#the figure drawing one is my favourite pagee in my whole sketchbook now

[legends-live-in-memories]

Picture Perfect

AYO! its me back with more content for the second time this week while i ignore my other wips again. this is a lil gift for @queen-o-leen who i promised wholesome content for! I hope you like it!

Timinette/Timari Oneshot 1.9K words (not related to my other timari oneshots)

Summary:

“Tim spends a nice day in a park in Paris and takes a picture of a pretty girl.

He somehow gets an almost date out of it.”

no warnings this time. completely family-friendly. I know i surprise myself with this one too.

without further ado

He would be the last to admit that Jason was right and that time away was what he needed at this point in life but it can’t be ignored that, for the first time in possibly three years, Tim was having a wonderful day. He was having a wonderful week actually. After one too many unsuccessful cold cases and the simmering anxiety of off-world missions, his family, primarily Jason, for some reason, demanded that he take some time off and away from his unusual brand of normal. How that meant being sent across the Atlantic Ocean to Paris of all places, he wasn’t entirely sure. Alfred probably had a hand in that decision given that, as part of his forced vacation, Tim was not allowed to actually plan any of it. Him. Timothy Jackson Drake. The guy who stalked and manoeuvred his way into Batman’s house and team. The guy who tracked and found said man when the universe thought he was dead but was actually drifting through time. Yeah, Tim was not pleased about being led blind on his vacation. 

At least Paris was a nice city. And he brought his camera. He figured he could use this time to get back into old hobbies and what better hobby to start up again in the city of love than photography? He’s taken pictures of every tourist attraction worth visiting by his second day and began to take candid shots of people and animals. Would Damian like the animal pictures? Maybe, if they came from someone who wasn’t Tim. Is he going to try and give them to him anyways? Absolutely not. He liked his liver where it is, thank you very much. They would serve as great bribing material however. But that’s a thought for another day. 

Right now he was working on capturing what could possibly be described as the stereotypical outing with friends. He’s sitting along some bushes near the entrance of a park and staring at a group of teens his own age hanging around. He spots a brunette with thick curls of hair animatedly speaking with a guy in a vibrant cap. She’s waving a camera herself, and he appreciates her taste in equipment. Her eyes spark with fox-like mischief while the cap guy has a peaceful aura about him; like an old turtle. Next he sees a blonde, her hair is in a ridiculously high ponytail and she’s in a deep conversation with a red head off to the side of the whole group; her words are rushing out of her and she’s a buzzing bee with excitement. Another blond is in the area, but he sits in a broad patch of sun possibly napping with an open book on his chest. Very cat-like Tim supposes. He barely pays them more than a second of thought however. No. 

His focus is on the quaint beauty directly in his line of sight. She’s poised up against the giant tree trunk with a sketchbook in her lap and pencils surrounding her. Her hair hangs by her shoulders in twintails and it’s a colour so dark it seems to absorb the shade of the tree. She’s scribbling furiously on the page before her and her tongue is slightly peaking out to the side. Her forehead is creased with stress lines and her shoulders hunch slightly over her frame. She’s the vision of deep concentration and dedication and Tim would be a fool not to capture her. He’s gotten wide shots of her companions but now he wants to focus on her. 

Looking through the lens of his camera he zooms in on her profile. When his camera focuses, he spots a constellation of freckles across her cheeks, barely there, almost blending in with her complexion but Tim is nothing if not hypervigilant. He goes to take another photo when a bug flies into view. It’s a ladybug. It lands precariously on the tip of her nose and it’s just the thing that breaks her out of her work-induced trance. Tim is watching her now, long forgetting to click the shutter. Her eyes cross as she stares intently at the black-spotted creature and its presence seems to amuse her. She’s giggling to herself, as if sharing an inside joke with the bug and reaches a slim finger to swipe the insect gently from her nose. She inspects it and smiles a smile so soft that not even a feather could compare. He feels like an intruder. More so than one who takes pictures of cute strangers in public. 

Coming back to his senses, he takes another picture, the final picture, and lowers the camera from his face. He looks back at his temporary muse and finds that she is already looking at him. Her head tilts in confusion. Apprehension. Possibly a bit of fear. Which is valid given that Tim was pointing a camera at her from across the public park. What should he do though to quell her fears? 

He felt his face lift into a grin; he didn’t need to look at himself to know it was awkward and forced. A shrug of his shoulders and a flimsy wave of the camera in his hand was the only thing he did. Before he could begin to stumble over himself in apology, however, she surprised him. With a cautious hunch, her shoulders brought up to her ears, and an embarrassed smile to match his own, she slowly flips her sketchbook around and he comes face to face with, well, his face. It was a portrait of him. She had drawn a portrait of him. And she was showing him. Feeling embolden, he flips his camera to show her the screen but she’s too far away. He gets up on unsteady legs, cramped from his uncomfortable position, and begins a slow stride towards her. She meets him in the middle.

“Hi.” He barely speaks those words. They’re more like an exhale or a sigh of relief that he hadn’t scared her off. 

“Hi, I hope you don’t mind the drawing.” Her voice is high and light. Like a spring breeze. She’s daintily waving at him and he sees that her fingers are rough, and calloused. Unexpected but he finds it rather charming. Before he could get another word in, she’s off like an engine. “I just saw you there, and you had your camera so I figured you were taking pictures of us and thought that if you were then you wouldn’t mind me sketching you in kind but I should have asked and I’m sorry for breaching your privacy—” 

“Wait, slow down.” He fears that if he hadn’t interrupted her when he did she would run out of oxygen. Did she even breathe during her spiel? A voice in his head, that sounds like Cass, utters a soft ‘pot, kettle’ and okay, he sees a lot of himself in her mile-a-minute style of speaking. 

“No need to apologize. I’m flattered, truly. You were right, I was taking pictures of you. And your friends!” he hastily adds that last part. He turns his camera so the display screen faces her and he feels himself hold his breath in anticipation. 

A blush rises to her cheeks, red like the ladybug that interrupted her. He quite likes that colour on her. His eyes drift to the sketch and he’s further impressed by her skill. She has an eye for detail. He notices a bird in the background. It’s a robin. That piques his interest and lights a flicker of fear within him. 

“May I ask,” he begins slowly, unsure of what that little addition could mean. Did she know? How could she? Was his identity compromised?

“Why did you draw a robin in the background? It’s lovely but I’m curious,” he finishes. He’s going to play dumb until he has more information. She seems taken off guard by the question and raises her shoulders to her ears again in an embarrassed hunch.

“Well,” she starts, but she seems unsure and the words die on her tongue. She tries again.

“I just saw it fly by and then it landed behind you. So I thought ‘why not?’ and drew it. It seemed fitting.” She wasn’t looking him in the eye and now he felt kind of felt like a jerk for baselessly accusing some random girl. Of course it was just a coincidence. This bat-paranoia was going to be the end of him one day. It’s by sheer miracles and luck why it hasn’t already. 

“Oh, no worries. It just surprised me because it’s my favourite bird.” Right. Lie to the pretty French girl. But what else could he do? Tell her the truth?

“Then it’s a cool coincidence, huh?” She seems encouraged by that tidbit of information.

“Yeah, pure luck on your part.”

“What?” She seems more startled at that than Tim thinks she should be but before he can think deeper into it she speaks again and he would be a fool to not give her his undivided attention.

“Why did you take a picture of me with the ladybug? If you don’t mind me asking.” That stumps him because, to be honest, he does not know why himself. It just felt right. So he tells her as such.

“Well that would be another coincidence because ladybugs are my favourite insects.” She gives him a full smile alongside that statement and the brilliance of it almost blinds him. He wants to capture that smile for eternity. 

