#i need to finish my inks for 2 more pages and then run some print tests

[rivalmelty]

quick hyrule redraw of this (which is just a redraw of this) bc i am literally drowning in inks for my junior thesis and i wanted to do something messier but it also defo made me feel so good about my growth as an artist so im ready to do more homework this week :’D

[littlemissmiller]

Bad Press (part 1)

Pairing: dark!toxic!coriolanus snow x fem!reader, slight sejanus x fem!reader

Summary: (au) after avoiding getting caught cheating in the games, a hopeful presidential candidate snow is fed up with your slanderous reporting, so he decides put you in your place

Warning: 21+ (drinking), eventually smut, blackmail, threats, dom!snow, sub!reader, slight jealousy, slight misogyny, obsession, power imbalance, porn with a plot

Word count: 2k

A/N: hi :) this is my very first public fanfic soooo please cut me some slack if it sucks, but if it doesn’t i have many many more in the vault so I appreciate the constructive feedback. this first part is just spicy build up which i could have posted as all one story, but it makes more sense to split it up (plus i love a good cliffhanger) anyways enjoy! part 2 is coming soon here

Coriolanus is unsatisfied as he turns today’s papers. Today’s headline are insulting.

Presidential candidate’s poll numbers fall like Snow.

He reads the byline and is not surprised. You always write these nasty articles about him. You seem to be no fan of his, article after article all he reads is about how poor his politics are or criticizing his work. In the summer times, when the Hunger Games roll around, you always have something to write about. How boring they are or how as gamemaker, lacks the proper skills to keep the games entertaining. None of which was true, but that’s not what bothers Coriolanus. What bothers him is when people truly think they know more than they do. When they think they are smarter than they are. It’s pathetic and that’s what truly, truly bothers him. The arrogance. He flips the page and clicks his tongue, as he reads the next headline,

Plinth Presidential Potential?

He checks the byline, it’s you, your article. Again. Is this a game to you? A funny joke to be such a fantastic moron as to write such defamation? Once he was president, press would not be so careless in their writing. He sips his tea squinting at the article and the black and white photo of his longtime classmate and friend, Sejanus Plinth. He didn’t even want to run for president, he didn’t care for the privileges of his life. He would much rather be back in the reaping bowl if he could have his way. Nothing more than a little district brat according to Coriolanus. He folds the paper up, rises from his seat, and tucks the paper under his arm. As he leaves the dining room, he tosses the paper into the fireplace, not bothering to watch as the ink melts and the print is reduced to ashes. He storms to his bedroom to finish getting ready before another day at the lab with Dr. Gaul working on new mutants for next years games.

Coriolanus stands in front of his mirror, slicking back his hair, he tries not to let the headlines bother him. He couldn’t let you keep getting away with this slanderous behavior. Then it dawns on him. He knows exactly how to keep you in line. Later that week was The Candidate Gala which, despite the latest publication, Coriolanus would attend with pride and have his poll numbers even higher than they already are. He would…charm you. That’s a nice way to think of it. He would make sure to get you nice and wrapped around his finger then you’d behave. He realizes he’ll to need get leverage with you, use his connections to Dr. Gaul as a scare tactic perhaps? He thinks of what to do as he leaves his penthouse for the lab.

The Gala comes around quickly and Coriolanus was more than ready to attend. On the drive there, he thought about you. He knew you’d be there of course. The Candidate Gala always had invited reporters and he knew you, given your contrarian reporting recently, you would be an attending guest. The car pulls up and Coriolanus exits. He walks into the venue and immediately heads turn. He fakes a few smiles and waves to some familiar faces, but as he stalks the crowd, his eyes only search for your face. He looks around and then, there you are. Your long, silky, black hair as straight as an arrow as it grazes just above the small of your back. And your red dress, which hugs you just right, is hard not to notice as you stand there looking coy and annoyingly sweet. You casually hold a flute of champagne in your hand, it dangles from your fingertips as if it is about to slip out. You’re immersed in conversation with, who Coriolanus recognizes as another journalist. You flip your hair past your shoulder and laugh. You don’t seem to notice him as he stalks towards you. You don’t notice him at all and as he announces himself to you, you flinch slightly.

“Mr. Snow. It’s good to finally make your acquaintance.” You shake his hand

“That’s funny you say that given you seem to have me figured out don’t you?” Coriolanus sneers

At that comment, your friend steps away, excusing herself by acting like she sees someone she knows. You give her a knowing look, then turn your attention back to the handsome young blonde, who you allegedly despise.

“Look Snow, it’s nothing personal, I write fair.” You give him an innocent look, touching your hand delicately to your chest, causing his eyes to glance at the valley of your breasts. He flashes his eyes back at you, rolling them and huffing out a sigh of disgust.

“And your readers really believe Sejanus Plinth wants to announce his run for presidency? This late in the game?”

You shrug your shoulders knowingly.

“Well you never know. I felt that piece wasn’t too unrealistic. I laid out a pretty good case for a President Plinth.” She smirks putting extra emphasis on her P’s as she speaks.

Snow smirks back at you as you bite down on your red stained lip.

“You think you’re such a clever girl don’t you. What’s your game darling?”

“No game.” You shake your head, batting your eyes.

Snow’s eyes dart across the room, making eye contact with the same lost, lonely little boy who you have deemed as the next candidate for president. Sejanus notices and smiles at him, but Snow quickly turns his attention back to you. He leans in close, towering over you.

“You know the press wasn’t always so careless with their stories.” He starts, taking a glass of posca from a waiter as they pass by.

“There was a time where truth and facts held importance. Before the war, then journalists started speaking out of term. Writing lies, slander against their great Capitol.” He nods. You raise an eyebrow at him, beginning to wonder what is point is.

“A lot of scholars would agree that the immense amount of freedom of press is what led to the Rebellion. All the rumors floating around. No one knew what was true, what was merely a tall tale created by some journalist who just wanted to stir things up. You don’t want journalism to divest into some sorta fraud again right? That would be a real shame.” Snow recounts, emphasizing the few last words.

You realize how close he’s standing to you and take a small step back, your eyes never leaving his. You temper your breath, hoping he can’t hear your heartbeat as it races in your chest. His pretty, blue eyes pierce your own, poking at you to respond to him. He gives you a look as if he has just asked you if you like his suit or think the color looks nice on him. You feel caught off guard and slightly threatened. You sip your champagne and gather a newfound confidence.

“Be that as it may, I’m sure that people have learned their lesson. Besides, Capitol news doesn’t even make it to the districts anymore so if anything happens, and you don’t become president…” you pause, pouting at him slightly.

“…well, no one would know you there. Private Snow instead of President Snow would be the greater shame. Don’t you think?” You smirk, touching his shoulder briefly. You bid him a sarcastic farewell and go off to find your friend.

Coriolanus is left alone, his cheeks red hot and his breathing becomes laborious. He’s fuming and will not be made a fool of so easily. He hasn’t felt this small and out of place in a long time. Just then, Sejanus walks towards him with a goofy, unknowing smile.

“Chatting it up?” He asks nervously

“Not really…” Coriolanus huffs

“Oh well that’s a relief.” Sejanus smiles letting out a breathy chuckle.

“Why?” Coriolanus inquires

“Well..” Sejanus leans in “I’ve kinda been seeing her…I thought I should tell you” he whispers

“Oh? Is that why you’re Panem’s next president according to her.” Coriolanus scoffs, hoping to sound sarcastic

Sejanus blushes slightly and rolls his eyes.

“I know. I had no idea until this week, but finding out was..ha..k-kinda a funny story actually...” he starts to stutter.

“I met her at one of my Dad’s business partner’s dinners. I hit it off with her, took her home. S-she had uh spent the night with me and was teasing me the all night, and well I thought it was teasing, anyways she was saying that I would make a good president and then I told her I wouldn’t want to take my chances away from you. Then the next morning she calls me…” Sejanus continues to recall, a goofy boyish smile spreading across his face.

“And I thought that, I mean I thought she was just being sweet you know, after staying over. Well she called me to tell me to look at the papers and yeah…”

Coriolanus soaks the new revelation in, inhaling deeply, trying to remain calm at his friend who had just confessed to him that he’s sleeping with the same journalist that writes absolutely lies and malarkey about him.

“Did you know it was her?”

“You know I didn’t pay attention to the news that much. I didn’t even realize she was the same journalist you complain about until that next morning.”

Coriolanus thought for a moment. Senjanus wouldn’t lie about that. After all he really doesn’t pay any attention to the news and politics which could only mean one thing.

“She’s trying to get to me..” Coriolanus declares. “She knew we were friends and is trying to pit us against each other? Why?” he whispers

“Damn. I need to drop her for sure now. That sucks because she was…I mean…” Sejanus sighs, a slight lustful longing in his eyes

The gears turn in Coriolanus head. Yes! This is the exact leverage he needs with you. And he knows exactly how to charm you now.

“Don’t worry about it” Coriolanus smiles deceitfully patting Sejanus on the shoulder.

As the evening goes on, Coriolanus chats up a few old classmates and a few Senators. All the while, he kept his eye on you, waiting for the perfect moment to give you the attention you apparently seek. Then, he catches you departing. You make your away alone out of the venue and Coriolanus pushes through the crowd to get to you. Once he catches up to you, he slides his fingers around your wrist and tugs. He calls you by your last name, slightly out of breath.

“What do you want Snow?” You scoff, trying to tug your hand away, but he pulls you closer. His breath fans your face and you turn away. “Let go…” you grumble. He shakes his head and clicks his tongue.

“And let you go write another one of your little stories. I don’t think so princess.”

“Are you threatening a member of the press?”

“No. I want to set the record straight though. Why don’t you interview me?” He smirks

“What? Interview you?”

“Yes, don’t act like you don’t want an interview from me. After all, you seem to be a big fan of mine no? Always writing about me aren’t you? Why don’t you get it straight from the source this time?”

“Well…” you start “it would boost the paper’s rating so…fine. Call our secretary and set up a time with me later this-“ you rush then unexpectedly, he pulls against his chest, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear.

“Come home with me” he whispers, grazing his forefinger and thumb across your chin. Your heart flutters slightly. You’re beginning to be charmed by him, you want to resist, but deep down this is what you have been after. His attention. You pout your lips and squint at him.

“What is your game Snow?”

“No game.” He smirks

“Well I’m done drinking for the night so…” you breathe

“I have tea” Coriolanus cuts in and before you know it you’re walking up the steps to the building of his lavish penthouse.

꧁❧✽☙꧂

Part 2

[ynscrazylife]

Spoilers

Not sure if you write for Melina from Black Widow but if you do could you please write a Melina x Reader where they are both locked in the cells in the red room and confess to each other and kiss

Destined to Lose | m.v fic

Summary: Melina recalls the love that she once shared with a Red Room agent years ago.

Authors Note: Thanks for requesting! Also, as the Red Room focuses on girls, the reader will be female.

Warning: Implications of some malnourishment. 

Request to be on a taglist (or multiple) here! (Taglists are at the end of the fic)

MCU Masterlist #1 | MCU Masterlist #2 |  Main Masterlist

PSA: Do NOT copy, steal, translate, plagiarize, republish, etc any of my works on Tumblr or any other platform. Also, do NOT claim any of my works as your own. All of these works are either requests I’ve gotten that people have wanted me to write or original ideas I’ve had for works. If you happen to take inspiration from anything I’ve written and want to write something inspired by that, please a) ask me first and b) IF I say yes, credit me as inspo in your post by tagging me and link whatever work of mine that inspired you. Thanks.

Ever since the Red Room had been stopped once and for all, there seemed to be the fragrance of calm in the air, washing over Mother Russia . . . or maybe it had just washed over Melina, Alexei, and Yelena, as everything had been shifted now. They were all free and had the opportunity to work on their shattered relationships - and to work on their shattered selves. Each one had coped in their own way, discovering and rediscovering their interests and who they were outside the Red Room, outside KGB.

One of the ways that Melina chose to heal was to take time for herself, and that included reading. More often than not, she’d be curled up in an armchair in the living room, entranced as her eyes swept over the ink printed on every page. The stories, whether they be fiction or non, always captivated her, and she soaked in every word.

That is the precise reason that despite being a highly trained and experienced spy, she didn’t notice that her youngest daughter was in the room until she piped up and spoke.

“Melina?”

Instantly the brunette was tugged from the faraway world she was in and her head snapped up, eyes holding a gaze of alarm for just a moment before they stilled. Melina took in Yelena’s state. The younger woman was standing confidently but her face told a different story. She was concentrating on something, Melina could tell from the way that her muscles were pulled, and there was an inner dialogue going on, troubling her.

“Yes, dear?” Melina said, carefully turning over the corner of the page and closing the book on her lap, as she could tell that this conversation wouldn’t be over in a minute.

“I had a question,” Yelena began, pausing for a moment and then sitting in the armchair across from her mother. She continued when she was comfortable. “-which you don’t have to answer.” She reeled in her worried gaze and made it more neutral.

Melina allowed her shoulders to slump into a relaxed posture and drew her bushy eyebrows together, her chin jutting down ever so slightly. “What is it?” She asked, the curiosity gnawing at her, since this wasn’t Yelena’s typical behavior.

Yelena seemed to be collecting her thoughts and, when she was finished, spoke in a delicate manner. “When I was looking at the Red Room’s files that Natasha got, I . . . I came across yours. It had said that you had been through the Red Room five times and . . . It mentioned someone named Y/N Y/L/N? I was wondering-” she cut herself off abruptly when she saw the solemn and serious look on her mother’s face.

The moment she heard that name, it struck something inside Melina. The memory, the feelings, it all came hurtling back with a force that had been absent for years. Y/N.

Y/N was the name that caused her stomach to twist and turn as the wound was ripped open. Y/N was the name that put a smile on her lips through the tears and reminded her how far she came when she was sad. Y/N was the name she thought of as a battle cry when she jumped into a fight against those Red Room agents. Y/N was the name she focussed on, like one would stare at a point on the wall to keep focus, as she got through the hardest times in her life, motivated her to push through with all her might.

With all those thoughts running through Melina’s head, she finally looked up, met Yelena’s gaze with her own, and parted her lips to tell her a story.

Melina had long since given up keeping track of the days at this point. There was no use, for by this time the days had all blurred into one. She could only differentiate the day and the night because every night is when someone with a deep frown on their face would walk in and give her a tray of food, and every morning was when someone else would arrive and take said tray away. She had barely moved from the position she sat in: back against the chain wall that seperated her cell and the one right next to hers and her knees drawn to her chest. She’d tune in to any sound she could hear and fixate.

She had been thrown into this cell because of her attempt to escape the Red Room. It wouldn’t be the first time she tried to escape, nor would it be the first time she sat in this cell, but it was the first time that she had gotten as far as she did, since she had help.

Melina could only wonder why she was here and Y/N wasn’t, and those wonderings always ended up with her conjuring thoughts and ideas that frightened her.

She ended up having the endless questions crawling at the back of her mind come to a halt when she heard pounding footsteps one day. Despite being in a tired haze, Melina snapped right out of it and became alert, watching and waiting with anticipation as their footsteps got closer, and closer, and closer.

The person - or people - belonging to those footsteps came into sight and Melina couldn’t stop the gasp before it escaped her lips when she saw what was happening.

A man, a Red Room agent, was practically dragging Y/N who was thrashing about, doing her best to put up a fight, but ultimately losing it when he carelessly tossed her into the cell next to Melina’s, locked the door, and walked away.

Only after his receding footsteps could be heard no more did Y/N look up from her tears, only for her eyes to widen and for her to lurch towards the chain wall, fingers grasping around it, when she laid eyes on Melina. Melina did the same and, after a little struggle, they managed to hold hands in a steel grip through the chain.

“Mel,” Y/N breathed, but her hoarse voice caused her to cough.

“Y/N,” Melina whispered, tightening her grip and scooting as close to the chain wall - as close to Y/N - as she could. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

Y/N let out a shaky sigh, alarming Melina, and rested her forehead against the chain. “I wasn’t thrown into the cell immediately because you’ve been through the Red Room five times now, but I haven’t. They wanted to train me more and they did their best, but when I kept on fighting them they decided to put me in here.” she answered tiredly.

Melina thought this over and let out a sigh of her own, but this was a sigh of relief. She was glad that she no longer had to worry about Y/N and thankful that Y/N was with her so she could make sure that nothing bad would happen to her.

After a couple moments of the silence beginning to creep in again, Melina decided that she needed to tell Y/N something. “I have to tell you something, love.”

Y/N looked up, a beautiful glint in her eyes telling that she was intrigued. God, Melina had missed seeing that look on her face.

“Don’t feel pressured to respond, just, after I’ve been away from you, I really, really have to say this: I . . . I love you,” Melina confessed, bravely meeting Y/N’s gaze.

Y/N blinked, but that glint did not go away. In fact, it seemed to get bigger, making the smile on her lips reach her eyes, and she squeezed Melina’s hands as best she could.

“I love you, too.”

Those four words were probably the softest words she had ever spoken, but they were beyond true.

