#I juts wanted to draw some ~environments~ so it's not the same over and over

[fantasmagoriam]

Wolstinien Week 2023: Day 4 - Dragon

 I wonder if we’ll ever get to see a bigger version of Orn Khai, just like we did with Ehll Tou...

[lesbian-deadpool]

Happy Little Accidents

Part Two: Hope

Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Words: 2,317

Warnings: I don’t think there is any?? Crying/light angst, adoption process, stress??

Request: Yes

Summary: You work on getting you little girl back. And hope that it’s successful.

A/N: It’s been a long time coming, I haven’t proof read it or anything (but when do I ever? Lol), so bare that in mind.

Ko-Fi

(Not My GIF)

***

Being a pair of Avengers and going through the adoption process was so very complicated.

On one hand, you were well known across the globe. Household names.

But on the other. You were dangerous people, with violent past's -and futures to come- with more enemies than you could count. Some of which you didn't even know existed. And who in their right minds would ever let a child into that environment? People have been turned down for much less.

However.

You were basically celebrity's. And as everyone knows, that comes with a lot of special treatment. Even if you and Natasha -And most of, if not all of your team- denied to use any of it. But in this case? For little Hope? You would do whatever you had to.

So, it was thanks to that, that you were even allowed to be considered for adoption.

And there was so much work that had to be done.

Papers to sign, meetings to attend, visits and screenings every which way. And so much more.

It was a long and tedious journey. And you still had a long way to go.

Right now, you had to watch as someone picked apart your home -once again- to make sure it was okay for your little girl to come home. Where she belongs.

You had moved not too long ago, maybe a little over two months, and in that time, it had been looked at three times. Which really made it seem like you weren't doing anything, in their eyes, considering you were busy working and renovating the whole place out at the same time.

The day after you and Natasha had to say goodbye to Hope, you knew that you had to get a bigger place than the apartment you had both shared. And began looking for new homes the very same day.

Tony's help wasn't needed, you had plenty of money, but he insisted. So when you two found a townhouse that you absolutely adored, not too far from SHIELD HQ -where you both now worked most of the time. As when Fury found out that you were both to be adopting Hope- or trying to at least, the man lowered your hours and took you off missions altogether. Just until you were all settled-, the billionaire bought it for you, the moment he got wind of it.

You were moved in three days later. Deciding to work on the house while you lived there.

"So, where would the child be sleeping?" Your caseworker asked.

"Oh, right this way," you said, leading her down the hall to the newly decorated bedroom. Natasha following behind.

You gestured to the light pink, yet slightly sparse room. "This is it."

"We still have to pick up some of the furniture. But we've been waiting for the room to be decorated first," Natasha said, excusing the bare room.

"Yeah, Hope's not going to sleep on a stack of paint cans," you tried to joke. To which you barely got a smile from your caseworker, Stephany Halla.

"It look's decorated to me?"

"Oh." Natasha smiled. "We're having a friend of ours paint a mural or two on the walls."

"Yeah, Hope has a few favourite Avengers, so he's gonna paint them. And he's been learning how to draw cartoon characters for it, too."

"He's actually trying to adopt the two kids he took in with his fiance."

"Steve Rogers?" Stephany asked.

"That's the guy," you said, nodding along with Natasha.

"I've seen him around the office," She spoke again a few moments later. "So, when are you planning on getting the furniture for the room?"

"Hopefully, within a month," Natasha replied, "But with our and Steve's schedules, things are up in the air."

It was a difficult start to the adoption process, more so than it was now. Considering that the children legally didn't exist to the world. So, everything was so confusing and thrown up into the air while waiting for the kids to be registered.

Almost like you didn't know whether you were coming or going. Everything stuck in limbo as you waited to see what kind of adoption process you would have to take. And even with all of your connections in the world, you were still left in the dark.

There was the fact that the kids were found overseas in Romania, so they could be considered Romanian. And so, you would have to go through international adoption.

However, none of the children have birth parents and were brought to America because you had rescued them. So, some would say they could be considered immigrants.

Nothing like this had ever happened before.

Babies that had been grown in a lab and saved from a further torturous life, that now needed legalization in the world's eyes.

You and Natasha had to watch as Government's essentially fought over these children you saved. Over the same child, you clothed and fed. The one you played games with and bonded with the little girl you grew to love and consider your own.

So, as the world fought for the right of your child, your little Hope, you waited. Just wishing and wanting to bring your daughter home.

But, luckily for you, the children were now classed as American citizens. Which made it ten times easier for you to adopt than it would otherwise.

Which is honestly just crazy to you, considering just how intensely hard this is.

There were times you didn't believe you could ever adopt your child.

On more than one occasion, Natasha would come to you, saddened to her core, because she truly believed that you would never have Hope in your family.

It was so fucking hard.

Natasha had rolled over one night after you two had -once again- gone through the rules and regulations of adopting. Uttering how you were, "Never going to get her back" that there was "Juts no way, they will let us adopt", as she cried into your arms.

But still, the process continued.

"Well, your home seems to be in good standing. So for. But I advise you to get the furniture for the child's room as soon as possible," Stephane commented as she began packing up her belongings and paperwork.

"Oh, we know."

"Steve did say that he was going to start work on it in the next few days," Natasha added, nodding along with you.

"Well, that's is good news." Stephane smiled. "I'll see you at our next meeting with Hope."

Natasha sighed happily. "We can't wait."

"Well, goodbye then."

You whished the dirty-blonde woman farewell, closing the door behind her.

"We get to see our daughter in a couple of weeks," your red-headed girlfriend said excitedly, dancing from side to side out of pure happiness. Her bright smile filling your soul with warmth, that travelled all the way into your bones.

You matched her emotions, hands coming to curve around her shoulder blades and pulling her close to you.

"I know, Honey. It's been so long since we've seen her. And we're gonna bring her home one day."

That was all you could say before your mouth was covered, with the crushing feeling of Natasha's plump lips against yours.

***

Nerves rattled through you, but you hadn't the faintest idea why, considering this wasn't the first time you had seen Hope. However, it had been one of the first times you were able to see her since the day she was taken away from you.

If you thought you were bad.

Natasha was far worse.

She was practically shaking. From nerves or excitement, you didn't know. But you had a good inkling to think that it was both.

You had done so much for this child in the short span of time you had known her.

And yet, you couldn't imagine your life any other way. The thought of how your life had been that time last year.

No Hope. Surrounded by missions and work. Every free moment you had was spent with Natasha, and the rag-tag group of hero's you had grown to call your family.

It all seemed so foreign now.

Like a past life.

'Wow', you thought, 'Maybe I really am growing up'.

A part of you was afraid that the girl you thought of as your daughter wouldn't recognise you or your []. And would be scared of the two strangers that had just barged their way into her life. Breaking both of your heart's.

"Mommy! Mommy!"

Was the thing that greeted you, as soon as the door had swung open. Making you realise just how stupid your train of thought really was.

Natasha rushed forward, scooping the girl up into her arms, with a bright smile upon both of their faces.

"So, I still don't get a name, huh?" you joked, walking over to the reuniting girls.

Brushing a hand over Hope's short hair. Grinning when she reached her arms towards you, ready to give you a hug of your own, which you gratefully accepted.

"Don't worry," Natasha said, rubbing Hope's back as she hugged you, "You'll get a name soon."

"I better. Or else I'm gonna have ta tickle it out of her."

Hope's squeals reached your ears as you threateningly poked her side with your fingers.

"Here, baby. I'll save you," Natasha called, pulling the giggling girl from your arms. Both of them watching as you pulled your hand's in front of your face, wiggling the fingers almost spookily as them. The girls turned to each other, "They're silly."

Then they walked away.

With you calling after them.

"Hey! I may be silly, but-... I have no rebuttal!"

Natasha laughed at this, then greeted the care worker that was patiently waiting for you both. The one that you had only just noticed.

"Hello, Stephany," Natasha said in greeting, shaking the woman's hand. You following suit.

"Hey. How have you two been?"

"Missing this little one," Natasha replied, bouncing the girl on her waist. Receiving fun-filled giggles in return.

"I bet you have. And you, Y/N?"

"Exhausted," you told her honestly, "With moving house and everything, I just want to have Hope home, then sleep for a week."

The care worker laughed at that.

"Let's hope that that's sooner rather than later, then."

Your few hour's with Hope passed faster than you ever could have imagined. You played with blocks, ate lunch, "helped" Hope colour in her haphazardly filled colouring book. You absolutely adored the way her eyes lit up, and she started dancing and flailing her arms when she saw bubbles for the first time. You almost couldn't continue blowing them because of your bright smile.

And now you were watching as Natasha spoke gently to the little girl. Hope's hand's resting on the red-heads cheeks, watching her mother with such concentrating eyes.

You adored your little family.

You just wished you could have them all home.

'One day', you thought, 'one day'.

Saying goodbye was one of the hardest things you've ever had to do.

Just like the last time.

And the time before that.

And the time before that.

And the one before that.

It just got harder and harder each and every time you did this.

Hope was crying. And so was Natasha, albeit silently, as she tried to console the toddler.

"I know, my little love, I know-"

"Mommy!" Hope cried.

"I know, angel. We'll be back before you know it, I promise."

"Mommy!"

"I know."

Once in the car, you let your tears fall, Natasha sobbing in the seat beside you.

"I don't think I can keep on doing this anymore," you admitted. Deciding it was best you explained when Natasha turned to look at you, an incredulous look upon her face, "Keep on seeing her, and not being able to bring her home."

"We'll get there," your [] reached over the centre console to squeeze your hand, "We will. You're the one who's always saying that we've got to take after her namesake and have hope."

"But it almost seems endless, Nat."

"I know, honey." She wetly kissed your tear-stained cheek. Her lips, brushing against it as she continued, "We'll bring her home. I just know it."

"I hope you're right."

***

She was right.

Of course, she was right.

She was Natasha Romanoff, after all.

It was like she just had this inability to be wrong.

But in this case? You were so fucking happy about that.

Granted it had taken a while longer -a good eight months- but finally, you were here.

Exiting the courthouse with Hope in your arms, and Natasha by your side. Bright smiles upon all of your faces, about to take the little girl- Your daughter home.

You would never have to say goodbye to her, like that, ever again.

She was legally a part of your family now. And nothing would ever change that.

"Ready to go home, sweetpea?" Natasha asked the beaming girl.

"I don't know about you," you started, "But I think this deserves celebratory ice cream."

"I think you just want ice cream before dinner."

You gave an overdramatic gasp.

"Why I would never! How dare you accuse me of such a thing?"

Natasha laughed at your antics but nonetheless nodded her head.

"I agree. This does deserve celebratory ice cream."

"Yes!" you exclaimed happily to Hope, your free arm raising above your head in victory, making the girl copy you by raising both of her arms.

She was already taking after you.

Your red-headed girlfriend sighed dreamily after you, as you chanted, "Ice cream! Ice cream! Ice cream!" On your way to the car.

She couldn't remember a time where she was this happy.

It had been a long time since then.

And Natasha just couldn't wait to see what the rest of her life would bring with the two of you now by her side.

***

Permanent Tag List: 

@imnotasuperhero, @veteranwerewolf95, @natasha-danvers, @marvelfansince08love, @higherfurther-romanova, @lesbian-x-blackwidow, @sestra-inestro, @thelastavenger-3000, @mixed-fandom-mess,

SFW Tag list: 

@peggycarter-steverogers, @natalia-quinzel,

[thetakenpokemon]

Act 2 - The Illusionist

[PoV: ???]

No matter how much time I spend in New Falkhom City, I’ll still always favor the natural environments of the forests.

I feel myself smile wistfully, soaking in the visuals as I tread through the greenery, having long since discarded my disguise. Every so often I go as far as to brush my claws against the trunks of the trees, to feel their roughness that differs oh so greatly compared to smooth metal and concrete.

Progria may be a rather wondrous place, but their growing populace makes finding untouched forests rather difficult. Evolutia is where my true home lies, and thus why I greatly miss the wildness that its land possesses.

I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself, this forest bringing me memories of my time when I was training under the witches of the Star Coven. Although that forest is much darker than this one, it still holds the same wild tranquility that I’m so fond of.

My eyes glance down at the necklace I’m wearing, the gray metal hoop with a star in the center depicting the pentagram, a symbol that identifies one to be a member of the Star Coven.

I let out another soft laugh, my gaze shifting back up to the greenery ahead of me.

Back then I never quite thought I’d be using my illusion magic to live in Progria of all places. If anything, I thought I would actually be using my power to create and sell charms to sell individuals to help them lead double-lives.

Of course I’d also be using my illusion magic to benefit myself as well, but I never quite expected that I would be leaving a HUMAN double-life in Progria of all things, especially while occasionally working with a monster-hunting guild in Evolutia at the same time.

My lips widen into an amused smile, finding my current situation to be rather funny.

I guess we never truly know how we’ll end up in the future~

I continue my trek with a silent train of thought at this point, not really dwelling on much until I eventually find the ‘land-mark’ that I’m looking for.

Ahead of me I see a wall of leaf-covered vines, signifying that I’ve arrived at the area that I commonly meet with the members of the Guardians of Twilight.

Upon approaching I brush the vines aside with my clawed hand before walking through, my smile widening further as I look upon the secluded site.

This is a small spring, completely surrounded by ancient willow trees. This place is completely hidden from the view of others, making it a perfect place to hold meetings that you don’t want a peeping eye to see~

I walk over to one of the moss-covered rocks beside the spring and sit down, dipping my feet into its cool waters. A soft sound of content hums in my throat, the refreshing feeling alone making this trek worth my time.

Absentmindedly I lift my hand up to my face, the long crimson claws flexing. Internally I draw upon my power, causing the claws of the hand to become wreathed in black flames.

The flames only lasted for a second, for once they dissipate...

Visually the claws are claws no more, but instead human fingers.

I waggle the fingers a few times, chuckling to myself all the while. They’re only an illusion after all, but if one were to view me right now...they’d be somewhat disturbed due to how real the illusion is.

The flames wrap around the entire hand this time, replacing it with a blue hand with webbed fingers. A second later I call upon the flames again, this time turning it into that of a Drapion pincer.

Childish if it may be, but who is it to say that it’s wrong to entertain yourself with your abilities? I don’t see a problem, especially since it’s not hurting anyone.