The thought strikes him. He doesn’t want this moment to end. He knows by the Friday of next week he’ll be flying back to Gotham where it’s business as usual and Red Robin won’t have time for commitments and puppy love. But right now? Right now Tim Drake is on vacation with a week and half left and all the time in the world to entertain the idea of a spring romance. Making the decision, he goes for it and takes the chance.

“I was getting a bit hungry. Do you know anywhere that’s good to eat at?” It’s an offer, open to interpretation. If she just lists some place, he knows where her interests lay. If she offers to escort him somewhere, then she’s taken the bait for exactly what it is, an invitation for more; whatever more is. He hopes she takes the bait. 

“Yes I do actually! My parents own a bakery just outside the park.” Her enthusiasm is uplifting and the offer of a place so personal is a good sign in Tim’s book. “Let me show the way, and I could join you if you would like.”

“Perfect. That’s wonderful. It will be my treat since you’re going out of your way on my account.”

“Nonsense. Like I said, it’s my parents’ bakery. They’ll be more than happy to give some complimentary snacks.” She loops her arm around his and begins to drag him to the park gate. She’s strong and her grip is firm and Tim feels lightheaded at the ease with which she pulls him. He can’t help but be swept up in the tides that is this girl. 

“I’m Tim, by the way. Tim Drake.” He offers his name, something he should have done at the beginning.

She looks back at him over her shoulder and he’s caught up in the oceans of her eyes. They’re alight with joy. 

“Nice to meet you, Tim. I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” 

“Nice to meet you too.”

They’re almost by the bakery now, he can smell the fresh baked goods from here, and he can’t wait to sit down and get to know this girl better. Maybe get her number by the end of their lunch.

Yeah. Tim was having a wonderful day.

[meruz]

Aforementioned long ask post please excuse me while i try to figure out tumblr's new text editor. I’ll get into the art meme questions first and then the rest at the end.

Ok first of all thank you all for sending in questions! Giving me an excuse to talk hehe. I’ll address these in number order. Here’s a link to the ask meme for reference but also I’ll restate the question for ease of reading.

1. When did you get into art?

Super cliche answer but I don’t remember a time where I WASN’T the weird art kid! I started keeping a dedicated sketchbook when I was about 12? But here’s a page from my kindergarten journal about what I want to be when I grow up.

2. What art-related sites have you ever signed up for? 

LOL this is a weird question. Not sure why so many people want to know. Anyways I definitely had a dA. more than one dA account. I used to browse oekakis when I was a kid but I think I was only signed up to some small ones that internet friends owned. What else...? Mangabullet,Tegakie, Paintberri, iscribble back when that was a thing, instagram if that COUNTs, I used to post art on livejournal and dreamwidth too. Patreon, I guess. Gumroad, inprnt, bigcartel, storenvy all for selling stuff.

In terms of resources.. I have a schoolism account that I’m sharing with friends. Used to take classes on coursera for free. I signed up to textures.com for work recently haha. I can’t remember if I ever had an account on posemaniacs. Did they have accounts...? I definitely used to visit all the time.

3. Show us your oldest piece of art you have on hand.

Alright here’s me actually logging into my old deviantart account. These are from September 2008 So I was 13 years old. I don’t have a deviantart account from before then because 13 was the required age for having an account and I didn’t want to lie about my age because I wanted people to be impressed by how young yet clearly incredible at art I was LOL.

4. What defines your artistic style?

You guys are probably more equipped to answer this than me but uh... I wanna say... Focus on colors. And... a slightly heavy hand? Like confident... not always well-considered mark making HAH...

Also I think I have a pretty healthy mix of american comics/manga influences. I feel like people who are into american comics always think my art is too manga and people who are into anime/manga always think my art is too american. And I’m taking that as a good sign.

5. Do you practice other styles/have you tried other styles in the past?

I like to think I switch it up a bunch! I mean, these are pretty different, right?

I think I’ve mentioned this before but one thing I really took away from art school is that, for an illustrator at least, art style shouldn’t be consistent. Your greatest weapon is changing the aspects of your style based on the task, the emotions and message you want to illustrate etc. So depending on the project I’m working on, the fandom I’m drawing for, whether I want something to be funny or serious or dramatic, I’ll change things about my style all the time.

One thing I don’t rly post on here is really tight polished work and that’s because I do that for my day job haha. If you’re not paying me... I’m probably not gonna color in the lines.

6. What levels of artistic education have you had?

I have a whole ass diploma LOL. Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration. from the Rhode Island School of Design. And I had a great college experience tbh. Besides the student loans. If any of you guys are thinking about art school feel free to e-mail or message me questions or concerns, I’ll be happy to help. Be as honest as I can be.

7. Show us at least one picture you drew or sketched recently that you did not put on a public site.

heres the wandavision kids. Uhh what else do I have...I feel like I’m rummaging for loose change here...

assorted valentines prep doodles

8. What is your favourite piece that you have done?

Well, obviously this is gonna change all the time and generally it’s gonna be my most recent piece LOL. So yeah, why the hell not. I’ll say it’s this one. I have a pretty short memory which I count as a blessing for an artist. I don’t dwell that long on older work and it keeps me moving forward.

10. What do you like most about your art?

I like that it’s something that only I would make! I had this thought fairly recently and I wrote it down in my sketchbook, it’s pretty cheesy and rambling but it felt revolutionary at the time:

So yeah. I like my art best when it’s the most me and for me. And I like it least when it feels like I’m just making something for social media or for other people’s expectations or whatever.

14. What do you like drawing the most?

Kids in baggy clothing are like my go-to LOL idk if that’s obvious. but also I like being challenged so lately I’ve really loved drawing multi-character compositions, environments, weird angles, etc.

oh i LOVE drawing the underside of shoes lol. And bandages. People that are kinda beat up.. I think it comes from getting a bunch of cuts all the time. I’m always patching myself up and I want to patch characters up too.

15. What do you like drawing the least?

mmm I try to find something to like in every drawing but lets see... I don’t like doing commissions of people’s dogs. Just because it’s normally like... a family friend and my mom volunteered me without my consent and I don’t even really know what they’re expecting me to draw and I don’t even get to meet the dog. Also I’m not that great at dog anatomy. Trying to learn though.

18. What is your purpose for drawing?

This could have a million answers! Uhhh to GIT GOOD??? But also to express myself... and also to make money... I mean it depends on what the drawing IS. I draw fanart mostly to connect to people in the fandom so if you ever see me drawing fanart please take it as like an open invitation to talk to me about the character haha. 

20. How would you rank your art? (poor, mediocre, good, etc.)

Good!!! I have a lot of self-confidence primarily born out of ignorance and a short attention span. If I don’t think too hard about how many other artists are mindblowingly unfathombly good... its easy to think I’m good too! LOL

In all seriousness though, I think the opinion a person has of their art is like a crazy balancing act, right? Like you have to think you suck enough to want to get better but also you have to think you’re good enough to not want to give up. I think we’re all walking that line, I know I am! But also I’m a glass half-full type of person so. Most of the time I feel good about it.

22. List at least one of your “artspirations.”

This is a good question because I’ve been trying and failing to put together one of those “influence map” memes for like a full month now. What’s giving me a hard time is I feel like none of these are actually really obvious “““influences”““ in my art? Like it’s hard to see a lot of them in the work I make...? But idk maybe you guys’ll see what I can’t.

And these are just a couple! God there’s so many more. I could talk about other artists for ages, from all different genres of art. Daumier, Rockwell like every illustrator out there, Dana Gibson, Alex Toth, Hiroshi Yoshida, a lot of the Brandywine School. Lots of current working artists too, Karl Kerschl, frikkin Masashi Kishimoto lol, Jake Wyatt, Richie Pope, Edouard Caplain, Matt Cook, Sachin Teng, - lots of big internet artists, Sophie Li, Freddy Carrasco, Milliofish, Angela Sung... like all my friends from art school too. I could just keep going but I’ll stop for now lol.

