#so at this point i have no idea where any of my mechanical pencils are so i used my only ticonderoga (by far my favorite wooden pencils)

[o0o0thorn0o0o]

I thought to make my first Bleach post back one commemorating the third cour, but, nah, I’ve decided I wanna spend more time on that, so it’ll be after my art break instead. It seems I can’t stay active on Tumblr through a full cour… First two, I’m initially inactive. This one, I become inactive, like, halfway in… I swear, if this happens next cour… It’s my last chance 🫠

Anywho, have some Bleach sketches I did first—I’ll post digital ones sometime soon (Would like to work on them a bit more). You can tell, but I was definitely in a mood, haha.

But yeah, sneak peek at my Bleach Kingdom AU! Because ofc I’d have at least one—if I stay in a fandom long enough, one���s bound, eheh—but, in fact, Bleach started them off way back when, haha. I suppose I’ll talk more about that when I finally properly make a post about this one.

I didn’t think it’d take so long to post about it… but I have yet to finalize any of the art… They’re, like, my oldest IchiHime sketches at this point, eheh ^^;;;

[slytherinshua]

PRODUCTIVITY AT ITS FINEST

genre. fluff. warnings. kissing. physics (ew) except i've never been in a proper physics class before so i hope that formula is right otherwise rip. not proofread. pairing. ryo x fem!reader. wc. 905. request. requested by 🪐 anon. a/n. i swear ryo keeps surprising me because once i knew he was a troublemaker i was like oh well he must've been a bad student too BUT NO HE WAS TOP OF HIS CLASS??? EXCUSE ME??? anyway ryo slays so hard and keeps surprising me every single day lmao.

“Ugh, this essay is stupid. I can’t believe we didn’t even get to pick the topic from a list! How are they expecting us to write a good essay when the topic is already picked for us? I didn’t even read the chapters of the book I’m supposed to write about…” You glared at the screen of your computer, a completely empty document open with merely the date and your name on the page. How were you going to get a one thousand word essay to appear on the page? You had no idea. 

“Did you read the chapters, by any chance?” You asked as a final resort, turning to your boyfriend who was pretending to be asleep on the table.

He opened one eye, “Not a chance. I used sparknotes.” 

“Of course you did.” You groaned, glancing at the essay prompt and back to your empty page. “But you finished the essay last week…” Dating the top student in your class should’ve meant you also had an easier time. At least, that’s what you had originally thought. You hadn’t heeded Sakuya’s warnings when he told you that Ryo was just smart, lazy, and lucky. He didn’t even have to study.

“Study dates are overrated. Like, we’re not even being productive.” Ryo pointed out, clicking his mechanical pencil repeatedly, not a single mark having been made on his physics worksheet. 

“Who said this was a date?” You questioned, slouching back against the couch.

“Wasn’t it a date? Is it not?” Ryo sat up, giving a disappointed look at you.

“I mean… I guess it could be? We’re not doing anything very… date-like.”

“True…” Ryo crossed his arms, thinking about something. “What if we just… traded?” 

You raised an eyebrow, “Should I really trust you to write my essay?” 

He shrugged, “Like you said, I already finished mine. Better that I write it than for you to just sit there not writing it, right?” He pointed out. He was right, you had to give him that. Minutes later you were staring down at his physics homework, getting to work on the first problem. You had finished about half of the worksheet when you heard Ryo shut the laptop.

“You can’t have finished already—” 

Ryo pouted, “This date sucks.” 

You ignored his complaint and went back to the worksheet, knowing he would probably get over it and open the computer again in a few minutes. Probably.

Instead, he crept closer to you, resting his chin on your shoulder, his fluffy hair tickling your cheek. But, you still tried to focus on the work. There was a chance that he was just feeling a bit clingy and after a few minutes he’d go back to work. Right?

Wrong.

“You’re doing it wrong.” He said quietly, “The formula for wavelength is speed divided by frequency. There’s no multiplication in this question.” 

“You were the one who wanted me to do this for you, dumbass!” You defended, dropping the pencil in defeat, “Physics goes way over my head every time. You’ve seen my test scores.” 

Ryo lifted his head off your shoulder, crossing his arms, “Well, I didn’t know you’d be this dumb. They give you the formula right there!” He pointed to the top of the paper where the formulas were indeed listed. Okay… maybe you were dumber than you thought.

You bit your lip, trying to calm the steaming anger that was brewing in your head over your stupidly smart attractively so boyfriend, “What about my essay? Did you even write anything?”

“Well, no. But if I did, I would’ve done better than you on the physics.” 

You sighed, “This is a waste of our time…” 

“Agreed.” 

“There’s probably something more productive we cou—” In the blink of an eye, your boyfriend had shoved you down onto the floor (gently), pinning your hands over your head and hovering over you with a mischievous grin that you were a bit wary of.

“What are you doing?” You whispered, your voice barely coming out louder than a whisper from your shocked (and quite flustered) state.

“Something more productive.” He said simply, before capturing your lips with his before another second passed. You couldn’t argue that his idea of productivity was much more in line with yours. You would take the taste of his lips over confusing physics problems any day. 

After dating Ryo for over a year, kissing him was like second nature. Your hands found their place in his hair, threading through the soft locks, using it to pull his face closer to yours. Maybe it was just that the kiss felt that good, or maybe it was wanting to avoid the homework for as long as possible, but neither you nor Ryo wanted it to end. 

By the time you both sat up again, your heads clearing from the dizzying kiss and the aftertaste of your cherry lip balm lingering on both of your lips, Ryo’s hair was a complete mess. You giggled and started to fix it for him, combing your fingers through the small tangles that had developed. His face was cutely flushed, a stark contrast to his previous confidence.

“So,” He cleared his throat before continuing, “Maybe we should get back to work?”

“Yeah… sounds like a good plan.” You said, not an ounce of your focus on the physics or essay, but entirely on Ryo’s red lips, slightly swollen from your lips.

↳ nct wish taglist (bolded could not be tagged): @kangtaehyunzzz,, @eternalgyu,, @lexeees,, @nyukyusnz,, @planetkiimchi,,

@haecien,, @talkingsaxy,, @thesunsfullmoon,, @hursheys

[hannahlovesluca]

i was wondering if request were open if it is i would like to request for luxiem angst to fluff (separately) where the reader overworks themselves to the point where their mental & physical health r really bad then like luxiem steps in and like try to like stop u which leads to an argument then uh fluff u can add plot twists if u like !! ( im sorry if u dont understand 😭)

Only if ur request r open!! If not feel free to ignore!! - 🍡

hi 🍡!! nice to see you back here!!

| warnings: shu’s is a bit suggestive

As soon as Vox had come home, he saw you still working on that goddamn outfit.

See, you were Luca’s mama. You designed all his outfits, his hair, everything.

Right now, you were working on making him the scariest mafia boss this godforsaken world has seen.

But if you spend even a second longer working on that stupid outfit, he was going to rip you to pieces.

You deserve more than just sitting at your desk, sketching, sewing, and even knitting now and then.

And he was going to see it through that you did get more than that!

“Y/N, hey, lets go to bed, yeah? It’s midnight already, love,” he smiles at you with that charm, the one you can’t say no to.

However, tonight was different.

Tonight was dedicated to work.

“Love, come on… please?” Milord was practically begging by now.

And who were you to say no to this handsome devil?

When you (reluctantly) agreed, he scooped you up in his arms and practically threw you on the bed before laying his head on top of your stomach, finally basking in the peace surrounding you two.

Mysta frowned.

You’d been streaming over half of the day…

What has it been now..?

He checks the time on his phone.

Eleven hours.

Eleven hours you have spent staring into a screen and simply daring to dream.

Eleven hours you have spent narrating god knows what and making stupid commentary.

Well Mysta wasn’t having it!

Not only was it bad for you, it was bad for him to go this long without kisses.

Mysta texts you to come to the living room, saying he had something important to say and it couldn’t wait until after stream.

After a few minutes explaining to chat that ‘your food had arrived’ you made your way out into the living room.

“Yes, Mysta?”

“End stream.”

“Huh- what? Mysta, no. I have to keep going, they’re expecting me to.” You deject with a small smile, insisting that you had to keep going.

