#I can just sit there and draw triangles without necessarily having to think about it that hard

[lothbats9000]

I've added triangle boy to the collection! :D

And here be a little link to square boy if you want it

(Also some progress images and the reference photo :)

[unknownjpegs]

benny

The loud crack wakes him up. His whole body flinches in the lecture hall seat, hands grasping the edges of the plastic desk as though clinging to it. When he comes into consciousness, Ben sucks in a gasp that gets stuck in his chest. The room is blurred together, a haunting mess of colors for a moment that resembles something from a Carpenter movie. Then it swirls together, dissolves into clarity.

His classmates—his professor.

“Sleeping again?” Dr. Langley stares down at him from behind her oversized, turquoise frames. Her pinched turtle mouth goes more thin when he doesn’t immediately respond. Ben can’t find his voice, though. His hand slips over the textbook (it’s cool and smooth, a sensation he’d always loved)—he envisions her plucking it from his desk and then letting it drop next to his sleeping head. The sound rings slightly.

The Air Force had not left him with the best ears.

Benny’s tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, dry and numb. His lips feel equally as dehydrated, chapped and raw. He hadn’t noticed himself nodding off; and he shouldn’t have anyway. The thermos on his desk (plastered in little stickers of video game characters he couldn’t name) is nearly empty of the acidic black coffee he’d poured into it that morning. He blinks a few times, his cheeks warming as his peers continue to stare—he prepares something to say—

“Jonathan,” the professor drawls out. Whatever he had dies in the firing synapses of his brain as the older woman tosses her shawl around her shoulders. Ben’s shoulders raise like instinct, curl up near his ears. She raises a brow ever so slightly higher on her wrinkled forehead. “Perhaps stop sleeping in the closet you do your work in and get a proper bed?”

A few snickers whisper through the lecture hall. Benny sinks further down the plastic seat, knees knocking against the underside of the desk. His hand slides the textbook toward himself, which feels oddly similar in that moment to a small child finding comfort in a teddy bear. The insult isn’t necessarily a bad one—he’s heard worse. Benny’s said worse to people. Graduate students often come equipped with nasty remarks and thick skin to withstand the volley of them back.

And yet, his eyes stay down for the remainder of the lecture. Open and awake, but still down.

—

When the room clears, Dr. Langley seems unsurprised that he’s still there.

She doesn’t give him attention right away, of course, but her pinched look says disappointed, not surprised. Benny stands in front of her desk as she flits about. Pretending perhaps to clean, to look at the white board, to examine her watch and then finally approach and sit down. She can’t weigh more than ninety pounds and yet she settles herself into the chair with the airs of someone who must rearrange to get comfortable. She crosses a leg and then uncrosses it and then tidies up the stray hairs of her bun and then she leans across the desk and corrects a photo of an ugly white dog on her desk.

“I f-filled out that section for a reason,” Ben says thinly. There is a headache forming behind his left eye. Something piercing and particularly cruel, something with teeth and claws. Something that threatens the rest of his day, when he has so much fucking work to get done.

“Elaborate,” Dr. Langley requests, looking at him from over her those oversized frames. Benny thinks they’re fake. They have that dangling, obnoxious chain so she can take them off and leave them hanging around her neck. He’s never been able to put a pattern together of when she goes without them—to read small print or look somewhere in the distance? He doesn’t like that it feels nebulous. That she just sort of wears glasses when she feels like it.

“Before the st-start of semester. I f-fi-f—” He pauses. She waits. “I filled out—I put down th-that I prefer Ben. You sent out that email—”

“Well,” Dr. Langley draws the word out, severing his sentence before he can finish it. She folds her thin, pale hands in her lap. Makes a triangle shape with them, like a mediation technique. “I ignored that, Jonathan.”

He’d prefer it if she just stood and fucking slapped him. It would be easier to handle. It would be less embarrassing. It would hurt less. He grinds his teeth together so hard he thinks he hears them creaking together. Benny slowly exhales through his nose and then holds up a hand. He makes a flat gesture with it.

“Are you asking me why?” When he nods, she laughs. It’s sharp and condescending, a quick burst of air. A little bit of haughty arrogance, as though he’s challenging her on something. Her ground, in her lecture hall (it’s shared, actually, he knows that, another professor gets this hall in an hour and maybe she has to put the fucking dog photo away when he does).

“I ignored it because it wasn’t for you.” She leans forward on the desk, putting elbows to it. Her shawl slips a bit across her bird like shoulders. She’s wearing a mostly beige ensemble today, something expensively soft looking. “When I ask my students their preferred pronouns, their preferred names, I’m not asking cis white men what their nicknames are.”

For a brief moment, he entertains the thought of leaning on her desk as well. He thinks of spreading his hands over the thin, pale wood, he thinks of how that might make her reconsider. Benny knows what the slightest shift of his heavy weight forward can do, what the reveal of tattooed hands can do, what his awful, sneering smile can do. What he looks like when he’s angry. What his eyes can do to people if they look at them too long. He imagines her shrinking back in fear, imagines her ugly dull brown eyes widening with it.

He imagines his father.

“Please,” Benny snaps out. His hands curl and uncurl by his sides. “It’s n-not a nickname. It’s what I go by.”

“As gender defiant as you seem to be—” her gaze flicks to his hands.

He’d forgotten that Nomi had painted his nails recently, some little swirling design because she was trying to get good enough that neither she or Matilda would have to pay to have them done. Hot embarrassment flashes across him for some reason, even though he’d been happy to let her. Had enjoyed watching her concentrate, had been pleased with the way it looked, had loved her leaning in and giving his knuckles small appreciative kisses. He isn’t embarrassed by any of that and he isn’t sure why Dr. Langley instills such a shame in him anyway.

“It stands. That section of the email was not for you.” Benny tries to remember to breathe. His face feels burned away, flesh peeled, vulnerable bone revealed. He blinks at her owlish expression. There is a hint of condescending pride underneath it all. What an ally. What a good person. What a win for the Transgenders (capital T) of their university, to have this woman on their side.

He thinks of his father again and in that moment of shame and humiliation, he lets himself take one trait from the tree as a vile little treat—Benny slams the door shut when he leaves, just like his father used to, all the time.

—

“You have to tell someone.”

“Nomi,” Ben moans the word out, head falling back like a cords been cut. He slips further in the office chair he’d stolen from the science department. One knee bounces in anxious rhythm as he flicks a page in one of his many notebooks. His messy handwriting, only legible to him, suddenly seems very illegible. Nomi lays on his bed, tantalizingly mostly nude, and not even remotely indulging him (she had, actually, an hour prior, when they’d fallen into that bed and she’d been yanking his jeans open with an excited laugh).

Only, Benny, post sex and in that wildly strangely raw emotion that sometimes came with good sex (and sex with someone who mattered, who cared, who made it good) had opened up about Langley. Had spilled the entire scene to her, word for word. Had imitated the womans delicate, purposeful gestures and her shrunken facial expressions. He sits there now, in the chair he’d stolen with just briefs and socks on and Nomi, there, in a stolen tank top that doesn’t fit laying in his bed.

“No, like, I’m bein’ serious, though? Don’t you have someone you can report her to? That’s heinous of her, Ben. Real heinous.”

He loves the way she clips her words out. Posh accent so cute, especially when she’s annoyed. He wants to think about that, instead of what she’s pressing in on. The wound. The insufferable, never healing gash in his side. The festering, infected, impacted wisdom tooth he’ll never have removed. Benny flicks another page in his notebook, not really looking at it. Fear crawls over his skin, like insects pricking their way through his body hair. He swallows a thick feeling in his throat.

When silence sits between them, Nomi realizes too quickly that something is actually wrong. Not that he was venting about a fucked up teacher or school. He did that plenty, he complained about classes to her constantly. Nomi was subject to non stop discussion of how academia was evil, soul sucking, miserable, for fucking idiots that were too smart. She stands from the bed and crosses to him.

Benny wants to look up at her and feel—like he feels so often—absolutely stunned that she was at all, ever, interested in him. He wants to feel awed and in love and happy and excited and horny and all the other feelings that she manages to make tumble out of his big, blond fucking head. Instead, a prickling sensation in his eyes makes his entire face fall. Instead, he sort of just feels pathetic and exhausted.

“Oh, baby,” she murmurs, brushing a hand through his hair. She pulls him in with arms around his shoulders. Benny’s head tucks into the softness of her stomach. She runs fingers through his stringy hair. “Baby, baby, baby,” she mumbles in mock imitation of him. It makes him shudder, and then Benny does what he probably really needed to do.

He cries for a while and she holds him and lets him.

—

“Nomi told me.” Maran’s voice is a little warbled over the poor connection.

“That fucking snitch,” Benny mumbles, around the string on his hoodie. It’s properly gross and wet with spit, chewed nearly flat between the meanness of his molars. The laptop screen is the only light on in his room, making his already sensitive eyes hurt. It’s bright outside where Maran is—eight in the morning. Benny had set his alarm, because for some reason Maran was an early riser. Liked to swing over to Benji’s mom’s for breakfast like the sneak he was. Benny rarely missed a morning call, even though eight was three his time.

And three am was either precious studying time, or a cat nap.

“Hey!” Maran reprimands. The screen goes briefly dark and then lights up again, with the short adjustment of outside to indoors. His heart flutters a bit to realize he’s started memorizing these places Maran’s at, over there. Kay’s house, a park he likes, his own room. “Don’t call her that.”

“Well she is a sn-snitch,” Benny argues, spitting the string out.

“I’ll break up with you,” Maran threatens. The display shifts around some more, because he simply can’t sit still and his phone isn’t always the best for these sort of long distance video calls. But Benny had needed to see Maran, not just hear him. He had needed to see him smile, to watch the way his freckles wrinkled in his cheeks. He wanted to see the new hair color, he wanted to reach through his laptop and pull Maran back to the US and kiss him.

Benny missed him so much it felt like an ever present migraine. A never ending when will you come back, I miss you, come back that just kept repeating inside the throb of that headache.

“Neither of you are ever br-breaking up with me. I know how t-to make nail bombs.”

“He is so kiddin’ Mr. CIA agent inside the laptop.”

“Fuck the CIA. Fuck the feds too, in case th-they’re also listening. And fuck—”

“Ben,” Maran interrupts with a loud laugh. He’s back outside, the dull, gray light of England spilling around him. It’s nice here, Benny thinks. Come back, where it’s sunny. Please.

“She’s right, you know,” Maran continues. He’s paused, leaned against a brick wall, to look at his phone. Benny can see a visage of himself in the corner and it’s none too flattering. He’s washed out even more pale than he usually is because of the computer light. The hood of his sweatshirt is up, but his blond hair peeks out around his face. He hasn’t been sleeping well—he hasn’t been sleeping—so his eyes are sunk in the sockets. Benny gets nervous looking at himself like that, knowing that’s what Maran is seeing. He scrubs a hand over his face.

“If we h-had a dollar for every time Nomi was fucking right, we’d b-be billionaires.”

“You’re deflecting.”

“You’re needling,” Benny snips back, with narrowed eyes.

“I’m worried,” Maran replies, with just as much edge to his voice. It makes Benny feel guilty, immediately. This wasn’t how he wanted the call to go. He wants to rewind, to go back to when Maran had picked up and said his name in that breathy excited way. He wanted to tell a funny story about Lark to make him laugh. He wanted to ask about how Maran’s mom was—who made him endlessly nervous, because she knew about him now and he wasn’t sure what to do with that info.

Benny’s eyes stray away from the laptop for the first time since Maran’s face had appeared on screen.

“Mar,” he starts. He has to clear his throat suddenly, because it feels tight and wet. “If I tr-tried to talk about it to someone—they’d ju-just ask—I don’t want to have to ta-talk about it.”

“But it’s—”

“Drop it,” he seethes between tight teeth. “I’m n-not explaining to s-some fucking admin that I don’t go by m-my first name because of my dad.” It feels strangely juvenile to refer to him that way. Sometimes, to Benny, his father was Jonathan. He was Jonathan Lee Benson, who went by both names professionally because he liked the way it sounded. They take a man seriously when he’s got a good name, that’s why I gave you mine, Jonathan Lee Benson Jr. has a ring to it and they’ll respect you for that.

His father was Jonathan, which was why he couldn’t be Jonathan.

Maran’s eyes look soft and unhurt. Benny’s bite had not broken skin, but his stomach still felt sour with it. He rubs palms across his eyes again, sinks further into the bed. He shifts the laptop so it’s closer. Benny wedges himself against the corner, so he can stay seated, without really putting in effort.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says.

“I love you, Ben,” Maran replies in such an honest way that it makes Benny feel golden all over. Worthy of that sentence, even when he’d been so nasty just moments before. He’s briefly reminded of laying in bed with Nomi, her hair messy and him feeling like he could say anything and she’d still feel the exact same about him. Benny sniffs and rubs his knuckles underneath his nose.

He repeats it back, even when it’s odd on his tongue and he can’t imagine it has that same effect for Maran. It can’t feel the same, like warm honey poured all over. But Maran still smiles at him, that blinding beautiful boyish smile that makes the world feel a little less dirty. England doesn’t seem so fucking gray with him there.

“Do you wanna come skateboarding?” Maran asks, in a gently fond voice. It makes Benny huff with something resembling a laugh. He nods and watches the image of the audio call go wonky. He feels disorientated for a moment as the view swings to the ground. Maran puts a foot on the board—and then shoves himself off. And then Benny hears the electronic crackle of wind against the mic. The rumble of the skateboard on sidewalk.

Maran brings the phone closer to himself. He must tuck it into a shirt pocket, because Benny can hear him breathing as well.

And Benny also doesn’t realize that at some point he falls dead asleep. That he’s pulled swiftly and blissfully entirely under, into REM sleep that is thankfully free of any dreams that he’ll remember. Because he’s asleep, he also doesn’t realize that Maran stays on the line, for as long as he can, sitting and watching Ben sleep. He has no idea that Maran has skated all the way to his favorite area. That he sits on a brick bridge, feet dangling pleasantly over bubbling water.

He has no idea that Maran is holding that whispered I love you inside himself and feeling that exact same warm honeyed feeling.

Maran only ends the call because Nomi’s face appears.

“I know who I can talk to,” she says when he picks up.

***

Dr. Sullivan stares at Nomi with the flat, unflinching gaze of someone entirely practiced in telling others to fuck off and die. She sits, with legs kicked up onto her desk, chair leaned back. One hand rests on her desk, while the other toys a lighter. Thumb smoothing over it and over it and over it. In contrast, Nomi stands there, in front of the professors desk with all the aura of someone who might crumble if pressed into too hard. That tears are definitely somewhere hiding behind her big, milk tea colored eyes. She tries to angle her chin to be slightly more imposing, since Dr. Sullivan is sitting and she is standing.

The effect does not work, and one of the professors black brows raises.

“Is campus security stuck on a child’s level crossword puzzle again—who the fuck are you?”

“I didn’t know this campus had security,” Nomi replies.

“Well you’re not a student, then.”

“Oh,” she blinks rapidly. Nomi glances down at herself. She’d tried very hard to wear something university appropriate. So she’d thrown on a skirt and tights and a large cardigan—she’d looked at herself in the mirror and felt like she was in a Halloween costume of a girl who maintained her Pinterest with an iron fist and had three study Intagrams. Nomi smooths her hands down the front of the cardigan. It has stars printed on it. “How can you tell?”

“Well, usually students are smart. Emphasis on usually. Do you need me to repeat the question slower?”

“Could I ask you,” Nomi’s words run right up along after Dr. Sullivan’s. “Why do they call you Bunny when you are deeply unpleasant?”

Bunnies make her think of Benny actually. His affection for rabbits was one of the first things about him that had stood out in her mind. People met Benny and knew him for many things; the dark scorpion tattooed on his neck, his double major in school, the parties he liked throwing at his apartment, that he was a little unnerving and sort of scary and very mean.

Nomi had equated Ben and rabbits before any of that. She had noticed the tattoo of one on his ankle by accident. She noticed that he had a baseball hat with a silhouette of one. The rare occasions people caught Ben in a photograph, he would make ears with his fingers above his head, stick his tongue out in a nasty smile.

“Where’d you heart that?” Dr. Sullivan doesn’t look fazed hearing the name at all. The lighter moves in her fingers smoothly. One of her feet shift on the desk. Nomi tilts her head and points over her shoulder. Her eyes are innocent, magnified by those giant round glasses that sit low on her nose. She has a messenger bag with a big fluffy rabbit keychain on it, slung over her shoulder that she softly adjusts.

“I heard someone say, Bunny Sullivan, that cunt—and I was like, oh, spiffy. That’s the Dr. Sullivan I’m looking for.”

The professor continues to stare at her. She taps her finger a few times on her desk. Dr. Sullivan has rather manicured hands, Nomi thinks. They look neither masculine nor feminine—not the way men sometimes have blocky, stubby fingers, or the way women will possess long, trim ones. Not necessarily the same way Lark can have those pretty, thin fingers and Mouse can have those square tipped ones either. It feels odd to focus on Dr. Sullivan’s genderless hand so much, but her eyes make Nomi nervous. The aura of being impossible to pin makes her vastly more intimidating than she’d ever imagined possible.

Nomi thinks she’d like to find a way to take that energy for herself.

“I don’t think I like you.”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Nomi snorts. “You seem like a person to make a decision very quickly.” She steps forward and lowers herself down into the chair opposite Dr. Sullivan’s desk. The office smells like coffee and cologne and books, which is a smell Nomi finds comforting. It has a home like sense to it. Bunny, who does not live up to her name—or maybe she does, because bunnies are nasty, they bite—simply continues to stare.