Melina leaned forward and Y/N after a moment did too. They did their best and managed to meet each other with a kiss. The two cherished it - the kiss was sweet and simple and not over-the-top. Perfect. They each leaned back.

Then, the silence came again, but this time, to Melina, it was more comfortable.

“I have something to tell you, also”

Melina looked up, expecting the smile to still be on Y/N’s face, but it was faltering. She tilted her head to the side.

“I insisted to them that you not be put through the Red Room a sixth time. I’m not sure if they’re going to do anything, but I wanted to stop what they were doing to you and-”

“That you did. They’ve listened.”

Both looked up to see a Red Room agent standing outside Melina’s cell. He unlocked it and she instantly scurried back, but couldn’t do anything to prevent him from grabbing her and yanking her up. “Y/N!” She yelled as she was half-dragged, half-carried away.

Y/N sat up, banging on the chain. Tears started streaming down her face. It was happening far too fast. “MELINA!” She yelled. “I’M SORRY!”

There was fear in her voice. Oh, god, what had she done?

Melina paused for a moment, eyes focussed on Y/N as they went down the hall. She then said calmly, but with a firmness, “Don’t be!”

“And that was the last time I saw her,” Melina concluded her story, not meeting Yelena’s eyes, but with tears threatening to spill.

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[pbandjesse]

Today was a fairly excellent day. I was really happy to be back at the museum. It was a fun day.

I felt super cute today. I slept okay and woke up with my alarm. James wasn't here. They had gone to their parents to finish the laundry. But all our towels and sheets are clean now. I got washed and dressed and had to wait a few minutes for them to come home but that was okay.

James looked so tired when they got home and I felt really and about it. They haven't been having a good time the last few days. I hugged them hard before I had to leave.

I was running a few minutes behind. And still wanted breakfast and then the McDonald's line took forever. I texted Mike to let him know I would be a few minutes late but he said it was fine and he was just happy for the heads up.

It was a fun day at the museum. I had gone in expecting to do the cannery and then a tour. But I ended up doing two canneries instead. Which was much more fun for me. I really didnt want to do a tour. So this worked out well for me.

I had trouble setting up my chase. I couldn't find a lowcase P at all. So they got an uppercase P in the middle of their school name. Oops.

Because it was taking me forever to make the chase, Becca and John did the ink on the machines for me. What a great team.

I had my breakfast and caught up with Del. I'm glad he's not sick anymore. And then the school was there and it was time to get started!

Overall all the kids were great. They were 9th graders and were so concerned with being seen as weird. But we made them do the dorky things and it was fun. There were slight issues with listening and touching things without permission. But overall? Excellent group. Everyone worked really hard and I had a lot of fun.

Everything in the first group went great. Great prints. Great store. Lots of laughs.

During the middle break I had a nice chat with Beth about the Barrier Island Museum I went to and shared the best ways they displayed their artifacts and their photos. She asked me to share the photos on the slack page so I have to figure that out tomorrow. But it was fun to share.

The second cannery went fine. But I had some kids who had trouble with instructions. And one girl dumped all the moveable text we had in a jar on the box. So it was all mixed up. Well more mixed up. Honestly I was glad because it gave me a real reason to organize it later but it for sure felt like a disaster for a moment.

The last store I ran also had a lot of kids who wanted to keep their coins. So it threw off my storyline. But I went with it as much as possible and we had good laughs. I think the teacher thought I was great. We had some laughs about my capitalism jokes. It was fun.

Once the kids were gone I got to work cleaning the ink off the presses. And then I got to work sorting the moveable text.

Much to the chagrin of my coworkers, I dumped all the pieces on the table. I was super excited to sort. And so I did. For about an hour. I added labels and sorted until the end of my shift. I had fun talking to my older coworkers and sorting and listening to music. It was great.

Mike said I can come in early on Friday before the event I'm working so I can keep sorting. I'm looking forward to it.

I headed out of there at 2 and headed to the grocery store to get the ingredients for soup and the other small things we needed. I was, and am, a little annoyed with the person I was supposed to meet with. She just ignores my messages when I make plans with her. And she agreed to today. I asked if 2 at Starbucks would work. And she never answered!! This is like multiple weeks of trying to get together with this person. So I just just have to try not to be annoyed and so I got ingredients for soup.

I had a good time walking around and got just about everything I needed. But I forgot the veggie sausage for my soup. So James would go grab me some later (though they only had chorizo and it made the soup very different).

I got home a little before 3. James came down to help me carry things up. And I put everything away.

James would go grab me the ingredient I was missing. I had a little lunch and then got to work cutting potatoes.

I had fun making my soup. Cutting shallots and garlic and cooking everything with chili oil and spinach. It was a good time.

Once my soup was done and portioned out I went to sit with James. I played animal crossing for a long time. Watched true crime videos. Had to run and answer the door when our neighbor locked themselves out. But I had a great time moving things around on our island getting ready for the update. Needed to make space for the new farm/veggies you can grow.

James got on a DND call. And I got a shower. And now I am in bed. Watching tiktoks. But I am ready to sleep.

Tomorrow I'm going to have breakfast with Ellen and then I have work to do and more organizing of the studio. I hope you all have a great day tomorrow. Sleep well!!

[psychedellic-phase]

Fifteen (pt 9)

A/N: it’s reader backstory time! This part also includes season 6 spoilers :) xx

word count: 4.0k 

tw: mentions of violence, abuse, cursing, other criminal minds stuff!

masterlist:

The beginning of letter #8 was scribbled out, like you’d written but decided the words weren’t quite right. Spencer tried to look through the black ink lines to see what you wrote, but most of it was smudged from tears. 

“This was the night everything changed, Spencer. This was the beginning of the end, but at the time it just felt like the beginning. It was a little over a year ago, sorry for skipping some of the middle. I could’ve written a 5,000 page novel about every little moment I had with you. If I had the time, I would. I’d write about every date night, every bouquet of roses, every case you held my hand through. I thought about writing about a lot more of the ‘happy’ parts, but they would’ve just been fun, little, anecdotes and made my heart hurt more. I decided on only highlighting the important parts, not that the happy parts were unimportant. I think they may be the most important, they’re the only things that kept me going at the end. Those parts gave me hope that maybe one day we’d get back to those people. But we didn’t and those people are long gone. Now all the bad memories outweigh the good ones. I need you to see the ugly parts. I always showed you those, and you still told me they were beautiful in some way.  

“Everything is a masterpiece if you look at it in the right way” 

So here’s the ugly Spence, any clue how to make this beautiful? How do I make this a ‘masterpiece’? Because I don’t know. 

Before I start, I want you to put on some regular clothes and pack up the box and put it in your car. Remember how in the first letter I said you’d need to go somewhere? This is that letter. So get in your crappy car that brought us together and drive to the place where it all started to fall apart: Meridian Hill Park.”

Spencer stopped reading and did as you asked. He took the sweatshirt off and hung it in his closet in a place he’d see it everyday. He didn’t really own any ‘regular clothes’ so he ended up in slacks and a dress shirt, his version of regular. He grabbed the box and the last of the coffee in a to-go mug and got in the car. He slipped the disc from letter 2 in and listened to Stacy’s Mom on a low volume. Between that and the snow, he felt like you were right there with him. 

When he got to the park, he sat in his car for a moment and reopened the letter. 

“There? Good. The bench we sat at is next to the blue bird bath and under that huge oak tree. Go sit at it.”

Spencer got out of the car, now wearing a heavy wool coat and scarf, and made his way to that spot. After most of your dates you’d go for a stroll around that park and always end up at that exact bench. You’d talk for hours, or sometimes you’d people watch. Either way, that bench became another one of your places. He set the box down on his left, the spot where you usually sat, and kept reading.

“That particular night was in December, during that weird week in between Christmas and New Years when time doesn’t feel real and the world is almost at a stand still. (My favorite week of the year) I had begged you to go to the movies with me. I dragged you to see Frozen. 

“Frozen?” You said, crinkling your nose, “Out of all the movies?”

I laughed and told you that I needed to see it because Mia had and already loved it. I think I said something like, “If I’m going to be her cool Aunt we have to see it.”

And you agreed, because you’d do anything for me. You always would. So two thirty-somethings went to see a six o’clock showing of Frozen on a Tuesday. We looked ridiculous; your messenger bag was overflowing with snacks and we were the only people there without a child. 

I loved it though, and you did too. When the movie was over we sat in the lobby at a table and I finished my slurpee as you told me about the real story of Frozen. 

“It’s loosely based on ‘The Snow Queen’ by Hans Christian Andersen from 1845. They both have a snow Queen, reindeer, trolls, frozen hearts, and snow creatures, but that’s where the similarities end. In the original story there is a horrible magic mirror and,” You finally paused to breathe, “ROBBERS!”

I laughed, “Aren’t all fairytales actually awful? We’ve just disney-ified them for kids?”

You nodded, “Most fairy tales in their original form were gruesome to the extreme. In Cinderella, the step-sisters had their feet mutilated to fit into the shoe.”

I yawned, “That’s why I always stuck to Pixar.”

We laughed and threw away our million candy wrappers. As we were leaving I saw a photo booth, one of those old one’s like I went in with all my high school boyfriends. I pulled you over to it and you grimaced, “It’s a small space CRAWLING with germs Y/N!” you whined to me, “Do you know how many people have been in there?” 

I rolled my eyes, “It’ll take thirty seconds and I will sanitize after!”

I tugged your arm in and we both barely fit in the booth. You pulled me onto your lap and four poses later we had two photo strips covered in pictures of you kissing my cheek and us smiling. That’s your momento for this letter.”

Spencer reached in and grabbed the photo strip delicately between his fingers. It was one of those tacky ones that looked like a roll of film and all the pictures were in black and white. The first one was the two of you smiling as wide as you could, the second you stuck your tongue out and Spencer scrunched up his nose, for the third he kissed your cheek, and the last one you turned your head to meet him. His heart softened for a moment, remembering how soft and sweet your kisses were. They were usually delicate, like you were kissing the finest of china. Or they were intense, like you were drowning and he was coming up for air. He felt warm, despite the snow falling all around him. 

“This is my copy. We printed two. I don’t know where yours is, I just hope it isn’t in the trash. I know it’s another photograph; you just got one of those from JJ’s wedding.  But I love photographs. I have a million of you and I. I always used to shove my phone in your face and you’d block it with your hands. I haven’t been able to bring myself to delete them yet. I just love pictures. They capture moments, the good and the bad. Sometimes the only thing that can get the feelings across is a photo, so here’s four. 

I remember sticking them in my purse as we walked out of the theater hand in hand and found ourselves in this park. I love it when the cherry blossom’s bloom, but they weren’t blooming. We found our way to this exact bench that you’re sitting on right now. I think it has the best view of the fountain. You put your arm around me and I snuggled into you. You were trying to talk about work; something about Rossi and Gideon? I didn’t know. I was so tired, I couldn’t even focus. I remember just staring at the dry fountain; they turn it off when the weather gets too cold. 

“Don’t you agree?” You said, but I didn’t register it, “Y/N?”

I looked up at you and blinked a few times. I sat up and moved myself off of you, “What? Sorry about that I—“ my own yawn interrupted me, “I’m just really tired.”

You looked at me so concerned. Your pretty, honey brown eyes always could see right through me. 

“Tired? But we went to sleep at ten last night, you should’ve had at least seven hours.”

I just shrugged and you raised your eyebrows at me, waiting for me to spill. 

“I couldn’t fall asleep the last few nights.”

I avoided your prying gaze that felt red hot on my skin even in the freezing air and played with the locket around my neck, as I usually do when I’m nervous. 

“Y/N,” You said and grabbed my two hands to make me look at you. I looked you straight in the eyes. 

“Talk to me.”

I sighed, “No.”

“No?” You looked offended, I don’t blame you. 

“No,” I said plainly. It looked like I was picking a fight, but I wasn’t. I just wasn’t ready to tell you. It’s so weird, we had spent over two years together by then, and I still couldn’t tell you. I don’t know why. It wasn’t you. You make me feel comfortable and safe. I think talking about it made it more real for me, you know? And I just didn’t want it to be real. 

“Is it the nightmares? Are they back again?” 

I just nodded. Of course you knew, you always knew.

“Y/N, we’ve been through this. You have to talk about them.”

I groaned and you dropped my hands to run yours through your hair. Frustrated is how you felt in that moment, and I don’t blame you. I was mad at myself too. 

“I know! But can’t I just not want to talk about it?”

You stood up and paced in front of me, “You have to talk to someone! Even if it isn’t me.”

“That’s the thing! I don’t trust anyone except you with it!”

You sounded defeated, “Then why don’t you tell me? You haven’t slept, Y/N. You need to take care of yourself. I can’t just sit back and watch you do this to yourself. It’s not healthy.”

That isn’t the last time I heard you say that, but it was the first. That became your favorite phrase at the end. “It’s not healthy,” as if you’re the judge of what’s healthy and not.

My heart ached at the sight of you; purple scarf disheveled and your eye bags a similar color. Your hair was tousled from running your hands through it and you looked like you might cry. I patted the seat next to me so you would sit down and then before I could even think them, the words were tumbling out of my mouth. Every. Damn. Detail.”

He remembered it so clearly, as if it were yesterday. The cold air bit at your skin causing you to shiver and pull your coat tighter. The only warmth either of you felt was what was radiating off the other. It wasn’t much. 

“It’s the nightmare, like the nightmare. The same one from Jacksonville. It just won’t go away. I wake up sweaty and disoriented and I can’t breathe.” 

Silence came. How hadn't he heard you wake up the last few nights? Why didn’t he notice? He silently scolded himself while watching your feet draw little shapes in the snow. The flakes landed on your hair perfectly and the light made you look like you had a halo. An angel. His angel.

You got yourself together and back tracked, “Do you know what I did before the BAU Spence?”

He thought for a moment and realized he didn’t. He had no idea. It was a strange feeling. He knew the last four or so years of your life so well. He spent two and some change of them with you, together, but he knew little about you before then. He knew about your family and your childhood, but that was it. Your early twenties were a secret. 

“No, I don’t,” He croaked, running his hands nervously down his pants, as if they were sweaty, “Rossi just called you one day and the next you were here.”

You sighed and didn’t dare look at him, “I worked with Organized Crime in California. With the Bratva.”

“The russian mafia?” His voice went high, like it always did when he was confused. 

“Let me start at the beginning,” You took a deep breath and held it for a moment, “I went to school, got my criminal justice degree, you know the usual stuff. I worked on various other criminal psychology and forensic degrees and certs until I turned twenty-three.”

“So you could join the bureau,” he finished your sentence. 

You pursed your lips and nodded, “Yeah, it was my life long dream. So I joined at 23, found myself in organized crimes twenty weeks later. I was on the fast track. Not as fast as you of course,” You smiled and bumped your shoulder with his, earning a warm smile that made you feel more comfortable. 

“I worked various cases for a year or two. Low level stuff, you know? Until they actually needed me.”

He was nervous to hear it now, half regretting asking, and half celebrating the fact that you’d share your deepest darkest with him. 

“You know like in old movies when the gangster has a pretty girl in a skimpy dress on his lap? And she pretends to know nothing about what he does? Yeah that was me. Turns out I was the right age and type for Alexei. So there I was. Twenty-five. Had no idea what I was doing, going undercover.”

“Like Emily did with Doyle,” he said. 

You nodded, “Like Emily and Doyle. That’s part of why we got along so well, we both had similar experiences. She knew what the long haul was like.”

“How long were you under?” Spencer whispered. 

“Sixteen months.”

His eyes went wide, “Sixteen?”

“Yup,” you popped the ‘p’. 

“That’s a long time.”

“You don’t become a mafia kingpin’s girlfriend overnight, Reid.”

He laughed. You didn’t. 

“See you guys do the short stints. A night, maybe a day or so. It’s different. It’s draining. Constantly worrying about knowing the details of my cover while also not losing myself in the process. Sometimes I couldn’t tell where the cover ended and I started. I was paranoid, looking over my shoulder constantly. If they knew who I was, I’d get killed instantly.”

He stiffened next to you, but you carried on. 

“And you can’t break character. You have to do whatever they want. I had to be his girlfriend. I had to pretend to love him. You know how tiring that is? Pretending to be in love with a man you’re trying to take down? Pretending to like what he likes? Pretending to want to be a part of the sick shit they did?”

He sighed, “You had to do everything he wanted.”

His heart sank and he suddenly felt angry. He needed to punch this guy in the face. 

“Everything,” You practically spit out, venom dripping from the words, “And Alexei’s favorite pastime was killing people who he thought were disloyal. He’d switch it up. Some days he liked to make them suffer, others it was one between the eyes and out. He liked to make me watch.  He liked hurting the dancers too. They had a club, they always have a damn club, and those girls were the only friends I had for months. He liked to hurt them too, defile them. ‘Ruin them’ he’d say.”

Spencer’s arm reached around you now. The cold was getting to both of you, but you didn’t budge from the bench. You didn’t curl into him for safety. You just stared at the snow. 