“Y/N, they don’t expect anything from you. You’re their entertainment, not their friend. And frankly, you’re my ____friend and I think I rank higher, hm?”

Ike couldn’t say much.

He was just as bad as you when it comes to this, but his own tendencies be damned.

He was going to make you take better care of yourself.

Was.

It wasn’t to be taken lightly.

He slowly opens your office door, looking at you hunched over your desk and taking notes about god knows what, your hands shaking and your mechanical pencil almost out of lead after having using it for over five hours straight.

As soon as he had caught your attention, without sharing any words, he swept you up into his arms and held you for what felt like forever, but in reality had only been a few minutes.

(oh god im running out of ideas)

Luca hated every second of this; he hated seeing you so overworked, hated seeing you stressed… he just hated it all.

So,

He did the only thing that made sense.

He offered his hand to you and gave you a charming grin.

"Wanna dance?"

You look at him, horrified.

“We are not dancing, Luca.”

The golden retriever-like man pouts, crossing his arms.

“Why not, baby?” He asks with a pout.

You look up from your computer and look at him with a small smile.

You were so tired and you were sure you looked awful but his sweet smile and puppy dog eyes got to you.

You take his hand.

"Well, you got me, now. I can't say no to you. But we're gonna get some food and I'm not changing into a dress."

The man beams, happy that he'd gotten his way.

And with that, Luca takes your hand and immediately brings you in for your first dance of the night.

It's slow, soft and romantic, and honestly, the two of you can't take your eyes off each other.

"I missed this, baby," he whispers.

Luca pulls you close to him as the two of you sway in place.

"Me too,” you whisper back.

You lay your head against his chest and feel your stress and exhaustion melt away.

This moment was worth everything.

"You're beautiful." He says softly, kissing the top of your head.

(i genuinely dont know what to put..😭)

Shu loves that you love work, but by God if you spend another minute at that desk he was going to go insane.

"You know I'm a simple man," he says. "all I need is a little food and a little sun, and the rest of my needs are met."

He's laying out the blanket for the afternoon.

"And if you keep this up, my food and sun time is going to be at night."

You sigh, stretching out your back. You'd been at your desk all day, trying to figure out the final parts of the puzzle to the latest quest you've been given.

The strong mafia boss himself had come to you, begging you to complete this mission and find his missing son, and the people were starting to get nervous as he had been missing for a few days.

"I'm sorry," you sigh. "I know I've been at this forever."

"It's been nearly two hours," Shu snarls.

"Sorry, sorry," you sigh. "I can tell it's getting on your nerves." You stand up and stretch out, then smile at him. "What should we do this afternoon?"

Shu's lips twitch and curl. "It's too late to go to the beach now," he says. "And honestly, the weather looks pretty bad. I was thinking, though," he smirks at you. "Since it's our first anniversary, and I was thinking, well," he motions to the blanket.

You immediately go red, lightly smacking his arm.

“Shu!”

He chuckles.

“Kidding, kidding.” He wraps his arms around you and holds you fast. "Seriously though," he murmurs. "Happy anniversary, babe."

You melt and smile, holding onto his face. "I love you."

[ericsprincess]

