#i quite enjoy this design i tried doodling it a while ago i may try again

[professionally-unprofessional]

Shouto's bashful crush/interest being caught shifting behind the school (after he went to give her sketchbook she dropped) into his fuzzy black furry friend that keeps him company on weekends (cat shifting quirked reader) confusion & embarrassment clouds his mind for he has told that fuzzball many secrets. confrontation? maybe. thinking about the embarrassing things she did to make him feel better? (playing with a Cheerio dropped on the floor) definitely.

Oh geezums this ended up being really long. OOPS. I’m so sorry for the wait with a bunch of requests. I’ve been trying to make more time for fic writing and somehow managed it. Then I got halfway through this one and got stuck with a specific idea I wanted to do that I just couldn’t write and it didn’t fit and ahhh xD but I’m alive. Sorta. I’m trying my best to get back into writing. Also this is super long and I’m really tired. I didn’t quite finish my final proofread so there might be a couple of mistakes in here. Please ignore them if they’re there.

Anyyyywayy I hope you enjoy. I’m finally getting back into requests so I hope more should follow soon.

Ah, this was the life. You smiled and continued to doodle in your sketchbook. This was the best time to sketch. You were in some kind of creative spree which meant that - soon enough - a creative block would kick you into an abyss where inspiration did not dare to dwell. It was fine though. Hatsume would drag you out again with her endless chatter focused around her babies.

You heard a loud bang and smiled lightly, knowing that the pink-haired girl was likely in the design studio right now. The spotlight focused on the heroes was merely blinding to you. A role like that demanded too much attention. Even less popular heroes sometimes got dragged into the light. Despite the path of the hero not suiting you, you still wanted to make yourself useful to the hero society in some way and what better way for a tinkerer to do so than to make support items and hero costumes?

As your latest creation began to take shape on the paper, you wondered if you should go and save Hatsume from forgetting to eat lunch. Again. Despite the large personality differences between the two of you, your duo managed to function reasonably well. It seemed that Hatsume was always happy to enthuse about her ‘babies’ and, since you tended to prefer to be quiet and listen, it worked out well for both parties. She was a fountain of inspiration and you were a companion.

A win-win situation.

However, it wasn’t the pink-haired inventor alone inspiring you to live up to the school’s motto. Your other big sources were the two first-year hero classes. As much as you knew Monoma would hate to hear it, class 1-A enthused your creative mind more than 1-B. It wasn’t your fault that their class just had so many heroes with such interesting quirks and personalities.

Deciding to actually move, you headed back inside to the support course workshops and found your friend with a soot-covered face and a determined grin. Of course. With a small wave, you called out for her and she immediately turned around, greeting you warmly. Ignoring her rambling about her latest failed experiment, you pulled her out of there and into the lunch hall to grab something to eat. Settling down, you noticed that lunch was already halfway through. Oh well. You’d spent it in a way you enjoyed.

You noticed a familiar group of heads nearby as you took in the large dining hall. Looking over to them, you noticed a pair of dual coloured eyes lowering back to the meal in front of the individual. He was sat at a table with the green haired boy who needed something done about his arms and the gravity girl who had the big pink boots on her outfit. Oh, and there was the guy who had the white suit like Ingenium. 

You smiled as you watched the bi-coloured boy for a moment. If memory served correctly, his name was Todoroki. He’d come to you a couple of times to help with tweaks to the temperature sensors in the vest on his hero costume.

Since he’d started using his quirk for both fire and ice after the sports festival, he’d needed small adjustments to the sensitivity of the heating and cooling elements in his jacket. You’d been overjoyed when Power Loader - Maijima-sensei - had assigned you to it. Apparently you were much better at doing live work than Hatsume. On two accounts; you were less likely to cause injury and you didn’t make students uncomfortable by touching them all over to determine if they were as muscular as they seemed.

Todoroki was a pleasure to work with; he gave instructions and feedback perfectly when you needed it. Not only that, but he was patient and polite with you. Smiling to yourself, you wondered if he may need anything else again soon.

Realising that you probably looked like a loon smiling to yourself like that, you quickly shook your head and cleared it. You were just thankful that your companion was still so deep in thought about how she could improve her work that she hadn’t noticed your little daze. You shifted a little in your seat and debated on how you’d spend the evening after school.

A yawn left the bi-coloured boy as he headed back from meeting his mother. It was later than he’d thought. He kept walking and soon came to see a familiar black bundle of fluff on a bench outside a coffee shop. As he approached, he paused and noticed that the little creature wasn’t asleep but merely curled up. Raising its head, the cat unfurled itself and stretched luxuriously as a light breeze ruffled its fur.

He extended a hand in greeting and waited. Once a soft muzzle had rubbed against his fingers in a feline hello, Todoroki stroked the small one’s head and was given a quiet purr in response. His gaze followed the cat as it hopped up onto the back of the bench and then looked to be making a calculation for a jump. He remained still as the feline soared and landed on his shoulder lightly.

Todoroki could remember the first time it had tried that. It had been such an epic fail that it’d pulled a small chuckle from him before he’d softly scooped up the fuzzball and put it where it desired. For the rest of the evening the cat had seemed almost indignant, puffing up and lashing its tail slightly… at least until it was given a nice scratch behind the ears and calmed down. He began walking back towards home and heard a small, uncomfortable mew as a spot of water assaulted his nose.

The forecast hadn’t predicted rain for today. He picked up his pace and headed for home. Endeavour was away with work this weekend in another city so at least it would be quiet in the house. Having a bit of company wouldn’t hurt and his companion always seemed to like curling up on the tatami flooring. The soft rumbling of a lazy purr was rather comforting in the silence of the house. There was either that, or the black bundle of fur would bat something around the floor of his room while he worked. He’d dropped a small bit of cereal before and had gone to retrieve it only to find the cheerio halfway across the room with playful paws spurring it on.

As he settled down, the cat descended from his shoulder and began rubbing its head against his side. Smiling, he stroked  their soft fur. It was soothing to some extent and he didn’t feel so bad whenever he had this friend by his side. The companionship was fine and the more he had the cat around, the more he found he enjoyed and appreciated the quiet comfort. 

Sometimes animals were far better company than humans.

He sighed softly and looked down at the papers he’d taken from his backpack. Homework. Fine. After a while, he looked up and realised that a pair of eyes had been watching him. For a moment, he thought the feline’s face held an expression of concern. It must’ve been his imagination, but sometimes the bundle of fur felt almost… human.

Smiling wryly, he patted the small head as though in reassurance that everything was fine. He was alright. As the head tilted with what felt like a slight frown, he blinked and unloaded a little. It was nice to be able to talk to something and even better that they couldn’t speak back and pull him to pieces. He didn’t want to be told that all of his thoughts were wrong and that he shouldn’t be concerned with some of the situations that plagued him.

Just because he was a hero-in-training didn’t mean that the rest of the usual teenage problems didn’t apply to him at all.

It was easy to forget that everyone in their class- no their entire year… they were all still children, really.

After a while, he tilted his head back and found that your face came to mind. Why was he thinking of you now? You’d helped him out a few weeks ago with his hero costume and hadn’t minded when he’d been finicky about how finely-tuned the temperature-sensitive vest was. You’d been so happy to help with such quiet cheerfulness that he’d found that the experience rather pleasant rather than long and draining.

Even if you were just another student in another course, he recalled your name. Maybe you’d forgotten all about him, but he couldn’t get your quiet patience and positivity out of his head. Even when the vest had decided it didn’t want to adjust, you’d kept going. Your tiny smile hadn’t even wavered.

He wished that he too could face everything with such indifference to challenges.

There was a muffled bump and Todoroki found the fluff-ball had tipped itself over batting a loose pencil around on the table. When the pencil fell off, a paw reached down and tried to touch it, only for the figure to slip off the table and tumble down. He smiled and the feline face that met his seemed more bright than before. Could this cat really understand him?

“Are you trying to cheer me up?” He questioned blankly and received a small nuzzle to his outstretched hand as a response accompanied by a soft mew.

“Hey… there’s someone I like. Do you think she’d like me back?” At this, the form paused and looked up at him with big, warm eyes. After a moment, a fluffy belly was exposed to him and he fulfilled the request and earned a quiet purr. Perhaps if a feline could be so comfortable around him, so could his crush. The thought warmed him and he uttered a soft thanks to the cat, receiving a number of headbuts and purrs as a result.

A cat for a councillor. Who would’ve thought?

You smiled happily to yourself as you left the UA campus the next week. The weekend had been a nice break. Time to get back to work. Hatsume had conjured up yet another baby but this one needed some more fine tuning before it could be set loose on human beings.

As her friend, you’d helped. You were better at the tiny, extremely boring and equally frustrating adjustments that were required before any piece was fully finished. Half of Hatsume’s unfinished work was because she’d almost be done and then another amazing idea would sweep her away into a frenzy of creation. Who could blame her?

No matter how hard you worked, thoughts of a particular student plagued you. Despite your mind being flooded with different thoughts, you continued onwards. The hours of the school day ticked by and after lunch you were given a new assignment. Designing work would come first. Personal woes could wait.

After an hour and a half of sitting with no inspiration or ideas, you huffed and closed your sketchbook. Hatsume had gone into her hyper-focus mode where she went quiet and worked really hard. That inventive glow never left her face. Yet still you didn’t seem to be able to work. The temptation to gently hit your face against the table was overpowering.

Nothing. No ideas. Useless, empty brain!

Wow. Washed up as a first year… So sad.

After another half hour of fruitless struggling to come up with anything half decent, you’d had enough. With your face resting on the desk, you let out a small, frustrated huff. A mop of pink hair moved in the corner of your eyes and you felt those quirk-filled eyes staring directly at you. A blink. Another. The gaze shifted back to the item in her hands.

You couldn’t blame her for not saying anything. Not only did she have her own work, but you doubted that she’d have anything useful to say and she probably knew that too. From what you’d seen, either Hatsume didn’t understand how normal people worked or simply didn’t care to try and work with that. 

You still hadn’t figured out which yet.

