as you can see, 400 ISO is not bad at all for shooting inside). More recent software updates have also brought a feature called Deep Fusion, which is just the sort of computational photography that smartphones excel at compared to more ‘standard’ cameras. If the camera detects low light (but not so dark so as to require Night Mode), it will shoot and combine multiple exposures to extract as much detail as possible. Unfortunately this is something that only turns on automatically, and is not compatible with Portrait Mode, so you won’t see it used all that often.

Having our own garden space as also meant getting actual garden furniture to enjoy it, even though truth be told our cats probably use them more than we do.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/120sec, ISO 16, using Portrait Mode

And there’s a water butt for cats to rest their butts (and also to collect rainwater).

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/120sec, ISO 50, using Portrait Mode

When there’s no cats being cute I’ll often use myself as a subject, especially when the light in the living room is just so. One downside of doing all my editing on a 5.7″ screen is it can be hard to judge details – on this image, for instance, on larger screens it appears to have been oversharpened.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/120sec, ISO 64, using Portrait Mode

Fortunately, the cats are often cute. Here, Freddie was politely asking to go into the garden, by looking forlorn, like something out of a cat charity advert.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/120sec, ISO 125, using Portrait Mode

And when he is outside, he does love the breeze in his most majestic fur.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/120sec, ISO 25, using Portrait Mode

With my trust in the current capabilities of the iPhone, I have started using it where I would otherwise use my DSLR, such as at family barbecues, where – much like with photographing cats – sometimes you don’t want to risk disturbing your subject to grab your big camera.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/120sec, ISO 16, using Portrait Mode

Last year – back in the carefree times when people who had never met before could stand within two metres of each other outside – we attended a car boot sale where I got a decent haul of 7″ singles that used to belong to a DJ. You can see that Portrait Mode can make even the most mundane shots look they were taken with dedicated equipment.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/120sec, ISO 50, using Portrait Mode

Whilst the bulk of the images in this post so far have been taken with portrait mode to create the illusion of being shot with a real camera, you can still get great results when shooting normally, especially when there is detail to be found in the things you’re photographing. This incinerator chimney is in the grounds of the hospital near us (a hospital which can prove to be very useful in the event you, say, unexpectedly develop appendicitis, and don’t have anyone else who can drive so you need to walk there); we didn’t intend to get so close but we were wondering around amongst the trees in the grounds and suddenly it was there.

iPhone XS wide lens, 1/1900sec, ISO 25

There are also a few apps I use to shoot on my phone. For the most part I use the stock camera app, more often than not for the images in this post in Portrait Mode. I also have a few apps for fuller manual control of the camera, most commonly at the moment Halide, although I don’t tend to use these that often.

I also use Spectre, from the same people who make Halide, to shoot long exposures. It uses AI to help take 3-9 second exposures, correcting for an amount of camera shake (since you’re using a small handheld slab of glass, not a camera on a tripod). The results are often fantastic, making it one of the times where I’ll use the app for a long exposure rather than go through the faff of breaking out a tripod and potentially an ND filter to get a similar shot with my DSLR.

iPhone XS wide lens, 3sec, ISO 25, using Spectre and processed in Lightroom Mobile

Sometimes I use the various filters and styles in Lightroom more than others. In this picture of Freddie – where he sits proudly in front of a toy mouse he has vanquished – I have obviously gone for a more overt style.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/60sec, ISO 400, using Portrait Mode

Similarly, I picked something similarly bold for this shot of Cookie on our garden wall.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/120sec, ISO 20, using Portrait Mode

After we moved my commute changed significantly. One of the big changes – other than the duration – was my walk to the office in London, which now includes a ten minute stroll along the South Bank. This has presented quite a few opportunities to get great shots of the Thames in various states of weather, quite often using Spectre to get lovely long exposures of the water.

iPhone XS wide lens, 9sec, ISO 25, using Spectre & edited in Lightroom Mobile

But look, ultimately, cats. They are a lot better these days at posing for me, presumably because they also like their new living environment.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/60sec, ISO 160, using Portrait Mode

One thing I’ve also gotten better at is capturing fleeting moments, something that I’ve never been good at relying on smartphone cameras for, such as this big Freddie yawn.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/60sec, ISO 250, using Portrait Mode

Or Rambow in the living room in a shaft of sunlight.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/950sec, ISO 16, using Portrait Mode

Or this majestic shot of Freddie on our garden wall, with our lovely view of the Sussex countryside in the background.

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/320sec, ISO 16, using Portrait Mode

Or Rambow looking longingly into the garden on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/120sec, ISO 80, using Portrait Mode

Last autumn I again upgraded my iPhone, to an iPhone 11 Pro. This device adds a third back camera to the mix, an ultra wide angle with a 35mm equivalent focal length of 13mm, adding amongst other things the ability to use the stereoscopic portrait feature on the normal wide angle lens.