“I’m Nomi.”

“Okay.”

“You know my boyfriend.”

“I can fucking assure you, I do not.”

Nomi leans forward, her hands curling over her knees. She doesn’t like having to say Benny’s full name out loud—isn’t that the point of it all? Isn’t that why she’s here? But who knows how many Benny’s exist out there in the world, on this very campus? To her, the name would forever be his and anyone else out there would have to find a new one. But to the professor? So instead, Nomi clears her throat and says the full name awkwardly, eyes flickering around the ephemera on Dr. Sullivan’s desk.

“If that’s your boyfriend, firstly my fucking condolences. And secondly, when the fuck was his name anything other than Benson?”

It makes Nomi lean back in the chair. She lifts her hands, as if grasping the very concept that Dr. Sullivan has accidentally landed upon.

“That’s where I need your help.”

—

The conversation is relatively short because Nomi is to the point and Dr. Sullivan doesn’t ask questions. She shifts here and there, rolls her eyes to the ceiling. Pockets the lighter and then yanks open a drawer to look inside it briefly. Once it’s closed, she makes a gesture with her hand. Nomi gathers that means they’re done.

As she stands, however, Nomi cannot help but say, “I know you and Ben slept together.”

She isn’t exactly sure where that statement comes from and why.

She had been thinking about it the entire time, which felt a little voyeuristic and weird. But thinking of the professor and Benny together was not the same as when they’d be at a party and he’d shift awkwardly and look at someone and she’d know that very someone was once a someone that Ben slept with. It was not the same as a pretty girl with artfully disheveled hair or even a handsome man with pretty eyelashes and it wasn’t really the gender either that mattered at the end of the day, especially to Nomi—it was simply that Ben had told her about Dr. Sullivan in a way that made it more like an enjoyable story.

Kind of the craziest encounter of my life, he’d said. No awkward guilty twist to his mouth, or big expressive regret on his features. Bunny is insane, I didn’t think I’d walk straight again.

Dr. Sullivan had been fairly nonchalant the entire encounter. The fidgeting had felt more prompted by boredom than anything else. Her button up was silky looking, open at her throat. She had a blazer on the back of the chair that looked comfortably expensive but worn, like it was a favorite. Her hair was streaked with the sort of gray that made someone look dignified and handsome.

Nomi’s statement made her twitch so minuscule that perhaps anyone else might not even have noticed. Whether it was embarrassment, amusement or respect, Nomi could not say.

“How the fuck did you get into this building?” Dr. Sullivan replies instead. It makes Nomi fish out the lanyard from her bag. She dangles it proudly. A badge swings back and forth.

“RFID is ridiculously easy to copy. I bought a reader from a hotel night auditor who was selling it cheap; we’d been friends online for a while, actually so it was fine. I took Ben’s badge and made my own—the photo is my passport photo.” She steps closer, in case Dr. Sullivan wants to look. She makes it evident that she does not by continue staring at Nomi. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to go into the secret labs that he has access too. I just didn’t feel like being held up in getting to your office. And also,” Nomi loops the lanyard around her neck. She steps back and raises her arms in a sweet little tada! pose.

“I just love these things. Don’t they make you feel so, like, official, yeah?”

For the first time, Bunny smiles. It is just a simple lift of the corner of her mouth, but it is a smile.

***

Josie is having a bad day.

From the chai latte that had been prepared wrong at the local cafe she frequented regularly (and what was the point in going to a family owned business instead of a corporation, if they couldn’t get a chai latte correct? Which was what she’d said to the manager as they remade it, and she felt vindicated with that statement still) to the email she’d not opened yet, glaring at her from her phone.

The subject line had been simply “Ad hoc meeting” and the little preview line had been her name and “I believe this is a discussion best had in person”. It made her sweat under her arms immediately, which was awful for the cotton sweater that she’d selected that morning. Truman had kissed her on the cheek goodbye as he left for work, careful of the soft cream blush she used to make her sallow skin look a little more alive. He was truly the only good part of her day and she’d still been sad when he’d turned and she saw that little balding spot. Hair growth for men was a frequent Google search of hers these days.

She hip checks the door to her lecture hall open, foot steps a frantic pace as she starts for the desk.

That is occupied. That is occupied with none other than the long legged, cold eyed Bunny Sullivan.

“Oh,” she says in a voice far too surprised. That moment of unintentional weakness feels like an immediate target; and Bunny has the nose of a shark. Josie thinks of her that way. Like a giant hammerhead that keeps circling above them all, too much sway and too much ego. Josie’s steps slow as she gets to her desk. She notices a box on it. All of her things are inside. Her stomach starts to turn cold. Her fingers feel numb at the tips. Truman had so much hair when we’d first met, is an odd intrusive thought as she stares at Bunny.

“Dr. Sullivan. What a pleasant surprise.”

“You’re a bad liar,” Bunny replies, a fist tucked under her chin. She spins a stapler on the desk. “I’m taking this, by the way. I didn’t see anything else I wanted in your junk—but I owe Happy a new one. Broke the last, slapped it shut so hard it cracked. You know he parked in my spot for a solid month after I did that? He is such a cocky bastard, don’t you think?”

“Diondre is—”

“Oh, so it’s not just your students?”

“Pardon?”

Josie remembers accidentally finding herself in conversation with Bunny at a holiday party once before. Prior to that exact moment, she’d always thought people were lying when it came to Dr. Sullivan. Oh, not that she was an enormous, painfully rude bitch. Josie believed that—but she thought that people had to be exaggerating her wit. She thought a verbal spar with someone could be fun, because Josie was used to sniffing her way through them with her nose tilted up. She was usually the one winning.

And that holiday party had proved her so instantly, miserably wrong. Bunny spoke like she had daggers instead of words. She feinted in and quickly stab, stab, stabbed at things people said. She kicked the corpse of the conversation aside and started a new one. She made Josie feel small and wilting.

Bunny stands from the desk. Her hand closes around the edge of the box with all of Josie’s little things. It gets shoved to the edge. Josie has to reach out, to stop it from tipping over.

“When you’re back from your leave,” Bunny starts, straightening to a height that is far too willowy. She bends so easily over Josie, who is in ballet flats, who has always been shorter than everyone else and never found that a detriment until this precise moment. “You’re never fucking with one of mine again. And you’ll know which ones are my mine—you know which one is my mine, in your awful, boring, underfunded excuse of a course—”

“Dr. Sullivan, I’m sure—”

“You can call me Bunny,” she says, her smile like a threat. “And you call him Ben.” There is a long, stale silence that falls between the two professors. Bunny looks inside the box and then tilts her head, with raised surprised brows. “Actually, I’m taking this too.” She plucks a notebook free. CATS, COFFEE AND CURRICULUM is printed across the front.

Then Bunny walks away from Josie, the sound of her shoes clipped and loud on the lecture hall floor.

***

Nomi is panting into Maran’s mouth, their faces close as their bodies slide like puzzle pieces fitting together. Not yet kissing, the lingering taste of it on her tongue still. The concentration on his brow is so endearing it makes her heart twinge. His hands roam endlessly, like he cannot find one place to put them on her when he wants all of her. His body between her thighs feels solid and warm and good in a way that is making her dizzy. She breaks the nearly there contact of their mouths to tilt her head back and moan his name in the way she knows encourages him for harder.

“I missed you so much,” is how he groans, head tucked into her neck. Her hands draw up his back, the weight of him pressing into her, down on her, suddenly getting her right fucking there.

And when they’re done, messy with the blankets all sorts of tangled around them, she spends the same amount of time pressing kisses across his face. Maran’s deep, magenta blush only makes her continue. She kisses each brow and then his nose and pulls back simply to grin down at him. His hand nestles to her lower back, fingers soothing. She doesn’t usually like the tacky sensation of sweaty bodies like this, but she had missed him like a physical part of her had been pulled out from her ribs when he’d boarded that fucking plane.

She lays across his chest, both their hearts slowly calming down together.

“I missed you too,” she tells him. Maran’s hand cups her cheek. She leans against it. The eight hour plane ride had been worth it. Not just for the sex—but Jesus, did she realize how much she had missed sex with Maran, because it was a different breed than with Benny, it was this hungry romantic thing that made her feel like a paperback heroine in a romance novel, the kind of protagonist that always cums first. But for this, to be on him, to be close to him and seeing him.

And their moms meeting tomorrow, which felt awkward and funny at the same time. It had been a good excuse to take a holiday to the UK.

“Will you dye my hair for me tomorrow?” Maran asks, sleepily, his eyes shuttered for a moment. She leans in, breasts pressed against his chest so sensually that it makes his eyes snap open.

“Maran,” she says, mouth in a wide grin. Her lipstick has smudged in a way that is erotic. She’s left evidence of herself all over him. “I love you.”

She makes a soft squeaking sound when she is bundled into powerful arms and rolled onto her back and then the kisses are returned, all over her.

—

Sounds wake her up. Nomi is usually a heavy sleeper; Benny often was able to put music on in the background while he studied and she slept in his bed, curled around his pillows like they were him. He had an odd laundry-scent about him, like he was habitual about keeping things clean, and she liked that. But it’s not Benny’s bed she’s in, nor his pillow she has crushed to her chest.

She blinks a few times. Her hair is messy, in her face. She swats at it, groans and lifts herself up a bit. Sunlight pours across the floor from a window, but Maran smartly has his bed pushed against a wall so that light hasn’t touched them just yet. The sound of traffic outside is light.

“Sorry,” Maran whispers, fingers brushing hair back from her face and gently tucking dark blue strands into place behind her ear. Nomi blinks more, makes a sound again, because she hasn’t found words just yet. She looks at the phone in his hand, a call waiting screen there. Nomi forfeits the pillow to scoot closer and lean her head on Maran’s chest.

“Who?” she mutters. Sleep is just a moment away, she can feel it. Not really conscious, entirely. Her body feels bone deep tired from the travel and the sex they’d had…more than once her first night there. She yawns and scrubs her cheek against his soft skin. Nomi’s hand sneaks across his abdomen and finds a comfortable spot to rest, right underneath his belly button. His body hair is a little coarse, and it’s texture feels oddly soothing.

“Benny,” he answers softly. She makes a noise to prompt him further. “He always calls me at eight.”

“Why are you up at eight?”

“Because he calls me at eight.”

Nomi braces herself up a bit more to look at Maran. He’s bright when he’s awake. A morning person, for some reason. He looks unbelievably handsome in the dull wash of the phone light. Only he would be able to pull that off. She leans in and presses a kiss to his jaw. Moves it to his lips. They are as sweet tasting as they were before, when he’d kissed her in the airport. When he’d kissed her on the train, and in his bedroom. When he’d kissed her, their hips rolling together.

The call connects at that very moment.

“Wow, keep going.” His voice sounds wavy and distant. Nomi tilts her head, lips still pressed to Maran to catch a glimpse of the tiny version of their boyfriend on the screen. She briefly covers it with her palm, making exaggerated kissing sounds. “Fuck you, p-put Maran on.”

“Someone is in a bad mood,” Nomi sings, falling back into the comfortable spot she’s nestled into Maran’s chest.

“I’m h-having a good day actually.”

“What happened?”

“I bl-blew something up in th-the living room and made Xavier almost p-piss.”

Nomi doesn’t contribute to the early morning conversation. In fact, she falls asleep quickly again. Comforted that Benny, alone as he is without them, is having a good day because he blew something up. Comforted, really, deep down, by the thought that Benny without them is still Benny and okay. She falls asleep with her hand tucked onto the softest vulnerable part of Maran’s stomach and both of them talking.

***

“You look like shit, Benson.”

“I showered,” Benny explains, gesturing toward the abnormally fluffy hair on his head. It’s light and airy like downy duck feathers, maybe because he’d stolen Lark’s fancy hair products. It made him smell like cold, spring water which must drive hot art students crazy, or something. He jerks his hand back and forth over the top of his head in an attempt to make it the greasy mess it usually is. Bunny watches with flat eyes.

“Do that regularly and you might get a third significant other. Bit fucking greedy don’t you think? Have to start saving some of the cute ones for your other pathetic STEM peers.”

“Two is enough,” Benny replies languidly, throwing his legs out in front of him and getting comfortable. “She’s visiting him in the UK. I’m sle-sleeping better, believe it or not.”

“I didn’t ask, and I don’t care.”

“That reminds me.” He suddenly heaves himself up and out of the chair. Benny pats himself down, like he’s looking for something, when he knows exactly where it is. He holds up a finger. Bunny looks horribly unamused, in a way that actually means he should hurry. So he does. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls a card from it. Benny leans forward and slowly puts it on her desk. He uses one finger to slide it toward her.

“Does this look like a trash bin?”

“Sometimes. When yo-you’re really busy.”

Bunny leans over to look at the baseball card. It’s worn thin at the edges, the print on it dull and old. It’s yellowing here and there, because he’d never bothered to put it in a plastic sleeve. Benny feels suddenly like snatching it back and shoving it into his pocket. Nevermind, he thinks. Half out of embarrassment and half because…

“That was the f-first baseball card I bought with my own money,” he explains. Benny shoves the chair behind him so he can start for the door. “It’s Antonio Reyes. Yo-You don’t fuck with baseball, do you?”

“I reiterate, Benson. Does this look like the fucking trash bin?”

“Reyes wa-was my favorite when I was a kid. Batted so bad it was nearly fucking negative. He g-got caught with his head between a Brazilian models legs at a club.” Benny’s grin goes lopsided and amused. It doesn’t have his usual sneak to it, not the glint of meanness that he carries like a barrier. “The Brazilian model was a man—and the c-club was a gay club. His team had a p-press conference saying he wasn’t a faggot—well.” Benny tilts his hand back and forth.

“They didn’t u-use the word, Reyes did. He stood up and said, actually, I love sucking cock. And he got dumped p-pretty quick after that.”

Bunny stares at the card. He doesn’t tell her that it has survived nearly a decade in his wallet.

“Anyway,” Benny turns toward the door to her office. He yanks it open. “Thanks, Dr. Sullivan.” Then he closes it too quickly for her to reply, no matter what sort of reply it would have been.

—

The card goes into the trash next to Bunny’s desk.

She replies to a few emails. None of them get a nice response.

She sips her cooling, sludge like black coffee. She thinks about the cigarettes in her desk. Bunny looks out the window to the side, where fat, pink clouds slide across a dying horizon. She replies to another email, deletes a few more that aren’t worth even reading.

Then she leans over and quickly finds the card in the trash. She places it on the desk and stares down at Antonio Reyes. There is a thumb print in the corner. She can imagine a smaller version of the man who had just left her office—not thoroughly, mind, because she doesn’t have the mental fucking energy to truly imagine and nor would she really want to imagine Benson at fourteen, in a bodega, using whatever shit allowance he got as a kid to buy this card— but she can imagine.

The importance of a stolen piece of queerness, to someone like Benny. She can imagine, but she doesn’t because something in her heart feels maladjusted and thumping wrong, what that sudden filthy evocative, proudly loud statement had done for someone like Benny as a kid. The loss of an entire professional career, because Antonio Reyes had simply refused to deny what it meant to be himself. Even if himself was a fucking weirdo that sucked off models at gay clubs in the seventies. To each their own, or whatever.

She tucks the baseball card next to a stack of books.

Bunny keeps the card safe inside a hardcover copy of one of her favorites.

[messyhandstattoo]

Can you draw it up for me?

Receiving a tattoo is a pretty daunting and exciting process, it’s there forever, so it makes sense if you would like to see the design beforehand. But it doesn’t always happen, often, you don’t see the design till the night before or the day of, why is that?

Let’s start with time, time is super limited for everyone, you artists often work from a schedule ranging from 4-6 day weeks (maybe even more!).

Usually, full days are 7-8 hours, after which we’re usually disassociating and trying to muster up the strength to look after ourselves, and do it all over again tomorrow. Somehow, socialising, admins, family and living it chucked in there (don’t ask me for the formula/math, it’s an equation for you to figure out). So more often than not, simply, artist don’t have the time to pre draw designs for you to view a head of time.

That doesn’t mean you can’t ask, but also you shouldn’t expect it for free. Often appointments are booked with a deposit, and sometimes people ask to see designs without a booked appointment that’s secured with a deposit. I always think of asking for a pre-drawn design, like going through a commission process. An upfront payment, secures a final product for you at the end of the process.

How do I approach this request?

Not all artists have the time/energy to pre draw designs, so first and foremost, just check! If they’re happy to do it, continue the process, and make sure you provide all the details they need to do this for you. If so, always check their rates, and how long it’ll take for them to complete this for you.

If an artist doesn’t have the capacity to do this, ask them if they’d be happy to use a reference you commission from another artist (doesn’t necessarily have to be a tattoo artist, could be a regular artist!). One of the many benefits of working in tattooing, is creative freedom. Sometimes artists will not take on concept where you would like something exactly like a picture, sometimes reference also do not translate well into a tattoo as well, which is why often your artist prefers to draw your design.

General etiquette is if a design is drawn by a tattoo artist, they prefer to be the one to tattoo it, if you have the intentions to have somebody else tattoo it, please make sure you check the artist is okay with this!

Some artists have tickets or pre drawn designs that can be purchased, and tattooed by other artists, so have a check and ask if this is relevant to who you’re approaching. This concept of paying for a predrawn designs or paying for tattoo tickets, is a way for an artist to be paid for their art and labour.