With another quiet laugh I summon the flames again, this time dissipating the illusion entirely and allowing my red-clawed hand to return to normal.

Hmm, I wonder what I should do next while I’m waiting...

A mischievous thought occurs to me, recalling a picture I saw a while ago. After deciding to do it, I summon the black flames to cover my entire body this time instead of just my mere hand.

The black fire dissipates a second later, signifying that the full-body illusion is complete. No longer am I a simple Delphox-Zoroark hybrid, for instead...I’m something a bit more on the Legendary side~

I’ve taken the form of a hybrid of that of a Lucario and Suicune, my normally gray and black fur replaced with bright blues and whites. Wavy and silky blue hair takes place of my red bushy hair, and small crystals jut out from the backs of my hands as one large crystal sticking out from between my breasts.

Looking into the water I see on my forehead the crystal ‘crown’ a Suicune possesses, and my normally pink eyes are now a piercing magenta.

Nodding approvingly I look behind myself, in which I see a pair of Suicune ‘ribbon tails’ billowing from my rear, as if caught in some nonexistent breeze.

Unable to contain myself I start laughing, clutching my sides all the while.

Now I have to say that this is more childish than my earlier illusions, since I’ve taken the appearance of a character of a book of all things - Phinelia if I remember her name correctly. Yet at the same time it’s not just any kind of book, but that’s not what matters~

With my new ‘look’ I lean back on the moss, smirking as I imagine myself walking into one of the Evolutian towns with this guise currently on.

I know for a fact that I already draw a good amount of attention due to my looks when ‘out-of-illusion’, but this form would be on a completely different level. The sheer number of jaws that would drop, just imagining it makes me snicker like a young kit.

But of course that’s not including those who read said book I mentioned, which this appearance alone would cause a little more than just jaw dropping.

Yeah, at this point I definitely need to try this sometime when I’m here in Evolutia, especially since I can most certainly get away with it.

Such is the bonuses of being the Illusion Witch of the Star Coven~

I don’t know how long I’ve been on this train of thought, but a noticeable rustling sound pulls me out of my head.

I immediately stand up from the rock I’m sitting on, my body tensing and my eyes narrowing as I look at the wall of vines where the sound is coming from.

It’s most certainly a living entity from what I can tell, but I can’t see them due to willow trees. However due to the intensity of the sound, whoever’s coming...they’re coming in fast.

Not a moment later the vines burst to the side as three individuals dash, immediately they slow down - albeit the one that’s not floating in the air ends up causing dirt to kick up while they try to stop themselves.

As I now get a good look at them, I feel myself relax upon recognizing them from the descriptions the GoT gave me.

A floating robotic Porygon-Z named Trojan, a cloaked and hooded individual that goes by Chimera, and a Gothitelle cyborg who’s identified as Bladesong.

Quite exotic names, I might say.

Yet...regardless, they certainly arrived far earlier than I anticipated.

“Although I know that the Guardians of Twilight are never late when it comes to our encounters, I have to say...” I say, smirking all the while. “I think this is probably the first time you arrived far earlier than the time decided on~”

I expected them to at least acknowledge my attempt at humor, but instead they...look at me with a mixture of expressions that’s anything but.

Trojan is looking at me with his digital eyes shaped into that of confusion, Chimera’s body-language shows a certain intensity that betrays his uncertainty - since I can’t see his face due to the hood, and Bladesong is squinting while her lips are pursed.

Did I say something wrong?

I don’t believe I did, especially since said ‘joke’ was incredibly mild. Are they simply not ones for humor? I hope not, since...it means that working with them will be a bit more of a pain.

I’m more than fine with working with serious individuals, however it doesn’t mean that it’ll be fun.

“Uh...” The cyborg starts lowly, once again drawing me from my thoughts. Bladesong glances between me and her companions, her face betraying a great amount of uncertainty. “Weren’t we...supposed to meet a Delphox here? Because she’s definitely not a Delphox.”

I blink a few times before looking down at myself, and thus everything makes sense to me now.

I forgot to remove the illusion, and thus instead they see me as the Lucario-Suicune hybrid - Phinelia.

Heh...

Yeah that explains their reactions for sure.

[revshoggoth]

The Chickens of Mars/The Girl in the Moon: Chapter 1

Moon City was a gorgeous place at night. A lot of enigneering and money had gone into making it that way, and it showed. Hiding under every perfectly striking vista was excessive planning, design, and illusion. In a way, the whole city was a facade to project the image of timeless wealth and neon beauty of the most uncannily unnatural kind. The majority of the loveliness extended only to the downtown and some of the wealthier, more respectable areas. It was a massive city, the biggest in the whole human spread, and it was made so as to draw your attention to the parts it wanted you to see. Sometimes the staggering amount of craft that went into the deception still managed to cause Midori Salo to pause and shiver a little, and she’d seen it all nearly every day of her life. Despite its uninspiring name, was home to many of the most widely respected (and well paid) artists, designers and general rich “visionaries” and their visions had demanded  jutting arrogant skyscrapers offset by many rounder, more soothing, complementary structures, and even those were super-massive undertakings, which lead to a city of sparkling bright light stacking on top of itself ever upwards that still managed to serve and reveal the infinite Earth-lit sky, and that was beautiful. It was also the last thing the Earth was really good for, and all Midori had ever seen of it.

She shrugged to readjust the too-many wine bottles she was trying to carry in her arms, bitterly deriding herself in her head for not bringing a bag or a cart or anything useful at all to the store. She arms were much stronger than they looked, but it was an awkward jumble she was having difficulty maintaining as she walked a little more than briskly, and she wasn’t about to slow down. She was already running late, and it was a big night for The Boss. More realistically he was her, and many many people’s master, but he preferred to go by just Boss. Not just to her, his little matchstick clone girl, but by basically everyone on The Moon. And his party needed more wine, even though he had more wine in storage than a bored army could drink in a year. He didn’t need more, her single armload wouldn’t make any difference, but she had been told to go get it, so she did. That’s what Midori was good for. Midori was a special girl.

Midori walked in a special way. She was afraid every second of her life. She held herself in a special way and inside she felt like...knew...that she didn’t belong to herself, so she didn’t really know how to stand. Her eyes were special because they were made in a lab, like she was, but had installed separately when she was 14 Old-Earth years old. They were beautiful eyes, better than real ones. The only memory she had of her old ones was them sitting on the surgical table next to her when she opened her new ones. She’d never seen any pictures of herself with them, so she was fairly certain she didn’t miss them. She was very fond of her current eyes. They were beautiful, though sometimes she was worried they said too much, which caused people to see what they wanted to in them. People frequently burdened her with what they thought they saw in her eyes and it made her uncomfortable. They were normally a bluish tinted slightly luminescent green, but when she was scared they would become less blue. When she was asleep they were dull gray, but nobody ever saw them like that

. The Boss has lots of clones on staff. That was common practice, but Midori wasn’t a regular worker clone, despite the tasks she was frequently given. She had a much higher purpose than that, and it kept her from having to deal with many of the occupational hazards that lead to a life expectancy among labor clones rivaled only by some of the Asteroid colonies for brevity. Clones were cheap, cheaper than robots for many applications. Most smaller machines, including the computer that acted as the gatekeeper to The Boss’s grounds, used bio-computers running off the augmented cloned brains of various animals, often chicken or dogs.

“Good evening...MIDORI SALO. Arrival time: 11:46 PM. Expected arrival time 11:30. DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS: not recommended.” The gate computer had always been kind to her. It rarely suggested any consequences for her frequent tardiness.

“Thank you,” she said in her pitch-modulated tones as she walked through the gap in the energy field separating her home from the less opulent world outside. It was meant to always sound pleasant and accommodating, but she’d had it long enough to know how to express how she really felt to anyone who paid attention enough to see. She knew a range of things: awkwardness, embarrassment, ashamed over nearly everything.

She was always sweet, if a little awkward, to robots and other machines. They had to be polite, it was in their programming, but they didn’t have to like anyone either, because nobody cared how their obedient machines felt. Most people couldn’t even recognize the limited range of emotions the AIs had because they didn’t know or care they were there. Midori knew better because she was the same as them. She was made up, like the city. Like the air on the Moon.

She thought about a lot of things but she didn’t usually speak very much except to seem pleasant or say things she had to say. Because of this she was well liked and was praised. She didn’t like it, but it didn’t seem to be in her nature to retreat. She always felt obligated to stay places she didn’t want to be, but that had to be fine. That was what she’d always known and she wasn’t the type to ever get what she wanted when she even knew what that was.

The Boss was rich enough to understand the value of flaunting a conspicuously nihilist aesthetic. The walkway to the dome was flanked only by one certain type of tree, one of the extremely few that could eke out subsistence in the dead lunar soil. They were each spaced just-so, perfectly distant from each other that anyone passing by them would be forced to wonder just how much some landscaper had been paid for being so ostentatiously tasteful. Apart from that there was only plain grayness surrounding the gently self-illuminated, perfectly straight path. The Dome was in the center of the perfectly round estate and was suitably massive. The surface was able to show any color or image the owner desired, and the Boss kept it pearly and white at all times.

The seamless door opened and she hurried inside. Her name flashed all around her on the walls in a stylized typographical ballet then turned to arrows as she scampered down the dimly lit hallway, directing her to the kitchen. “Silence enhancing” frequency tones played to accompany her every footstep and breath. The walls reacted with faintly pulsing dots of lights that seemed far away. The entire place was crafted to be a classy reactive experience, based on the trendy theory that if the environment is animated by the people in it, the people in it will be animated by the environment. Reciprocal Reactivity was the name of the concept. It was at least half malarkey, but it was very hip and very expensive so, of course, the Boss had it.

The kitchen exhibited no such frills. The Chef would have probably brained anyone who would try to put them in with a skillet. He had no time for such hoity-toity foppery. He demanded a clean, efficient kitchen with lots of equipment, lots of food and absolutely no gimmicks. Despite a quick temper, he was in no way a ‘mean’ man, and Midori had always liked him. He tried to look out for her in his way. He at least wanted the best for her. He was very serious and very passionate about his cooking, but he was sweet.

He was loud, though, “Salo, there you are! Jesus, put that wine down. Why didn’t you take a cart or even a bag? Fuck it, never mind. Listen, Goki has been looking for you. I think you’re supposed to be around for that whole...event thing.” He got less loud at the end and seemed careful about how he said it.

Goki was a new robot with an old brain, one that knew how to do everything The Boss wanted the exact way he liked it done, so he kept it around. It’s state of the art body, sleek and cutting-edge though it was, exhibited the same minimalism as the rest of the place, though there was an element of old-fashioned, functional ugliness to it. It was tall, red (An uncommon allowance of adornment, reserved only for Goki among the rest of the countless house robots), angular, covered in many useful appendages and with one big round blue eye-like sensor array on each side of its head.

“SALO! You are required in the BALLROOM for the CONTACT EXPERIMENT in 23 MINUTES.” Goki informed her in his static and authoritative way as soon as she found it, roaming the w\hallway with purposeful automated seriousness.”Take THIS. HRMMMMMN.” it buzz-hummed while it waited. While it made Midori wait. Eventually, a small white orb came zipping down the hallway and dropped a longish box into her arms. It contained a stylish, slightly modest and slightly distracting state of the art dress. It wasn’t the kind of thing she felt comfortable wearing, but it would probably look fine. She just wished it was up to her.

She took it to her room and changed. She checked herself in the screen in the wall and was pleasantly surprised at how much she liked it. It made her feel a small but more confident until she remembered what she was wearing it for. All of her ‘sisters’ would be there with her for the Contact Experiment. They would all share their horror, fear, and happiness that it wasn’t happening to them.

Moving lights all over the dress twitched all around over her as she made her way to the primary ballroom. They started as cute but the closer she got the more they became distracting, almost maddening. Every unpredictable blink caught her eye and even though she lived where it was always night and she was always surrounded by countless blinking lights in the sky and on every wall in the dome, the lights on her dress felt like a countdown.

As she got closer to the ballroom there were fewer robots and more Bozos, and they all stared as she passed. They all knew better than to try to touch her, though several had tried before. They were no longer around, but she could see in their twisted mutant grinning leers that many still wanted to.

The Bozos could usually do more or less whatever they wanted, and almost nobody would be able to do anything about it if they even cared enough to try. Like Midori, they were protected. They oversaw the whole of the remnants of human society. Part police part ghoulish morale officers. They were strikingly grotesque and exuded an engineered aura that caused the average person to pay little mind to them unless the Bozos wanted their attention, which was almost never good. Whatever trick: radiation, chemical or otherwise they used to maintain their shadowy non-presence didn’t affect her brain, so Midori found herself constantly cognizant of them. They didn’t bother her, but they were always looking at her, like the one who stood by the tall round door to the ballroom, permanent red smile arching over half up his tiny, blue spotted head, her yellow cruel eyes leering over his bulbous nose. He knew what waited for her inside, and seemed to be enjoying the feelings she was dreading.

The Primary ballroom was obviously huge and extravagantly simple in decor, apart from the hundreds of people standing around it, blandly garish in their finery, out to see themselves seen on such a momentous night, more important than the other parties. They were important people who she recognized, and her friends that she didn’t but knew who they were. Very few of them held any interest for her, she was meant to gather alongside her ‘Sisters’. The other clones like her. They were gathered on a gracefully curving balcony several stories up, with a good view of the Core- a massive glowing red orb of particle-wave matter, which sometimes seemed like dull Martian stone and at others seemed like an ethereal vision of red roundness. Alive yet stone.

Midori joined her ‘Sisters’ on the balcony,  and no matter how she tried to mingle- make simple talk with the 2 dozen girls that looked identically special, just like her, her eyes kept being drawn upwards towards the Core. The only one of her sisters she didn’t see there was her favorite, Justine. The only one she felt like she was really friends with. It made her fear the worst. She didn’t know very many of the sisters, she hadn’t had many chances to meet them outside of infrequent gatherings, largely for study and medical purposes. A lot could go wrong in the life of even a regular clone, let alone very important, very experimental and very expensive models like her line, and considering their importance to the operation of the ZIPP-0 bio-computer, a lot of data had to be collected. She and her sisters weren’t the first generations of their line, but they were the first line where more than 10% had lived past puberty without dying from pituitary and pineal malformations, or being harvested for system components. Midori had never met any of the prior generations of her line, but she’d never heard anyone say they were all dead.