Wide-angle portrait mode works very nicely, even on objects in the low light of post-sunset.

iPhone 11 Pro wide lens, 1/30sec, ISO 1000, using Portrait Mode

Since it’s been quite some time since my last update regarding my hair (which I’m sure you care about even less than my housing situation), so it’s probably a good time to mention that, following shaving my head for charity, I decided I liked it and have kept it short ever since – just a forewarning before you see any pictures of me in this post and remember me with a very full head of hair, and a reassurance that I’m not ill.

More recently, recent updates to the iPhone operating system brought decent editing features, allowing me to adjust sharpness, definition, and vignette in the stock photos app.

With iOS 13, released last autumn, a new portrait style was released, called High Key Mono. This is another AI-driven style that creates the impression of a person being photographed in front of a white background, as if shot in a studio. The results are amazing and I can’t stop playing with it – obviously always practising on myself because I’m the most agreeable model I usually have access to.

iPhone 11 Pro front camera, 1/60sec, ISO 100, using Portrait Mode

I am genuinely in love with the results of this feature.

iPhone 11 Pro front camera, 1/60sec, ISO 100, using Portrait Mode

In the summer I decided to up my haircut by going for a full wet shave. The result was made even more striking when using High Key Mono.

iPhone 11 Pro front camera, 1/120sec, ISO 50, using Portrait Mode

As you may know from seeing any self-portrait posts I’ve made in the past, I tend to get a bit silly with expressions when taking a series of what the kids call selfies.

iPhone 11 Pro front camera, 1/120sec, ISO 50, using Portrait Mode

iPhone 11 Pro front camera, 1/120sec, ISO 64, using Portrait Mode

Around the same time I discovered VSCO, adding another step in my processing for when I want to add filters. This next shot is another of the same images, but I processed it using the Stage Light filter, which sort of does the opposite of High Key Mono by replacing the background with black rather than white, and then put it through VSCO to add another colour filter.

iPhone 11 Pro front camera, 1/75sec, ISO 100, using Portrait Mode

Generally now my workflow is as follows: shoot, do some initial editing in the stock Photos app such as sharpening and adding vignette, then pass it over to VSCO to add a filter and more tweaks to sharpening, clarity and a few choice other settings.

As much as the images above may seem effortless, you still need to give consideration to how your face is lit to get the most out of the effect. For these shots, I stood facing my windows, getting mostly front light. There aren’t too many images shot using side light in this post because frankly the results aren’t quite as realistic looking. Sometimes, however, it works pretty well.

iPhone 11 Pro front camera, 1/105sec, ISO 100, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

iPhone 11 Pro front camera, 1/50sec, ISO 200, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

Unfortunately these effects only work on humans as the AI that powers them is trained on faces. Occasionally it gives an interesting result when shooting pets or object but more often than not it just presents a heavy vignette, which is why there’s no shots of the cats using that effect In this post.

There are a few instances that can really test Portrait Mode. Obviously cats are one of them, as they have fur, ears and other pokey out bits that can be a challenge. The geometric patterns of our living room rug can also sometimes cause issues, as the hard lines can be misinterpreted as physcial edges. Not so in this next image.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/200sec, ISO 20, using Portrait Mode

In fact sometimes the rug can help show how it is increasing the amount of bokeh the further away from the camera things are, as you can see the lines getting increasingly blurred .

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/35sec, ISO 160, using Portrait Mode

Not everything in this post is a Portrait Mode special, however. The iPhone is also capable of taking really good landscape shots as well. This one is a familiar view from Swanage, taken on a grey winter’s day last year.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/160sec, ISO 20, using Deep Fusion

The quality of images that I can achieve with my phone – with added bonuses like how portable it is, how quick and easy it is to take a shot, and even the fact that it has a wider angle lens on it than anything else I have – means that I’m increasingly going to my phone first when taking images, and have become far less anxious about leaving my camera bag behind when going out. Back in winter when I went for an exploratory walk around some of the woodland near our house, despite bringing my DSLR with me I would go to my phone to take photos first, and ended up taking more images with my phone than my camera.

The first sight that caught my eye on that walk was when I crossed a bridge over the Brighton Mainline.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/120sec, ISO 50, using Deep Fusion

The wood in winter looked beautiful.

iPhone 11 Pro ultra wide lens, 1/120sec, ISO 125, edited using VSCO

iPhone 11 Pro ultra wide lens, 1/120sec, ISO 160, edited using VSCO

With plenty of fences and gates to make interesting images.

iPhone 11 Pro ultra wide lens, 1/80sec, ISO 200, edited using VSCO

And big open fields.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/350sec, ISO 20, using Deep Fusion & VSCO

And country lanes.

iPhone 11 Pro wide lens, 1/90sec, ISO 125, using Deep Fusion & VSCO

My new commute home from London goes from a different station and in a completely different direction, which has also opened up some new sights. I now travel from Blackfriars Station, which bridges the Thames, giving some interesting views of the city, especially in winter when I travel home at night.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/20sec, ISO 1250, using Deep Fusion

Although if you want to see what the same scene looks like during daylight:

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/120sec, ISO 40, using Deep Fusion

And on occasion, we split the difference, and my journey home is marked by a staggering sunset – sometimes whilst still in central London, sometimes whilst I’m out in the countryside.

iPhone 11 Pro wide lens, 1/220sec, ISO 32

I have also attempted to capture relaxing at home shots, since – much like when photographing cats – snapping a quick shot with the phone can ensure the moment doesn’t pass.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/17sec, ISO 400, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

On occasion, especially in the winter months, the light coming through the window in the living room can create harsh shadows. On occasion I’ve used this to capture some interestingly-lit self portraits.