The grand reveal

That doesn’t mean you get what you get and you don’t get upset. We always want to make sure you’re absolutely happy with the design, as it’s there forever, and a reflection of our work and skill too. That’s why communicating your references, and desired details are important.

We understand it can be super nerve wracking not knowing what you’re going to get till the day of an appointment, so let’s talk about some tips that can give you a bit of piece of mind.

Always choose an artist you trust. How do you do that? How do you trust an artist?

I always recommend finding an artist, who’s portfolio you really enjoy. When you can sit down, and absolutely love every single piece they do, and you’re really excited to collect their work. I find when you are absolutely set on a design, and then have to seek an artist it can be difficult, because you already have a very clear vision of what you want. It can sometimes feel like trying to jam a triangle block into a square shaped hole.

I think there should be balance, have a concept that you’re happy to have moulded and changed (change is not always bad), and find an artist you’re super excited to collect work from. More often than not, I feel you’ll be left with something that feels like a happy collaboration of ideas. We understand the idea of not being about to be absolutely certain what you’re getting can make you hesitate to book in, that’s what consult are for!

Generally consults tend to be in person, and take about 15-30 mins, it gives you an opportunity to meet the artist and have a chat about what you’re thinking, and ask any questions you have as well. They are super helpful if you have trouble trying to describe what you’re thinking of.

Don’t be afraid of change

Artists often will change and redraw designs from the references you provide, why is this? Depending on the size, style and location on the body, they changes may be done to better compliment the placement on the body and ensure it ages well in the future. But what if it not what you want?

That’s why communicating what you want is super important. Often we say we’re not sure what we want, but subconsciously we have an idea, it’s the artist’s and your job to have a conversation about your wants, need and expectation about a design. How do you pull that out of yourself? Something you can ask yourself include:

Where’s it going? Do I have multiple placements that could influence size?

Why there? Do I have future plans? Is it something I want hidden/able to see all the time

What styles do I enjoy? What about them do I like?

What styles do I not enjoy? What about them do I not like?

Do I have future plans? Do I need my tattoos to be in a cohesive style?

What are some details in the references I’ve sent, that I like? (General shape, small details, poses, subject, colours etc)

Know that small changes can be made on the day for you, but to avoid needing to reschedule an appointment due to needing to make big changes to a design, these are some essential questions that can help guide your artist.

Happy decision making! I believe in you.

[kaylaxwrites]

Candlelit Dinners & Blanket Forts

Paring: Matt Murdock x Reader Words: 1710 Request/Summary: “ Hey there! I saw you’re taking marvel requests! Can I request a super fluffy and domestic kind of life with Matt Murdock x female reader?” by @billhaderstrashbag​ Warnings: reader drinks wine? also talks about quarantining. this is my first Matt Murdock fic, so that’s like a warning itself A/N: Decided to draw inspiration from the mess that is 2020 and this seemingly never-ending pandemic. Wear a mask and stay safe out there! 

“I’m going to go crazy if I’m in this apartment another minute,” you moaned, sprawled across the couch. This months-long social distancing lockdown has felt like it’s been going on for years. You heard Matt chuckle from the kitchen table behind you. You peaked your head over the back of the couch to glare at him. …Not that it would do any good. “What’s so funny?”

Matt shook his head and raised his hands in surrender. “Nothing,” he smiled before returning his hands to fly across the braille display attached to his computer. Since the city-wide quarantine had started, Matt had been working from home as much as he could. Most courts weren’t open yet, but he was still preparing for the day they do. Whenever that happens.

If it happens.

You were convinced this self-isolation would never end. At least you had Matt to keep you company. And FaceTime calls to Karen and your family.

You stood and moved to stand beside Matt. “Don’t you miss being outside? Going places? With people?” You never thought the day would come where you would actually say that. “I mean, I even miss grocery shopping. Can you believe that?” You plopped yourself in the chair next to Matt.

“I believe it.”

“I’m just so bored, I’m gonna go crazy.” You scrubbed your hands over your face.

“I think you mentioned that already.” You shoved his shoulder playfully. He seemed to think for a moment and then said, “Why don’t you go take a bath and I’ll get dinner started?”

You groaned. You didn’t really feel like doing that, but at least it was something to do. “Okay,” you sighed. You stood and kissed his cheek as you made your way to the bathroom. “Holler if you need anything. Don’t burn down the kitchen.”

“I’ll try not to,” Matt laughed.

You took a long bath, staying well past the point of your fingers pruning and the water turning cool. You took your time with some needed self-care, using your only-for-special-occasions favorite body scrub and regularly stopping to belt out your favorite songs in time with the radio. You finished your self-care routine by generously applying lotion all over your body—unscented so as to not mess with Matt’s nose too much. Finally, you were ready to step into the bedroom to change into some clean, not-three-days-old pajamas.

Matt caught you off guard when you stepped into the room. You almost jumped. You weren’t expecting him to be sitting on the bed.

He had changed clothes. It almost looked like he was headed into the office: he was wearing a white button-up shirt with a tie and a nice pair of slacks, but his glasses were off and he was barefooted. Okay, maybe he had to make some last-minute Zoom call or something, but what really confused you was the dress he held in his lap. It was one of your fancier dresses, but one of your favorites. One of those little black dresses you bought for if you ever need to go to a cocktail party or a work event. You hadn’t had much chance to wear it yet.

“What do you have that for?” you asked, padding across the room to stand in front of him.

As you neared him, Matt stood, holding the dress between you. “Will you do me a favor and put this on?”

Your eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “Why? Are we going somewhere? Where is there even to go?”

“Just do it,” he huffed playfully.

You didn’t move, just stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out his intentions. He wasn’t giving any clues away, but what else did you have to do? “Fine,” you finally agreed. You let your towel fall away from your chest as Matt helped you into the dress, his hands ghosting along your sides. You turned so he could zip up the back. “I still don’t know where you’re going with this.”

“Don’t you trust me?” Matt looped your arm around his as he escorted you to the living room. Your jaw almost dropped when you took in the room. Matt had been…busy while you were self-caring.

The room was dim, but cozy. The only sources of light were the billboard outside, a few candles, and a string of fairy lights you’d hung up some time ago. The little kitchen table was set with plates and silverware. Wine glasses caught the light of the two candles flickering in front of each seat. Soft music filtered through the apartment as your eyes drifted to the couch. Was that… “A fort?” you laughed. “You built a fort?”

Matt ran a hand over the back of his head. “Yeah, I thought maybe we could watch a movie later or something…”

“I love it!” It wasn’t necessarily the best blanket fort you’d ever seen. It was a little wonky on one side and some of the blankets were starting to slip, but it was perfect to you. Matt had cleared the area in front of the couch and littered the floor with all the pillows he could find. Honestly, the fact that Matt would even attempt to build a blanket fort made you giddy. You never expected him to be the type of guy to build one, especially without you having to rope him first. So the fact that he made one—for you—made you beyond happy. “Matt, this is amazing.”

“I figured we can’t go out to eat, so I’d try the next best thing.” Matt pulled out a chair for you and ushered you into your seat. In front of you was a bowl of tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich cut into triangles carefully arranged around it. Before you could comment on the menu, Matt explained, “Yeah…we actually really do need to go to the store. This was the best I could do.”

“It’s perfect,” you replied. You watched the candlelight dance across Matt’s skin as he poured each of you a glass of wine before sitting across the table from you. You made easy conversation as you ate, though you weren’t sure how you still had things to talk about after being cooped up together for so long.

Matt was relaxed as he sat across from you. He twirled his spoon lazily in his hand. He leaned towards you, interested in every word you said. You thought his eyes were breathtaking as they caught the light. His lips were pulled in a gentle smile and he threw his head back with laughter whenever you told a joke. After a few glasses of wine, he decided to remove his tie and undo the top three buttons on his shirt. When he finished eating, he leaned back contentedly in his chair.

Easy silence settled over you. You watched him lazily as you finished the last of your drink, taking in every piece of him. (He was easy on the eyes, that was for sure.) From what you’d learned of his mannerisms, he was similarly taking in you. He once confessed he enjoyed listening to your heartbeat and you assumed he was doing it now, his head cocked to the side for easier listening. You briefly wondered what it was like to be able to hear that well. It calmed you greatly at night when you could press your ear against Matt’s chest and listen to his heartbeat, thankful he had made it home relatively unharmed each night. You wondered how well your nerves would be put to ease if you could hear him from across the room.

Once you’d drained the last bit of drink from your glass, you rose and attempted to clear away the dishes but Matt quickly stopped you. “Later,” he promised. He stepped around the table to grab your hands and pulled you to a cleared section of the living room. He pulled one of your hands up to his shoulder before his settled on your waist. Your other hands were still clasped together. You noticed the music again as Matt swayed you side to side.

“Took inspiration from a Hallmark movie, did you?” you teased. “Planning everything out like this.”

Matt’s cheeks flushed slightly. “Foggy…might have been watching cheesy romance movies while we were on the phone the other day.”

You threw your head back and laughed. “You’ll have to tell him that some of the moves from those movies actually work. I wonder how many he could pull on Marci before she noticed.” Matt chuckled.

Silence washed over you once more. You hummed along to the music as you and Matt danced—if swaying was considered dancing. At some point, you rested your head against Matt’s shoulder and your eyes drifted closed. The wine had finally settled in your system and you were drowsy. You almost felt as if you could fall asleep leaning against him. But Matt pulled you from the point of dozing when he spoke: “Time for the fort?” You could hear the smile in his voice.

You nodded without lifting your head or even opening your eyes. Matt reached down to grip behind your knees. Before your sleep- and wine-addled mind could comprehend, you were lifted in the air and tucked firmly against his chest. He walked over to the couch and sat down, careful not to rock you too much. He pulled a couple pillows from the ground to rest behind his head before he stretched out across the length of the couch. You heard things fall as a blanket settled over you. You squinted your eyes open to see Matt had pulled the blanket fort apart for the cover. You hoped maybe one day you could convince Matt to rebuild the fort he just destroyed. But that thought quickly washed away as sleep pulled you closer.

You felt safe here, tucked between Matt and the back of the couch. If these were the kind of dates quarantining led you to, maybe this lockdown wasn’t so bad after all. You nuzzled closer into Matt’s chest. “Thank you for this,” you murmured sleepily. “I love you.”

Just as you drifted off to sleep, you heard Matt whisper an “I love you” in return as he pressed a kiss into your hair.

[vagarius]

domestic misukazu hcs

1. their kitchen cabinets are full of mismatched mugs and bowls and plates, in a rainbow of colors and sizes. there is exactly one matching pair of cups and plates, hidden at the back of the cabinet, that they'll use if one of them is specifically trying to be romantic.

2. the two of them probably have a lot of unsynchronised late nights but they always leave each other dinner wrapped on the counter and sleepily wake up when the other finally crawls into bed to say "welcome home" before falling back to sleep next to them

3. misumi is Super Ultra determined to not lose his keys and to use the front door when they first move into their place but he can only keep track of them for so long and when he confesses to kazu that he had to climb in through the window kazu just laughs bc he loves this man, dw i made a copy of our keys, as long as you shut the window after you come in i dont mind

4. consider: kazunari, glasses on and book in hand, sitting in the middle of the couch with misumi sprawled across his lap, fast asleep

5. they probably share a closet in a literal sense but also a metaphorical sense bc all their shirts and jackets are around the same size so unless it is Tailored Formal Wear there is no distinction other than the fuzzy feeling they get when the other wears one of their things

6. they never officially adopt any animals but cats constantly pass through to say hi to misumi and update him on the latest kitty gossip and occassionally drop off triangular objects. kazunari never is sure what's happening, but he's learned to keep cat food at the ready.

more under the cut!!!

7. their place is the one you show up uninvited to looking for cuddles and an impromptu movie night and onigiri with your favorite filling and leave the next morning with coffee and even more onigiri and maybe a sticker on your hand

8. they raise three succulents named san, ka, and ku

9. going off from that the reason they have succulents is because both of them travel a lot for work (hc sumi as an actor and kazu having his own art/graphics based independent business) and they know san, ka, and ku can fend for themselves if need be

10. pls consider kazu with a "kiss the cook" apron except misumi may or may not usually do the cooking so kazu will put it on and then go up and kiss misumi on his own at random times of the day

11. they have a giant bookshelf along one of their walls filled with kazunari's plethora of hyper-specific reference books, random volumes of manga, and a whole shelf dedicated to scrapbooks, photo albums, and triangle knick-knacks

12. every mirror in their house has a picture or two tucked in the corner. kazunari's favorite is one from one of those arcade/mall photobooths, where misumi may or may not have kissed him for the first time. misumi's favorite is one with kazu on his shoulders at the park.

13. NOT NECESSARILY DOMESTIC HC SO MUCH AS A FUTURE ONE BUT KAZUNARI LETTING HIS HAIR GROW OUT WITHOUT DYEING IT... pudding hair long haired kazu. misumi puts it into a bun for him while he makes coffee in the mornings and may or may not buy him too many triangle hair accessories

14. ONCE MORE A FUTURE HC MORE THAN A DOMESTIC HC BUT i think. misumi should get more ear piercings. and kazunari peppers kisses on all of them when they're fully healed. and finds a lot of joy in pushing misumi's hair back behind his ears.

15. they are dummies that wash each other's hair in their too-small bathtub and give themselves soap bubble beards and trace hair conditioner triangles on each others' cheeks.

16. they don't "slow dance in the kitchen" so much as "misumi picks up kazunari and spins them around and sings a random tune while they wait for the rice cooker to beep"

17. misumi nurses kazu back to health whenever kazu gets sick but he always kisses kazu while he does so so without fail he catches whatever kazu had as soon as kazu is healed up and kazu takes care of him in turn (misumi is as much less willing patient tho)

18. if they live an apt building... just. the aesthetic of them sitting on the fire escape in their pajamas while pressed together from thigh to shoulder and watching the stars... good

19. kazunari prefers to work in silence but he very quickly comes to love hearing misumi humming and lightly singing whenever he's at home

20. whenever someone comes to visit they give the guest their bed and sleep tangled together on the floor or the couch

21. thinking about them grocery shopping together and kazu has their list organized by what order would be most optimal to grab things except kazu's calculations are Wrong and when he offhandedly says he's a bit tired misumi lifts him and drops him into the shopping cart

22. kazu holding misumi after a nightmare. he walks them to the window so they can see the stars. misumi's eyes lock onto vega, shining brightly in the sky.

23. misumi still takes non-acting part time jobs and will sometimes get called in early in the morning and on those days kazunari will wake up to a warm mug of coffee and a couple onigiri on the nightstand, and an extra blanket thrown over him

24. on that note misumi leaving little "anonymous" gifts in general around their place for kazu to find as if kazu won't immediately know who they're from

25. their fridge is covered in doodles, from kazu and misumi alike. kazu usually leaves drawings/old thumbnails and misumi will add sankaku-kuns in when he isn't looking

26. "Kazu?"

"..."

"I really, really love you."

"..."

"Let's stay together for a long, long time, okay?"

27. birthdays are for breakfast in bed and homemade gifts and dinner with their precious friends

28. consider: misumi gently coaxing kazu into bed while kazu insists "on more chapter" while he practically falls asleep on the couch

29. (since it is softly raining here) one of them walking the other to the train station in order to share their single umbrella after their second one broke and sending them off with a quick kiss on the cheek

30. even years later, misumi still marvels at all the little things about sharing a living space - having both their toothbrushes in the holder, the extra plate in the sink, the scribbled half-doodles kazu sometimes leaves lying around - they're all very, very precious to him

31. when kazunari stays at his parents for a weekend early on in their domestic, living-together life, he calls up tsuzuru (+others, possibly) to go visit misumi on the nights he's gone

32. they always greet each other with forehead kisses, especially since they both usually have their hands full (with either art supplies or triangles)

[winifredsandersonsbitch]

“My Babysittee’s a Vampire”

Spike x Reader, BTVS

Warnings: cursing, partial nudity, a little pain? but not necessarily violence. Possible spoilers.

Description: The reader volunteers to watch Spike at Giles’s house while the others do some sluthing, but nothing goes as planned. It turns out that vampires are very hard to babysit.

Spike swore that the chip in his head prevented him from hurting anyone, but you weren’t so sure. Giles decided to keep him chained up in the house for observation and that required someone to actually observe him. You volunteered.

You were still the weakest of the Scoobies, unfortunately (except for maybe Anya, but she got points for being an ex-demon). There wasn’t much you could do except get in the way of the monster fighting. But if you could be helpful by staying in and doing some homework, hey. You weren’t going to complain.

“What, Buffy can’t even be bothered to watch me herself, now that I’m all neutered?”

Spike was in a hell of a mood, seemingly forgetting that he had come to you and your friends for sanctuary. It probably didn’t help that Giles and Xander chained him up in the bathtub.

“She’s busy.” You were unsure of whether or not you were trying to comfort him or just get him off your back. “Guess you’re stuck with me.”

“So I’m just supposed to sit here and stare at the bloody wall all night?”

“Mhmm.”

You were up against the opposite wall, trying—and failing—to get through the sociology chapter your professor had assigned that day. Everyone else in the gang seemed to ignore their homework entirely, except maybe Willow, but you needed a good grade. Your future plans extended outside Sunnydale. But that was only half the trick. You also had to convince Buffy to come with you.

