#this drawing took 41 minutes

[vaguely-humanoid-form]

touch me, Midas

make me part of your design

none to guide us

I feel fear for the very last time

[b1adie]

edited him to look more lunae-esque

[jomunson]

50 ed headcanons i been thinking about

1. washes his hair with bar soap

2. doesn't like coffee

3. his father is in jail and his mother passed when he was 11

4. secretly gets really scared when it storms

5. says "hubba bubba"

6. gets super miserable in the summer, he burns super easily

7. swims with goggles and a snorkel

8. wears his hair in a towel when he gets out of the shower

9. super good and confident with flirting with men but really awkward and flustered with flirting with women

10. will say "is this guy bothering you, babe?" if you ever run into furniture

11. love language is words of affirmation, he wants to know you don't see him as a freak

12. sleeps with a garfield plush he's had since he was a boy

13. really bad at fishing, like he'll actually catch a boot when he goes on trips to the creek with wayne

14. burps the abc's

15. took his driving test drunk

16. when he gets home from school he's tired from being a tough guy, he reads a book and smokes before falling asleep

17. thinks people are pranking him when they ask him out

18. wears silly red and pink heart designed boxers

19. really sweet with the kids who live in the trailer park

20. will leave a handful of change as a tip

21. can only cook spaghetti. only spaghetti.

22. biggest fear is the koolaid man coming alive

23. minute man munson (iykyk)

24. will ask people to name 3 songs if their wearing a band tee

25. put lipstick on one time and felt pretty

26. prefers apple juice over orange juice

27. absolutely loves halloween

28. extremely competitive

29. hits people when he's excited/laughing

30. sits really close to the tv like an ipad kid

31. moans while getting beat up to make it awkward

32. extremely allergic to cats but loves them to death

33. birthday is april 19th 1966

34. has skinny dipped w his bros in lovers lake

35. fein for chocolate chip pancakes

36. eats skittles for lunch

37. tried to do a karate kick and ripped his pants once

38. calls his van his baby

39. lifts his leg when he farts and thinks it's peak humor

40. won a goldfish from the fair and fed it crushes doritos for 4 months and cried when it died

41. writes reminders on the palm of his hand and it gets smeared on his face

42. always cuts his face when he shaves on accident

43. when he draws and has to erase he does it so hard it rips holes in the paper

44. feels cool because he doesn't carry around a backpack at school

45. scared of moths

46. has lost pencils in his hair

47. flips his boxers inside out so he can wear them longer

48. has to be told to shower

49. tried to pierce his ears and sobbed and then they got infected

50. his nose gets the brightest red in the winter

[x1nn4y]

hehe microphone drawing that took 41 minutes!!!

(I LOVE THE BACKGROUND!!!)

YIPPEE!!!

[devildianadd]

Lindsay & Heather total drama

This took 5 hours and 41 minutes :0 my record broke by an hour! Anyways the top 2 is w kitty filter and w out the kitty filter, and these 2 on the bottom are different fliters lolz 🫶🏻 I put a lot effort in these arts and I appreciate a like & a follow 🫶🏻 if you want to, I love drawing these total drama characters! Lindsay and Heather were so much fun to draw! I love them so much (not a ship) but I feel so bad for Lindsay 😭🫶🏻 let me know what you think of this art <33

[illleavemymessageinmysong]

IN A HURRY

One of Paul’s story or character songs? I’ve never heard him comment on the inspiration. To me, it has a feel of London 1963, London Theatreland and life with The Ashers of Wimpole Street.

It begins with a description of the hectic life of the song’s subject:

“She was always in a hurry, never took the time to look around. She was always one to worry and fret, staring at the ground..Every minute, she'd be rushing, someone always breathing down her neck. Felt like everyone was pushing her down, keeping her in check”

Sound familiar? In The Lyrics, discussing his impressions when he moved in with the Ashers, he says:

“There was not a second that wasn’t accounted for. Jane would go off to her agent, then read for a play, then meet someone for lunch, then have a vocal coach teaching her a Norwich accent for her next thing.”

The third verse gives us:

How could she leave? She's gotta stay, somebody has to sit and wait. Deep in a dream, she hears a voice "It's not too late to celebrate"

Given the frequency with which the chorus and outro feature the phrase “Never Too Late” (41 times, not that I’m counting), you might have expected that to be the song’s title, rather than ‘In A Hurry’. Perhaps that would have drawn a bit too much attention to a particular incident. In December 1963 (16 December according to Dafydd Rees in his book ‘The Beatles 1963: A Year In The Life), Paul and Jane’s relationship became public knowledge when they were photographed together attending Sumner Arthur Long’s play ‘Never Too Late’ at the Prince of Wales Theatre, London.

“We had decided not to go to the bar, so we were just going to sit it out..I really was not used to the personal burdens imposed by fame, so we were just talking in our seats, and suddenly ten paparazzi came scampering in with those cameras going flash, flash, flash like La Dolca Vita, and then, just as quickly, they all just scampered out again”

“They were like the Keystone Cops. But oh my God, we were shocked.”

‘In A Hurry, was released as a single along with ‘Home Tonight’, and featured artwork based on the parlour game ‘Exquisite Corpse’.

‘Exquisite Corpse’ can be played as a drawing game, as in the cover art, or as a word game. I wonder if it was one of the ones played at the dining table at 57 Wimpole Street that Paul recalled to Barry Miles in ‘Many Years From Now’.

[svtskneecaps]

a list of timestamps, for no reason :)

thesis statement : No, what blue did tonight and what red did the last two nights are not the same.

disclaimer: this is not a judgement of right / wrong, this is a glorified compare and contrast paper.

a TL;DR is available at the top, immediately following the keep reading link (which i hope, for your sake, is still there).

for each vod i have compiled the time stamps first, and then under the heading "notably" have compiled and compared them.

this is the most toxic i will allow myself to be.

TL;DR:

Blue team on Day 4 took 2 seconds from first task claimed to last. Red team on Day 2 took 5 minutes 14 seconds from first task claimed to last, and on Day 3 took 42 seconds.

Blue team on Day 4 was vulnerable in the area for 2 seconds before claiming their last task. Red team on Day 2 was vulnerable in the area for 8 minutes 31 seconds, and on Day 3 was vulnerable for 12 minutes 10 seconds.

The time blue team spent getting situated before logging out in global is not counted in this as being vulnerable because it is not a viable strategy for an entertainer to waste 4 hours of their limited time camping global to ensure no one is logging out.

Red team claimed their first global task on Day 3 with 13 minutes until the server closed. On Day 4, Etoiles and Roier arrived to stop blue team from applying the same strategy with 15 minutes until the server closed.

Blue team's actions on Day 4 did not leave them open to any reasonable retaliation efforts once Tubbo logged out. The moment he logged back in, the tasks were as good as complete. Unless another content creator metagamed, they would not be able to stop him.

Red team's actions on Day 2 and Day 3 did leave them open to retaliation. They were not fast, they often did not have the items they needed crafted in advance and spent time in sight of the global task dome crafting the items. If a team had been waiting for them to try this at the global task dome as Etoiles and Roier did for Blue team, that team could entirely have succeeded in killing them or ruining their plans.

The global tasks on Day 4 were already functionally blue's 4 hours before they were claimed. Even if the disaster hadn't affected global, the way it was supposed to, the only thing left would have been revenge. There was no preventing it once Tubbo logged out.

The global tasks on Day 2 were open to reclamation for an hour after red team claimed them. By Day 3 blue team was aware of red's strategy and had a full 12 minutes (at a predictable time! see below) in which they could have attacked red and stopped them.

What blue and red team did was not the same.

Below are the time stamps I used to get this data and draw these conclusions. I've included links to vods for verification purposes. These links are not future proofed.

November 7th, 2023: Day 4 of Purgatory

TubboLIVE's VOD:

1:47:20 : Tubbo logs out of the server, behind the blue "contracts" NPC. He has 15 minutes 32 seconds of server time remaining.

5:50:23 : It is 3:48:52 am in Tubbo's time zone. Tubbo shows the clock on his screen. There are 11 minutes and 8 seconds until the server closes.

5:50:49 : Tubbo loads in, behind the blue "contracts" NPC. It is 3:49:41 am. This is the first moment the game is visible on his screen. He has 15 minutes 03 seconds of server time remaining.

5:50:50 : Tubbo claims the first of the global tasks.

5:50:51 : Tubbo claims the last of the global tasks. It is 3:49:43 am.

Notably:

Functionally, tubbo was standing behind the blue NPC, invincible, for 4 hours 3 minutes and 3 seconds

There is a 29 second period of server time that I can't account for.

The total time it took for tubbo to claim every global task after loading in is 2 seconds.

The cooldown for every global task before it can be reclaimed is 10 minutes. In this case these ten minutes started at 3:49:42 and 3:49:43 am. The first moment any of these claimed global tasks can be reclaimed is 3:59:42 am, with 18 seconds until the server closes.

Etoiles's VOD:

4:56:08 : With some leniency, this is the first clear view of the blue "contracts" NPC and the spot Tubbo is "standing" shown on Etoiles's stream.

*(the blue NPC comes into view at 4:56:06 but whether Etoiles would have seen Tubbo there is dubious enough that I have opted for a later time stamp)

4:56:12 : Etoiles and Roier enter the global task dome. They are standing directly to the left of the red NPC; on the opposite side as the blue NPC. The spot Tubbo is "standing" is clearly visible on Etoiles's stream. Etoiles has 10 minutes 40 seconds of server time remaining. There are roughly 15 minutes and 30 seconds until the server closes*.