“He liked when it hurt. He liked to throw things at me. Bruise me. Pull my hair. God I hated it,” your voice was a mere whisper now. Spencer’s grip around you tightened with every word. He wanted to protect you. He always wanted to protect you. 

“Shh, it’s okay,” He mumbled into your hair. A few frozen tears dripped down your cheeks. You sat like that, silently sobbing while remembering what had happened to you. What you’d seen. 

“What happened to him?”

You took a shaky breath, “I begged them to let me out. We had enough. I had stacks and stacks of pictures and evidence. But they didn’t let me. My awful handler would always say ‘just a few more days, Y/N, just a few.’ Then that would become another month. The job only needed eight months. I was there double that. Finally, they did the raid. I got kudos and congratulations. A promotion and a couple extra bucks, as if that would take away what I had been through. I wasn’t myself anymore.”

You took a thick swallow, finding it hard to breathe, “So I quit.”

Spencer held you still, not moving a muscle. 

“I quit. I gave up my dream. I moved back to Connecticut. I made coffee at Starbucks for $7.25 an hour. I read. I went on trips and vacations. I needed to find myself again. Then one day you guys stumbled into them and Rossi called me since I knew first hand how they worked. That was all I needed. A taste of it again, and I was all in. So a week later I showed up, Rossi raving about my ‘ability to get information out of people.’ I developed the skill to survive, Spence.”

You turned into him now, head on his chest. 

“So the nightmares are those memories. The girl’s faces. The young kids who messed up jobs. They’re hurting and I can’t save them. That’s the nightmare.”

You sat in silence, letting the words hang in the air between you. You were tired and spent, leaning your full body weight into him. He was just trying to relax and keep calm. He was pissed, and a little bit was directed at you. 

“I’m so sorry Y/N, but thank you for telling me,” His voice was low and raspy, his head spinning. For just over two years he had been your person. Your rock. And he didn’t know this about you? Why couldn’t you tell him? He told you all of his dirty secrets; his dad, the kidnapping, the drugs, and you ‘couldn’t tell him?’ Why?

“That’s why I was so scared when Emily ‘died.’” You used air quotes around the last word, “Her nightmare came true.”

“Yours won’t.”

You sniffled and rubbed your ice cold nose, “I know. You guys keep me safe.”

You looked up at him, falling into his big doe eyes. They were hurt and twisty, but full of love. And you looked at him like he was everything in the world. In that moment, he was. 

He treated you differently after that night. He was always kind and gentle, but he approached you with a new sense of care. He didn’t mean for it to happen, it just did. Someone finally understood you, and it felt so good. But one thing always bothered him, why did you wait so long to tell him? He didn’t think he’d ever know. 

“I loved you and trusted you enough to lay it all out for you, and you took it all in. You told me you wouldn’t let it change anything, but it did. I thought it changed us for the better. Maybe it didn’t, I’m still not sure. You told me it made me stronger, more resilient. It made you love me more, if that was even possible. It made me human. You told me Ernest Hemingway once said “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” You said I was strong at those broken places. 

So that’s what this photostrip is to me. It’s the day I officially took all of my walls down and showed you the parts of me that aren’t pretty, and you didn’t run away. You stayed and kissed me on that freezing cold park bench and warmed me up with a hug I never wanted to leave. I thought after that it would take something much greater than you or I to break this apart, like divine intervention. We were impenetrable, but then again, so was the Titanic.

That night I didn’t have any nightmares. I didn’t have a bad one until a few weeks ago. I missed having you next to me during it. You were right, talking about it does help. I’ll find someone out here to talk to, I promise. 

That night, all the walls were finally down. I think that was my fatal mistake, if only I kept them up a little while longer.

So look at us, all young and innocent before the world left us jaded and hurt. I miss your cheek kisses and the way your hands feel snaking around my waist. I miss your fact dumps and the way you feel like home. Thank you for taking me at my worst, loving me, and leaving me better than I was when you got there. Just like being under, it’s now hard for me to tell where I end and you begin. So many parts of you became parts of me. I’ll have to work on finding myself again, and this time I won’t do it over grande java-chip frappucinos, I’ll do it over case files. I’m finally done running away.” 

Spencer’s throat was dry and his palms were so sweaty the ink was bleeding underneath his fingers. How was he sweating when it was barely ten degrees outside? He put the letter and photo strip back in the box and stuffed it in the passenger seat of his car before walking back into the park. 

The fountain was off again, but he remembered what it looked like running. He walked the same paths you had walked with him a million times. He never wanted to walk them alone. He wondered if Seattle had any nice parks like this for you to walk through. He hoped you were close to Pike Place Market so you could order a coffee at the first ever Starbucks. He hoped you were happy. 

He remembered the way the park looked in the summertime, all lush, green grass and kid’s playing. He remembered the picnic you went on when the blanket flew away. He remembered kissing you under huge trees and feeding birds. As he walked around, he could almost see it, shadows of the people you used to be.  

He walked for maybe an hour before retreating back to his crappy car and crying for a moment. He didn’t turn the music back on as he drove home. He just thought of the way your body racked with tears at the nightmares and how he could always calm you down, almost instantly. He wondered who would see you through the nightmares now? They’re too hard to do alone. 

He didn’t remember when he got home, seemingly having driven on auto-pilot the whole time. When he got back inside he dropped the box and made a beeline for where his copy of your photo strip was, on one of his many shelves covered in books. He grabbed the book he had started six months ago. It was a gift from Rossi and he only read half of it, a rarity for him. When he got halfway through, everything happened and he couldn’t bring himself to open the book up anymore. He rifled through the pages of  ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’ and found the photo strip where it was acting as a bookmark on the page where he had left off. He took it out and slammed the book closed, not wanting to read any of the words, even by accident. 

He took the strip over and compared it to yours. His was worn and bent and the shiny photo paper had dulled from the many pages he had stuck it between. Yours was in perfect condition, still shiny and even a little sticky, like it hadn’t been touched. He stared at them, wondering what your life would be now if you could’ve held onto the people in that photo booth. There were so many what-ifs, he didn’t even know where to begin. He knew he couldn’t just leave it at these letters, he needed more. He needed to see you and he fully intended on breaking your ground rules, but not until he was finished. He walked back to the box with newfound vigor, and grabbed #9.

PART 10!

taglist: @l0ve-0f-my-life @aperrywilliams @helloniallslovelies @random-ravings

@ajwantsapancake @andiebeaword @boiled-onionrings @frnks-stuff @icantevenanymore1 @mellifluouswildbluebells @rottenearly @sammypotato67 @blushingwueen @peaxhyjaes @justanotherfangurlz @juniorgman187 @mbowles23-blog​ @blameitonthenight @goldentournesol​

(i think some tags aren’t working so if anyone knows how to fix that pls lmk :)

[fatefulfaerie]

New (Part 3/3)

Part 1: https://fatefulfaerie.tumblr.com/post/621364335842820096/new-part-13

Part 2: https://fatefulfaerie.tumblr.com/post/621446432569917440/new-part-23

“And safe travels!” Zelda exclaimed as she waved to the last of the guests, them crossing the bridge and disappearing into the approaching night.

She closed the door, it latching closed as she let out a sigh.

“That wasn’t too bad,” she remarked. “Chaos, sure. But we expected that.”

The only response from Link was the sounds the dishes made beneath the running water, the scrubbing, the tiny clatter when a clean plate would be put to the side.

“I think it went well,” she continued as she headed upstairs. “And now we have a new picture to put on the wall. I’ll have to ask Purah how she printed it all that time ago.”

Zelda sat down to her diary on the table, a habit she was happy to start after a hundred years of incoherent and manic thoughts. Not to mention seventeen years before that of nearly failing at the practice.

It was freeing, the first time she opened an empty diary to the first page. Before her was a future not weighed down by her past. She could look at things like a blank page, everyday something new that proved she was moving forward. For the past couple weeks since Calamity Ganon was expelled from Hyrule, she had written everyday at least something to resolve the day.

Yet as she placed her quill down she didn’t know what words to write, the black ink smudging, splotching on the page.

She dropped the quill back into the black bottle of ink with a heavy sigh.

Her gaze went to Link, as it always does, studying him as he cleaned with her head falling to rest on her left hand.

He finished the last plate, placing it upon the others and bracing his hands on the edge of the counter with a bowed head.

“I think we need to talk,” Link said without moving.

Zelda took a deep breath before she shook her head up and down. Remembering Link couldn’t see her she replied,

“Okay.”

His hands came off the counter and he turned around, heading up the stairs without meeting her glaze. Yet, it wasn’t difficult. Zelda’s head was downcast, on that black splotch as if it were a spider she was relentlessly watching, keeping an eye on.

Link decided to plop on his bed, staring at the ceiling with one leg bent and one straight.

“Do you recall what I said?” Link started. “On the field. When you asked if I remembered you?”

Zelda nodded.

“You said yes,” she replied, turning her head.

Link nodded.

“You apologized for your honesty earlier,” he continued. “But I told you I remembered you, maybe not everything, but I remember enough. My memory is fragile but that doesn’t mean that your honesty now should be changed by that. If I’ve done something wrong--”

“Link…”

“If I’ve done something wrong,” he insisted. “I want you to be honest about it. Going forward, I...I want you to be honest. And it’s not just you either. These past couple weeks have been courteous at best, but...I didn’t realize it was because of me.”

Zelda looked from Link back to the black dot on the page, interlocking her fingers.

“I spent a hundred years waiting for something definitive,” Zelda said. “It’s only because of my impatience that I snapped today. You should take your time to think about things...process things. I’ve had a hundred years and I didn’t even lose my memory. Please take the time you need.”

Zelda picked back the quill back up and started to write of her day, of greeting the descendants and relatives of the champions and sharing a meal with them.

Link sat up and studied her as she wrote in her diary.

He pulled the Sheikah Slate from its latch on his belt, the screen chiming before opening to a gallery of pictures.

He clicked on the first one, the normal one, the perfect one, the one that would likely be hung and kept and preserved a hundred years from today. Hopefully with less tragic death, but with just as much emotional weight.

Link swiped to the next picture.

Zelda was smiling bigger, his arm around her, but not much had changed. He swiped to the next one, stopping, holding the grips of the slate with both hands.

He didn’t even remember this one being taken.

Sidon, Yunobo, Riju, and Teba were all looking at the pair of Hylians with a smile as the couple stared deeply into each others’ eyes. It really was a beautiful picture, how well the love between them was expressed in just one look, how the sunset gleamed and made them glow.

Link swiped to the next and exhaled a sigh. Their lips were connected, but their bent, unrehearsed arms showed their surprise. It looked so forced, like at any moment one would pull away from the other. It looked as if they were completely different people from the picture before.

With a couple taps, Link had the prompt before him to delete it. After all, if this picture existed a hundred years ago, he would have been decommissioned and jailed for treason, and the assault of a royal if the King wanted to avoid the ruin of Zelda’s reputation. If not, it would become a scandal that would harm her father's trust in her even more. Even now she still had eyes on her, although she had tried to avoid it. If she decided to return as Princess or even rise as Queen, she shouldn’t let some minor infatuation get in the way.

But Link thought of Kass’ words as his finger hovered over the button.

Love. The princess’ love for her fallen knight awakened her power. That was what caused all of it in the first place. That one word and Link realized that falling in love with a memory wasn’t foolish because he had fallen in love with those green eyes before, that smile. He loved her back a hundred years ago and, Princess or not, he couldn’t deny that he felt the same now.

He rescued her from Calamity Ganon and he acted like he didn’t know, to protect her, to not embarrass her, to not force anything upon her. Somewhere along the line, somewhere within these two weeks he must have forgotten that she needed him too.

And so he hurt her by doing so.

With a certain resolve, he activated the camera rune, setting it so that it faced him instead of what was behind the Slate.

He grabbed it by the handle and approached Zelda. She turned her head at the sound of footsteps just seconds before Link planted his lips on hers.

SNAP

Her lips were parted and her eyes opened wide as Link withdrew. He offered her the Slate.

“A do over,” he said with a smile. “As requested.”

Zelda took the Slate into her hands. She stared at the picture and Link sat on the near bedpost waiting for her next words.

“Do you always do as you’re requested?” She asked quietly, still looking at the picture.

“I don’t exactly have any evidence to the contrary,” Link said.

Her gaze lingered on the picture for just another moment longer before she placed it on the corner of her desk without a word or a care. She went back to her diary and began to write again.

Link considered whether he’d done something wrong as the silence fell. He looked down to his hands as he thought upon it, scratching one thumb with the other.

“But for instance,” he continued, with a courage he hoped would work in his favor. “If I was requested to jump off a cliff for no reason other than certain death, I wouldn’t do that.”

“So you only do things if they aren’t absolutely abhorrent?” Zelda asked.

“Yeah...I guess…” He replied before panic settled within him and his eyes widened. “Wait...no, no...I didn’t mean…kissing you, it…”

Link exhaled a sigh, straightening the words in his head like the offerings of apples in a line of mysterious statues.

“I do what people request of me because I like helping people,” he explained, “finding them lizards or mushrooms or whatever they can’t get themselves. But with you it’s different...it’s always been different. I saved you because I needed to see you happy and free and...I kissed you because I wanted to. It was more than not abhorrent...it was a request I was actually happy to do. In fact...I would only ever kiss you.”

From Link’s point of view, Zelda showed no change.

But she had put down her quill, her cheeks had reddened and her heart had soared and sank and burned and froze all at the same time.

“I am sorry,” Link said, thinking he needed to speak further. “So sorry that I didn’t bring this up earlier. I knew you loved me, and I’ve been spending so much time asking myself whether or not I love you like I did then or whether or not you still love me now...that I’ve been unclear with you. And to be honest I don’t know if what I feel now is what I felt then. I don’t know if it’s more or less or the same or how it was different...but I do love you.”

Still no response.

“Goddesses, Zelda,” Link implored in her silence. “Please say something. If I’ve misread things or messed it all up we can go back to how it was this morning. If that is what makes you happy, I...I’ll be your knight attendant, I’ll protect you and defend you and nothing more. I’ll be by your side until you no longer want me to be.”

Zelda stood up and faced him quickly. She stared until she started shaking her head no.

“No,” she said, her voice breaking. “No.”

She stepped forward and took his hands. Her grip on them tightened as she bowed her head.

“I want you with me,” she said. “I need you...to stay...always.”

Link nodded in understanding.

“Okay,” he said with a slight chuckle that portended a smile. “Okay.”

He brought his hand to her chin to tilt her head back up, their eyes meeting before their lips did for their third kiss of the day. Each time it had gotten deeper, at first a quick peck, than something longer and much more intentional. Now it was something they delved into, Zelda’s fantasies about making out with her knight attendant coming to fruition as she felt his hand move to cup her cheek.

“So,” she prompted after they withdrew.

“So,” he repeated, his eyes dancing in hers.

“Does this mean we’re...together?”

Link nodded.

“I think so.”

“Do Hylians still call it courting?” Zelda asked with a tip of her head.

“I think so,” Link said, his face contorting in a way that broadcasted the fact that he was thinking, searching the ceiling for answers. “Although I think some of them have coined the term ‘dating’, where marriage isn’t definite and they just kind of spend time together. And then there's this thing where they forego marriage all together and just...hook up.”

“Y-you…” Zelda stammered. Her face was beet red. “You mean people…”

Link nodded.

“Yep,” he said. “Someone actually asked me once and I told them no thanks.”

Zelda shrugged.

“I guess we’re both kind of old-fashioned for these times,” she said.

“Seems like it.”

“Would it be strange to say that we’re courting?”

“No,” Link said in reply, smiling. “Just new.”

[elsabarnitt]

CASE STUDY - ‘The Book That Grew’ DandAD 2020 Annual Graphite Pencil Award

1.     FRONT PAGE (slide 1)

For my case study I chose “The Book That Grew”, which won a graphite pencil in the DandAD 2020 awards.

On screen is the first image I saw that made me want to find out more, so I thought it was appropriate for it to be the first image you see. I’ll be honest, I only started looking into this project because this image looked cool, and I’ve never seen anything like it before so want to find out more. Looking in further I found high levels of collaboration, thought and a moralistic purpose to help a community become better.

2.     WHAT AM I GOING TO TALK ABOUT (slide 2)

I am going to talk about a book that was grown with the aims to improve farming practises.

Ireland heavily relies on farming as their main source of economic income.

This development of this book was a project which spanned 6-7months and was a collaboration between the Allied Irish Bank, Teagasc; Irelands agriculture and food development authority, Rothco a design agency and the artist Diana Scherer.

In this presentation I elaborate on the creation of this idea, the processes involved, the limitations and the design.

3.     WHY IT WAS MADE (slide 3)

Agriculture accounts for 30% of total emissions in Ireland which is its largest carbon emissions contributor. This can’t continue. The Irish economy is dependent on farming, with 6 billion euros of food and drink specifically reliant upon grasslands for their production. So for this level of farming to survive, it has to become sustainable.