Spike lapsed into silence as you took your notes, the concept finally clicking into place in your head after the third time around. You highlighted and underlined, drawing triangles to help you understand the ideas of hierarchy and filling up your margins with little asides that helped you contextualize. You didn’t even wonder if you should be worried about the vampire’s sudden quiet until his voice broke through your focus.

“Read to me.”

You dropped your pen, startled. He was staring at you intently, like how you imagined a lion might study its prey. Like everything else had faded from view and he was trying to decide whether or not to take his chances on the hunt.

“I-It’s just soc-sociology,” you stuttered, holding up the textbook for him to see. “I don’t think you’ll like it.”

“I like people.” Spike bared his teeth in a grin that you guessed was supposed to be charming or encouraging, but toed past the line to frightening. When you hesitated, he sweetened his voice, practically cooing, “Come on. What harm could it do?”

So you did. He never asked you to stop and explain anything or gave any indication that he didn’t understand, but you interjected your own learnings in anyway. You almost forgot that it was him you were talking to. Willow used to really value school, and she was still the smartest person you knew, but witchcraft was taking over her areas of interest and none of the others cared about this kind of stuff unless you were helping them with their own homework. It was nice to have a rapt audience, even if he was literally being held captive.

“Basically, he’s saying that social environment shapes how we act and react to situations. Like in the Stanford Prison Experiment.” Your eyes darted from the text to Spike, waiting for a nod or something, but he looked as much like a statue as ever. “Good people can be made to do bad things because of the pressure they feel, real or imagined, to follow the rules that have been set in their environment.”

You waited for him to tell you that you had been right before and he was bored, but instead he leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. The chains around his midsection clanked against each other and you forced yourself to keep your expression neutral, even though your heart felt like it might beat out of your chest.

“What about bad people?”

Being around Buffy and the others, around so much supernatural for so many years, had made you into a person who could handle most things with a cool head. It was a required skill. You could freak out about the little things—tests, dating, work—though they seemed to matter less now than ever. But you couldn’t let the supernatural world scare you shitless unless you wanted to shut down completely. Your hands trembled where they grasped your book, but you kept your voice even. You forced your eyes upward to meet Spike’s.

“You tell me.”

——

You couldn’t run away from him, even though you were deeply and truly uncomfortable, so you excused yourself and went to the kitchen for a snack. You knew you shouldn’t leave him alone for too long, chip or not, so you sat down at the table and tried to catch your breath. You were counting down from one hundred when he started shouting about blood.

“It’s unfair,” he said when your frame filled the doorway, arms crossed, “that you get your snack and I don’t get mine.”

At this, his eyes raked down your body. You doubted that the gang would mind much if they came back to find him with a broken nose, but you exercised some hard-won self-control and dug your nails into your palms. Spike was smart and if he was working you up, it was probably for a reason. You treaded back to the kitchen and returned with a mug filled with some B negative that Giles had “borrowed” from the hospital’s blood bank.

“This is the last of the human stuff,” you told him with some satisfaction. “Next you’re drinking pig’s blood.”

You held the mug well away from you, willing your eyes to ignore the splatters on the rim from when you had poured it in. Spike cocked his head.

“Are you going to unchain me, or—?”

“I’ll get a straw.”

When you came back, he was slumped against the inside wall of the porcelain tub. You sat on the edge, held the mug up for him, and turned your head away, enough that you couldn’t see him take his first sip but not enough that he would notice. The sound by itself was almost worse.

“It’s cold.”

“I’m not running a hotel. You’re a hostage.”

“I’m a guest seeking asylum.”

You sucked in a deep breath. “Fine.” You couldn’t bicker with him any more. You needed this to be over.

You warmed it in the microwave, swearing the whole time, and brought it back with both hands wrapped around the mug to keep yourself from throwing the blood in Spike’s face. He smiled as if he knew what you were thinking and relaxed against the tub, tilting up only his chin so that you had to sink to your knees against the tile floor to get an angle that would work.

“I could get used to this,” he mused when he had finished. A few droplets splattered on your hands. You tried not to look at them and began soaping up in the sink.

“Don’t.”

“You know, love, Passions is on in twenty, if your watch is correct.”

You unclasped it from your wrist and wiped it off with a damp tissue. “Forget it.”

“I guess we could always read more from the textbook.” You caught his crafty smirk in the mirror. “You seemed to like that well enough.”

You sighed. “Will it get you off my back?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“Fine.”

You crossed to the tub and tried to puzzle out how to lift him without breaking anything. Spike’s hands were bound in front of him by a separate set of chains than his body to make it more difficult for him to escape and give him some limited mobility. His back was flush up against the tub wall, pressed to the porcelain in a way that would make it difficult to pull him up from behind. There was a small amount of space in between his legs, as his feet had been spread to either side of the tap.

“Well?”

“Shut up.”

You stepped into the tub gingerly, easing over the high rim to stand in between Spike’s legs in the space provided. It wasn’t much, and you caught the fabric of his jeans under your foot at first, but you adjusted.

Next you placed your arms on either side of his chest right under his arms.

“Lift with me,” you said, and together you managed to get him to sit on the edge of the tub. “Okay, next—”

He straightened out, trying to stand before you were ready for him, overcompensating so he wouldn’t hit the wall nearest to him and then hitting you with the full force of his weight as he toppled forward.

“Fuck, Spike!”

He was so goddamn heavy. His chest pressed against your face, forcing your back to the wall where the tap caught you in the back of the lower thigh and tore the skin. You couldn’t shove him back unless you wanted him to fall out the back of the tub and onto the floor, possibly cracking his skull in the process. It was tempting, but your reputation as a babysitter would be shredded.

“This isn’t exactly comfortable for me either, you know!”

“Ouch. Ouch. Fuck. Okay, I’m going to push you back slowly. Try to keep your balance.”

But when you moved your leg to keep it from being pressed against the spout, you hit the knob for the cold water, which came pouring down over your heads.

Spike cursed so loudly the neighbors could probably hear. “Turn it off!”

“Stand up! I can’t turn it off with you all over me like this!”

He righted himself too quickly and fell backward back into the floor of the tub, sending his legs sprawling out beneath you. Your feet were knocked out from under you and you fell on top of him heavily, bruising your elbow and knocking your chin against his sternum as the water poured on.

“Fuck,” he whispered, unable to do anything else. It took you both a moment to adjust to the pain and you closed your eyes to your own idiocy.

“Did you hit your head?” you asked finally, reaching out a hand to the platinum blond mop that was now plastered against his skull.

“Turn. The bloody. Water. Off.”

“Okay, okay,” you huffed. He groaned as you sat up, spreading your legs to either side of his hips to steady yourself and keep from slipping in the tub that was slowly filling up. “But this was all you. You had to watch Passions.”

“You’re the one,” he grunted, “who volunteered to play babysitter.”

The shower head drenched you as you twisted and leaned back to flick the knob off.

“I’m normally good with kids, so I figured I could handle one whiny brat for a night.”

You were breathing heavily, your body throbbing from all the places you had scraped and bruised in the struggle. Spike didn’t look much better, although you supposed he had his super vampire healing or whatever. You weren’t worried about it. Your clothes, on the other hand...

“Now what?”

Carefully, you stood and stepped out of the tub. You avoided your textbook on the ground as you grabbed a towel from the cabinets underneath the sink and wrapped it around yourself.

“You can’t leave me here.”

There was at least an inch of water kept in the tub by the plugged drain. It would probably serve Spike right to sit there all night. You both knew that the others would find it funny rather than an exercise in abuse of authority.

“Take the chains off,” he said, switching his tone from murderous to honeyed. “I promise I won’t bite.”

“You can’t,” you retorted, before realizing you had proven his point. “I mean, if what you say is true.”

“Do you think I would be here right now if it wasn’t?”

You couldn’t. This was the setup for a disaster. Things like this always happened to you guys.

“Look, I could’ve hurt any of you before you chained me up. I didn’t.”

He did look kind of pitiful, soaking and lying on his back in the bathtub.

“Maybe you were playing the long game. And now you’ve decided it’s not for you.”

Your words made sense, but you were wavering. Maybe you had a death wish. You left the room for a moment and returned with the key.

“Your hands stay locked up.”

“Fine.”

You were all too aware how close to him you were now, to his mouth. You barely breathed when you stepped into his personal bubble and let the chains slide to the floor. His lips twisted as he looked down on you and before you could step back, his face contorted and he stretched his mouth open.

“Ow! Fuck! Bloody hell!” he cried, putting a hand to his head as you fell back onto the floor on your already sore ass, scrambling backward. “It was a joke!”

“Buffy should have staked you,” you spat, but you led him into the living room anyway.

The two of you were still dripping all over the carpet, but you ducked into Giles’s closet after re-hiding the key and brought out two pairs of pajama pants and a t-shirt.

As it was, you had to take the scissors to Spike’s shirt and throw it out. It was impossible to get it off with the chains on, though you gave it a shot anyway and ended up tangling Spike in it. It was kind of gratifyingly funny to see his head tucked in under the fabric as he struggled.

“You bloody witch!”

“Stop squirming!”

The pants were worse. He had to sit down in the armchair as you shimmied his soaked jeans off, leaving him only in boxers.

“Like what you see?”

“Shut up or I’ll leave you like this.”

Getting the pajamas on was even harder. He had to stand up, support himself by leaning his hands on your shoulder, and kind of hop into the legs of it as you held them up. They were big on him, too, but you tied the drawstrings as tightly as you could, which meant having your hands near a very sensitive area for a few seconds. Ultimately, the pants still hung low on his hips, and you wrinkled your nose in frustration. When you pulled back, Spike had his lips puckered, stringently trying to avoid laughter.

“So you’re just going to leave me in damp knickers?”

“We’re all having to make sacrifices today. Turn around.”

You didn’t want to leave him again, not even for a second, afraid of the trouble he’d get up to on his own. You yanked off your own jeans and t-shirt, watching his back in case he disobeyed you, unable to ignore how muscled and lean he was.

Goddamnit, he really could kill you if he had half a mind to. You’d been training ever since you’d found out what Buffy was, but with school and a job, there was only so much you could fit in.

You wavered between turning around to unclasp your bra and staying in place to monitor him, but ultimately you decided it was safer to just hurry up and do it. You weren’t sure how much skin Spike saw when he went ahead and broke the rules, but it was more than you had hoped. You pulled the t-shirt over your head hurriedly, but Giles wasn’t necessarily a very big man, and it was decidedly short on you.

“Spike,” you hissed. “Go watch TV.”

“Well, we’ve probably missed Passions by now. But our romantic evening doesn’t have to be ruined.” His eyebrow quirked suggestively and you balled up your wet jeans, aiming right at his face.

“Go!”

You almost took yourself out on the corner of the coffee table as you pulled on Giles’s only pair of pajama shorts. You had to roll the top down three times for them to sit at your hips without totally falling off. Spike watched you do it. You gritted your teeth and said nothing.

When the others came back, you and Spike were in separate chairs, your hair still drying.

Xander opened his mouth and then closed it, glancing back and forth between the two of you. Giles seemed disturbed, his right eye beginning to spasm as he spotted the piles of clothes on the floor. Willow stifled a laugh, almost choking on it. And Buffy’s fists curled like she was preparing to hit one—or both—of you.

Spike didn’t look away from the TV, although the corner of his mouth twitched. You dug your fingers into the chair’s arm rests.

“I deserve a raise.”

[paradise-of-guilty-pleasures]

Shattered Reflections {19}

[Helsa RP- Fanfic]

Fandom: Frozen

Genre: Post-Frozen/ Canon Divergence

- Hurt/Comfort, Drama, Romance

Pairing(s): Hans/Elsa, Kristoff/Anna

Previous Chapter: 18. ‘Bullshit’

19.Girls’ Night

Elsa was aware that Hans had gone to introduce himself to the guard and unofficially get them started on the re-training process that morning. Having a ton of her own duties to attend to, she hadn't yet gotten the chance to stop by and visit him to ask him how it  had gone. By the time she'd found an opening in her busy schedule it was already evening. But, when she arrived at his room, he was nowhere to be seen, he'd already left with the Captain. 

 The empty room troubled her, yet not necessarily in the expected way of Hans being missing. No, instead the feeling washed over her because of a realization she'd just made. (She didn't doubt his absence was likely due to being in the Captain's company, who’d probably taken him out for some fresh air. His blade was on the bureau, and he wasn't one to roam outside his quarters, especially with his mobility yet to be at its finest). 

 What she'd realized, that left a slight bitter taste in her mouth, was that she'd been unconsciously treating Hans like some sort of caged bird. One that she assumed she could come visit whenever she felt like having him sing for her. She felt it was selfish of her and that didn't sit right with her, especially considering he was no longer her prisoner. She was disappointed in herself that it took Hans not being there, for her to notice her thoughtless behavior.

 Hans wouldn't always be at her disposal, once he was all healed (which was fast approaching), he'd no longer be confined to his chamber. He was there to serve her and Arendelle, yes, but to a certain extent he'd be free. Anna might have been right in questioning what exactly would happen once he was no longer injured, and the reality of that happening rather soon was just beginning to sink in. 

 With Hans' full recovery being right around the corner, she knew that her sword training wasn't too far off either. Elsa knew she couldn't keep her training hidden from Anna, with how well keeping secrets from her went last time. This time she was going to be upfront and honest with her even if it terrified her to upset Anna. She was determined to no longer shut doors on her, or at least try her best not to. Elsa and Anna hadn't had much of an in depth conversation about Hans since the night Anna had confronted him. She'd plan to discuss that with her sister after supper, preferably after having some much needed nice relaxing, sisterly leisure time, so they'd be in good spirits. Hopefully it'd go over much better this time without tensions running so high.

Anna was in good spirits as usual. She and Kristoff were getting on well, with Kristoff still having not yet asked her to visit his home. He was brave against all manner of magic and violence, but he would always be a little nervous when it came to being liked by the few people whose opinions he cared about. No man could make him fear, but the prospect of asking Anna out, or for any new advancement in their relationship, seemed as terrifying as the idea of some skirmish. As such, the two were as chatty as usual over dinner, all polite, of course, but always light and cheerful. Kristoff seemed to sense that something bothered Elsa, but he politely said nothing, only gave her a curious head-tilt to invite her to talk about it. He wouldn't be bothered if he was ignored. 

 "So, how has your evening been?" Anna asked brightly, not minding. She had been informed that Hans was out of his room for the guard training-- and as such, she felt significantly safer around Kristoff, so she had clung to him for the day. Not afraid, but... concerned.

"Hmm?" Elsa let out a questioning hum, she'd been a bit distracted, lost in her thoughts. It took her a moment to register the question she'd been asked. "Oh. Uh, it's been fine I suppose, busy like always, a Queen's duties are never ending." She gave a weary smile. "Most matters regarding the raid are under control, but I could really use a mental break from all the paperwork."

"I bet! Why don't we take the evening and do something fun? Just the three of us?" Anna suggested cheerfully. 

 "Maybe just the two of you, you sisters need some time to enjoy yourselves without a man kicking around." Kristoff suggested lightly, seeing Elsa's need perhaps better than Anna did. He also saw Anna's slight discomfort. "I'll stay nearby, don't you worry about it. If you need me you can call for me." He knew Anna was uncomfortable with Hans around, but he suspected she was getting more nervous about it over time, instead of less. Anna seemed to settle with that reassurance, though.

 "That would be lovely," Elsa assured with a smile. "It's been a while since we had a relaxing time together, with things being so hectic lately." 

 "Are you sure you wouldn't care to join us, Kristoff?" Elsa asked more out of courtesy than anything else, because she indeed wanted some alone time with her little sister. She was deeply grateful for Kristoff's innate ability to read the room.

"I'll be just fine. Maybe I'll spend some time with Sven, I'm sure he's been getting a little lonely. I could take Olaf too, so he doesn't interrupt girl time. We can go for a walk or something. He's been getting deep and maybe we can talk philosophy and magic and pretend to be civilized for a minute while brushing reindeer." Kristoff did have a funny sense of humor sometimes. They made for a weird crew and he knew it.

" Sounds like you gents will have your own boys night out of sorts," Elsa commented with a slight giggle.

"Sounds like a plan to me." Kristoff agreed lightly. "We'll be back well before bedtime, princess feistypants." He assured Anna with a playful smile. She scrunched her nose at him, pretending to be annoyed by the nickname when really, she thought it was cute and endearing. More fun than just 'princess' for sure.

After clearing dinner, the two sisters headed over to the parlor. The parlor was adjacent to the music room. The music room was definitely underutilized despite both girls loving music. Though there were a few factors that kept them (well mostly Elsa) from making use of the music room. Firstly was that there was rarely any time in her rather busy schedule for such distractions and secondly, and possibly more importantly, was the fact that Elsa had finite musical talent, she may have the voice of a siren, but that prowess did not extend to instruments as well. Elsa could play the piano fairly well, but she was rather inept with all other instruments, she could probably passably play a triangle and maybe bukkehorn, but other than that her musical finesse was rather limited. The music room, of course, had a piano, a harp (which Elsa had yet to hear Hans play) as well as a plethora of other unused instruments. 

 "So what should we do to start our sisterly session? Playing a game, perhaps? I doubt you'd enjoy just sitting around reading, but drawing might be fun. There's also plenty of instruments we can try to play. Or we could just have a nice chat." Elsa eagerly offered suggestions, listing what ever came to mind and was easily accessible. "Or do you have something else in mind that we could possibly do? I'm fine with whatever you want to do, as long as we're doing it together."