down for your love

You take your car to a car shop for a repair. Your mechanic fucks it up even more. 

~~~

“Hello,” you open the shop door and walk in. There is just an older guy sitting behind a desk. He looks up at you, with a questioning gaze. 

“My name is Y/L/N, I got a phone call today about my car? Something about some unexpected issue? I think it might have been you on the phone, we made an agreement that I would come later today to assess,” you introduce yourself and see his face light up as he remembers. 

“Ah, yes, miss Y/L/N, yes I remember now. I am Mr. Kim, and I am the owner of this shop. I deeply apologize to you, but there has been an unexpected issue with your car,” he shakes your hand and even bows a little. He looks really apologetic, so you already start bracing yourself for whatever unexpected trouble is awaiting you today. 

“What happened? I think it was just some routine fix? Did you find something wrong with the car?” you worry. 

“Uh, no, you see, uh, it’s just that our mechanic that was working on your car, you know, he’s just an apprentice, and..uhhh…he accidentally broke the replacement part, I am really sorry for that,” the old guy babbles and his face is red. You fight the urge to close your eyes and pinch your nose. Great. 

“B-But, don’t worry,” continues the old guy. “We’re gonna order a new part and you won’t be charged for it. It will just take some time again to arrive and I also needed you to come here to sign the additional order paper,” he concludes and you just sigh. Awesome, another at least a week without a car, just Uber with its sleazy drivers.

“Ah, okay, where do I sign?” you ask, and he hands you the papers. 

“Here, miss. Also, Eric will show you the car, just a second- ” the old man says and turns towards the back to yell “ERIC!!!! Come here and show miss Y/L/N your fuckup!!!” he turns back to you with an awkward laugh. “I’m sorry. He’s a good boy and actually good with cars, just sometimes he gets a bit airheaded and spaces out. I guess he thinks about girls too much, or something,” grumbles the old man, when a man appears in the door leading to the back of the shop. He’s very young, early twenties at most - an adult, but still with a lot of boyishness around him. He’s wearing his black uniform overalls with the top part off and tied around his waist, and just a white muscle shirt tucked in, all smudged in oil stains. Actually, he’s dirty everywhere, even on his face and nice, muscular arms. He’s not very tall, but seems nicely fit and his face is cute too, even despite being currently crumpled in anxiety. 

“Uh, hello? Miss Y/L/N?” he asks awkwardly. You open your mouth to reply, but the old guy cuts in. 

“Eric! Take miss Y/L/N to the back and show her everything. Also,” he turns to you. “Eric can also drive you home in one of our cars, as an apology from us for causing you trouble today, if that’s okay with you?” 

“Yes, sure, thank you” you reply. That’s actually nice of them, you came straight from your office and your feet already hurt a lot from your heels. The pencil skirt you’re wearing is also not very comfortable. So you just say goodbye to the owner and go after Eric to the back of the shop, where your car is parked in a big garage amongst all of the tools and spare tires. 

Eric leads you to your car, opens the hood of it and leans forward. “Soo..uhh see this part right here?” he points to something. You have barely any idea about the car internals beyond what you learnt in driving school, but you still lean forwards next to him. 

“Uh, which one again?” you asked, confused. 

“Right here, see?” Eric points out and looks back at you, checking if you got it now. Except - his eyes slide right down your face and end up on your cleavage. And today, his eyes can feast - the weather is getting too hot, so you’re wearing the thinnest blouse you could find that is office-appropriate, and while leaving work you unbuttoned the first few buttons, leaving your cleavage and a bit of a bra exposed.  

It takes you a second to notice him looking and another second for him to collect his sight and look back at your face. He’s blushing. Awww, you think, you find it a little adorable that he was not able to help himself and stares, but still is innocent enough to feel embarrassed about it. 

“Ah, I think I see it now,” you reply with a smile and he turns back towards the engine and continues, a bit nervously. 

“Yeah, so, this is the part I had to replace, and..uh, when I was tightening the bolts, I, I guess I was distracted, and I tightened it too strongly and part of it snapped, so..uh, I really apologize for that,” he stutters. You feel a little bad.

“That’s okay, I guess,’” you smile kindly and straighten up. “At least you’ll know for the next time to keep your focus and not get distracted.” 

He nods and you can really see his inner fight to not stare at your tits again and also the moment he loses. You can feel your nipples getting hard under the weight of his look, and you know that he must see it too, they are probably showing through your thin bra and blouse. 

You can’t help it but you feel really flattered by the effect you seem to have on him. Especially since he’s so young. It’s not that you’re old, the age difference is just a few years, but you have never gone for younger guys before. Now you can see the appeal. 

“Are you getting distracted again?” you tease him and he gets immediately red. “Your boss said something about driving me home, would you be okay to do that?” you snort and he hurries to assure you. 

“Yes, miss, no worries! Let’s go, I’ll show you the car,” he takes you to the outside parking lot and leads you to a quite nice car. Even awkwardly hurries to open the passenger’s door for you. How cute.

He jumps to the driver���s seat, buckles up and turns the engine on while you’re telling him your address. He nods, apparently he knows where that is and off you go. 

The drive is somewhat silent and awkward. You notice that he’s a good driver, he has the style of someone who grew up around cars and was never afraid of driving. But in spite of that, he’s clutching the steering wheel tightly and keeps peeking at you, as if your presence made him nervous. 

And once he notices you’re actually unashamedly looking at him, he gets nervous even more. 

You stretch and let out a sigh, on purpose and his breath hitches. His ears are red now and you decide that it was enough of a tease. 

You put your hand on his thigh. He jerks and almost swerves the car off the road. 

“Stop the car somewhere on the side before you make us crash, would you?” you lean to whisper to his ear and he just nods and does exactly that. 

He picks a nice, semi-hidden spot next to some trees, so you take the opportunity, quickly unbuckle your seatbelt, hop over the console and sit straight on his lap. 

“One question. Do you want this?” you ask him.

“Yes,” he doesn’t even hesitate. “Yes, please,” he breathes out, looking at you as if he’s scared that if he even as much as blinks, you will change your mind. 

You don’t waste time and you unzip his overall pants and pull out his cock. He’s already hard and leaking, the tip almost purple. You raise your eyebrow. “You’re already so hard?”

He laughs, embarrassed. “I’ve been hard since I’ve seen you in the office,” he admits. 

You raise yourself up a little on his lap to move your panties to the side, your pencil skirt is already bunched up around your hips. You’re also already wet, so you just slide his cock into you and sit back down comfortably. He’s a decent size and thick enough so you can feel him in you nicely and you slowly start to ride him, your holding his shoulders. 

He looks like he’s summoning all of his strength to not cum on the spot and keeps staring at your tits that are right in front of his face. 

“You can touch, you know,” you breathe out, and he hesitates “I’ll get you dirty.” 

“I don’t care,” you reply and unbutton your blouse. He takes your tits into his hands and squeezes and kneads them while you keep riding him and sighing from pleasure. 

He pulls your bra down to make your tits pop out and squeezes them like that, leaving oil prints all over. 

“Suck on them,” you order him and he doesn’t waste a second to latch on one, you lean a bit forward and almost suffocate him while he’s sucking on your nipples in a complete bliss. He puts his hands on your ass, guiding our movements and tempo. 

You’re riding him quicker now and you can hear the squelching noises from how wet you are, together with the sound of Eric sucking on your tits. You’re close and you speed up and he whines and moans. 

He’s close too and your tempo is almost frantic when you finally cum and in a few seconds you can feel him pulsating in you. You fall forward, tightly hugging him while you’re both spasming in your orgasms. He whines, sweaty face nuzzling to your neck as he’s cumming inside of you. 

When it’s finally over, you take a moment to relax and take a few deep breaths, and then you’re slumping back to the passenger’s seat, trying to get a hold of yourself. 

Eric is just sitting with a blank stare, like his world was completely flipped, so you laugh and wave your hand in front of his eyes, until he snaps out of it. 

“Let’s go?” you smile. 

He hurriedly tucks his cock back into his pants, not caring about all the mess on his crotch from his cum and your juices and starts the engine. 

The rest of the way to your house doesn’t take long, and suddenly he’s pulling up to your driveway. 

You turn to him. He’s still completely messed up, messy hair, oil stains everywhere, now with added cum and other sex-related mess. He’s still dazed. So cute. 

“Do you wanna come up for a shower?” you ask mischievously. 

He looks at you, blushes and smiles. He turns off the engine. 

[ghostpajamas]

DUUUUUUUUUUDE your alcohol marker works r SO sick i saw that sequence of process pics u had and my mind was just Blown . can you elaborate more on ur process ?!?!? /nf

hello ! thank you for your kind words. i apologize for taking a while to answer this. the process of coloring the drawing i did as an example was rocky, and ive been busy with school.

i'll preface this by saying that i have a few posts with process pictures on twitter (i treat it as a wip dump when i remember to post). heres one of the few where the pics are all together, but my media tab has a fair amount scattered around.

this is going to be long, so i'm putting the 'read more' here.

step 0 : sketch. i start with blue erasable pencil, lighten it, and do my lineart with a mechanical pencil.

step 1 : base color. half frivolously chosen as a neutral color to set it off from the white of the paper, half "whats the color of the light / the lightest color being reflected by the material its cast on"

im going to stop numbering the steps. i immediately went too dark with the hair and failed to consider the strength of the light in the setting / how reflective hair is. also i colored the basic color of the eyes and the rough shadow under the jaw. dont get attached to any of this.