AIB, the Allied Irish Bank has a business relationship with 35% of the farmers in Ireland and therefore this issue is of much importance to them. AIB partnered with Teagasc, who identified 10 tangible lessons and 10 pieces of practical advice to maximise sustainability and increase the profitability. The 10 steps help farmers to achieve a ‘perfect’ 10 rotations of grass grazing per year and produce 10 tonnes of grass per hectare – this is a powerful number that will greatly improve the sustainability of even the most efficient farm.

Hence, 10 being a major theme for this campaign. Which appears in their campaign video as well as the book.

This advice was compiled into a 22 page organically grown book using the very grass that Irish farmers nurture as the medium to carry these important lessons. And I believe this is a perfect example of getting the right message to the right people in the most suitable way.

4.     INTRO INTO IDEA (slide 4)

I contacted the Irish design agency, Rothco via Instagram with a few questions and the offer to have a virtual coffee. To my surprise I got a response and Rob Maguire and Fabiano Dalmacio on the Creative team at Rothco were more than happy to have a zoom call with me.

It was great to be able to hear first-hand, how an agency works with a well-established client relationship to anticipate issues and be able to be proactive about providing solutions. It was also great to explore the whole process and the problems they came across face to face.

From my research I realised they had a long-standing relationship with AIB, and so one of the questions I asked was “Did AIB come to you with a brief, or did you go to them with an idea?”

The answer I received was that: No brief had been released, but Rothco knew AIB was passionate about sustainability and they have a lot of ambitions to do greener work, and knew there was an agricultural brief on its way. They were constantly looking out for things, and said they have a WhatsApp chat where they send ideas to each other at all hours of the day and night.

Fabiano initially came across an article about a visual artist called Diana Scherer who used grass to sustainably make fabrics. His initially reaction was ‘this is really cool, and we have to do something with her’, so they contacted the creative director at AIB who suggested a book or an annual report, because if Diana can grow patterns and textures, she can grow letters and numbers. And from there they contacted Diana to see if it was actually possible, and even she wasn’t completely sure, which shows the risk everyone was willing to take.

Rob and Fabiano were also kind enough to send me photos they had taken of some testers and unused versions. Two of which are on screen now.

As you can see the number 25 hasn’t formed properly.

5.     DIANA (slide 5)

Diana Scherer, a German artist living in Amsterdam, explores the relationship of man versus natural environment. She has come up with a truly unique process, which no one else in the world knows how to do.

She has designed templates which had to be to a specific standard to allow grass roots to grow into them to form patterns. This is called ‘root-weaving’. I got told she is very protective of her work and didn’t show anyone else how to do what she does throughout the whole process.

She has a lab in Amsterdam where she curates her work, which is where the pages were all grown.

6.     LIMITATIONS (slide 6)

The Rothco Design Team went out to Amsterdam to visit Diana to learn about the limitations of her process. One of the main limitations of the technique she has created is that everything has be connected in the template.

For example, if there was a font, it all has to be connected otherwise the roots would simply not take to it. As you can see in this picture there are very small lines connecting each of the letters together.

This project was being curated during Winter, which in terms of gardening isn’t the best time. Diana informed the team that growing in Winter versus Summer would have quite different outcomes and urged them to wait, however due to the time limit Rothco were under they weren’t able to wait but had to make it work in Winter.

From the moment it was harvested the pages started to die. Due to the nature of the project the team decided against using a preservative as that went against what they were trying to achieve. Because of this they decided to have a photography project running alongside it so that you could capture what it looked like the moment It was harvested.

Another limitation was that the size of the page. This really mattered as that would be a deciding factor of how big the typography could be and therefore how legible it was. They decided on 11 x 17 inches, which is roughly the size of an A3 page.

7.     GRID SYSTEM, FONT, SYMBOLS (slide 7)

Due to the constraints I have just mentioned, the design team had to come up with a way to display all of the information in the most efficient and understandable way. They ended up condensing all the information they needed into a grid system inspired by the farmers fields using symbols to tell farmers what to do instead of words. I think its also important to say each page was set out to mimic the yearly calendar to make it easier for farmers to follow.

To the right of the screen I have displayed just a few of the symbols they used. The middle one being one of their field diagram designs.

Top left means Soil

Top right means fencing,

which I’m glad they have a key because I never would have guessed these otherwise.

When on the Zoom call with the creative team I asked what Type style they used and they couldn’t remember, however through one of the images they sent me after our call there were hints that it was ‘Helvetica’, and since comparing the book to this font I am almost certain it is.

SWITCH SLIDE (slide 8)

This is a close up of one of the pages to show you what the symbols look like in the book. Letters were also used as a symbol, for example the T and the F stand for Test and fertilise.

8.     TEMPLATES AND DIANA CHECKING THEM (slide 9)

As spoken about on the previous slides, getting the right size and making sure everything was connected was vital. Therefore, it wasn’t as easy as just choosing fonts and point sizes from a printing point of view, but you had to do it from a gardening one as the pages would grow pixel by pixel. Every time the design team would finish a template, they would send it off to Diana for her to then check it over and see if there was anything wrong with it.

An example that Fabiano gave was that they had some numbers on their templates and Diana would say ‘the size of the zero, you need to increase that otherwise it is going to close in on itself. If you wanted that circle edge you need to make it bigger’.

With this kind of collaboration and exchanging of information the outcome just kept getting better.

SWITCH SLIDE (slide 10)

Here is an image of a digital template beside the root woven version of itself.

As you can see the root woven version on the right hand side isn’t as legible as the digital version. The roots aren’t as bold and perhaps as structured as white is against a black background, however as they were working with nature, it was okay for it not to be perfect, and for the letters to not form 100% accurately.

9.     BOOK BINDING (slide 11)

The book was grown in Amsterdam and was being bound in Dublin by letter press printer and bookbinder Jamie Murphy of the Salvage press.

Each page took roughly 2 weeks to grow and then were all sent separately by courier. As this book is the first of its kind, one of the main challenges was finding the best way to bind it. Jamie was given several test runs that had failed to practice binding with. Everything was so delicate which you can see from the picture on the screen now so special techniques had to be used.

A challenge that Jamie faced was that Rothco were persistent on everything being made out of grass as keeping it as pure as possible was very important to them, so despite Jamie asking for some plastic features he had to find another way to do things.

Jamie burnt the grass in order for it to find a new life as an ink, and also used it to make more pages to act as dividers in the book to protect the delicate pages. Even the cords that hold the book together are made from bamboo

This all demonstrates that when a material such as grass is managed correctly it can work wonders.

10.  CHANGE (slide 12)

The Book That Grew toured round Ireland, and was given the title ‘The best Grassroots campaign of all time’, with the main event being the National Ploughing Championships.

I have been told the book had a very good reception there as well as the knowledge that some farmers have already implemented some of the lessons within the book.

I think that this project has huge relevance in today’s society as sustainability is becoming a top priority for a lot of businesses.

I started off this project with the impression that this was cool, however after researching further no wonder I thought this as it is the world’s first, every page, every word, and every diagram in a book to be formed by real grass roots as they grow. An aspect of this project that has really stuck with me is the fact that you had to wait for the book to make itself as opposed to being able to physically make it and therefore patience was key.

After speaking with Rob and Fabiano on the Creative team at Rothco, I saw the human aspect behind the project and saw the good that they are trying to make which is something that has really inspired me. It is bigger than just its typography which is what it won the award for.

REFLECTION

- I have found this case study project to be very helpful and very interesting. I feel as if I have learnt different ways to find out information as at the beginning of this project I found it quite hard and was coming across the same information over and over. Something that I think had hugely benefitted me was getting in contact with the design agency RothCo and I am so thankful they took time out of their day to speak with me. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://www.lbbonline.com/news/aib-releases-worlds-first-book-literally-grown-from-grass-roots

https://musebycl.io/makers/agency-grew-book-out-grass-support-irish-farmers

https://m.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/614/210434.html

https://marcommnews.com/aib-and-rothco-release-beautiful-new-book-literally-grown-from-grass-roots/

https://www.irishtimes.com/sponsored/teagasc-making-money-by-watching-the-grass-grow-1.1619570

https://www.thedrum.com/creative-works/project/rothco-aib-the-book-grew

https://www.thestable.com.au/rothco-aib-grow-a-book-entirely-from-grass-roots/

[arthurhwalker]

reMarkable 2 Review

I had some requests for a review of this device, and I am glad to oblige in this case. I've been closely following digital pen stylus tech for about eight years. I'm just old enough that I still need to handwrite a lot of things to tap into my creativity, but greatly dislike clutter in my life.

The reMarkable is for the person that writes enough by hand to fill several notebooks a year. For someone that wants the tactile and somatic component of writing on paper to associate with their process. The new reMarkable 2 does basically what the reMarkable 1 did; faster, better, and with a much improved piece of hardware.

If you've read my previous review from May 2018, you know I basically raved about the first generation reMarkable. I had a few criticisms of the Gen 1, and a lot of that has been addressed with the Gen 2.

Support & User Experience

I've used a reMarkable tablet continuously for almost three years. I've never had a support issue with one. The software is updated regularly, features added, and user experience improved with each iteration.

There is really no comparisons to be made with that kind of uninterrupted usage. No smartphone, tablet, or computer you ever own will be that reliable. A 3-4 year old Thinkpad, running Linux, is about as close as it gets to that level of, switch-on-and-use, every day, without fail feeling.  

The reason is that the reMarkable 2 is leveraging the most reliable hardware, user input methods, stylus technology, and operating system basis available. My fear has always been that my reMarkable wouldn't be as reliable as a regular piece of paper, and a good pen. So far, that fear has never been realized with the reMarkable 1, or 2.

Pen Stylus Input

The majority of what one picks up and uses will be Microsoft Pen Protocol (MPP) stylus tech, with Microsoft Surface Products, or Wacom AES (Active Electrostatic) like that found in a lot of Asus, Dell, Lenovo, and so forth. The older Wacom EMR (Electromagnetic Resonance) is used less frequently, and usually only with their own products, or a version thereof with Samsung Phones and Tablets.

Of the three options, Wacom's EMR is still the best.

That's what you'll find on the reMarkable Tablet, and if you get their Marker Plus (it's the black one) it has the magical EMR eraser tip opposite the drawing point. There is no better pen stylus experience, for general use, sketching, handwriting capture, tilt sensitivity, and so forth.

The Marker Plus is $50 more than the regular Marker. It is worth it.

What if you're like me, and you have a drawer full of pen stylus products? Products that include the legendary Excalibur stylus pen that came with the Thinkpad Tablet 10 Gen 1, and worked with the EMR capable Thinkpad Yoga S1 from 2013? The one with the eraser tip, and sweet felt tip point? Will that stylus work?

Yes. Yes, yes it will.

However, the reMarkable Marker Plus just feels better. It's heft (19g) is perfect, eraser tip rounded to feel like the real thing, and tips that degrade gracefully without marking up the screen. Buy. The. Marker. Plus.

The Hardware

The manufacturer says that the reMarkable 2 gets 3 times the battery life of the 1, is 2 times as responsive (relative to rendering digital ink), and is the world's thinnest tablet at 0.19". Mostly, this is all of this seems to be true. Also, as mentioned before all the new Marker Plus has a built in eraser, all the new accessories snap together with magnets, and it charges with USB-c.

The screen is capacitive touch capable now. No more page turning buttons, and you can swipe down from the top to back out of a document or folder. You can turn pages with the swipe of a finger now. It takes a second to get the gestures down, but they're crisp and reliable once you do.

The tablet runs off of a dual core ARM process (a good thing, in my opinion).

My only quibble is that it is supposed to be able to connect to both 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz WiFi, but so far I've only gotten it to connect to 2.4. It might be something with my specific router, and I'm not sure if my experience is typical.

On the lower left hand side of the tablet there are 5 connection points. This suggests that the tablet may have the ability to connect to other accessories in the future. If reMarkable added a Plain Text Editor, and a keyboard cover to the reMarkable, I would be over the moon.

There is no evidence that they will do this, but a guy can dream. Having what's basically an e Ink Typewriter this thin and light would be the ultimate for this writer.

The Software

It is much the same experience as the reMarkable 1 with a few new additions.

You can convert your handwritten notes into text, cursive or block letters, and share by email. There is support for 33 languages.

With a Google Chrome plug-in, you can read web articles and pages on your reMarkable. If you're already battling with eye strain from looking at glowing screens all day, this is a nice feature.

Reading large PDFs and eBooks is still not crisp and snappy, but it is a vastly improved experience when compared to the reMarkable 1. Large graphically intense documents can be navigated without it taxing your patience. What I store on my reMarkable is vastly different now because of how much improved document handling has become.

I find the small sacrifice in speed rendering pages worth it, compared to the eye strain I get reading on other screens.

More pens, features, page templates, and ease of organizing have been added incrementally over time. With regard to the core functioning (Linux Based Codex OS) of the device, the manufacturer has only ever improved and supported the reMarkable.

Aesthetics

The reMarkable 1 was good for what it could do. It wasn't a bad looking product, but compared to the reMarkable 2, it was a rough prototype. Most tablets do not feel as nice in the hand as the reMarkable 2.

Rubber no-slip nubs on the back, rounded edges, satin finished glass and aluminum, make the tablet itself feel like it's from the future. I bought the Polymer Weave Book Folio, a step up from the regular Folio. A close friend got the same device and marker options as I did, but opted for the Premium Leather Folio.

Definitely, get the Book Folio, and if you can scrabble together the extra money, get the premium leather. That's my only regret is that I didn't spring for the best accessory offered. Is the Polymer Weave good? Absolutely, worth the $99. It is rigid, will protect your investment, and it's very classy looking.

My friend who picked up the Leather Folio is a graphic designer, and has greatly informed my sense of aesthetics over the years. She says the Leather Book Folio is well worth the extra. She is, most certainly, correct.

So, yeah, if you're going to get a reMarkable 2 and want a slightly used Polymer Weave Book Folio (mine), I'll let it go for cheap (so I can atone, and get the leather version, ha ha).

Value

The reMarkable 2 doesn't have a web browser, app store, Merge Dragons, audio player, or other third party applications. It won't replace your iPad, or Android Tablet. It will replace all the paper, notebooks, and pens in your life. This is especially true if you have a small scanner (like a Doxie), and leverage reMarkable's Smartphone app and cloud sync feature.

This tablet is for people that like paper, a lot, but don't want to carry it around or keep track of it. It is for people that fill 8-12 Moleskines a year, and mark up hundreds of pages of documents, for themselves, and others. It is for people that tap into their creativity by writing things down, sketching diagrams, and making lists.

The act of holding a pen or pencil against paper is a cognitive trigger, built into their implicit memory, every day, for years, that allows them to do their things.

$399 will buy a decent Samsung or Apple branded tablet, but neither of those is designed to emulate the experience of writing on paper like the reMarkable 2 tablet is. The reMarkable 2 will run you $399, a Marker Plus $99, and a Polymer Weave Folio $99, bringing it all to almost $600.

Unless you lurk reMarkable's website, and wait for a promotion. They did run a promotion for their pre-order, and will likely do something similar within a year of release. It is my recollection that the manufacturer ran at least two promotions for the Remarkable 1, and the savings were significant.

If you don't need one right this minute, check the website every week or so, their Amazon Store edifice, and whatever other options they have for your region.

Competitors

In the last few years, reMarkable has only acquired more competition in the e ink Tablet market. That competition varies depending on where you live in the world. In the US, no one makes a thing that directly competes. I looked at other products, didn't see anything that made me pull out my reMarkable 1 and make a list of pros and cons for comparison.

That isn't to say there isn't a better thing for your use case, but there wasn't for mine.

Final Thoughts

If I didn't drive this point home earlier, I'm going to make it now. The reMarkable 2 will not replace your laptop, mobile OS (iOS/Android) Tablet Device (meant to replace your laptop), or Smartphone. There isn't even a calculator app on the reMarkable 2.

The Remarkable 2 will replace the pens, pencils, highlighters, notebooks, and print outs cluttering up your daily carry bag, desk, and life. It's a digital paper option, not a personal computing option. When used for that purpose, it is exceptional, and well worth the investment.

[ashes-and-ashes]

For the kisses list.. if you want 75 or 13... Good life :)

Okay so I did a speed write thing? This took me 30 minutes, and is 1.7k words. Sorry if it is crappy - I just was trying to write as many words as I can! (And I know it’s not 2k’s!! Sorry!!! I tried, but I’ve only written 2k words ONCE and that was when writing that Drarry fic!!)

#75 - Kisses meant to distract someone

~

Distraction

He stares at the paper, crumpled in his hand. The ink is smudged from where he grasped it, the edges ripped and slightly torn.

The words are darkly printed, carved into the parchment in a writing that is so familiar to him, a writing that haunts his dreams every night. Regulus’ writing is elegant, clean lines and defined print, so different from Sirius’ untidy scrawl. He supposed Regulus had always been like that, always willing to do anything to please his parents.

The words are burned into his memory, from the countless number of times he’s read the letter. The owl came at breakfast, landing in front of his porridge bowl, and he still remembers the feeling of nausea fishing up in his throat as he swallows.