24. Do you have a shameful art past? (recolour sprite comics, tracing art, etc.)

I mean if that’s how we’re defining shameful?? sure LOL. It’s not sprite comics but I used to do pokemon sprite recolors all the time. And I used to trace manga panels and color them... Granted this was all when I was like under 12 yrs old so it’s not even embarrassing. Can you really call it shameful when a 7 year old wets the bed or whatever? Not really. In fact some of these are cool as fuck. Look

25. Draw a picture!

Man I’m so tired now but here.

I used to get a lot of compliments for drawing people smiling lol but I don’t think I’ve drawn a lot of smiling lately.. here’s proof I’ve still got it.

OK MEME DONE. onto the rest.

I read this ask first thing when i opened my computer in the morning and it made me really emotional.. I’m so glad my sketches could help you!!

I think a lot of artists on social media talk about the struggle of making art but imo not enough people talk about the joy! Like I know it’s corny but. I really meant what I said at the beginning of that sketchbook about re-contextualizing art around process and progress > product and perfection. I think its super important..! The strength of messy, unfinished, and energetic art! For the feeling of it, for the love it!

That's crazy!!! I hope you like 'em. The whole line of x-books is really good rn imo.

Hi! I totally have the answer for digital stuff on my faq lol. But in terms of drawing on paper.. it varies! I tend to use sketchbooking and any on-paper doodling I do as a way to loosen up/warm-up or experiment. But right now my go-to aresenal is:

from top > bottom

- kuretake no.55 doublesided brush pen

- tombow fudenosuke

- muji 0.38 ballpoint

- medium size poscas

- grey tombow double brush pens

- good ol bic mechanical pencil

not EXACTly sure which inking you referring to from my sketchbook but if I had to take a guess it'd probably be the kuretake no55. That's been my main inker, lately. Great for sketching with the thin end too.

You can print out and eat my art if you like. Just please don't mass produce or re-sell. <3

Thanks! I've come to accept that my art is always gonna be sort of gestural and painty naturally. It's getting it to tighten up enough to be legible that's hard lol...

uh yeah lol I agree actually. I think yolei is great.

I assume these asks are related? LOL

1) Yeah totally true. I love David.

2) I don’t take requests, sorry! But if you want to commission me to draw Legion i would be MORE than happy to. Just e-mail me at isellhotdogs@gmail.com.

<33333333333333333333333333

[misssophiachase]

The Luck of the Draw

For @klaroline-events KC Bingo -  Sketchbook - On FF and AO3

Klaus loses his sketchbook at school and Caroline (his sister’s best friend) finds it. The problem is it contains drawings of her and Caroline has enlisted his help to track down its owner. What could possibly go wrong?

“I need you now.”

“I know I’m amazing, but…”

“Would you just shut up and get in here?’

“If you wanted a tour of my bedroom, all you needed to do was ask, sweetheart.”

“Shhhhh,” she hissed, pulling him inside the room and shutting the door behind them. “Do you want the whole house to hear you, Mikaelson?”

“Says the girl who invited herself into my bedroom.”

“I’ve been trying to get your attention all night. What did you think I was doing under the dinner table?”

“Well, to be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure if that was you or Arabella doing that,” he smirked. Arabella was the Mikaelson’s pet cat. Although friendly, Klaus knew exactly who was doing the rubbing. “Now, is there a point to all the dramatics, Forbes?’

“You infuriate me.”

“Enough with the compliments, love,” Klaus replied lazily, lying on his bed and placing his hands behind his head.

“You promised to help me find, well you know.”

“If we knew who it was you wouldn’t need my help.” Her response was an exaggerated eye roll. “Fine, I don’t have anything for you.”

“Unbelievable.”

“To be fair, you only brought me this proposition a couple of days ago. I need time to track down that kind of information.”

“Okay, calling it a proposition, which it so isn’t, makes it sound untoward,” she shot back. “How difficult is it to ask around?”

“Artists aren’t like cheerleaders and jocks; we do things differently. You know less flashy and more…”

“Sullen and brooding?”

“I personally take offence to that.”

“Says the broody guy who called me flashy,” she muttered. “How difficult is it to ask all your arty people if they’ve lost a sketchbook? One that just happens to have drawings of me on every page.”

Hearing that reminded Klaus just what was at stake here.

Sure, he’d lied when she’d brought him the sketchbook. He’d been looking for it for days when she presented it to him after finding it on the bleachers post cheer practice.

After kicking himself mentally for leaving it in such a public place, Klaus assumed she’d worked out it was his and was madly trying to decide out how to explain himself.

Sure, it probably looked creepy to an outsider, but Klaus had been sketching her for the last two years.

Given Rebekah had told him in no uncertain terms “to keep his mitts off” her friends, he had no choice but to draw her instead. Klaus considered it his way of dealing with his unrequited feelings.

They were worlds apart in the school hierarchy. Caroline was a junior and did pretty much every extracurricular activity on offer. Klaus, a senior, liked his space far too much to go to football games and parties. He much preferred spending time with his few close friends, reading books and drawing.

What he wasn’t expecting was for Caroline to ask his help in tracking down the sketchbook’s owner. At first, he considered coming clean but then had no idea how he’d explain himself so went with the alternative.

Tracking down someone who didn’t really exist.

What Klaus hadn’t expected was to have so much fun being around her. He knew she was beautiful, intelligent and all-consuming but the past few days had given him a glimpse of what could be. Or, given his sister’s views, what could have been.

Although, Klaus wasn’t going to let those thoughts get in the way. He was having far too much fun to stop now. One thing, however, had alluded him. What were here plans once she discovered the secret artist?

“I’m curious, Forbes. What exactly do you plan on doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Once you find your mystery artist, what happens next?”

“I, uh,” she faltered, her blue eyes filled with uncertainty. “I suppose I haven’t worked that out yet.”

“Why’s that?’ Klaus asked, hoping his voice didn’t sound as desperate as it felt. 

“Caroline! Where are you?” Rebekah’s voice pierced the air. Even with his door shut she could still be heard. “I need help removing this face masque before it decides to stick on me for good.”

“Quelle horreur,” he joked in French, earning a knowing smile from her best friend. “Sounds like you better go tend to the screaming banshee given this disaster could rival the Titanic.”

“I’m not finished with you.”

“I kind of figured,” he nodded thinking that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing at all.  With another eye roll and a hair toss for good measure, she made her way towards the door. “Next time try and refrain from accosting me in my bedroom though, love.”

“You wish, Mikaelson,” she retorted, turning around one last time before pulling the door closed behind her. 

He really did wish.

It was only after she’d left, leaving a scent of vanilla and strawberries in her wake, that Klaus realised he already missed her.

2 days later

“What exactly are we doing here?”

“Why are you whispering? This isn’t the library last time I checked.”

Klaus had suggested they stake out the school’s art studio at lunch to try and track down her sketchbook owner. Yes, he was lying, but couldn’t resist being around her without the whole school watching them.

She’d been texting him a lot the past day and they’d fallen into their usual banter via cell phone. If he knew how fun this would have been he’d have started much earlier. 

C: How does someone draw like this?

K: Like what?

C: I always thought my stick figures were lifelike but then I saw these.

K: Stick figures get way too much criticism if you ask me.

C: Now you’re just being facetious.

K: That’s a big word for such a little girl.

C: It’s okay, I’ll buy you a dictionary so you can look it up, Mikaelson.