Sitting back up, you had a look at the now filthy page. There were tiny indents from the previous sketches that you’d erased and a couple of extremely rough sketches on paper around your workbench. Pencil met paper again, sketching lines and curves but everything was too stiff and unimaginative along with the fact that it didn’t fit your brief and just—

No. This wasn’t your day. As you picked up the eraser to get rid of your latest set of failures, you found a piece of familiar yellow headgear beside your bench. “Are all the ideas feeling terrible?”

A small nod was all you could manage with the frustration churning inside.

Your short teacher took a glance towards the clock at the back of the classroom. Half an hour to go. This designing didn’t need to be finished today but you still needed to have something to work from in the next lesson. You nervously waited to hear what solution or punishment you’d get only to receive a sigh from Power Loader.

“Why don’t you get some air from the studio? There’s only another half hour. Just don’t leave campus early.”

You nodded, knowing what he was getting at. Frustration would lead to more frustration and it would only amount to a mental block, generating more irritation. The spiral of unproductively would get worse and more self-destructive until it became unbearable. Calming down was the best option. Agreeing, you packed up your things as the headgear and ginger hair disappeared further into the classroom.

As you threw your things back into your bag, you wondered where to go. One of the windowsills in the large corridors would be good. It was raining outside and you always felt worse when the weather was bad. Perhaps it was a side effect of your quirk. Placing the sketchbook down against the wall as you would rather it didn’t get crushed in your bag, you pulled out some headphones and decided to cool off with some good music.

Your mind raced back to the previous night. You’d been enjoying your quirk as you usually did… with Todoroki. Despite what he’d said, you smiled. It was fine if he liked someone else. You allowed yourself to wonder if it could be you that he liked. Some sort of storybook cliché where he’d actually confessed to his love but didn’t know it. Nah. That couldn’t be it. Not when there were people like the ginger-haired girl with the big hands and the black-haired girl with the creation quirk in his year.

They were amazing. They were upcoming heroes. You were just someone cheering everyone on from the sidelines; a cheer which couldn’t even be heard. As much as you took pride in your skills, you knew that you’d forever be a world apart from heroes. You were fine with that. You didn’t want the popularity or fame. So you would watch as your gear assisted them and you would smile and feel that you’d at least done something worthwhile.

Even when you wondered if the students you’d helped remembered your name.

Why would they? You were just another gear-head in a support course classroom. You weren’t even outstanding like Hatsume. You smile widened and you felt the facade beginning to crack. You had nothing to complain about seeing as you wanted to melt into the background. Gosh, being a cat was so much easier. All you had to do was be cute and the world would come to you. Well, give or take the odd shady stranger that looked as though they might try and kick you. 

There was always the option of confessing, but what would the point in that be? Brutal rejection happened to be well… brutal. Not exactly a desirable experience you wished to go through. So you’d continue to shove down a blush when he came into the design studio. You’d continue to feel a strange warmth in your chest when you heard about his successes in his class from other students.

You’d continue to be unable to look him in the eye as a human but do so as a cat.

Todoroki blinked as he noticed something against a windowsill in one of the corridors. A black notebook? Despite the fact that merely leaving it be would be the best and easiest option, he picked up the item and looked it over. There was something strangely familiar about the object but he couldn’t place where he’d seen it before.

It was none of his business, but he wondered if there would be a name in the front. Opening it, a scrawl of designs met his eyes. No name, but the ideas were proof enough of who it belonged to. For some reason, he couldn’t help but quickly glance through. The neat final designs that had been put together with such care and attention were beautiful. However, it was the messy rough sketches that he preferred. Namely, the personality that shone through in each and every one.

This was important to you. It was always beside you. Wherever you went, this went. It was always beside you when he saw you in the design studio, or in your hand when you wandered through the lunch hall with Hatsume.

Todoroki remembered that he’d seen you walking in the opposite direction only a few moments ago. You usually hung around in your classroom for a few moments after school finished since he’d seen you there when he’d gone to request one of the capsules on his belt be replenished after a training session.

Trying to think of which way you’d have gone if you were leaving school in that direction, he walked off. If he couldn’t find you now, he’d go back to your workbench and leave it there.

He hurried and caught sight of the back of your head turning a corner. How lucky. You exited the school from a back entrance and the bi-colored boy wondered why you’d leave this way. Oh well. Each and every one to their own, right?

He caught the door before it latched shut and found you tucking your bag behind a large bin. As he was about to call out, there was a flash. Standing before him, no taller than his shins was his black fluffy friend.

Surprise and confusion instantly rose to the surface. Wait, that was you? Or wasn’t it? Well, there were probably other black cats in the city, not just your other form, right? Why hadn’t he asked what your quirk had been when he’d been with you getting adjustments? Why hadn’t he shown more of an interest and figured this out—Wait.

He’d confessed. The realisation of everything you knew came crashing down upon him and he almost swayed. You knew everything: his mother and his father along with his scar, his frustration, his pain, his fears… everything.

You knew… everything.

A sudden feeling of vulnerability crashed into him. You had a huge wealth of knowledge on him. Blackmailing him would become child’s-play to you if you really tried.

Then something else came to mind. The cheerio— you’d played with it and always done something silly as a cat to try and get him to laugh. Even when he’d almost frozen his room solid in an emotional outburst similar to what had happened with Sero at the sports festival… you’d still sat on the table when you could have fled through the open window. You had hopped onto his lap and nuzzled your head against his hand.

All the times when you’d brought him a gift while he was doing homework sprung to mind. You’d offered him erasers or pens by batting them across the table. Other days when he was feeling a bit blue you’d move something across the table and away from him, making him chase you around the room a couple of times to get it back.

He’d never deigned to freeze you. Freezing an animal was just cruel, even if he could melt it afterwards.

Not to mention that your little bean paws happened to be so desperately soft. Damaging them with ice would be a tragedy. For both parties involved.

He fought down the urge to turn red at the realisation that you’d been present when he’d changed. Wait, you’d always either left the room quickly or gone out of sight. Had you been saving his modesty?

Coming back to his senses, he realised that his breath was crystallising in front of him and frost was creeping up his arm. There had been one night where the rain had been thrashing down outside and you’d been shivering in the cold. He’d let you curl up beside him atop the futon. When your shivering didn’t stop, he’d put his hand over you and used his quirk just enough to keep your form warm.

You wouldn’t do something with the information. You weren’t the type.

But what about how you saw him? You’d never acted differently around him. What did that mean?

Either way, you were gone for now and he was still holding your sketchbook. Glancing down at your bag, he slipped the sketchbook carefully into a position where it wouldn’t get wet if it rained nor damaged should the bins be moved. Once it was safe, he stood and left.

You couldn’t focus. Not at all. Someone had put your sketchbook back into your bag but how had they known where your bag was? Who would’ve known that the sketchbook belonged to you, anyway? There was no name in it, you remembered that whenever you thought you’d lost it.

So who had recognised your drawing and followed you outside? There wasn’t anyone who knew about your little evening adventures. Some part of you wondered what was so alarming. Your quirk was cat-shifting. No big deal.

The thing that was alarming was the fact that you had heightened senses as a cat. Which also meant a greater sense of smell. You’d caught a whiff of Todoroki on your bag before you’d shifted back and disregarded it. Until you’d noticed the notebook.

Did he know? Had he witnessed the shift or just recognised your bag? Either way you weren’t exactly happy to contemplate what you’d do with this knowledge. You weren’t sure what he’d do with it either. Oh, how had you gotten yourself into this mess?

Huffing softly, you slumped further and buried your face in your arms. Nothing was going right today. You just couldn’t focus. You’d try and then your mind would bring Todoroki up and you’d have a whole inner argument about how this was going to ruin everything but that it was also going to be fine.

“(Y/N)?”

You nearly jumped out of your skin as your name was called. “Y-yes?!” You blushed at your own flustered response and whipped your head up to see whoever it was that needed your assistance. “Todoroki. Um, how can I help you?”

You gaze hit the desk and remained there as he merely stared down at you. With a jolt, you realised that only you and Hatsume were left in the studio out of all the support students. When had the day ended?

“I just wanted to ask if you could note down for one of the capsules of disinfectant to be refilled.” You blinked. Slowly. Nothing he said was registering. “The capsules on the belt of my hero costume.”

At his clarification you nodded and tried to tell him that you’d do it, but the words died in your throat and you were left just sat there. Why wasn’t your voice working? This was the worst. Biting down on the warmth that was rising to your cheeks, you shook your head and gave a firm nod. Professionalism. You could do this!

“That’s fine. I’ll leave a note for Power Loader. It’ll be done before your next training exercise.”

“Thank you.”

He was about to leave. For some reason, you didn’t want him to go. Maybe you were ill today. There must have been a reason that you were doing so badly today. Even if you had a bad time, you never messed up in every aspect of life all at once. 

“Uh, how are the adjustments in the heat sensors doing? Is the sensitivity better than before?”

He paused from turning away and politely explained that it had been better. Somehow, you managed to smile and tell him that you were glad it helped.

This was awkward. You should really let him go. Thanking him for stopping by and letting the support course know about the problem, you threw your bag over your shoulder. As you went to pick up your sketchbook from the table, you noticed Todoroki’s gaze lingering on it.

He didn’t attempt to comment on it.

You were leading the way to the door when Hatsume’s cry of alarm reached you. Well, it was more a cry of “Baby!” Either way, it functioned the same as an alarm call. You turned to see what the issue was and were met with a metallic arm shooting towards your face.

You weren’t entirely sure what happened in that moment. Instinct took over.

One moment you were staring at it and the world felt like it’d frozen. The next, you were opening your eyes a mere few inches from the floor with cold hitting your sides. Shaking your head to clear the sudden fuzziness, you looked around. Your bag was just behind you and was bigger than you were. Brilliant. Shifting right in front of him had been at the top of the things you wanted to avoid. Guess there was no running from it now. No chance of hiding this anymore.