Anna hopped a little at the thought. Elsa so rarely had time to do anything together, but now that they had time, what could they do?

  "Ooh, we could start with chatting and see if anything fun comes up? Maybe send for tea and sweets? We can curl up on one of the couches together and talk about something that isn't government. Like, adventure! Or stuff we want to do someday." She proposed, and quickly found a spot, offering her arms to Elsa so they could curl up together. "Kristoff has been telling me about what it's like living in the forest. It sounds hard, but also really nice. Apparently there's a bunch of ice harvesters and loggers on the mountain with their own little makeshift settlement or something. Or, a church and a pub and some houses. Which he tells me counts as a village at least. I'm not sure if I count Wandering Oaken's trading post as a 'general store', though." Anna was always good at starting conversations, but keeping them going was another challenge.

 Elsa happily curled up alongside Anna. "Oh, that’s nice. Has Kristoff said anything about when he plans on taking you to visit his home? I've granted him permission to do so, but haven't heard anything regarding that since," Elsa continued the conversation, curious to know the answer.

 "What? No, he didn't say anything about that! So that's why he's been so nervous lately." Anna sounded intrigued, and practically vibrated with excitement. "You granted permission? Oh, thank you! That's going to be so fun and exciting! I wish he wasn't so nervous about things like that." She always loved Kristoff and the things she learned about him, she just wished he wasn't so anxious about sharing those parts of himself. She loved the Mountain Man, not the 'official Ice Master of Arendelle' nonsense title that made him a lord.

"Oh! I shouldn't have said anything then, I might have spoiled a surprise," Elsa said as she briefly covered her mouth with her hand. " I just assumed, since you two seem so openly vocal in your relationship, that you would have discussed it already, but I often forget that Kristoff tends to be a bit more anxious like me. Now that I think of it he was a bit nervous asking me for permission as well. He truly does revere you Anna, I'm sure he's just trying to get it right," she assured. "I would really hate to be the one responsible for making you coax it out of him." The last part was a mix of a warning and a tease. Elsa knew exactly how her sister could get when she was excited.

Anna giggled a little. "Okay I won't make him ask~" She hummed, wiggling a little in place. It was definitely going to be hard to get her to not say anything, but she was excited about it. "But I hope he asks soon so I can say yes! I want to go see what he's so nervous about! Jeez, I guess I never really thought about the fact that I've never seen where he lives or what his home life is like-- I don't even know if he has any friends outside of Sven. He talks about the Ice Harvesters but like, I don't know their names? Oh man I really don't know enough about him, do I?" She couldn't help but wonder if that was a bad sign. Was it her bad, or was she moving too fast too soon? How soon was too soon? Were they doing this right? She was absolutely wiggling in her seat, trying to decide all of those things and getting nowhere.

"I'm sure he'll ask soon, you can nudge him a little, if you want, just don't push too hard," Elsa said as she gave a half-suppressed laugh. "Whoa, l think it's perfectly fine you don't know everything yet, you're still working on building your relationship. Even though it feels like it's been forever that you've been together, you two are still slowly and steadily figuring it out. I'm sure the main reason Kristoff wants to take you to his home is to answer some of those inquiries and show you more of his way of life," Elsa reassured her, trying to calm her racing thoughts. "Though maybe another reason why you don't know that stuff is just because Kristoff is rather reserved. Even though he's a fine, friendly fellow, he's not much of a people person, though I think you're responsible for bringing out more of his social side," She paused. "He's already introduced you to his family, the Trolls, and I think if he had other important people in his life he would have surely brought them up by now."

Anna settled a little and nodded. "I guess that makes sense," she hummed, wiggling a little in her seat. They were still young and still trying to take things slow. Or at least, much slower than the last time she tried to date a guy. That uncertainty might always be there, and she couldn't help but be worried. "He is quiet, but he always listens to everything, and chimes in when he has something he thinks you should hear. It's always something good, he's a great listener." She smiled dreamily to herself. Kristoff just made her happy.

 Elsa smiled. "I'm well aware of that, he's wise beyond his years and always seems to know the right thing to say when you need it," Elsa added. " He's a good guy and I'm happy you found each other."

Anna smiled a bit, getting some warm fuzzies at the thought of Elsa approving of Kristoff, and that they might be True Love the way she imagined it. She paused though. 

 "And what about you?" She asked, cautiously. "Any interest in finding yourself someone special? Not so you can do the Royal Duty thing, but just, to have someone else close to you? I know you're not as social as I am, but I can't imagine being as isolated as you for so long and not immediately wanting someone nearby." That had perhaps been Anna's folly, but she couldn't envision not doing that. Maybe it was for the best, things happened as they did, that she didn't end up marrying someone who would only turn out to be a bastard later down the line.

"Hmm? Someone special?" Elsa pondered. "... I've got you, don't I? And I'm happy with that. Do I really need to find someone else?"

"I suppose not, but, what will you do when I'm out with Kristoff? I'll always be your sister, but don't you ever feel like there are some things that you'd like to share with someone else instead? Or that you need a bigger support network? I don't know, maybe I just like having more people around me. Kristoff says that's something to do with my 'type', whatever that means." She shrugged a little. "Maybe most people like just having one or two people. Kristoff sure seems to."

Elsa thought about it for a moment. It's true, that she would get rather lonely especially down the line if and when Kristoff and Anna eventually got married and they wouldn't always be there for her. But would she really be alone? Her mind began to wander and it landed on Hans. He was someone she'd already shared parts of herself she hadn't done with anyone else, because she thought he'd understand her better. With that in mind, she began asking herself the same question she asked time and time again. What was Hans to her? A friend or something else? She still wasn't sure how to label him. And more importantly was it even alright for her to think of him like that? She slightly shook her head trying to get those thoughts out of her head, definitely thoughts she wasn't willing to share that with Anna. 

 "I think I'll be just fine," Elsa nodded. " I'm perfectly happy with the few people I've got."

"Alright, just, let me know if I need to spend more time with you, okay? We've been apart for too long. I'll always be ready to spend more time with you." Anna assured, leaning on Elsa a little so they could have their time as sisters together. "So, what's on your mind, then? I've talked about my guy, what's new in your life?"

"Thank you, Anna." Elsa did the same and shifted herself closer to her sister. "I thought you didn't want to hear about drabby government stuff?" Elsa laughed. Of course she had more on her mind, but was it too soon to bring it up and possibly spoil the moment?

"Hmm I don't, but maybe if I keep asking, you'll find a hobby that isn't signing papers." Anna teased, holding Elsa's arm in both of hers just to be sweet. She did love her sister very much, and didn't mind that her sister could be a bit boring at times. That was nothing new, she was raised to be a queen. Could hardly hold that against her "Oh, I wish I had the time for a hobby dearest sister, instead of having an arduous amount of paperwork to deal with, but it's got to be done," she sighed. "What kind of hobby would you picture me doing? Aside from reading, if I had the time?" She curiously asked.

"Hmm, I don't know. Some ladies do, needlework, or maybe you'd go riding? All the reading has to make you want to go cross-eyed after a while, and you're the Ice Queen. You're a sculptor and an artist at heart, I've seen your castle." Anna pointed out, referring to the ice palace, of course. "Maybe you should try other arts, see what happens? If nothing else it sounds like fun."

"I think needlework would be too dull, even for me, though I do like the design aspect of it. As for riding I think that sounds lovely, if only the horses would take a liking to me. I've always been fond of art and geometry, so I guess it would be nice to do some more ice sculptures, to test my abilities a bit more, but the problem with that would be where to put them." Elsa noted. "You're right I should try something creative just for the fun of it. Playing piano also again sounds fun even if I'm definitely out of practice."

"Well, you'll only be in-practice if you practice." Anna admitted with a smile and a shrug. She looked around curiously, noting the harp. "Of course, I imagine it's been a while since any of these were tuned. I don't think either of us ever played the Harp." They had it, of course, someone in their family must have played some ages ago, but she didn't know who or when. She had plucked the strings in her infinite boredom, but never really learned to play.

"True," Elsa smiled back. "Yeah, and it sure is a shame they aren't being used." She might have mentioned that Hans was able to play the harp if she didn't know Anna was likely not interested in knowing that information.

Anna let the silence sit a moment. She hated silences, quiet always bothered her. But she gauged the moment, and Elsa. It seemed like Elsa wanted to say more than she did, which was odd to her. 

 "Is something bothering you?" She proposed, curiously. She was always upfront about these things, never too good at intricacies or subtleties when talking to people. Kristoff was a much better suitor to her than Hans ever would have been, with his caution and tempered words and changing demeanor.

Okay, this was the second time Anna was asking, the first time she only asked what was on her mind and that she could easily brush off in conversation, but this time she'd asked more directly. Elsa felt like she had to answer her, it was her opening which  she had to take before she lost her nerve, no more beating around the bush. 

 Elsa flinched a little, letting out a sigh slightly laced in distress.

  "Well kinda, um... It doesn't bother me per se... but it might bother you though." She took a slight breath. "...but I want to be honest with you...like I promised. Um... It involves me and Hans," Elsa stammered. She'd slightly blurted out the last part as she closed her eyes with a grimace.

Anna hesitated. "You're not dating him, are you?" She just had to make sure, the way Elsa was spitting it out like that. She could handle a lot but she really hoped it wasn't that, at least not to start with. Anna was prone to stupid things but she sure hoped Elsa was smart enough not to make the exact same mistake that she did.

  Elsa was not expecting Anna to ask that at all, she was utterly stupefied. In a fraction of a second her face altered between petrifyingly pale to completely crimson. Her mouth was agape and only unintelligible noises seemed to escape it. Her icy blue gawking at her sister almost wondering if she'd heard her correctly. Dating him? Elsa could barely decipher if she could even consider him a friend, let alone boyfriend. Elsa thought when she told Anna earlier that she wasn't looking for a 'someone special' that it was clear she wasn't interested pursuing companionship (especially) of romantic variety, not that she was completely opposed to the idea, she just didn't think she was ready or eager to engage in that sort of relationship, as of yet. If Anna even had to ask, did that mean she thought they were rather close? Perhaps too close, and if her own sister was questioning her about her relationship with Hans, how did everyone else view it? Maybe it was just Anna's worst-case scenario, and if that was the case, she certainly wouldn't be too thrilled when she really revealed what she wanted to discuss.

 Elsa tried opening her mouth to speak but her voice was inaudible. She blinked a few times trying to get out of her stupor. Her face burning like never before, seemed to be helping in that respect as well. She had to bring her hands up to her cheeks just to try to cool them a bit. There was a slight twang to her tone when finally she managed to regain her voice. 

 "W-what!? No! Of course not!" She spluttered in fluster as she frantically shook her head. "What gave you that absurd impression?" She covered her face completely with her hands for an instant trying to recompose herself. After taking a deep breath, she pulled her hands down across her face to look back up at Anna. 

 "Though frankly, you're probably not going to be elated about what I actually wanted to inform you about either," she murmured as she took another deep sigh. Knowing that the mere prospect of her sister dating her ex already put Anna on edge, learning that instead Elsa would be taking sword fighting lessons from the same man that almost slayed her with one, wasn't going to go over any smoother.

"You were just looking really nervous about it, and if it involved Hans it had to be something bad so I just made the nearest guess about what might make you nervous to talk to me. I can't imagine many other things that would prompt you to look all nervous about talking to me, so I'm glad that's not the case." She did notice the long pause and red face, though. She couldn't quite decide what she thought of that, whether it was incredulous, rage, or embarrassment.

  "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." She laughed a little and squeezed Elsa's arm a little to encourage her to go on. "It can't be worse than that, surely?" She suggested lightly. She didn't yet know the half of it, of course.

 Elsa grumbled and winced. 

 "Well..." Elsa began as she fumbled with her hands a bit. " I don't know if you'll consider this far better or worse," she faintly tittered. "... but, um, I want to be candid with you about what's going to happen ahead of time so you won't be surprised by it later," she explained, perhaps stalling a tad. She took another breath. "So... you know how Hans will be assisting in training the guards?" Elsa asked, as if Anna wasn't already well aware. "Once he's healed... he'll be teaching me, as well."

Anna seemed a little suspicious, but tentatively curious. 

 "Training you... with swords?" She asked, genuinely curious. "You are really not bothered at all by the fact that he tried to behead you, are you?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "Just-- make sure he's only using wooden swords, okay? And maybe keep a guard, or maybe Kristoff, while you're training?" Anna still didn't trust-- but she also doubted Hans would attempt to stab Elsa with a sword made of wood. He was better than that, at least.

"Yes... with swords," Elsa nodded. She pursed her lips and shook her head. "Not really...I trust he won't ever try to do something like that again," she said softly. Elsa sincerely believed that Hans would have never raised the sword against her, in the first place, had he not thought it was the only viable option given the abnormal circumstances. "Oh! Of course, a guard will be there to supervise and if it puts you more at ease, Kristoff's more than welcome to chaperone, as well," Elsa assured. Though she wasn't sure she could really promise that they'd always be restricted to only using wooden swords. Elsa was surprised that Anna was taking the news a lot better than she had expected.

Anna frowned a little, clearly still not comfortable, but trying. 

 "I wish I could be that confident in him. But I don't think I ever could be. Not after what he did to us." And Elsa's lack of concern really only made things worse. She was starting to wonder, did she want to die that day? Was that why Elsa was so calm about all this? Or was Elsa truly unfazed by everything?

 "I don't like this, Elsa. He's too charismatic, everyone just believes him. Like what happened before was all a dream. Even the guards seem to like him. I did too, that didn't pay off." She wanted to be forgiving, but there was still a cold memory in her heart of being abandoned and locked away to die. She couldn't forget that, and she wasn't sure she could forgive it, either.

"It's not like I wasn't doubtful at first either. I had plenty of my own concerns at the start, how could I not? What he did can't be ignored. Yet he's not the monster I once thought. I'm not condoning the heinous acts he's committed. How could I ever forget, and let alone forgive him for what he's done? But also I can't continue to hold a grudge against him, not when he's trying so hard to make amends. I realized judging him solely on his wrongdoings isn't very fair, especially to think they are what define him as a person, there's more to him than that. I know he feels guilty for what he's done. If he had no remorse he could have easily become a pirate or sought revenge like the Duke, instead of returning to Arendelle for more penance. He'd already received punishment once in the Isles by being stripped of his titles and lashed, and yet he thought that wasn't enough and came to ask for me for more, he was ready to take any punishment I gave him...including execution. I couldn't simply turn a blind eye to all effort." Elsa explained, trying to give Anna a better idea of why she trusted Hans. There was more to it of course, but she didn't want to be rambling the entire night. "I know it's hard to trust him again after what he's done, but you don't have to, not right away, I don't expect you to become best friends or anything, acting as if nothing ever happened. I just hope you can offer him a second chance at least, no forgiveness required. I know interacting with him directly is probably too difficult, but maybe you can just observe him, see if he actually slips up like you expect him to. His charm seems compelling, but can that alone really convince the entire kingdom? I know you're not the only one chary of believing him, I was too, but there's more beneath the surface." Elsa tried to be reasonable, knowing how greatly Hans affected Anna.

Anna listened. The doubt was still on her face, but she was clearly paying attention. 

 "I'm trusting him enough to not be yelling at you to throw him back in the dungeons." She pointed out, still looking uncertain. "I'm willing to have the guards watch him. Just, don't make my mistakes, okay? You're the smart one, 'Else. Don't fall for the same charm your airhead sister did, I feel dumb enough for falling for it the first time." She folded her arms. It still hurt, deep down. No matter how many times she told herself he wasn't worth it, that he was a liar and a bastard, she hated herself for falling for the 'too-good-to-be-true' prince. Worse, he had claimed some of that was true, that he had wanted to be a good husband. One who couldn't love, though. What was the point of that? 

 "He told me he didn't know what love was, but knew he didn't have it. Did he tell you the same thing? He said he wanted to learn how, once. I wonder if he's still trying. Maybe that's his real penance. Everyone is human, but in a way I wonder if he knows how to be a human." She looked uncertain, unconvinced, and almost pitying of him. Not quite, but almost. She still carried that anger that made her call him useless. It was both satisfying and painful to see how he crumpled after that. She knew she shouldn't want to see someone miserable like that-- but that was what he had done to her. She would have died in the same misery cast on her, if not for Olaf. Suddenly, she felt she needed a hug. 

 "I'm starting to wonder if I'm the one being a bad person, even after all he's done. Somehow I'm the one who feels like the bad guy here." She folded her arms over her chest and drew her legs up under them, pulling herself into a ball. What was it about this guy? Even when he wasn't around he was manipulating.

Elsa let Anna's words sink in. She was at a loss of words with the love talk. She remembered Hans once saying he lacked love in regards to Anna and the 'true love's kiss', though she assumed that he recognized that he wasn't in love and not that he was incapable of feeling (any) love. Though Elsa couldn't say she understood love much herself, she only knew the love she felt for her family and her kingdom, but anything else was a complete mystery to her. So much for a relaxing sisterly bonding time. Elsa imagined that Anna would get upset, but she'd never would have guessed it would have been like this. If anyone was the bad guy here, Elsa felt it was her, for unnecessarily hurting her sister yet again. She wanted to wrap her hands around her and comfort her, but started off by gently touching her shoulders. She leaned down to look at her. 

 "What? No! Hey, please don't think like that, no one is the bad guy here, and especially not you. You have every right to be doubtful of Hans, and maybe I'm being a bad big sister trying to push you into doing something you're not yet ready to do and I'm sorry, I'll stop, I promise."