“So, this is where everything happens?” She asked, looking around at the myriad of paints and brushes, easels and canvases. Klaus liked the art studio, he found it incredibly relaxing and tranquil.

“You mean the painting?”

“No, dumbass, I mean the brooding.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re hilarious?” He teased, swatting her playfully with a paint brush.

“All the time,” she replied deadpan. “I’m thinking of majoring in drama at college.”

“Well, you have that drama queen thing going for you.” She gave him a look which clearly said he’d gone too far. “I’m not saying you’ll win an Academy Award for best dramatic performance though, that has my sister written all over it.”

“I’ve never understood how you two are related,” Caroline mused. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I love Rebekah, but she’s so loud and bossy and you’re…”

“Not?”

“Obviously you missed out on that and she missed out on the smart-ass gene,” she laughed, her whole face lighting up. Klaus loved watching her love, hell he loved watching her do anything.

She was wearing her cheerleading uniform as there was a game that night. Her blonde waves were piled into a high ponytail and the school colours only made her eyes that much bluer.  

“So, how are we going to find this mystery person when no one is here?”

“That’s the whole point,” he insisted. “Take a look around and see if anyone’s artwork looks familiar.”

“Where’s your work?”

“Why?” He asked curiously but also probably too quickly. Was she onto him?

“Well, we’ve known each other all this time and I’ve never seen your work,” she offered. “You must be pretty good if you’re going to RISD after graduation.”

“How do you know about that?” Klaus was shocked, although they saw each other frequently he didn’t think she ever actually saw him. 

“Your sister must have mentioned it,” she murmured. Klaus noticed a slight blush cross her cheeks and decided it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “So, I, uh, guess I should take a look around.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he only just managed to get out. 

“Not many stick figures and here I thought I had a future in art.” 

“I can teach you.” It just came out before Klaus had time to process his offer. Maybe it was a stupid thing to suggest but it was too late now. 

“I might be a lost cause,” she admitted. 

“Come on, let’s give it a try.”

“Now?”

“Well, there’ll be less embarrassment if you draw a stick figure without the judgmental, brooding artist crowd watching.” Before she could argue, he’d moved in behind her, placing a sketchpad on the desk and a pencil in her hand. 

He was trying to ignore just how good she felt against his chest. He noticed her breath quicken, hoping for even just a second that she felt even a shred of what he did for her. 

“Okay, so point the pencil towards the paper,” he instructed, placing his hand over hers and tilting it slightly. Her skin was just as soft as it looked. “This is how you need to hold it.” 

“So, that’s what I was doing wrong all this time,” she teased. He smiled against her hair, thinking just how comfortable he felt, his hand guiding hers gently to the paper. 

Later that night

“I thought football games were a waste of time,” she teased, approaching him on the bleachers. The crowds were long gone, the field empty. “I seem to recall you saying something only a few days ago about cheerleaders and jocks being too flashy.”

“Well, if the shoe fits,” he muttered. “I was bored, what can I say?”

“Did you at least catch my halftime act?”

“I did actually,” he smiled, thinking he quite liked what he saw. The pure athleticism on display was impressive and it didn’t hurt that she looked beautiful doing it. “Those spirit fingers had to be my favourite part though.”

“Uh, huh,” she growled sarcastically. “I knew you were secretly watching Bring It On when you thought Rebekah and I didn’t notice.” 

“In my defence, Finn and Elijah watched it too and I had a crush on the Clover’s Captain.”

“Wow, he even remembers the team name,” she laughed, taking a seat and putting her pom poms down. “You sure do like this spot.”

“Excuse me?”

“On the bleachers. I remember you used to watch me and Rebekah practice before try-outs from here. I could tell you weren’t really interested but it meant a lot that you did it for Rebekah.”

“It wasn’t just for Rebekah, Caroline,” he murmured, his gaze now downward, finally finding her red pom poms a much needed distraction. 

“The reason this spot stands out to me is not just because of that,” she said, moving closer. “This also happens to be where I found the mystery sketchbook.”

“Really? What a coincidence.”

“You know, I don’t think it was, Klaus,” she pressed. “I know it’s your sketchbook.”

“You do?” He asked, finally looking up into her eyes. 

“I’ve known since I found it and looked inside,” she admitted. “It seemed too much of a coincidence that it was in this spot and those sketches were of me.”

“So, you were testing me?” He asked, suddenly put out that she’d known and didn’t feel the need to be honest. Klaus felt stupid enough about her finding them as it was. 

“Maybe,” she murmured. “But not for the reason you think.”

“Why then?’

“Remember in your bedroom the other night, you asked me what I’d say to the person who owned the sketchbook?” He nodded by way of response, unable to get much else out given what was transpiring. “I didn’t know because it was yours.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course I knew what I wanted to say but I guess I but didn’t know if you wanted to hear it,” she admitted. 

“Why would you think that?”

“You didn’t own up to it, I thought maybe you didn’t feel...”

“Feel what?”

“Hey, no fair! You’re the one who drew the most beautiful pictures that, by the way, I’ve only looked at hundreds of times. Which gave me all these feelings and emotions and I’m the only one having to fess up?” She was rambling but Klaus thought it was so adorable it didn’t matter. 

“I think what you wanted to say is exactly what I wanted to say back to you.”

“This conversation has become awfully confusing but what I think you might be trying to say is...”

“I love you, Caroline Forbes.” She was silent for a moment, obviously processing not only his interruption but what he’d admitted. Maybe he’d gone too far?

“Wow,” she whispered. “Way to steal a girl’s thunder.”

“Is that all you’re going to say?”

“How about we stop talking all together and do something else instead?” She grinned, looping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer. “But for the record, I love you too.”

“Rebekah is going to kill me, isn’t she?”

“You’re really thinking about your sister right now? Just shut up and kiss me, Mikaelson.”

[elleselanguitsansfin]

Hello all! Just wanted to share a draft for a short story I'm working on at the moment. The 'planets' (cough cough Luna and Sol) are based off of pre-Copernican cosmology, so this is just my interpretation of their characters in a work setting. There's a lot that I want to change but I was curious about what you thought so far!

“Earth!”

Mercury, the memo-boy, comes speeding down the hallway sending papers scattering across the floor. In his hand is a piece of gold note paper, which I know must have come from the boss’ office, which he presents to me as he skids to a halt. “Boss wanted me to give you this. He said it was urgent.” And then as quickly as he arrived, he leaves, tearing down the corridor.

“Jove, what now?” I open the note and read.

Hello Earth! Sorry about the inconvenience, but I need you to do a task for me. A few years ago I gave someone — one of the planets — a package, and I need that delivered to the address below. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten who it was, but it’s an urgent matter so I was hoping you could ask around for me. I would do it myself, but I’m busy at the moment dealing with administration. Did you hear that the council is planning on revoking Luna’s and Sol’s status as planets, and replacing them with two nobodies called Uranus and Neptune? They’re crazy! Anyways, the sooner you get this done, the better. Thanks!

A mysterious package… Well, I suppose I should go talk to Luna first. She’s my closest friend, after all.

I push past the silver door with LADY LUNA inscribed on a plaque, and step inside the dimly lit room. “Luna?” There’s a bluish glow about, and I haven’t quite figured out whether I find it eerie or comforting.

“Yes?” A soft voice that sounds like tinkling bells echoes throughout the office, and I follow it to find Lady Luna herself in the middle of a pond. She’s standing atop a canoe that looks as though it’s been woven by silver threads, with little blue lights surrounding her head, while stirring the water around her with a long staff. Though I’m not in my office at the moment, I can feel my tides shifting.

“I’ve been sent on a mission. Would you happen to know anything about a package the boss gave you, a few years back?”