Todoroki was looking down at you with his usual poker-faced expression. Well, that solved the mystery of who had put your sketchbook in your bag and who might have seen you shift. It took a few moments for you to realise what it meant. However, you had other things to worry about at this moment in time. Transforming back into a human being would be a good start.

Focusing on your quirk, you let the familiar image of yourself fill your mind. Your hair, eyes, form and all the little details came back and when you opened your eyes again you were seeing the world from the comforting height of a teenager. Fantastic. One issue down and probably many more to go.

You looked at Todoroki and gave him a shy shrug. For some reason, it was all you could think of to offer. There was a silent apology in that shrug but he merely rose a hand to the wall of ice and melted it.“We need to talk.” Despite being used to the lack of emotion in his voice, it had never been so harsh when he’d spoken to you as a cat. It hadn’t been quite as chilly when he’d spoken to you as a support course student.

“Yeah.” You managed out.

He turned and walked out of the classroom. You picked up your bag and followed him, head hung low. You’d blown it. Well and truly blown it. Your little times of happiness beside him as a feline were over.

You’d both left the school and turned into a small side alley just outside the school when he stopped.

He opened his mouth to speak but you knew you had to say something first. You couldn’t take this. Despite the embarrassment and shame coursing through you at being found out like this… You could do it. You’d go first.

“Before you say anything,” you took a small breath and managed to raise your gaze to meet his. Bashful, perhaps, but not weak-willed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t mean to cause any discomfort, I just enjoyed being in your company. I should have told you or stopped—”

“You enjoyed those evenings?”

You nodded. As much as a part of you hated the attention, you would stand here. You wouldn’t back down. You weren’t a coward. It didn’t matter that you didn’t want to shine brightly and draw attention like the hero course students and Hatsume. You could still muster the courage to say what you wanted to say now.

When push came to shove, you could do it.

“I did. I’m not sure why, but I really did like being there. It was rude of me to hear about what’s going on in your family. That was personal, but I couldn’t just run away or block it out. I didn’t know what to do other than listen.” You shifted slightly, feeling more and more uncomfortable as Todoroki’s gaze remained on you. “I promise I won’t say a word about it to anyone, so don’t worry about that.”

“Why did you come back so many times. It must have been boring after a while.”

You took a moment to collect your thoughts. You’d gotten this far, so you might as well go the whole way. Why was he asking so many questions? It didn’t matter. This was it. You were ready for rejection but at least you’d have it out. You could combat this shyness if you wanted.

“I liked your company. I enjoy being around you and well, I didn’t like seeing you sad. Cheering you up is just like helping the hero course out in another way.”

Inwardly cheering at how flat you’d managed to keep your face for that small confession, you went to move past him. There was no need to get told that he didn’t want you around. You knew that he’d never stop by the bench you’d used to wait on. Those times were gone now.

“I enjoyed having you around too.”

You paused and looked back. A small spark of hope had ignited in your chest. “Would it be okay if I did it again. Just an evening every so often. It’s fine if that’d be strange now.”

“That would be nice.”

You turned fully to see him and gave him a shy smile, unable to stop the redness rising on your cheeks as a joyful warmth filled you from head to toe.

“Would it be alright if we spent an evening like that with you in your human form as well?”

Shhhhh I’m a Ghibli fan and there was a black cat in this fic.

[turnipmage]

@electricjudgement​ 8) well. since you asked

dr. oscar blackmoore is a soft-spoken mild-mannered medical practitioner (mostly physician, but is trained in general surgery and also works as a mortician). he’s part of a world i have with sam aka @merle-casts-zone-of-truth(more under cut, including some more doodles >:) )

his primary work is as a physician for the local creature population (”creatures” being the term for the monster-like beings that inhabit a dimension/world parallel to earth, the majority of whom fled to earth centuries ago), while at night he’s contracted out as a mortician for the mob, while also providing healthcare services for its members. particularly their boss, arthur

of course, oscar, himself, is a creature. in particular, he’s from a species of vampire-adjacent beings known for their long life span and being, like, really goddamn weird and as a species closed off from the rest of the creature world. also vaguely bug-like. for a quick run down, they drink blood, have six arms, have a somewhat chitinous shell covering parts of them, are around 7′, and all of their limbs are doublejointed. i’m still working on their design, but here’s a rough look, with the second set of teeth representing what oscars looks like a bit in his half-transformed form. (yes oscar can change from one form to another with the help of glamour, his own being a modified version that allows for gradual change. his species cant change to humans on a whim, as neither can most creatures.)

now, in his own species’ terms, oscars about mid-thirties, but to other creatures, and humans especially, you could call oscar old. he was part of the first mass movement of creatures from their home world to earth, taking place roughly in the 17th century, though he was alive for at least a century prior to that, living in his old all-vampire hometown. why did he leave? well, he doesn’t like to talk about it (”if i dwell on past mistakes any more than i already do ill die”), but reportedly its got something to do with necromancy and him making extremely bad decisions

once he’d crossed over onto earth, he mostly stayed closed off. it’s a fact he’s ashamed of nowadays, but oscar was.... quite a bit of an asshole when he was younger. so he wasnt just trying to keep his creature identity secret from his new human neighbors, but he just couldn’t give two shits about the people around him,and in many cases enjoyed actively terrorizing the locals at night with his... less than human characteristics. until he met vincent, a handsome, spirited pirate with dreams of hitting it big.  the two were basically inseparable for a years, in love, as vincent rose in infamy and wealth (eventually becoming captain of his own crew), but a nasty falling out led to them losing contact, and vincent hitting the chopping block, likely due to something oscar had done. at the time, oscar pretended not to be bothered, but he noticeably refused to get close to another human again for quite a long time

sometime after, oscar was enlisted to help another creature who had moved in the first wave, caroline. this part of the timeline is pretty muddled as we havent gotten to ironing it out just yet, but oscar helped caroline and her growing group of people by acting as their doctor, and over time, the two grew to be close friends, and for a long time were the closest the other had. caroline ignored or actively encouraged oscars not super great mindset, allowing oscar to go out and attack/feed off of humans at night. during that same time, vincent, suddenly a ghost now and also king of the underworld (long story), found out oscar was still alive, flpped, and proceeded to start haunting the shit out of him. and... thats where it was at, for a while.

but then, suddenly, a few centuries later, closer to the present day, a new janitor is hired, a cute upbeat guy called lance. and oscar is smitten.

they get to know eachother, gradually, and become friends. lances influence strong on him, oscar begins to pull away from caroline, and from the more toxic mindset of the work environment she’s created, and starts to think over himself and his actions. it isnt until lance leaves, and oscar goes with him, that he decides to make an effort to try and be a better person. and so far, he’s definitely succeeded in turning himself around.  he’s also started making amends with vincent, and the two are also quickly growing closer again. at some point during everything with lance, he also gets contacted by the mob, and starts doing contract work for them.

 nowadays, oscar is much kinder and more considerate than he’s been in the past. he has an aversion to hurting people and tries to make life easier for the people around him. hes maybe a little exasperated sometimes, but he gives people the benefit of the doubt, and tends to try to hold off on getting angry when possible. he’s a bit of a worrywart, and has a tendency to mother hen the other ocs, fretting over them if they get hurt 

some more miscellaneous details about him:

-absolute goth nerd

-enjoys victorian-era outfits and wears somewhat toned-down versions of them as his daily wear

-theatre kid, generally playfully dramatic

-can sing pretty gd well

-plays violin

-has MULTIPLE pet bugs

-trans man, considers himself bisexual and queer

-has ddr competitions with lance

-can’t hold his alcohol worth shit

-definitely not a vampire, lance

-definitely not a necrophiliac, lance

-still holds out hope that caroline, like him, will eventually come around and stop being as much of an ass

-his double-jointed-ness from his creature form carries over to his human guise

-more that im forgetting we need to start writing this stuff down

-a triplet, with his two sisters

so thats the general gist of him, im leaving out a decent amount bc my hand is cramping from doodling and also i may just want to leave those as a surprise. 

while writing this i realized that parts of his story dont quite make a lot of sense? unless you know about the timelines of the other ocs?? so if theres questions on stuff feel free to ask me or sam

[cajunfoxnight]

So there’s something I want to vent about..something that’s been on my mind for a while now. I don’t honestly think that anyone is going to actually read this all the way through, but to anyone that does, well, I appreciate it. Idk if anyone else will feel the same way I do, but I just want to finally get this off my chest. Maybe to seek clarity? Maybe for advice? Maybe I’m just ranting into the void. Whatever it is..here it goes.

Ive noticed that I have a problem. And that problem is..I’m scared to enjoy things. I know that probably sounds totally crazy, but it’s the honest truth. I have this weird fear of enjoying things. Like, yes, there are things that I enjoy, many things if you haven’t already noticed, but I get so nervous because if I start talking about it I might get /too/ excited, I may talk /too/ much about it, so much that I’m aware that I must be annoying to listen to. So I try not to enjoy things as much. I’m someone that when they get into something, I get /super/ into it. And when I get excited I get a much of energy, I need an outlet to get that energy out. I want to draw! I want to write! I want to cosplay!..but if no one else is into the thing I’m into..then what’s the point?

This has been going on for years, and I think part of this stems from and ex-best friend of mine who apparently was quite done with my obsessions and even did tell me to shut up about it already- pretty much shutting me down when she saw me getting excited about something (and to be fair I don’t blame her, I was downright annoying). So I did the whole “pretend I thought everything was so lame cause that was cool” yeah I was that person. (But I got out of that phase, thank god.)