*(Time calculated roughly using Tubbo's log in message; this is not exact)

4:56:17 : Roier is standing in front of the blue "contracts" NPC.

4:58:03 : Without leaving global spawn, Etoiles disconnects to get a buffer on his time limit. Remembering that there is a disaster coming, he immediately re-logs to avoid the combat logging penalty. Roier does not disconnect during this time.

4:58:18 : The first frame of the game is visible after Etoiles relogs. Etoiles has 8 minutes 53 seconds of server time remaining.

4:58:45 : The quicksand disaster starts, affecting global spawn despite admins having informed Etoiles previously that disasters did not affect global spawn.

5:00:08 : The disaster ends.

5:01:17 : Tubbo logs in. There are roughly 10 minutes 11 seconds until the server closes.

Notably:

Roier is standing three blocks away from Tubbo's log-in point (effectively, three blocks away from Tubbo) at 5 minutes before Tubbo logs in.

Were Tubbo logged in, waiting physically at spawn, Etoiles and Roier would have been able to initiate combat 5 minutes and 5 seconds earlier. Both had plenty of time on their server counters to participate in this combat, albeit Etoiles would have been kicked before server close. Roier would not be (source: Slime's vod, 2:45:05 and on. There is no disconnect message for Roier before the server is closed at roughly 2:45:08).

Were Tubbo logged in, waiting physically at spawn when Etoiles and Roier arrived (at roughly 3:44:37 am in Tubbo's time zone, 15 minutes and 23 seconds before the server closed), and had claimed all global missions at that time rather than risk dying in combat, the missions would have been able to be reclaimed at roughly 3:54:37 am, with about 5 minutes and 23 seconds before the server closed. This is 5 minutes and 5 seconds more than the actual time.

November 5th, 2023 : Day 2 of Purgatory

This is the first day red has used this strategy.

Cellbit's VOD:

6:52:27 : Cellbit arrives at the plaza outside the global task dome (Carre is already here; he wasn't streaming so I don't know when he arrived).

6:52:49 : Cellbit enters the global task dome. He backtracks to the right of the global task dome, and sets up a crafting area to craft items for the tasks somewhat out of sight of the dome. He is 96 meters away from the dome.

6:55:34 : Cellbit re-enters the global task dome.

6:55:44 : Cellbit claims the first global task for red team (electrolytes). The cooldown is 10 minutes 41 seconds.

6:55:49 : Cellbit claims one global task for red team (radiation medicine).

6:55:55 : Cellbit claims one global task for red team (campfires).

6:56:04 : Cellbit leaves the global task dome and sets up a second crafting area to the right of the dome after losing the first. This area is in full view of the dome, and is roughly 61 meters away.

6:57:40 : Cellbit dumps every item in his inventory except for iron and minecarts and a shield into a chest (he is functionally defenseless).

6:58:18 : Cellbit re-enters the global task dome.

6:58:23 : Cellbit claims one global task for red team (minecarts).

6:59:12 : Cellbit claims one global task for red team (diamonds).

6:59:49 : Cellbit gets his sword out of the chest (he is no longer defenseless).

7:00:58 : Jaiden claims the last global task for red team (rails). The bananas task remains unclaimed.

7:01:01 : ElQuackity is visible outside the dome on Cellbit's stream for the first time. Cellbit chases him.

7:04:34 : Cellbit kills ElQuackity, putting red team in the lead.

7:48:07 : The server closes.

Notably:

Red team is physically present, visible, and murderable / stoppable at the global tasks area for 8 minutes 31 seconds.

Red team takes 5 minutes 14 seconds to claim their global tasks.

The cooldown on these global tasks leaves at minimum 36 minutes 28 seconds to reclaim, maximum 41 minutes 42 seconds to reclaim before server close.

If a team were to have come up to the dome during the 8 minute 31 second period, they would have seen the team and could have attacked or stopped them.

There is a 2 minute 9 second period where Cellbit literally does not have a weapon in his inventory.

If a team were to have come up to the dome while the red team was still crafting the global quest items, they could have attacked and prevented the team from crafting the items and forced them to retreat without claiming those goals.

November 6th, 2023 : Day 3 of Purgatory

This is the second day red has used this strategy.

Cellbit's VOD:

3:39:11 : Cellbit sees Bagi on the bridge to global. There are 24 minutes and 2 seconds until the server closes.

3:39:49 : Cellbit enters the global dome, standing just to the right of where the red NPC is on November 7th.

3:40:24 : Cellbit exits the global dome to craft the water bottles needed for the global task.

3:42:58 : Cellbit crafts the final water bottle needed for the global task.

3:43:28 : Cellbit, Foolish, and Carre re-enter the global dome.

3:44:15 : Cellbit and Carre exit the global dome to inspect Bagi's body. Foolish exits the global dome to use the crafting table.

3:45:36 : Cellbit and Carre re-enter the global dome.

(There's a few more entrances and exits from the dome during the following period, though they stay within the area marked with Bagi's body, the global NPCs, and the crafting table as corners : Never much more than 61 meters away and never out of sight of the dome)

3:49:45 : Cellbit sends the message "hey guys we are about to deliver global tasks you should come!" There are 14 minutes and 18 seconds until the server closes.

3:50:39 : Cellbit claims the first global task for red team (tea leaves). There are 13 minutes and 26 seconds until the server closes.

3:50:59 : Carre claims one global task for red team (gas masks).

3:51:01 : Cellbit claims one global task for red team (hot cocoa).

3:51:09 : Cellbit claims one global task for red team (water bottles).

3:51:12 : Cellbit claims one global task for red team (backpacks).

3:51:21 : Carre claims the last global task for red team (tea). There are 11 minutes and 52 seconds until the server closes.

4:03:13 : The server closes.

notably:

Red team is physically present, visible, and murderable / stoppable at the global tasks area for 11 minutes and 28 seconds before they turn in any global tasks.

Red team takes 42 seconds to turn in all of their global tasks.

The cooldown on the global tasks leaves at maximum 3 minutes 26 seconds of time to reclaim, and at minimum 1 minute and 52 seconds to reclaim.

If a team were to have come up to the dome during the 11 minute and 28 second period, they would have seen and could have attacked red team.

If a team were to have come up to the dome in the 3 minutes 47 seconds between red team arriving at the global dome and red team crafting all the water bottles for the global task, they would have seen and could have attacked red team.

[demonicsoulmates-art]

SPN Angels & Demons Reverse Bang 2024 Art Masterpost: The Fool's Journey

This year the Angels & Demons Bang (@spnangelsanddemons-rb ) was a Reverse Bang, meaning the artists would go first and authors would choose what art to write from. Since last year I had an amazing time as an author and, since then, I've started sharing fanart, I decided it would be a good idea to join this reverse bang.

Due to the artistic nudity of the piece I submitted, the drawing on tumblr will be censored. You can find the uncensored version on my Pillowfort. My favorite spn angel is (surprise, surprise) Gadreel, so the piece was all about him.

The drawing was chosen by @ladyknightskye, who wrote an amazing fic for it which you can find at this link.

I'd like to thank @hawkland for organizing this and giving us a change to love our fave characters.

The post is quite long, so I am going to add a read more.

My idea was to make a first piece in my SPN Tarot Project. When I read the description of the Major Arcana of the Star, I immediately thought of Gadreel, and I decided to pick the main symbols of the tarot card for the piece.

Gadreel (as Tahmoh Penikett) is shown kneeling by a river of pure water in the Garden of Eden, holding a cup and pouring water into said river. His other hand is touching the grass, and a serpent is wrapped around his arm. Behind him, you can see a clear sky and a set of stars, one of which is much bigger than the others and is right behind his head. In the distance, you can see an apple tree. The light is almost whimsy, ethereal.

I really wanted to show both the tree and the snake to give a shout-out both to the biblical story AND Gadreel's canon SPN background as the keeper of Eden. The serpent, though, is not supposed to be a temper of sorts - in many cultures, the snake is considered quite wise, and my idea was for the snake to have shown Gadreel that there are other ways than just blind following the one in power, that he had a will of his own.

Unfortunately, I had a mishap happen while making this first piece - aka, I was an idiot and permanently deleted the file from my laptop before it could be finished, so I had to remake it completely. This second version took 11 hours and 41 minutes + the time I took to pick the decor etc. Probably one of my most complex drawings recently.

I also wanted to make a second complete piece as well as a banner, but in the end, I could only make the banner:

The banner shows Gadreel, this time with wings, in the front of the piece. He is standing in the Garden, this time at night. The only light comes from the full moon. He's blindfolded, and in his hands he holds a white rose (symbol of innocence) and a pomegranate. This last detail is taken from Judaism, where it represents the mitzvot, and it's meant to show the "baggage" Gadreel has with Chuck/God, when he follows Chuck's orders blindly, without thinking about them. Eventually, Gadreel will have to choose to submit to his Father's will or rebel, choosing free will.

In the background, we see a mountain and the apple tree, which this time is closer, as if tempting him.

This piece took 5 hours and 47 minutes to make, another detailed piece for me, but so much fun!

Apart from the first mishap (sigh), this was a great experience, and it's the second time I work with Meg in an event (I see the beginning of a pattern).

Please read the fic and let us know what you think!

[scribeforchrist-blog]

Waiting & Knocking

MEMORY VERSE OF THE WEEK

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+ Isaiah 41:13 For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, 'Fear not, I am the one who helps you.'

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VERSE OF THE DAY

======================

+ Matthew 7:7: “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.