Luna looks up from her stirring. “No? Should I?” Her pale face wears a concerned expression, and her fingers dance up and down her staff. It’s a tic she has when she worries about something. Apart from her fingers, nothing besides her long hair and her long white gown moves — I’ve never quite figured that out, there’s no breeze in here.

“No, it’s fine, just trying to find someone.”

Her posture relaxes. “Oh, good. I haven’t heard from anyone but you in a while, actually, I was worried I had missed something.” Though Luna and I are close, she doesn’t talk much with the others. They usually only come to her for therapy, because she’s very calming, but otherwise they avoid her because she also has a little bit of a reputation as a lunatic.

“You haven’t, don’t worry.” Then I think. “Actually, there is a little bit of a concern at the moment… I don’t think it’s something to dwell on too much, you’ll probably be fine, but they’re reconsidering yours — and Sol’s — statuses as planets. I don’t know why, they’ll probably not change anything.” I have no doubt that Luna will keep her position, but I see her face shift and know perhaps it wasn’t something I should have mentioned.

“What?! How could they?! My work is so important! It’s because I don’t talk to anyone, isn’t it? They think all I do is follow you around all the time. I’ll show them! Get out!” Her skin remains the same glowing white as it always does, but her fists are clenched and her face is furious. One of her blue glowing orbs shoots towards me, and I narrowly miss it as I slip out the door.

I love Luna, but her moods are all over the place. You have to watch your words around her.

I walk through the cafeteria with the intention of finding Venus, but Mercury comes whizzing around a corner a little too quickly and knocks us, along with his stack of newsletters, to the floor.

“Hey, watch it!” He sounds mad, but Mercury is much smaller than I am so I don’t really care.

“You should watch it. You’re the one that goes way too fast.”

“Can you blame me? If our maker didn’t want me to go fast, he wouldn’t have given me super speed.” He glances around nervously. “That, and Sol’s chasing me because I stole his favourite paper weight.” He pulls a gleaming golden bird figurine out of one of his many pockets. “How was I meant to know he cared about this bit of junk?”

“If it’s a bit of junk, why take it?”

“I’m a kleptomaniac, I can’t help it. Besides, that’s my whole shtick. If I don’t steal everything, who will? It’s the principle of the thing.

“Right.” A thought occurs to me. “Actually, Mercury, has our boss given you a package or anything to look after? Within the last few years?”

“You do realise that nobody gives me anything if they plan on getting it back, right?”

“So that’s a no. Okay, then, well I’ll see you around then, Mercury! Do you need any help getting those papers?” I ask, pointing to the memos scattered on the floor.

“No, I’ll be fine. See you!”

I make it around a corner before I notice one of my shoes doesn’t feel quite right. I glance down. The lace from my right boot has vanished, somewhere���

I go back to yell at Mercury for stealing my shoelace but he’s already gone, not a single paper in sight.

At the end of another long hallway is an amber-coloured door with a sign reading VENUS. I don’t talk to her a whole lot — we’re quite similar, but she causes a lot of drama in the office and it’s a bit of a pain. You see, the thing is: she’s very, very pretty. By that I mean beautiful, and by that I mean drop-dead gorgeous. Venus has a bad habit of making people fall for her, only for them to get their hearts broken, and I don’t know if she does it on purpose or not but it’s fair for me to dislike her a little bit for that. Right?

I push through the door and the first thing that surprises me is the heat. Admittedly, I’ve never been in Venus’ office before. It’s like walking into a sauna, or a rainforest, or a very humid greenhouse. The second thing that surprises me is the amount of greenery everywhere. The walls and ceiling are obscured by plants in all different shapes and sizes, from tiny cacti to enormous monstera plants. Lying on a chaise in the middle of the room, with a sketchbook in one hand and a pencil in the other, is Venus. A large feather fan flaps furiously beside her, which makes a cool breeze strong enough to ruffle her dark curly hair and occasionally flip the pages she’s trying to draw on. She wears an orange dress that compliments her skin, and it looks like a very fine material. Makes sense, considering how hot it is in here.

I slip off my sweater. “Hey, Venus.”

Venus glances up, and a look of surprise crosses her face. “Earth? What are you doing here?”

“Boss sent me. Do you know anything— gosh, it’s so hot! How can you work in this room?” I wipe my forehead with my arm, and it’s slick with sweat.

“Oh no, come sit here! It’s much cooler by the fan.” She drags me by the arm to her couch, where I immediately feel relief from the temperature. I can see her sketchbook now, she’s working on storyboards for advertisements. Venus has a knack for making things look attractive, hence she’s in charge of advertising and sales.

“Thanks. Do you know anything about a package the boss might have given you? A few years back?”

Venus shakes her head, her frizzy curls bouncing. “No, I’m afraid not. Why?”

I shrug. “He just needs it for something. Don’t worry about it.” I get up to go, but Venus grabs my arm again. “What?”

“I’m sorry, I just…” She hesitates. “You’re so good with plants. You have so many, and they thrive. But I’ve been trying to grow my own and it’s just not working. Are the conditions not right?”

“Oh— well, I think this greenhouse effect is good in theory, but it’s a little extreme and not all plants are suited for these kinds of conditions. Maybe you could set up little areas with different, I don’t know, climates for each? And you could research what different plants need to survive.” I have lots of plants, but they tend to take care of themselves.

“Great, thank you so much! I’ve tried asking around, but nobody really seems to care. Some of the interns are having a competition to see who can get a date first and whenever I try to talk to anyone that’s all that ever gets brought up anymore.” Venus looks both happy with the information but also quite dejected. I never really bothered learning office gossip, I just assumed Venus liked having all the attention.

“I’m really sorry to hear that, Venus… if you want, you can find me in my office and we can talk about plants any time you want, alright?” I offer.

She beams. “Earth, that would be brilliant. Thank you.”

I say goodbye, and leave Venus’ room. It seems I didn’t know her as well as I thought I did.

I plan on finding Mars next, but a clamour outside turns my attention to the window. Mercury zips along the path, the same paperweight clutched in his hand as the one he showed me before. Shortly after he disappears out of my line of sight, a tall, bronzed man in a chariot comes racing after him.

“Sol?” I call in surprise.

His chariot screeches to a halt, and Sol turns to me. He says nothing, but beckons for me to come outside. I crawl out of the window, and jog over to where he is. “Hop on, please, Earth. This kid’s messed with my belongings for too long.”

“I— what?” I’m too confused to register what he’s talking about, so he just pulls me up onto the chariot, cracks a golden whip, and the horses with manes of fire pulling the chariot whinny and start their chase again.

“You called me, was there something you wanted to ask?” Sol towers over me, which would be intimidating especially as I know him to have a fiery temper, but he radiates warmth which makes him seem friendly.

“No, sor— actually, yes. Did the boss give you any sort of package to look after? Within the last few years?” It would make sense if he did. Sol is very responsible and one of the more powerful of the planets. However, my guess is wrong.

“No, he hasn’t. He did give me that paperweight, though, and I’d really like it back.”

I laugh. “I’ll talk to Mercury later. Hey, aren’t you meant to be working right now?” Sol is in charge of scheduling, and he has the important role of being the one to chase the night away. It’s not a job that generally has breaks, so I don’t know why he’s out here.

Sol gives a sheepish smile. “I got Luna to cover for me. The eclipse will only last so long, though, so I’m hoping a few minutes will be enough to catch him.”

“Face it, Sol, the boy is too fast for you. Go back to work.” I pat him on the back and he sighs, before bringing the chariot to a slow stop.

“Fair enough. I hope you find who you’re looking for!”

I get off the chariot, and walk back into the building. Conveniently, Sol has dropped me off right next to Mars’ workshop.