broke out the "ph. martin's bleed proof white paint" my mom gave me a jar of years ago. it does well enough at bringing back light, but the texture youre left with is not ideal. lightly shaded the face skin with a similar color. i also blocked in the rough color for the suit jacket and tie here. the marker doesnt have to be evenly applied because you'll be going back over in enough layers that it'll even out.

i wish i stopped here.

things start to go off the rails. painted over his eyes because "why did i give him double eyelids" tried to paint over just the eyelids. didnt go well. scorched earth. reshaded the hair, deepened shading on the face and neck, started on the shirt, and applied a cursory pass of shadow on the jacket. the light angle does not remain consistent with this.

redrew the eyes. the angle feels uncanny. i wish he was still looking at his phone but the paint is not taking ink well and i doubt another layer would make it better. at some point i applied rough shadow to the hands. dont worry about the inconsistent lighting.

darkened the eyes so they were less creepy. didnt work. i assume the ink bled (alcohol ink soaks into paper, but since this is now on top of white paint, it just sits on top and pools out), so i embellished with posca marker to cover it up.

realized that with the length of the shadow the brow ridge was casting, the hair should cast a shadow too. light source starting to be established.

im really sorry. i didnt realize there was such a drastic jump between this one and the prior photo. basically, i started defining edges and areas of deepest shadow. fine edge definition was done with the cheapest ballpoint pen i own. dark marker blends fairly well, but only put it where you WANT it to be that dark, and blend outward from there to darken surrounding areas. many, many layers of grey and light blue, brown and darker brown for the jacket. now that i had a vague idea of the light source, i just had to place the shadows and follow the folds. hitting the points of shadow with brown (base color but darker + warm tinge to suit base color) and blue (reflected light).

this also wouldve been a fine stopping point.

used posca to outline the edge of the face + sharpen edges. added more pupil-spots. messed up the mouth some more. whatever. calling it done here because the jacket looks good and the face is freaking me out.

overall, i treat alcohol marker like watercolor. a big wash of color, rough base colors. roughly block in shadows, gradually add washes of deeper shadow. define edges. etc.

its harder to blend colors directly than with watercolor but thats nothing more layering cant fix. and then white paint if layering doesnt work. and then more layering.

[the-kr8tor]

I've been writing so much tonight that my finger's are cramping up in the double jointed way and I'm listening to the sauciest, most diabolical jaw-dropping, toe-curling, the father the son and the holy spirit amen-needing songs but WE PERSIST. Daily Hobie HC! I love the art of Hobie you get for your fics- they're crunchy and tasty and I love them. Hobie was always mesmerized by the way your art seemed to be so captivating, yet you were always able to find things you don't like about it. Whenever you tried to even nitpick ever so slightly about your art, Hobie would hold a hand over your mouth, whispering playfully about how you shouldn't talk badly about something that you spent hours on in case the government finds out, and that's where he knows he loses you due to the absurdity of it all. But, despite you rolling your eyes multiple times at him , he's aware it works wonders as you're no longer hyper-focusing on every little detail of your art and instead just laughing at his creatively worded ramble about government schemes. He always loves to nick (or buy, depending) art supplies and sketchbooks for you, adoring the way your eyes light up at whatever he brings you, whether it be a mechanical pencil which you always gush over what led it is (Hobie is clueless but he likes listening to you), or a new sketchbook with one of those textures on the hardcover which feel nice to run your fingers along. Any time you're doing art, you can't help but use Hobie as a muse. He could be doing anything, and yet you can't help but sketch him out, including his texture and border. Hobie teases you on how he is the perfect remedy for art block, and yet he really is. His textures, borders and colours always make you try something different with how far you can stretch with your style, as if he was perfectly made to be the cure to one of the most frustrating things you have to go through. One thing that usually happens as you're sketching out a picture, this time, a polaroid picture, Hobie will come over and drape himself across your back, burying his face into the back of your neck while his arms tightened around your middle, snuggling into you from behind. Occasionally, he'll look over your shoulder and rest his chin against it, his eyes roaming over your work. He'll sometimes point out things that you might've forgotten, like an extra stud on his choker or the dripping mascara design on his Spider-Man mask. Or, when you ask, he'll suggest things for the background. Certain flowers to frame, or a pattern or just even funny icons. However, you noticed that sometimes, Hobie will toss some crumpled up papers aside with a frustrated sigh, as if he had no idea what to do and was trying to think of something. Once, your curiosity got the better of you, and you took one of these crumpled pieces of paper while Hobie was patrolling. Your heart melted when you saw the chibi drawings that Hobie had doodled representing the two of you. You could see that in corners he was planning out your design, before one being a coloured final. This one, you two were holding hands and smiling at each other, with little scribbly hearts surrounding it. Unravelling the other pieces of paper, you noticed that Hobie had spent a while in figuring out what design best suited you, not wanting to simplify your appearance too much, yet not wanting to complicate it.

He figured that he wanted to leave a bigger gift this time, so why not leave a piece of art? Yet, he was having some trouble over the past few days figuring out a doable design for you. When Hobie came back, he barely noticed that one crumpled paper was missing, while you had already cut the doodle out and hid it in your little memory box, out of Hobie's grasp. Only was it on the anniversary of you two when Hobie finally gifted you the little drawings that he did was when you revealed the one you took. Although he was slightly surprised you paid that much attention, he was happy that you at least enjoyed it much more than he did. For Hobie, that made it all the more worth it. -🐦‍⬛

I'm so jelly rn I wanna write a lot today too! I'm happy that you are writing so much today tho!! ❤️

Daily Hobie HC ‼️‼️‼️

I have such talented and amazing lovelies! I'm not worthy of their talents

HHAHHAHAHAHHAHA he starts to spill out conspiracy theories just to stop u from bringing yourself down

Oh Hobie would have the time of his life (nicking) in one of those bougie art supply stores with the world class stationary!

You are so right! Hobie is the best muse there is! (Stares at my 100+ fics of him)

Lol he's backseat drawing 😂

Aisbwjbswhjs He makes art of you!!! 😍😍😍 Ooh what if he paints like a little chibi version of your face on his guitar! That would be so sweet I'd cry fr 🥹

[spiralling-thoughts]

Any Otto and ginnee thoughts? Bec I have been coming up with a few of mine ginnee is becoming one of my favorite background tributes even if she never made it to the games in neither the book or movie

Ginnee

- I love the idea of her being an artist the hat she wore in the movie reminded me of a painter's hat, she loves crafts and writing her own stories she always carries a Note book and pencil with her in case she had a sudden inspiration her family and neighbors love hearing her stories, she has her own small business where she sells bracelets and necklaces she made out of old keys and she always collects things people might consider junk and she creates crafts from it

- she's the youngest in her family and is sometimes teased about it by her siblings she sometimes ignores and sometimes gets angry at it , I see her as being 15 years old

- deeply wishes she can get a cat she's a huge cat lover

- she was horrified at the fact that there were sick children who were reaped and her hatred for the capitol grew more and more from it

-she's indifferent towards the ring twins on the one hand she's glad she and Otto got mentors who are invested in mentoring them and do feed them but on the other hand she can't help but question whether they are doing that out of the kindness of their hearts or so that she and Otto trust them and then they can use them to win the prize

-

I love the idea of Otto and ginnee being childhood friends, they are in the same class in school and hang out when they have free time

Otto

- he works as a mechanic's assistant he had to work since he was 9 because of his parents not being able to work full time due to their physical conditions, he's father has a crippled leg and his mother is blind and there aren't many well paying jobs in district 6 for their circumstances so Otto and he's older sister are the main providers of the family and he has younger twin siblings, Otto wishes he can get to have more free time being a kid as he goes to work immediately after school but he understands that he's family needs him and he accepts the responsibility placed on him

- he doesn't tolerate anyone insulting any of his loved ones anyone who dares doing that well face he's rath, he's very protective of those he cares about

- consider he's childhood toys he's treasurer, it comforts him after a long day to hold one of his childhood toys

- was very mistrustful of the ring twins, he's already deep hatred for the capitol has reached a boiling point and he didn't trust anything the twins do for him and ginnee and was very insulted of the fact that he and ginnee had to dance to get food , despite the twins being nice to him and ginnee he couldn't help feeling mistrustful of them after all they don't understand how terrified and worried he is at the fact that he would have to kill to get home and how he would face ginnee 's family if he did come back to district 6 or how worried he is for he's family how could this two privileged people understand any of the feelings he's going through, he doesn't hate them they were pretty nice to him and ginnee but he doesn't trust them either

[20kmemesunderthesea]

🦑Nemo's Fury🦑

I'd been looking forward to playing an indie RPG game, "Nemo's Fury," by Chris Hunneysett and Niall McLoughlin. I got the demo on my iPhone, but alas, I've an old phone which does not support the full version and I could not purchase it! 💔

⬆️ (This is actual footage of the developers consoling me with the assurance that they are currently working on a desktop version.)

In the meantime I splurged and got the paperback book version of the game, which is much akin to those old "choose your own adventure" books I love so dearly.

Premise: You play as an Irish-American who immigrated as a child when your family fled Ireland because of famine and land clearances instigated by aristocratic English landowners. Your family died of illness during the voyage to America, leaving you reason to be embittered at the British.