Occasionally I’ve been able to push that to the extreme – although this image was taken with Portrait Mode, it was not one of the presets that removes the background, such is the amount of light on my face.

iPhone 11 Pro front camera, 1/2200sec, ISO 25, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

iPhone 11 Pro front camera, 1/320sec, ISO 25, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

As I’ve previously mentioned, or at the very least alluded to, we’ve moved to the countryside. It’s lovely, not least because we’re literally a few steps away from actual countryside (we can even see a national park from our bedroom window). Just a short walk away is a small wood, which we’ve been on several walks in now. Especially on a sunny winter’s day, it looks beautiful.

Iphone 11 Pro wide lens, 1/280sec, ISO 32

The iPhone camera has gotten to the point where I trust it in the sort of shooting environments I’d previous never even bother trying to use it – mainly in low light conditions, for instance at a concert. Here, the amazing Transatlantic Sessions perform at a concert in Brighton.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/25sec, ISO 500, using Deep Fusion

Concerts are one thing, but those are generally well-lit, the challenge is arguing with the camera to ignore the dark background and only expose for the artists, something you encounter with most cameras. Another matter entirely is photograph people in animated, libation-fuelled discussion in a very poorly lit pub, whilst avoiding using flash to not disturb anyone.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/13sec, ISO 500, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

iPhone 11 Pro wide lens, 1/25sec, ISO 800, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

The camera even copes with more abstract photographs, such as this shot down a cardboard tube.

iPhone 11 Pro wide lens, 1/4sec, ISO 640, using Night Mode & VSCO

But ultimately, a phone is for photographing cats, especially ones that sleep as cute as Freddie.

iPhone 11 Pro wide lens, 1/120sec, ISO 125, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

iPhone 11 Pro wide lens, 1/120sec, ISO 100, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/70sec, ISO 250, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

iPhone XS telephoto lens, 1/110sec, ISO 125, using Portrait Mode

This is a view I often seem to see whilst trying to work from home. Zelda sometimes is blighted by a insatiable desire for my attention.

iPhone 11 Pro wide lens, 1/35sec, ISO 640, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

This shot of a game controller is another example of asking Portrait Mode to cope with an inanimate object.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/100sec, ISO 80, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

I also found this rose which the phone coped with pretty well.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/120sec, ISO 32, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

Or these flowers, whatever they are, that grow in my front garden (I’d love to take some sort of credit for it, but they were there when we moved in, and have not really been tended to by us as any point).

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/120sec, ISO 32, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

Or this crocheted fox, the result of one of my wife’s own creative splurges

, a tiny bit lopsided but still entirely lovable.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/120sec, ISO 50, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

One of the problems with a post of this nature is that the longer it takes to write, the more likely I am to add more images to the pile. This is especially true when the post includes a lot of photographs of my cats being cute, and I am spending a lot of time at home due to a major worldwide pandemic. Even more so when Zelda is after your attention when rolling in the shade on a painfully hot summer lunchtime.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/505sec, ISO 20, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

Or if Cookie is enjoying a warm day sitting inside in the shade.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/64sec, ISO 250, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

I’ve also thrown in a further High Key Mono self portrait, because I still love the results it gives.

iPhone 11 Pro front camera, 1/122sec, ISO 32, using Portrait Mode

As lockdown has eased over 2020, we’ve been able to expand out our bubble a little to include my mother-in-law, who has recently moved about 20 minutes up the road from us. Which has offered limited opportunity to expand my 2020 photographic offerings to something beyond cats and selfies. Well, only just.

iPhone 11 Pro wide lens, 1/122sec, ISO 80, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

Although we’ve been able to get out a little more as lockdown has eased over the last few weeks, it’s still fair to say for the most part I’ve been using my phone to photograph cats.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/122sec, ISO 64, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

I’ve gotten a bit better at telling when the cats are about to yawn to get ready to get a shot. Luckily they are cuties when they yawn.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/122sec, ISO 64, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/122sec, ISO 32, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

After we entered lockdown and started working from home full time, the cats were allowed out all of the day as we worked. It soon became clear that this was bringing some decent health benefits for the cats, especially Zelda and Freddie, who were both less stressed as a result – Zelda’s fur has even grown back. This led to us finally giving the cats their own cat flap. They were a bit unsure of it at first, Freddie especially.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/350sec, ISO 20, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

Now they’ve gotten used to it, it’s led to the cats spending a lot of time out at night, and then sleeping during the day, making for lots of photo opportunities for cute, sleeping kittens.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/122sec, ISO 160, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/122sec, ISO 50, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

Including, as you’d expect, in a box – nothing has been delivered during lockdown that Freddie hasn’t slept in the box of.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/20sec, ISO 320, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