A couple years ago I met a new friend, and we hit it off well, and got to RPing canon characters..something I was not at ALL used to..but I found I liked it.. I liked having a character that I didn’t have to design, that had a personality, that a story was there, but it was just vague enough to be able to add in what I wanted. It was a lot like having a doll and playing in a sandbox. The doll had a name, but I could still play pretend and they could act how I wanted them to. I could explore things I just wanted to do for fun for no reason, no matter how weird it was. It didn’t have to be for any reason other than ‘why the hell not?’. This went on for the past couple of years, and the RPing was ‘light’- responses were a few sentences and not paragraphs- so it was pretty easy to pick up and reply (not to mention the beauty of smart phones). And I enjoyed it. I had my creative outlet.. But recently..recently that friend found something new and shiny that they’re into now..I get left on the back burner more often. Everyone has a life and of course they’re allowed to enjoy different things, but sometimes it sucks when you’re not included in those things. I’m glad that they found something else that makes them happy..but they’re slowly forgetting about me and the stories we have..or had. When they came to visit me I tried to show them some of doodles I did for an AU we were talking about for a while now and...and they just ignored me..they didn’t even pretend to be interested..they didn’t even want to hear any ideas, cutting me off to talk about their new shiny thing instead. So I just..didn’t talk about it. I hardly talked at all.

And what sucks is that when I see art of these characters or see them in the show/games their in, I feel myself getting excited. I feel that rush! I want to talk about them! I want to discuss about head canons and AUs about them! I want to draw out these cool ideas! I want to share them with someone who will enjoy them like I do! Maybe someone who wants to RP it as well! Maybe someone who would draw fan art with me!...but then I stop myself. And I remember what keeps happening. And I think that my AUs, my head canons, my ideas..they’re not interesting. No one cares. No one is interested.. yeah I thought about just saying ‘fuck it’ and uploading my art and ideas on here because maybe someone might like it..but they probably won’t, and even worse, there’s that possibility that I might get backlash for it (doubtful but you know..). And it makes me so scared to even watch the shows or play the games cause I /know/ that when I see that character I’m going to love them all over again, and I’m going to feel all these things, and then I’m going to have to bottle it all up and keep it to myself...so the best solution? Just don’t enjoy it at all..then I don’t get those feelings, and then I don’t have to keep going into this endless cycle again and again.

So what’s the point in enjoying something when I know that I’m just going to be the one enjoying them alone?

That’s the end of my rant. For anyone who actually read all that, well damn color me impressed! I’m not expecting a response, but sometimes I do wonder if there are others who feel like this?

[searchingthedepths]

Bendy’s Journal #1

The studio may be a place of nightmares, but that’s not the only place were dreams are being tested. In the seclusion of his home, a certain devil darlin’ writes in his journal to try and make sense of the world he’s living in, about a month before this story began. 

From the Desk of Bendy

   What a week it’s been. I’ll tell ya, never been busier here in Toon Town. Feels like I was stuck in a million meetings, wish I had a gag reel or something ta play for ya, but alas, there’s no need for that when I’m just writin’ ‘bout it.

   Anywho, it’s gettin’ to be closer to that time. In about a month and a half, it’ll be SillyVision’s big anniversary, the day they released my first cartoon. I should be excited, I mean every toon loves their own version of this day, it’s better than any birthday party, wedding, and all the holidays put together. A day to celebrate your origins and take pride in all you’ve accomplished, now that’s somethin’ special, for everyone else at least.

   For me though? Not so much. Things aren’t so good up on the home turf, and I have a feeling they’re about to get a hell of a lot worse. That’s comin’ from a demon for goodness sake! It’s just, what was it, maybe fifteen years ago? Yeah, that sounds right, it’s been that long since Drew got his nose in business that it didn’t belong in. I love Joey, honest to goodness, he’s not a bad man. But rippin’ my friends from here and into his world? Now that’s crossin’ more than a few lines. First Faye, then Sprocket, Porkbelly, Harmonellie, and a lot more, all just forced through the realms like nobody’s business. And Boris…gosh, I’ll tell ya, I miss Boris most of all. They’re all good, those toons are my family, but Boris is practically my brother. Sure, sometimes we didn’t get along on-screen, but no pup was more loyal than that ol’ wolf. I fear for how he’s doin’ up there in that horror flick.

   My gosh, it’s gotten so faded and broken. My windows are dwindlin’, if those old posters and plushies take any more of a beating, I won’t be able to keep an eye on them anymore. I’d try and use the cutouts, they’re practically everywhere, but I can’t risk my vision getting mixed up with that monster’s. Just imagine, if he found me, he’d surely draw me outta here, and lemme tell ya, I can’t let that happen. It’s just Alice and I left of our original crew, and I can’t leave her alone. Heck, even she ain’t all there, part of her got taken in this mess too.

   I went out to meet a friend for coffee at Grinder’s today, fella I hadn’t seen in a while. Fiero’s a good guy, really glad we met each other before the rest of the SillyVision crew got taken. He’s been one of the few toons that’s tried to keep me company for more than just business or demonic deals. And lemme tell ya, that candle is the warmest fella you’ll ever meet, gives the nicest hugs too. Still, such a weird design choice to give him two sets of arms and no hands. Wish I could talk to his creator and get that guy some hands and legs, he’d be a lot happier if he didn’t have to worry about burning people at a handshake.

   But hey, it’s not like that’ll ever happen, we toons aren’t meant to interact with the folks that made us. And don’t think it’s just because of a dimensional difference, I mean most of us just don’t get humans. We live a different life that’s a heck of a lot more optimistic, even when they put us through hell and back, we still survive. We live, and we laugh it all off and go through it all over again. Though I won’t lie, what I wouldn’t give to have a chat with Henry, talk ‘shop about the good ol’ days. After working with him for so long, I’d really love to know him from more than watching through the pages. But there’s no way that’s happening, he’s been away from the pen and paper for years. Sure, I’ll get a doodle now and again, but I can’t see his face through the paper anymore, it’s just been too long, and he needs to de-rust.

   At any rate, I’d better get to my next appointment. I had that ol’ tailor make my next suit special this time, wanted to have a piece of my friends here with me in my coattails. I know, it’s silly, but whaddaya want from me? I’m a cartoon. One day guys, one day I’ll find a way to bring you home, then we can celebrate our birthday together. But until then, hold on for me. I swear, you’ll be set free if I have anything to say about it. For now though, I’ll save a dance for you.

                                                                                                                                With Love,

Bendy, the Dancing Demon

From the Author:

What, you thought Bella was the only focus of this story? Not by a long shot. Welcome to the secondary plot! Yeah, Bendy’s gonna be exploring his feelings through some journal writing, which also gives us some exposition as to what the heck’s going on, pieces of the puzzle that our dear printmaker can’t quite fill in yet. I’m excited, this gave me some great practice with tone and diction, and Bendy, the way I’ve envisioned him, is a joy to explore as a character. As stated at the beginning, this entry takes place before Henry and Bella end up at the studio. As I stated when Bella entered the studio, it’s the start of the new year, meaning it’s January, and the date Bendy is referring to is February 10th, which in our real world just passed two days ago. I wanted to have this up for his birthday, but I was hesitant to post this given it’s out of left field. Keep in mind that the passage of time is going to be important for later. So yeah, this is me having too much fun with foreshadowing, hope you enjoyed it!

[spideychelle-romanogers]

I Doubt Myself

Making of Michelle Jones - Prologue, Chapter 1

Start from the beginning || Series Masterlist 

After catching Michelle stealing jewels, the new mystery she brings into Peter's life defines his next adventure. There are new dangers coming to NYC and Michelle is playing a bigger part in Spider-Man's mission than Peter ever imagined.

T/W: none  Beta: Splendid_Splendont  Tags: spideychelle, pan!Peter, demi!Michelle, slow burn

Peter never knew just how complicated high school was going to be. Everything you saw on TV and in movies was relevant, yes, but it didn't quite cover all of the conflicting feelings on the subject. Yes, it was scary. It was nerve-wracking really. It was full of beautiful girls - like Liz - who distracted you at every turn. Then it's full of fat mouthed bullies that don't know what's coming to them in their sad, sad futures. That was all to say without mentioning the drama and conflict going on behind the scenes, pressure from parents - or in Peter's case, his aunt.

It's not that being in high school was just terrifying - but when you'd been through all he'd been through, it was boring. That was the scariest thing about it. Perhaps he never let his feelings bubble to the surface, but inside he couldn't help thinking about just how much else he wanted out of his life, out of this bubble full of cliques and locker room scuffles. He had fought the Avengers - he still couldn't believe it himself. He had been evaluated by Tony Stark's people. He had a costume designed for him. He had training. He faced off with Captain America.

His dreams were coming true, he was becoming a real superhero and he couldn't tell anyone. Stark tried to relate to him but always missed the mark. Peter was alone in his experiences. He had no one to tell about just how isolating it was to get everything you wanted and then be expected to go back to a life where all you looked forward to was running away. He scribbled furiously into his notebook during physics, trying his best to drown out the four walls around him. He tried to ignore the teacher berating the football players in the back and the girls painting their nails in front of him. He drew himself again, reimagining Spider-Man in an image that maybe he would be able to stomach.

He didn't think that going back to his old life would feel quite so green. High school life was nothing like the real world. Out there, he was a hero. How was he supposed to go back? He couldn't understand why he had to go through with returning, why Stark couldn't find a way around it for him. All Tony would talk about was the value of enjoying your youth while it lasted but Peter didn't think he had anything to enjoy.

"Parker, stop doodling," he heard his teacher quip over his head. He stopped immediately, slowly snaking his arm behind him and ignoring the chuckles from his classmates. Peter wasn't one to think he was above anybody, no, but he was over it. Over it was just the best way for him to say it. He was tired of being alone and feeling felt like no one except his best friend Ned could understand him. Ned was a sore subject too. Peter was grappling with whether to tell him his secret. Really, the only person stopping him was Tony Stark, and Peter knew he wasn't going to fight him on that point. He heard a snort from next to him and saw Michelle just as she turned away from his sketchbook, returning to her reading.

"Got a problem with superheroes?" he asked as bored as she looked. She shrugged, continuing to read her book.

"Spider-Man is cool," she breathed out, uninterested in pursuing the conversation further. Though her words had no investment in them, they were enough to make him smile briefly. He wished he'd had a moment to ask something but he knew it wasn't worth it with Michelle. No one could really call her out from her reading.