Your name is T.K. O'Connor. (Your appearance and gender is left up to to your own imagination.) Now as an adult you're an aspiring journalist who's been sent by your editor to investigate the reports of a sea monster which has been attacking ships.

You're sent aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln (dun-dun-DUUUUUN!) along with a certain harpooner, a marine biology professor and his valet. Thus the adventure begins!

Gameplay: You join the crew of the Nautilus, and Captain Nemo sends you on various missions

I will say there were actually quite a lot of typos. I noticed, for example, a point in a journey mission where I had to make a decision to "turn left" or "turn left." (I made the difficult decision to turn left in that situation.) Ned Land was referred to as "she" and "her" in at least a couple places, and I don't think the master harpooner would have been thrilled to be misgendered. (No hate; you'll notice my writing is rife with mistakes as well.) As far as I could tell, however, none of the typos I found really effected the essential mechanics of the game, which seemed pretty solid —and a lot of fun!

All you need is two 6-sided dice, a pencil and paper:

Storyline and characters: The book version is apparently simpler than the app version in terms of storyline and choices the player can make. I would have liked to have done a mission related to Captain Nemo smuggling gold to revolutionaries. Apparently there is such a mission in the app version!

That being said, although simpler, the book was still long and complex enough to be fun and interesting.

Captain Nemo did seem rather different in this story than he did in Jules Verne's books. Notably, instead of carrying a lot of barely repressed rage, his rage was, well...definitely not repressed. On a scale of Vladislav Dvorzhetsky to James Mason he was definitely more James Mason. (If you know, you know.)

The idea, so far as I understood Mr. Hunneysett, was to let the player come to their own conclusion as to wether Captain Nemo was evil/untrustworthy or not, which I thought gave the game storyline a very compelling, suspenseful quality.

I always imagined the crew of the Nautilus as being highly disciplined, loyal and intelligent, and that Captain Nemo would have carefully hand-picked them from people he'd met in his travels as a young man.

In Nemo's Fury, however, the crew members are quite chaotic, and some of them are downright untrustworthy. Mr. Hunneyset imagined Captain Nemo having taken in "all the waifs and strays nobody else would touch," offering a semblance of belonging in his rag-tag crew. That creates an interesting dynamic where you as O'Connor must think through your interactions with the crew, because some of them have it in for the Captain, each other and possibly you. Having to decide if any given crew member is in the right or if they're really treacherous adds an intriguing dramatic element.

Apparently there's more little subplots in the app version, such as something relating to Captain Nemo's love life (leaving me both worried and intrigued) and steampunk cyborgs!

I enjoyed the paperback version of "Nemo's Fury,” which is available on Amazon. The demo version of the ✨deluxe✨ game is free for Android and iPhone, with a desktop version currently in the works:

The same developers also have a delightful fantasy rpg series called "Game of Runes,” also available in paperback form on Amazon.

Additionally, they have a desktop version FREE TO PLAY on itch.io which I have been spending copious amounts of time on:

I hope you all enjoy these games as much as I have!

Mobilis in Mobili! 🦑

Also see...

Nemo's Fury 2

Nemo's Fury 3

[tuxedaaron]

I'll admit, when I made the decision to draw some pics for Green Lantern: The Animated Series, this wasn’t my choice for the first one.  But I was struck with a sudden wave of inspiration and the pencil work looked so good, I couldn't help but get to it.   Besides, at the time I was in the mood for something simple. Like with my Spectacular Spider-Man fanfic ideas, I've got too many GL:TAS fanfic ideas to ever write them by myself.  So like with SSM, I decided to draw a series of pics to showcase my main ideas in the hopes that I might draw co-writers to the cause to help me out.  This one here is one of the big ones. After absorbing and assimilating the colors of the Emotional Spectrum, Aya is resurrected as a White Lantern.  Gifted with new power and, literally, a new lease on life, she now makes it her purpose to understand it in all its forms.  As such, she spends most of her time on the Blue Lantern homeworld of Odym (pictured here).  As a planet that teems with more life than any other, it's the perfect environment for her to observe its natural cycles and absorb all the knowledge she can.  Of course, she has other reasons for making Odym her adopted home, but I won't get into that here (don't want to give TOO much away). Despite the simple nature of the pic, this whole thing was pretty much an experiment from Minute One.  I knew when I made the decision, I wanted to draw the pic DCAU style.  And having some experience with that at this point, it wasn't that tough...at least the head and the torso.  And then I got to the legs.  Now anybody who's been watching my stuff for a while knows full-well that I likes me some good shapely legs.  So to assimilate Aya's legs into my preferred method took a bit of doing.  Not that her legs aren't attractive in their own right, they're just contrary to what I'm used to drawing.  But after a couple of tries, I managed to get it done in a way that I liked. The other challenge here was the color scheme.  I knew how I wanted it to look in my head (creamy white for the armor, a light-grayish skin tone), but until I saw it, I wasn't sure if it would work.  There were a couple of things I changed on the fly.  Her lips, for example, I know I could have made darker.  But that, to me, just conjured up too many comparisons to Raven from Teen Titans.  So instead, I chose to go the other way and keep them a straight white and it still works. And that's where we come to the rainbow-colored highlights, which were, BY FAR, the biggest gamble.  But this was something I wanted to add for a couple of reasons.  One, because she was going to be pretty much bland white, I wanted SOMETHING in there for a bit of contrast.  Also, I wanted to still illustrate Aya's mechanical nature through the highlights all the colors of the Emotional Spectrum that she assimilated and now runs on.  I really didn't know how this was going to look when I started.  But when I was finished, I have to say, while it may look a TEENY bit odd, it wasn't something I disliked enough to do away with. Besides, I still think it works as an animated feature of her.  Picture all of the colors in a constant state of rotation, with certain colors becoming more predominant than others with changes in her emotional state.  For example, in a moment of shock or uncertainty, her highlights would change primarily Yellow, in order to illustrate Fear.  As such, she's almost like a living mood ring.  Talk about literally wearing your heart on your sleeve, am I right? ^_^ All-in-all, I'm quite happy with the pic and I hope everyone else is, too.  And if this pic should happen to make you curious about my fanfic ideas and possibly want to help me out so they can be written, so much the better.  One way or another, as always, I look forward to hearing what you have to say. ^_^

[roseserpentpress]

i love your tiny gravity falls notebook! what was your process for the spine lettering? i'm in awe that you were able to cut something that small so neatly.

Omg, thank you!!! Yes, the cutting was finicky I have to say... My process per book was slightly different, but happy to explain both:

My process for spine lettering was to print out copies of the spines to the size of the mini book spines; behind the printed titles, I either applied graphite (J3) or white chalk (TBOB), and cut out the tiny spine copies. I'd suggest if you're doing something so small, leaving extra paper tabs on the ends of the spine copies, rather then just cutting out the spine copy themselves (which I did and found suuuuuper finicky). I then lined these copies up on where the spine is on the cover, and with a H grade graphite mechanical pencil went over the printed designs, to transfer the graphite/chalk to the paper. This is my typical way of transferring designs, but it didn't work too great for them because they were so tiny... But I found it gave a good idea of where the lettering SHOULD be, and so I then went over the designs by hand using a mechanical pencil (I usually just generally use 2B) while looking at a reference for the lettering.

Not the spine titles, but similar idea with the cover; you can see the print out, and that I've gone over it to get a transfer.

Originally, I painted both the titles. TBOB took a very long time, and was done with red gouache, and a small paintbrush (I've got paintbrushes for figure painting, so fine detail, as I also sculpt and paint figures). I've also recently got magnifying glasses that you wear, which was VERY helpful (pictured below). I find without them you are liable to make more mistakes. For tiny work, you constantly have to reload the paintbrush with new paint on the very tip; what helps is having a certain paint consistency. If you play around and look at the tip of the paintbrush, whole 'reloading' you'll see what I am referring too. You can see my paintbrush in the below photo.

My magnifying glasses, and TBOB cover with the paintbrush. The white between the letters on the cover is from the chalk transfer, which just gets erased away (I use a gummy eraser)

For J3, I was dissatisfied with the way the titling didn't match the gold on the cover, and so decided to cut out the letters by hand... The gold I used is actually gold origami paper (don't think it's true gold tho, lol). So I turned the paper around, and did the same type of transfer I mentioned above onto the back of the gold paper, making sure the letters were facing backwards (since they'd be cut out opposite), and also had them a good distance apart so it wouldn't be flimsy when I cut them out. For the actual cutting, I used the magnifying glasses mentioned above, and I also replaced the blade of a straight x-acto knife to an entirely new one to minimize the amount of friction and the possibility of tearing that could occur. Then for cutting the letters, I was aware of which areas needed to be cut first for each letter; ie the inside of O, before the outside. Your hand will also have ways it naturally moves (ie drawing towards yourself) vs ways it more awkwardly moves (ie drawing away from yourself); I oriented the gold paper to take advantage of that fact, and cause as little friction/pull in any other direction then the one I wanted it to cut towards. This is of course a bit more difficult with round cuts, but your hand also has ways it prefers to move which I took advantage of. I often used after them being cut out to use these pointed dissecting tweezers to handle the letters. I applied paste to the back of them, and then applied them to the spine. For this you unfortunately do need to have a steady hand... but hope this is helpful!