Anna leaned on Elsa just the same. "No, maybe it's not a bad thing that you're trying to be forgiving. And maybe it's also not bad that I'm not." She assured her. Middle ground and grey area. That was something neither of them was good at, but she was starting to learn it from Kristoff. She always loved warm gestures from Elsa, especially hugs and being held. 

 "Sometimes it's good to have these conversations, even if they aren't comfortable. Right?" She hummed. It wasn't easy, but it was good. She felt a little better, knowing her sister was being sensible, and that at least now they could compare notes on Hans' behavior. Though, she noticed Elsa didn't say what he had told her, if anything. Maybe that was news to her? It was hard to say. Hans seemed to have a different personality for everyone he met.

Elsa shifted to embrace Anna around her shoulders bringing her face close to hers, so both their cheeks were touching. "I guess so, it does feel better talking about it than keeping it all bottled up inside, though I really hate upsetting you," she admitted, gently snuggling her warm cheek against Anna's.

"Sometimes we need to be upset to solve things, maybe." Anna proposed. She wasn't sure if that was true, but it felt like something Kristoff would say, even if he never had. One of those funny things that didn't sound like it made sense, but somehow kinda did. 

 "So, anything else we wanna get off our chests or do we have some actual sister fun instead?" She proposed with a little smile. Cuddles worked just fine for her, she never got enough, and Elsa being this close was rare indeed. "Maybe it's good that he's here. Maybe we'll learn something important. He helped stop the raid, after all." Anna wouldn't deny that, at least. Hans was a good sword hand when they needed it, and he didn't act against them when he had the opportunity-- not just the opportunity, but the advantage. If he had wanted Elsa dead, that would have been an ideal time to turn the tides and win favor for the Southern Isles and Weselton. At least some of what he was doing had to be genuine, then.

Elsa shrugged a little. "Nothing else I can think of, unless there's something you wish to tell me, if not I would love to finally get our fun sister time started for real," Elsa answered, her eyes closed and tightening her squeeze around Anna a bit. She loved being able to hold her little sister, feel her warmth, she didn't always have the chance cuddle as much as she would have liked, and she often forgot how good it actually felt to hold another person until she had them once again in her grasp. Elsa opened her eyes and smiled a bit when she heard Anna speak kinder words about Hans. She was glad that she didn't actually believe he was completely useless. It would probably take some time for her to accept him completely, but at least she was coming around ever so slightly and that was good enough for her. "Indeed," Elsa agreed with a light nod.

"I'd be happy to just cuddle for hours." She hummed. They never seemed to have enough time. "Should we paint our nails or something?" She laughed a little. Why not? Something fun that would encourage them to spend time together. "Mhmm," Elsa hummed in agreement. "Doing something like that might be fun, but why stop there? What about building a pillow fort and doing each other's hair?" Elsa suggested with a laugh. It sounded childish, yes, but the two of them did miss out on a lot of their childhood, and there was nothing wrong with them having a little fun and making up for lost time now. They rarely got the chance to spend quality time together so why not indulge a little, with simple pleasures? Anna wiggled a little in place. "Ooh!! Yes!! Let's do all the things we never got to!" She agreed, giggling. "Should I get the pillows and blankets, or the hair supplies and polish?" 

   "Yes!" Elsa said with a big grin on her face. "I can go rummage around for some blankets and pillows." Elsa volunteered for blanket and pillow duty because they were going to require many to make the most magnificent fort imaginable and no one could deny the Queen, if she decided to borrow a few from some of the rooms for a bit, she'd return the items promptly before bed time. Anna wiggled until the force of her wiggles moved her out of her seat.

  "Excellent! I'll go get all the other stuff! And send for tea!" She chirped, and in a bouncing flutter she was off, excited to go get things and spend time with her sister.

 Elsa was off too, expeditiously gathering blankets and pillows from nearby chambers and taking them back to the parlor. On her last trip to and fro, she stopped by Hans' room, Hans was still absent, surely he won't mind if she borrowed the pillow he was currently not utilizing. She left a note, just in case, so he wouldn't be puzzled to discover his pillow missing upon his return.

Pardon me taking your pillow.

It's required for a pressing matter.

I'll return it as soon as possible, Promise.

 -Elsa

Did she really need to take Hans' pillow? Not really. She had plenty and could make do without it. But, did she want an easy excuse to come check on him later (whether she liked to admit it or not)? Absolutely. 

 Shortly after, Elsa returned to the parlor with her last plunder of pillows.

  "Okay, I think this is enough pillows to make the greatest pillow fort in all of Arendelle!" She proudly proclaimed to Anna who'd been waiting for Elsa to finish her scavenger hunt in order to start the fun. Anna giggled and cheered. 

 "Yes!!" She chirped, throwing her hands up. "It's so good to see you having fun, and to just, do girly things together!" She wiggled excitedly. Pillow fort first. Then nails and hair. The tea was brought in and set aside. Tea with lots of sweets, of course. Anna's addition. What was tea without sweets?

Elsa was glad to be making a happy memory with Anna, memories they would have likely shared already, had it not been for their unfortunate separation. She knew it was unfitting for a Queen, such as herself, to be acting so childish, but she didn't care, if it meant she could share a blissful moment with her beloved sister. 

 They had completely rearranged all furniture in the parlor, placing it all in the center of the room using it as the fort's foundation. With Elsa's architectural prowess and Anna's ingenuity, the two girls managed to create a beautiful spacious pillow fort, where they could both comfortably relax inside, in no time. 

 Anna had painted Elsa's nails crimson red, and brushed out her platinum blonde hair as they waited for the paint to dry. Currently the roles were reversed with Elsa gently brushing her sister's strawberry blonde hair as Anna's nails dried.

 "This is nice," commented Elsa as she continued to untangle Anna's hair. "I wish we could have been able to do this when we were younger." She let out a slight sorrowful sigh.

"I wish that too. But hey, at least we had plenty of time to practice for ourselves?" Anna teased, holding up her own brightly-painted pink nails. Anna liked saturated pinks and greens, bright spring-y colors. Anna had certainly had little else to do but perfect her nail polish. "If we didn't have time then, we'll just have to make more time nowadays." She suggested brightly, smiling insistently. There was no reason they couldn't, surely? Well, aside from the whole war with Weselton, but that seemed like something the Isles would handle.

Anna's tease had made Elsa laugh a little. Anna was right though, even with all of her Queenly duties, Elsa should always be able to have time to share with her sister. 

 "You know what? Your right, sisterly leisure time is important. Especially knowing how precious it is to spend quality time with one another. We should try to start making this part of our weekly routine. I could find a way to set aside some time just to spend with you, so we can do future fun activities together. It would be a good way to help alleviate some of the strain from all my duties. We could even try something different every week, something we never got the chance to before," she proposed a bit excitedly at the prospect. Even Queen's deserved to take pleasant breaks to keep them sane. Family was also important and finding a way to better balance between her responsibilities and the ones she loved was something that had to be done.

"I love it! And, we can take some time in the winter to build a snowman. The old-fashioned way." She suggested with a little laugh. "Or something bigger and better. A snow-fort?" She hummed. Something with their hands, not lots of magic, just to do it for themselves and wear themselves out pushing a bunch of snow around. Maybe they were acting like children, but, so what? Everyone deserved to act childish now and then.

"Of course! And afterwards we can have a snowball fight," Elsa giggled. Hopeful thinking of the future was quite comforting. "Though we might be getting ahead of ourselves thinking about winter already when we have yet to reach summer. Which reminds me that a certain someone's birthday is coming up real soon. Do you have any idea what they would like this year?"

"Oh!" Anna giggled. She hadn't really thought about it-- or rather, it was really hard to think of things when someone asked about birthday presents. "Maybe some new games we can play? Games that aren't charades." She giggled a little. "Or... things that would help me get ready to be more... woodsy? I don't know what being married to Kristoff would be like, if he ever gets around to proposing, but you know... I'd like to show him I'm trying." She offered with a smile and a shrug. She really did care about him, and if he was going to invite her to his home-- well, she'd like to be a little more prepared for maybe, possibly, someday living there.

"I'll definitely keep that in mind." Elsa smiled and nodded. Something to help be more woodsy, huh? Elsa pondered a bit as she continued to stroke Anna's hair. Maybe getting a new outfit would be an ideal gift, one that was less restrictive than the dresses she commonly wore around the castle, something more suitable for the outdoors. Yeah, that sounded like a perfect gift, but she needed to look into getting it made right away, if she wanted it to be ready by Anna's birthday. 

 "All done," Elsa stated as she finished her last pulling of the brush along Anna's hair one last time. " Would like to take a break to drink tea and eat some sweets before deciding what we're going to do with our hair?"

 "Sure!" Anna hummed. "Maybe you should leave yours down? It's such a pretty color and you look so relaxed with it down." She pointed out sweetly. 

 "I mean, maybe not in the morning, but it's not like you have more meetings to do tonight, right?" She had no idea that Elsa was planning to visit Hans.

Elsa blushed slightly at her sister's compliment as well the idea of keeping her hair down for the rest of the night. 

 "Yeah, no more meetings tonight." No official meetings at least and dropping by Hans' room to return his pillow was more like a brief visit than a meeting, anyway, right? She'd be in and out in a flash. "I suppose I can keep it down for the night," she said shyly. If she'd ask Anna to do her hair she'd ask why and Elsa didn't want to ruin the good time they were having by bringing up Hans once again. "Yay! I could do it tomorrow morning too. I know you can do your own, but it's just nice to do those things." Anna hummed. She didn't mind braids or no braids, but she did think that Elsa's hair was beautiful, especially down. It must have been the ice magic, her platinum blonde hair was unique in the family. Silvery and beautiful, like the rest of her. Not that Anna was jealous per se. She was jealous of Elsa's poise (in a fond little-sister-looking-up-to-her-big-sister way), but she knew Elsa was beautiful, she was cute. Kristoff loved her, not Elsa, so Anna was pretty happy with her lot. Still, she could admit the difference. Anyway her hair wasn't too bad either (when it behaved). "Well, if you manage to wake up as early as I do, you're welcome to do my hair, I know how much you love sleeping in," Elsa teased as she shifted to bring the tray with the tea set and treats closer to them. Once in her reach, she set out the tea cups for Anna and herself and began pouring the tea gracefully.

  "Uuugh, I guess I'll just have to braid your hair tomorrow night before bed, then." She suggested, sticking her tongue out playfully, but smiling. Any time she could spend with Elsa was a good time. Even if they sometimes had to talk about Hans.

[mysticsparklewings]

The Intrigue (Brush Marker Test)

So per my poll from a few days ago, the first of my drawings made testing new supplies going up is this one! Thanks to a ton of stuff getting the glorious "Clearance" tags and stickers at my local Michaels, I finally got my hands on a 6-set of Spectrum Noir Illustrator markers, which I've been wanted to try for a long time, and thanks to a well-timed sale, I also finally got my hands on four sets of 6 and a 2-pack of the Winsor and Newton Brushmarkers that I've been wanting to try for an equally long time. I decided to put the two different kinds of markers together for this test because even with 26 markers by Winsor and Newton, I felt I was still lacking just enough colors to get a good range to work with, (this is also the reason I usually grab whatever markers from just whatever sets I have when I'm just drawing to make art and not to test specific supplies) and only having 6 Spectrum Noir markers to use...well, that would've made for a very challenging drawing, now wouldn't it? After swatching the markers out, I was really drawn to some of the colors in the Portrait set from Winsor & Newton, and after staring at my options for a while, I felt like drawing a long-haired vampire dude would be fun and get the best use out of the colors I had. So I did I will say that the one major problem I had during this process, and it's actually fairly obvious (although I did choose to accentuate it on the shirt) is that the markers kept smearing my lines. Which is strange and confusing because I used a cobalt Copic Multiliner, which is supposed to be "water and Copic proof." So you'd think since these markers are alcohol-based like Copics, that everything would be okay. Apparently not! My best guess is that this ink (mostly the Winsor and Newton markers; the Spectrum Noir markers seemed to fair a bit better) dries more slowly or has more dye/pigment in it, or something. My original thought was that I had just made some of my lines too thick, but then I had the same problem a couple of times in areas where the lines were thinner/their original weight, so there went that theory. (Although the thicker lines probably didn't help, but I did that before I knew that was going to be a problem and it wasn't like I could suck the pen ink back up to fix it.) Anyway. Other than that, I liked both kinds of markers pretty well. The Winsor and Newton markers remind me a LOT of the Prismacolor Brush Markers, which are actually my favorite of all the alcohol-based markers that I've tried. Other than visual differences between markers, and the Prismacolor markers having a brush tip and bullet tip while the W&N markers have a brush tip and chisel tip, the main thing is the tips of the W&N markers are a tiny bit softer than the Prismas, and the Prismacolor markers have slightly more friction on the paper; they "stick" a bit more, but it's a very very veeeeery subtle difference. My only issue with the Spectrum Noir markers is I'm a little concerned about how long the brush nibs are going to last. They seem like they could be in very early stages of desalinization--a thing that can happen to all alcohol-based markers, including Copics, but tends to happen more commonly in older markers or markers with a very short shelf life just because of the formula used to make the ink. In this case, I'm inclined to believe it's more to do with how long the markers have been sitting in the store, unsold. There was a thin layer of dust across the top of the box, and this was the one set of about five options available that got a clearance sticker. And so, if that is the case, I will forgive it. The other part of the nib problem though is that the nibs do seem pretty spongey/foam-like instead of more of a nylon/silicone feel like Copics or Prismacolor markers have. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does point to the nibs potentially wearing out more quickly over time and/or with heavy use. I didn't have any issues while swatching or working on this drawing, but I will be exceedingly careful to try and not push my luck going forward, just because I'm a paranoid little potato after the hot mess that was the one set of Artist Loft markers I bothered to pick up. (Those nibs, for context, were awful and have started to collapse with very little use). Other than that, I don't really have much more to comment on. Both markers blend really well, and the Winsor and Newton markers, in particular, seemed to be very forgiving in terms of not being patchy if you laid them down inconsistently, and they soften out to a smooth blend pretty well, especially if you use more of a flicking technique while layering up the colors. The shadows aren't terribly dark in part because I only had so many colors to pick from and also because I am notoriously skittish about accidentally getting my shadows too dark on my alcohol marker pieces anyway. But I think Mr. Vampire here turned out pretty good despite that. I did have to touch up a few colors in Photoshop because my scanner kinda messed them up, but I think that's more user-error and my scanner being finicky than it is any fault of the markers. Speaking of which, I did the soft green background with a Pan Pastel to tie in with the green in his eyes, and the triangle-border thing saw the triangles filled in with some tri-tone pencils (a couple by Koh-i-noor and a couple by Crayola) that I acquired recently. I thought it would breathe a little more life into things, and I think I was right. I think it also ties the otherwise random colors together a little bit more. I added the border at all because I had kinda already decided on the pose I wanted to try for a vampire character, since the kind of character was where my color options led me, and while I could have just left it without, it felt kind of lacking without something to more formally ground the character, and as I said the colors feel a bit random without something to strengthen their presence. Which is ironic because the structure of the border was almost completely random, and yet my brain looks at it and just kind of glosses over that knowledge . Overall, I like the markers and I'm happy without how my tall, pale, and mysterious character turned out. Though for some reason I get "hypnotism" vibes from the final product; I think maybe it's the pose, the nature of triangles, and the seductive part of vampire lore combined that's giving me that impression? I'm not really sure.   He's not terribly original, but I may end up using this character again in the future since I do like his general design so much and how nicely he turned out here, we'll see. ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[northbndtrain]

12 Monkeys / S4 / Episode 1: “The End” / Commentary

I meant to do this earlier in the week, not because I think a recap is needed but because I just wanted to put my thoughts down somewhere, but I was busier than I thought I was going to be. I also don’t know that I’ll be able to do this for 402 and 403, especially before the new episodes tonight, but here at least are my thoughts on the first episode of the premiere, including what I thought were highlights.

OPENING: The "serpent/demon" legend is told in voice-over as a group medieval soldiers chases down a group of robe-clad "heretics" and burns them alive for refusing to tell them where the "weapon" is. My favorite part of this sequence is that it features a young girl named "Chorus." Great name.

JONES RECAPS ALL OF THE HORRIBLE THINGS THAT HAPPENED LAST SEASON: Jones is close to death after being stabbed by Olivia in S3. As Hannah begs Cassie to save her, Jones flashes back to the events of the S3 finale, which is a really creative way of recapping exactly who killed whom, who saved whom, who has reason to be pissed at whom, etc. When Jones flat-lines, Cassie snaps out of her "eh, Jones deserves to die because she shot Athan" stupor and brings her back.

CASSIE/COLE SHOWDOWN: Cassie and Cole have a poignant discussion as Cassie packs her things in preparation for leaving. The scene is a good encapsulation of their different personalities and different reactions to the loss of Athan. Obviously, they're both grieving, but they're channeling that grief in different ways. Cole tries to comfort Cassie by reminding her that they did save Athan's soul, which is what he is choosing to focus on. For him -- I don't want to say that's "enough," because he's lost his son. Nothing would ever be "enough." But it's giving him something to hold onto at this point in time, and he needs that if he’s going to move forward with the mission, which is what he desperately wants to do. That mission, and Cassie, are all he has left.