As much as they’ve gotten used to it, occasionally they still decide they can’t get in.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/227sec, ISO 20, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

Although Cookie has the freedom of the garden, she is still often to be found inside giving her usual grumpy looks.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/14sec, ISO 500, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

Zelda meanwhile has the garden wall to patrol, and if she sees me to play up for attention.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/122sec, ISO 32, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/20sec, ISO 400, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

With lockdown easing even further, in August we were able to go have a sort-of holiday in Cornwall with some of my wife’s family. Although I ended up having to work for much of it, it still gave a few opportunities for some non-cat pictures.

iPhone 11 Pro wide lens, 1/123sec, ISO 32, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

This was a larger family holiday than usual, with the added bonus of all the fun and restrictions of life currently. It did give the opportunity for a couple of shots of my niece.

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/27sec, ISO 400, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/122sec, ISO 32, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

Yes, that is my camera in her hands. I trusted her with a few shots, but didn’t let her go running off with it. She’s not quite at the point where she has much interest in photography for any length of time – just a curiosity in what other people are doing. Although obviously if she eventually becomes a world famous photographer or journalist I’ll be offering the above shot for her autobiography as the moment it all started.

As I said, I didn’t get much time to do much tourism as I had to work (the advantage of working from home is that you don’t necessarily have to be at home, as long as you have a strong enough internet connection), I did get a couple of days to visit places. The only place I took photos at was St Nectan’s Glen, where I got a couple of iPhone shots (and a few other DSLR shots, so you may see another post on the same in the future).

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 3sec, ISO 400, using Spectre & VSCO

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/35sec, ISO 400, using Portrait Mode & VSCO

Before restrictions started to tighten again, I went with my family to one of our favourite spots in the UK, Swanage, to scatter some of my dad’s ashes in a place that meant a lot to him and us, something we’d been intending to do almost six months prior before the world shut down. Not exactly a highly photographed trip as I’m sure you’ll understand but I did get a couple of snaps.

iPhone 11 Pro wide lens, 1/2066sec, ISO 32, edited with VSCO

iPhone 11 Pro telephoto lens, 1/1996sec, ISO 20, edited with VSCO

I took my DSLR on that trip. I didn’t even use it. That said I did use it the other day when I went for a drive and found myself randomly at Beachy Head, so I am not exactly getting rid of it yet.

The iPhone – and of course many other smartphones alongside it – have enabled a new era of what is known as computational photography. Obviously the opinions on this will vary; it takes a lot of the thought out of photography, as the increasingly powerful processing power in a modern smartphone (which these days can rival many laptops and desktops) takes a multitude of decisions in the fraction of a second it takes you to push the shutter, including sometimes multiple exposures in order to judge exposure and detail, joining them together at a pixel level using machine learning. So whilst it takes some of the skill out of the taking of a photograph, it does open up quality photography to many more people, but at the same time it still takes a photographer’s eye to get the best out of the equipment.

Despite using my phone for the majority of the photographs I’ve taken in 2020, I am still breaking out my DSLR for the occasional photos, especially ones that require a telephoto lens. Many of them are random shots however, and so are likely to show up in another Random Gems post at some point in the future. In the meantime my phone is still in my pocket when I need it the most. Although the iPhone 12 Pro has just come out…

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xavierfiles-blog · 7 years ago

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Bad Takes From A Cable Artist And Videos From Cooler Dudes – #XMENMONDAY Round-Up

Every Monday Senior X-Men Editor Mark Paniccia answers fans questions and shares cool new art from the X-Line. We’ll be here compiling all those hints in one place, alongside the rest of the best stuff in X-Men Social media, so you don’t have to worry about missing a single second of it. This is #XMENMONDAY Round-Up

Jon Malin

Ok, let’s get the big thing out of the way. On Sunday evening CABLE artist Jon Malin posted this tweet in response to a question asking “Aren’t the X-Men LITERALLY Social Justice Warriors?”

X-Men are closer to Jews in SJW Hitler’s Germany fighting for freedom because they see ideologues rising, silencing them, weaponizing hate, racism and socialism against the people they claim are the root of social ills. SJWs are not Nazis but Nazis are SJWs and X-MEN aren’t SJWs. https://t.co/GlspfHMhLN

— ＭＡＬＩＮ (@JonMalin) January 22, 2018

This, pretty obviously, set the comics community ablaze. While the X-Men have often used the evils enacted on the Jewish people by Adolf Hitler as both a textual and subtextual point of comparison, implying that Nazis, a group whose core tenants included the superiority of an Aryan master race, were “social justice warriors” is both offensive and laughably missing the point. The X-Men, who have been used to talk about Civil Rights, the Apartheid, AIDs, and LGBTQ issues are firmly entrenched on the side of social justice, regardless on if “SJW” has become an inflammatory term or not. At best, this is a bad take, something even Ethan Van Sciver admitted when Malin discussed this with him in a live chat early Monday morning.

From that interview, Malin also shared these gems of wisdom

The bias against straight white men in the industry is clear. I don’t have to prove this.