Mars has a heavy iron door with his name on it at the entrance to his workshop. Inside is an array of tools and machinery, some of which looks so obscure I can’t imagine what it could be used for. Mars is toiling away at something metal at the other end of the room, which is made evident by the routine CLANG of metal against metal. I have to shout to be heard over the din.

“Hello, Mars!” The clanging doesn’t stop, but he looks up from his work. A few tufts of bright red hair stick out from under an iron helmet. Whether he’s wearing it for protection, or because he just likes armour in general (he’s a soldier every single Halloween), I can’t tell. I realise that if I want to talk to him I’ll have to be beside him, so I cup my ears with my hands and walk up the room.

“Hello” — CLANG — “Earth, what can” — CLANG — “I do for” — CLANG — “you?”

I grab the metal tool he’s using, so I can talk properly. “Two things: firstly, perhaps you could pause your racket just for a moment?”

Mars looks displeased, but complies. “Yes?”

“Thank you. Secondly, has the boss given you any sort of package recently?”

“No.” With that, the work continues, and my hands fly back up to cover my ears to protect them from the deafening noise. I already knew Mars was not one for conversation. He’s like Sol in the way that he’s hot headed, but perhaps he’s more likely to show it, or act on it. He’s usually behind the biggest fights at work, and I know that’s not a rumour because I’ve witnessed it myself. We keep him around though, because nobody is as good at production as he is.

As soon as I’m out of the workshop, I head towards the elevators. Who else could there possibly be? I’ve spoken with Luna, Mercury, Venus, Sol, Mars… what if he forgot? What if he actually didn’t give it to someone, and just left it lying around? I step into the elevator, because I can’t think of anywhere else it could be, and press the button for the top floor where Jove’s office is located.

The doors open with a cheery ding and I stroll through the corridor. It’s easy to see which door is the one I want: it’s wide open, and all around it are golden decorations in the shape of a grapevine. Without bothering to knock, I march through the doorway. “Hello, sir!”

“Oh, don’t bother with that ‘sir’ rubbish. Call me Jove!” Sitting at an elevated desk is a large man, with sparkling eyes and a rosy face. Jove reminds me a lot of Santa Claus, or Father Christmas, in the sense that he’s always cheerful and loves giving away presents. “What’s the matter, Earth?”

“Well, s— um, Jove. Is there any chance you may still have that package yourself? Because I’m sure I’ve asked everyone about it, and I know I certainly don’t have it, so I don’t know where else it might be.”

Jove frowns, a puzzled look on his face, which is so different from his usual friendly smile it’s surprisingly jarring. “Are you sure? Who have you spoken to?”

“Luna, Mercury, Venus, Sol and Mars,” I recite in order.

Jove’s expression changes from a frown to one of understanding. “Ah, I see. I know who has it — makes total sense, really, I don’t know how I could have forgotten. Then again, I suppose you forgot about him too, didn’t you?”

“Who could I possibly have forgotten?”

“Don’t you remember who works in our archives, taking care of everything we don’t immediately need?” Jove encourages.

“I don’t… Saturn!!” My jaw drops, and I am overcome with guilt. How could I have forgotten about Saturn?! I feel awful.

“Don’t worry about it, dear. It’s not that you see him often, anyways. I don’t think he’s been outside for at least a century.”

“Yes, but still…”

Jove gestures towards a tray on his desk. “Have a biscuit, you’ll feel better, and then go and fetch me that package, please?”

I take one, and walk out to go back to the lifts, but there’s an unfamiliar weight in my pocket. I reach into my pocket, and pull out a golden pen, with bands of different coloured metals going around the cap. A sticky note attached reads ‘For taking notes and remembering things’. It’s impossible to leave Jove’s office without a gift of some sort.

I haven’t been in the basement before. It’s cold, damp and dark, and it’s like a maze with shelves full of old files and peculiar artifacts that haven’t seen the light of day for years. I wander around for a bit, and almost walk past a row of shelves when I spot a figure balanced at the top of a tall ladder, leaning against a bookcase. “Saturn? Is that you?” I call out.

The figure turns, to reveal a wizened face with a long white beard. “Yes, that’s me. And you must be Earth.”

“How did you know? I don’t know if we’ve spoken before,” I inquire.

“No we have not, but I know everyone in this building, or has ever been. In fact, I know everything that has ever happened here in all history.”

“Really?”

The old man smiles. It’s a crooked one, but the one of someone who is very wise. “Really. All records are kept here, and I have read every single one.”

That is unbelievable, but perhaps spending so long down here gives you a lot of free time. “Saturn, Jove gave you a package some time ago. Could I have that please?”

Saturn’s face turns to one of knowing. “It is time, then.”

“Time for what?”

He says nothing, but climbs down the ladder and vanishes into the labyrinth. Mere minutes later, he returns with a package, wrapped in Jove’s signature golden paper and tied up with a simple white ribbon. “Take this and follow the markers in bronze to get to the exit. Good luck, Earth.” With that he’s gone again, and I don’t know if he was wishing me luck with leaving or with the package. I follow his instructions and leave the archives, Saturn just as much of a mystery to me as he was before.

The package glimmers prettily in the lights of Jove’s office. Jove welcomes me back with a shining goblet of wine, which now sits precariously on my arm rest, as I am sitting in a chair opposite his desk.

“Thank you Earth, you’ve done splendidly. Now, do you have any idea what this package is?”

“No, I don’t.”

Jove starts to undo the ribbon at the top. “You see, we were hoping we could increase our audience a little bit, but in order to do that we needed to find a place for them to go. I have been conducting some secret research throughout the company and have concluded that you, Earth, are the best fit for this new assignment.” He opens the package fully, and extracts a small box. “This is for you.”

I take the box and open it. Inside is what looks like dirt. “Thank you?”

Jove chuckles heartily. “It is more than what it looks like. From that, you will be the first planet to have people.”

“People?”

“Humans. They’ll learn to live off what you provide for them, and they’ll be full of wild and wonderful ideas that we planets have never come up with before.” His voice lowers. “They may hurt you. They may forget who gave them what they needed and that they wouldn’t be anywhere without you. However, they will be better with you than anyone else and it is a privilege to be able to host life. Not even I have that. Are you willing to accept this assignment?”

My jaw drops, but I close it hastily. “Of course.”

Jove smiles from ear to ear. “Then take the box, choose a place in your office to put it, and see what happens. I wish you luck, Earth.”

With steady hands despite my nerves, I take the box of dirt — people? — and rush back to my office on a lower floor. It’s a calming combination of blue, green and white, and as I scan the room, my eyes fall on a large green area on the floor where I know I’ve got forests, mountains, deserts and ocean. “Africa,” I decide, and place the little box in the middle. There’s a flash, then I feel a tingling sensation, and the box is gone. However, I look closely, and I can see movement that was unlike anything else I had seen before. I was already used to creatures, but never any that were as apparently developed as these. Already they were moving things around and taking parts of plants to make things. Remembering I told Sol I’d talk to Mercury, I decided I could leave my people to their own devices for a little bit. As I slipped out of my office into the coffee room, I made a few plans.

I would treat them with kindness. Hopefully, they returned the favour.

[uupiic]

Attention mutuals and followers!

I will be doing my yearly Sketchbook Slam through September, and I figured I should try something different this year because I’m normally out of ideas by day 3.

I AM THEREFORE OPENING REQUESTS FOR THE SLAM AND THE SLAM ONLY. (please read the rules first) This is your chance to get me to draw your favourite (or most hated; who am I to tell you how to live your life) character(s). Ideally, each character should get at least three pages.

Please be aware they won’t be picture perfect. The whole point of Sketchbook Slam challenge is to do things fast, not perfect. Things get sketchy, things get wild, things get out of hand, a lot. And I need to train my ability to actually get characters to look like... well, the characters.