Peter had this problem with staring. He realized this when he saw her look him in the eyes just moments later. He had been thinking about the look of her, how exhausted she seemed as she smiled into her book, when she caught him. She raised an eyebrow, as if ready to take offense to whatever insult he looked like he had been gearing to send her way. He knew she was quite used to them. Occasionally throughout the year, he'd hear guys give passive notes about her looks. The one time Peter tried to jump in to her defense, she'd yelled at him, so he knew better than to try and save her. Now though he was tempted to apologize because he knew she was expecting the worst of comments.

"Sorry, I was trying to read over your shoulder," he lied. He used to be a terrible liar, but habits build steady hands. She brightened at that, like hearing about someone taking an interest in her books was a radical idea she could get behind.

The school bell interrupted them. Peter had to say he regretted that a bit. He almost never had a chance to connect with Michelle and it would have been nice to connect to one other person at this school. He didn't know why but the girl always made him curious. She seemed like a very decent kind of person. He didn't know much about her despite their years at school but something in the way she acted was particularly confusing to him in a way he wanted to solve. Perhaps his interest stemmed in that she was just about the only other person at this school who looked as tired and bored as he felt all the time.

"See ya," she mumbled as she picked up her books and walked the other way. He was swiftly reminded they couldn't be friends, because she never really liked him. She tolerated him and Ned more than the other kids at this school, but never by much.

Lunch was its usual routine with Ned. Ned was talking all about his new Captain America comics and Peter had to admit even he found them super interesting. Meeting the real thing is really no form of satisfaction when you're a fanboy. He tried to withhold his own personal gut wrench at knowing the events passed between Captain and Tony. He'd heard the rumors while he was at the Avengers Institute. Looking at Ned as he grinned at the illustrations, Peter wondered about what kind of joy he'd get out of telling his best friend the truth about his summer.

Michelle sat alone at the table next to them again. It was where she always sat. Occasionally the table would be full when the cafeteria was overflowing with people, and on those days, Peter and Ned would sit with her too. However, the cafeteria was bare, and that gave her the time she needed to seclude herself into a cave of hardcover books. Peter didn't know what had possessed him to interrupt her, but he found himself suddenly standing up and walking to her.

"Hey, so," he started lamely, already forgetting what he'd had to say. She was staring at him expectantly, sipping her school-supplied chocolate milk. Though he'd seen her sit down minutes ago, he noticed all the food was already gone from her tray. She must have eaten fast. "What do you like about Spider-Man?" he asked lamely.

"I think the general concept of any man being able to swing from a string attached to buildings is pretty impressive," She answered briefly, clearly still wondering what he was doing there. To make matters worse, he couldn't stop himself.

"Yeah, I guess," he tried, looking again to her tray. "Do you want my food? I'm not going to finish it. My Aunt May made me a sandwich-" he was talking too much and it was so hard to stop. She looked at him, as though debating something.

"Sure, I'll take it," she said, a hint of a question in her acceptance. He picked up the food from the tray in front of Ned's own, and he collected it in his hands before bringing it over to her, carefully putting each individual item in the right tray slot.

"Enjoy." Peter asked himself very sternly in his mind just what he thought he was doing. The entire day, he felt like he'd been overthinking everything. Knowing that Michelle thought Spider-Man was cool provided a kind of self-indulgent distraction that he needed. He didn't want to keep thinking about secrets. He wanted to talk about Spider-Man. And yet, having had this realization he turned away from her and went back to Ned who was looking as confused as Peter felt.

Peter had to find a better grip on this secret. At this rate, he was doing some desperate things just to get distracted.

It took everything in Peter to resist approaching Tony Stark again. It was easy enough to get on the roof of his tower. That was one way the teen could always outsmart the billionaire. Tony often used him as a way to test his security mechanisms and Peter was still outperforming his inventions when it came to home security.

Peter knew he couldn't keep running to Tony with his problems though.

Deciding perhaps he could let off some steam, he broke one of Tony's rules for him. He quietly locked his bedroom door and slipped his limbs into his costume, tossing himself out of the window and escaping into the night. Uptown, his best bet was watching over the neighborhood and hoping something would happen. He knew if he headed downtown, he was a lot more likely to find something to do.

Crawling by a strip mall, he arrived just in time to watch men running. Where there was once a glass storefront display, the shattered glass was sign enough of what had happened and he took off in the direction of the men running away. Before long, there were 4 culprits tied to an alley wall by his net and police sirens in the distance as he flew his way back, knowing no one was around. He saw jewels strewn along the ground in random places from where the thieves had dropped them. He left most of the jewels stuck to the thieves' hands so the cops would have the evidence they needed. However, he had learned the hard way that despite reports of theft, the police were not always diligent about returning all of the stolen property, especially not once it was reported as 'lost'.

So there he was, probably a comedic sight, walking down a sidewalk and picking up every pearl and gem he could see. By the time he made it back to the jewelry shop, it was probably just 10 minutes later. He used his web to seal up the glass wall, and he used the front door to enter. The store was dark, empty of people. There were mannequins strewn across the floor, easy to assume that they were there after the thieves did their business. As the door chime jingled out its tune, his hairs stood up when he heard a slight stumble. Had he missed someone?

He crept through the store slowly, hearing a scramble accompanied by the jingle of necklaces colliding. He stuck himself up on the ceiling hoping that he could use the element of surprise. Seconds later, he was above her, a small framed girl hard to make out in the light. She pocketed the necklaces and quickly zipped her bag. One hand to her purse strap, she rushed her way to the door. Peter was about to stop her when he saw her turn just as she reached the door, looking to see if anyone was following her.

She opened the door, and Peter reached his arm out. Simultaneously, the cheaply made ceiling tile he was on caved to his weight. Not even by an inch, the web missed her arm and hit her purse instead. She pulled once to resist her arrest and the purse fell open. Peter, meanwhile, was trying to catch himself, his mask pulled off by the sharp corner of one of the shelves. Picking up what she could she raced again out the door before Peter could even hide his face and reach her. By the time he got to the door, she was already a block away. He couldn't even glance at his mask before hearing the police sirens go off. Running away was more important than catching her he decided. Looking down at what she left behind, he saw a wallet and brightened. He had a chance!

Before he even opened it, he made sure to plant himself on the mall's roof. He watched the police make their way around his web before he finally got through the wallet. It was a simple purple zip-open. He could have sworn he'd seen it before. Making his way through the very little cash and many different business cards, he finally found something incriminating - a school ID.

The style of it was perfectly familiar. The purple edges, the white stripes, the graduating year labelled on it in big yellow letters. It was almost as familiar as the girl in the picture.

Michelle.

Peter felt sick to his stomach.

Had he seen anyone else (except maybe Ned), he wouldn't have been quite so surprised. There were plenty of kids who got themselves into trouble all the time at that school. Michelle had never been one of them. She was the girl in grade school who'd threaten to rat you out no matter how small the rule you were breaking. She was a stickler and a studious one at that. Peter couldn't remember the last time she was without a book in her hand. He remembered seeing her read during their middle school graduation, and he remembered how much he made fun of her for it.

Michelle wasn't a thief.

The next day at school, he wasn't quite sure how to deal with Michelle. He still had her wallet. He didn't know what to do about it, but he hoped that he wouldn't see her at school so that he wouldn't have to think about it. The whole day could've been a good one. He was briefly distracted during gym, when Liz talked to him about her new sneakers. Peter couldn't remember a word he had said, but he made Liz laugh at some point so he called it a win. He'd managed to avoid Michelle all day until he was back in physics class. She sat next to him when she arrived at class, looking exhausted like always. He wanted to believe she looked even more tired than usual but he couldn't actually confirm that. Maybe he was just wanting to see guilt where there wasn't any.

As she sat, he resolved he wouldn't say anything about it.

"Are you drawing flying men today or will you actually be paying attention?" she asked, not a hint of malice in her sarcasm. He couldn't believe she was making conversation, but he supposed he'd deserved it.

"I'd rather give the hero thing a rest," he mumbled, gluing his eyes to the board as their teacher continued talking. He hadn't been listening ever since Michelle entered the room.

"I thought I'd just pick partners randomly, but it seemed a lot easier to just make you work with your neighbors," the teacher explained. "And don't forget this project is worth 50% of your midterm grade."

"What?" Peter asked quietly startled out of his thoughts.

"We're partners," Michelle answered in her usual bored tone. They were partnered up often on in-class assignments, but never anything significant. He looked at her nervously. She noticed his stare after a few minutes, whispering so she wouldn't interrupt their teacher. "Is there a problem?"

"You've got something in your teeth," he lied calmly. He never thought he was a very passive aggressive person, but he couldn't feel guilty about it long, considering Michelle's quip back:

"You stare too much."

Maybe he was being aggressive, but he spent most of the day stomping around the school, trying to figure things out. He had no one he could tell, but Ned had picked up on something being wrong. Peter typically didn't get so angry, not for this long. He'd been moody for ages now, but it seemed like something about this had really set him off. He just couldn't imagine that even someone like Michelle could be a letdown. There were really so few truly good people out there. He was used to living in a city full of crime and people who made bad choices. He knew whatever prompted Michelle to steal could have been significant, but he couldn't imagine how. All during lunch he found himself glaring in her direction and trying to figure out whether the crime was one of greed or one of impulse.

Before long, lunch was over and Peter was still debating whether or not he was overreacting. His feelings were getting the better of him lately. He spent an entire week ignoring Ned once when he wouldn't stop asking why Peter disappeared over the summer. Maybe it was time to check his attitude.

School let out and he looked to his phone for the first time all day. Two hours ago, he had received what was just a brief flash of text. It was Tony Stark, but he put the man's number under a false contact 'Anthony'.

Anthony: Don't forget to keep your head low.

Peter scowled. It was time to get Michelle her ID back, he decided just as he ran home to suit up.

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[ntrending]

The Google Pixel Slate mixes great hardware with a slight identity crisis

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/the-google-pixel-slate-mixes-great-hardware-with-a-slight-identity-crisis/

The Google Pixel Slate mixes great hardware with a slight identity crisis

About a year and a half ago, Google decided that its Chrome OS (short for “operating system”) should play nice with Android apps, which were previously relegated only to smartphones and Android-powered tablets. It’s a logical step, and other companies like Apple and Microsoft have been working to marry the historically quarrelsome relationship between web apps that run in a browser and mobile apps downloaded from an app store in recent years.