I don’t know that SJW’s would even get so far as to gas chamber people, but their goals are essentially the same.

We are castrating a book like Cable because some Social Justice Warrior can’t handle a boob on the cover?

Malin is not solicited for any work with Marvel after CABLE #154 next month. He has indicated that he is focusing on creator-owned work for the time being. If you want the X-Office to know your feelings about Malin working on X-Men in the future, email them at [email protected] and let them know.

Now onto the fun stuff!

Where’s Waldo

We know where Mark Paniccia is today, at a summit planning the next big thing at Marvel. Becuase of that I wouldn’t expect a big #XMENMONDAY from him. If I turn out to be wrong, well that is what the edit button is for.

HAPPY #XMENMONDAY!!! At an editorial summit so off the grid a bit today.

— Mark Paniccia (@MarkPaniccia) January 22, 2018

On Monday it was announced that Jim Zub would be taking over CHAMPIONS with a revamped line-up. Ominously O5 Cyclops is not on the team any longer. Could this mean big changes for the time-displaced teens?

Confirming that young Cyclops is not in our Champions line-up. I can’t say more than that for now. https://t.co/OyicXgbQO8

— Jim Zub (@JimZub) January 22, 2018

With many fans wondering where she is, DOMINO writer Gail Simone shared where Dazzler would appear next and teased a new look

I am writing a gabillion mutants right now and it is kind of awesome.

Some of my favorites.

And yes, Dazzler is in there.

— GAIL SIMONE (@GailSimone) January 22, 2018

Nope, she’s paying tribute to a certain much-missed icon. https://t.co/fSUSO4U93h

— GAIL SIMONE (@GailSimone) January 22, 2018

Artist Alley

X-MEN: RED artist Mahmud Asar shared the character design sheet for Namor, showing many options for what the Prince of Atlantis could have looked like in this book. While most have them have too little bare chest by half, it is interesting to see how the style evolved.

As promised, here is the design evolution for Namor in #XmenRed@TomTaylorMade @MarkPaniccia pic.twitter.com/KB72v9Epxz

— Mahmud Asrar ☠️ (@MahmudAsrar) January 16, 2018

Kelly Thompson showed us some of Pere Perez’s art for ROGUE & GAMBIT #2

Late entry for #XMENMONDAY – #Rogue and #Gambit being sneaky (and also cute) this is from Rogue & Gambit #2 out 2/7/18! pic.twitter.com/IjbkqJhpDY

— Kelly Thompson (@79SemiFinalist) January 22, 2018

Ed Piskor also shared a sneak peek at what Kitty Pryde will look like in X-MEN: GRAND DESIGN

I just finished a page for Grand Design and realized that Kitty Pryde is the original and true Khaleesi, mother of dragons. pic.twitter.com/LLV4o8SD2w

— Ed Piskor (@EdPiskor) January 16, 2018

For his part, NEW MUTANTS: DEAD SOULS artist Adam Gorham let us know that apperently Orcs will play a part in what promises to be a buck wild book.

#NewMutants pic.twitter.com/YryFDmC9lu

— ADAM GORHAM (@AdamTGorham) January 17, 2018

Sina Grace showed a sketch of a fashion-forward Michaela from his ICEMAN run.

Michaela from Iceman, in a uniform of her own design.

I don’t think the X-Men are gonna get this heavy w/ athleisure 😂 pic.twitter.com/J3FHeVgkmp

— Sina Grace (@SinaGrace) January 18, 2018

EXILES artist Javier Rodriguez gave us a look at a joyful Wolvie

#WIP #pencils pic.twitter.com/3b6kFC2f0E

— Javier Rodríguez (@javiercaster) January 21, 2018

Family Video

We got a lot of process video’s this week from Sina, GENERATION X Colorist Felipe Sobreiro, and OLD MAN LOGAN artist Dalibor Talajić‏

FYI making my IG stories as lit as comics can be. Same handle on that app ! 😘 pic.twitter.com/Y9pFfLskQK

— Sina Grace (@SinaGrace) January 17, 2018

Srsly tho I’m in love w IG stories pic.twitter.com/jdnrg32wDR

— Sina Grace (@SinaGrace) January 18, 2018

Generation X 86 is out today. Here’s a process gif of my favorite panel from the issue! Line art by @amilcarpinna and colors by me! #NCBD #generationX #husk pic.twitter.com/2260utrDdA

— Felipe Sobreiro (@therealsobreiro) January 17, 2018

A word that comes to mind is… SNIKKT!!@edbrisson @MarkPaniccia @Coelacanthkiss @Marvel pic.twitter.com/1eZemZoXpm

— Dalibor Talajić (@dalibor410) January 20, 2018

That’s what we got this week! See you next #XMENMONDAY

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fashiontrendin-blog · 7 years ago

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Does Time’s Person of the Year Imply Real Progress?

http://fashion-trendin.com/does-times-person-of-the-year-imply-real-progress/

Does Time’s Person of the Year Imply Real Progress?