Sirius,

Don’t come home. You can’t. I know you’re thinking of it, but you can’t. They will kill you. Actually, physically kill you.

Mum has burned you off the family tree. You can’t be a Death Eater anymore. You’ve been disowned.

I’m fine. They haven’t hurt me too bad yet.

Don’t respond. They are watching my mail.

-R

There’s something like Shane burning in his chest, a thick oily feeling that fills his stomach, his heart, his soul. He abandoned Regulus, left him at the mercy of his parents, unprotected and vulnerable and he feels vile rise up in his mouth. He swallows, hard, trying to banish the feeling.

He remembers when they were 7 and 6, both hiding underneath Sirius’ bed. Hiding from their mother, who even back then had no qualms about taking her fury out on her two sons. She had lashed out at Regulus, making his nose bleed, before Sirius had stepped in. He had earned a nasty cut in his forehead, and they huddled under the bed, trying not to sneeze from all the dust lurking in the cracks.

Regulus had whispered, keeping his voice low. I hate it here.

Sirius nodded. Me too.

Regulus tugged at Sirius’ sleeve, pulled at his hair. I don’t like it here. I don’t like being hurt. He pauses. We should run away, Sirius! We can escape, to that school you’re going to! Hogwarts or something, and we can ask if they would let us in early and - .

There’s something like hope in his chest, imagining the life they would have if they did decide to run. Run, far away, where Walburga couldn’t catch them, where they didn’t have to live in fear of the curses, the screaming, the pain and the injuries.

He scoffs, punching himself. It was a foolish thought, a hopeless one, and Sirius bit his lip. He had learnt, years before, that screaming only infuriated Walburga more, encouraged her to keep cursing, and so, he had taught himself not to make any noise. No. But I promise, I will always protect you.

From her? Regulus had asked.

Sirius nodded his head. Yes. I’ll always be there for you. Always.

He grimaces now, that broken promise slicing up his chest. It had shattered, into sharp, ugly things, twisted remains of past vows, and Sirius swears, under his breath.

He’s alone in the common room, taking up one of his favorite desks, and he sighs as he bends over an essay. Transfiguration, a 6 inch roll of parchment on the dangers of vanishing living objects, and it was due in roughly 8 hours.

Sirius glances at the clock, and he bangs his head on the table. 2 am in the morning, and he still had another 5 inches left to go.

He bites his lip. It was getting harder and harder to concentrate, ever since he left, the guilt and the anguish eating him up inside. The nightmares had returned, Regulus chained up and screaming, Remus writhing under silver weights, Peter being burned alive and James drowning. Dark dreams for someone so young, and yet, they never faded away. It was harder to concentrate, to laugh and speak, getting harder and harder to sometimes breathe.

He can feel the panic, at the back of his throat, bitter and metallic and raw. He swallows hard, trying to banish the feeling, trying to ignore it, trying to think of something else other then the mindless, suffocating terror that always starting to overwhelm him -

He hears the door creak open, and his heart stops. He couldn’t let anyone see him like this, on the verge of shattering completely, and he hastily arranges his mouth into a smile, causally rests his feet on the couch. He stares down at the essay, the words swimming together, praying that whoever walked in would just leave him alone -

He recognizes the person before they speak, recognizes the way their footsteps scho against the ground, the lock of brown hair that falls over his shoulder, the cool hands on his face. Remus frowns, reading over the 1 inch of his essay, the rambled words and slurred writing. “Si. You know this is due tomorrow right?” He pauses. “Well. Technically today, seeing as it is 2:26 in the morning and you still haven’t finished.”

“Shut up,” Sirius mutters, letting his head rest against Remus’. “It’s fine. I’ll get it down. Hell, I may even call it quits. Suck it up and accept a detention or something.”

Remus shakes his head, frowning over Sirus’ shoulder. “Look...this isn’t like you, Pads. Seriously, you’re disorganized, but not this disorganized.”

Sirius shakes his head. “Tell me about it.” He yawns. “Anyways, I need to finish. I…”

He trails off, cursing himself as he watches Remus’ eyes fix on the piece of paper lying on the ground by Sirius’ foot. Sirius jumps, trying to wrench it away from Remus’ eyes, but Remus is too quick for him. He lunges forward, snatching the scrap of paper and flattens it out. “What the hell is thsi, Si?”

Sirius shakes his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“Bullshit.” Remus eyes are dark, scanning the page in front of him. “You’ve been disowned?”

The cold sinks into Sirius’ gut, the shame of the words eating him up inside. He sinks down, onto the floor, biting his lip as he did so. “I don’t know. It’s...it’s from Regulus. I…” He lets out a bitter laugh. “I abandoned him. Left him alone, with my fucked-up parents. And...guess they disowned me.”

Remus looks up. “Why can’t you get the Dark Mark now?”

Sirius sighs. “If I’m disowned...I’m not part of a family, right? I’m not part of the Sacred 28. I can’t be a Death Eater. I’m not considered a pure blood.” He shakes his head. “God. I don’t even know why I care so much. I shouldn’t care, right? I should be celebrating, because I got away from my parents! I’m finally free.” He bites his lip. “So why do I feel like I’m being ripped apart inside?”

Remus reaches over, packing a hand on Sirius’ cheek. “It’s natural. They raised you. They are still your family.”

“Buckshot. Family wouldn’t torture their own child.” Suspensions dogs the words out. “Family wouldn’t use Crucio until their own son passes out. Family wouldn’t lock their child in a cellar with no food for 3 days because the child spilt some water. Family wouldn’t tell their son every minute, every hour, every second of the day that he is wrong, because he’s in a different house then them.” Sirius’ voice is quiet, drifting off, shattered and dull and broken. “Family wouldn’t do that. They are not my family.”

Remus nods, glancing over at the essay lying on the ground. “I’m sorry, Sirius. I’m so sorry.”

Sirius shrugs. “Life is screwed up. Can’t do anything about it.”

“Why didn’t he leave?” Remus glands back down at the paper. “Why didn’t he leave with you? Why didn’t he run?”

Sirius lets out a short chuckle. “That’s Regulus. Always worried about the family’s reputation.” He bites his lip, hard, hard enough that the blood wells in his mouth. He welcomes the pai, the sudden bite of the air against the bleeding cut, and he scoffs. “Probably too scared to riks badgering mother.”

Remus frowns. “He sent you the letter.”

“Not that hard, to get one measly letter out the door.” Sirius mutters. He turns to the essay, almost ripping the paper in his ferocity. “I have to get this out.”

“Sirius - “ Remus sighs. “He’s your brother, Sirius. He cares for you.”

“Cares for me?” Sirius’ voice is flat. “I protected him. For 16 goddamn years I protected him. I took every Crucio, every Lacero, every Dolor and Confodere and Spinam and I did it to keep him safe because if he was hurt, it would kill me.” He stabs at the paper, tearing a rip in the side, smearing the ink over the page. “And I carry the scars around, all over my back, and he didn’t do anything. He did nothing, nothing to help me, nothing tos save me and when I finally snapped - “

“He let you go.” Remus’ voice is calm, gentle. He pulls away from the desk, cradling his shaking body with his own. “I could never imagine, what you go through. I’m just saying that maybe Regulus planned this out. Maybe he wanted you to hate him.”

Sirius lets out a short laugh. “Why would he want you to do that.”

“Because.” Remus brushes the hair from Sirius’ face. “You wouldn’t feel inclined to stay behind if you hated him.”

The words sink deep, slicing Sirius up inside, and he glares down at the floor, trying not to cry. “That’s not true. Why would he - “

There are gentle hands on his face, tilting his chin up, and Remus cuts him off with a kiss. It’s sloppy, at an awkward angle, Remus bending over him, just a slight brushing of lips, but Sirius feels himself melting. He reaches up, grasping Remus’ face, cupping his cheekbones with his palms, pressing them closer, pressing them harder, so close until all they can do is breathe each other in.

Remus huffs a laugh. “Distracted?”

“Shut up,” Sirius mutters, pulling Remus on top of him.

~

When Sirius wakes up the next morning, the couch is cold.

He sits up, frowning, running a hand through his already disheveled hair, glancing at the clock.

He almost falls off the cushions with shock. It’s 7:30, classes start in 45 minutes and he still has another 5 inches left on his essay -

The thought dies off as he looks beside him, sees the roll of parchment on the desk. Sirius gapes as he walks over, sees the scroll resting neatly on the table. Beside it is a note:

Sorry for distracting you. xoxox Re

[thecollinhartman-blog]

Collin’s Coronavirus Thoughts

Corona Diaries

 I know what you are thinking. It is Day 4 of the Quarantine and Social Distancing and Collin has gone so crazy without all the busy-ness of life that he is writing a blog post. And you would be absolutely correct. Like every other millennial twenty-something, I have a lot of really great ideas that haven’t quite come to fruition. By now I thought I would be operating a volleyball facility, or traveling the US in a VW van driving for Uber, or pursuing a PhD program in England while playing volleyball, or coaching a small college team in Southern California.

All this to say I’m a big-time dreamer and a mostly incredibly poor “executer”. I often mistake my busy-ness for full-ness. I have seven unread books on my night stand, I haven’t been grocery shopping in weeks, I never got around to painting the trim in the bathroom my dad and I remodeled, my phone hasn’t been at full charge since November, and there has been an overflow of recycling sitting outside my house from the garbage disposal and mattress I got for Christmas… and now it’s March. Welcome to it, friends.

 Let’s start here: I stopped by my parents’ house this week to print something – which I often do because I have a lot of printing needs but haven’t ever purchased a printer. It’s nice because I can print some papers I need AND I can always count on cool ranch Doritos and a Mango Orange Crystal Lite…. that I’ll likely take one sip of, leave on the counter, and finish when I’m there 4 days later.

 Anyway, here I am printing in my dad’s office and running late for a meeting  (all because I napped for too long). I rush out the door of the house, accidentally leaving one document on the printer, pens and paper everywhere, and a cupboard desk drawer open. A few minutes later, my dad sends me a picture of his office, which was without a doubt entirely put together five minutes prior to me being there. The tone of his text is sarcastic but loving but semi-annoyed which I can handle. I spend six seconds feeling bad about my reckless and disorganized self until Hillsong’s Highlands comes on the radio and I turn it up. I don’t spend time reflecting on things that would make me sad, I’m a 7.

 In the midst of my frantic printing and meeting prep, my dad told me he was going to call me “F-5”as my new nickname. By the look on my face, he could tell I was confused as to why. He begins to tell me that tornados are classified in F-0 through F-5 categories, with an F-5 tornado being the wildest in nature. My quick google search defines an F-5 tornado as the most “violent damage, homes lifted off foundation and carried considerable distances, autos thrown as far as 100 meters.” I think what my dad was trying to say is that my general way of life is to rampage my way through different spaces, groups, situations… often times in an assertive, proactive, somewhat wild, chaotic way and then just… leave (I think this how I drive too). Stop go stop go stop go. I go from this thing right on to the next without pause. I show up, jump out of my car, race to wherever I’m supposed to go, be (mostly) present there until BOOM, it’s a Monday evening and I’m in the Eagle gym, shutting off all the lights, gathering volleyballs, turning on the alarm, leaving for Young Life – all in an attempt to get there three minutes before it starts so I can prep items for the game I’m leading ALLLLL before being interrupted in the parking lot by a mom of a U11 kid who is reminding me (probably for the 3rd time) about the t-shirt they ordered and are waiting on. Following? Me neither.

 In short – my life actually is like an F-5 tornado. I run run run from one thing to the next, filling my world to the brim with as much as I possibly can all until I arrive back at my house at 10:30 pm, gas light on, eat whatever I can find in the fridge before my head hits the pillow 4 minutes later, only to set my alarm and do it again.

 I’ve been living my life like this for a really long time until…. well until Sunday when we got the news that school is cancelled, which means volleyball activities are all cancelled too, and Young Life gatherings paused and suddenly my wild Monday is WIDE OPEN.

 This blog post / journal / diary is my attempt to articulate from my squirrel brain some things I’ve learned about myself in the last 48 hours since this craziness called coronavirus officially stopped my (and probably your) collective world right in their F-5 tornado tracks.

 First, let me tell you about my day today paint a picture of how my world feels just a bit (LITERALLY ENTIRELY) different…..

 1)    I didn’t set an alarm and I woke up at 8:30 am.

2)    Shortly after, I went on a quick walk to the nearest coffee shop and ordered a Misto: I am on my journey to black coffee and I just graduated from a latte to this half coffee half milk concoction (with caramel) and I feel accomplished.

3)    I stopped by my neighbor friend’s house to say hello.

4)    I got home, cleaned a couple things around the house, washed a couple plates in my sink, and went on a bike ride to downtown Boise where I enjoyed a takeout lunch from Whole Foods. I would like to tell you that I rode my bike home, but a friend happened to see me and my girlfriend (she is working remotely from Utah and visiting right now) saw us and somehow realized the journey completely uphill from downtown to my house on the bench might not be all that fun so we piled our bikes in her car and she took us home.

5)    I took a 20 minute snoozer.

6)    I got up and did some yard work outside, gathering pine needles from underneath my big backyard tree and finally broke down those big boxes that have been sitting outside my house for months and was able to fit them all inside my recycling can.

7)    It started to drizzle so I came inside, crawled under a big blanket and read the first couple chapters of Prodigal God by Timothy Keller.

8)    Kinslie and I then stopped by the store to pick up some things for dinner and I grilled some steaks and shared a giant salad and some grilled asparagus.

9)    After a few girl scout cookies (they stopped by yesterday), we watched the last half of Ellen’s Game of Games and picked a movie on Netflix.

10) Now I’m lying in my (perfectly made) bed (because I had the time to make it) writing all my thoughts down in a word document wondering if I’ll actually post this or if there is really anything of worth that I’m typing. I think there is but not sure yet.

 Well, friends of the interwebs, you might be wondering why you just read a detailed list of my day from start to finish. Here’s what I want you to know.

 1)    Upon arriving at the coffee shop, I had a cheerful silly conversation with the barista about what drink I should order as we laughed about me wanting to eventually enjoy drip coffee. We engaged in authentic dialogue for a few minutes and on the way out I thanked her for the drink recommendation.

2)    Before leaving for our bike ride, my tires were flat so we walked them to the gas station and filled up with six quarters before we went on our merry way. I empathized with the Chevron employee as we talked about coronavirus and how it might impact our lives. I wished him well and went on my way.

3)    While bikeriding downtown I noticed there are five…. FIVE… different types of massage or spa places between my house and Curtis, which is the next main stop light.

4)    At Whole Foods, I asked the clerk their favorite pasta salad as she walked over and told me all about the 2 for $6 deal. I noticed the different textures of the floor and the neatly stacked chairs and how the vegetables were perfectly arranged in their place.

5)    While doing yardwork, I stopped and looked at Kinslie as she was raking leaves into a pile. I went over and looked, I mean REALLY LOOKED into her eyes and noticed how the Irish green edges melt into a light sky-ish blue before meeting her pupil. I noticed the way she parted her wavy blonde hair and the way it fell just barely over the sweatshirt she was borrowing of mine.  I noticed how thankful I was I had someone to share this day with and even more thankful for her idea to do this yardwork that surely wouldn’t have been started for maybe forever.

6)    While reading, I noticed the way the soft sunshine pressed through my semi-open blinds onto my page and made the black ink pop off the page. I contemplated Keller’s words of Pharisees and tax collectors and a story of two sons on their journey of deeper understanding of God’s steadfast love and grace in the midst of their own struggles.

7)    While making dinner I couldn’t help but take just a little extra time to delicately cut each cucumber and carrot slice with care as I heard sounds of clattering branches from my cracked window as dusk began to settle in.

8)    And while writing this blog post, I can’t help but notice all the things I noticed in my own world for perhaps the first time.

 While I can’t be sure what life will look like in a few short days, weeks, or even months, and while I’m not positive what my income will be, and what daily routines or rituals will be impacted, or how our schools and communities will be changed – I can be sure of this: I hope in the midst of my crazy F-5 tornado life that surely will be back in busy routine before I know it – I hope for a couple things.

 I hope I can continue notice the little things. To notice the wildly interconnected, perfectly-timed, awe strikingly beautiful, crazy detailed, little details of this world like the way I noticed the lines on the fresh steaks as I pulled them off my garage sale grill.  

 I hope to breathe deep and see, I mean REALLY see the world around me, to engage in relationship in more authentic and honest ways, to stop for a moment wherever I am to truly connect with the people around me.

  I hope to take my time through a home cooked meal, and to not be so filled with anxiousness and fear of the future and unknown that I my eyes are blinded to see the way God is working in and through my (and our) world, possibly even through something like the freaking COVID-19.

 While I’m sure there will be more lessons to be learned in the next little while, I challenge you to take a couple moments to really press in and reflect upon the way this Zombie apocalyptic ish tirade is impacting your world. I truly hope in the midst of empty toilet paper shelves and hand sanitizer hoarders there is something beautiful in your world that you’ve noticed, too.