A device like the Pixel Slate is the perfect candidate to take that relationship to the next step. When you’re holding the tablet without its keyboard, the hardware itself to the Android selections found in the Google Play store. At the same time, the beautiful 12.3-inch screen demands a full version of Google Chrome that displays complete versions of websites rather than nerfing them down to the smushed mobile versions.

While the Pixel Slate shows a lot of promise, it illustrates how much work there is to do before these two factions can live together in harmony on a single device. If Chrome OS tablets were the American Version of The Officethen the Pixel Slate is the moment when Jim comes back from Stanford, but still hasn’t asked Pam out. There’s so much hope, but we’re not quite there yet.

What is it?

The Pixel Slate itself is a tablet with laptop-grade guts. It uses the latest 8th generation Intel Core processors. You can start at the $599 base model with a Core i3 processor, 4GB RAM and 32GB internal storage, or if you’ve recently won a PowerBall jackpot, you can climb all the way up to the $1,599 flagship with a Core i7, 16GB RAM and 256GB built-in storage.

The review unit I’ve been using is the most reasonable in the bunch, checking in with a sensible Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM and 128GB of built-in storage. It comes with a nice round price tag of $999, but that’s only if you don’t get a keyboard to go with it–and you’re going to want a keyboard to go with it.

Rounding out the feature set you’ll find a pair of USB-C ports, dual front-facing speakers to either side of the 3,000 x 2,000 pixel Gorilla Glass 5 screen, and cameras on both the front and the back of the device. The front-facing wide-angle camera is really fantastic for video calls. The back camera takes totally nice-looking, smartphone-grade photos, but should only be used in emergencies since there’s no way not to look like a dork when taking a photo with a tablet.

What’s the deal with the keyboard case?

It’s hard to imagine a situation in which you would spend this much cash on a device that is designed largely for productivity without at least giving yourself the option of a keyboard. When drawing with the stylus or just reading a book in the Kindle app (which actually works pretty nicely in the Chrome OS architecture), ditching the keys and holding a slab of aluminum and glass is nice. But, I tried getting some of my regular work done in that formation and I’d rather eat a bag of cotton balls than use a content management system (the system used for putting words and pictures on websites like this one) or type for long periods of time without some real keys to press.

The Pixel keyboard is a great accessory. The round keys are weird–like a throwback to a vintage typewriter–but they work great. They have a relatively short travel similar to the iPad keyboard, but they’re so satisfying to push. You can type really quietly on them if you want, but I enjoyed slapping away at the keys as loudly as possible. Even going back to my MacBook Pro—the one that still had the good keyboard—was a little disappointing. Even if you’re one of those mechanical keyboard types who like your typing to sound like a tommy gun in a movie from the 1920s, you’ll still probably like this better than any other tablet keyboard case.

But, like eating a giant burrito before bed, the keyboard feels good, but has some considerable drawbacks. Unlike the iPad keyboard case, the Slate keyboard has a really responsive touchpad. It might seem redundant with a touchscreen device, but it makes the transition from a laptop much soother. The downside, however, is that it gives the whole device a huge footprint that failed catastrophically when I tried to use it on a train tray table. This isn’t an issue with a rigid hinge to keep the screen upright, but trying to use this thing in the case on a tray table is a great way to spend two minutes trying to pick it up off the ground after it slides under the seat in front of you.

Here come the apps

Hardware is one thing, but how is that Android and Chrome OS marriage going?

If you haven’t used Chrome OS in a while, it may take you a little while to nail down the correct mixture of web apps and Android apps from the Google Play store. Some things are obvious, like Adobe Lightroom CC, which requires a download, but other common go-tos like Gmail simply open in a Chrome tab.

Once you’ve committed to downloading the Android version of an app, there’s no guarantee that it will look great. Instagram, for example, opens as an app that either looks hilariously tiny or appallingly pixelated. So, while you get access to some things laptops can’t access—games like Arena of Valor, for instance—it’s a coin flip about how it will render or work.

While this is a detractor from the current version of the device, it might not apply to everyone. If you’re just looking for a really slick machine to watch Netflix, do email, and maybe doodle around with the optional $100 Google Pen, you may not even notice the issues until they’re resolved. And it seems very likely they will get resolved.

Right now, Chrome OS is a very minor player in the tablet market, but it’s a 10,000 pound gorilla (yes, that’s much bigger than a 400 pound gorilla) in the education world. Chromebooks have a reported 60 percent share of the education market where young people are building allegiances to tech platforms in between learning how to multiply fractions and shooting spitballs. Giving those students options to stick with a familiar operating system down the road seems like a very solid play for Google.

So, can it replace a laptop or what?

We’re getting there, but not yet. And ultimately, that’s not the point of the Pixel Slate. Google already makes the $1,000 Pixelbook if you want Chrome on a typical Pac-Man style computer. This is something different and, under the right circumstances, pretty great.

There are excellent little touches all over the hardware. The power button has a built-in fingerprint reader that lets you store up to three fingerprints to accommodate different ways of holding the tablet. And the speakers are loud enough to enjoy content on if you’re planning on replacing your TV with a smaller device—something more and more people are doing. The Google Assistant integration is nice, too.

If you’re going to buy one, the $999 Core i5 option seems like your best bet. You don’t need to crank the storage because external hard drives work with the Slate’s two USB-C ports. You should, however, spring for a keyboard case. The Brydge G Type Keyboard that Google sent along with its review unit has a firm hinge, which I found a lot more useful than the sleek-but-too-floppy Google keyboard case.

Whether you want to spend the extra $100 on the Pen is really up to your tastes. It has a built-in Assistant button and allows you to do things like circle an item on a web page and automatically search for it on the web. So, there is functionality there, even if your artistic talent peaked during fingerpaints in grade school

Written By Stan Horaczek

[mredwinsmith]

It’s Never Too Late to Become an Artist | Here’s Inspiration to Get Started

New Year, New Artist

If you’ve always wanted to be an artist, why not start off the new year by making this an achievable goal, or better yet, your New Year’s resolution? Whether you’re eight years old or 80, it’s never too late to start making art. Give in to your passion, find the right inspiration and dive right in.

Take artist Annie O’Brien Gonzales, for instance. She decided to become an artist after completing her education, raising children and having a “real job” while doing lots of arts and crafts on the side.

Ready to get started on your own artistic journey? Below is an expert from Gonzales’ book, The Joy of Acrylic Painting, on how to find inspiration. This book is geared toward those of us who just discovered our desire to make art, or who may have set our passions aside because of other life primacies. Enjoy!

Getting Started

Breakfast by Annie O’Brien Gonzales

Twelve years ago I decided to pursue my dream and take the leap to finally become a full-time artist. Though I had many doubts, I decided it was now or never. I took painting classes, attended workshops, read lots of books on painting and painted almost every day.

After all, I have tried to remember what Georgia O’Keeffe said: “I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life, and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.”

I have never looked back, and I kept going forward until I discovered my style and clarified my artistic goals. I have learned a lot about learning to paint — what works and what doesn’t — and I want to share what I have learned.

For many years I taught adults in professional fields, but it wasn’t until I started teaching painting that I ran into adults with so many doubts and insecurities about learning.

For most adults, going to art school is not an option, nor would it be the right option unless the goal is to teach art at the college level. Fortunately, there are so many opportunities to learn to paint. The trick is finding what works for you.

Finding Inspiration

Alameda Garden by Annie O’Brien Gonzales

Inspiration is all around you. Start to notice what attracts you and record it as a reference for future paintings. The more you begin to notice the inspiration around you, the sharper you will get at recognizing it.

Open your awareness to your own history, talents, interests and fascinations that make you who you are. What activities bring you true joy — cooking, setting a beautiful table, dressing creatively, hiking, gardening, movies?

There must be many things, and these things tell you something about what inspires you and holds your interest. Make a point of stopping in museums and galleries when you are traveling. They are practically in every town, and you might be surprised by what a random visit triggers in you.

Some artists find inspiration externally and others internally. It’s a personal frame of reference. Think about the direction you consistently look toward for inspiration:

External Focus: You are inspired by what is around you — travel, people, nature, etc.

Internal Focus: You are inspired by your own heart and emotions.

Both: Georgia O’Keeffe, for example, painted what she felt but was inspired by natural beauty.

Check out popular design magazines (home design, gardening, cooking, crafting, etc.) that contain brilliant color schemes and composition ideas created by some of the most talented designers. Start to look at them with an artist’s eyes.

Take note of display windows, nature, clothing, antiques, music, people in cafes, the sky. … There is no limit. The more you exercise your creativity, the more it will grow and show up for your art.

Pinterest Power

It’s a good idea to collect your inspirations before they fly out of your mind. Three approaches I recommend include Pinterest, inspiration boards and what I refer to as Painting Notes, or art journaling.

For instance, if you haven’t already, join Pinterest so you can create separate boards for your art inspiration categories. If you are fascinated by birds, start a “Birds I Love” board, for example. Additionally, make Pinterest Boards for all your Artist Ancestors (artists who have inspired you).

If you prefer not to share your interests publicly, you can always make your boards private. You could also share your boards with a select group, so it’s possible to form your own critique group online. The possibilities are endless on this platform.

For ideas, check out my Pinterest Boards on the five Elements of Art. I have a board for each one: Line, Shape, Color, Value and Texture plus way too many other boards!

Make Your Own Inspiration Board

If turning to an online platform, such as Pinterest, is not an option, or if you also want to work with something physically in addition to virtually, then create your own inspiration board.

As artists, we respond to and actually require visual stimulation. Inspiration boards are visual references of what excites us at the moment.

Create an inspiration board right away in your studio or painting area and pin on it anything that excites and delights you — color chips from the hardware store, swatches of fabric, photos, postcards, clippings from magazines and quotes that inspire you to keep creating. But be careful not to put your to-do list on your inspiration board or you may decide you never want to look at it.