=======================

** SAY THIS BEFORE YOU READ; HERE’S SOME CHRISTIAN TRUTHS **

I AM WAITING ON GOD

I AM KNOCKING AND WAITING

I DESIRE GOD

I AM SEEKING HIS PRESENCE

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READ TIME: 8 Minutes & 25 Seconds

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THOUGHTS:

======================

 When I was little, I wanted my parents to buy me this Game Boy Advance, and I asked them daily for it. They got so annoyed that they told me not to ask them anymore, but still, I asked every day because I didn’t want them to forget. For about three months, this went on and on until my birthday, and I remember as it got closer, I said Mom, could you please get me it? This was the only thing I wanted, and I remember sitting in the back seat. She took a deep breath and said Okay, Lui in a very aggravated tone.

   When my birthday came, I knew they had forgotten about it because they hadn’t given it to me at the birthday party. So, that evening, when we got home, my mom asked me what was wrong. I told her she placed this box on the table, and I just knew it was something I didn’t want, and it was the Gameboy Advance. I remember praying that night, praising God, and being so happy because I got what I wanted.

 In the same way, I asked them about that handheld being consistent and asking nonstop. That’s what God wants us to do. The verse says keep seeking, and you will find it. Often, we give up when we see no results, but God wants us to still go forward in everything, he wants us to continue to ask because he sometimes wants to see how badly we want it. When we seek spiritual gifts and blessings, we must remember that it's not about how long we have been a Christian or follower of Christ. It's about our dedication to asking, praying, and seeking God.

Verse 8: For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

It tells us that if we ask him, we will receive it; if we seek him, we will find it; when we knock, he will open the door. Sometimes, we forget how to seek God and how to seek him. We do so by reading our word; we do this by praying to him; we do this by mediation.

   When we do these things, we will draw closer to God; every day, we seek to be closer to him so we can hear him; some of us don’t hear him because we don’t make ourselves available. God wants us where we desire him; we desire to be next to him. We desire not just to seek him for things but also for his presence, which is always near us.

 Verse 9-11 You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? 10 Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! 11 So if sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him?

    God will give us good gifts when we ask. He will never give us something we don’t want, but he will give us something we need. Sometimes, what we need, we won't realize we need it until the lord reveals it to us. I know I had a lot that I didn't realize I needed. I didn’t realize he wanted me to have this until he gave it to me. When he did, it fit like a glove into my life. It fits my life so smoothly because when God opened the door when God give it to us, it was for us to succeed, not for it to be inconvenient but for it to be a convenience.

  Matthew 21:22 And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith

  This is one thing we forget when we ask him; we forget about faith, and faith plays the biggest part in our asking; without it, it’s like building something without a hammer and nails. We must apply faith when we ask God for it; it sticks everything together.

  Some things we feel are inconvenient, but we will see how convenient it is when we allow what he gives us to be in our lives. God wants to give us the best of things, and he wants us to be filled with joy, but we have to understand that when we ask, we might not get it just like that handheld; they could’ve just not given it to me, but because I kept asking and they saw it was what I wanted and it wasn’t a waste of money or anything like that they gave it to me

  God isn’t going to give us anything that’s going to block us from communicating with him. God isn’t going to give us anything that will create a distraction in our lives. God will often look at our lives and see that what I give her will create a distraction. Sometimes, it’s hard to accept that we’re not going to get what we want, but we must look at it from his point of view. God loves us so much that he doesn’t want us to be away from him, we must look at whatever is in this way will it create a bridge between God and us; sure, we can ask all we want, but if what we ask for will pull us away he’s not going to give it to us.

 *** Today, we learned about asking, it’s easy to ask for anything. We all think that God should give us what we want, but that’s not true. When I kept asking for that handheld for my parents, I knew they would give it to me because we had talked about it, but then a tiny part of me doubted it because they didn’t say yes or no. God isn’t going to say yes and no to everything we want; but we must have faith to know that he will. It’s hard to have faith; sometimes, looking at some situations is hard, but when we truly look at who God is and what his words say, he will give us the desires of our hearts as long as it’s in his will.

  Jeremiah 29:12-13 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

  How often do you seek God? Do you seek him wholeheartedly, or do you seek him just for things he can give you? We must start seeking God daily, not just for things, but just to seek him; he wants us to desire him just as much as he desires us. How often do you desire to be near God in his presence? When we pray, we are in his presence, and we meditate. We are in his presence when we read our word; he can be there too , if we ask him to, and he can teach us. How often are you seeking him , I seek him every day because I desire to be next to him. I desire to hear his voice because that’s what I need. If you’re lacking something in your life, maybe it is his presence; start seeking him today. ©Seer~ Prophetess Lee

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PRAYER

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for life, health, and strength and for loving and caring for us. Lord, we desire you so badly in our life; we desire your presence; help us to seek your presence daily. Help us to look for you and not for things, Father God; we asked you to help us understand your word today. Help us apply it to our lives, Father God; thank you. We ask you, Father God, to pour a fresh anointing onto us. We ask you for a favor in Jesus' name, amen.

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REFERENCES

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+ Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

 

+ Psalm 145:18-19 The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them

 

+ Mark 11:24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

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FURTHER READINGS

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 Proverbs 18

Deuteronomy 28

Joshua 13

1 Kings 17

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[laalaaisqueen]

Its not good and only took me 41 minutes-ish

Eyes crosseyed? Nope in your head

Ball not a perfect circle? Using the circle tool is cheating and I didn't cheat on my essays so I'm not cheating with drawing Laa-Laa

Okay I cheated by using a music note brush

[rainbowxocs]

Also it took 41 minutes to draw you, imma try all 10

YOU DONT NEED TO DRAW ALL TEN LOL I WAS JUST GIVING YOU AN EXAMPLE OF WHO THE MCS ARE

[weedsmoker09]

OH MY GOD EVERYTHING HURTS, SAVE ME- Anyways, pulled up with a Susie Campbell drawing🔥🔥🔥 IT TOOK ME 2 HOURS, 41 MINUTES, I WILL HAVE A STROKE, I CAN'T FEEL MY ARM AGAIN

[agent-bracken]

Secret New Year's Santa 2023

Hiiiii @agents-of-virtue! Happy New Year. I’m so excited to be your Secret Santa because I also have really strong opinions on latkes, wrt your Roanoke Winter post. This was really fun to write. 

Bekah checked her watch for the ninth time. December 16th, but just barely… She understood why 12:30 AM was the right time for a secret meeting in the middle of the woods, far off from any trail or manmade light source, but it was still cold and dark enough to increase the distance from home. 

At least it wasn’t snowing. That she was able to hold onto, as well as the multiple handwarmers stuffed into each of her pockets. 

12:31. 

12:40. At this point, Bekah unscrewed the lid on her thermos and took an indulgent first gulp of hot chocolate. 

At 12:41, a thin branch snapped directly northeast of her. A figure stood perfectly still, boot-clad foot held precisely at the point of the noise. It had a large, waxed canvas coat on with a hood drawn close, wisps of warm breath barely escaping a woolen scarf. The figure raised its mittened hands and lowered its hood, revealing a face both exhausted and relieved. 

“Annabelle,” Drew sighed, marching forward through the brush and giving her a hug. Though they had little time for pleasantries in such a sensitive mission, it had still been three months since anyone had seen him.

“You’re eleven minutes late,” Bekah chided, “I was going to turn around.” 

“No you weren’t.” “Was too.” 

“Was not!” Drew stifled a laugh, drawing his attention to a bird having awoken from the commotion. 

“How long do we have?” Bekah took a seat on a mossy log that had escaped most dampness from evergreen tree cover. “I brought you some first aid, painkillers.” 

Drew sat down on the ground, some of his natural playfulness overriding his carefully constructed gruff demeanor. “I have never wanted an Ibuprofen more in my life.” 

Bekah drew out a small box that had a ribbon tied around it in a bow, “Are you hurt?” 

“No,” Drew admitted, “Just to have. Just in case. How did you know?” 

“You know I just know.” Bekah passed Drew the box, and he dug out from a secret pocket on his jacket a makeshift file folder with hand drawn maps, journal entries, and whatever else he could squirrel away. 

He reached deeper into the pocket still and brought out a small burlap sack. “Something else?” Bekah asked warily, concerned about the potential of Drew stealing an artifact or item of power from a cult so difficult to be stationed in. 

“Yeah, something else.” Drew unceremoniously dumped the total contents of the bag onto the ground and dropped his mittens on top. A handful of woodchips, a lighter (precious contraband brought on the last supply run), a cast iron pan the size of his extended palm and fingers, a vial of oil the size of his pinky, a small box labeled ‘CANDLES’, and a damp bag of something that smelled vegetal. 

There needed to be few words spoken to understand the task at hand. Bekah held the flame to the woodchips and gently coaxed an ember out as Drew gathered twigs and pushed stones into a circle. 

“I put salt and pepper in with the potato,” he explained as he rummaged through another pocket, “And I tried to bring some condiments, but everything’s kind of limited out here…” 

Bekah’s stomach sank. Above the mission, the deep trust they kept to maintain Drew’s secrecy, the greater ambitions of the Roanoke cult surveillance program, and even the biting cold itself, this moment would be the ultimate decider of Drew’s allegiance, whether he knew it or not. 

“Okay,” he sighed, “So I had a few leftover eggs, so I whipped up the whites with the last dried garlic bulb-” 

“Mayonnaise,” Bekah interrupted, “You brought-” 

“Aioli,” Drew pleaded, “Garlic aioli.” 

“Fine, aioli. What else?” 

Drew palmed another vial. “Vinaigrette from the fall. I spiced it myself. One of the better downtime activities.” 

“For latkes!?” 