Can see the tweezers and the x-acto. If you squint you can see the letters that have been transferred by graphite onto the back of the origami paper, by J3, that have yet to be cut out. I left a little extra space around the transfer to keep the letters more accurate to size, and also constantly referred to the actual spine to see how the letters actually looked (the transfer can loose some details).

[adventures-in-a-world-of-fiction]

I've had an idea and it's a bit too late to implement it for this year given we're already on 20th November, but I thought I'd share it to see if people think it would be worth trying next year.

Clear-out advent calendars.

Basically, I go through my home and find things that are unused/in a good-as-new condition that I don't particularly need or want, and package them up into advent calendars. I could wrap the items up into pretty, numbered parcels and stick the whole lot into a box and ship it to someone. I could sell these calendars for an amount that covers postage and the cost and time involved in wrapping the items up nicely, maybe rounding up by a couple of quid as a token payment toward the cost of the items. It could potentially be a bargain for the people buying the calendars because I wouldn't be charging anything like the value of the items, but I get to clear out my clutter without having to stand in the cold at a car boot sale or similar. And hopefully everyone would have fun with it and if they didn't like/want to use an item for any particular day, at least they wouldn't have paid much money for it.

I could do them by category, so people have a rough idea of the sort of thing to expect.

Craft/sewing supplies - Fat quarters of fabric in a pattern that doesn't appeal to me that I got in a bundle because I wanted a couple of the other fabrics in the bundle, packet of beads that I bought because "ooh shiny" and then never used, supplies I bought to try out a new craft in a moment of enthusiasm only to find it wasn't for me, etc.

Stationery - I have a lot of very nice notebooks that I don't use because I do pretty much all of my writing on my computer, a handful of mechanical pencils (I have so many mechanical pencils - I'm not entirely sure why), pack of unopened Christmas cards because I will buy them from the charity cards display in the library and then not use most of them, etc.

Jewellery - I have beadwork items that I've made and then not done anything with, and ones that I've either bought or been given over the years but don't wear.

Completely random - just whatever else I uncover while doing a clear out and maybe bits from the other three categories where I don't have enough to do a full 24 days

I'm pretty sure I could do a calendar for each of those four themes that has enough stuff in it to feel satisfying.

This idea was inspired by watching advent calendar unboxing videos on YouTube and there was one where someone bought mystery box calendars of Esty where it looked like the seller(s) bought some really cheap stuff from Poundland to throw in, or one had little packets of instant coffee and tea bags that looked like they'd just raided a hotel room they'd stayed in. Someone made a point in the comments about the cost of the calendar basically being for the time taken to wrap everything up nicely (plus the Etsy cut for those ones) and it got me thinking that I could put together a much nicer advent calendar just using things I have but don't use. I would want to be honest that that was what I was doing though.

I wouldn't make enough of them to be worth setting up an Etsy shop or doing listings on some other platform that would take a massive cut, so I would just list them on a Tumblr post and ask people to message me to pick one and pay for it through Paypal. The first person to message asking for one of them would get it.

Do you think it's worth doing?

[nightcall99]

Dreams from 17.8.24

Dream 1: I was about to do an exam. Time in this dream seemed to flow as with waking life, so it's like I was actually there going through this. I walked into the hall to find a seat. It was communal tables where people sat in groups instead of the usual exam conditions where you have individual desks. Most of the tables were full and I approached a table where a guy (but don't know irl) was sitting that I had some history with, but didn't like. I think he make a few jabs at me and I tried to sit as far away from him as possible. Somehow I had notice of what the exam question was going to be and so I had prepared an essay in advance and memorised it. I knew this was the only way to pass since I am terrible at thinking on the spot. I looked inside my pencil case deciding on what writing utensil to use. I had a mechanical pencil and lead refills which weren't in a case, just lying at the bottom. The lead was thicker than usual. I though it would be a good idea to use a pencil since I'd be able to erase things but I was still undecided. I asked the girl next to me, Should I use a pencil or pen? She was like, When have you ever needed to erase anything, just use a pen. I think she was trying to say that I'm a senior student who has been doing exams for awhile and should know what's up by now. I took her advice. But then the pen turned into a flat type of rock and when I looked around everyone was writing their essays with this rock and it was normal.

I was trying to remember my pre-written essay to write it down but I couldn’t. It didn't help having all these people in close proximity, which was distracting and there was just random noise happening like people talking and stuff. I couldn't remember any of it. I tried to think of things to write on the spot but I just couldn't at all. I got so frustrated that I burst out loud telling everyone to shut up and they did. But it didn't help, my memory was shot and so was any creativity. I ended up writing some stuff but I knew that none of it made any sense. I had no idea what I was saying. I didn't even re-read what I was writing because I knew it'd make my anxiety worse knowing it was not good. I knew the essay I'd pre-written was so much better. A bunch of time passed and I'd almost written a page. I think the duration of this exam was 1.5 hours, around that. Then I realised that the essay I'd prepared was right there, slotted into my exercise book. If only I could just take a peek, just to jog my memory but there was no way I would be able to do it without getting caught. The teacher even came by and reprimanded me for using the exercise book to write in in the first place. I should have used a loose page. He said, There’s all sorts of things in there that would be helping you out. He didn't know I had the essay in there but he was talking about notes from classes. He wasn't happy but he said, Give me two 25 word paragraphs and you’re done. I said, Ok.

I'd still barely completed a page and it was terrible. I was writing a new paragraph now trying to a expand on a new point which I had mentioned at the start. I realised I had hardly addressed any of things I said I would in my intro. In the intro I made mention of 5-6 things to discuss. I just kept thinking about how my sentences were so disjointed and my handwriting looked so weird, like a child's scrawl. Even the chick next to mentioned it when she looked over. I said my handwriting changes sometimes especially when I’m stressed. This feeling came over me, like I was cheating but not in the typical dishonest sense. It just did not feel like 'me' doing this exam, it's like I was cheating myself. My mental faculties were just not there and it's like I'd anticipated this happening.

(This is basically what happens to me irl, but exaggerated to bring the point across. I've always struggled with 3D when other people didn't)

Scene 1: A bunch of travel medicines, was it for me? Yeah I guess I was going away. I saw doxy (malaria prevention). wasn’t sure I needed them but took them.

Scene 2: "An active mountain is moving closer to your house"

[parkpavilion]

Scriptor Honoratus Senex

How many writers, living or dead, have had an active, acclaimed publishing career that extends for almost seven decades? The number might be as low as one, but fortunately that one is still with us, still writing and still publishing. John McPhee is the cream of the crop where literary non-fiction is concerned, having won almost every award possible for his work, including the Pulitzer Prize. He’s also been a mentor to multiple generations of younger writers who themselves have become award-winners, thanks to his life-long connection to Princeton University. 

His most recent book, Tabula Rasa, is his 32nd (discounting many other recompilations of his work), and it chronicles many (though hopefully not all) of his writing projects that did not turn into finished, full-length products. As soon as I heard about its imminent release, I knew it would be the subject of intense discussion between me and another major McPhee fan, writer and friend of Madison Books Matthew Fleagle. Our conversation about the book (as much of it as I thought blog readers would tolerate, anyway) is below.

--James

—————————————————

James: The more love you feel, the greater the risk of heartbreak. Which is why I was both eager and hesitant to read Tabula Rasa. Maybe you felt the same way? Our love for John McPhee is well documented and well earned–the man has won the Pulitzer Prize, published more than thirty books, and written millions of words, not one of which was placed on paper without the utmost care. But the man is 92, and understandably isn’t undertaking projects as grand or ambitious as he once did. Still, when I read that in his new work he “looks back at his career from the vantage point of his desk drawer, reflecting wryly upon projects he once planned to do but never got around to,” I worried (heck, I assumed) that this would be a binful of substandard pencil shavings. Keeping the old man busy and helping him clear some long-accumulated clutter is the least we can do after all he’s given us, right? Those were my thoughts after obliging another of our mutual nonagenarian faves, John Barth, with a read of his most recent collection. Rueful reminiscence and mild disappointment was not what I got from Tabula Rasa, though. McPhee hasn’t played all his cards yet, and has some tricks remaining.

Matt: I was certainly eager. If I had thought to be worried going in, I'd have dropped that anxiety pretty toot sweet. As always, McPhee roped me in right away. I happen to be working my way through a box of old letters from the previous two generations of my dad’s family to determine what should be done with them (the letters) and so McPhee’s mechanism of the “letter in response to a daughter" as an opening to this journey through his file cabinet of writing project ideas– “Dear Jenny: I didn’t go there with Tim and Wendy. We drove from France straight to northern Portugal . . .” –quite grabbed my attention. Once lasso’d, I was fully wrangled by the third piece’s conceit of the unfinishable project as a means of extending an old man’s life. As you know, that’s the sort of thing I stew on while doing dishes, weeding or performing really any activity that requires me to respire but not necessarily think much about what I’m doing. So I was immediately engrossed.