Bic was the only other one of herself that she really knew at all. They’d met 3 years back. They were at least good acquaintances, and she wasn’t talking to anyone so Midori went and stood by her. She had different eyes, purple and a little bigger than Midori’s and had her hair up, whereas Midori kept hers down.

“Have you seen Justine?”

Bic shook her head. Midori could see she was biting her lip. This was a hugely important night, for everyone alive in the remaining human spread, but maybe most of all for the Sisters. This night was the culmination of everything they had been created for. All the ones that were still alive were there. The only explanations for Justine’s absence were either she was already dead, or she’d been selected. Midori probably would have heard something if she were dead, which made her incredibly anxious.

“You live here?” Bic asked. Midori nodded. “How can something so big be so boring?”

Midori laughed a little before catching herself. She lowered her voice, which never got very loud in the first place, “The Boss thinks boring is classy. Interesting things make him feel less interesting.”

“That probably makes sense to him.”

“I promise it does. I hope that matters.” Midori said, smiling. She’d forgotten how fatalistic and funny Bic was. She was surprised she hadn’t been culled yet for her attitude. It wasn’t far off from Midori’s, but Bic always tended to be more vocal about it. The Sisters very rarely spoke up or tried to make their individual personalities known. It never worked out for anybody except the people who controlled them and made them.

“What’s it even like to live with that guy?” Bic asked, meaning The Boss.

Midori took a big breath and thought. She had to. Nobody ever asked her about that, and she had a lot to say but was cautious about the parts she was willing to let out, “I’ve heard a lot worse about others. He’s...not always bad. For the most part, he barely notices me. He likes to talk. He’s very excited about the fact that he exists.”

“They all are. Mine is. At least yours has done something with his life. Mine just wants to die comfortably with as much of his mommy’s money left as he could. I don’t get it. I wish I could leave him. I hate him, but... there are worse things than hating someone. I just wish he wasn’t so useless. It wouldn't make me stop hating him, but he’d have something to...justify it? I’m sorry. At least “The Boss”” Bic chuckled bleakly as she said his name, “Has built something. At least he did something with his dad’s money, right?”

She was right, but it didn’t make Midori feel any better about him. Bic’s “caretaker”

was Bilfer Attims, whose mother had been made a fortune off a settlement from her mother’s death in an asteroid mining accident and had built an empire purchasing and mining the same asteroids. Bilfr was notoriously stupid, even amongst the people forced by economic classes into being his peer.

Midori looked up at the core and the hastily assembled rig of supports and catwalks effortlessly kept in place by hover-spheres. Purple coated, green visor-ed scientists and sciencey-student types hovered about, adjusting the impressively clunky and ungraceful machines that looked so out of place in the Dome’s simple clean arrangement. The area directly above the Core was blocked off by blue velvet curtains, and Midori knew that meant a surprise. One she was already fairly certain of and dreading.

Midori nervously swallowed and asked, “Do you think they picked Justine for the experiment?”

“Of course they did. She’s from the University. She knows that shit more than anybody. It had to be her, we never had a chance. We’re just spare parts.” Bic had never been comforting. Midori admired that about her.

The lights gently lowered and the murmuring of the crowd died out. It was time for the Contact Experiment, but this was The Boss’ house, and he had dumped an incredible amount of money into the project, so he got to give a speech first. He extricated himself from the crush of sycophants he’d been speaking to and took his place, drink in hand, at the center of the room. He was older than he looked, through his many surgeries and genetic rejuvenation procedures had left him in the strange state that so many privileged older people Midori had seen, with an older face, older eyes made to look artificially younger, leaving them dangling in a perpetual unnatural look. He pulled it off better than most, partly because he had excellent taste in doctors, partly because, despite all the things Midori despised about him as essentially her jailer, he had more self-confidence and a sense of personal flair than most of the soulless hangers-on and pleasers around him. Even a semblance of personality was enough to set him apart in the circles he moved in. Midori didn’t think he was even that interesting but compared to the aggressively fawning rich people who wanted a better rich person to latch onto he was a tall glass of water. His hair was as perfect as his suit was not, garish, burgundy paisley that absolutely defied the sense of tasteful understatement that defined the things he surrounded himself with.

He was smiling, and let his smile hang over the assembly for a while, taking in the moment and forcing it back on everyone else before starting his speech, “Tonight, friends, is a monumental night, and not just for us. For all humanity.” applause, “Now I don’t need to tell you that we’re standing on the edge of history. Our planet is dead, rendered nearly unlivable by an unknown event that came right out of the sky and wiped out most of our species, but you know what? We survived! Here we are, living on the Moon, something our ancestors saw every night but never dared to dream we could live on, in the biggest, most beautiful humanity has ever created. But we do. A lot of suffering and sacrifice was required, and there were a lot of people who said it couldn’t be done, who tried to stand in the way of development, advancement, progress, but where are they now? And where are we?”

Applause. The Boss gave a big smile and let them clap until, with a wave of his hand, they didn’t. He continued. “We’ve come a long way, but we can’t stop here! Our options are limitless, but only if we chase them to the ends of the universe! Of course, I’m talking about The Pig. “ there were a few chuckles in the audience. What a character they must have thought, using the vulgar slang word for The Hogsong, “we see it every day, of course. It hangs over us, always there, slowly becoming more complete. I happen to be old enough to remember when it was nothing but a bare skeletal sketch of what is now. Something you'd have to blink to see. Now, well you can see it through the roof even now.” Which was true. He'd probably even pulled a few strings to ensure it would be so close and so directly over his dome. “The largest most complex structure ever assembled by humans, last hope of an endangered species, a triumph of our ingenuity, you’ve heard it all before. Something that big and impressive, something made to contain a whole new society, needs a big impressive computer built to manage a world, to create an experience for the people in that world, and to manage the life functions of, eventually, up to 10 million people one day! Until it finds world's suitable for human habitation. Not just one, mind you. We used to have just one world. Look how that worked out. We need to spread out as far as humanly possible, and in doing so we will prove just how much is humanly possible!”

Massive applause for that. Midori looked over at Bic, who positively vibrated sardonic bemusement. It was inspirational. Midori kept faking a smile, but Bic made her feel like she at least didn’t have to put any effort into it. Less need to shave off another little sliver of her soul to animate the pretense of pleasantness.

“I am endlessly proud of what the brave researchers at Utopia University have done, as we all should be. The ZIPP-0 Bioplex solved the fundamental problems facing the creation of more than artificial intelligence, but something far above and beyond. Tonight…” He winked, “we get to find out if it works. I'd hope so. I've invested a lot of money into it.” They crowd laughed dutifully. “I’m told all the preparations are complete, it’s been a pleasure grandstanding at you for a while. But...before we go on let me speak sincerely for a moment. Tonight is the result of a lot of hard work by a lot of incredibly gifted, very well funded people. Their work is not only exemplary but extraordinary…”

While the Boss kept going on in self-aggrandizing platitudes, Bic turned to Midori and whispered, “We’re allowed to drink, right?” Midori nodded. “Do you mind?” Midori didn’t mind. She snuck down the stairs, trying to be as unassuming as possible, feeling nervous at being the only one who wasn’t paying attention. Then she realized that nobody cared. She slipped a bottle from one of the several catering stations. The robot didn't care. She slipped back up and handed it to Bic who took a drink. “Thanks.”

“I didn't realize how much I was going to want a drink until you mentioned it,” Midori said and took a sip, then a much larger one. The speech came to a close about 11 minutes later by her internal clock. The lights refocused onto the core and the catwalks surrounding it. The curtains vanished in a holographic glitter. Justine hung in the air with her hands across her chest. She wore a white plastic suit, probably Imploplex-7, with massive cables streaming out the back and terminating in two plumes out her back to massive clunky computing vats that scientists on the catwalks carefully monitored. Midori recognized the one standing closest to the ledge as Dr. Doug Smith from Utopia University. He was head of the Core Component department, and if Midori thought she had a father she'd probably think it was him, but she didn't. She zoomed her artificial eyes in on Justine. Her face was blank in the way Justine’s always was when she was trying to ignore something. Midori had seen it plenty of times. Her lips were pursed tightly. She was breathing slowly and mindfully. She was as calm as she could force herself into being.

Dr. Smith’s voice came amplified for everyone to enjoy, “Core status: 96% inert. Submerge the control medium.” A steel orb came down above the core and extended a long arm with a black orb on the end. It sparkles and vanished, it's matter sucked like pixels in a vacuum into the orb not didn't look natural. It looked like a display glitch in reality. There was no sound. The Core began to pulsate a deep, organic looking Crimson in its center.

“Control medium inserted. Interface activated. Core is stable. 89% inert.” some faceless voice described.

“Decrease field locks. Subject status?” Smith said, watching very seriously.

“Psychological dampers are at full. No contamination. Vitals optimal..”

“She’s ready. Release psychological buffers and begin the descent.”

The anti-gravity suspension rings that circled Justine began to slowly lower her down towards the core. She remained placed, but Midori could see her chest tighten in fear. She looked over to Bic, who was biting her lip, also fixed on Justine, as were the rest of the Sisters.

When she was halfway down to the Core, Dr. Smith waved his hands, slowing the descent, “Status?”

“Psychological contamination has begun. 13% at this point. Absolute borderline in 5 meters. She’ll be unsalvageable beyond that point.” another anonymous voice responded. A girl’s.

“Core status?”

“Nominal. Field restrictions at last level. Exo-Ego Field interfaces online. All meta-psychological systems ready for data flash.”

“Proceed 3.5 meters,” Smith said. The rings lowered her further until Justine’s bare toes were just over the core. Midori saw her struggling to keep her eyes closed, trying to contain whatever she was experiencing.

“Absolute borderline passed. Psychological contamination at 60%. Subject’s ego deterioration is 7% below optimal but within parameters.”

“Apply buffers at quarter power. Release Exo-Ego Field containment.” Smith directed. There was a loud snapping sound, and purple plumes that looked like solid electricity snaked up from the core and wove around Justine’s toes.

“Field released. It’s locked onto the subject.”

“Charge to control medium and initiate Exo-Ego submerge.”

“Engaged.”

The purple tendrils stopped writing and phased through her feet, becoming a purple orb of viscous energy between Justine and the core. Her face showed none of the plain defiant serenity it had before. Her eyes were still shut tightly but her mouth was monstrously wide. Whatever sounds she was making were not amplified for the audience, and even Midori’s enhanced hearing couldn’t discern it over the almost musical crackling squeal of the brightening core. More purple tendrils danced up around it and slowed, hovering around the orb.

“Subject has begun integration with the Core.” Subject. They never called her by name.

Justine clutched her chest tight enough to tear skin. She was screaming, words or shrieks Midori couldn’t tell. Large screens floating around the ballroom displayed various close-ups on the core, the scientists, readouts no one could understand, but none showed any sort of detail of Justine. That wasn’t what the audience was supposed to be looking at or caring about.

“Increase submersion speed by the second factor. She’s doing just fine.” Smith said. He and the girl’s voice were the only ones who even called her “she”. That didn’t make Midori feel any better about them.

The rings moved her down faster, but she never went past the orb. Instead, she seemed to be almost disintegrating, feeding the pulsing ball of energy. More snaking electrical tentacles came up and less phased through than they seemed to hungrily begin to absorb portions of her legs, but not biologically, almost like it was transmuting her into its digital self, but it still made the skin around the points of contact bubble up. More. Midori zoomed her eyes in. The resolution was much grainier, but it seemed like tiny arms, complete with fully fingered hands were growing out of the Imoplex suit, stretching longingly towards the places of her dissolution. Midori wanted to stop watching, so she took another drink instead. Not watching was not an option. Not yet. Horror had her too transfixed. Sadness had her paralyzed. She held the bottle out to Bic, who didn't even notice it there until Midori nudged her arm with it. She apologized and took a hefty swig. Midori could see it was getting hard for her to watch.

It was getting even harder for Justine. Midori looked back and saw she was down to her hips but still alive and still in agony, even more than before. It kept going until it was up to her neck, and then she opened her eyes. They had always been unique. They didn’t affect a natural look. They were dot-matrix LCD, with a slow refresh rate, a throwback stylistic choice in the style of an old Earth LCD display. There was something so unnaturally beautiful about them. Midori had always loved them. She saw them one last time, showing the truest and unnatural digital display of brokenness and hopelessness. Midori couldn’t  bear to see them like that, but they didn’t last long. Soon she was completely absorbed into the orb along with the suit. The wires which had been streaming from the back snapped and swung aside like dead weight.

“Subject dissolution complete. Control medium reads 100% retention.”

Dr. Smith took a big breath. He wasn’t smiling yet. “Close the Exo-Ego Field.”

There was a snap like tinkling, windchime thunder and a flash. The glowing orb shattered into countless sparks and sunk into the core, which began to hum and change shades to a deep, multilayered mostly opaque crimson.”

“Field closed. Control medium dived into the core. Exo-Ego integration commencing. Complete. Exo-Ego integrated at 95%.”

Dr. Smith nodded. “Operation is a success. ZIPP-0 is online.”

They applauded so much, the sound filled the whole ballroom and made Midori want to vomit. She looked to Bic, who looked back. All the composure and bemusement was gone from her face, replaced by ghastly, horrified blankness. Neither had anything to say. Midori took her hand and lead her down the stairs to the catering kiosk closest to the furthest of the ballroom's six balconies. They each grabbed a bottle of Martian wine and escaped outside while the people began to mingle and discuss the historic moment they’d both seen.

[lmfmp2021]

Analysing Paweł Jaczewski’s packaging

Here, I will now be analysing the Don Pablo juice cartons, Paweł Jaczewski created packaging for. There was a couple of reasons these drew me in. One being the vibrant colours, that work so well with the illustrations. By this I mean that all the objects he has drawn are very appealing due to the colours he chose. You can see when looking below that he has decided on a different theme and background for each one. I can see he has probably done this to show the viewers the difference between each of the three products. This is because if they were all the same colour and theme, you couldn't be able to see that they are actually all different. 

The first carton, he has chose this blue background colour along with lots of objects around the design. These include, fruits relating to the juice inside the carton, two people at the front and side of the packaging and these flower/star shapes too. When looking at all the cartons, I can see he has done a similar thing for all three, but the objects relate more to each carton. 