“Okay, but get ready for the shocker. I was on contraband duty last week, and I couldn’t believe it… Everything is in the notes, but there were these two new guys, and…” He held a small packet between his fingers. 

“Barbecue sauce.” 

“From Arby’s.” 

“Barbecue sauce from Arby’s.” 

“Isn’t it incredible?” By now, the single latke sizzled on the tiny cast iron. Bekah offered her knife to flip it with as she processed the… uh, sure, incredible experience. 

By 1:00, the latke was crispy on both sides. Bekah split it down the middle. 

“What’s it like back home?” Drew asked, melting the bottoms of seven candles to the log. 

“Same as it ever was,” Bekah joked. “We found kittens in the garage.” 

“Are you serious?!” Drew paused his work to check her expression, “How many?” 

“Five.” Noticing Drew’s well-intentioned menorah spread, she nonchalantly palmed the lighter from Drew’s hand and melted down one more candle to finish the line. “They’ll be bigger when you’re back, but they look like aliens right now. Little fuzzy aliens.” 

“Little fuzzy aliens,” Drew remarked back. He dug one more candle out of the box and handed it to Bekah. 

Bekah lit it and murmured under her breath as she lit the row of candles. 

“Sorry you’re on assignment on night eight.” 

Bekah couldn’t hold her laugh any longer. A trio of birds flapped away. “I lit candles at the motel before heading out. You didn’t have to do this.” 

Drew shrugged. “It’s still a taste of home.” He peeled away his half of the latke and coyly squeezed half the packet of barbecue sauce onto it before taking a bite. 

Bekah took a breath and held it. She glanced away at the departing birds, and checked for any sign of  human life in range of hearing or seeing them. She exhaled and held out her hand for the rest of the sauce. “This,” she sharply warned, “Does not leave the woods. We do not tell anyone back home. Not ever.” 

“I always have room for another secret,” Drew agreed. They ate as the candles burned all the way down and the fire had been smothered. By the time Bekah turned on her flashlight, Drew was gone again.

[ingek73]

Princess Kate’s new ‘ballbuster’ private secretary quit before she even started work

March 26, 2023

By Kaiser Kate Middleton, Royals

Last December, we learned that the Princess of Wales’s private secretary had “quit” months beforehand. That private secretary was Hannah Cockburn-Logie, and she was with Kate starting in May 2020. She oversaw a lot of Kate’s Early Years busy-work. Kate then went without a private secretary for months, because (big surprise) she does f–k all and her staffers get unbelievably bored. Then, in February, there was suddenly a big push – Kate hired someone named Alison Corfield, who was then described as “loud” and a “ballbuster.” Corfield never started work in Kensington Palace. She opted to keep her job with Jamie Oliver. Ouch. Interestingly enough, the Telegraph got the exclusive on this, only they changed the headline after (presumably) a bitching out from Kensington Palace. The headline went from “Princess of Wales’s new private secretary rejects job, opting to stay with Jamie Oliver” to “Princess of Wales’s new private secretary rejects job to ‘stay under the radar’.” Guess Kate didn’t want to sound like she came up short compared to Jamie Oliver? Or maybe Kate doesn’t want to sound like she also can’t keep staff longer than a minute.

The “straight talking” PR guru hired as the Princess of Wales’s new private secretary has opted to stay with chef Jamie Oliver rather than take up the role, The Telegraph can reveal.

Alison Corfield, 51, is understood to have been uncomfortable with the prospect oqqf having such a high-profile position and decided instead to remain under the radar.

The mother of three, a branding and marketing expert, has worked with Oliver for eight years. A source said: “She loves the work and is an integral member of the campaigning team. She decided she just wanted to keep her head down and get on with the job she knows so well in the background. She didn’t want the publicity that comes with working at that level for such a well-known institution.”

The decision means that Kensington Palace aides have had to return to the drawing board in their search for the ideal candidate who will play a large part in shaping the Princess’s role.

[From The Telegraph]

The bar is in hell: “Kensington Palace aides have had to return to the drawing board in their search for the ideal candidate who will play a large part in shaping the Princess’s role.” She’s 41 years old and she’s been married to William for almost twelve years. Kate shouldn’t need a staffer to “play a large part” in SHAPING her role. It should have already been “shaped” years ago. We heard, endlessly, for years and years that Kate was preparing to be Princess of Wales and queen consort, that she was so keen to finally do and be something and… nothing ever came of it. She’s Princess of Wales and she’s still dependent on hiring some private secretary who will – through sheer force of will? – suddenly make all of the lazy, incompetent pieces fit together.

Speaking of, Kensington Palace’s editing elves couldn’t make Kate sound like an educated, competent woman in her 40s discussing her life’s work. This is Kate speaking to Iceland Foods’ Richard Walker about “the science” behind Early Years. Walker even says, directly, that people are really struggling financially and Kate just breezes past that, like it would never f–king occur to her to use her position and use this time and effort to… help out struggling families. It’s insane. I have to ask again, and I know I’m a broken record about this, but Jesus H., you guys: how is she not embarrassed? Are palace staffers embarrassed about this?? I guess they are, because Alison Corfield took one look at this sh-tshow and noped out of there in a hurry.

[grumpygreenwitch]

The Witches & Wizards Jobs 17-18-19

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SEVENTEEN

I slept like I hadn't in months. Living in a constant state of anxiety will do that to you, I suppose. But I was so far from home and from the enemies and dangers of Chicago that it felt as if they were too far away to matter. Even the war seemed a thing happening to someone else. It was a dangerous feeling, particularly because the house didn't have any of the protections of my Chicago apartment, but I was too tired to care.

I woke up to an unfamiliar doorbell and my dog trying to murder me by stepping on my kidneys. That much dog euphorically walking all over you will wake you up in a hurry, if nothing else. I dragged myself out of the surprisingly comfortable bed and down the stairwell to the door.

I found my current boss there.

"Dresden."

"Ford." I was all at once as awake as someone could be, every sense sharply on the alert.

"You can't use an electric stove, can you."

Ok, not the words I'd expected to hear from the man. "Uh, I can probably do it once."

"Without setting the house on fire?"

"Fifty-fifty on that one."

"Mm. Get dressed. We're gonna pick up breakfast."

He must have seen something on my face. I'd expected a lot of things; most people see Soulgazing as a theft, or worse. Very few like what they see in me. I'd expected to be fired, or interrogated, or something in a long and extensive list. Treated to even more food had not been part of it.

Ford shrugged minutely. For once he looked put together, and it was startling. He still had that deceptively harmless quality, the feel of a man that makes friends easily. He was freshly shaved, wearing a light shirt under a summer jacket and casual slacks, all in dark, neutral tones. His hair was still damp. "I refuse to let you think Boston only wants to come at you swinging."

I opened the door wide and stepped aside. "For the record, I don't mind Boston. I just don't want to make waves."

He stepped in. Mouse sniffed him, the banner of his tail wagging sedately, and Ford distractedly rubbed his head. I don't think he even noticed he was doing it. "Is it that easy? If what happened yesterday at the museum hadn't happened, would the city still know you're here?"

"Yes."

He looked thoughtful, but merely went on his way to examine the rooms full of crates while I took the fastest shower in the world, fed Mouse some dog food that looked like it cost more than my rent back in Chicago and got into my spare clothes. We headed out into an unfairly sunny and lovely morning. Trees bordered the street, the houses gracious in their old age. Boston was lovely.

It just wasn't home.

"There is, comparatively speaking, a lot of things living in Boston that aren't human. Supernaturals move, same as us," I explained as we walked. "For work, for life, for family. That's universal. And Boston's one point where that traffic bottlenecks. A lot of them don't go any further."

"So Boston's the best they could find?" He gave me a quick, incredulous glance.

"No, the most convenient. Magic likes it when you throw down roots. You can draw power from your home in a pinch, there's protections that kinda seep into a place the longer you live in it."

"Lintel magic," he murmured.

I damn near stopped walking. It was the first time in all our dealings that I'd heard Ford use the m-word.

"My mother believed," he said after a few steps. "She'd tell me stories, the old classics, and the ones from the Old World. Fairies, wicked stepmothers, charming princes - kelpies, hounds, fairy queens…" He shrugged once again. "I'm not nearly as surprised as I should be that the reality is even bloodier."

"You stopped believing, why?"

The ice flickered briefly in his eyes. "You looked into my soul, Dresden, don't you know why?"

"It doesn't work like that. You know that, or I would already be on a train to Chicago."

He did look amused at that, snorting minutely. "Dresden, you're Crime Lite from where my people and I are standing." He marshalled his thoughts while I tried to figure out if I was flattered, insulted, or something else even more complicated. "Life got in the way. Here comes Parker."

The thief was sprinting at us. She'd probably been coming to meet everyone in the loft. "Nate! Are you getting donuts?"

"Uh, we can?"

"I want donuts."

"I want something a little more substantial than donuts," he pointed out mildly.

"Oh, fine." She peeked at me. "Are you alright?"

"I'll do better with a couple of donuts in me."

She beamed. Ford groaned. We walked down the block to a little shop by the clever name of Double-O's, which did bagels and donuts both. Ford ordered enough food to feed twenty people and we sat at one of the little tables with a couple of donuts and some coffee and they brought me up to speed on what they'd done after I'd gone down.

Parker and Eliot had moved the coffee table, and everything in it, to the storage room, and taped the key to the Witchwell. That was already a huge weight off my mind. But then the Leverage people had gone further - with the crumpled envelope, of all things.

"It's not paper, it's vellum," Ford explained while Parker demolished a donut covered in chocolate and corn flakes. "Which is just fancy paper made to imitate actual vellum."