But Cassie rightly points out that, yes, they saved Athan's soul, but that doesn't wave away the fact that something is now happening to her as a result of Athan's death -- she almost let Jones die, and as we will soon find out she is desperate to kill Olivia. She can’t focus on the mission or the increasingly nebulous idea of what “success” would mean because she’s self-aware enough to realize that she’s broken right now. Her reaction to Athan's death isn't necessarily "healthy" or "unhealthy,” or somehow “better” or “worse” than Cole’s reaction -- it is simply a fact. And nothing Cole can say can change it.

But neither can Cassie change Cole's desire to stop running so they can end this once and for all. For the moment, they're at an impasse. But it's not an artificial one dreamed up by the writers to create conflict. This is just who Cole and Cassie are.

DEACON'S NOT A HERO BUT SOMETIMES HE PLAYS ONE IN TITAN: Deacon (I LOVE HIM) is the one who has the idea to distract Olivia and her minions by blowing up one of Titan's towers, and then he's also the one to risk his life to execute the plan. Unfortunately, the explosion only convinces Olivia to use some of the other towers as nuclear weapons or something (”OLIVIA’S GOT HERSELF A DEATH STAR,” Deacon radios back to base), but it was nice to think that the team had a win for a moment, anyway.

THE FACILITY SPLINTERS: With Olivia about to incinerate Raritan with Titan's remaining towers, the gang prepares to splinter parts of the building and anyone inside those parts of the building at the time of departure. Of course, the minute it's revealed that anyone accidentally left outside the perimeter at the time of departure will be left behind, it's a given that at least one person will be. And that person, of course, is Deacon, because why not.

Things I liked about this sequence? Deacon's very human reaction when a desperate Cassie found him on the wrong side of the perimeter just before take-off. Instead of saying something self-sacrificing like, "It's okay, just go!" he quietly, brokenly, pleaded, "Don't leave me." Deacon's not a hero, really. He wants to survive. He clearly still cares about Cassie. In his mind, he went out into enemy territory to buy the gang more time, and now they're shoving off without him. So, yeah. He's got reasons to be so defeated in this moment, to say something almost nonsensical (his tone indicates he knows full well that they can't turn the perimeter off, but he begs anyway).

Things I didn't like about this sequence? That the last thing Deacon saw was Cole dragging Cassie away, because it seemed like an obvious way to try to increase Deacon's anger and resentment for whenever we next see him again. I just don't think that was necessary. But, then, I've always been uncomfortable with this "triangle" (as much as we can call it that), so any reminders of it put me off.

WHITLEY RIP: Whitley sacrificed himself to buy Jones time to fix the core so the team could splinter, and it was all extremely sad, especially when Jones sat next to him for the last time. I know there are a lot of characters on the show, but I wish we'd spent more time with him and he'd gotten more development.

MONTAGE TIME: Heartbreaking montage of Cassie, Cole, and the rest wandering around the desolate wasteland surrounding the Emerson Hotel, which is where they splintered. Everything about the sequence underscores the sadness of the team's situation: yes, they've survived, but for what purpose? Just to hide and mourn their losses and wait for Olivia to find them. As Cassie notes, they’re just running around in circles at this point.

FORTUNATELY, DR. ADLER IS STILL HERE: When Cole demands that Dr. Adler fix the core, Adler snarks, "We need another Adam Cell to kick-start it. To get one of those, you. need. a time machine!" Poor Cole. Every where he turns, there's another loop.

Adler isn't done. When Cole asks if Jones has any thoughts, the camera settles on Jones sitting off by herself and Adler replies, "None that she's willing to share."

JUST WHEN ALL HOPE SEEMS LOST: Great editing choices here, as we go from Cole trying and failing to rally the troops to action (he wants to fix the time machine and find Jennifer and figure out what the hell is up with these weird Ouroboros drawings that are now apparently a recurring feature in his life) -- a really miserable situation -- to...JENNIFER. A reminder that not all hope is lost.

A lot has been written elsewhere about this sequence, which follows Jennifer as she pretends to be the action hero she sees herself as in her head and steals the Ouroboros Puzzle from the museum. All I'll say is that I enjoyed it. I had seen the red-headed Jennifer in promo shots, and I just assumed it was another version of Jennifer from some other timeline. But the show managed to surprise me yet again. I LOVE WHEN THAT HAPPENS. And, fortunately, it happens a lot, because these writers are good.

Also, that shot of Jennifer turning away from the door to smile and laugh over her shoulder at the museum guard felt familiar to me, and I realized that it reminded me a lot of her first appearance in the pilot. I think it was even the same music cue.

(I also loved the museum guard declining to pursue Jennifer because the world is ending and he doesn't care enough to bother.)

COLE AND...HANNAH, APPARENTLY: The episode's cliffhanger is set up by a bit of weirdness, at least for me...Cole goes out exploring and he's joined by Hannah, who was apparently following him for some time before, not on anyone's orders, but because she wanted to make sure he didn't walk alone. And I just...find that weird? I didn't really know what to make of the scene. On another show, I would wonder if the writers were setting up Hannah having a crush on Cole, but this isn't that kind of series. The only other thing I can figure is that the writers simply want to build up this friendship (?) in preparation for Hannah playing a bigger role in this final season.

Anyway, there's not really time to dwell on that because the cliffhanger is Cole seeing his past self walking around with Ramse and realizing that the team has splintered to the final hours before his first splinter. And I was excited about that until I realized that this means the next episode will have Cole feeling guilty about Ramse. (I am over Ramse and over Cole's guilt. I realize that it makes sense for Cole's character to feel that guilt. I realize that this is the correct writing choice. But I am over Ramse. Period. Full stop.)

[bibliomorgan]

What Today’s Teens Have To Say About George Orwell’s ‘1984’ The original 1949 cover of Orwell’s novel. Bow-wielding teen girls, love triangles, underground bands of scrappy young freedom fighters, or wrong-colored skies are surefire markers of a hit dystopian novel. But this month’s surprise best-selling dystopia has few of those trappings. The protagonists are pencil-pushing adults. It wasn’t written for teens. It’s not even new. George Orwell’s 1984, which shot to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list days after the first mention of “alternative facts” by Kellyanne Conway on the January 22 Meet the Press, is nearly 70 years old. Like much contemporary YA dystopia, 1984 is the disquieting story of an authoritarian regime, of one person’s quest to make a difference, of the idea of love combating apathy, and of an effort to recapture individualism and liberty. 1984 has long been a standard on reading lists in high schools, and drawing comparisons between the ideas in the book and modern life isn’t new. A 2007 podcast created by New York Public Library teens noted the similarities between the idea that “Big Brother is watching” and the invasive nature of social media, the Bush era wiretap controversy, and the USA PATRIOT Act. George Orwell Ten years later, it’s still the book’s prescience driving its popularity, but the focus has changed. Winston Smith’s world of Newspeak, doublethink, the Ministry of Truth, and Big Brother’s cult of personality seem all the more relevant in the current cycle of news and politics that includes the terms “alternative facts,” “fake news,” “post-truth,” and most recently, “pre-know.” With the book selling out and recently topping the Amazon best-seller list, some educators have noticed an uptick in teen interest too. “I’ve never had a student ask me for a copy out of the blue,” says Gina Seymour of Islip, NY. “It’s on the AP reading list, but other than that, no one has asked to read it…until last week.” Seymour’s student had heard about the buzz around the book and sought to understand more about the parallels people were noting, telling Seymour, “It sounds like he [Orwell] predicted things.” Across the country in Albuquerque, NM, Karra Shimabukuro’s students were similarly surprised by the new and different way the news media and politics are interacting. Shimabukuro’s Advanced Placement English students were focusing on the question, “What is the role of journalists today? Why are they important to an educated, informed populace?” when the “alternative facts” comment emerged. “Miss, how come she can just lie like that?” asked one of her students. In response, Shimabukuro changed her lesson plans to make space for 1984 as the next focus. A passage in “1984.” © Jason Ilagan, Creative Commons In Knoxville, TN, Powell High Library media specialist Liz White has noticed a dramatic uptick in interest. After sitting for nearly four years without circulating once, her copies are flying off the shelves and have wait lists. When a copy returned damaged, White ordered two more. “They’ve not arrived yet, but I’ve received at least three requests since.” A number of the public librarians shared a different observation, noting that dystopia doesn’t provide the kind of escapism many teens are seeking right now. Kathleen March of Anderson’s Bookshop in Downers Grove, IL, concurred. It’s not teens coming in to buy the book, she says, because “If they read it over the summer off of their [school-provided reading] list, it’s only been six or seven months, so it’s still fresh in their minds….It’s adults buying it to reread or to read for the first time.” For high school students like Zoë Madsen, immersing themselves in something so on the nose might not necessarily be where they want to spend their leisure reading time. “I immediately made the connection to 1984 when I read the tweet from Donald Trump that said ‘Any negative polls are fake news.’ That really freaked me out,” said Madsen. “It was this whole idea that the government can create the facts and anything that goes against the government-issued truth is automatically classified as fake news. It sounds all too close to a dystopian novel.” I haven’t read 1984 since 7th grade but i don’t rlly feel the need to re read it when i can just watch the news and get a similar feeling! — zoë madsen (@zoekmad) February 7, 2017 Whether or not they’re reading the book for the first time or rereading it, many teens want to be part of the conversation. Fortunately, teachers and librarians can make space for them. At the Brooklyn (NY) Public Library, Nicholas Higgins, director of outreach services, is conducting a series of three-week book discussion cycles about 1984 over the next four years. One teen, Brandon, participated in the first cycle, and Higgins has plans to boost outreach efforts to local high schools as the series rolls on. “At 13, Brandon’s very familiar with how information can be shifted. He lives in a world that’s constantly online,” Higgins says. Brandon related most directly to Julia, a character with a sense of rebellion and a clear awareness that everything was “fake,” he says. Brandon connected with the idea of choosing to focus not so much on upending the system as finding individual well-being and personal fulfillment. If the news makes him laugh, Brandon said he is more likely to pay attention to it. “It’s all entertainment to him,” Higgins says. Could it be that growing up with dystopia as a major part of their media diet has given teens a leg up on the issues? Higgins believes so. “I think [teens are] definitely ahead of the game. I’m looking to them to find creative solutions to the problems we face,” he says. For their part, Zoë Madsen and her cohorts are ready for more conversation. “Thanks for listening to young people’s voices,” she says. YA librarian Heather Booth blogs for Teen Librarian Toolbox.   gReader

[gillespialfredoe01806ld]

The Best Places to Live in America, 2018: Revenge of the Burbs!

iStock; realtor.com

Home is where the heart is, home is where you make it—but given the option, wouldn’t you want to make your home and store your heart in a place with a great sense of community, excellent schools to set your kids up for success, and affordable homes so you can set yourself up for financial stability?

Of course you would. And we’re here to help!

For the second year in a row, realtor.com® teamed up with Money magazine to come up with its annual Best Places to Live list. Having focused on small towns last year, we set our sights this time around on places with populations of 50,000 or more.

To figure out the best of the best, we took into account more than 135,000 data points, covering economic health, public school performance, local amenities, housing, and cost of living. We disqualified places with high crime rates (more than double the national rate), depressed income (less than 85% of the state median), and a lack of racial diversity.

The resulting list doesn’t feature any of the nation’s best-known big cities (could it be due to their higher crime rates and skyrocketing home prices?), but many suburban towns that are within a decent commute of one. That means you get those classic suburban amenities (a big house, a backyard for barbecues, great public schools) without totally giving up on the big-bucks jobs and fun factor of the big city.

“For someone who’s starting from scratch, this is a list of areas with great quality of life, healthy housing markets where affordability is important, and great overall community,” says Danielle Hale, realtor.com’s chief economist.

Ready? Let’s take a cross-country tour of America’s top-drawer places, 2018. (See the list of all 50 here.)

Best Places to Live

Claire Widman

1. Frisco, TX

Median home price: $449,900 Median household income : $117,642 Population: 177,286

A three-bedroom home in Frisco for less than $500,000.

realtor.com

For the first time in at least five years, Frisco topped the U.S. Census list of America’s fastest-growing big cities. From 2016 to 2017, the city added an average of 37 new residents every day. Over a year, that added up to a population jump of 8.2%.

The city about 30 miles north of Dallas is home to the splashy new headquarters of the Dallas Cowboys, The Star, a megacomplex that includes offices, a hotel, and swanky bars and restaurants. North Texas is on fire economically, and as Mayor Jeff Cheney pointed out in his (apparently unsuccessful) sales video aimed at snagging Amazon’s new headquarters, Frisco still has plenty of room to grow.

With its 177,000 people, Frisco is already a good-sized city—but one that still has a sense of community, says Julie Howell Stutts, who’s been a homeowner there for seven years.

“You still kind of feel like you know everybody here,” she says.

Schools here are top-notch and a prime draw for families. But while in the past the area’s housing consisted of mostly single-family homes, the recent spate of building has included apartment complexes more appealing to single professionals.

2. Ashburn, VA

Median home price: $519,990 Median household income: $120,862 Population: 49,692* 

A large home in Ashburn

Tim Kitchen/Getty Images

A couple of decades ago, Ashburn was a country town with just one grocery store. That’s when Kim Rabinowitch and her husband bought a townhouse, just after their marriage.

“We liked it because we could get a lot for our money back then,” she says. But they fell in love with the schools and their neighbors, and when they decided to trade up to a house, they bought one just down the street.

“People want to move into our school district,” Rabinowitch says. “Houses go on the market, and they’re on there for less than a day.”

With great schools and convenient transportation—it’s 10 minutes by car to Washington Dulles Airport and 40 minutes to the District of Columbia, plus there’s a new metro station to DC under construction—it’s no wonder that Ashburn has become popular with commuting federal employees. And other nearby suburban towns such as Tysons Corner and Fairfax offer more job opportunities closer to home.

Single-family homes, many with four to five bedrooms, dominate the housing stock, along with some townhomes. An impressive 83.4% of those homes are owner-occupied.

3. Carmel, IN

Median home price: $374,000 Median household income: $106,546 Population: 92,198

Coxhall Public Garden in Carmel, IN

Purdue9394/iStock

Just 26 miles north of Indianapolis, Carmel has become a sought-after suburban destination for its excellent schools and amenities.

“It’s mostly young families that are moving in,” says Kelly Lavengood, a real estate agent with the Lavengood Team in Indianapolis. “I frequently receive calls from people looking to relocate to Carmel from out of state.”

But it’s not just a magnet for parents—Carmel’s walkable downtown and plentiful parks also make it appealing to empty nesters.

“A lot of times, people think that suburbs are just an extension of the city,” Lavengood says. “But Carmel has really become an entity of its own.”

There’s a variety of homes for Carmel buyers to choose from, from entry-level abodes all the way up to mansions. Architectural styles vary, too—there’s even a pocket of midcentury modern homes designed by Avriel Shull.

4. Ellicott City, MD

Median home price: $558,950 Median household income: $121,019 Population: 70,780*

Shops in Ellicott City, MD

Walter Bibikow/Getty Images

Founded in 1772, Ellicott City has plenty of charm, particularly in its historic downtown district. Here, you can dip into boutiques and antiques stores in buildings that are pretty much antiques themselves.

But that doesn’t mean this place is stuck in the past. Its top-rated schools attract young families, and its affordable housing and access to two major metropolises appeal to professionals as well.

“The cost of living is high in Maryland; Ellicott City just happens to be located between Baltimore and Washington [DC], and it offers affordable housing,” says Jon Sandler, a real estate attorney who has been practicing in Ellicott City for 21 years. “Half the people are [Washington] Redskins fans, and the other are [Baltimore] Ravens fans.”

It’s the kind of place, he says, where locals stick around, or eventually come back to their roots. Many of the older buildings downtown have rental apartments upstairs, and there are also historic single-family homes, typically built with granite blocks, just outside downtown. There are also quite a few newer developments aimed at young professionals, Sandler notes.

But if you buy here, you’d best get flood insurance—the city has been subject to disastrous inundations in the past, and is weighing whether to invest tens of millions of dollars to redirect water from downtown.

5. Cary, NC

Median home price: $389,000 Median household income: $94,617 Population: 165,904

Four-bedroom home in Cary, NC

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Cary sits within North Carolina’s Research Triangle—an area of scientific innovation marked off by the cities of Chapel Hill, Raleigh, and Durham, which is home to more than 200 companies.

The area is rife with highly educated professionals who want the best schools for their kids—and Cary can offer that, says Merry Ann Cutler, a real estate agent and relocation expert with Re/Max United in Cary.

“Some of the people moving here are coming all the way from the West Coast,” she says.

Plus, it’s relatively affordable—you can buy a nice, single-family home here for $400,000.

“There’s a huge influx of people moving in right now, and construction can’t keep up with it,” Cutler says. “Homes sell very, very fast.”

Despite the development, there’s still plenty of green, crisscrossed by the largest number of walking and biking trails in the Triangle.

6. Franklin, TN 

Median home price: $549,900 Median household income: $88,961 Population: 78,321

Downtown Franklin, TN

Dan Reynolds/Getty Images

Franklin may bask in the reflected glow of nearby Nashville, but it has a gravitational pull of its own. Big-name companies such as Nissan, Schneider Electric, UBS Financial Services, and United Healthcare have offices here. The surrounding Williamson County is one of the country’s richest, with the lowest property taxes in the region and top-rated schools—a knockout combo.

“Franklin is a desirable place to call home,” says David Wright, a real estate agent with Benchmark Realty in Franklin. “It’s a variety of people moving in: families, empty nesters, and newly graduated professionals.”