[mysticsparklewings]

Bug Girl

My WIP Wednesday! piece is all finished!   (Warning: LOOOOOOONG description about the art process ahead!  ) I don't think it's terribly obvious for a number of reasons (at least not at first), but this piece is actually a bit of fan art/inspired by How to make Friends with the Dark by Kathleen Glasgow, which I finished reading Monday night--Though I actually started this piece a couple of days before   There's a concept that gets brought up a few different times in the book of the main character Tiger imagining a "bug-girl" in a jar, usually to help visualize her emotions to us, the audience. This concept really resonates and stuck with me even before I finished the book, and thus I was compelled to draw it. Technically the way I see that concept in my head looks different from what I've done here, so sometime in the future I may take another stab at it, but for this time I wanted to strengthen the connection between the bug-girl concept and the book, so visually I modeled the overall aesthetic largely off of the book's cover; white lines and white dots on a dark blue background that has a slight gradient at the bottom. The gradient on the cover is more subtle and is more on the lines than the background itself, but I took artistic liberty on that to make my life a little easier. My original plan was to do the background with watercolor, do the lines digitally and print them out (since I had some kinks in the sketch I wanted to experiment with digitally instead of doing a lot of additional drawing and erasing) and then use my lightbox and a white gel pen to trace directly on top of the watercolor, then splatter away with some white ink. But of course, things can never be that simple. The way I see it in my head, the bug-girl has, well, bug eyes, but for this piece, I didn't want to lean too heavily into the "creepy" factor, given it doesn't really fit with the content of the book (which is a great read if you like realistically heavy YA novels, by the way) so I angled her head down and her hair covering her face to keep from having to make the decision on whether or not I wanted to go with that look. And additionally to do proper bug eyes (at least the kind I was imagining) would've involved a lot of tiny circle/cell shapes, and I imagine that would've made things feel too crowded or would have blended into the splatters/background in an uncomfortable way. Additionally, I was going to have her wings raised behind her, but after playing around with a few different references and positions in Photoshop (knowing full well I was not happy with the original wings from the sketch that I completely free-handed), I felt like this more asymmetrical, lowered position and dragonfly-type structure just looked better and fits better with some of the movements of the wings described in the book (using them to cover her eyes, etc.) which in most cases aren't technically plausible with normal bug wings. My first real problem was with the jar. Realistically, it needed to be tall enough for the girl to stand at full height at least. And in theory, probably a little bit higher so it would be more comfortable overall and so that in theory she wouldn't just stand up and be able to push the lid off. But I was having issues with the sizing because the jar could only be so big so that A. it would fit comfortably on my paper and B. if it was too tall, the empty space between the top of the jar and the girl would noticeably awkward. So I fiddled with that for way too long and ultimately, it's probably too short, but the size balanced is more comfortable to the eyes, I think. (I also added the cross-hatching to the lid to make it more obvious there was a lid since originally it just kind of looked like the jar had a very wide lip.) I also gave her a set of antennae, and after trying the concept of segmenting her whole body to be more bug-like (which was way too many lines everywhere) I decided to add some plates on the front of her forearms and calves. It's not much at all, but I didn't want to stick solely to traditionally "fairy" imagery since she's a bug-girl, not a fairy, but in this lines-only format, there was only so much I could do and still get the proper impact I was looking for. Speaking of which... I did a lot of swatching and testing of my various watercolors that I have on hand to A. get the colors I wanted right, B. practice my blending of two colors with more paint than water since I wanted very dark, opaque colors, and C. test if my lightbox would even work under the thick watercolor paper and the actual watercolor. However, I made two errors in judgment during the testing: 1. The areas I swatched to test were considerably smaller than the actual size of the area I wanted to cover and even with my biggest brush when I went to do a practice go I very quickly realized that was going to take an absurd amount of paint, time, effort, and I was very likely to run into some blending problems with the gradient. (So, in summary, half-pan-sized watercolors and mostly small brushes are not great for very large areas) 2. Once I realized the above, (and I had already done two very quick tests with alcohol markers and that idea almost immediately went out the window for the same issue) I had to switch course and ended up using some water-soluble pencils (one Arteza Woodless Watercolor Pencil for the dark blue and one Derwent Inktense pencil for the dark teal at the bottom) to lay down the color for the background and then wet them down to smooth out the color. Which turned out pretty nicely, especially once they dried. (I was a little worried at first since while still wet it was looking kind of patchy and weird ) The problem with number 2 is that after it had fully dried (aside from the paper curling pretty badly since it was in a sketchbook and I didn't think to tape the edges of the page down before taking water to it, which was mostly fixed pretty easily by wetting down the back of the page and sitting a very heavy box on it while it dried overnight) when I went to use the lightbox, the pigment from the water-soluble pencils was noticeably more opaque than the straight watercolor tests/swatched I had looked at previously. It wasn't so opaque that I couldn't see my lines underneath at all but it was opaque enough that a lot of the smaller details wear really hard to see. And thus I had a pretty big problem on my hands. What I should have done was trace the lines in black on the blank paper first so they would be more likely to show through the pigment in the first place and there's a good chance that would've fixed the problem, even if I still needed the lightbox to see those lines perfectly. But hindsight is always 20/20 so that knowledge didn't really fix the matter at hand. I knew pretty instantly that I didn't want to try tracing the lines onto another piece of watercolor paper and trying to color matter since I seem to always have majorly noticeable issues with that, especially when there's a gradient involved, and also because I knew when I scanned it in it would be fairly obviously there were two layers of paper instead of one because of how thick watercolor paper is. I also knew alcohol markers were out because, again, color matching issues with the selection available to me, and also from some of my much earlier testing with trying to get the specific gradient that I wanted. That left me with colored pencils. And thus I went through the five different sets I use enough to keep where I can easily access them (I have others I don't like as much that would've just been a waste of time) and started swatching colors on a piece of the same paper I had the lines on and then held them up to the background to color match as closely as possible. I ended up picking one dark blue and one dark teal each from both my Prismacolor and Polychromos sets since the blue from the Prismacolor was closer but the teal from the Polychromos was closer but they were both slightly off, so to keep the texture consistent I mixed both together for both colors. This ended up being a very good idea in hindsight because I finished off with a final layer of the Polychromos and that kept my white gel pen from having the problems it would normally have over straight-Prismacolor pigment. (Since Prismacolors are wax-based the wax usually clogs the pen tip very easily; the Polychromos are oil-based, so the oil created a slicker layer between the wax and the pen). And all I did was use my lightbox to see the black printed lines through the colored pencil as easily as possible and went back over them with my white Sakura Gelly Roll, then I went back and outlined the jar and the lid specifically with my white Uni-Ball Signo, since the ink is slightly brighter and the nib is larger. Once that was all done to my satisfaction, I cut out the girl in her jar and placed it on the watercolor background with some double-sided tape I picked up the day before from DollarTree, clipping a few edges so they'd be as flush with the edges of the paper as possible. And I figured that would be a better idea than glue because the glue had a very good potential of being very messy and leaving notable marks. The tape was just a safer bet. And fortunately, the paper laid pretty flat, save for a couple of spots I either missed because I applied the tape by lifting up the edges so I wouldn't totally lose my placement or up by some of the nooks and crannies that make up the ridges at the top of the jar that were just too small to do individually. And there is one spot where that tape wrinkled on me, but it's fortunately not terribly noticeable in the final product. Then I made a paper mask for the girl inside the jar and got to move on to the slightly more fun part; I dipped a paintbrush in some white ink (white ink as opposed to white watercolor because I was concerned the water part might cause some reaction to the existing watercolor background that I didn't want and I was a little concerned it would make the non-watercolor paper that the girl and the jar were drawn on warp) and started tapped it against another paint brush to get splatters everywhere. I masked the girl since I was pretty sure she'd blend in too much if she got splattered too. After the ink was dry, I removed the mask and went in with the white Gelly Roll again to make some stars here and there; mostly just because I wanted to since the original book cover only has dots. I left it at that for the night since it was almost 3 and I was tired, but I came back to it the next day and racked my brain for a bit since it felt like it was missing something. I ultimately ended up putting the mask back on the girl and used my pastel blue PanPastel to create a glow effect around her. After that, I scanned it and did make some minor adjustments in Photoshop (mostly color correction, but there were a couple of black lines of shadow around the edge of the jar since it was still a separate piece of paper on top of the other one at the end of the day. And here we are. It's still not perfection, but I am ultimately happy with it since I think I got the look I was after in the end. Plus, I think I capture the spirit of the original book cover's style pretty well ____ Artwork (c) me, MysticSparkleWings I do not own How to make Friends with the Dark or the cover art ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[thosemultifandomwritings]

Blue (James Potter x Reader)

Pairing: Young!James Potter x Reader

Word Count: 1303

Warning: The F word?

Summary: James takes a prank to far. (Non-house specific Reader)

To say you were stressed would be an understatement. You were an absolute wreck. O.W.L’s were rapidly approaching and you knew that you needed to ace these exams if you had any hope of going onto more advanced classes. You would love nothing more than to put down the textbooks and go hang out with your friends, but you knew you couldn’t. There would be time for fun later, but for now, it was time to get down to business. If only James Potter and the other Marauders understood that.

“Come on (Y/L/N), we’re gunna go to the great hall for lunch,” Sirius said, as you had your head buried in your potions textbook. You finished the sentence you were reading before your gaze went up to be met with the four marauders looking down at you. You were friendly with the Marauders, them always being a good source of entertainment. It was never a dull moment with them around.

“Can’t right now, studying,” you said, your eyes landing back on the page. For your O.W.L’s you needed to be able to write an entire essay on Polyjuice Potion, and then be able to brew one. It was intimidating knowing one missing ingredient could be the reason you couldn’t continue onto N.E.W.T level potions. You needed higher level Potions for your dream job, so you couldn’t risk failing.

‘It enables the consumer to assume the physical appearance of another person, as long as they have first procured part of that individual's body to add to the brew-’

“Oh come on, you’ve been studying for weeks. You need to relax once and a while,” James said laughing, causing you to squint up at him.

“Well I’m sorry I’m actually concerned about my future, Potter,” You sassed. You went back to your book, seeing James getting closer to you in your peripheral vision. When you took out parchment and a quill from your bag, you finally looked back up at him. Both his hands were laid on the table, his back arched towards you, his eyes staring into yours.

“Are you saying I don’t care about my future?” he asked, causing you to roll your eyes.

“No, what I AM saying is that not everyone can be like you and Black and seem to do good in subjects they barely even show up to class for,” you said, a wide sarcastic smile stretching across your face, “Good bye Potter.”

You went back to your book, beginning the big practice essay you had due in a few days. James didn’t speak again, to your amazement, and eventually joined the other Marauders. He seemed to have whispered something to them before they all left the library completely. It wasn’t like James to back down, but for now, you couldn’t bring yourself to theorize why. You had to basically memorize this whole chapter, so you couldn’t bother with worrying about James right now.

_______

A few days later and you were finally getting confident in your abilities with the Polyjuice potion. You had brewed one in Potions class today with a partner, and other than a few slight adjustments in measurements, Professor Slughorn said you had done well. You found yourself in the Great Hall for dinner, hoping to grab some food and relax a little. You sat down at your table, reaching in your bag and pulling out your essay that was due tomorrow. All you had left to write was the conclusion, arguably the easiest part of the entire thing. You had spent the last few days gathering as much information as possible, making sure your essay showed the best of your abilities.

You pulled out a quill as you bit into an apple, reading your own essay through before starting the conclusion. The second your quill hit the paper, it exploded into a blue mess of ink, covering your hands and the table all around you. You heard a boom of laughter and multiple gasps as your eyes widened at the scene in front of you. You entire essay was dark blue, all the words you had spent hours writing, gone underneath a pool of ink. 

“No no no no, please no,” Your mouth dropped as you hurriedly tried to rub the excess ink off the parchment, only to realize it was completely ruined.

You continued to stare as various students around you laughed, the laughter centralized at the area a few tables away from you. Your eyes followed the tables down to be met by none other than the Marauders, James Potter laughing so hard his eyes were watering. That is when the realization hit you.

James Potter had pranked you. He had pranked you by rigging your quill to explode into a pool of ink. He thought this was funny. Your hours and hours of hard work, ruined so James Potter could get a good laugh. You felt the blood rush to your cheeks as the other students stared at you, gauging your reaction. Before you knew what was happening, you had stood up from your table and found yourself behind James.

“Uh, Prongs?” Remus said to his friend who still was rubbing his eyes from the tears that had fallen from his laughter. Remus looked from James to you with pity, your face emotionless. Eventually, James followed Remus’s gaze and whipped around to where you stood.

“Oh hi (Y/N), feeling a little...blue?” Potter asked before exploding into laughter again, looking to Sirius for support with his joke. Sirius, upon seeing your face, had stopped laughing completely, as had most of the other students who were in the Great Hall. The next sound to emit throughout the hall was the sound of your hand slapping James Potter right across the face. Your ink covered hand left a perfect blue hand print on his left cheek as you stormed out of the Great Hall. Once in the hallway, you allowed your emotions to take over as you felt tears prick your eyes. All the stress of the past few weeks seemed to have built up to this. The many hours and long nights seemed to have caught up to you, and now you were finally breaking down.

“Oi, what the bloody hell was that for?” You heard James yell from behind you. You heard footsteps run up before you felt his hand grab your wrist. You reacted to his hand as if it was burning hot, tugging away from it before your eyes met his. Upon seeing your misty eyes, his face fell from anger to confusion.

“It was just a prank (y/n), I don’t-” he had begun before you interrupted him.

“Just a prank? Just a bloody prank? I spent hours, DAYS, working on that potions essay, only for your “prank” to completely ruin it! It’s gone! All of it. All I want is to pass my O.W.L.’s and there’s no way I can if I can’t even pass the class, let alone the test! That essay was a huge chunk of my grade James, it’s due tomorrow...there’s no way I can finish it in time,” You said, the stress of it all coming out in your voice. You had started off yelling, but by the time you were done, you were barely in a whisper.

James’s face fell, once again, realizing the severity of his actions. He had only meant for it to make a small mess, not to ruin your essay. You had been so stressed out lately, he just wanted you to loosen up a bit. Seeing now, the way your face scrunched up as you turned around and your hands came up to your face to wipe away the tears, leaving him standing in the middle of the hallway alone, he realized just how much he had fucked up.

PART 2

A/N: I was writing this and it got kinda long, splitting it up into 2 parts!

Have any Requests?

[story-scribbler]

Jotober : Day 2

prompt : tranquil

A/N : I started writing this prompt, and it was supposed to be a quick-write, but then it kinda started growing and growing, and I was working on it all day today, but day 2 is almost over so I’m gonna post this WIP for now, and edit it later. If it sounds choppy and incomplete, that’s why, so no hate please :) 

I rubbed my eyes frantically, wiping away the tears from my sleep-deprived eyes. The library closed in thirty minutes, and my essay was due tomorrow. There was practically nobody in the library, apart from the poor volunteer sitting at the front desk across from my table, who for some wild reason, had chosen to work the night shift. Empty Starbucks cups and crumpled pages of notebook paper that were covered in illegible scribbles were littering my table, my binders sprawled out across it, and my laptop was standing intimidatingly in front of me, the eighteen pages of my paper staring tauntingly at me. I glanced to my right, where I had placed a paper with all of the requirements printed on it. Giant, scratchy, red letters glared back up at me. 20 PAGES!!!!! 20 PAGES!!!!! 

For the past few years, the teachers had allowed us to choose our own topics for our essays, no rules, no restrictions. It could be as sciencey as you wanted, as boring as you wanted it to be (no offense to all those English major wannabes who were analyzing classics), or as ridiculous as you wanted it to be. Mine was on the representation of Asian Americans in art and film; smack-dab in the middle of extremely boring, and somewhat interesting. The research was tedious, but the writing was fun-- I had taken every writing class that I could fit into my schedule, and I was one of the lucky few who actually enjoyed writing-- until I met everybody's best friend: writer's block.

We had gotten the assignment three weeks ago, and I had powered through the first thirty pages in the first two weeks, determined not to fall prey to procrastination. I painstakingly worked my way through the next eight pages for the next week, spent the next week tweaking and editing, ensuring that my writing didn't sound like an eighth grader's English final, and ignored the last two required pages completely. Our teacher had walked into class on Monday, and scrawled on the board, reminding us all of the two days we had left before our due date. The deadline slammed into me, the realization finally striking-- that I was definitely stuck, and definitely screwed. I begged my friend to drive me to the public library after school; if I went home, I would never get anything done, because younger siblings were a pain, and they had yet to learn how to shut their mouths. I ran to the Starbucks across the street, ordered three Venti frappucinos, because I am an uncultured millennial who hates real coffee, and sat myself down in a rigidly uncomfortable chair that gave me a crick in my neck in the first ten minutes, and wrote a grand total of fourteen sentences in three hours. My jeans were suffocating my legs, my boots were too heavy for my feet, and my hair was pulled into a messy bun, the only hairstyle I could bear to have during my binge writing session, although it was more like a binge do-nothing-at-all-while-staring-at-a-computer-screen session. 