"Expensive paper," I ventured.

"Precisely."

"There was no writing."

"There doesn't need to be. Remember the embossing on it? It's a sigil, sort of a coat of arms."

"I really, really would love to know what it is you people actually do. So you looked up this sigil thing?

"Solve puzzles." Ford didn't miss a beat. "We didn't have to. Sophie knows it by heart, it's the sigil of Christie's."

"Christie's, the British Auction House?"

"Yes."

I worked on my coffee. "I'm hoping this makes sense to you, because I'm -"

The lights above us flickered. I wouldn't have thought much of it; I was there, after all. But at one of the tables, two women snatched up their purses and one toddler, and scurried off at truly phenomenal speed.

There were advantages to having that many supernaturals around, apparently. I snatched for my wand; like a moron, I'd left my staff back at the house.

"Do not." The gratingly avuncular tone was threaded with menace.

The man in black walked sedately past the counter and the last late morning customers. Only one person reacted to his passage, a young man wearing a typical cycling outfit, a messenger bag slung across his chest. He took one look over his shoulder and bolted. No one else seemed to see him, to know he was there. They shifted out of his way because suddenly they had to reach for a napkin or a sugar packet or something else, but no one directly acknowledged his presence at all.

It was a Veil with conditions. Until that moment I'd never known a Veil could be crafted like that, with exceptions built in.

Ford put a hand on my good shoulder and shook his head minutely. I tried to relax, and managed only to pull my hand out of my duster pocket. Parker was glaring with hyperbolic fury.

"Ah, you must be the sensible one," the man in black told Ford. "What pleasant luck."

"Every now and again," Ford agreed mildly.

He turned to look at Parker. She immediately looked down at her donut and scowled.

"This modern world," the man in black mused. "One comes to find the Prince of Thieves, and it is a woman. How times change. Hands on the table, please. Where I can see them."

"Parker," Ford said quietly when she didn't move. He said nothing else; he merely let his eyes take in the dozen or so people sharing space with us and the wizard.

She obeyed, sulking all the while.

"And yours, wizard Dresden."

Gosh, I'd almost forgotten what it was like, when someone used the title to insult me. I dropped both my hands on the table and worked really hard on not curling them into fists.

"Well, isn't this nice." He sat at our table. He was wearing fully modern clothing, a high-collared white shirt, a black embroidered vest, a long black coat with silver and emerald buttons, dress slacks, expensive shoes. His black hair had been cut and combed back, and his moustache and beard were so neatly trimmed I wouldn't have been surprised to find out he'd used a ruler. He was a very pale man, and his eyes were the same luminous, poisonous green of the painting and his magic. He looked and sounded so smug it took effort not to just haul up and punch him on principle. "So very nice. You have something of mine, sir," he told Ford mildly. "Several somethings, actually." He grinned.

"That would be stealing. I don't make it a habit to confess to crimes publicly, even when I haven't committed any."

The man's eyes flashed. His mouth opened - and closed, and he looked deeply amused. "No, of course not. You have committed no crime." His voice suddenly turned into a lash. "Hands. On the table."

Parker glared at him.

"I do strive to not be a fool more than once," he told her mildly. "If you do that again, I will kill someone here. Someone you do not know. Someone who does not know you. That nice man who served you your donuts, maybe. The old lady one of your companions held the door for one time. It will not hurt you. It will just be a toothache, forever there to be worried at, because I will kill them only if you take your hands off the table. Yes?"

Parker's face had gone to stone. My hands, despite my best efforts, had curled into fists after all. Ford tightened his grip on my shoulder a little more.

"I do not see a need to make this into a quarrel," the man in black said very calmly. "My attention is on greater matters. Whatever Dresden might have told you, until the small issue at the museum, I had committed no crime."

"No c- No crime? At the very least you destroyed the MFA lab. You stole from their vaults."

"Not at all. The portrait is mine. I commissioned Sokolov for it. Beautiful work, truly. I was very pleased with it, even with the nose being wrong."

"Working from memory," Ford mused.

"Mm, as portraitists do. So you see, I was recovering my property."

"You could have gone through proper channels. That shouldn't be a hardship for a man like you."

"I am pressed for time," the man in black admitted. "Which is why I come to make you an offer."

I tensed up immediately. Ford's hand turned into a vise on my shoulder and he shot me a warning look.

"You will return my property to me. And I will not kill you. You will send Dresden home. And I will not kill him. You will forget this matter. And in three days' time, I will grant you and your people your heart's desire. Whatever it might be. Fame, fortune, revenge, knowledge. I am a man of many talents. I daresay there's very little in this world that I could not give you. One wish."

"I get to punch you once," Parker growled immediately.

The man in black blinked in surprise, and then laughed. "Well, not that."

Under the table, Parker's leg bumped lightly against mine. It was so unexpected, so out of nowhere from someone who only touched even her own teammates when she absolutely had to, that it shocked me back to my senses, and I turned my attention to her. She was scowling at the man in black from the corner of her eyes, hunched down minutely, her hands flat on the table, tension on every line of her body, and her face had the same wild expression she'd had back at the Museum, when she'd figured out how to save our asses.

I lunged at the man in black across the table. I did it slow; I already knew I was much quicker than him. For a moment I thought I was going to actually get at him, the one time I didn't care if I did, but Ford belatedly caught me. "Dresden!"

Whatever slammed into me froze me, literally. I felt my veins turn to ice, my muscles lock. Cold blasted into me, left me motionless, unable to even shiver. I could barely gasp for air, but hey, if I wasn't going to get another chance to breathe, I might as well put the one breath I had to good use. "My hands're still on the table," I hissed at the man in black.

I saw surprise and fury flash through his eyes. He'd thrown himself back and scrambled to his feet, his chair crashing to the floor. No one noticed." So they are," he gritted out, and his magic faded, letting me wheeze for breath. With an effort he turned to face Ford, the mild and cheerful facade gone behind a vulturine, sharp and predatory look that was far more appropriate. "My property. Now, if you please."

"Does that include the Burning Witch's Well?"

Surprise once again went over the angular features, quickly hidden out of sight. "Yes."

"Well, you nearly killed twenty people with it, so, uh. No."

The man in black bared his teeth and flicked his hand. The lights went out. I threw my hand up and whatever he'd meant to hit Ford with crashed instead into my shield. It sent us both skidding back until we hit a half-wall behind us, random little decorations falling off it. He looked livid; yeah, still faster than you, asshole.

"Then I will take what is mine, and enjoy the killing of you all in the process," he declared, stalking off.

Breathless or not, Nate rushed immediately after him. I turned to check on Parker. "You alright?"

"Yeah, go get him!" She was wriggling in place. "I gotta put my shoes back on!"

Her sh-

Her shoes?!

There's only so many surprises I can cope with from just one person. I ran after Ford, but he was just outside the door to the shop, looking frustrated, scanning the street in every direction.

"Don't bother," I told him. "He probably closed off the Veil he was wearing to begin with."

"You saw him."

"No. I saw a couple of ladies bolt; they're the ones who saw him. I told you; you can't hide a wizard, not easily."

Parker nearly ran into us both as she charged out the door. "Is he gone?"

"Yup." Ford had that look again, the look that said he was putting together bits and pieces into a whole no one else had even noticed was there.

A man peeked out of the shop. "Mister Ford? Your order's ready."

"Oh, good." He marched back inside.

"You picked his pockets again," I told Parker before either of us followed Ford inside, not sure if I was amused or amazed. I settled for both.

"Yeah, of course I did. You almost messed me up, though!"

"I did? I thought you were signaling me for a distraction!"

She flushed minutely. "No. Your legs are just longer than Eliot's."

"… Sorry?" She grinned a little. "So what did you get?"

She grinned even more.

EIGHTEEN

Nate charged into the loft at full speed. "Hardison, are you here yet?"

The hacker had been in the kitchen; he peeked out of the fridge. "Yeah, man. Uh, fridge's broken."

"Then replace it, landlord mine." Nate glanced at the door and added, his voice quieter. "Quietly."

Hardison's expression filled with understanding, and he nodded. "Did you get breakfast?"

"They're bringing it up. I don't promise there's any donuts left. Is everyone else here?"

"We are now." Eliot held the door open for Parker and Dresden, Sophie coming up behind them. "What's this I'm hearing, that you met the man in black?"

"We did," Nate confirmed cheerfully.

"What?!" Hardison looked stunned.

"Is everyone alright?" Sophie asked.

"Oh, yeah, everyone's fine. He just wanted to talk. Threaten us, bully us, you know, the usual. Dresden, back to your couch, I need Hardison's computers." The wizard went that way obediently, but he didn't let go of the box he was carrying, raiding its contents before he surrendered it to Eliot. Sophie followed Parker to the staging area.

"Hardison." Nate sat and stared at the screens. "The Tetryakov Gallery is the main repository of Sokolov's work. That's not just his portraits and his studies, that's also his journals, his notebooks. The records of his commissions. Do they have electronic copies of those?"

In a moment the central screen was full of documents, more and more being flicked to one side as the hacker blithely charged into presumably secured databases across the world. "Some of it."

"Cross-reference against the portrait. We might not know who the people in it are, but it's absolutely one of Sokolov's largest pieces."

"It's also a full-body portrait of two people. He preferred faces, busts, or large groups. It's unique," Sophie added.

"Give me a minute, I'm having to run all this through a translator. I don't actually read Russian."

"Sophie, Parker. Are there any big art events taking place within the next three days?"

"Yes," Parker replied before Sophie could. "A private art auction in two days." She pulled from an inner jacket pocket a small piece of paper and handed it over with a grin.