I kept being startled at first by the brevity of these works. This book seems a little like a printed blog. The pieces are about that long and like good blog posts, they just get you fully interested and then they end, leaving you wishing for more, or in my case propelling me on to the next one. McPhee binging. Most of them end abruptly but they end elegantly, often with a zinger quote. But there is clearly much more in most of these pieces that could be researched and presented, so it's easy to see why McPhee had been holding onto them. I say most, not all, but we'll get to that. How about you? Did you find these stories satisfying though they were such short outings?

James: Very. That’s the most invigorating aspect of this book–even in the twilight of his career, there’s novelty. He made his bones with a kind of writing that’s been described (in a phrase I love and have quoted before) as “requiring a certain readerly patience.” Meticulous descriptions of people and place, methodical accumulation of information, powerful conclusions built with time and pages  . . . in McPhee’s house there are many mansions, and you don’t hurry through them. But in Tabula Rasa he’s quicker, lighter, and snappier. The entries here aren’t truncated versions of his older essays, they have a form of their own, and he’s as dextrous with it as he has been in his more expansive books.

With that dexterity, we get the unexpected zingers you mentioned. Who knew McPhee could throw off punchlines like Henny Youngman? The bit about environmental activist Edward Abbey is the best example, I think. What a putdown. I guess Abbey gets credit for the remark, but McPhee knows exactly how to structure the anecdote for full effect. I hadn’t thought about Abbey for years, but it made me want to read more about him. Sounds like you felt the same way about most of the subjects, but you mentioned some exceptions? 

Matt: I did, but I only meant that I suspect some of these stories were never intended to be longer. McPhee introduces or extraduces a lot of these pieces with notes about having intended to do a full treatment of the subject and why he never did (profiles of Meredith Willson or of his mother, Mary, for instance, or explorations of Bing cherries or river deltas), but others are little anecdotes standing on their own feet, proffered without a word about any erstwhile plans for them. “Outcroppings of Washington Road'' is one such; it’s just a little story about a number of different things, and the piece can be said to be loosely wrapped around McPhee’s magnum opus, Annals of the Former World, which is a project he most definitely did get around to. “Outcroppings'' is in my view the perfect little McPhegian outing–it's like a canoe trip among tall reeds; there's a beginning, a sudden 90-degree turn, an apparent dead end and restart that makes you wonder where the old man is going, then an unexpected twist, and a final rejoining of the main stream as the ideas come braiding together at the end. McPhee's mastery of structure and timing, as you say, is never more evident than in these snack-sized pieces.

And I don't mind at all the professor just remembering out loud. To pursue the metaphor, I can imagine sitting in a slowly drifting canoe with the author’s voice behind me (he would be the aft paddle, naturally) occasionally breaking a mosquito’d stillness with one of these little stories, each a delightful non sequitur from the one before.

James: The image of this author as an excursion guide is perfect, first because he’s spent so much time being in and writing about America’s still-wild lands, and second because his work always gives the impression that you’re accompanying him on a journey. He’s a wise cicerone of the great outdoors who shares knowledge as well as the experience of obtaining it.

Hmm, the praise is getting a little treacly. Is there some reservation you want to express, lest we sound too sycophantic? 

Matt: McPhee can occasionally pitch low and inside. I haven’t yet fully forgiven him for expecting me to agree that no one knows or cares who Wilford Brimley is while simultaneously tossing off references to people I’d never heard of, undermining his own point that you shouldn’t make references in your work to people or things your readers have never heard of. That was a different book, but “points of reference” can still be an issue for me. I spent the whole of this book’s “Time-Out on the Floor” chapter waiting for him to explain to me what time-out on the floor meant, which he never did. I got an idea by the end, but let’s just say readers who follow college athletics or were reared or schooled in the East will have a slight advantage when sports is the topic or when Princeton names are dropping. A significant number of these pieces revolve around athletes, professors, administrators and other figures from McPhee's long career as an educator and even longer life as a sports fan. Still, McPhee usually makes quick work of getting the reader up to speed, and I found myself invested in every story even when I felt some initial disorientation.

I'd like to mention some highlights that I particularly enjoyed but I'm hogging the page and we may be running out of room, so you first. Besides the Edward Abbey coup you mentioned, what were some of your favorite moments?

James: You’ve cited one already. As a Northwesterner, I felt a swell of pride when I ran across “Bourbon and Bing Cherries.” Plenty of good stuff in there about McPhee’s edible and potable interests, but the fact that the most popular cherry cultivar in America was named after the Chinese foreman of an experimental orchard in Oregon, and was so labeled in the 1870s, just as America was gearing up for the racist Chinese Exclusion Act, is the most compelling part. Reminds me of how Seattle’s white founders were able to stretch their imaginations far enough to respect and name their city after an indigenous leader. I was also fond of the productively rambling longer pieces, including “Sloop to Gibraltar” with its portrait of the ancient merchant mariner Captain Washburn, and “The Dutch Ship Tyger,” which links a 17th-century trading vessel, future senator and former basketball player Bill Bradley, and the start of McPhee’s career with The New Yorker. But enough of that; hit me with your highlights.

Matt: So many, but off the top of the old bean:

"December 19, 1943” –It's difficult to say anything about this piece that isn’t a spoiler, except that McPhee doesn’t take this story in the direction that he could have taken it and might even have been expected to take it, but takes it somewhere else, which is why he’s John McPhee and the rest of us are not. 

“Ray Brock” –This is one of those delightful little bundles of facts that make you think you know something, but McPhee never explicitly makes the call. This story is about both Ray Brock and Ernest Hemingway, but when it’s about which is the question and he doesn’t directly answer it, only gives us a fact that pushes us toward a certain conclusion. 

"Joseph Henry House" –This is a great collection of little scenes set in the eponymous house, just the thing I like. Within a few sentences McPhee moves from architectural history to an intimate little memory and then to the large and sweeping thought of Princeton being visited and honored by colleges hundreds and hundreds of years older than itself. In this piece and several others, McPhee doesn’t seem to be trying to keep the ideas linked and tightly controlled; they seem to be like spirals, like flowers opening or like fireworks exploding.

"Walking the Province Line" –Out of nowhere, this! It’s a longer piece, and next to these little tarns it feels like one of McPhee’s oceans. One wonders as one is reading it why it’s in this book of unborn pieces, because it feels dense and researched. I was all over maps following this one, the way I follow Robert MacFarlane when he goes a-walkin’.

I'd say the same about "La Torre Pendente," which feels a little more like a “normal” McPhee piece. Of course it’s much shorter, but the treatment seems to be a longer look. More research was done, most of it long ago. The details all seem to be there. This one, like so many in Tabula Rasa, makes me imagine McPhee as a Texan defending the Alamo, opening up one musty manila folder after another, loading everything into the chamber each time, all the gunpowder, all the details, whether it is much or little, and pulling the trigger. For an old McPhee fan, there are very few misfires here.

James: A martial metaphor fitting for a writer who has long pursued his craft with military discipline, here commanding squads and platoons instead of his usual brigades and divisions. Although that sounds darker than I intended. Reading this collection is fun, as if McPhee is letting us play with a nice set of vintage toy soldiers.

We’ve pretty well established how rewarding Tabula Rasa is for his established fans (McPhegians, you called us earlier, which I much prefer to an appellation I’ve seen elsewhere, McPhinos), but as a bookseller, I have to consider how it comes across to someone for whom it really is a blank slate. I’m confident that utter neophytes (McPhledglings?) will be entranced by it. Each bite-sized chapter is tremendously satisfying, yet even devouring them all at once leaves one hungry for dessert. I’m not sure how he pulls off this rock-skipping magic, making weighty substance move with light and airy charm, but it must have something to do with the way time has distilled his vast experience into a potent, efficient brevity. A good lesson for us–as enjoyable as this conversation is, we should probably suspend it to give people a chance to read Tabula Rasa instead of our yammering.

Matt: Yup. It’s all in his wrist.

[battythoughts]

Lost and Searching

I have come to the devastating realization that a huge part of who I thought I was, might have just been a coping mechanism to escape my psychotic life as I was growing up.

I have always considered myself an artist. As far back as I can remember there has always been a pencil in my hand and a piece of paper in front of my face. I took 8 different art classes in high school and even went to a prestigious art school for a bit of time for collage. Ultimately, I dropped out of that school and got a bachelors in psychology instead. However, I always thought that art was something I genuinely enjoyed as a hobby.

I cut my family out of my life at 18 and that was the second best decision I ever made in my life. (The first slot is actually a tie with meeting my husband and wife.) However, while my partners have done nothing but support me and buy me what ever supplies my little heart desires, they just sit in the corner, unused and going to waste. Sure I could blame it on my ADHD and how quickly I gain and loose interest in things, but this goes so much deeper than that. I dedicated such a large part of my adolescence to art that it became my identity, and now that I am finally in a happy and safe environment where I'm not scared, or hungry, or cold, or lonely, I have lost my muse. It's like my art was only able to survive for as long as it did because it was feeding off of all the negativity in my life and now that there isn't any, it's just starved to death. I can't draw anymore. Anytime I get the desire to draw I just sit with my sketchbook and pencil in front of me and stare at the blank page waiting for the ideas to come, but they never do.