Here is what you will need:

Cork bulletin board, largest size to fit your space

Inspiration — clippings, swatches, photos, quotes, etc.

Pushpins

After you have all your necessary materials, first you should hang your inspiration board in your studio or work area so you will see it every day.

   Next, collect your inspirations and pin them on your inspiration board without thinking about editing. Stay in your expressive, creative brain rather than your analytical brain.

Inspirational Boosting Tips

Here are nine strategies to try in case inspiration just doesn’t want to strike.

+ Go to your studio or workspace anyway. Don’t talk yourself out of it. Show up, and see what happens.

+ Do busy work: Wash brushes, gesso canvases, organize collage paper and clean your studio space.

+ Grab an old painting and paint over it. Slap paint around in ways you’ve never done before, like you have nothing to lose — which you don’t!

+ Sit in your workspace and look through inspirational art books or magazines. Put tags on anything that intrigues you.

+ Take your sketchbook or art journal outside, sit and make lists: song titles, quotes you’ve overheard, flowers you love, favorite animals, etc.

+ Fill the pages of your journal with doodles or just shapes or lines.

+ Turn on your favorite music really loud in your studio. Put a large blank canvas up, dance and throw paint on it.

+ Pick one of your favorite Artist Ancestors’ paintings and copy it. It’s good practice and quite an acceptable way to learn. Just don’t sign it and show it as your own!

+ Try a technique you’ve never done before, like collage with junk mail, cutting up old drawings or paintings, origami from art magazines, etc. Just wing it!

These Little Things by Annie O’Brien Gonzales

We hope Annie O’Brien Gonzales’ advice and tips help you discover the motivation you need to start making art. And, be sure to tell us in the comments below if you have any more tricks for finding your inner artistic spark.

Whether you’re a beginner artist or a pro, consider making a New Year’s resolution to work toward enhancing your artistry. Here’s to a successful 2018 filled with lots of art-making, artists!

The post It’s Never Too Late to Become an Artist | Here’s Inspiration to Get Started appeared first on Artist's Network.

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[leilaland]

Hi everyone and welcome to day two of Blogmas 2017! I really hope that you enjoyed yesterday’s post all about what I got in the November Hyggebox. If you did, make sure you go and watch the unboxing video on my YouTube channel, Leila Land too. These are always some of my most popular videos so make sure you check them out and subscribe while you’re there!

Ok so on to today’s post which is all about my November favourites. The things which I have been obsessing over during November featuring skincare, haircare, homeware, stationery, food & TV shows!

Ok first on my list are these raw bars from Nak’d. If you’ve never tried these then you just need to do so immediately. My friend, Deborah introduced me to these a couple of years back and I’ve been hooked ever since. I think as the weather gets colder and the giant tubs of chocolate come out, I have been trying to be conscious of not eating purely naughty food. I’ve also been super busy and wanted something quick, tasty and nutritious to grab on the go and these have won hands down. They’re dairy free, wheat free and gluten free and taste amazing. My favourites are these choco-orange ones. YUM!

Speaking of giant tubs of chocolate … Who can resist these massive tubs of Celebrations? We bought one the minute they appeared in shops which is possibly a little bit ridiculous but there we have it. I think this is our third one so they had to go in the favourites. I love the Galaxy & Galaxy Caramel ones. Which are your favourites?

I don’t drink tea or coffee and so for nice warming drinks I love hot chocolate. My absolute favourite hot chocolate in the whole wide entire world is Galaxy hot chocolate. I just find it the nicest, creamiest hot chocolate drink and as the weather has been so very cold I’ve been reaching for this constantly. It makes me feel so cosy to sit and cuddle my favourite mug filled with creamy Galaxy goodness! Every Sunday evening I do a hot chocolate station for us all and have lots of different toppings while we watch our favourite weekend TV and it’s possibly my favourite time of the week, especially when Paul joins us.

Again, if you watch my YouTube channel, you will know that I was spoilt rotten on my birthday recently and was given so much of the Zoella ‘Snowella’ Beauty range which I’m in love with! The scent of the whole range is heavenly and this body moisturiser, Snow Silky is amazing. It’s a gorgeous, thick consistency which absorbs to leave your skin super nourished. I love to apply this in an evening just before I put my PJs on and snuggle down for the night.

Another of the Zoella beauty products I was lucky enough to be given for my birthday was the Body Pudding from the Jelly & Gelato range. This is a lighter moisturiser and has little beads which burst to give an extra shot of moisture. I find it perfect for daytime because it has a lighter texture and it layers so nicely with any of my perfumes.

The squeals that emerged from tiny little me when I finally found this were quite honestly, crazy. This is the Johnsons face cream and I love it! I used this years ago when we lived in Manchester and since we moved back to the edge of nowhere, I haven’t been able to find any. A few weeks ago I wandered into one of the shops in town and found it and have since been back to panic buy 3 more pots! It feels so silky on the skin and has really helped my skin feel calmer and more balanced. It has such a gorgeous, light scent too so I can highly recommend it.

Next on my list is the Simple dual effect eye makeup remover. If you haven’t used this then please go and get yourself some immediately! Your eyes can thank me later. Seriously, this makes such light work of absolutely any eye makeup. I don’t care how good your mascara, eyeliner or anything else you have on your eyes is, this baby will just  melt it away in seconds and sweep it away with no need to scrub and drag at your delicate eye skin which at my age is something I appreciate hugely!

Another Zoella Beauty item I was gifted on my birthday is the Snow Fresh body wash and oh my goodness it is BEAUTIFUL! The consistency is almost jelly like and it lathers up so nicely. The scent, just like everything in this range is gorgeous, so fresh & light and it layers up with the other products and any of my perfumes without clashing or overpowering. My skin feels great afterwards too with no tightness or dryness which is great!

In terms of haircare, I’m loving the Toni & Guy Intense Softness shampoo & conditioner. I’m fairly picky when it comes to my hair so to make it into my regular use products is actually quite difficult. This has a really nice, fresh scent and makes me think of being in the salon. It lathers beautifully, which I know isn’t much to do with how it cleans but I’m a sucker for a rich, luxurious lather and this definitely has that. The conditioner is a really thick consistency which I love as it makes me feel as though it’s giving a really intensive condition, but it’s actually  super lightweight. Both products rinse out really easily and leave my hair so soft & shiny. I’ve had loads of lovely comments about my hair which have been so nice and it’s all thanks to these babies!

This one may be a bit strange but it’s moisturising socks! I live in Lancashire which is currently sub zero every day and so I’m trying to keep on top of my skin moisture levels so I don’t have to deal with as much sore, chapped nonsense. So a couple of times a week I whack a tonne of moisturiser (usually the Zoella Beauty one you read about earlier in this post), pop the cotton socks on and sit back to let them do their job. The socks allow the product to soak into the skin better and gives such an intensive burst of nourishment which is ideal in winter.

My hands are getting even more love and attention than my feet and I’m currently obsessing over the Zoella Beauty Winter Wonder Hand. The Wonder Hand cream from the Zoella Beauty range is one of my favourites so when I saw that they had updated it to go with the ‘Snowella’ range which I love, I was so happy! It has the same amazing formulation which nourishes without leaving any greasy residue and has the amazingly gorgeous scent that this range has. Teamed with gloves every single time I leave the house, this is really helping my hands stay crack free in the cold weather!

I promise this is the last Zoella product! This is from the Zoella lifestyle range and is the ‘Stay on top of your world’ organiser which is another one I was lucky enough to be given for my birthday. I’m a huge stationery collector and love to use lists and diaries to keep me, my family & my household organised. This basically hasn’t left my side since I got it, I find it so useful and it looks amazing too. There’s space for to do lists, doodles/notes, sticky notes and a week to view diary/calendar which splits the days into day & evening which I think is super useful. I’ve had 24 days of Leila Land & blogmas to organise as well as my daughter going back to a special needs school after 2 years at homeschool (which believe me takes a lot of paperwork!) and a family Christmas to organise so trust me when I say that this organiser has had its work cut out and performed brilliantly.

The last thing on my list is this huge scented candle from Primark. You should all know by now how much I love Primark right now. Their products, particularly homeware are just getting better and better. I also love love LOVE scented candles and this one is my favourite by far. The container is a gorgeous matte grey with copper accents and on trend nordic tree design. The scent is Frosted Woodland which is fresh pine & juniper berry. It’s a bit different to the usual autumn/winter scents but still makes your room feel really cosy and gorgeous. I say your room but this has such an amazing scent to it that I can definitely smell it around the whole upstairs of my house. I love this one so much that I went back and bought a smaller version of the candle and the reed diffuser so that I can have this scent all over my house!

So that was my November favourites list. I really hope that you enjoyed it and perhaps found some inspiration. Let me know your thoughts and whether you have any of these or anything similar.

Don’t forget to follow this blog & subscribe to my YouTube channel, Leila Land and I’ll see you again tomorrow with another post!

L xx

  November favourites | Blogmas day 2 Hi everyone and welcome to day two of Blogmas 2017! I really hope that you enjoyed yesterday's post all about what I got in the November Hyggebox.

[toddmichaelrogers]

Letter to You

All in due time

I am obsessed with the concept of time. When I read an article about light moving across time and space to reach us from distant galaxies, and how...what we are viewing in those distances may have already passed into death thousands of years ago, it gets my dick “Super Mario 2 (Japanese Version) hard”.

I think about equations of time v.s growth on a nearly daily basis. I am obsessed about it.

Some may feel possessed

I myself obsess about it

My youngest brother was born twenty-two years ago. His name is Ben. This week, he came for a surprise visit by telling me he would be here and then allowing me to forget. The added bonus was we got to celebrate his birthday together. That night, I drove him and his friends and Kelsie around (they may all be kids to me, but Kelsie’s been my brother’s partner for longer than I’ve known my own). We spent the night at a false speakeasy, and a giant championship pool hall, empty but for a few of us. As the night ended I drove the kids up to a hill called love circle, where a year ago I had imagined killing myself (I had a concussion, it’s cool).