Now, on to the rules, because I like rules:

Followers and mutuals only.

Yes, you can absolutely request more than just one character. Yes, in the same ask or DM, too.

Only canon characters. No OCs allowed, because I don’t feel comfortable doing that at the moment. (No, getting other people to request your OC won’t work, either)

No characters that don’t have visual references.

All kinds of chars welcome - humanoids, techs, mechs, bots, anthros, aliens etc.

You can request and/or suggest general poses or actions (ex: reading a book, nodding off/falling asleep etc.)

Absolutely no NSFW stuff.

No fetish either (this gets its own bullet point, because we all know people don’t have to be naked, or f*cked silly, for other people to jack off to them).

No shipping (the focus is getting the characters to look right, not smooching)

No Lordi (no, I will not elaborate). Any ask/message I get with these is going to be deleted, regardless of what else it may contain.

Requests close on September 1, 12:05 AM (GMT+3)

Any and all of them will be posted through October.

[kiruuuuu]

Sledge/Glaz oneshot in which Glaz’ dignity gets ambushed and beaten up in a dark alley. Who needs enemies when you can have Rook and Mute as friends? (Rating T/M, fluff/humour, ~1.8k) - for @magehir (because who else would want to see an innocent man suffer)

.

Lunch breaks are the best. Really, they’re Glaz’ favourite time of day, if he missed one he’d fall into a deep pit of depression, he loves them so much he’d like to track down the ancestors of the person who invented the lunch break and worship the ground they walk on. He wouldn’t mind not sleeping for a week if it meant that lunch breaks would be an hour longer, he’d give his arm and his leg and probably some other body parts as well and there’s no way he’s obsessing about this, absolutely not, he’s just really excited about lunch breaks, okay?

It has nothing to do with the fact that there are only few people in the kitchenette at this time, one of which happens to be British and tall and kind and who is he even kidding. It has everything to do with it. In fact, it’s literally the only reason he’s started coming here in the first place, normally he eats outside whenever possible or in the company of his fellow countrymen or his other friends and would’ve complained both ways had someone dragged him to the small kitchen and back. He prefers sunlight – however, Sledge’s presence counts as a viable substitute because while the sun manages to heat up his skin, make him relax and feel cosy and comfortable, Sledge does exactly the same thing exactly the same way: just by existing. And so, nowadays, he spends his lunch breaks here.

Since Sledge often has other matters to attend to, he’s rarely alone, is usually surrounded by other SAS operators from Hereford, some of Six’ underlings or members of Rainbow – he’s never really on break and so they don’t talk most of the time which suits Glaz just fine. He doesn’t need to converse with him to bask in his presence, to feel his knees weaken whenever his accent gets unintelligibly thick, to observe him out of the corner of his eye. Besides, Glaz has things to do as well, it’s not like his entire day revolves around Sledge, he has no trouble finding activities that have nothing to do -

“Oh, you’re drawing Seamus again?”, Rook might as well scream into the small room from behind Glaz’ shoulder. He didn’t hear him coming but wishes he did because said Scot glances over at them curiously right before going back to his discussion with Tachanka, undoubtedly having heard the blunt announcement. “Scoot over.” The Frenchman squeezes onto the bench next to him, closely followed by Mute who pushes in from the other side, effectively trapping Glaz between them. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Of course he does, but he’s busy right now”, Mute replies and indicates Sledge with his chin.

Glaz closes his sketchbook before the two can drop more detailed comments about his drawings and fights against the flush rising to his cheeks. Fights and fails. “Look”, he says levelly and doesn’t even know how to continue because anything he responds can and will be used against him. Ever since the other two found out about his hopeless infatuation, he hasn’t had a single quiet minute. He can only pray that Sledge doesn’t get wind of it which might mean the end of lunch breaks and staring at him secretly and, honestly, the end of Glaz. There’s no way he could ever recover if Sledge found out.

“Can I see?”, a voice asks politely and Glaz has the sudden urge to violently toss his sketchbook through the window and then pretend he has no idea what Sledge is talking about.

“Sure, here!” Rook readily snatches the book from Glaz’ hands and shoves it into Sledge’s. “Make sure to flip through it all.”

His fingers are itching to take it back immediately but that would only raise more suspicion, so he silently glares at Rook and attempts to murder him with his gaze alone. Without success. Meanwhile, Sledge is leafing through the pages with an absent-minded smile and Glaz befalls a sudden panic upon not remembering of which nature the other drawings are. Did he - “It’s really good. You draw me a lot”, Sledge points out and returns the book. It sounds friendly and unsuspecting but who would his friends be if they left it at that?

“He also drew you butt naked”, Mute announces helpfully, “but since he hasn’t actually seen you fully nude, he botched your dick size. Way too small.”

“Yeah, you should rectify that and show him.”

“Oh, of course, meet me after work”, Sledge addresses Glaz with a good-natured grin and a wink to which the other two burst out into laughter.

Glaz wants to evaporate into thin air. It’s painfully obvious that Sledge thinks they’re joking yet all the younglings are just as painfully aware that they’re not, that Glaz did try to draw him like that and Mute found it and really, it’s his own fault for hiding it in plain sight, meaning under a loose floorboard that can only be moved once his bed is pushed aside inside a box with a lock whose key Glaz keeps on his person at all times. How irresponsible of him.

“It’s probably the fact that he always draws during breaks and since he’s usually here, he draws what he sees”, Rook explains to Glaz’ instant suspicion. It’s a good excuse, lacking any euphemisms or second thoughts, so there has to be something -

“Yeah, why are you here all the time recently?”

He stares at Mute who meets his gaze with an irritating smirk. He’s basically forcing his hand. “Because I’ve developed a sudden craving for tea”, he grits out unwillingly, making Sledge spring into action.

“That’s right, I almost forgot!” The Scotsman turns away and picks up his argument with Tachanka again while he sets out to boil some filtered water and Glaz buries his head in his hands.

“I hate you both so fucking much”, he whispers to gleeful giggling.

“We brought you some presents, by the way.” They quickly reach into their pockets and begin stuffing Glaz’ with their contents, wrappers crinkling and he realises with growing horror what they are. “Hopefully, you’ll need ‘em someday.”

“Are you nuts?! You can’t – take them back, you Neanderthals!”

“But we have no use for them”, Rook protests and shoves them deeper into Glaz’ pockets, swatting his hands away, “they’re the biggest size, you’re the only one who realistically -”

“It’s all you need, I’ve discovered his lube stash but figured you might not wanna get frosted right away -”

“Oh my God, shut up”, Glaz hisses exasperatedly and probably would have thrown both of them off the bench hadn’t Sledge returned right then and set down two cups of tea on the table in front of them. He’s too mortified to even thank him, his ears burning and his mind conjuring up entirely inappropriate images that only exacerbate the whole situation.

“You don’t take sugar either, do you?”, Sledge asks Mute and is granted a sweet smile in return.

“No, but like Glaz, I take cream.”

A questioning glance to the Russian whose embarrassment is approaching critical levels. “I don’t – I’ll drink it like this. As always. Uh, thanks.” He can’t stand tea. Another bullet point on the very long list of things that, unfortunately, Rook and Mute know but Sledge doesn’t, and so they never miss an opportunity to remind him of his ‘newfound love’ of the swill. Additionally, Glaz made the mistake in the beginning to claim he drank it pure, like Sledge, in an entirely misguided attempt to impress him. It did work, to an extent, but he still curses himself for it because he’s had to drink a cup almost every day for the past few weeks now.

“Oh? I thought you loved cream”, Mute says innocently. “My mistake. Maybe you’ll start having it eventually.”