"You know that no amount of coffee is gonna help you finish that, right?"

I whipped around to see the volunteer behind the front desk smiling sheepishly at me.  "You've made about four Starbucks runs since you've gotten here."

I raised my eyebrows, cocking my head. "Keeping track?" I asked playfully.

"Not much else to do here," he answered, leaning across the desk and gesturing around the empty library. "It's that twenty page essay, right? You might've been, uh, talking out loud," he said quickly. My cheeks were heating up, but thankfully, my brown Asian skin saved me from showing any of my embarrassment.

"My sister did it last year,” he added. “I'm Justin, by the way. I never introduced myself.”

"I'm Mandi," I said, still half-mortified from my supposed talking-out-loud. Thankfully, before an inevitable awkward silence could begin, he started speaking again, this time a little nervously. "Um, this might sound a little weird, but I have a tip for how you could maybe finish your paper?" he offered, running a hand through his hair, the black curls separating through his fingers.

I opened my arms wide. "Please, I'm open to anything. If you can't tell by now, I'm a tad bit desperate," I responded, only half-joking.

He ducked behind his desk and pulled out a sheaf of blank white paper and a slender black pen before walking over to my extremely messy table, closed my laptop, and started clearing off some semblance of clear space for him to work on.

"Sorry about the mess," I mumbled.

He waved my half-hearted apology away, and uncapped his pen. "Here," he extended his hand to me, the pen lying flat against his palm. I accepted it gingerly, and he spread a piece of paper in front of me grandly.

I raised my eyebrows, gesturing with the pen. "And what do you want me to do with this exactly?"

He shrugged. "Whatever you want to do."

"Meaning?" 

"Draw a picture, write a ridiculous story, whatever you want," he said, plucking the pen from my hand. "You need to create something that isn't that stifling essay." He placed the nib of the pen to the paper, the black ink seeping fluidly into the paper. He doodled a tiny flower, and curved the stem, trailing it into a delicate curlicue, and then lifted the pen with a flourish. "Trust me," he said, pressing the pen back into my hand, my fingers automatically curling around it; it was still warm from his grip. 

[thenervespore]

COMMERCIAL LAW WRAP UP

Hello World! 

It is August 16, 2021!

My last bar-related post here was May 11, 2021 - more than three months!!!

Well, time flied soooo fast. Again, it has been three months. Technically, May 12 was my FIRST DAY OF OFFICIAL BAR REVIEW. It means that I should have been GAME MODE ON from that day forth.

But what can I say. Things don’t cease to be fluid. I mean even if you plan things out, even if you are motivated and determined to stick to your plan - there would be deviations. The plan presupposes that you are steady in everything. It presupposes that you are predisposed everyday to study and you accomplish what you planned to accomplish for everyday. However, like every idea translated to reality - there has some distortions which took place. There were bad days, sad days, paralytic days and days were you cannot do anything because you cannot...just....figure...out...why....you....can’t. 

However, looking back, things which are important despite the unexpected and unforeseeable things and the deviations to the plan:

1. Just keep moving forward whatever happens.

2. Despite the pressure, have a calm and composed mind.

3. Be more realistic in your actions - the end goal is that you absorb and understand concepts. So if you think you NEED to read 300 pages per day to end in the right schedule, rethink if you really UNDERSTOOD what those pages contain. Otherwise, ALL IS A WASTE.

These three things has always been my compass despite all of the challenges in the external world. I dissociate myself with everything else which is not essential as of the moment - in order for me to maximize my learning capacity and to be able to think things through properly. 

I cannot, out of my good conscience, omit this personally mandatory process of journaling in between. 

I actually said in my last posts that I am going to post random passages or stuff here. But apparently, I cannot do so because life is just so HECTIC. Like you cannot breath out of the impossible readings that you need to read. There would be times where I would literally just read from waking up to sleeping down. Everything else is just inserted in between. More over, I have friends to assure me that I have emotional support and I can unload all these emotional baggage attached to being a barista. So letting things out through the ink seemed less indispensable that months. 

However, the thing that I am missing is I cannot really discuss or let out my bar substance related feelings and reactions to them. Apparently, if you are a barista, you have the privilege of having a clue of the overview of law as a whole. Well, when we where in fourth year, this was also the case because that was a review year. My point is, for someone to relate to the things you want to share, they must also be at least fourth year law school students. Haru actually is someone who could really relate and discuss with me on anything I wanted to discuss. However, he is also busy with his life. Also, we cannot really discuss also with our fellow baristas because everyone else are busy with their readings. Chances are, you are not reading the same subject at a certain point of time. 

So in order for me to synthesize and understand my downfalls and my strengths as to a bar subject better, I am establishing a hobby of evaluating my 2nd reading and reading them first for the preweek before I really dwell into the substance of the subject.

I just finished my SECOND READING OF COMMERCIAL LAW. It means I do not have the opportunity to really gulp in new concepts, I just have to review the things I already read in the preweek.

More or less, I already read the pertinent laws with few exceptions: take note that I haven’t read yet Investor’s Lease Act, The Special Economic Zone Act of 1995 and Use of Duly-Stamped and Marked Containers. OK, I am going to include them during my printing of Criminal Laws later. But the thing is these are obscure subjects which are least likely to be sources of Bar Exam questions. But it better to FEEL LIKE YOU LEFT NO STONE UNTURNED.

Well my general feeling as I finished Commercial Law is I feel confident already with this very obscure and technical subject when it comes to the general rules and concepts and also to some nitty gritty in between. 

During law school, Commercial Law is not something I excelled in. Personally also, I feel like it is one of the subjects where I literally feel like reading it in the first time every time. That was my general feeling when I first read Commercial Law subjects in the review. I mean, the first subject in Commercial Law is Insurance. When I read Insurance for the first time, I had a panic attack because I realized that I did not really understand the concepts when I was in lawschool.

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT THING TO UNDERSTAND.

There are two ways of studying things: either (1) you just memorize OR (2) you memorialize. You memorize when you just put into mind the key words or key phrases. People even memorize entire codal provisions or entire definitions in lawschool. Personally, memorizing is my strength. That is why I also survived my undergrad course BSBiology which is in need of a lot of memorization skills. However, we should always understand that MOST OF THE THINGS WE MEMORIZE ARE ONLY STORED IN OUR SHORT-TERM MEMORY. However, when you MEMORIALIZE, you try to cast your mind away from the construction of the phrases, from the choice of words but you try to get through THE SPIRIT OF THE LAW. What it really means. Why does it matter. Why is this written here. Remember, law always has a reason d’etre. THERE IS A STORY BEHIND THEM. They are not written there just for the sake of it. They are written there because they are supposed to have PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS. They are supposed to govern human conduct, maintain peace and order and ensure that justice and fairness will always be the general rule for the conduct of things. When I was studying Insurance, these are the things I realized: 1. I did not really try to understand the importance or context of this law.

2. I just memorized the codal provisions or definitions in order for me to answer in the exams.

That is why I was really frightened because everything seemed to be foreign to me when I read the reviewer. Hell, this should literally be the third time I encountered this subject because I took this during third year, fourth year and then now. 

As I was cruising through the reviewer, my mind was just acknowledging I MEMORIZED THIS PREVIOUSLY. But I did not really try to understand it. I am saying that I did not try to understand it because if asked to explain in MY OWN WORDS, I could not do it. Which is another point that I want to emphasize, the true test would be that you can EXPLAIN THINGS IN YOUR OWN WORDS. 

Sometimes, we get anxious to deviate from the wordings of the law because the law is very technical. We say it is very technical because the certain words would have a very technical meaning under the law or jurisprudence even if we use them differently or arbitrarily in ordinary usage. Therefore, we are afraid that we will fail the scrutiny of the professor because we do not follow what was written in the law. The usual tendency is that we skip actual comprehension and go straight with memorization of the text of the law. However, this should not be the case. 

I tried to go over my past examinations and I try to evaluate my downfalls in answering in the exam. As I said, I have an upper hand in memory skills that is why if you could see my exam notebooks, you can see that I can give you entire provisions of law in almost a photocopy finish. However, I realize that because I memorized the provisions, I also wrote PARTS OF THE PROVISION which are not really pertinent to the question. I know one of the training in Ateneo is how to spot the issue and that there will always be a specific provision of law which would apply to a certain scenario. I do not disprove this. I concur. However, there would be instances when instead of one long provision which is applicable, there would be two intertwined parts of different provisions which are applicable. If we look at jurisprudence, we would really appreciate the intricacy of the law because of this. The reason is that provisions are not cast out of isolation from each other, they are supposedly a part of a bigger body of thoughts which could be correlated with each other. They could actually be applied with one another.

So I realized that I was making an unnecessary show-off. I just proved to people that I can memorize stuff but I did not really convey the deeper passion I have for law which I know I have in me. 

So my point going back is that READ BETWEEN THE LINES BEFORE READING THE LINES. Do not skip this process. Or else you are lost in the long run. So do not memorize right away. Read through the annotations, discussions and try to understand what message they want to convey first and then the next step is try to correlate how different legal luminaries explain these concepts in their own words and justifications and be guided with what certain terminologies are acceptable and commonly used. Again, the learning process is characterized by repetition by repetition by repetition. But it should not be repeating MEMORIZING THINGS again. This is important in moving forward. If you really are passionate in going forward in studying the law, you should at least have an understanding of the general rule. If YOU ARE STUCK ON MEMORIZING THE WORDINGS OF THE GENERAL RULE, then you would not have the time and energy to appreciate the slight deviations, intricacies and applications of the rule. The legal vocation is just like other vocations. We make an analogy to a painter. To a common mind, we only know the color green. But a painter would know the different hues, shades and other intricate details about the color. The hair could be split for as many times if you are passionate in your vocation. It is the same with the law. There will always be new stuff that you will learn no matter how many times you read things through. There will never be a time where you completely know everything about the law and never miss out a detail. It is humanly impossible! However, the desire to follow this longingness would be a good indicator that you have the passion to follow this vocation.

I remember my Labor Law professor Father Gus who keeps on telling us that he has read the case of LVN Pictures vs Philippine Musician’s Guild and he learns something new everytime he reads it. 

KNOWLEDGE IS CUMULATIVE. We might have read a material and not fully comprehend all parts of them in one instance. However, in the interim, we learn new things, we expand our knowledge. And then we read the same material again. We now understand it better, even differently on various occasions.  A common example is when we read cases when we were in first year vs in fourth year law school. When we read again the case in fourth year, we understand the case better in its entirety. This is true even in cases where you thought you understood the case very well. This has always been a source of excitement for me. That is why I prefer reading cases in the full text because I am appalled by how interconnected things are. However, in bar preparations, we should also be practical and realize that 

1. reading full text takes a lot of time and time is very precious

2. it is more on a luxury than a necessity.

More over, the bar exam has already split the law into eight (8). So the interconnectedness that you could have in your answer would be limited by what certain bar subject you are taking.

For example, there are a lot of obligations and contracts (OBLICON) concepts in Corporation. Actually this is because in some jurisdictions, corporate contract law is a subject of its own. However, in the bar exams, it would be unfair if the examiner would focus on oblicon concepts albeit intricately related to corporations. What I remember here is the case of rescission of subscription agreements. The concept of rescission is actually governed by Civil Law. However, this case is intricately connected with the Trust Fund Doctrine. So, I think even if “rescission” is under Civil Law, it could be used as a term or situation in Commercial Law but the discussion would be those falling under commercial law concepts. So here, instead of discussing the concept of rescission, we discuss the trust fund doctrine and how this doctrine would be superior to the right to rescission. We have two concurring rights here, the right of the creditors of the corporation to have the equity held in trust for the satisfaction of their claims and the right of the subscriber to rescind a contract based on the grounds provided under the Civil Code. However, the Supreme Court has already ruled that the greater good will be subsumed if we put a premium to the trust fund doctrine rather than to grant the right of rescission. This is not founded on the law. This is based on the wisdom of the highest Court of the land. That is why another thing which is important is keeping abreast with the decisions of the Supreme Court.

Which takes me to my BIGGEST ANXIETY. I am not entirely confident that I am updated with the latest doctrinal decisions of the Supreme Court. 

In my second reading, I focused entirely in memorializing the codal provisions. My reason here is that I should atleast have a complete central basis for everything which could probably be asked in the exam. This has always been my primary way of synthesis since then. I always identify the central idea and branch out everything from there. This method of branching guided me to do what I did in the second reading which is to read the codals first. However, Commercial Law is very hectic in a way that it is the ONLY BAR SUBJECT WHICH HAS A CODAL WHICH HAS THREE VOLUMES. Therefore, reading the codals themselves would consume most of your time. All this time, I am also just having faith in the fact that our law school professors has already honed us and gave us most of the doctrinal cases that we need to know.

However, there are two propensities regarding the Bar Exams:

1. Questions which came from the cases decided by the Bar Examiner AND

2. Questions which came from the LATEST doctrinal cases.

I already had an idea of the cases of Leonen. However, I realized that I really do not have an overview yet of the doctrinal cases of other Ponentes especially the latest en banc cases. That is why I need to identify newest case lists in Commercial Law and read them or insert them in my time. Okay, so I would make this a habit AFTER I FINISH THE REQUISITE NUMBER OF HOURS I HAVE TO STUDY IN MY PRIMARY REVIEW SUBJECT.  

That would be the last furnishes I have to put in my constructed building.

PROBLEMATIC AREAS:

Now, I am going to identify problematic areas I have:

1. In insurance, obscure subjects such as microinsurance, compulsory insurance coverage for agency-hired workers, non-default options in life insurance. Always remember the name of the case of Vicente Henson II. vs. UCPB General Insurance which set out the new guidelines as to the prescriptive period for actions by the subrogee-insurer against the person who caused the loss, damage or liability. This is the most recent doctrinal case with respect to insurance. Also the case of Insular vs. Alvarez which is a Leonen case could probably go out also. Lastly with respect to judicial bonds, the leonen case of Milagros Enriquez vs. Mercantile Insurance (2018) guides us that the effectivity of the judicial bonds is during the pendency of the action irrespective of the agreement between the bond company and the applicant. 

2. THE ENTIRE PRENEED CODE is a problematic area in a way that this is not actually discussed anywhere. However, I just take note here that certain regulations for Securities and certain features of a Life Insurance are relevant here. Like SRC, there is a need for a registration statement for the plan and actually EVERY ADVERTISEMENT you have for the plan should be approved by the Insurance Commission. As to the features of grace period, instead of 30 days , we have here 60 days and instead of  3 year period of reinstatement we have 2+2 (nondefault options + reinstatement)

3. As to Transportation, the Public Service Act and the Warsaw Convention are kind of shaky. I have to remember the concept of ruinous competition etc.

4. I haven’t read Partnerships for the second time hahaha, I think I can answer here.

5. Corporations. Of course Corpo is the most complicated subject here with six pages in the Syllabus out of 16!!!! Imagine! But I have to believe that I put extra attention here. I know the backstory why. In lawschool, my grade here is 74 but my professor rounded it up to 75. In otherwords, I was somehow reconsidered (this was my second reconsidered grade other than Persons in first year). So I graduated knowing to myself that passing corpo was PRIMARY BY VIRTUE OF A SAVING GRACE. It is a constant reminder for me to be extra attentive and put extra effort in this subject. In my first and second readings, I have to be faithful that I did justice to my law professor’s decision and I did not forgo it. I WILL NOT LET HIM DOWN.

6. Securities. THIS IS THE MOST OBSCURE SUBJECT IN THE COMMERCIAL LAW. I honestly still have alot of gray areas here. Maybe in the preweek I have to give extra attention here.

7. Banking. Obscure topics like Selective regulation and rates of exchange haunts me still. I literally know nothing in them and understood poorly here. I just moved forward because time is running out but I could also not see anything being asked here. PDIC charter should be prioritized because this is something I do not know in lawschool. hahaha like literally.

8. Intellectual property I could say is a strong subject back then. However, I should always remember that I struggle in Copyright and Other Related Rights just because it has a lot of codal provisions which are obscure and not really subjected to jurisprudence but we could still say that they could still be subject of controversy and be applied in the future.

9. Special Laws - AMLC, FRIA and Data Privacy. No other explanations. I found these laws very obscure, especially the latter two. So I also have to prioritize them in the preweek.

EVERYTHING IS OFFERED TO ALLAH. 

[newcoastal307]

Software To Open Ssl Files On My Mac

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Software To Open Ssl Files On My Mac Computer

File eraser Mac utility to wipe selected files, folders or data from the entire hard drive on Mac OSX. The software contains powerful wiping algorithms in it and ensures permanent erasing of data, beyond the scope of data recovery. Wipes Hard Drive – This Mac hard disk eraser software can help you wipe your entire Mac hard drive in a single step. The latest support files include the Catalina-compatible Remote app. Download the latest support file.zip from your SSL account My Products tab. On your Mac, remove the existing version of Remote from the Applications folder before dragging the new Remote into the Applications folder. Open Remote and verify you have the latest version or higher. It works perfectly and I didn’t run into a single issue. I was able to copy DMG files to my Windows PC and EXE files over to my Mac without any issue. If you open the MacDrive app, you’ll see the main screen lists out the Mac drives the program has recognized already for you.