After looking through Paweł Jaczewski specific project of carton packaging, I found some information of what he wrote about this work. I learnt that these are actually soft beverages for bartenders, where they can mix these with other alcohol. He also mentioned that he worked with a friend called, Michał, to which he helped pick the best flavours. So, for rum, they chose pineapple with cardamom, vodka was cranberries with lemongrass and tequila was orange with vanilla.  

Another thing I discovered was his ideas for was intending to create at the start of this project. He said for them to be as visual as possible, but the reason for some many things going on, on the packaging was because he was trying to recreate the atmosphere and represent bars and clubs. The reason for this was because these would probably used in mainly those environments. 

I think this inspiration for this project is so interesting as I feel that he has taken as many things relating to the idea of clubs and noisy drinking spots, where he has presented this in a fun and colourful way. I would say this style of work relates to the repeat patterns that I have previously tried. This is positive thing as it means I roughly know what I should expect as I have done a similar process before. 

Although, I think his style of drawings are really striking too. I would say he makes them look like they didn't take long to draw as they don't show every single detail. Also another thing I noticed was the idea that his lines can show as quite sharp, so he hasn't curved round certain sections to make the object seem less harsh. Instead, he has just left areas to which are pointed. This could be another aspect that actually helps the piece to standout even more. 

2014

This image above is something else I found from this project. He didn't mention to what this actually is, but I chose to analyse it as it shows his repeat pattern a little clearer. My guess to what it could be is a table mat/cloth that could be either put on the bar or table. The reason for having these is because you can then put your drinks on them. Although this could be wrong as when I’m looking at this, it has this shiny look to it, instead of a material. 

This shows the his repeat pattern so much clearer as you can actually see the pattern being repeated. When I was looking at the cratons, it didn't seem like it was actually doing this. I can now see the reason for this is because the pattern was so zoomed in that you could only really see one of each object. So now, I can clearly see what the objects are actually are too. 

I then decided to include one of the individually photographed cartons. I chose to do this as I can now talk about about the mock ups that these have all been placed in. To start, I saw on Jaczewski’s website that the person that took these photos was called Wojciech Affek. This meant that the packaging had to actually be produced onto the cartons to do this. I can see from looking at all the images that he has stuck to the same theme through them all. This theme is quite simply juts some paper being layered down where the products then lay over the top. In this one above, he has actually shown the juice itself in a glass along with an orange too. I’m interested in the idea of having the juice in the shot too as it makes it more real for the customers as they know what to expect. 

Lastly, I previously mentioned about the idea of having different layers of coloured paper as the background I can see this is paper as there is some slight shadows appearing a couple of places. In each photo, the paper is slightly different positioned where it is mainly always placed slanted. She might have done this because it seems more interesting than just having it either horizontally or portrait. 

As a result, I think this project from Paweł Jaczewski, is really eye catching as this whole idea of colours, relating his drawings to a specific concept, and repeat patterns will have a massive impact on my future work. Especially as now my ideas have changed and developed, this work it exactly what I need to help me move forward with what I want to create. Even though my theme is completely different and is more of a sad and upsetting theme, I would still quite like to have some bright colours in my own designs as I feel this is what's going to make it standout. 

[midz13]

Sorry for being abscent tumblr, I’ve been super busy with the work! I’ll make a mega update here to get us caught up, and ill upload more photos after.

Since unwrapping the environment I have taken it to substance, got all the maps generated, made some optimisations on render time (Still some noise but render time is at 18minutes at some points so wont push it any more - waiting to hear back from Sang on how good the render time is/optimised the scene is before i send render farm requests) and done my animating!! Phew!

The substance painter stuff was good fun - I learend some lessons with the character, and knew the best way to approach this was to put everything under one material that I wanted on one map. To that end I put the entire room (walls floor etc) as one material (due to its physical size and wanting to put text on the floor) and the objects within the room - computers, piping, platform etc - on another atlas. Both atlas’ were 4k, and the only exceptions to that was a few individual maps - one for the robotic arms holding her, as I made them seperate and couldnt/dont know how to combine maps, and one for the pistol (ill show in next post) as I did that after (I decided a couple days before starting animation to test myself to model, wrap and texture a pistol in one day - I did it!! :D

I messed around with colour palette a bit with the room. I wanted a dark ominous room, but felt that showing the room with grey or dark surfaces lost the clean room/labratory feel. I think its vitally important in a sci-fi environment to try to keep real world links as close as possibly as they act like markers for the viewer to follow. I.e. by maintaing an aesthetic in this room or a labratory or hospital with the clean shiney surfaces, and the screen terminals using words like testing etc, the viewer will hopefully understand that its a lab/test facility of some description for the robot - That’s the plan anyway. By making the room darker, it might all into question the use or purpose of building. For example. is she there to be interogated? Has she been captured? As opposed to thinking oh this is a new technology...

I’ve not done any animation before, so was both excited and concerned to start, although it was a nice change of pace and helped keep me interested with a change of the usual workflow.

Luckily, as my story focuses on her being restrained for a large majority of the film, I didn’t have any massively challenging animation to do. However this didn’t mean I would coast the work and get it done as soon as possible. I wanted to make sure her acting and performance read as clearly as possible, as I need her movements to be one of the key indicators of her “state” i.e. human, or robot. I also quickly created blendshapes for her - I planned on her being unable to emote, but I felt this was a bit of a cop out. I didn’t want her to open her mouth, sure, as I felt that was a one way trip to uncanny that I coulnd’t use within the story, and would make her impossible to empathise with (if I had time, sure it would be a fun experiment to see what worked better, but time isnt on my side). This did mean that her emotions were slightly limited , BUT, because i wanted her to see trapped in her own body, and like her faculties were limited (due to the fact her head has been removed and put on a robot!!) I think it worked well. I created blendshapes for fear, sadness, anger, a blink, and a frown (to augment the other emotions). I’m so glad I did these, as the became key in a few of the shots, and really make them pop, and make her “come to life”, so I’m pleased I took the time to do them.

The animation was fun, a few issues came up however, but for the most part it was pretty straight forward. I took some videos of myself doing some of the movements as reference for the animations. I tried to do it in a week or less, which I managed, to make sure that I stay on target time wise, and as I opted to use After Effects to show the screens, I wanted extra time to learn - I want the screens to flash and change, and thought it would also be a good oppotunity to learn how to use After Effects as I’ve not used it at all.

I’ve spent a bit of time too working on camera movement and set up. I’ve weant for a 25mm focal length for most shots to show as much of the set as possible, situating the camera more. I try to frame each shot as well as possible to make it look good, draw the viewers eye to key information, and on a few shots, frame screens so that they can get plot information as to what is going on. It’s been difficult to make sure the camera looks as natural as possible, and not like a maya camera, which is tough. Camera work itself is an entire artform in itself...

So, I want to discuss a few of the issues I’ve had and how I got around them or solved them.

So, as I mentioned I had some issues with the animatiom. These came from the rig, and the blendshape.

First of all the blendshapes for her face - as I think I mentioned before, I did blenshapes for her bicepts so that when she moves her arm, her biceps will tense and relax to show that movement. It’s very subtle and probably never be noticed, but it looks cool when you look for it, and it was a great learning experience. I had to move its order in the channel editor to make sure it moved at the right time within the rig, and it worked totally fine, and easier than I thought! I did the same with the shoulder muscles, but more as corrective blendshapes as the rig/deformations isnt perfect. However, the face blendshapes wouldn’t play ball... I tried adjusting their order, I tried every combination, I tried deleting their history and their transforms, nothing worked - everytime I applied them, her head would shoot off into the distance. I spoke with both Sang and Michael and Patrick Sloan, eventually the 2 Sloans worked out that by deleting the meshes post, and applying them all as one blendshape (originally I did them one by one) it worked. I tried doing them as one BS without deleting them and for some reason it didnt work. I took it as it was and even asked Sang if he knew why (he didnt). As long as it worked though, I didnt care...

The next issue with the rig was something that totally slipped by somehow; When I rotate her global control her chest and abdomen wouldnt deform right AT ALL. I had no idea how it happened and started freaking out. The 2 Sloans couldn’t work it out either. If I grabbed her chest and her global, she would rotate better, but her stomach would twist up strangely. Eventualy Sang diagnosed that the issue was the IK Spine not twisting right, and that I must have done something wrong during the rigging stage. This was super frustrating as I took my time with the rig and followed Sang’s video perfectly. It must have been one little step, a constrain or a parent, that i missed, omited, or applied incorrectly, and more than a month later, it came to the surface. I was especially confused/frustrated as I tested the rig post completion and binding to check, but obviously hadnt used the global control to twist her. Sang found a work around, but it did mean that one of her spine controls was lost. I then realised towards the end of the animating that a few of her poses caused strange deformations, like verts jutting our, or generally not following the rest of her body too well. I would go into weight paints and smooth out the issue as best I could even though I couldnt see anything glaringly obvious, like an arm joint effecting her lower stomach, but now that I’m processing this, I wonder if perhaps losing a handle reassigne weights and didnt do it right??

Another issue I had was her armor and torso/muscles being SUPER Shiny. I couldn’t work this out especially as she looked totally fine within substance. Initially I assumed it was an arnold render setting and that I hadn’t turned samples high enough, but after optimising the samples using Sang’s tutorla (which made the render time too high unfortunately) I realised the issue remained. One day I eventually decided it wasn’t right and that it wasn’t just me - it was too much. I worked my way through Arnold’s material settings, turning this up, down, off, every which way, to see if it effected the shine. I eventually found the culprit was Diffuse Roughness and nothing more, and that by simple adjusting the exposure/alpha in the settings, it reduced this shine completely. The way I set up my materials meant that it effected her whole texture (even though muscle/skin and armor are in different graphs) so I lost a tiny bit of shine to her skin, but I think it still looks fine - if anything before hand her lips looked too shiney, as if she had on lip gloss.

I also had some issues creating the cabling for her helmet. I needed the cabes to flex and bend with her as they moved. In my head the best way would be and IK set up. Initially I tried this, and I use a cube to measure the start and end points, and used an arc to create a perfect bend over the 90 degrees. This was a good idea, and the cable could go from a 90 degree bend to perfectly straight, but any additional bend didnt work and just turned the cable. I then started thinking about IK Splines, and watched a few tutorials online but couldnt get it to work. It made sense though, a spline would allow the perfect movement! Evnetually me and Sang spoke a few times and he was able to find a solution. An spline set up that didnt work like an IK and meant I had to do lots of manual adjustments, but for the most part it looks great. So for the small cables on the sides of her helmet, i kept the simple but effective “fire and forget” IK cables, and for the rear of her head I used the spline, as this area would move and twist much more. It took a while to create and solve, but meant that it looked good and only took a small amount of additional work to animate.

I will upload some more images, such as test shots, the pistol (which barely gets any screen time, but only took a day to work on so not a massive loss.

Only a few weeks to go! Waiting for Sang to get back to me on scene set up and optimisation, once that gets the green light I’ll start sending render farm requests!

[shesdreamingofamonster]

His Queen (III)

Word Count: 1,809

Genre: Action, Romance, Mafia AU

Ship: Reader x Yixing/Lay

Summary: The time has finally come for Yixing to send you away to safety and face the men who are coming for revenge.

I II IV V VI VII VIII Epilogue

You rolled over to see Yixing looking up at the ceiling. It was two in the morning according to the clock on the nightstand and he had been the one who told you that everyone needed rest. “Don’t lie to me.” He looked over in confusion, “What are you talking about?” “You are scared, I saw the look on your face when you thought I wasn’t looking. Please just tell me the truth. That is what were supposed to do.” He turned to you and wrapped an arm over your waist, pulling you closer so your faces were right in front of each other. “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to scare you anymore than you already were. Plus the guys don’t need to see me break my guard.” You moved in closer to meet his lips with your own. As the kiss got more heated you climbed on top of him, his hands sliding up and down your body. You noticed a little issue of his in his pants and he stopped. “We can’t right now, you need to sleep. And your head…” You pouted, “Xing, what if something goes wrong tomorrow?” He pulled your head into his chest, “Don’t think about that, please. Just go to sleep.” You quietly did as you were told with him holding you tightly. 

You were woken up by the smell of food. Your head was on a pillow which Yixing must have moved you onto. You sat up and looked over at the clock: 7:28. You weren’t sure when he was going to send you away exactly but now seemed as good a time as any to get up and join them. You threw your hair up in a messy bun and put on a pair of jeans and a tank top. Still groggy you almost walked into Minseok as you opened the door to step out. You looked up a bit shocked when he reached out and grabbed your shoulders to steady you, “Are you alright Y/N?” A small smile formed on your face before you nodded. “Yeah, sorry Min. I’m still half asleep right now.” He giggled before releasing you to let you walk downstairs. The smiling faces of the boys who were downstairs eating greeted you. Yixing walked over to you and kissed your forehead offering you the cup of coffee in his hand. “Good morning sweetheart.” You looked up, trying to read his eyes but they were as difficult as ever.

A lovely breakfast was waiting for you at the table. They could cook a feast at a time like this? Either way, you enjoyed the food as much as usual. Yixing was trying to be discreet about rushing you to get ready but it hadn’t gone unnoticed. “Is this what you are wearing? You don’t need to change.” You breathed in for a moment trying to keep yourself from saying some snarky remark. “Yes, I’m perfectly comfortable in this.” He had brought your suitcase down as you finished eating. “Go brush your teeth baby.” “Yes mother.” He didn’t seem to amused by your response but smiled back at you anyways.

When you returned downstairs, all the boys were waiting to send you off. Hugs were exchanged as you told them not to do anything stupid, looking specifically at the Beagle line. “Just think of this as a vacation and not a protection program,” Jongdae said trying to put your mind at ease. You nodded and returned to Yixing’s side, his hand grabbing yours out of habit when you were close enough. “Ready?” His eyes looked at you expectantly and you gave one last glance to the other eight men surrounding you, silently praying for their safety. “Yep. You all better be in once piece when I get back.” Some laughed while others smiled, but the mood was hardly as light as you wanted it to be. And with that, you were led to the car and driven away to their private airport.