Sophie took it, read it, and passed it on. "That's what the Christie's man is here for. He's not selling, he's buying."

"He just went to all this trouble to get the portrait, and he's selling it already?" Eliot protested mildly. "Why?"

"Because in two days he won't need it anymore." Ford stared at the screen. "Dresden, the brass piping. What you meant to do with it, can you do it in the storage room as well?"

"If there's enough brass, yes."

"Do it." Nate looked at his team. "He can't find them. He came to us because whatever Dresden did worked. The key, the circles, whatever it is, they are actually doing their job and he can't find all the stuff Parker took from him. I bet he had some sort of tracker in his pockets, waiting for Parker to go for it."

"Jerk," the thief muttered, but she didn't sound angry as much as resigned. "I figured the paper was safe."

"Dresden."

Eliot brought the piece of paper to their consultant. It was a match to the envelope, heavy vellum, the ink black and gold, the writing beautifully elegant. Dresden grimaced as soon as he touched it, and lifted it up. "Nope. This is your tracker."

"I can't put it back when he just keeps being invisible!" Parker protested.

Nate gestured appeasingly. "Hardison, make a copy. We'll put the original with the rest of the stuff. I imagine next he's going to try and break in, send the leshy to fetch them, or something worse." Once again he turned to Dresden. "Can you stop that from happening?"

"Yes, but I should get started soon," the wizard had sat up straight, staring in something like wonder as, once again, Nate did what he did best.

"You've got the whole day. Sophie, you and I have a meeting for dinner."

"Fedorov?" When he nodded confirmation, she pursed her mouth. "Are you sure it's safe?"

"No. That's why we're going."

Hardison had put the invitation into a scanner that was discreetly hidden in one of the desks. He handed it back to Parker, who glared at it as if it were the man in black himself. The computers chose that moment to beep and he looked sharply up. "Found it." His fingers flew over the keyboard and he grimaced. "They're direct scans from one of Sokolov's commission journals. The OCR is having a time with it, let me see if I can make the name of the commissioner any clearer." He clipped one particular set of lines from the yellowed, faded page on the screen.

Sophie drew in a sharp breath. Eliot, who'd been coming over to take the invitation from Parker, froze.

"You're fine, Hardison. It reads fine like that," Nate murmured distractedly.

"That can't be right," Eliot muttered.

"What's been right about this job from the beginning?" Sophie countered mildly.

"What's it say?" Hardison asked.

All three of them replied at once. "Koschei."

Behind them, Dresden choked on his breakfast sandwich.

Nate clapped his hands. "This is good!"

"Good?" Eliot stared at the mastermind in disbelief. "This is good? We're going up against the main bad guy in every Russian fairy-tale ever written, someone who actually makes the Russians balk, and you think this is good?!"

"All fairy tales have their basis on something real," Sophie had sat to one side, her hands wrapped around a cup she hadn't touched yet. "Khan Koshan was a barbarian warlord, back in a time when Russia was simply Rus, 'the land'."

"It's good because we have a name," Nate explained. "And a name means a trail. Wizards might not be able to use technology - he is a wizard?" He turned to Dresden, waited for a nod to carry on. "But the rest of the world does. A name means a profile, travel records, hotels, purchases. Even if he's not using his own name, and honestly I expect he'd be the sort who would out of sheer arrogance, a name isn't the sort of thing that blows up computers, like an image does." He turned to stare at the screen. "A name gives us everything. Hardison, this isn't your usual profile, but can you give me an estimate of how long it will take you?"

"You want me to guess how long it'll take to sift through two hundred years of fairy tales to get a bead on this man?" Hardison stared at Nate.

"He's older than that," Dresden sounded off. "He's much, much older than that."

"Dresden." Nate acknowledged. "Do you have a starting point?"

Harry exhaled sharply. "Yes," he replied carefully.

The mastermind pressed his mouth into a thin line and added, "One that doesn't involve men in gray and big swords?"

"I'm working on that," Dresden admitted. "Khan Koshan is…sort of a wizardly cautionary tale. He's the only wizard anyone knows of that successfully managed immortality."

"As in he can't die, or he can't be killed?" Eliot asked.

"Both," the wizard replied grimly. "That's half the trick. You can be ageless, if you don't mind every supernatural in the world out for your blood. You can be unkillable, if you don't mind selling your soul. As far as anyone knows, he got both kewpie dolls without paying the price."

"So he's a criminal." Nate didn't look convinced.

"That's the other half, he's not. Technically." Harry seemed to measure his words with incredible care. "The best known way to be ageless is by stealing the life off of someone else. That is outright necromancy. Men in gray. Big swords."

"He's not doing that." It wasn't a question.

"No. No one knows how he's doing it, only that he absolutely doesn't age, and that he's not a necromancer."

"And he can't be killed? Hurt?" That came from Eliot, who was scowling at the very thought.

"Parker clocked him twice at the museum. Solid hits. They were gone by the time I tackled him."

"That can't be an easy trick to pull off," Sophie mused.

"It's not. What… is known is what the fairy-tales are already telling you. He cut out his own heart and hid it - he hid it so well that no one can find it, not even death."

Sophie drew in a deep breath. "The brooch. The Emerald Heart of Koschei the Deathless. The jewel that no one's ever seen, but everyone knows is real."

"Yup. Now, here I'm going on hearsay: he did it to gift it to a woman he loved. But she rejected him, and it poisoned the heart. Turned him greedy and cruel. He was going to share the trick of it with the world, up until that point. Having met the man, I think it's bullcrap. He never meant to give the secret away. He's just spinning some PR to make himself look the victim, not the villain."

"That tracks," Nate agreed.

"Is that what he's after?" Eliot turned. Hardison had put up a picture of the portrait on one of the screens, deeming it safe enough since no phones had been sacrificed in the acquisition of it.

"The placement of the lock would seem to hint at it," Sophie agreed, but she saw Nathan frown minutely.

Surprisingly, it was Dresden who sounded off. "Why? It's been safe all this time, impossible to find. Why bother now, why bother at all?"

"Mm." Nate stared at the painting. "Dresden, do you mind shouting across the room?"

"I like it better than the alternative."

"Then I'd like you to work with Hardison on the profile, but the security around the things we took from Koschei takes priority. Eliot, you're with them. Sophie, Parker, we're going to find out what we can about this private auction."

"I bet Jess knows," Parker suggested.

"Start there, then. Dresden." It was Nate's turn to choose his words very carefully. "Is this something you should report to your people?"

The wizard looked surprised to even be considered on that regard. "Technically."

"We're flying on a lot of 'technically's here," the mastermind muttered.

"I mean, I can't use a cellphone. I'd have to find a landline." A little smirk ghosted over Harry's features making him look, for a fleeting moment, young. "The only ones I know of are back in Chicago."

Nate didn't smile, but it was a close thing.

NINETEEN

To be fair, I did get why Ford called it 'wanton destruction of property'. Eliot just looked way too gleeful wielding a power tool. And it absolutely wasn't because I was a little bit jealous that he got to use the fun toys, like a nail gun. Cordless drill. Power sander.

Nope, not jealous at all.

So the morning went with Eliot in my basement and me out in the yard entertaining Mouse, and the hitter occasionally stopping long enough to relay a question from Hardison back at the loft.

Then he ran out of iron nails. That wasn't anyone's fault, I'd asked for enough for a few spells, not enough to line the doors and windows, which was what it would take to keep the leshy out. No shield or barrier I could think of was going to keep a Golden Bear out, obviously. And I couldn't imagine anyone had ever come up with something to keep Koschei out, it would have been the stuff of legends. No, the point was the circle, and the ward inside, a copy of the pattern on the key.

Hey, if it worked for Koschei it was good enough for me.

Eliot took off to get more nails. Hardison didn't want me near the loft while he worked on a little joint project I'd suggested. Which gave me the perfect opportunity to head into my shiny new basement, close my shiny new circle for protection, and break out Bob.

I'd honestly thought about leaving Bob behind. My apartment might not look like much, but there were protections on it that only living for years in the same place can create. My laboratory, the sub-basement, was not only protected but hard to find. There was a better than good chance that Bob would be reasonably safe. But better than good was no perfect. And powerful and knowledgeable as Bob was, he still lived in a skull, and skulls are fragile. I wasn't worried about any of the many enemies in my life breaking in and finding him nearly as much as I was about them breaking in and not realizing how valuable he was while they wrecked the place.

In any case, I'd brought him with me. I hadn't expected we'd do much. I figured I could let him loose for a little while, if nothing else, and use that later as, heh, leverage when I needed his help. But that had been before I realized the size of the mess in Boston. I brought my rucksack down to the basement, found three boxes that had been on the Endless List, and put the skull on top of them. "Wake up, Bob."

The spirit's eyes lit up like candles, and immediately blazed and sparked like fireworks. "Whoa!"

"Yeah, welcome to Boston." I knew exactly how he felt. I put the sack on the shiny new workbench and sat on the shiny new stool.

"Ooof, headrush." Bob sorted himself out faster than I had, and his eyes rolled all around the sockets as he took in his surroundings. "Nice place. These Leverage people are taking good care of you, I see. Did you ever find out what it is they do?"

"I'm working on it."

"You know, Harry, it wouldn't have killed you to put me on a window during the train ride. It's been forever since I've really traveled."

"I was asleep for most of it."

"Liar," Bob sang back. "Are you wearing a sling?"

"I was trying to sleep for most of it. And yes." The shoulder was only occasionally throbbing, but Eliot had been very clear about wearing the sling as long as possible. "The Leverage people seem to have stepped into something a little beyond everyone's paygrade."