Developers are still building out the city, Wright observes, with new communities and commercial areas. Westhaven, one of the most successful new communities that’s still under construction, has a target of 2,750 homes, townhomes, and condominiums. It features trails, resort-style pools, drop-in day care, and even a 37-seat theater. The townhomes and houses range from roughly $500,000 to $1,500,000 for 2,100 square feet to over 5,000 square feet.

7. Dublin, CA 

Median home price: $898,000 Median household income: $128,403 Population: 60,939

Dublin, CA homes

yhelfman/iStock

If you thought there were no good places to live left in the San Francisco Bay Area—Crazy expensive! Unfriendly! Dirty!—well, Dublin is here to tell you that you are wrong. This East Bay burg has a small-town feel that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find within just a few miles of Silicon Valley.

“Even though it has been rapidly growing, it still feels close-knit and family-oriented,” says Rebecca Briggs, an elementary schoolteacher (in neighboring Pleasanton) who’s lived there since 2002.

Like the other cities on this list, Dublin’s public schools are a prime attraction.

“Dublin stands behind its schools, and in turn that increases the level of educational excellence,” says Briggs, who sent her two children through the system. She notes that the community consistently votes to pass parcel taxes or bonds when they’re needed to meet the schools’ funding needs.

8. Highlands Ranch, CO

Median home price: $475,000 Median household income: $111,332 Population: 106,596*

Home for sale in Highlands Ranch

realtor.com

While many towns have sections dominated by new construction and tract homes, in Highlands Ranch, that’s all there is. The entire suburb outside Denver was planned out back in the late 1970s by the California-based Mission Viejo Co. Highlands Ranch has since ballooned, with different parts being built out by various developers. But unlike some other communities that have experienced growing pains, this town already has infrastructure in place, like wider roads, to accommodate growth.

Terance Freeman and his wife moved to the area in 2013, mainly for a shorter commute to his job in Aurora.

“The first thing that I really noticed was how family-oriented the community was,” he says. He noticed there were always kids playing in the street.

And despite the community’s upscale reputation, he soon realized that it’s actually cost-effective.

“Per square foot for the area, we actually got a better bang for the buck than we did in Aurora or would in Denver,” he says.

The flip side is that without kids, Highlands Ranch loses a bit of its luster. Kevin Mullen lived in the community for 14 years. But with his sons nearing the end of high school, he’s decided to pull up stakes.

“I don’t think it lends itself to a place that you’d want to live once your kids are up and gone,” he says.

9. Sammamish, WA

Median home price: $1,137,000 Median household income: $153,253 Population: 64,548

Lake Sammamish

4nadia/iStock

Head due east from Seattle as the crow flies, and you’ll eventually find yourself in Sammamish, which has turned into a bedroom community for Seattle, Bellevue, and Redmond, home of Microsoft.

Ann Gallinger moved to Sammamish about four years ago from Gig Harbor, where she and her husband felt they didn’t click with the community. Sammamish was a different story.

“It’s been exactly what we’ve hoped for as far as a sense of community, people being involved, people being open, and having a sense of the importance of things that we feel are important”—including funding parks and schools, she says.

The Microsoft force is strong here—Redmond is just 6.5 miles away. And with workers continuing to pour into the area, builders have been cramming large, two-story homes onto modest lots.

Amy Nielsen Hanson has seen the city develop over the 21 years she’s lived there. When she bought her first condo, she was just 21—prices were still affordable then. These days, despite the building boom, there are fewer options for first-time buyers. In addition, infrastructure such as roads haven’t been improved at the same pace as the housing expansion.

“For people who actually do have to commute, it’s gotten atrocious,” she says.

10. Woodbury, MN

Median home price: $369,642 Median household income: $101,922 Population: 69,756

Woodbury, MN

realtor.com

In Minnesota, there are the famed twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. And then there’s Woodbury, a suburb of St. Paul and the largest city in Washington County.

“Woodbury is the economic energizer of Washington County, which is basically all the eastern suburbs of Minneapolis,” says Matthew Johnson, a real estate agent with Anew Real Estate Group in Woodbury. “We have the largest population in the county and the most jobs. We’re known for great restaurants, great shopping, and great people.”

Health care provides both abundant job opportunities—280 of the 900 local businesses are in the health care industry, Johnson says—and good quality of life for residents who know they will be well taken care of.

A large part of the local housing stock is two-story houses with two to three bedrooms, Johnson says, and that’s what most families are looking for. Those homes run about $390,000.

Editor’s note: Median household income and population numbers are from 2016 U.S. Census data, with the exception of * entries, which use 2017 data. Home price data are from realtor.com.

Allison Underhill contributed to this report. 

The post The Best Places to Live in America, 2018: Revenge of the Burbs! appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

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[easythingstodrawtutorials]

POWERFUL Tips to Learning Easy Things to Draw for Beginners

New Post has been published on https://easythingstodraw.net/powerful-tips-to-learning-easy-things-to-draw-for-beginners/

POWERFUL Tips to Learning Easy Things to Draw for Beginners

I’ve been to many different art schools and have seen many many student go from complete beginner to working professional. I saw things in myself as well. There are so many different methods of how to introduce the topic of drawing. And I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. This page is made up of the things I feel you honestly need to learn first. Its written in a very easy format to understand easy things to draw for beginners. Our ultimate goal is to create cool pictures to draw.

So Let’s Begin…

Here is what I go over:

Sketching made easy.

The real Soul of Sketching.

Sketches depict your artist mind.

Observational drawing

10 Truths About Artists

Look at what you are drawing

Draw From Rel Objects Whenever Possible

Don’t Trace

Use Grids and Rough Forms

  Sketching: – make it easy

The following are some of the simple steps you should follow to make the sketching easy

If you are just bored and have nothing to do, or like to draw but do not like to make fancy, you should sketch. Sketching is a wonderful way to express your feelings, or create a quick doodle. This article isn’t a full in-depth guide to drawing because there is definitely no rules to drawing/sketching at all. These are merely tips to make your sketching experience fast, least painful, and fun. I hope you enjoy my guide, and find it useful. Also, don’t forget to See 3 Ways to Get Better Faster Easy Things to Draw

To start off, think of your planned sketch. Visualize it in your mind and if you can, rotate it in your brain, to better understand what you’ll be drawing.

Look for shapes such as circles, squares, triangles, etc. to relate to. This will aid in the shading process, and even help you sketch look better if you understand the basic shape of what you are about to draw.

Position yourself comfortably. If you are uncomfortable, your drawing will look worse than what it should, so get a nice chair, fix the lighting and put on some favorite music. Also, don’t forget to See 3 Ways to Get Better Faster Easy Things to Draw

Good hands: How does that help? If your hands are all sticky, wet or cold, your hand will not perform as well as it should.

Position your paper: This goes along with being comfortable, so put your paper at an angle that you feel comfortable with. There’s no set way.

If your item is small, place it in front of you where you can effectively sketch it. If it is something large, such as a car or tree, then get a clip board, sit down by it, and start sketching.

The real soul of sketching

First, just so that we are on the same page, here is how I define sketching: The purpose of sketching is to capture the main idea of your drawings. Sketches do not have to have detail. Some sketches are drawn before a big art piece to help layout the main ideas.

Other sketches are a collection of quick drawings. The purpose is not to spend a long period of time. That is drawing. Sketches should be rough, fast, and meaningful. Also, don’t forget to See 3 Ways to Get Better Faster Easy Things to Draw

With this in mind, here are the key elements that I look for in my own sketches, along with what I notice in others:

Creativity: this elements can still be applied to realistic drawings like still life. I strive to show a creative use of perspective, color, composition, etc.  So even if my subject matter is not necessarily creative,  I try to use the elements of art as creatively and interesting as possible. The elements of art should all support the message of the art piece itself.

Lines: I consider lines to be the essence of my sketches. When I draw a sketch, I try to erase as little as possible and keep my structural lines. (Structural lines are what I use to create the form of an object). I also try to be as confident in my line stroke as possible. Confidence is a noticeable and attractive feature in art, and is what creates strong form in line drawings

Perspective: This is one of the many important element of art. But the reason I am highlighting this is because in sketches, you are not focusing on value or color. You are creating a layout of the drawing. And perspective is the key element to layout. Having accurate and interesting perspective is important to me in sketches.

Rough: No, this does not mean have a rough texture. Rough means that your sketch is not perfectly precise. I try to not over think my sketches because over thinking causes me to draw bad. The way I stay “rough” in my sketches is that I sketch lightly and do not make dark lines. I also sketch quick. Finally, I sketch with little detail. It is important for me that I do not go too much into the sketch, and let the sketch be a rough outline or foundation to my overall drawing.

Message: The main idea that I am trying to communicate to my audience should be clear and in focus. Again, sketches are just a layout to map out the main idea. So I make sure that the main idea is what I focus on when I sketch, rather than the technical elements of the art.

These are different things that I notice and appreciate in sketches. One of the reasons why sketching is so important (especially for self-portraits) is that it is a checkpoint to make sure the idea (or person) you have in mind will actually play out on paper. If there is something you realize you do not like about your drawing, it is much harder to go back and erase when you have shaded in detail. But with a light sketch, things are much easier to change and move around. Sketching and making a rough plan is essential to drawing, in my opinion.

   Sketches depicts your artistic mind

The artists are interested in depicting the sensation of motion. Inspired by advanced photographic techniques and other new forms of technology and transportation, these artists chose dynamic, active subjects like the hubbub of a train station and the energy of a nightclub. Have your students make two kinds of drawings that focus on capturing movement or the sensation of movement…

Possible subjects include children playing at a playground, or a sporting event or dance performance on television. See how many different kinds of movements—running, jumping, standing, sliding, and so forth—they can depict on a page. For the first drawing, they should make quick, small sketches of figures in motion. For the second drawing, they should use different shapes, lines, and symbols to indicate the same kinds of movements sketched in the first drawing. The goal is achieve an easy things to draw for beginners. Also, don’t forget to See 3 Ways to Get Better Faster Easy Things to Draw

Have your students write a narrative of a trip from beginning to end, including as much visual information and description (such as sounds, smells, and feelings) as possible. Afterward, have them translate their experiences into three sequential drawings and give the series a title. Have them share their work with the rest of the class. In this way you can groom their artistic mind

  10 truths about Artists

10 honest truths about work, life and leisure in the creative industry.

 Many artists work freelance. A study by the Arts Council finds that 41% of creative workers are self-employed. Temporary work contracts can make for an interesting and varied career, though periods of unemployment between jobs are a reality for some artists.

 Freelance artists budget carefully. Being self-employed means you are without pension, holiday pay or maternity benefits. Contingencies such as falling ill or having children require pre-emptive financial planning.

 Artists self-promote. Many showcase their talents on Facebook, Twitter, and Linked in, as well as on their own websites. Having a good online presence shows employers that you are self-motivated and digitally literate.

 Artists love socializing. Networking events are the art world’s equivalent to job hunting, but with less misery and more booze. Whether you’re searching for commissions or trying to advance your career, networking gives you the chance to meet industry professionals and expose yourself to new opportunities.

 Many artists form collectives to publicize and exhibit their work. Kate Rowland, an illustrator from the collective After School Club explains: “Being in After School Club is great for motivation. It allows us to utilize each other’s skills, therefore we have more resources to help one another. It’s kind of like a creative support system. And lots of fun.”

It’s all about your portfolio. The visual arts are less grade-centric than other disciplines. An art director at a graphic design company once told me he’d think twice about hiring someone with a first-class degree, as he worried they’d have no time for hobbies outside of work. In his words, not mine, “they might be really boring”. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t aim high – another employer might appreciate a first-class candidate. Rather, you should focus on making your portfolio the best you can possibly make it. A good body of work speaks louder than grades.

Some artists supplement their income with a second job. Doing so gives them financial security while they exercise their creative passions. Take a look at some of these prolific “double jobbers”

Many artists take on internships to help kick-start their career and easy things to draw for beginners alike. Working for a company can prepare you with essential industry skills and improve your employability. The question of payment is a hot potato – in general, the shorter the internship, the less likely you are to get paid.

Job opportunities are growing. There are currently over 1.9 million people working in the creative industries. However, by 2016, the government expects this figure to skyrocket, with an additional 1.3 million new jobs in the private sector alone.

The creative sector is characterized by high levels of job satisfaction. As a result, the industry is highly competitive and jobs are sought after. If you have the passion and the motivation to stay ahead of the game, then a creative career can be an exciting and rewarding experience.

    Observational Drawing

Observational drawing is an integral component of many high school Art courses, including GCSE/IGCSE and A Level Art. Often, drawing is the core method of researching, investigating, developing and communicating ideas.

While it is accepted that there are many wondrous types of drawings – and that non-representational drawing methods have an important role in student Art projects – it is usually advantageous to demonstrate competent, realistic observational drawing skills to the examiner (particularly in the early stage of a project).

What follows is a list of tips that have been written specifically for high school art students who are looking to improve the realism of their observational drawings. It is for those who have already selected something appropriate to draw (see this guide for selecting subject matter if you need help with this) and who understand how to compose a drawing well (this will be covered in a subsequent article). Also, don’t forget to See 3 Ways to Get Better Faster Easy Things to Draw

Look at what you are drawing

Failing to look at what you are drawing is one of the most fundamental errors an Art student can make

This sounds obvious, but it is the most common error made by art students. Many students attempt to draw things the way that they think they should look, rather than the way they actually do look.

The only way to record shape, proportion and detail accurately is to look at the source of information. Human memory does not suffice. Forms, shadows and details are hard enough to replicate when they are right there in front of you; if you have to make them up, they appear even less convincing.

In order to produce an outstanding observational drawing, you must observe: your eyes must continually dance from the piece of paper to the object and back again. Not just once or twice, but constantly.

Note: even if you pursue a theme about mythical creatures, fairy tales or some other imaginary form, you should work as much as possible from observation.

Piece your creatures together from fragments of life. Dress people up and then draw them or merge different parts of insects or creatures together (using artistic license as appropriate) rather than creating an entire form or scene from your head.

 Draw from real objects whenever possible

The phrase ‘observational drawing’ typically implies drawing from life (see the superb observational drawing exercise set by artist and teacher Julie Douglas). Ask any art teacher and they will list the benefits of drawing from objects that are sitting directly in front of you. You are provided with a wealth of visual information and stuff to draw…changing light conditions; rich textures; views of the subject from alternate angles; as well as information from other sense…smells and noise from the surroundings etc. Transcribing from three-dimensions to two is ultimately much harder than drawing from a photograph, but it often results in drawings that are ‘richer’ and more authentic.

(This doesn’t mean, however, that you should never draw from photographs. Students frequently traipse from home to school and back again: it can be impractical to carry and set up complex still life arrangements over and over again. Some subjects – such as landscapes and nude models – are also unavailable in most classroom settings. It can therefore be good practice to set up a still life arrangement in the flesh (or visit a location) and begin drawing directly from the subject, using photographs to complete the work at home). Also, don’t forget to See 3 Ways to Get Better Faster Easy Things to Draw

   Don’t Trace – Find Cool Things to Draw

Throughout history, great realist painters have traced from photographs or worked from projections blown up onto walls. But these painters are not high school art students; nor are they assessed on their ability to replicate form.

There is a place for tracing in IGCSE or A Level Art (such as when tracing over something you have already drawn or creating a repeat pattern), but tracing from photographs and then simply applying color or tone is not acceptable. Such methods of ‘drawing’ involve minimal skill, teach you little and run the risk of producing clunky, soul-less outlines. Don’t do it. Try to push yourself for an achievement of easy things to draw for beginners style of learning.

Understand perspective

As objects get further away they appear smaller. The replication of this change of scale on paper (through the use of vanishing points) is called ‘perspective’. The fundamentals of perspective are usually taught in junior high school; by Year 10 at the latest. If you are a senior art student and have somehow missed this lesson, remedy this situation urgently. There are not many theoretical aspects of art that are essential to learn, but this is one of them.

Use grids, guidelines or rough forms to get the proportions right before you add details

Many students start with a tiny detail (the eye on a face, for example) and then gradually add in the rest of the image…ending up with a drawing that is badly proportioned or doesn’t fit on the page (or floats aimlessly in the middle of it). This can be avoided by approximating the basic forms before adding details or by using guidelines to ensure that proportions are correct.

If working from a photograph, using a grid can result in highly accurate work. It allows students to focus on one small segment of the image at a time and gives arbitrary lines from which distances can be gauged. This can be a helpful strategy when precise, detailed images are required and can itself become a celebrated component in an artwork. As gridding is methodical and involves meticulous plotting of lines, however, it is important to acknowledge that this approach runs the risk of producing tight and regimented drawings that lack in ‘spirit’ and should thus be approached with care.

Be wary of ellipses

Ellipses – the oval shapes that are visible at the top of cylindrical objects such as bottles or jars – frequently ‘trip up’ a weak drawer. They can send an immediate signal that a student is not looking at what they are drawing as in easy things to draw for beginners. All ellipses, no matter what angle they are viewed from, should be rounded (not pointed) at the ends, as illustrated in the image to the left (by Rachel Shirley) and below (sourced from ID sketching). Also, don’t forget to See 3 Ways to Get Better Faster Easy Things to Draw

Conclusion

If you go over and learn all the things on this page, you will be on your way in no time. These were a series of hings I felt were best to start off learning. There is so much more to learn so I recommend you dive into your drawing time hard. Use this site ans its videos as a resource.