No one could have predicted 2017’s Time Person of the Year last December. Or even a few months ago. “The year, at its outset, did not seem to be a particularly auspicious one for women,” writes Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal. “A man who had bragged on tape about sexual assault took the oath of the highest office in the land, having defeated the first woman of either party to be nominated for that office, as she sat beside a former President with his own troubling history of sexual misconduct.”

If 2017 began on a depressingly hopeless note, it’s ending on a depressingly hopeful note. Of course, you know all about the #MeToo movement by now. I’m willing to bet that you’re part of it, and it’s been a long time coming.

When the likes of Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly stood accused, I still don’t think anyone comprehended the scope of the issue, but the puzzle pieces of the movement were falling into place. Rose McGowan had been dropping hints about the man who assaulted her. Taylor Swift won a very public groping trial during the late summer. Ashley Judd was one of the first big names to go on record about Harvey Weinstein in the New York Times. Asia Argento also spoke out, daring to use the word “rape.” Alyssa Milano started that simple, powerful Twitter hashtag that’s spread like wildfire, based on social activist Tarana Burke’s underpublicized 2006 campaign to highlight similar issues.

#MeToo created a cataclysmic bam, bam, bam, bam, bam across industries. Those voices became a chorus, millions of women have joined in, and now everyone is listening — including Time, obviously, but also those with decision-making power within company ranks. So far, the chorus of voices both well-known and unknown have toppled Hollywood heavyweights like Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and Louis C.K., as well as other major names like Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Brett Ratner and Terry Richardson. The list of offenses and perpetrators goes on and on, now impossible to filter out of our social media and news feeds.

Before Weinstein broke, I used to do that thing too many of us do in the face of unsolicited advances: I’d let the rush of humiliation hit, and follow it up with a hearty dose of self-questioning. If someone’s touch or attention was unwanted, I’d rack my brain for things I could have done differently. It started when I was young. I remember my mom coaching me as a little girl on how to avoid situations that would make me vulnerable: avoid walking alone at night, don’t accept nebulous invitations from men at work, meet up with men in public spaces, watch your drink at parties, check in with friends to tell them your whereabouts, listen to your gut if something feels off. I know why she did it; safety has always felt like our burden to bear as women. It should have never been this way.

Before #MeToo, it never even occurred to me that it didn’t have to be.

Post-reckoning, I’ve realized my knee-jerk reactions are nonsense. What we have been conditioned to do in response to unacceptable behavior — laugh it off, let it go, get out ASAP, remember to avoid in future — suddenly feels wrong. Because of #MeToo, we can finally be empowered and emboldened to say, “Enough is enough.”

That is to say: Nothing has affected me the last 12 months quite like #MeToo. Seeing women’s all-too-common experiences come to the forefront, and watching those feelings be subsequently validated by action, has felt especially powerful in the wake of a disappointing 2016. It finally feels like the winds of change are shifting some cultural sails for all of us.

A look at Time’s 2017 shortlist paints a bizarre picture: Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un, Robert Mueller, Jeff Bezos, Colin Kaepernick, the Dreamers, Patty Jenkins. It’s an interesting, if illustrative, assortment. A cast of characters that almost resembles a good vs. evil showdown in a comic book. It’s striking to see the Time selection this year alongside last year’s title-holder Trump (this year’s runner-up). Yes, the magazine’s distinction honors influence, but in the aftermath of the election last year, that Person of the Year anointment felt a little like evil was winning. Some days, it still does. But perhaps this year the scales are shifting.

I wish I didn’t have to write about what a big deal it is that Time selected the “Silence Breakers” as Person of the Year instead of Trump. I wish misconduct had never been so normalized. I wish I couldn’t say #MeToo. But here I am, and here you are, and here we are all standing together.

In a way, this honor is for all of us. What started as a whisper, passed down through generations of women, has become a relentless scream — and the echoes are splashed all over that Time cover. For that, I am cheering. Maybe this year, “good” is nipping at the heels of evil.

Feature photo via TIME from the Person of the Year 2017 Silence Breakers, photographed by Billy & Hells for TIME.

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Salma Hayek: Trump couldn’t build a wall without illegal Mexicans’

Her new film, Beatriz at Dinner, already has Oscar buzz. But on top of the acting, Salma Hayek is also saving animals, running charities and beating the hell out of a Trump piata. Johnny Davis meets Hollywoods busiest firebrand

It was after a neighbour shot her dog that Salma Hayek realised Donald Trump would become president.

I thought it was a crazy thing, that it would never happen but then something really tragic happened to me, she explains. I have a ranch in America and a neighbour of mine killed my dog. Hayek, who owns around 50 animals, including 20 chickens, five parrots, four alpacas, two fish, some cats and a hamster, says that Mozart, the tragic German Shepherd in question, had never attacked anyone. And the authorities in dealing with the neighbour, and what he did How is that legal? [Police have said the neighbour shot her dog after he found it fighting with his dogs in his garage.] Just to understand what was the normality of things. I realised in this moment, Oh my God: hes going to win.