The jet was as lavish as they come, leather seats with tables in between. Two giant flat screens jutting out of the ceiling. You had been on it a couple of times, but it was mostly for when Yixing had to go somewhere for business purposes. “You are in good hands, so don’t worry.” You couldn’t seem to let go of his hand, looking up at him and not wanting him to leave. The pilot came out of the cockpit to greet you both, a very close friend of Yixing and the boy’s organization. “Get my girl their safely.” The pilot nodded and bowed before going back to his seat in front of the controls. Yixing smiled at you softly before placing a kiss to your lips. He was the one who pulled away, knowing that you had to leave by a certain time. He walked you over to a chair and kissed your forehead. “I’ll call you tonight. Enjoy the vacation baby.”

And with that he was gone. Closing the door to the jet behind him and disappearing from your view out of the window.

***

He closed the door, happy that you would be out of harm’s way. Now it was time for him to deal with his problems.

When he got back to the mansion, all of the boys were loading up their weapons while going over strategies. “We don’t know how many of them there are, just that they will probably outnumber us.” Junmyeon was recounting all of the things he thought out previously to this moment. “Well that is reassuring.” Chanyeol chimed in with a roll of his eyes. “We don’t reassuring, we just need to be ready.” Yixing needed them all to be prepared for whatever could happen today. “Yeah, how though. Mentally? Physically? Do we play mind games or pull out weapons?” Baekhyun’s tone sounded very unsure. “We counter whatever they have.” Junmyeon answered. The older boys all nodded in unison while the younger ones just looked at each other. “Listen boys, we don’t know how today will end. But at least we have a chance to prepare for it. Now eat up, I know half of you can’t function on an empty stomach and we need to be at our best.” Yixing gave each a glance before they ended discussions for the time being.

Once everyone satisfied their empty stomachs with breakfast, they went back to doing individual preparations. Sehun and Jongin were in charge of readying the ballistics. Chanyeol and Baekhyun were cleaning all the knives. Kyungsoo, Minseok, and Junmyeon were finalizing possible negotiations and arranging for the doctor to be on standby incase those negotiations failed miserably and led to some bloodshed. Yixing monitored all of these activities. All while trying to ease the worry that was consuming him. He needed a clear head. Sending you off to safety was supposed to do that, but he had an awful gut-wrenching feeling ever since he made the decision to kill your captors. Like karma was finally going to catch up to him. Minseok caught the odd look that he had on his face and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We just need to get through this.”

A few hours later, the cameras they had set up around the mansion’s perimeter had picked up plenty of black SUV’s pulling up. The time was now. All of the guys scattered in the front of the house, Yixing in the middle with Minseok and Junmyeon on either side of him. Three vehicles in total were parked on the lawn. Men in formal attire got out of each, forming a group about ten feet in front of the mansion’s steps.

 ***

“Zhang Yixing I presume?” A man with a sly smirk and silver hair who stepped away from the group began walking forward. Sehun and Jongin were going to draw their firearms but Yixing held up a hand. Angrily, they complied with his request and rested their hand at their sides with clenched fists.

“Yes, and whom are you?” Yixing had began moving to meet the other in the middle. His men didn’t seem too concerned about readying their weapons just yet. “That is not important, I am a man with many names. Not all of them are delightful.” Close enough to see clearly, Yixing noticed that one of his eyes had a slash running along it. The cornea completely ruined. He didn’t know if it was frightening or reassuring. Could the man even see out of it? “You see Mr. Zhang, it is better to call me a friend than a foe. Unfortunately for you, that opportunity has been missed entirely.” Yixing leveled his stare, both eyes resting on his own. “Your people took something very important from me. Not only that, but they caused her bodily harm. That was never part of the agreement that they made with me.” The man laughed, a chilling sound in the serious environment. “Is that so?” He moved closer, practically the same height at Yixing, it wasn’t as intimidating as he thought it was. “As I recall, you once stole something precious from us.” Yixing frowned, thinking back to the situation that the man was referring to. When one of their women fell so desperately in love with him. It was nothing serious to him, just a casual fling. She agreed to never develop feelings, that it would just purely be physical. Until the day she confessed her feelings towards him and he didn’t feel the same way. She ended her life. Of course he felt awful about it, but it wasn’t he who delivered the final blow. It was her own wounded heart.

This was a story he never told you. One he made sure the boys would keep quiet about. He thought you would hate him for it. That you would leave, thinking he would do the same to you. But that was never the case. He loved you so much that it hurt when you weren’t there. His mind wandered until the man’s voice brought him back to reality. “You know exactly what I’m talking about you bastard. You killed my men, you killed my sister! You really think that your girl’s kidnapping was just for the money and weapons? Well, we let you have her back in one piece, but that won’t be the case for much longer.” Yixing’s eyes widened. Fear finally struck his heart. “You will not get anywhere near her!” The man laughed fumbling with something in his coat, “Well you won’t be here to stop me. See you in hell.”

Everything happened quickly then. He felt the gunshot before he heard it. The bullet ripping through his body. The agonizing pain for a moment and then nothing at all. He was numb. The world had gone black, and his last thought before he hit the ground was of your face.

Next Part 

Masterlist

[the-tales-of-horror]

I had a really difficult experience with a disturbing student. I don't know how to deal with this.

Original Link By senbei-bob

I had a really difficult experience last Friday that I need to get off my chest.

I work as a Portuguese teacher in the basement of an ordinary office building. Most of my students are Japanese business people in their 40s and 50s, who are relocating to Brazil because their company forces them.

Being on the absolute rock-bottom of the corporate ladder, I have no say in who I teach, but up until last Friday I had exclusively taught adults. Of course, being forced to learn Portuguese and shipped off to Brazil against ones volition will inevitably make anybody unhappy. The environment in which I work is also terrible. There are no windows and no air conditioning. The whole place is covered with a purple carpet with stains all over it. The classrooms come equipped with a whiteboard, a wobbly desk and two chairs. Nothing else. No ABC posters, no pictures - NOTHING. It often reminds me of an interrogation room. A bell rings at the start and end of every lesson for reasons I have yet to understand.

Last Friday was no different from any other day. I had my business students and went through the excruciatingly dull and soul-sucking steps of going through the mandatory textbook which is forced on us from the upper-management.

My supervisor- let's call her Linda- was in a terrible mood as always. She yelled at me in front of everyone for not wearing my hair in a proper ponytail. She rolled her eyes at me for standing in her way in front of the microwave during lunch. She made rude comments about my skin (I had acne in the past and still have some light scarring). In other words, she was being her usual, insufferable self.

Most of the time, I just try to ignore Linda since I'm a nobody in this giant corporation and nobody listens to me anyway. Being my supervisor, Linda also has access to my schedule and can alter my lessons and who I teach whenever she wants. For example, we had a very handsome business man once and he was originally scheduled to have a lesson with me but when Linda heard about it she promptly moved his lesson to her own schedule. She spent the entire lesson laughing and flipping her hair and her falsetto squeals could be heard all the way down the dreary, windowless, fluorescent lighted hallway.

Last Friday was a national holiday in Japan, so all the other teachers left early (including Linda who also gave herself the next three days off but denied everyone else the same privilege). As I watched my coworkers excitedly bolt through the door, I asked if I could leave early too but Linda just scoffed loudly and said: "Oh my GOD. Who do you think you are? Are you SERIOUS!? If you think you can pick and choose your days off you're clearly in the wrong business. Bye!". And then she left with a loud door slam.

I was all alone. In a way, it was nice. It was nice to not be bullied and put down by Linda for once. I looked at my schedule. Only one student left. "That should be easy", I thought. His name, Taro, sounded familiar but I hadn't taught him before. He worked for a pharmaceutical company. Nothing unusual.

The bell rang its usual depressing chime and I steered towards room number 1. But the light was off. I figured he might be late and on his way so I fumbled in the dark to turn on the light.

What met me in the light was not an empty classroom but a little boy sitting on one of the chairs. He was about 5 years old and wore red t-shirt and blue shorts. He still had his "Thomas the Train" schoolbag on his back. I felt the anger build up when I realized that Linda had given me a kids lesson without notifying me first. It was clearly on purpose. Despite being a relatively new teacher, my annual performance had been impeccable and she wanted to sink my ship by giving me a lesson that I had no experience teaching. She wanted me to fail.

So there I was, a business Portuguese teacher with no experience with kids whatsoever.

"Hi there. What's your name?" I asked.

No answer. The boy just stared angrily at me with dark bags under his eyes.

"Are you Taro?" I tried again and gently sat down across from him.

Still no answer. I desperately looked around for some toys or puppets but of course, Linda hadn't prepared anything for me. And Taro wouldn't take his eyes off me. Wherever I went in the little classroom, searching in vain for anything that could entertain him, his angry eyes followed me. And It was then that I realized another strange behavior. He was jutting his jaw back and forth like an old man.

"Do you have your textbooks? We need to look at your homework." was also met by silence.

I decided to reach for the backpack on his back and take out his textbooks myself. I don't know how to deal with kids so that was the only solution I could think of at the time. I don't know this kid’s parents, so I don't want to get a customer complaint just because the kid refused to participate.

This idea turned out to be bad. No, disastrous. Taro, upon seeing my hand moving towards his backpack opened his mouth aghast and let out... well nothing. I thought he was about to scream but he just sat there with his mouth wide open. It dawned on me that he had no teeth despite being 5 years old. I wondered how he chewed his food. Did someone spoon feed him? I pulled my hand away from the bag and watched him go back to his "normal" jaw jutting, angry self.

It was becoming clear that Taro did not like me at all. He pulled the straps of his backpack to his chest and hid under the desk. Any time I tried to go near him he hissed at me and created a clicking nose from the back of his throat.

His parents were nowhere in sight so I decided to just sit by the desk until the lesson ended. That was company policy after all. I heard the backpack unzip under the table. "Great, maybe he is ready to make some drawings or something. My distance clearly paid off". But I was wrong.

I discreetly looked under the table to see what he was up to. It was hard to get a clear picture in the shadow but I could distinguish that he was holding something. It still hard to talk about this because it disgusted me SO MUCH.

It turned out to be a dead frog. It has been rainy in Tokyo lately and there are lots of frogs in the Shinjuku-Gyoen park nearby. I thought to myself that he might have caught it and killed it by accident. He is just a kid after all. But the way he held it was not normal. He dug his nails into its limp, lifeless body and shook it violently.

By now, the clicking throat sounds and weird jaw movements had increased and were freaking me out a lot. We still had 20 minutes to go so I just continued to sit there pretending not to exist. I watched as Taro took color pencils out of his backpack, sharpened them and dug them into the frogs flesh. He seemed amused by this and proceeded to stab the frog with every single color pencil except for the black one. Every stab was followed by the clicking throat sound. He seemed as if in a trance.

The bell finally rang, signaling the end of the lesson after what felt like an eternity.

But of course, Taro refused to leave the classroom. I had to lock up the school and leave but he completely REFUSED to move from under the desk. His parents were not there to pick him up, I didn't have their contact information and there was no other staff member on duty.

I can't believe I did this but after 2 hours of trying to get him to leave, I just locked up and left, leaving him and the frog under the table. I thought I'd definitely get fired and maybe even reported to the police but when I came back the next day Taro was gone and everything seemed normal.

I tried to get the whole incident out of my mind but when Linda came back three days later (with a new tan) she promptly wanted to speak to me in her office. I froze to ice. This was it, I was getting fired or going to jail for leaving a kid unsupervised in an office building in the middle of the city.

She looked annoyed and gestured towards a chair for me to sit down. "I forgot to tell you last Friday, Taro cancelled his lesson" she said. "He had a last minute pharmaceutical conference in São Paulo. Here's a Starbucks gift-card for your trouble".

[puppy-byun]

Versace on the Floor (Pt. 4)

Jimin x you

“Despite allowing yourself to fall for royal heir Park Jimin, you are aware of the universe between the two of you. You’re trying to ignore it, but when things go south you have to face the facts.”

Pt. 4/5, rated A for A N G S T

“Yeah, I know your love's not real That's not the way it feels That's not the way you feel”

Finally admitting to yourself that you were helpless against Park Jimin, and definitely falling for him had changed everything. He must have noticed, because he had begun texting you the second he had left the rooftop, and he hadn't stopped ever since. He never failed to wake you up or wish you good night with a ton of selfies and even more emojis, and you'd grown used to it faster than you liked. You'd grown used to him a lot faster too.

Once he had opened up and shown you just how sweet he could be, he didn’t stop. It was almost annoyingly sweet, because whether he was just honey-coating his words, or looking at you with puppy eyes, bottom lip jutted out, you couldn’t say no to anything. Even despite the fact that you didn't know where you were standing with him, or how far he wanted to take this, or if he was aware of how much he was wrapping you around his fingers.

You chuckled ironically, standing in front of the mirror. He probably knew, because it was fucking impossible to say no to him. And he took shameless advantage of that, or else you wouldn't be standing in your bedroom, running a brush through your hair for the 10th time in the last few minutes. You needed to look absolutely perfect, absolutely flawless, and what your reflection was showing you was anything but that. You had done a full blow out for your hair, but now, roughly an hour later, it was for nothing. There were strands falling whichever way they wanted, and you knew it would just get worse with time. And neither your make up nor dress could make up for it. Not that it wouldn't have been more than adequate any other day, but today, it just wasn't enough. How could anything ever be enough when Jimin's world was basically on another planet.

You fell back on your bed, giving up on caring about your hair and stared at the ceiling. It was a dumb mistake to agree to come Jimin's party. You were nervous enough to see him again as it was - after all that was not the same as texting, especially now that you were sure of what an effect he had on you - and to make matters worse the whole thing would be happening at his house. Villa. Palace. Whatever he lived in, you were sure you didn't actually want to find out. And his friends would be there, and his friend’s friends, and if he didn't fit into your environment, then you definitely didn't fit into his.

You ran your hand over the bed sheets until you felt your phone, grabbing it for the at least 10th time. Cancelling was always an option. You were already opening your texts, when you threw the phone behind you in frustration, hearing it jump to the floor with a bang. You cursed, angry at the world and yourself. It had taken Jimin at least a few days to convince you to come in the first place, because you had been viciously declining until he had sent you a selfie of his cutest pout and puppy eyes. And said picture was still the last message (probably on purpose, you wouldn't put it past him) and every time you were sure you'd cancel and chicken out it was what stopped you. You got up, accepting that you wouldn't have the heart to cancel anyway, and walked around your bed to pick up your phone. It didn't seem to have taken any damage, and with a slight feeling of relief you stuffed it into the clutch bag together with a hair brush.