The spirit scoffed minutely. "Mortals."

"I'm not sure I'd have the arm to put in a sling if it weren't for them, so let's skip the pleasantries about that. I need to make a quick veil-shielding charm."

"Harry, you can't do that, you know that. A charm that can defend against a Veil needs to be attuned to, if not the Veil, then the wizard casting it, else it burns up."

"I'm fine with it burning up. I just need it to last five minutes. Two even." I couldn't even imagine the sheer amount of mayhem any of these people could do in two minutes. Or less, but I was trying to play it safe.

"What a waste of magic," Bob scoffed.

"Bob, focus. These are the same people who got you the boxes you're sitting on." The skull was sitting on top of three boxes full of paperback romances. I didn't question his unlife choices and Leverage hadn't questioned mine.

The spirit's attention turned inward briefly. "Well, I'm suddenly feeling a lot more generous toward our hosts," he declared, far too chipper. "Also, this city's making my teeth buzz. Anything that takes attention away from that is welcome."

"Oh, I have lots more questions for you, don't worry. The charm?"

"Did you bring the Vivendum with you? Page 253. By the way, Gottridge is lying, the charm works just as well in metal as it does glass, as long as it's not iron or lead."

I lifted one of the pins I'd found in the Lost & Found box. "How about pewter?"

"Ooo, tin and copper, perfect. If you get lucky, there might even be silver in there."

I found the Vivendum Grimoire, one of the books I'd brought with me from Chicago, found the spell to enchant the charms, and started rummaging about for sympathetic ingredients. Magic's all like that: sometimes you need something specific, but for the most part as long as you have something that sorta resonates with what you mean to do, you're fine. I found a heavy mortar and pestle first, and started throwing things in there: a lens and some colorful beach glass, a few plastic whistles. I tore strips out of a sheet of sandpaper, and emptied a bottle of perfume in. Then I started looking about for something to fill in the fifth slot. Gottridge recommended cheese, but everyone agreed that the man had had a dairy allergy.

"Rice," Bob said in a long-suffering tone. "Rice, Harry. If you cannot go to one extreme, go to the other."

I threw my last ingredient in, covered the mortar and started grinding. "Next question. Can you make a suppression spell into a suppression potion?"

Bob sucked in a breath. How, I didn't know, given he lacked every single element needed for it. "Yes, but it's not gonna taste good. Among other things."

"Other things?" I asked in between working the pestle.

"Think, Harry. The point of a spell is that you can dismiss it at will. If you drink the suppression, how are you going to dismiss it if you need your magic?"

"Can it be done so it's on a timer?"

"Tricky, but doable. And it's still going to taste like the bottom of a ditch. Why are you wearing a sling?"

"Because I dislocated my shoulder last night. Work out the recipe, please." The pestle began grinding more smoothly, so I gave all my focus to the spell. Bob knew better than to distract me, though I could all but feel those witch-light eyes burning into my back.

It wasn't hard, particularly because I didn't need it to be efficient, or good. Like I'd told Bob, I just needed the charms to do their thing long enough for my employers to get wise to a bad situation and bail. I worked the spell into the ingredients until I had fine, dust-colored dust on the bottom of the mortar; I scooped that into an empty salt shaker, sprinkled it all over the dozen or so pins I had ready, covered it all with a dish-cloth with sunflowers printed on it and left the magic to cook.

"You've been here barely a day and you dislocated you shoulder already?" Bob burst out as soon as the cloth settled.

"The suppression recipe, please."

"Harry!"

"It wasn't by choice!"

"That's worse!"

"Bob… These people live and work and do everything on computers. The suppression potion, please. Besides, they put it back already."

I got a recipe, and about ten minutes' worth of being lectured in between every step and ingredient, where Bob knew I couldn't get away or complain too much. "What do these people even do, did you ever figure that out?"

"Nope, and at this point I don't want to. Next question: what would it take to summon a Golden Bear out of the Nevernever?"

Bob went quiet. You wouldn't think this a bad thing unless you knew Bob. Unfortunately, I knew Bob.

"I mean, a couple of the wizards on the Council might be able to, if they can find one. If they can convince it to come through. Things that big, they don't like it on this side, Harry. It takes too much effort and they're not bright enough to put in the work themselves."

"Let me rephrase," I said as I tried to figure out if I had half the things I needed for the suppression potion. "What would it take for someone to instantly summon a Golden Bear out of the Nevernever to do their bidding?"

Bob went quiet again. His eyes were staring at me with an almost solid weight. "Harry, what aren't you telling me?"

"Too hard? Ok, here's another one: tell me every you know about Koschei."

The silence went on for so long that I would've thought him gone if it weren't for the eyes pinned on me. "Harry."

"Yeah?"

"Call the Council."

"Not an option."

"Harry, I know you. If you're asking leading questions about Koschei, it's because you've already met the man. You know for a fact he's here. You are involved, and that is the least safe thing you could be. This is beyond you, Harry. This might be beyond the Council, but at least if you call them it'll be them dying, not you." Bob was sounding very clipped and rushed; it was something I very rarely heard from him, I guess because when you're stuck in a skull there's not much to make you afraid anymore.

"I can't. Not with the War going on. Even if I did manage to get through to someone, I have no way of knowing if they'd have anyone to send. I'm here, now. This is the job."

"You can't take Koschei on! Harry, that's beyond suicide. He has a reputation for holding grudges for a reason!"

"That's a problem for future me. Present me still needs to know everything you can tell me about him -"

"I will not!"

"-because if you don't he's still coming after me, I just won't know when or where or how."

The skull somehow blew me a raspberry, and let out a highly infuriated sound. "What did you do?!"

I brought him up to speed while I worked on attuning a couple of compasses to the chalk I'd scrawled on the back of the portrait. Odds were the painting -sorry, the portrait- would be protected with the same anti-tracking magic on the key, but just in case it wasn't I wanted some way for the others to follow and find it, not just me.

"So he's here for his heart?" Bob saw me grimace as I worked. "You don't think so."

"No. It's been safe all this time, Bob, he has no reason to look it up now, particularly not so openly, so blatantly. If he just wanted the heart he could've gone into the museum at night, broken in by magic and taken it. No, he wants that portrait for another reason."

"And you're sure the woman's the Hag herself?"

"Ford thinks so. I haven't met her."

"I still don't like it."

"Oh, I'm thrilled as peaches about it, Bob," I told him, and all the sarcasm I'd learned from the damn skull came out with the words. "Really. I've met the man twice and both times he wiped the floor with me. I'm sure earning my paycheck."

"Harry, no one could ever pay you enough to face off against the Raven." Bob's voice went to a quieter note. "You're alive. Take the win."

"What'd you say?"

"I said take the win, you -"

"No, I mean, what'd you call him?"

"The Raven? The Blackbird? I wouldn't even be saying his name if we weren't in a circle that I'm sure you've closed. He's one of those people who are deeply attuned to any attention coming their way. You know the type. Opera singers. Politicians."

"So he can tell when someone says his name?"

"If he's listening. If he knows the person saying it. If there's enough intent, like with any other sort of magic. Why?"

I closed my eyes and focused on that morning. Koschei hadn't actually met Sophie; the vault hallway of the MFA had been dark, and I'd drawn his attention away just long enough that, by the time he'd caught up to us, Sophie had already bolted to go get Eliot.

Eliot, he knew. Unfortunately.

But he didn't know Ford. They hadn't even traded names at the bagel shop. More, Ford didn't believe. It didn't matter that he'd seen me actually throwing magic around, he was more like the sort of person I'm used to, the ones who wanted to explain it all away and forget it had ever happened.

So, just as we'd expected, he probably had a nebulous idea of where his stuff was - somewhere on the block, if he'd sniffed me out already. But he wouldn't know precisely where, and with the anti-tracker in place, he never would. "See, that's the sort of thing I need to know. How about sharing some fairy tales with me while I work on the suppression potion?"

Bob wasn't happy about it, but he also had a vested interest in keeping me alive, and it was going to be hard enough without suggesting one of his usual bargains. I spent the next hour setting up and preparing the suppression potion while he told me old Russian fairy tales and scared the crap out of me.

And yet.

The thing was, whenever I was on a case, things were usually happening so fast, coming at me from every direction, that most of the time I wasn't acting, I was reacting. That wasn't happening with the Leverage people; it couldn't. Whatever came at them, one of them knew how to deal with it and the rest knew to follow through.

Which included me.

I'd never realized it before, because I usually worked alone. I didn't have time to think through what I was doing, I barely had time to catch my breath, keep all my body parts attached to the body in question. But working with other people, capable people, I'd held my own. It wasn't gonna save me from Koschei, but it was kind of enlightening to know I could keep up with some of the smartest folk I'd ever met. Even if they were suspiciously criminally inclined.

I got the potion sorted out, dipped my finger and tried a taste, since I was pretty sure I was done doing magic until lunch, at the very least. It tasted about as bad as I'd expected. "Hey, Bob?"

"I don't have a tongue, I'm not tasting it for you."

"It's not that. I was just thinking, if you can see what's in those three boxes, you can probably do a general inventory -"

"Oh, here we go with the drudgery."

"- and I need to know if I've got what I need to make a mirror-mask -"

"Hey, Harry!" Eliot called out somewhere above me. "You home?"

"Inventory, Bob."

"There better be another box in it for me," he grumbled.

"Thanks." I stepped forward and focused on breaking the circle, except as soon as I stepped up to it it disappeared.

Right, suppression potion.

"Dresden!"