Hayek, a Mexican immigrant to America who identifies as half-Spanish and half- Lebanese, lives in London and is married to a Frenchman who happens to be Franois-Henri Pinault, billionaire CEO of the company that owns Saint Laurent, Stella McCartney, Gucci is perhaps uniquely placed to have firm views on Trump, Brexit and immigration, and well get to them.

Hayek is primarily here this morning to talk about her new movie, The Hitmans Bodyguard. We are at a press junket for the film. Elsewhere on the first floor of this smart London hotel are Samuel L Jackson, Ryan Reynolds and Gary Oldman, answering questions. Junkets can be dispiriting, and rapport can be in short supply. That is, unless youre Salma Hayek, whose personality could light up a funeral. She arrives in a riot of black and red polka dots, tottering shoes and glossy hair, 5ft 2in and somehow 50 years old, although agelessly beautiful. She plonks herself into an armchair, hoists her legs up, and proceeds to tug the small table between us towards her. Do you mind? Theyre bringing me food. I like my food.

Hasnt she had breakfast?

I did but Im still hungry, she grins.

A round of avocado on toast is spirited into the room, accompanied by a mystery shake in a plastic container. (A second round soon follows.) Famous since she was a soap star in Mexico in her 20s and with 40-plus Hollywood films to her name, Hayek has done literally thousands of interviews. What does she make of the publicity circuit?

Im good! she says. I just pretend Im having a conversation with a new friend.

Other half: Hayek and her billionaire husband Franois-Henri Pinault. Photograph: Tony Barson Archive/WireImage

Indeed, Hayek proves impossible not to like. She may be the perfect chat-show guest: various presenters have hooted along as shes shown off pictures of her Donald Trump piata, discussed her experience as a late-developing teen immersing herself in holy water and praying to Jesus for breasts, or confessing she accused Monsieur Pinault of having an affair after discovering text messages from Elena, only to discover Elena was a language-teaching app.

In fact, we have Pinault to thank for Hayeks turn in The Hitmans Bodyguard. The comedy-action caper is basically a mismatched buddy movie for Jackson and Reynolds, hitman and bodyguard respectively. Hayek is only in a few scenes, but as Jacksons imprisoned criminal wife she matches him profanity for profanity.

I think Salma steals the whole movie, says director Patrick Hughes. I challenge anyone not to fall in love with her because (a) shes a polymath and (b) she kicks ass.

I have to tell you: action is not my favouritest [sic] genre of films, Hayek says. But I married a man who really likes them. So I became an expert. So I see them all!

The image of fashions most powerful CEO spending his downtime like this is intriguing. What is his favourite action movie?

Oh, its like Sophies choice for him, I think.

What about Die Hard, I suggest.

Oh, he loves Die Hard. But we love Bourne. She claps her hands. Sometimes he doesnt even like [a film], he says: Oh my God, that was so bad! But he still has to watch the whole thing.

Its a man thing, I say.

Yes! My brother likes that one, my father likes that one and because of that, when we were doing [The Hitmans Bodyguard] I was able to say it was going to work, because it had a lot of the stuff that the good ones have.

Mexican heroine: Hayek playing Frida Kahlo in Frida with Alfred Molina as Diego Rivera.

Similarly, do actors always know when theyre making a turkey?

Oh yeah! Hayek says, crunching through her toast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. And unfortunately Ive never been wrong!

Her CV is mixed. The first Mexican actress to break into Hollywood since Dolores del Ro in the pre-sound 20s, shes played a lesbian taco in the kids film Sausage Party and so-so roles in films such as Spy Kids 3D and Wild, Wild West. But she also earned an Oscar nomination for Frida, her 2002 portrait of Frida Kahlo, and The Hollywood Reporter has just tipped her for 2018s awards season for Beatriz At Dinner, in which she plays an immigrant who clashes with a self-made billionaire.

At first, she says, she hated being famous. This was terrifying because in Mexico when you do a soap, at this point she leaps out of her chair and heads for the door Dont worry, Im not escaping Hello? Her security guard appears with a pack of American Spirit cigarettes. My soap was seen by 60% of the country, so its every day, in their house. Do you mind? Do you want one? she says, offering the smokes. So you become very familiar, like youre their cousin or something. Ive never been so famous since. I kind of hated it.

Taking aim: Hayek in The Hitmans Bodyguard. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

If she hated the attention so much, I wonder why she headed for Hollywood. But Hayek is battling with the curtains while she attempts to heave open a sash window so that she can smoke, unlit fag in her mouth. Not relishing the idea of Hayek tumbling on to the streets below, it seems only polite to help. For a few seconds she holds back the curtains, while I struggle to wrench the window.

Oh my God, that was so easy, she says. I really did want to be an actress, not just be famous. Its a different thing. Because I was famous on a soap! That doesnt make you a great actress. So I went to America to start all over again.

This was the 90s. She played extras and enrolled in the Stella Adler Academy Of Acting in LA, alma mater to Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro. And this is how old I am, she [Adler] was still alive! She was 90 and she was still teaching and flirting with the young boys. She was a tough cookie but she was brilliant.