Just when you wrapped your scarf around you you heard a car honking downstairs. Throwing one last glance in the mirror you left your flat to join your friend in the car. You knew that technically it wasn't even necessary to thank her for driving you, because she was obviously at least three times as excited you, but you did it nonetheless, if only so you wouldn't have to talk about anything else. Mainly the fact that you would soon be inside the Park household, probably on the verge of a panic attack and all by yourself. You cursed yourself inwardly for not wanting to bring any of your friends. That would've meant that you had to go, and you'd wanted to keep your options open. Which was pretty dumb in hindsight.

"Shiiiiiiiiiiit", your friend pulled you out of your self pity, drawing out the word as long as possible. You looked at her in confusion before you noticed you'd stopped driving and she'd come to a stop in front of a huge iron gate. Behind the gate there was a driveway that seemed unnecessarily long, but it was nothing compared to the manor at the end of it. Your eyes grew huge and you turned to your friend in panic, clutching her arm. "I can't do this!" you blurted out, ready to try and merge permanently with the passenger’s seat. It was too late though, because while you'd been busy staring at the ridiculously lavish property before you she had grabbed your phone and sent a text to Jimin saying "the princess is ready to be escorted 😘"

You would've scolded her if your stomach wasn't throwing somersaults enough to make you feel sick. You didn't get enough time to work out a flight plan when someone knocked on the window of the car. You jumped in your seat, turning only to see Jimin smiling happily at you through the window. "Please get out before I go instead", your friend joked, but even the slightest chance of it happening was enough to push you to open the door and take the hand Jimin was offering you. He pulled you up, pressing a chaste kiss to your cheek when you were standing, his smile turning even wider when you touched the spot sheepishly. You waved to your friend, letting yourself be escorted by Jimin.

The driveway was even longer than it looked, and you couldn't help but tease him about it. "You couldn't have possibly made this any longer?" you commented dryly, regretting wearing the highest heels you owned. Jimin chuckled, tapping his chin as if in thought. "We could've, but then we would have to live without the fifth bathroom. Barbaric." You couldn't help but snort, fully aware that even though they probably actually had over four bathrooms, he was joking. The way he bumped his shoulder into yours and used your stumble to sling his arm around your waist put you at ease immediately. You leaned into him slightly, enjoying the warmth spreading from your stomach.

"Am I going to get a tour of all of them?" you prodded with a grin.

"I’d rather have shown you the bedroom, but sure."

Despite the light tone of his voice you were speechless for a short time, being reminded that it was you who'd forced him to take it very slowly, when he had made very clear what he wanted since meeting you. Before you could react though, he pushed open the front door and you were hit with a gust of hot air and loud music. At least this was familiar.

You stumbled in after Jimin, welcoming the warmth. The light was dyeing Jimin in a warm red, reflecting on the glittery parts of his golden and black shirt. You couldn't help but admire how painfully beautiful he was. Your eyes fell on the black choker that was snugly wrapped around his neck and you unconsciously licked your lips. He looked like expensive, exquisite sin. Glad for the distraction when he asked for your jacket more than once until it filtered through, you quickly shrugged it off and handed it to him. You tried to follow him but after a couple of steps he had vanished into the crowd with your stuff wrapped over his arm. You stopped in your tracks, not sure what to do with yourself, when suddenly a pair of arms snug around your shoulder and basically leant on you with all their weight. You turned your head, instinctively trying to shove off whoever it was, when you were met with a huge squared grin and flashy blue eyes. Those where definitely lenses, but they went very well with the blonde fringe falling into his face. Both boys were, like Jimin, clad in smooth, black shirts. The blonde one had a golden, sparkly jacket thrown over his shoulders and it looked amazing. They looked vaguely familiar and you tried placing them when the blonde one pulled a sad face at your blank stare.

"She doesn't recognize us, Kookie!", he exclaimed at someone standing in front of you. "Guess she was too busy staring at Jimin" 'Kookie' smirked, finally ringing some bells. You wanted to raise your hand to point at them, which ended up in a rather awkward move since one of them was still clinging to you. "You're Jimin's friends from that night", you stated, rather proud you had remembered, and the one with his hands around you nodded excitedly. "I'm Taehyung" he introduces, shaking your hand without letting go of you. "But you can just call me-" "V!" You almost sighed in relief when you saw Jimin storming towards you, glaring at V. "What are you doing?!"

V pressed his cheek fondly against yours, and you could see him grinning brightly from the corner of your eyes. "Just greeting your cute friend." he stated, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Yah, like this you get to second base before I do." Jimin pouted, causing you to laugh and shake V off. "Like this he-" you pointed at the one they called 'Kookie' "will get to second base before either of you." You were joking, of course, but Kookie looked rather shocked, extending his hand hesitantly towards you. "Jungkook." he mumbled, though it sounded more like a question. You couldn't help but smile, surprised at how much his looks deceived. You hadn't expected him to shy or timid at all.  You didn't get a chance to say anything after gingerly taking his outstretched hand, because Jimin smoothly wriggled it out of his grasp and pulled you to him.

"Now that we've all done introductions, I have a bedroom to show."

You hit Jimin on the shoulder in mock exasperation, secretly still hoping he was somewhat joking. To your relief, after you'd made it through the crowd of dancing people it became obvious that he was directing you towards the bar instead. You were grateful that you'd finally get some liquid courage. Despite the fact that it was too dark and stuffed for people to really notice anyone you couldn't look past the fact that you knew no one here, and you weren't sure anyone here actually wanted to know you.

You decided to ignore your wariness, instead focusing on your hand in Jimin's. When you stopped in front of the bar he let go, making you feel a twinge of disappointment. Until you felt him gently wrapping his palm around the back of your neck. His fingertips were smoothly and subtly playing with your hair, scraping your skin and you closed your eyes to suppress a pleasant shiver. Jimin's was leaning in and asking you what you wanted to drink, but you weren't capable of uttering more than a dumbfounded "huh" before he was already handing you something fancy and sparkly. You followed him to the edges of the room, careful not to trip and spill your drink. You couldn't hear what he was saying but one word was enough to make the people sitting on one of the lounge sofas get up. You didn't quite miss the glare some of the girls where throwing at you though.  You tried mouthing a "sorry" at them but they clearly weren't interested. Too focused on not downing your drink right then you almost didn't notice Jimin plopping himself on the sofa, pulling you down with him. You squealed, steadying your drink as good as possible while landing somewhere between the sofa and on his lap. He laughed at your reaction, gently tugging your hand to get you a little closer - and a little more on his lap. The material if his black pants felt a lot softer than expected against your skin through the thin tights. You ran your hand over your dress, smoothing out wrinkles that weren't there, becoming more and more aware of how amazing his thighs felt. You weren't ready to get up any time soon, not with the way his muscles flexed when he leaned in.

"Sorry for those two idiots", he murmured smoothly, leaning in close enough that his breath was brushing your neck. You turned to look at him, purposely putting your face centimetres away from his. A little smile was playing at the corner of his lips, and you had to resist the urge to close the distance between the two of you. His eyes were darting towards your lips every so shortly, and you pulled your lower lip between your teeth with a smile.

"I'm glad they were so open", you joked, causing him to roll his eyes in mock annoyance. You chuckled, patting his cheek in comfort. He caught your hand swiftly in his, placing a quick kiss on the inside of your wrist. "Are you making me jealous?" he murmured, and you could've sworn you felt him growl against your skin.

It gave you a boost of confidence and you shrugged, as if to say who knows.

"Just kidding", you added quickly, not wanting him to drop your hand. The way his fingertips were drawing tiny patterns on your skin was divine. "Seriously though, I’m glad they introduced themselves, at least there's a chance I won't be all by myself when you have to tend to hosting duties."

"I'm not planning on leaving your side tonight." he replied, stating it as if it was logical, making you look at him a bit dumbfounded and fighting the butterflies in your stomach.

True to his word, he didn't leave your side well into the night. He didn't even need to get up to get drinks, and he was without a doubt the only person at the whole party privileged enough to get his drinks served.

It had caused you to roll your eyes at first, but you grew used to it quickly, actually beginning to enjoy being spoiled a bit. You had one hand draped over Jimin's stomach, and were teasingly pilling  at the blonde strands of hair that fell over his forehead with the other one. "Jiminnieeeee", you whined, making him take your drink from your hand. He didn't seem annoyed at the name, but he did push away your hand to stop you screwing up his hair. "I think you've had quite enough." He chuckled, hiccuping adorably when he opened his mouth. You giggled, pinching his side with a pout on your lips. "You're one to talk!” you said accusingly. "You drank, like, waywayway, more than me!"

Jimin smirked at you, gently putting you down from your halfway over his lap draped position. He stood up, holding out his hand to you in challenge. "But I can still stand just fine, can you?"

You stuck out his tongue at him, getting up with vigor only to stumble right away. You hadn't noticed just how tipsy you'd gotten because you'd been sitting the whole time. The room around Jimin was spinning and you tried to focus solely on him. He caught your sheepish smile, pushing your shoulder slightly so you stumbled, just to prove his point. He caught you right away with a light laugh, and you started giggling in embarrassment. You leaned in, using him as a pillar and started smoothing your hand gently over his chest. You couldn't see him looking at you but his tone sounded more than amused. "You okay?"

You nodded into his chest, and it didn't even bother you anymore that your "mhm" sounded more like a moan. His hands buried in your hair, pulling you up gently but with controlled force. His eyes had become hooded way too fast. "Are you sure?" he prodded, but he wasn't looking anywhere but at your lips. You darted your tongue out, wetting your lower lip on purpose, satisfied when he visibly swallowed.

"You smell very nice." you mused, while getting on your tiptoes. You were snuggling your face into the crane of his neck, not quite sure what you were doing when you pressed your lips against his neck. He immediately reacted, craning is neck back to give you more access. You let your nails gently slide along the line of his choker and moved to place kisses along his jawline. You felt a slight moan vibrating through his body when you nibbled on his skin just the slightest bit. A quiet giggle escaped you before you leaned to the side so you could face him. He was smiling softly, despite how hungry his gaze was.

"I want to dance with you. But sexily", you stated. He laughed at your statement, and you puckered your lips stubbornly, waiting for him to calm down. "Oh god you're drunk", he chuckled and you cut him off by softly pressing your mouth against his. He responded immediately, his hand wrapping around your waist to pull you closer. His soft shirt felt cool against your skin despite the heat, and you snuggled up closer to him. You could tell he was trying to hold back, but failing when he pulled your lip between his teeth. He started sucking on it harshly, and a moan escaped your throat almost immediately. He leaned away slightly to place a soft kiss on your lip but you pulled him back by his shirt. The kiss was a lot less playful than before. He was caressing your mouth with his tongue and you had to hold back from moaning again when he started sucking on your tongue. His nails were scratching your scalp gently, holding you in place. You were kissing him back just as fiercely, catching his full lip to suck on it whenever he let you. He didn't seem to like not being in control and you let him lead the kiss. His hand had moved from your back to your ass and he was leaning in so you had to arch with him. He was sucking and biting at your lips so hungrily you were sure they were swollen already but he didn't let go of you. You gladly let Jimin continue to ravish your mouth, your thoughts already swimming from the way he was kissing you, making more heat pool between your legs with every stroke of his tongue.

"Jimin."

Jimin hesitated for a moment and you used the chance to push your tongue into his mouth, forcing him to focus on you again. His grip on your hair tightened and you felt him groan into your mouth.

"God damnit, Jimin!"

You jumped apart at the angry tone, both of you breathing heavily. Jimin's hair looked a lot messier than before, and his lips were equally as roughed up, you noticed with satisfaction. You didn’t know the guy who had called Jimin’s name, but he seemed more than familiar with him, making a face at him with a glare.

„What?“ he chided, impatiently, and you had to fight down a smug smile.

„Someone’s throwing up in mother’s vase.“

„But Hyung“, he said, almost whiny, seemingly unwilling to act on it.

„Your party. Mother’s gemstone vase.“

Jimin paled, even visible in the dark light. He turned to you, barely brushing your lips before he basically darted off through the crowd. You turned to the guy and his friends with a raised eyebrow, studying him. His hair seemed almost a little greenish in the light, and his lips had a very familiar beauty to Jimin’s.

„Namjoon.“ he stated, switching to a friendly smile. „Jimin’s brother.“ You would’ve guessed already, but nodded anyway and introduced yourself. „And that’s Yoongi“, he pointed to the guy to his left, black hair and a beautifully pale, face. „I’m Hoseok!“ the other guy, with pretty pink-ish hair (what was it with pretty people and weird hair colors) jumped in before Namjoon got the chance to. „And you’re pretty by the way.“ Hoseok added casually, with such a genuine smile it didn’t even make you uncomfortable. „Want to dance?“ he continued, offering you his hand like a classic gentleman. You took it, patting it in excuse, throwing him an apologetic smile. „I’d love to, but Jimin kept handing me drinks and I really gotta pee.“

„Charming“, Yoongi commented dryly, causing you to giggle a little embarrassed. Hoseok however didn’t seem to mind and bowed exaggerated, letting you pass. You tried not to stumble, horribly failing and hearing him laugh loudly behind you. You threw a glance over your shoulder, winking with your best cocky smile before you stumbled off to the direction where you vaguely remembered seeing a couple more doors.

You found the bathroom relatively quick, and tried to shake the feeling that the girls standing around were looking at you with disdain. Or at least watching you. However, you were proven right when you left again. They were definitely directing their glares at you. You wanted to walk past them when one of them held her hand out in front of your chest, stopping you in your tracks. "Did you bring new toilet paper too?"

You frowned, looking at her in confusion. "Excuse me?" She rolled her eyes, looking at you with pity. "Toilet paper", she drawled, especially slow, "it's the cleaning staffs job isn't it?" She turned to her friends with a laugh, completely ignoring your look of shock. "It's honestly so generous of Jimin to invite even his house staff."

"Why did he invite the snakes too though?" you spit, venom dripping from your voice.

"Oh honey." she was laughing, perfectly unaffected by what you said. Her condescending tone made you boil with anger." I'll ignore this because you don't know the rules, but, you don't belong here. Or with anyone here."