Dec 29, 2004  Way back in the day I used to use Money 2.0. Quicken 2005 reminds me so much of that old program. It even looks similar. I tried iBank but it did not seem sophisticated enough. I still don't know what a good money program is. The interface of Quicken seems too similar to MS products for the Mac. May 17, 2020  Personal finance software and apps can help you master the basics, become more efficient at managing your money, and even help you discover ways to meet your long-term financial goals. Choosing the best personal finance software depends on your current financial needs. Some personal finance software can help you master budgeting and expense tracking, while others can help. This list outlines the best free personal finance software for managing money on your Mac or PC, with links to free downloads and software reviews. Buddi is an open-source budget software that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems and has been translated into multiple languages. Buddi can encrypt financial data with a password, and it's. https://newcoastal307.tumblr.com/post/653608155257978880/mac-os-x-money-management-software.

Canon PIXMA MG3500 Printer series Full Driver & Software Package download for Microsoft Windows 32/64bit and MacOS X Operating Systems. Canon printer driver is an application software program that works on a computer to communicate with a printer. Features Full-photolithography Inkjet Nozzle Engineering (FINE) with a patented print head firing ink droplets as small as 2pl. Print documents and web pages with fast speeds of approx. 9.9 images per minute (ipm) for black and 5.7 images per minutes (ipm) for color. Conveniently load the front of your PIXMA printer with genuine Canon FINE ink cartridges and paper at the front of the printer. Canon mg3500 software download for mac.

About the App

App name: openssl

App description: OpenSSL SSL/TLS cryptography library

App website: https://openssl.org

Install the App

Press Command+Space and type Terminal and press enter/return key.

Run in Terminal app: ruby -e '$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)' < /dev/null 2> /dev/null and press enter/return key. If the screen prompts you to enter a password, please enter your Mac's user password to continue. When you type the password, it won't be displayed on screen, but the system would accept it. So just type your password and press ENTER/RETURN key. Then wait for the command to finish.

Run: brew install openssl

Done! Role playing apps for mac. You can now use openssl.

Similar Software for Mac

Even though OS X can read Windows formatted hard drives just fine, the opposite is still not true, even with Windows 10. Granted, OS X can’t write to a Windows formatted disk, but at least it can read the contents of the drive and you can copy the data to your Mac computer.

Windows has absolutely no support for the Mac hard disk file format (HFS+). This means that if you connect a Mac formatted drive to Windows, you’ll simply get a blank drive letter and a message asking to format the disk.

Software To Open Ssl Files On My Mac Download

If you click Cancel, you’ll just get a message stating that the volume does not contain a recognized file system.

I’ve already written about how, if your external USB drive is not recognized by Windows, you might have to use the exFAT file format, which both Windows and Mac support, however, this requires formatting the drive and copying all the data back on.

Software To Open Ssl Files On My Mac Pro

Another solution is to enable file sharing on your Mac and access files from Windows that way, but this requires a decent amount of setup. So are there any other options? Well, thankfully yes. If you use Macs and PCs heavily in your setup, it might be worth spending some money on a program called MacDrive.

MacDrive

MacDrive is a great program that allows you to use Mac formatted disks on your Windows PC like a normal drive. Using the program, you can read and write data to HFS+ drives just like a normal Windows formatted drive.

You can then disconnect the drive from Windows, plug it into your Mac and access everything normally. If you find yourself having to copy data back and forth between Macs and PCs fairly often, this program is a great investment.

Software To Open Ssl Files On My Mac Free

The Standard version is $49 and the Pro version is $69. You can see the difference between the two versions here. For me, the Standard version was more than enough. If you need to mount Mac formatted RAID sets on your PC or create ISO Mac images in Windows, then the Pro version will be necessary.

You can try out the program using the five-day free trial. Once you install it, you’ll have to restart your Windows PC. Once you log back into Windows, everything should automatically be good to go. If you connect a Mac formatted disk to your computer, it’ll instantly show up in Explorer with a little Apple icon on it.

If you double-click on the drive, it will open just like a normal Windows drive. If there is any file that is Mac-specific, it will also show an apple icon next to it.

Now you can copy data from the Mac formatted drive to your Windows PC and vice versa. It works perfectly and I didn’t run into a single issue. I was able to copy DMG files to my Windows PC and EXE files over to my Mac without any issue.

If you open the MacDrive app, you’ll see the main screen lists out the Mac drives the program has recognized already for you.

Click on the drive and you’ll get some options like opening the drive, removing it, getting a size breakdown and checking for errors.

I really like the fact that Disk Aware is part of this program because it allows you to quickly see what is taking up the most space on your hard drive, just like TreeSize does for Windows.

MacDrive also has other tools, which you can see across the top: Create, Repair, Burn, etc. Using Repair, you can connect a Mac drive to your Windows PC and fix it so that the data can be accessed. Best mp3 players for itunes. This is a great tool if you are a PC technician and someone brings you a Mac formatted hard drive that is corrupt or unreadable by OS X. You can use Mac Drive to try and repair it and access the data right on your PC.

Using the Create tab, you can create, delete or format partitions on a Mac disk. The Burn tab allows you to burn a CD/DVD for your Mac.

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Overall, it’s an excellent program that is well worth the cost if you work with both operating systems on a regular basis. There is no other program out there that lets you access Mac files on a PC as easily and seamlessly as MacDrive. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!

[lo-and-behold-ocelittle]

“Horror Vacui” or the fear of the blank page [for amateur artists]

[A really long post]

If you fit this description, this post is for you:

I’m a hobby artist/writer/creator with a broad interest and I don’t have enough to time to practice any of my interests beyond the amateur level. Creating is something I commit to about 10 to 15 times a year - when I need help, I don’t want to take an online course, just give it to me quick and dirty and I’ll see to the turnover.

This post contains:

mandatory motivation delineation

step-by-step drawing guide for amateur artists by an amateur artist

all reference pictures for the above

tracing - a technique shunned by my Grade 8 art teacher and the last time I attended art class

cross-hatching and contours

a tiny bit of perspective

a bit of shading

tools

tips for shaky hands

Why this post, when the internet has countless of tips to overcoming writers’/artists’/creators’ block already? 

I mean, Google churns out some 20 million search results in under 0.55 seconds! That’s like 10 search results you are might look at tops - 20 if you’re desperate enough to go to page 2 - and realize most of the tips a lot of work, not worth the trouble, things you’ve tried before, or too abstract to be applicable to the thing.

One thing most of these guides get right: getting started is the most crippling step of the creative process.

The most common advice to overcoming your block - so I have read countless times - is establishing a routine until you “instinctively” know how to achieve your goal. Are they wrong? No, definitely not. Is it good advice though? Depends; at least not for me - and if you’ve read this far, then not for you either.

What are my other options?

Planning. And being aware of all the tools at your disposal. I documented the process of this drawing as an example. This process has limited applicability to paintings.

You will need:

an idea

drawing utensils

paper (some scraps to start with)

patience

Step 1: Rough Sketching

Take scrap paper. Unless your documenting this (hi, mom) you’ll throw this away asap. Get down the rough shape. This may a while and will involve you questioning your sanity - barge through the doubt, don’t erase what you’ve made, use the best parts and try again.

Example:

I would like to draw a cat. I take a pencil and...

Lol, no. Cats are not pizza with ears.

 Let’s try that again. Maybe a reference picture will help.

Much better. Start with some crude shapes but sketch out the entire body with shapes like they do in some drawing guides - only draw what you need. In this case about two and a half ovals are enough. Now make a better copy beside that initial sketch - I hate doing them on top of the first because that gets messy real quick. Draw some helping lines from the reference image. Don’t bother too much with proportions or posture, or going big; all these sketches are about 6 by 4 cm. 

I want to draw a companion for this steampunk cat, about the same shape and posture with a head tilted one way and the torso another. She’ll need a proper headdress too - I went through three options visually and added some notes for other ideas I had in case neither of these worked out.

Step 2: Break it down

Break down the drawing into smaller bits and pieces and look up reference images if you need them. 

I broke down my sketch into:

Head/Face

Torso/Clothes

Hat

Fan

The head

I want my cat to look slightly to the left and this is what I found online:

Not quite

Almost

Perfect

The torso

I found this image, which contained most of the parts I needed. I didn’t like the hat, head, fan, and all the mice scampering about ‘er so I just took the torso - the corset is really neat. Unfortunately, her posture is not quite what I need so that will be the biggest challenge for this body part.

The hat

I considered a few options such as this 1920s flapper’s headpiece and a couple of Victorian hats before settling on this one.

The fan

I own two so no reference image necessary.

You can keep a couple of tabs (or books, if you have some at hand) open in case you change your mind while drafting.

Step 3: Fine Sketching

This is the hardest part but if you’ve made it this far, you might as well go all the way, right? Understand how your brain operates and beat it at its own mind-game: create a sunk-cost-fallacy and drive yourself forward.

There three ways to get your fine sketch onto paper:

Cool, if you can pull it off go for it, usually takes the longest if you lack the practice (like I do)

Generally a good approach, especially when scaling up

Use a ruler to measure and plot key points of your outline

Print it and hold it against a window. 

If it’s dark outside unhinge that glass cabinet door, duct tape it between two tables and put a lamp beneath. 

Pull it up on your screen and adjust your zoom. Be careful with the pressure of your pen!

Use sticky tape to prevent it from slipping

(Below) Using a reference grid (the dots) on a canvas for another project.

(Below) Tracing the head. Slight rotation of the page to achieve the desired orientation of the head.

I also traced the torso and the head first. Then I added some rough shapes for the arms and the fan - this was also when I realized I can use the fan to hide parts of the face I don’t want to draw. Everything ended up a little twisted and short so I dashed lines where I want these limbs to go. The fabric of the corset also needs to be pulled up on the right and pushed down on the left, hence the arrow there. The neck is way too long too. Add some more notes of things you want to change - like adding a fuck-ton of flowers to the hat.

To judge whether the proportions make sense take a look at yourself in the mirror or ask random people in the hallway to pose for you - afterwards exchange a friendly, confused smile and move on.

(Below) First fine draft after about 5 hours of intermittent work - just take breaks when you’re bored, but leave it prominently lying in your way so you don’t forget about it. I reconstructed the arms’ outlines and added some bold comments.

Once you have everything you need, clean up your first draft as much as possible by erasing help lines and drawing strong borders. Next, open something bright on your screen (or whatever your tracing equipment happens to be), tape a blank paper to your first sketch and take down all the details you want to keep. You can move the paper around to shorten or elongate distances.

Add borders if you want to frame the drawing later.

Now change all the things you don’t like. I changed the cat lady’s hat to be less round because I didn’t want her to wear a wide-brimmed bowler and added a fuck-ton of flowers and - for good measure - a feather. If you can’t draw the feather flicking back up like me, hide it behind the brim of the hat.

Think about any fur you want interacting with the fabric (hat or collar). I added one curl to flow down the left side of her collar - didn’t really work out but A for effort.

Add any major decorative elements like the fish on her corset or the patterns on her fan.

Add major textures like the lines on the brim of her straw hat. The dotted texture on her sleeve was way too fine and didn’t carry over to the next tracing. The same goes for the shading from the last draft, which didn’t carry over well and I ended up bundling all the fur together in larger bundles.

Save the puffy shoulders for last (because I had no idea what to do there and eventually opted for “brains”).

(Below) About 90 minutes on the face to compartmentalize all strands of fur into proper bundles. Note six key bushels that define her expression: on both side of her nose, her “eyebrows” and the trailing of her eyes. Look up cartoon cats for help. 2 hours on her torso and another hour on her shoulders.

Clean it up again and judge your work. If you are still unhappy with the positioning, do another tracing. Don’t forget to embolden all important features

Step 4: Inking the outline!

You’re patience is paying off! Next up is inking! Inking is fun! 

Oh shit-

Don’t ink your final draft!

Step 4a: Screw up

I never get my inking right on the first try and it’s hard to hide mistakes you made with ink. I ran my draft through the photocopier once (because I didn’t want to trace it) so my mistake here wasn’t that big a deal - I lost five minutes and this paper went into the my scrap tray. Always start inking the most difficult part so you don’t regret screwing up after being almost done.

At this point I realized I couldn’t erase the pencil lines anymore and went back to tracing paper on paper on screen. Be aware of the ink you use and how thick your paper is or you might end up leaving marks on the draft below.

(Below) The pattern on her brow is off in two places.

Step 4b: Finish inking the outline

As before focus on borders and major textures; about now you’ll notice which parts of your draft are to fine to trace well and which ones need some extra weight. Drop any lines you don’t like.

By now you probably have a couple of pages with sketches and bad inkings lying around - make sure you label them or find some other method to remove them from your line of work (like throwing them in the bin).

(Below) About 45 minutes, 5 of which were spent on the feather, 5 on the flowers, 10 on the fan, 10 on the face, and 15 on the torso including arms.

At this point you could scan and stick it into a colouring book.

Step 5: Textures!

This is the best part. Texturing a drawing is so satisfying it makes up for all the hardship up to this point.

Make a couple of copies this time to practice your texturing. Afterwards, feel free to continue the page you traced or run it through the photocopier once again.

(Below) Two versions with different types of shading.

It’s very easy to get carried away when shading; always go for a little less than you think you need. You can always add more later, but you can’t take it away. 

Fur

Use lines that flow parallel to the outlines you’ve already drawn. Make the strands flow apart at the beginning and back together at the end. Try to keep the numbers of strands that begin and end constant. This will result in a larger spacing and thus a lighter centre of your bushel.

I like shading an entire area, in this case the entire head uniformly but very lightly, then I start thinking about accents and where light could come from. Wherever fur bundles together (usually at the end of a bushel) I add some more of the same texture to make it darker. You can lift some of the shading from your reference pictures and just copy it. But don’t limit yourself to what your references provide.

To be honest, I only roughly take notice of where I place my imaginary source of light and just emphasize parts of a bushel that were darker to begin with. Usually turns out okay.

Fabric

Generally, keep your texturing parallel, perpendicular or at a fixed angle to the next leading edge. The lines don’t have to be - and most of the time shouldn’t be - straight. Allow them to trace out wrinkles in your fabric or reinforce the fabric’s rigidity by copying the leading edge at short intervals.

The same formula of repeat the leading edge applies to other parts of the clothing - just vary the line separation and how strictly you follow the leading edges.

In other places lines placed at constant angles make a good texture.

Know your tools: my pens stop drawing at an angle of about 30-45° and drawing lines at this angle will make them lighter and discontinuous. This is a good approach to lightly shading a large area like most of the corset.

Cross-hatching gives the sleeve a wrinkle and two light-spots. Two layers at roughly 70-90° gives a good hatch, only add a third layer if you need it really dark - careful: this will make any contours established with two layers disappear.

Shadows

Some places just ought to be darker though, like the spot I marked behind the ear or below the chin. This gives your drawing some depth. Just reiterate the same local texture over and over again until it’s dark enough.

Without my annoying comments, the final result will look like this:

Is it perfect? Fuck no. Is it pretty good? Aye, meets my standards.

By the way, this is what we started with:

Tips for shaky hands

Sugar, caffeine, medical condition? Hands come in all degrees of shaky but don’t let that discourage you. Here’s how I approach the most important elements in my art.

Long lines

Long lines are hard to draw, if you don’t have practice sliding your hand across the page. I can do it sometimes but not reliably. Instead I place my wrist firmly on the page and draw the part of the line that is within my mobile range. The more of my wrist rests on the page, the less I shake. Then I lift my pen and move on to the next bit - sounds trivial?

Wrong.

Whenever you start or end a line you go from rest to drawing speed or vice versa. During these moments the constant flow of ink is spread over a shorter distance, resulting in a thicker line. Appending a new segment causes a brief overlap and results in a blotch, especially when you need longer than an instant to correctly put down your pen.

Coming in at an angle prevents the ink from flowing prematurely and gives you more control of your line.

Curved lines

Place your wrist on the inside of the curve (segment) - drawing towards yourself is easier than away. Rotate the page to make it happen or rotate yourself if the page is stationary (like a large canvas). Additionally, I like to keep my fingers stiff and only rotate around my wrist.

Textures

For very fine textures I keep the tip of my pen above the page and start repeating the pattern. About two thirds of the strokes will go into thin air but the shaking will make one third hit the page - a statistical approach to texturing.

Conclusion

My longest post so far - I starting making this almost 8 hours ago. A blank page is a scary thing, so many possibilities, so many ways to screw up. The most important advice to take from this post is plan, save, trace, repeat. You don’t have to be ashamed for tracing art; just don’t parade an exact copy as your own work and always keep your references at hand.

Why does this feel like academic writing 101...

I invite anyone to contribute their own quick and dirty drawing tips for amateurs to this post. DM me, if you have any questions or would like to use this a last-minute-Christmas gift - I’ll send you a free high-res. I don’t judge, not this year nor any other.

Best, Ocelittle