It's a really hard thing to process honestly. If I'm not an artist I don't really know what I am. I don't have any other hobbies. I feel like I've lost my entire identity and I don't know how to find it again. It's for the best overall. I know it just means that I'm growing as a person and I'm finally allowing myself to move past all of the negativity that is my childhood. However, it's a rather bittersweet feeling. What do I do now? How will I express myself if I'm overwhelmed or sad? Granted, sadness isn't really something I feel anymore, but I think you understand the point I'm getting at. I just. I don't know where to go from here.

Sincerely,

Batty

[cheeringyouon]

How I Take Notes!

Hello friends, hope everyone is doing well and staying safe! With the new semester starting in a little under two months, I thought it would be a good time to make a post on notetaking. Notetaking is one of my absolute favorite ways to learn material that I’m being taught in class. I am a very visual and kinesthetic learner, so the action of writing something down, and being able to look back at something is extremely beneficial to me. I have always despised reading through textbook chapters multiple times, so taking notes in a way that I like makes the learning process more enjoyable to me as well. Although my note taking process may seem intensive and unnecessary to some, this is how I have managed to get by so far.

1. Finding a notetaking style and tool:

There are several different notetaking styles that can be utilized. The two most common ones are either the outline method, or the Cornell notetaking method. I have always followed a version of the outline method- the Cornell method never caught my attention. There are advantages and disadvantages to both styles, but here is a general overview of what each looks like.

Apart from choosing the way you want to take notes, it’s helpful to choose what you want to use to take your notes. I prefer taking notes in notebooks, that I organize by class. I did try taking digital notes once the pandemic hit, but I realized that I despised having to look at a screen in order to study after spending hours watching lecture recordings. I will be going back to taking more detailed notes on paper, but will continue to use digital notes during lectures.

2. Picking a color scheme:

This is something that is based on personal taste, there is absolutely no need to pick a color scheme. Like I said, I am a visual learner, so using a few colors helps me divide the content in my notes and points out key information. I also like to use colors to differentiate between main and subheadings as it helps me keep my notes organized. I used to use a different pen color for literally every line (see image on the left below), but now I realize that it looks like rainbow throw up- I have now become more streamlined in my color choosing process LOL

3. Taking the notes:

In high school, I used to sit in class with my all my pens in my giant pencil bag and make my colorful notes during the lectures. This was doable for me since high school teachers tend to give their lectures at a slower pace so that it is easy for everyone in the room to grasp. However, once I got to university, that became extremely difficult since professors tend to speed through the material in order to cover all the topics.

With that transition, I realized that there were two ways I could go about this:

1. Take time before class to take lecture notes and then add in any details on the side during the lecture. This does help in being more prepared for lectures, but it is time consuming, and requires a tad more motivation to get started. This was especially useful for classes like OCHEM, where the professor would give tips and tricks to understand the numerous reaction mechanisms. For me, having the notes prewritten made it easier to follow along, and understand what he was describing.

2. Take “messy” notes in class and then take time after class to redo my notes in a way that I found useful. If a class is very slide-based, I also will just type out any additional details onto the slides, and then review them after class. This is usually what I do- take messy or scribbled notes on my laptop during class, and then take time after class to take more detailed notes.

For certain classes, the professor may not cover all the details necessary to be successful in the class (these to me are the ABSOLUTE worst kind of prof). In this case, I maintain a separate notebook where I would take notes from the textbook. This would help me fill in any missing gaps from class, and also give me another chance to look through the material.

After taking my notes, I go back through them, and highlight key words/vocabulary to make it easier to see when I review them in time for exams.

4. Using the notes:

Taking the notes, sometimes doing it twice, is extremely time consuming, so it’s important that you put them to good use. I generally only use my notes when I am trying to study for my exams. I find that with the amount of detail I put into my notes, I don’t have to reference textbooks or slides very often.

I also use my notes to make what I call “One-page reviews.” This was a technique that my high school bio teacher had us use in order to prep for or class exams. The idea behind this is to organize the topics and concepts you learned in a unit on a single sheet of paper. This helps keep every key information on one sheet, and helps you connect the dots between concepts as well.

By doing this before every single unit test/class test, it will also make it significantly easier when it comes around to studying for finals- you already have detailed review sheets prepared!

So yeah! This is a rough overview of my notetaking process. I may have skipped over some details, since a lot of this is up to personal preference. No single method works for everyone- it's all a matter of trial and error to see what works best for you. If you have any questions or want me to clarify anything at all, feel free to reach out! I hope this helps 😊

~C

[gillianthecat]

A sunny day finally! It made the first day of classes a lot more pleasant. (This is my attempt to get a photo of my campus while still keeping it somewhat anonymous/unidentifiable.)

First day of the semester was a success! I mean, the only actual "class" time I had was approximately half an hour of a lab where the prof was just going over things. But I got lots of other useful things done like exploring the campus and getting a parking permit, student ID and some of my textbooks. And a new mechanical pencil! (Since it was barely more expensive than just buying the case of lead on its own.) And then I went to the mall (an actual indoor mall! I can't even remember the last time I was in one of those. It was a surreal experience, I felt the urge to buy early aughts style clothes even though I didn't actually want any. The even scarier part is that it's been long enough that those trends are back in stores so I probably could have. 👵🏻💀) to get a new phone case and screen protector, so it was a very Productive Day.

But the exciting part is that it turns out that I will be able to fit some dance classes into my schedule after all! I had given up on the idea, but as I was exploring I found the dance studios and when I looked into one of the empty studios I started to cry. Studios have always felt like a... not sacred space exactly, but there is something hollowed about them, a world unto themselves. (This one was particularly new and gorgeous too, huge with both wood and marley flooring; they also use it as a black box theater type performance space.)

I have missed dancing, more than I'm even aware of most of the time. I feel so disconnected from my body, and so weak and stiff, I don't know what it will feel like to move again. So having a regular weekly, all level class, with new teachers, will be a good way to ease back in.

The reason I was so confused about the schedule is that the dance department has no overall schedule of their offerings, so I was having to look up each class individually and then go into section details, which made it hard for me to figure out what even the options were, but I finally just spent time copying them all into a calendar so I could see which ones didn't overlap with my other classes. And there are three options that look good, Dance Conditioning, Jazz, and Contemporary. I would love to do a nice calm beginning ballet class to ease back into things, but alas that one conflicts with my necessary classes. So I probably will do Dance Conditioning, and then either Jazz or Contemporary, since they're one after the other and I don't think I can handle four hours of dance at this point, since I'm so out of condition. Tomorrow (today, it's already today, I should go to sleep) I will go check them all out and talk with the teachers some more.

There is also a fitness center and a pool at the Wellness Center, which I'm going to try to use. They do it a weird way, where to be able to use the fitness center you need to sign up for a class, and then you can drop in anytime. Same for the pool, it's a separate class, but you can go to any of the open lap lane hours. Which is fine, I'm willing to pay, but the annoying part is you have to go a certain number of hours in order to pass the "class." Which for the fitness center averages out to four hours a week. And that is way more than I want to go, especially with three to four hours of dance and potentially swimming on top. And I'm only in the city four days a week. My plan was maybe an hour a week tops. But I really want to take advantage of these resources, especially because I'll have evenings to kill while I'm waiting for rush hour to die down. So I've decided to sign up for both and then plan on failing the classes. Or dropping them at the last minute. Unless there's a way to cheat and record more hours than I do 🤷🏻‍♀️

Even if I don't end up doing all (or any) of those, I will get a lot more movement in my days than I have been. The campus isn't big, but it is built on very hilly terrain and there are so. many. stairs. Inside and out. I got in 8,000 steps today without even trying.

I also got a pretty new notebook at Target so I can start irregularly journaling again. I'd been avoiding buying one because I'm pretty sure I have several empty or barely started ones somewhere in my apartment, but I have no idea where.

my exciting discretionary purchases of the day (not including yellow and orange pens - photos are from the internet.)

With all these new things added in to my schedule, I don't know how much BL I'll end up watching, or having the time to write about. Hopefully I can still do at least some of both, but I have to remember that school is my priority. And this time I WILL finish out the semester.