In the car Michael, this kid I had not seen in a decade, popped in a song that maybbbbe three people in the world might have known. It’s a B-Side which could only be known to someone such as myself, someone who cares entirely too much for a half-forgotten Scottish 1980s group. 

“Is this fucking Big Country?” I asked. And then both parties continued asking in astonished voices if the other if they enjoyed the same band, until Michael ripped his shirt open to reveal a 1986 tour tee. “What the fuck?!” I screamed. And then preceded to tell him that Spell Saga was inspired by this band’s music; there was no need to explain what Spell Saga was to the kids in the car, they had seen the card game and its stacks of packages sitting in my living room.

The game has continued to haunt me. The rest of the packages will be sent out sometime in the next 30 days, and the manufacturer will be paid up for services rendered in the next week. That is about 1500 days since I decided to pursue the project, and over 800 days since the Kickstarter worked and we knew it was going to go to print. 

Sometimes people write very frustrated messages online wondering where their packages are, but the comments that mean the most to me are the ones where people are nice hahaha. No, I shouldn’t laugh, it’s haunting. Trying to do something right and trying to handle your own mistakes in public is about as nerve-wracking and humiliating as anything since 7th grade.

In the meantime I’ve taken all those worries and embarrassments and pushed them into the next Spell Saga release (Deck 1.5 The Under Sky) which may or may not work, we’re about to find out in March. The concept and design are so ridiculous and in depth that I’ve been forced to finish the entire thing before playing it at all--something I have not done since Spell Saga 4.0 was finished to show at Gen Con back in 2011. The whole thing could be rendered nearly pointless if the game isn’t fun to play--but then again, how can you know? Countless hours of Photoshopping and weird little doodles for an unknowable outcome. If that isn’t the official theme of Spell Saga, or indeed, everything I make, then I don’t know what is.

Speaking of time, games, and 7th grade (and as was mentioned in previous correspondence) this Autumn, after twenty years of waiting, I will be releasing a card game I started making in 7th grade. The illustrator is my friend Weshoyot, who just sent me the final pieces this past week. This is after we began working on it together 9 years ago! My god, I know this blog has a sort of theme running through it but even that takes me aback, (it also takes me a-straight-back, to 2009, when I was getting married to my first wife, designing EPIOCH instead of planning a wedding, and about to start work on both The Novel & Spell Saga...what a fucked up year…)

The novel I started still continues, and work goes well, actually. Yes it’s been 8 years, but after forcing a second draft on New Years day of 2016 I have now arrived, one year later, into new territory. Most of last year was spent agonizing through a muck of the same few chapters. It was almost nerve wracking to pick it back up, after a month’s rest, and knock-out another two new chapters without a hint of friction.

I was talking to my brother while he was in town (we always have the same talk and he hates it, but I always push it) “why aren’t you making things” I ask him every visit. I know he wants to. And I can’t speak for him, or rather, I won’t but I think there’s this perfectionist thing that hits in varying degrees. (I’m speaking more about myself then him, right now) I’ve read that  perfectionism is linked to depression, and alcoholism--this idea that things need to be a certain way, or they aren’t worth it--when really, that’s not true at all. 

Things just need to be as good as you can make them at the time, and then finished. I spent most of last year stuck on the same songs, and the same chapters, unsure of how to move forward, yet sure they had to be brilliant or cool.

But, I’m not either of those things. I don’t know how many passes I think will bleach the uncoolness out of something, but it doesn’t work. There’s something to be said for taking one’s time--and of course putting something away and rewriting it is definitely in everyone’s best interest...but still, finishing things as best you can is important.

I was talking with Meagen the other day about this, about how we as human beings tend to think if something is not hard or time consuming that it must not be good--that a novel should take ten years and not, say two. See? I even wrote the word “one” there and had to erase it. A novel? In a year? How drab.

We as artists don’t believe in ourselves, and pretend that putting time into a project will make it that much more special--or even better, waiting forever to start it...Fuck the fuck outta that. Make it and be embarrassed and move on. Just make it as best you can.

I am afraid of many things, including the new chapters I just wrote, because they happened quickly. But that is how art appears! It boils up like feelings because that’s what art really is. The craft is in getting past yourself to sit down and start the thing past your own fears. The craft is in making it sound good. the craft is in finishing it. I hope my brother starts making things, and I hope I start making things quicker.

The last day he was in town, I put on the pants I bought when I was 22. They were my favorite pants to write in for years, lasting through a full marriage and into a new one. A pair of 2005 women’s jeans so old the crotch is ripped out (my dick hangs like a cotton bulge). I looked at myself in the mirror, decided against them, and picked out another pair of pants for the evening. It was President’s Day, and my band EFFORTS was about to play our first show.

I had spent three weeks wanting to vomit every time I thought about it. But the date on the flyer appeared and with it, our last practice before loading our gear. By the end of practice I was too hungry to be nervous, and Zach, Geoffrey and I arrived at the venue to drink.

Meagen appeared, worried about a friend of ours. We stood in a parking lot across the venue and I tried to console here, it had been a rough couple of days for the both of us.

Last week was Valentine’s. I spent the night before the holiday of hearts holding our dog, Ellie, as her heart began to fail. It had been three years since the doctor told us she would die any day, and now it seemed the curse had come to claim her. I whispered nice things into her ears as she melted across my chest, and then we both feel asleep. 

I dreamed she could talk, and she told me she was hurting. And then she transformed between a young girl and grown women, back and forth again as Meagen and I held her. At the end of the dream she told me to look up at the ceiling to see what death looked like for dogs; it was a dance of shadows and light that made no scientific sense, but I understood all the same. When I awoke Ellie was staring at me, alive and well, he heart has since settled to normal.

So Meagen and I were already wound up when some really bad shit went down for a friend. I tried to console Meagen across the street, minutes before the soundcheck. I was already hot in my leather jacket, but I kept it on because the homemade arm band was tied around my right limb. The arm bands were an idea I had floated by Zach months ago and, black for mourning, with our logo, the crucibolt emblazoned upon it. I had sat down sometime between my dog trying to die and the show to make the both wraps at home using ribbon, velcro patches and iron-on sheets cut carefully and branded by my wife’s straightening iron. (i. have. never. been. cool.)

Meagen asked if I was nervous, and I said yes. Then, we walked into the venue to smoke and drink some more, Geoffrey and I both having quit tobacco except for rare occasions and the first-show-ever exception.

I waited 32 years to perform music--it still feels like a daydream that was never actually supposed to happen, but at the same time, if I’m being honest, events were always leading to this. It feels like I pulled off a miracle that was always going to happen.

On stage we were surrounded by a dimly lit room, filled with lots of people we knew. I didn’t know what to do so Zach instructed me from his drum kit on what to say to the sound guy. Then we launched into our newest song, “6 pack, nice abs!(stinence)” and I immediately heard my own vocals for the first time ever. It was an awful shock. But that feeling was overwhelmed by the rush of sound screaming out from behind me as I stared down at what my fingers were doing and sang as well as I could.

It was Zach’s idea to start with “6 pack”. I had spent two years planning for this moment, certain (god-damn-it, certain!) that when I got to play this shit live, the band (whoever that would be, there was no band, barely any songs, a pipe dream), we would start the show with the opening track of the album “everyone will leave and you”, but two hours before the show Zach said we needed to open with  6 pack, it, and it was agreed. Plans are just plans, sometimes real shit needs to happen.

Here’s a video of it.

We got through the first pre-chorus, and then I was almost smiling as we launched into the second verse

Some may feel possessed

I myself obsess about it

By the end of the song I was already sweating from the stage lights and the leather jacket; and the way I was screamed, stooped with the guitar strap across my shoulder, I felt myself nearly black out several times, a moment that would continue throughout the show.

It occurred to me afterward the opening lyrics were written while driving down the very same street the bar was on, near-as-exact to a year ago as I drove to buy airplane bottle liquor while texting my Father in an AA meeting.

Dad’s on his way to a meeting

I’m on my way to the store

And there I was, holding the guitar I grew up pretending to play, the cherry-red-heavy my Father let me borrow as he left for California, a son who had never written a song, asking someone he didn’t know very well for a guitar they never used anymore. 

He used to write little songs

He don’t write nothin’ no more

Then, the song ended and I heard people yelling and applauding. without looking up, Zach clicked us into the next one and we slammed through another two minute punk song about feelings (the boys and I recently decided to call our genre mid-punk, as we are so damn old compared to ‘dem kids’). It was during this one my head started to get away from me, that I began to realize I was, somehow on a stage and not in my imagination, and I had to grip the guitar pick tighter and focus on what I was doing. That is how insane it felt. And then, at some point during the set, stage lights started to jump and bounce everywhere and the surreality lifted into some sort of mega-dise of everything I had ever wanted.

My favorite part of the entire show was turning to Zach & Geoff between songs and laughing before we launched into whatever was next. Here was the set list, lest we ever forget:

6 pack, nice abs!(stinence)

everyone will leave and you

may you absorb all evil

the bridge song

better off without you

I saw a pale horse

west coast

ash to dust

word waster

vera

Everything ended with me singing a song I had written about a time 5 years ago when Meagen and a friend--the very same one I was consoling her about--were playing Super Mario 2 (Japanese version).

I’ll never be as happy as I was

On those Winter nights

After the show ended, Ben walked up on stage to give me a hug and congratulate me. “I can’t believe you just watched me play a show!” I shouted. I hope he noticed how perfect it was not, as I sure did.

It is so important to just go for things, and fuck up, and not be perfect, and then try over, and over, and over again. When it comes to art, you can do anything you want (if you’re meant to do it). And why would you want to do it, why would you dream about it everyday, if that dream wasn’t meant for you?

Work hard. Fuck up. Fix it. Let go. And finish.

That’s my plan, over and over again, and somehow, it looks like it’s starting to work. If you’re waiting for a package, I hope you have it by the time you read this. And if you’re ever in Nashville, I hope you can see EFFORTS play a show.

-mE.