"Down here!" I set my foot on the stairs.

The doorbell rang. It was about as old as the house, and it seemed to be holding up well in my presence. It was certainly loud enough to nearly make me jump off the stairs. Eliot had just opened the basement door up top, and I saw him snap around like a wolf scenting prey. He put up a hand; I'd seen enough of the man to stop dead where I was.

He walked out of sight. I couldn't even hear his steps on the wooden floors. I only knew where he'd gone when the front door opened. I heard a woman's voice, I heard Eliot saying something back before he called out, "Dresden, someone here to see you."

That, I wasn't expecting. I trotted up the stairs, closed the door; Mouse was waiting for me there, ears perked and tail on the alert. He whuffled a warning.

Eliot shot me an equally wordless warning with his eyes before he stepped back, away from the door. There was a woman there with a kid, a young girl. I'm not good with children but she was old-ish, maybe twelve. Something like that.

When someone talks about someone who's not classically beautiful? The woman was the very definition of it. She was short, solid, very curvy, but even when she was just standing there there was a grace, a sort of unbreakable dignity that made you take notice. She was wearing a very prim business suit, gray skirt and jacket, white silk shirt, black shoes. She had dark hair done up in a very severe bun, dark skin the color of copper, sharp features mixed in with soft curves. Her eyes were black as midnight, with a ring of gold.

Her daughter had the ghost of her mother's beauty; she was quickly growing into it, though there was a bit of lanky to her that said her father was probably taller, definitely skinnier. She was wearing some sort of uniform, gray pleated skirt and white shirt, and she looked scared; she took one quick peek at me and immediately pinned her eyes down, but it was long enough for me to see she had her mother's eyes.

"You are wizard Dresden?" The woman had a thick, nearly impenetrable accent. She also had a printed sheet of paper with, of all things, my ad on the Chicago Yellow Pages on it. "Lost Items Found?" she recited.

"Uh -" I'm not good when I'm not under pressure. I usually get myself all hyped up and ready when I have to talk to a customer, be it on the phone or in my office back in Chicago. It didn't help when she suddenly started talking in a language that sounded a little bit like music and a lot like nothing I'd ever heard before. "Whoa. Ma'am. Ma'am, please."

"She wants to know if you're the man from the ad." Eliot's frown had changed to a look of curiosity.

"You sp -? What is sh -?"

"Wampanoag. Algonquian. It's a native - hold on." The woman had kept on talking, faster and faster, and Eliot put his hands up to stop her. "Ma'am, please, wait a minute -"

"Ma'am, he's human!" I shot at her, hating that I had to.

It worked. Her eyes went wide, and her mouth fell open. She stepped back. "Sorry! Sorry! Am sorry! Am so sorry! I say nothing!"

Eliot fell back, confused, so I stepped forward. "It's fine. It's fine, ma'am. Yes, I'm Harry Dresden. Can we please move this inside?" I thought for a moment she was just going to bolt, but obviously whatever had made her track me down sight unseen, in Boston, had more weight than her fear of humans and she stepped in, her daughter keeping close.

"Dresden, what was that?" Eliot muttered.

"There's a thousand humans for every single supernatural in the world, and most of them come out shooting if they get so much as a whiff of anything weird. Never sell yourself short in a fight, Eliot, not that I think you would. Humans are the tactical nuke of the supernatural world."

"And scary accordingly?"

"It's just safer if humans don't find out what lives around them. Safer for everyone involved."

"Hardison wants to know why you're not blowing up the earbud."

"Suppression potion. Long story. No magic for me right now. I'd take it out, it's gonna wear off any minute."

We sat down. Mother and daughter laced hands, and the woman said something. Eliot opened his mouth, but the kid beat him to it. "We don't want any trouble. We didn't know you had humans with you. We don't know what the rules are for people in other cities."

"I'm a little looser on the rules than most wizards. Now, I'd love to ask how you tracked me down, but I'm more interested in why."

"I found you on the internet," the girl replied. "I told my mom. We had a friend sniff you out. It wasn't hard." The mother said something. "He said you smell like big water, like a lake."

"You found him by his smell?" Eliot sounded stunned. She shrugged. Her mother said something and he frowned. "I'm not sure I got that right, it wasn't Algonquian."

"It was Welsh," I said. "Wasn't it?" I looked at the two ladies sitting on a couch that had been, until five minutes ago, still wrapped in plastic. "Because there's no word for 'selkie' in the local tongue."

The mother finally found her courage. "You help us. You find lost items, yes? You help."

Well, the next part was gonna suck. I've been the victim of my share of raw deals in my day. There's been a lot of times when I've had to sit down, shut up and take it when someone's doling out misery. I'll never agree to leaving someone in that kind of situation, but there's rules of magic even I can't bend. "Not this one, no. Ma'am… did he take it fair?"

She drew herself up proudly. "Never fair. Never. You know, wizard. You know this."

"Wait, selkie, as in, the selkie? Seal-woman?" I saw Eliot go through every stage between disbelief and understanding in under five seconds. Then I saw dark, cold rage blot out the sunshine. "Her skin. Someone took her skin."

"Someone took her skin, what, twelve, thirteen years ago?" I asked the kid.

"Fourteen," she replied haughtily.

"That deal's done. It's like signing a contract, you might not like it, but you're stuck with it. The penalties for breaking it are… severe. And interfering is tricky. Interfering with magic into a selkie marriage tends to rebound, ricochet. Like a bullet. "Ma'am, I can't help you, I'm just - I'm a wizard. The rules apply to me same as everyone."

"No!" She snapped at me. "I no say -" She growled in frustration, then looked at her daughter and took a deep breath. "He find my skin. Take. Is law. I know. I no need you find my skin, wizard. I need you find my daughter's skin."

Oh, Hell's Bells.

Both Eliot and I turned to stare at the girl. Thirteen, fourteen years old. In some places, to some men that I couldn't legally set on fire, she was ready to be married.

"He took your daughter's skin," Eliot sounded ready to murder someone.

"Yes. You find."

"I'm… working -"

"Can you find her skin, Dresden?"

"There's a few things I could try?"

He smiled at the two seal-women. It almost looked like his usual sunshine smile, but I could see the murder still lurking somewhere behind it. "We'll do what we can, ma'am."

She sagged with relief and reached for her purse. "I pay -"

"No payment required," he told her pleasantly.

"But we'll need as much information as you can give us about your -" Even knowing Eliot felt the same as I did, even knowing I had both backup and permission to act, I still wanted to set someone on fire. I did my best to smile instead. Smile and reassure. "- your husband."

She had it all typed up neatly in another piece of paper she pulled out of her sensible purse, as well as a few hairs in a bit of plastic wrap and her contact information, which directed us to Sannah, her daughter. We saw them to the door, waved them away, and Eliot turned to face me. "Dresd- " The little bit of suppression potion I'd tasted chose that moment to run out, and he yanked the earbud out as it screeched angrily. He drew in a deep breath. "Is that for real? Someone took her skin and she had to marry him?"

"Yeah. Crap deal, with magic and hope keeping them tethered. As long as there's even a chance to get her skin back, she'll do anything, put up with anything."

His hands curled into fists. It took him a few moments and a couple of deep breaths to get past the first crest of anger; he was better at it than I was, I'd known about selkies for so much longer, and I was still angry at the whole situation. "So, how do you normally handle something like this?"

"Uh, I go to the library, look up the guy. Tail him, on foot or by magic, see if he goes any place that isn't home or work. Find out where the skin is, report back to her with the location."

"Wh- That's it? There's no… explosions, no fighting?"

"He's human. Anyone else would know to give the skin back. A selkie's skin is bad luck on an impressive scale to anyone but the owner, it's why you can't use magic to break up the marriage."

"So he'd be using human means to keep the skins." He looked very thoughtful.

"Probably, yes."

A slow, wicked grin bloomed on the man's face that made me feel as if we were about to do some very bad things to some very bad people. It was a good feeling after having Koschei wipe the floor with us. Me, mostly. "Good. Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"Out of the dark ages and into the age of the geek. Unless you're in the middle of something?"

"Nothing that can't wait." Yeah, ok, I was curious to see how Leverage dealt with a supernatural challenge, even if it was a relatively minor one.

[rikeijo]

Today's translation #393

Ferbi vol. 41, Sayo Yamamoto's interview

Part 5.

-- When did you start to feel that the effort you put in is paying off?

Y: I think it was the ending of TRAVA, that I've talked about a moment before. When I was at uni, I really loved a band called Mott the Hoople. An ex-keyboardist from that band, Morgan Fisher, wrote the music for that ending. I was very excited that I could work with somebody like that, so I felt a sense of accomplishment then, or should I say - my fangirl heart was very satisfied. What's more, in case of TRAVA, there was only me, and Koike-san, and color setting staff working on the project... It was a very small team. Koike-san was drawing sketches, which I then reworked into key frames and movies. Matching backgrounds with animation before recording was also done by me and Koike-san. After the recording was finished, we had to transport the product to Tokyo Laboratory, Ltd. [for post-production], and then we went to sleep, while waiting for the finished product. When it was ready we check every frame on a big screen by ourselves - that is how the production looked like (laugh).

-- Sounds a bit like an independent production (laugh).

Y: Yeah, like something that an art student would make... Imaishi Hiroyuki and Kitakubo Hiroyuki also took part in TRAVA project, drawing storyboards. There wasn't anyone like that at Madhouse Studio, and to me that was a huge stimulus. I personally went to Gainax to get [finished materials] for the cuts that Imaishi-san worked on. I received a very thick and heavy stack of rough layouts for his maybe a 5-minute part.