Hayek could barely speak the language – My English sucked worse, there werent any parts. Mexican women played maids or gangsters wives. And thats if you got lucky.

Hayek threatened legal action against one director.

I was screen-testing for the lead in a film and they said that it was not written Latin, but they wouldnt mind changing it. I learned the script but when they sent me the pages [for the audition] there was none of the things I had learned, it was another role. So my agent called them and they said, Are you crazy? Shes Mexican. We can change [the race of] the bimbo, but not the lead.

Fashionista: at Stella McCartney, spring/summer 2016, Paris fashion week. Photograph: Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images

She got her agent to call back. Would they please just give her five minutes to audition for the part shed learned?

And they said, Absolutely under no circumstances. So I said, OK, you tell them that they either see me, or Im going to sue them. And they said, Theres no point in her coming, even if she had been the best audition she would have never gotten the part but now we hate her. Does she want to come knowing that we detest her? They kept her waiting for five hours. They wondered why would she do this to herself.

Ive never said this to anyone, the name of the director, but it was Ivan Reitman. And I said, Well, I thought that the director that could see Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito as twins [1988s Twins], and Arnold Schwarzenegger giving birth to a child [1994s Junior] maybe could see a Mexican as a fashion editor. I thought I owed it to the new generation of Mexicans. That if I got this right, maybe something will shift.

Years later, she bumped into Reitman and he apologised. We had such a lovely conversation, he was so elegant, Hayek says. He said, I was wrong.

All of this pales next to the hill she climbed for Frida.

I was obsessed, Hayek says. I was endeavouring to do a film about an artist in a time when all the films about artists had failed. Already [the studios] were going, Oh no. Then Id say, Its a period piece about Mexicans! And theyre communists! Its a love story between an overweight man and a woman that limps and has a moustache!

Committed: Hayek campaigning for womens empowerment with Guccis Frida Giannini and Beyonc. Photograph: Ian Gavan/Getty

One studio did eventually take it on, Edward Norton (her partner at the time) rewrote the script for free and Hayek called in favours from co-stars including Ashley Judd, then one of Hollywoods most bankable faces. It opened in two cinemas. Its success, I suggest, must have been all the sweeter.

Yes, she says. Because [the studio] dismissed it. I didnt even have a poster!

It may not surprise you to learn that Hayek is a committed activist: her list of charitable endeavours is too long to go into here, but it includes her own foundation helping women and children in Mexico, and the feminist charity Chime For Change, founded with Beyonc. Its so massive I dont even know what to tell you. I dont just do awareness, I actually do strategy. Im on the board. It takes a lot, a lot, a lot of time.

Other projects receiving the full force of the Hayek commitment include her range of nutritional juices, and a beauty line which she created herself. She also has her own production company, which helped turn the TV show Ugly Betty based on a Colombian telenovela into a worldwide hit. I ask where this drive comes from.

Its been there since Ive been a child. A sense of justice and responsibility for the human race. How can we be better? Because a lot of people dont think that way. They think: How can I pay less tax? And so when I see things that make me think we are degrading and degenerating mentally it makes me want to do something.

She has been hugely successful. Shes married to one of the worlds richest men. (Their daughter, Valentina, attends school in London.) She could just put her feet up. Of course, its a cheap question we already know the answer.

Why would anybody want to sit around and do nothing?

Hayek says that she made it clear she would always remain financially independent from her husband, whose net worth is around $17.3bn. Which may explain money-job films like Sausage Party.

Mirror mirror: Hayek guest stars in Ugly Betty with America Ferrera. Photograph: Danny Feld/ABC

At the time I met him, I had already decided I didnt want one of those [ie a husband], she says. I had set myself up for a completely different life. I was ready to live on my ranch that is a sanctuary for abused animals. I would come to LA and work a little bit. I was not planning on spending. I had no interest in jewellery or clothes or cars. I had everything I wanted. Maybe I had a guy here or there. I also thought I couldnt have children. Then he [Pinault] came along, swept me off my feet, changed my entire universe and knocked me up.

Can she remember what they first liked about one another?

Yes. I asked him, if he had not been doing what he was doing, what would have been his dream? And he said an astronaut and that was my dream! Then we started talking about different theories of physics, which is my secret passion. And soccer! Im a huge soccer fan [she supports Arsenal]. Just random things that nobody knows I like. It was just magical.

As a global citizen at a time when the world seems to be closing in on itself, is Hayek optimistic for the future?

Very optimistic. I have to look for the positive about everything.

Hayek campaigned for Clinton. Hows it going to end for Trump?

I can promise you hes not going to build the wall. You cannot build it without the Mexicans that are illegally in the country. That is what makes the economy so strong because they are paid less than half, with no benefit. Its just not going to happen!

Hayek is banging her fist on the table.

His days are numbered! Even if he becomes a dictator and rewrites the constitution and now the presidents can stay 12 years! Still his days are numbered!

Salma Hayek: activist, actor, producer, juicer, businesswoman, friend to the animals and all-round proper laugh. You wouldnt mess.

The Hitmans Bodyguard is in cinemas on 17 August