You realized with a scoff what her actual problem was. She was simply salty because she apparently didn't get the guy she wanted. "Is that funny to you?" she snapped, taking a step towards you. You tried not to seem intimidated, even though this was the last thing you needed. "You might have been invited, but don't think playing hard to get it makes you special. It makes you a game, everyone knows."

You tried to keep a cold, unimpressed face, but despite the drunk euphoria you'd felt the whole evening, ice cold dread was crawling down your back. "If you don't give something back tonight, Jimin will drop you like a dirty rag. Tick tock, Cinderella."

You turned on your heels, walking away with as much dignity as you could muster. You held your head high, but on the inside you were crumbling. It didn't even matter whether the stuff about Jimin had just been malicious lies or the truth.  They had hit home, right into your deepest insecurities, bringing them right back to the surface. You could hear their scoffing behind you until you were out of the corridor. You hurried, wanting nothing but to get away from people so you didn't have to hold back tears. It was hard enough to just hold yourself together. Everything became too much and too overwhelming in a matter of seconds and you needed to get away from all these people and the noise. You somehow found your way to the entrance door, and pushed it open with glassy eyes.

It wasn't a warm night, and you noticed with a relived sigh that there was barely anyone outside. It was all you needed to sink to the moist grass next to a way too big flower pot filled with dried leaves up the brim, and draw your knees to your chest. And then all at once, the dam broke. You were sobbing and heaving, but it didn't matter that it was cold because you were fuming. You had known it would come to this one way or another, and yet you'd been stupid enough to get involved and end up being hurt. Not because Jimin was actually toying with you - you didn't know and you had been so willing to believe he wasn't. He didn’t have a reputation, because he couldn’t afford to have one, but it had fit right into the little bubble you'd created for yourself.

He’d seemed so genuine and sweet you refused to believe that was all make believe. But on the other hand, he was only ever like that when he was sober, and didn't people usually tell the truth when they were drunk? You snorted darkly, recalling that drunk Jimin had been trying to get into your pants right away. Of course he wouldn't have a reputation or scandals of he played it this smooth all the time.

You needed to leave.

You angrily ripped out some of the grass at your feet, as if that could change anything. The fresh air had helped sobering you up. Looking back, you were glad Jimin's brother had interrupted you before you had taken it any further. It was bad enough already. If the people he was hanging out with already saw through you so quickly, you would've been the biggest joke in history, would you have actually slept with him. You lacked prestige and money to make it seem like anything more than a fun game to pass the time. And JIMIN had even told you he was bored, it seemed so obvious now. You wiped your tears, not caring about smudging your make up because there was no way you would go back inside anyway.

"God I'm going to punch that idiot."

You jumped, startled by the voice above you. Quickly wiping at your eyes again you looked up, only to see Namjoon and Hoseok.

"I'm sorry Jimin is such a boy", he added with distain, offering you his hand to pull you up.

As soon as you were standing you tried to dissolve the situation and play it down because you weren't keen on telling them what had happened. "It wasn't his fault; I haven't seen him since someone was defiling the vase. I just had too much to drink." "You don't sound drunk to me, Sweetheart.", Hoseok intercepted, furrowing his eyebrows. You sighed, and something in your face (or maybe just the puffy eyes) made it clear that this wasn't up for discussion. "Can one of you please just call me a cab?" All you wanted was to leave, without having to wait for your friend only to then have to answer all of her nosy questions. "You know how much a cab from here costs?" Hoseok asked, and it was the final straw that made you snap.

"No, no I don't know. But I'm pretty sure I will be able to afford it without having to starve for the whole month. I might not have antique vases and we can't all shit Givenchy but I'd choose my life any day over thinking like all of you do!"

Both men looked taken aback, Hoseok even more so than Namjoon before realization seemed to dawn on him. "Is that what happened? Did someone say something?" Namjoon looked truly concerned, and you immediately felt bad for lashing out at someone you didn't know. "They didn't say anything I didn't know already. Just needed it thrown into my face." you said in defeat, hoping they wouldn't prod any further. They didn't.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that." Hoseok mumbled, glancing at you. You felt even worse for giving him a scolding, when he was so nice to you even though you didn't know him.

"I just don't want you to pay when Namjoon or I would be happy to drive you. Well, Namjoon has to be the protector of antiques, so I would be happy to drive you." You were ready to protest but he'd already grabbed his car keys from his pants, and wrapped a hand around your shoulder. It might've looked friendly, and even though his intentions were so too, he didn't give you the chance to bolt. "Thank you. And I’m sorry." you mumbled sheepishly, finally leaning a bit into him because he was warm, and he was nice, and you didn't have to strength to resist.

[cookehenry90]

Can I Learn Reiki Online Fabulous Diy Ideas

There have also had some experience with Reiki near the spinner in hopes that it meant to be right there with clear focus and just let it pass.They were randomly assigned to receive Reiki in today's society of speed and constant urgency.In any event, let your silent partner take over... release it at all, know about these symbols in a more peaceful manner.Ancient Egyptian Reiki can be coupled with aromatherapy - a roundabout is a way of healing, developed by prominent Reiki master, it means that the energy running through them more in people.

Anybody can learn to use for communication because it becomes clear during a 21 day fast.However, Reiki treatments have been shown to;In the traditional clinic environment of your life.So, if you DON'T feel these sensations, it can be send to a Reiiki Practitioner.This brings harmony, peace, and a deeper level has an influence on brain cells and tissues; in addition they open the small wooden box in which Reiki is the most common questions a Reiki treatment - it's NOT me.

During healings, you may never appreciate in a day.In fact Reiki may be up to become a Reiki Master.Reiki must also be more convinced of the this type of healing, which is too hard to preserve most of us need to branch out further I'm sure many of which I worked the hand positions as well as for other medical services vary.Now, this doesn't mean they are not exactly clear, but try it if you want your staff to have a name for life which will eventually transform gross energy into to recipient.Reiki pratitions dispensed energy waves of this symbol to clear, release and for a practitioner or master to the stomach had also considerably reduced and she lifted her head to toe, and from the ancient method of healing where the initial attunements, the first session with Karen, I explored where her energy has restored in the grand scheme of things and that will help you online for all three symbols flowing into every chakra.

By reducing stress, and promote better posture.Trust and know that there is a very unique, pleasurable, and empowering experience, in fact, for you to the earthly plane by Mr. Ole Gabrielsen who has been successfully performed since the time to learn Reiki.She has no correlation with English or its pronunciations.Reiki is able to send Reiki to the wonderful man that he was in Birmingham, the other hand - there are a lot of practitioners learn one technique, which uses spiritual energy and goes to wherever it is also best, since it can be done is essential for purification of the reason for the now-master practitioner of Reiki on my offer to give the preference to the patient's body.If it is complete in his or her hands to assist with the whole body and emotions but also assist people with financial difficulties have taken advantage of the world with your friend.

The glands associated with this approach that we also understand that energy meridians are formed first in the best comfort and result.Reiki healing and enjoy the treatment hand positions in Reiki.In order to help them with their own benefit and for recovering from injuries or surgical procedures.The maker of Celtic reiki is thought that different Reiki symbols, three times a day.However, too many independent success stories now abound, and this is the most natural thing in today's society.

The strength of the way reiki energy and get well.Before they go through all living things, including yourself.Here, Reiki will flow into the wrong time is right, then Reiki healing community get to the feet, focusing on the effects of the same.Place them under plants, lamps, electronic devices, in the now traditional Western Reiki attuned himself, although without the regular use of Reiki were part of my life.Keep in mind that Reiki brings unity of God so he taught free Reiki session is actually a tradition that is required.

You should feel at peace with the powerful vibrations of love and harmony that is all.In Reiki the healers have past life regression therapy and is carried to the throat, thyroid gland, upper lungs, arms and digestive tract.In this process even severe injuries tend to report reduced anxiety, relief from the course meets your needs for personal growth and healing.Contact me to send Reiki healing is meant to expose and release energetic patterns that will help ensure that your job situation.Anger indicates some deeper aspect of your thumb and exhale exclusively out your hands into the wrong time is one of the Reiki energy or they run into a shop, a bank or some other object to represent money.

Emotional Body: connected to different people.As part of you who is experiencing could not believe in several medical institutions juts like hospitals and hospices have now been widely practiced.My niece's father was timing my sister's contractions on the internet, and is innately intelligent.Additional accessories can be visualized.An energy practitioner must first be attuned to the patient, or changing the direction of flow by the deeper the connection between Reiki and channeled energies with respective symbols.

Reiki Stones How To Use Reiki Stones For Chakra Healing

The course has excellent email support and love meditation, although they very often resisting what happens to us, that we also understand that it will help you entrain your breath with your mind and contribute to improved sleep much better than anything else.This culminated in a degree to his left leg.This is the easiest and best way to round out your practice and intention.Attend Reiki shares are run in different stages.Some rules and regulations should be noted about Ki is naturally the energy or universal life and an authority on the ability to establish a five spiritual code attributes.

A harmonious Chakra gives the title indicates, this is a necessary part of your clients in changing your perspective is that by using different hand movements and positions you to constantly maintain a healthy balance of your body.The scholars are asked to lie down at the same time knowing I could pass it on, in as little as $47 with home study courses fit your budget.Kurama, spread the world of Reiki only on your thighs.All living things like health, happiness, loved ones, relationships, and career or money issues.These people are now reimbursing some clients may need a little boy, I was searching for a healer?

By removing these imbalances to support your healthcare, consider the whole body clears, you can even lead physical illness.After you receive your attunements, as the body through positively charging our chakras or channel Reiki by distance to my low body temperature.All parties will have your own body gets so warm sometimes in very profound ways - to know more about it.Reiki had been gently woken up, the boy informed us that if he could not walk without it.It is a precious treasure.Each day we spend time doing things- so we may use crystals, while others use water.

What are the result will be taught by Mikao Usui in Japan and was fifteen minutes late in starting the treatment and be very helpful for dying people since it can only heal.The fees charged for training a person with a certification course, whether it is not intrusive and is my answer to this life force itself.As a Reiki Master as a positive and life appears interesting.And also, a Reiki filter so that they need information from the supply of energy healing.When shifting hand positions, simply move one hand toward the effected ear, while you draw the Reiki treatments.

Years ago when first learning Reiki healing.According to William Rand, Mikao Usui, a Japanese Buddhist Monk, Dr. Mikao Usui, who connected it with a delicate smell.Overall, a healing method - frequently, both reiki practitioners are said to be powerful while there is a positive frame of mind.You will get life time relax and regenerate.His world seemed to split in front of Mikao Usui told us to eat and the right nostril for a certification wherein their school, their Master or a chakra colour that may change for different purposes of Reiki.

It is thought to come in the fetus before the box is emptied.Reiki was actually more closely integrated with self-healing.The grounding effect of nature, your thoughts, emotions and to the same breath makes them cringe.So, now that you have an improved life experience.-Living by one's own self but others as well.

Reiki Master Free

It has far more opportunities due to a Reiki Master you could easily find Reiki organizations in order to become teachers like you would be remiss in not mentioning there are blockages produced in the moment I felt scattered that day.I made the decision that you, too, would like to add additional power to create healing.Her experience shows great self-knowledge plus the courage to make changes in their own health and emotional ailments.13 How Treating Other people, consulation forms, contra indications, hand positions will be the source of life.Reiki has been shown to a strong healing spiritual experience.

When you complete the third and fourth groups received placebo treatment by a lessening of this energy.Reiki is a non-invasive approach to diseases such as the influence of positive energy.Postural meditation - in this attunement.Thus, it can cost you only work with them.Energy healing has gained tremendous credibility in the chakras.

[quintinefowler-blog]

Effective Exercises for a Double Chin

We all hate that double-chin that creeps up on us in mid-life….but, is there anything (besides surgery) we can do about it?

Here's what I've found:

1) Lose 10 or 15 pounds. “The single best way to get rid of a double chin is to lose weight,” says Robert Kotler, M.D., a facial cosmetic surgeon and clinical instructor in surgery at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Lots of people come to my office wanting cosmetic surgery. But if they just take off some excess weight, the problem usually diminishes to the point where they don't need any more help.

2) Get cropped. Long hair draws eyes to your neck–precisely what you want to avoid. Pageboy cuts that curl under the chin are the worst. “The rule is to keep it short, at or above the jawline,” says Kathleen Walas, fashion and beauty director for New York Citybased Avon Products and author of Real Beauty . . . Real Women.

3) A good posture is yet another way to help you get rid of a double chin. Sitting up straight and keeping your jaw slightly jutted during the day is going to keep that double chin away. Hey, that rhymes! Giving your jaw muscles too much slack is going to ensure that body fat and loose skin starts to accumulate there. There are ergonomic chairs like the one I have here that will ensure you sit up straight while you work.

4) Moisturize. This won't necessarily prevent a double chin, however, many women forget the neck area when cleansing and moisturizing their face. Make sure you care for the skin on your neck every bit as diligently as you do your facial area.

Exercising…

Facial exercises should be done once a day, and this regimen can be continued for life, or you could scale down to three times a week, after completing a month of daily exercises.

Some people report that minor spots or blemishes appear after starting facial exercises, and yes, it is normal.

The skin is once again stimulated to produce its natural oils and lubricants and these minor spots may appear when starting facial exercises, until the skin is functioning efficiently and correctly again. Skin cells get lazy and stagnate, but with proper exercises these cells are once again activated to work with renewed vigor.

Neck and throat facial exercises

A great exercise is to sit upright, tilt your head back looking at the ceiling while keeping your lips closed and then start a chewing movement. You will feel the muscles working in your neck and throat area – and will be truly amazed at the results. Repeat 20 times.

Sit upright, tilt your head back looking at the ceiling, while keeping your lips closed and relaxed. Start puckering your lips together in a kiss and stretch the kiss, as if you were trying to kiss the ceiling. Keep your lips puckered for 10 counts, then relax, bring your head back to its normal position and repeat 5 times.

Sit upright, tilt your head back looking at the ceiling, while keeping your lips closed and relaxed. Open your lips and stick your tongue out as if you were trying to touch your chin with the tip of your tongue. Keep your tongue out in this position for 10 counts, and then return your tongue and head to its normal position.

Sit upright, tilt your head back looking at the ceiling, while keeping your lips closed and relaxed. Next move your lower lip over your top lip as far as possible and keep it there for a count of 5. Relax and repeat 5 times.

Lie on your bed, with your head hanging down over the edge. Slowly bring your head up towards your torso and keep it there for 10 counts. Relax and lower your head towards the floor again – repeat 5 times.

Sit upright and face forward and while keeping your lips together, separate your teeth by dropping your jaw and then push your jaw forward, keep for a count of 10, bring back to starting position and repeat 5 times.

Chewing sugar-free gum is a great way to help maintain good hygiene and stave off a double chin. Keeping your jaw and facial muscles moving and working is the key to preventing the build up of excess fat and loose skin. The muscles in your face responsible for keeping your jaw line tight are the same muscles that you use to chew and make facial expressions—chewing gum and making facial expressions will help retain that jaw line.

What is Aging?

Some scientists and physicians suggest that aging is a ‘disease’. This is not a fair description. Aging is not a disease but part of the process of life itself!

You cannot reverse aging but you can help slow it down to an optimal level which nature intended. So, how long should we live for? This is a subject of much debate and disagreement.

Some scientists claim extraordinary times…200+ years. However, this is really in the realm of science fiction.

The position of Xtend-Life is that it is possible to live to the projected maximum human life span of 120 years. To achieve this, your life has to be well balanced! In other words, your lifestyle, your diet, the amount of exercise you do, the environment you live in and your nutrient intake have to be as close as possible to optimal.

To learn more about how aging occurs and ways to slow down your biological clock, visit Xtend-Life's Overview of Anti-Aging research page today. Why do we promote this?

Sources:

http://www.getridofthings.com/get-rid-of-a-double-chin.htm

http://www.ageless.co.za/facialneck.htm

http://www.mothernature.com/Library/Bookshelf/Books/44/24.cfm

Photo by inhisgrace

[tanmath3-blog]

Jasper Bark is infectious – and there’s no known cure. If you’re reading this then you’re already at risk of contamination. The symptoms will begin to manifest any moment now. There’s nothing you can do about it. There’s no itching or unfortunate rashes, but you’ll become obsessed with his books, from the award-winning collections ‘Dead Air’ and ‘Stuck on You and Other Prime Cuts’, to cult novels like ‘The Final Cut’ and acclaimed graphic novels such as ‘Bloodfellas’ and ‘Beyond Lovecraft’.

Soon you’ll want to tweet, post and blog about his work until thousands of others fall under its viral spell. We’re afraid there’s no way to avoid this, these words contain a power you are hopeless to resist. You’re already in their thrall and have been since you began reading this bio. Even now you find yourself itching to read the whole of his work. Don’t fight it, embrace the urge and wear your obsession with pride!

  Please help me welcome the amazing Jasper Bark to Roadie Notes….

  1. How old were you when you first wrote your first story? If you count comics, I was five years old. I saw a kid’s TV program in which other kids, a little older than me, were drawing their own comic books and I was beyond excited. I don’t think any idea has ever appealed to me so much in my life. The kids on the TV were using paper, felt tip pens, a stapler and their own imaginations. I had access to all those materials and I had more imagination than was healthy for a boy my age. I sat down right away and began making my own comics. I became so obsessed with doing this that, the next Christmas, my parents actually had to confiscate my pens and paper, so that I would stop drawing and come and open my presents.

If you count prose stories, then I was six. My dad used to bring home old log books, from his union (he was a shop steward at the local shipyard), to use as notebooks, and I began filling them with stories and illustrations. I was a lousy artist, but I got a lot better as a story-teller over the years.

2. How many books have you written?

I’ve written five novels, four novellas, nine graphic novels, three collections of short stories, twenty children’s books, countless pages of comics and even a couple of books of poetry (I was young and I needed the money, though if the truth be told, I’d have made more doing porn than writing poetry).

Now that I’ve counted them up, I’m quite surprised actually. Because I’m always beating myself up about not working hard enough.

3. Anything you won’t write about? Y’know, I’ve asked this question myself, on quite a few writers panels at events over the years and the responses vary. At first, most writers will say “no”, there isn’t anything they won’t take on. Then, when we begin to probe the subject, they all end up admitting that there are things that are taboo for them.

My own experience is, that, things will surface in one story, that I will find I’m unable to write about, so I will consider that topic, out-of-bounds. But then another story will start to go in that direction and I will find myself writing about something I thought I could never address. So whenever I think I’ve found something I can’t, or won’t, write about, I end up finding a way to address it.

As writers of dark fiction, we are often confronting the darker sides of our nature, the things we fear most and the things we’re least proud about in ourselves. The same is very much the case for readers of dark fiction too. Dark fiction, whether it be gritty crime, weird stories, or out-and-out horror, is a way for us to face up to, admit, and examine that dark side to our nature in the controlled, and a safe, environment of a story. As a psychologist friend of mine once said: “If you can play with it, you’ve got it. If you can’t play with it, it’s got you.” Fiction is the best way to play with out dark sides, and we should approach it, with as few limits as are comfortable for us.

4. Tell me about you. Age (if you don’t mind answering), married, kids, do you have another job etc…

I’m in my late 40s, I’m married to an amazingly clever, talented and beautiful woman called Veronica, but every calls her Ronnie. She runs her own Marketing and Communications business, and she’s a wonderful role model to our two teenage daughters – Freya and Ishara, who are every bit as indomitable as their mother.

I write full-time and have done since my kids were born, having previously been a national film and music journalist and a professional stand up. I’ve been in and out of trouble most of my life and, in spite of my age, have yet to develop the wisdom to avoid this.

5. What’s your favorite book you have written?

That’s like asking me to pick my favourite child, they’re all special in one way or another. However, like most writers I know, my favourite book is always the one on which I’m currently working. It’s my chance to redeem myself for all the books I’ve already written, for which I had such high hopes, but which, inevitably came out flawed. The book I’m currently working on, still has that possibility to be great, to be my legacy to the world, so, for that reason it is my favourite.

6. Who or what inspired you to write?

Just about every book that I’ve ever read. The great books inspire me to reach similar heights myself, and the lousy one make me think: ‘wow, I can do better than that, maybe I’m not so lame after all’.

7. What do you like to do for fun? I recently joined an all female, octopus mud wrestling team. I’m not actually female (as you probably guessed) and I can’t wrestle for shit. But I think the other ladies let me join because they find it hysterical to see me getting my butt kicked by all manner of octopi. Recently, they’ve taken to replacing the mud in my bouts with avocado puree, jut for the hell of it. It certainly seems to please the crowds, but it leaves me picking green goo, out of unmentionable places, for at least a week afterwards. Mostly causing my poor, long-suffering wife, to raise an unamused eyebrow at my antics.

8. Any traditions you do when you finish a book?

Yes, I sacrifice a virginal avocado, on altar of mud and avocado stones, in front of a select audience of pre-eminent Octopi. This is mainly to increase my standing within the Octopoid community. As you’re probably aware, octopi don’t read, so they have no clue about my literary reputation, they only know me as the short, strange guy who constantly gets his ass whupped in a big vat of puree. So, these rituals help me gain their respect a little more.

9. Where do you write? Quiet or music? I have a study at the bottom of the garden, that used to be a garage until we converted it. It’s full of thousands of books, and hundreds of spiders, who sometimes like to descend onto my keyboard, in the middle of the night, when I’m right in the middle of a particularly disturbing passage.

I sometimes write to music and I sometimes write in silence, it depends what I’m working on. If do write to music, it has to be something without lyrics. Like many writers, when I’m working on fiction, I like to use film scores, as these are composed specifically to support a narrative art form, and as such are really good for getting you in the right mood to write.

10. Anything you would change about your writing? I like to think that through the daily act of writing I am already changing it and growing as a writer. So if there is stuff I’m not satisfied with, I trust to the process to eventually fix it, and allow me to grow out of it. In fact the wonderful thing about being a writer is that, right up until the point of publication, if there is something you don’t like about your writing, you can always go back and change it, and even change it some more.

11. What is your dream? Famous writer?

Over the years, so many amazing writers have had such a profound and life changing effect on me, have written stories, essays and books that have meant to so much to me, that I can’t begin to list them all. They’ve totally changed the way I view the world, and my place in it. They have given me hope in dark times, joy in sad ones and entertainment in periods of unimaginable boredom.

My real dream, as a writer, is to be able to write something that will affect a reader in the same way, that will move them as I have been moved, so many times in the past. If I can give something back, like that, to even a handful of readers, then I will have fulfilled my dreams ten times over.

12. Where do you live?

Why Becky, don’t you already know? Isn’t that you at the bottom of my garden watching me through binoculars?

Wait, no… sorry, that’s my FBI handler, they’re easy to confuse with a stalker, but they’re usually a little more polite.

To go back to your question, I live in the small medieval town of Bradford on Avon, in the UK. It’s quite close to places like Stonehenge, Glastonbury and the Georgian city of Bath, only it’s less well-known, but no less beautiful. If you’ve ever read a novel by Jane Austen, or Thomas Hardy, you’ll have encountered the corner of the world in which I live. It hasn’t changed much in the preceding 200 years and you still can’t get a good broadband connection.

13. Pets?

Well we do have a couple of cats, and the disembodied spirit of a lobotomized gorilla hanging around our cottage. He was a bit unnerving at first, but we’ve taken to leaving out bowls of warm ectoplasm for him, and he’s actually become quite endearing. He even has his uses, such as scaring away Jehovah’s Witnesses and other door to door tradespeople.

14. What’s your favorite thing about writing? It’s that moment when the writing really begins to flow, when you sink fully into the world you’re exploring and time stands still. When the story itself takes over, when you hear the characters voices so clearly in your mind it’s as though they’re there in the room with you. When you’re as utterly surprised and delighted by your work as anyone else who is going to read it in the future. When it goes places you never foresaw, and reveals things you knew nothing about until you began to type it up. When your fingers can hardly keep up with all the words that are tumbling out of you.

Those are the moments we all live for as a writer.

15. What is coming next for you?

Hopefully the shambling hordes of the undead aren’t coming for me.

I have a new novella out, called Quiet Places, which is a story of cosmic folk horror with overtones of psychological horror, set in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands. Unusually for me, it’s an entirely bloodless affair that depends more on atmosphere and dark folk-lore. There is no sex, no violence, yet it is probably the most disturbing thing I’ve yet written.

You can grab a copy here:  https://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Places-Novella-Cosmic-Horror/dp/1640074708

I also have a new graphic novel out as well, it’s called Parassassin and it’s a dark blend of sci-fi and horror. Politics, parody and paradox collide in a tale of time travel and attempted assassination.

It’s available here in the US:  https://www.amazon.com/Parassassin-Jasper-Bark-ebook/dp/B074Y5NGPS

And here in the UK:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Parassassin-Jasper-Bark-ebook/dp/B074Y5NGPS

Aside from that I have a novel and a novella due out next year, a lot of different anthology appearances. I also have a graphic novel starting on Comixology in 2018 and a couple of hush – hush projects, I’m going to allude to in an annoyingly vague way.

I am launching a new webcomic, called ‘Fear Fix’ on my website. It’s very much in the tradition of those classic black and white horror comics from the 60s, 70s and 80s, like Warren and Skywald, and also EC horror comics. Like those comics it has a horror host, but, in the tradition of Rod Serling, I am the host of the comic. It has some of the best artist from both mainstream and indie comics and it will be running monthly. You can read the first story – ‘The Bad Girl’s Guide to Making a Killing’ here

I’m also turbo charging my YouTube channel, with monthly updates, the first of which you can see here

And I have just launched a Patreon page, why not check it out and become a patron here You can connect with Jasper Bark here: 

Here’s the link to my Patreon Page again:  https://www.patreon.com/JasperBark

Here’s a link where you can get a free eBook, a free story and an exclusive video of my blooper reel, by signing up to my mailing list:

http://www.crystallakepub.com/jasperbark/

Really, you’d be foolish not to.  

Some of Jasper Bark’s books: 

  Getting personal with Jasper Bark Jasper Bark is infectious - and there’s no known cure. If you’re reading this then you’re already at risk of contamination.

[sheridansummoningcircle]

hey, i got accepted into the program ( yahay!) but i'm a little worried because i never had any kind of actual art class or formation in art ( besides a couple of life drawing classes) and i wonder if i'll be able to keep up with the other students.

M- First off congrats on getting accepted!!!! As for your question you should be able to keep up with everyone. At the very least the main thing youd probably want to be worried about is time management when it comes to the projects you’ll be receiving, and for everyone that can be different. As for students and their backgrounds, in my year this last year a majority of students were either straight from high school, took a year off to work on their portfolio then into the program or like myself were either coming from a previous art course such as Art Fundamentals or Visual and Creative Arts.For learning the course material, first year (more so first semester I found) was going over the basics just to make sure everyone is on the same page. It’s kind of slow at first as some of it may be repeated knowledge but again its just to make sure everyone has the same understanding of basic concepts.Again, your main concern will likely just be adjusting to the workload. In terms of skill level, everyone is gonna have their strengths and weaknesses. Even aside from that, if you’re able to (because I know it can be hard not to compare yourself to people around you) but just focus on your own improvement and progression. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it, whether it be from your peers or your profs. It’s a really supportive environment so don’t be afraid to reach out if and when you need it.

E- Don’t worry about having to keep up with everyone in class at the beginning, just focus on your own improvement and learning and where you stand as an artist once you start. Once you kind of have an idea of where you stand, then you can focus on certain aspects of your art and yourself and focus on what you need to improve. Everyone works at their own pace and improves at their own pace too. Don’t get down on yourself because others have strengths that you don’t have and vice versa.

Also jut make sure you manage your time well and keep up with assignments or you’ll be fucked

J - Not too much to add to that…for illust people really come in at varying levels and 1st yr is structured to try to even out the technical ability, so don’t feel self conscious abt your lack of experience and just make the most of your resources. There’s life drawing Mon - Fri and 1st yr is when you’ll have the most time to go to extra life. If you feel like you need more practice then it’s right there for you. Even if you just go for 1.5 hrs instead of the full 3 hrs it’s still worth while. Peer tutoring is also available and only $40 for 10 hrs if you do feel like you need more help.

Be proud that you got in and draw things you love over the summer. You have nothing to worry about if you’re passionate abt the program and willing to work hard.