Glaz is starting to tip over into a murderous rage but is momentarily distracted by the fact that Rook wordlessly drops a few sugar cubes into his tea as soon as Sledge isn’t watching for which he is eternally grateful yet also deeply confused. “Why in the world do you have those?”

“Are you alright, boy?”, a booming voice is directed at him all of a sudden, making him jump. “You’re so red in the face, are you sick?”

“I’m fine, don’t worry, it’s just a bit warm -”

“It’s not warm at all, what are you talking about?” Tachanka is undeterred and ignores Glaz even though he repeatedly insists that he’s alright. “Nonsense, you’re never this red. Do you have a fever? Seamus, check whether my boy has a fever.”

But Sledge, the absolute angel, must’ve noticed something, probably a cry for help in Glaz’ eyes or just his general distress because he not only refuses but also compliments Tachanka out of the room, saving Glaz the indignity of a prolonged interrogation during which he’d either have to lie repeatedly or shoot himself in the face afterwards. He thinks he’s safe for exactly two and a half seconds, then a broad hand comes to rest on his forehead unexpectedly. The touch is gentle and the hazel eyes looking down at him soft and Glaz swoons. “Doesn’t feel like a fever”, Sledge murmurs, “if you feel fine, it’s probably nothing.”

While he walks back to the counter to clean and tidy, Glaz is still stunned by the fact that a simple gesture could incapacitate him like this, make him forget all about his surroundings and just wallow in his daydreams that are sweet and lovely and - “Oh, look at the time”, Mute mumbles next to him, “it’s time for your knickers to get wet.” And he knocks over his own cup of tea.

He does it so strategically that almost all of it sloshes over Glaz, soaks his t-shirt and trousers and yes, his underwear too. He’s lucky it’s not too hot anymore but he curses colourfully regardless, attempts to jump up but only hits his knees on the table until Rook takes pity on him and gets up so he can escape the dripping mess – and it only registers after Sledge’s words why Mute would do this.

“Are you alright? Did you burn yourself? Stand still.” He’s by Glaz’ side immediately, rubbing his trousers with a towel and Glaz is too shocked to react or shy away from the touch when it reaches his pockets, making them crinkle audibly. “Ah, you’d better empty your pockets, lad.”

And Glaz wants to perish.

[princess-of-purgatory-and-bass]

ShapeShifter

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted an update to this story, but I lost inspiration for a while until certain events recently re-inspired me. And as always, I’m tagging @macherie02 as she is on my automatic tag list (though she is now on my Quotev and could see it there)

This is the part three of the ShapeShifter series

Big Cat (Part 1 smut)

Bloody Night (part 2)

Attempting Casual

Nina made her way through the halls of her house, phone in hand while on a call. Thanks to social media, the leopard girl was always able to keep up with her friends that lived out of state, or even out of country, and she currently was video calling with a friend she had known a couple years by this point. Abigail was a only a few years younger than Nina was, them being closer to each other in age than Nina was to her own mate, and the two were actually quite close in talking most days to each other. "I can't believe Lincoln would hurt you like that Nina. That's so unlike him," Abigail commented to the dark haired girl, currently putting her hair up into a bun. She wanted to keep it out of her face while she was drawing, sketchbook in her lap with a quote on the back of the previous page that inspired the drawing. "Do you know what might have triggered it?"

"I mean, I have an idea. Normally Kendall either already has lost or accidentally shape shifts by that point in their fighting which ends the match. But last night he never shifted, never lost control, and he was putting up one hell of a fight. Suddenly the fight was more of a challenge, and Lincoln probably just panicked. And it's not like Lincoln has really been shown anything about his inherited strength or anything like that. Ryan has been around recently for him, but she can only teach so much in such a short amount of time, ya know? He can't control his own instinct and strength yet," Nina told her, making her way to the living room and sitting on the couch. It was quite uncomfortable against the scratches, but there wasn't really anything she could do about that for now.

"I guess that's true. It's been the three of them for quite a long time. So how has everyone been since then? Are things okay now?" Abigail asked her, concerned about how things were holding together.

"Well Bailey doesn't live here, so he hasn't even been told about the fight yet. And Ryan has been staying close to Lincoln, watching over him for now. Poor kid is beating himself up about what happened. I've tried talking to him and letting him know I'll be okay and all that, but that's all still some pretty tough shit to have on your conscience. Then there's Kendall. He could barely move out of bed this morning from just how sore he was and you can tell he's pretty hung up about what happened. I can't blame him really, I just wish I could take all the pain away," the leopard girl admitted to her friend, thinking back to that morning.

"Where is everyone anyway? I don't think I've ever heard your house be so empty," Abigail pointed out.

"Lincoln's asleep. Or maybe at Bailey's. I haven't looked in his room since before I went to bed, so he may have left just before sunrise honestly. Ryan left for our shop before the sun came up to cover my shift since she doesn't want me straining myself. Kendall wanted to go for a run," Nina informed her.

"Didn't you say he was so sore he could barely move this morning? And he decided to go for a run despite that? Dude's more determined than I am when it comes to that," Abigail mused, her curly blonde hair falling out of the bun it was tied into where her side bangs were too short to reach.

"I think he wants some alone time to think about and process last night. Either way my roommates have me trapped here on bed rest because they're afraid I'll break my stitches or something like that. I'm gonna lose my mind if I don't get out of this house soon," the leopard girl rolled her eyes.

"It's been one day. And it's because they are taking care of you Nina," the younger girl reminded her.

"I know I know. But I'm so bored. I'm not even hurt that bad anyway. This is just overkill," the older of the two commented.

In the background, Nina could hear where the front door suddenly opened. "He shouldn't be back yet. He's never back this early when he goes for a run," she mumbled to herself before getting up to see who was walking in the door. The man that stood there, taking off a light jacket, was quite a bit taller than her with shoulder length brown hair and hazel eyes, and he was a pale tan like his oldest brother, causing their middle brother to stand out a bit with his white skin. Nina set her phone down on the window sill by the doorway, opening her arms to hug him. "Hey there Nina. Are Lincoln and Kendall here?" He greeted her, hugging her close to him before they both pulled away.

"I think Lincoln's asleep right now, and Kendall will be back in a little bit. He went for a run to work through everything on his mind right now," Nina told her soon to be older brother, grabbing her phone off of the windowsill and showing him the screen. "Abigail is here though."

"Hey Bailey," Abigail smiled as she looked up from her drawing, waving to him eagerly. "How's the girlfriend?"

"Hey Abby, Miranda's doing well. Thanks for asking," the youngest of the three brothers smiled back to the girl before looking at Nina. "Is everything okay? Did something happen with Kendall?"

"Last night Lincoln and Kendall were messing around like you guys do and Lincoln lost control. He almost hurt Kendall pretty badly last night and we had to pull him off of Kendall. Lincoln accidentally scratched up my back pretty badly when we separated them and I had to get stitches. That's why I'm home and not at work right now," Nina informed him.

Bailey winced at the story. "Yikes. Are you guys all okay though? Like besides the stitches I mean?" Nina hummed softly for a moment, trying to figure out what to even say to that question. In the end, all she could do was sigh and shake her head in response. "They're both really upset about the whole thing honestly. Lincoln hates himself for losing control and hurting me, Kendall is still working through how he feels and is barely speaking to Lincoln if he doesn't have to. I'm trying my best to help them but there's not really much I can do about this."

"I'll let you guys go to let you talk," Abigail commented once Nina finished, ending the call.

"I'm sure they'll get through this Nina. They'll just take some time to figure things out and work through things. Maybe they'll write some songs about it or find some other way to get through it," Bailey assured her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders before kicking the front door closed.

"Yeah, you're right. I still wish I could take this pain from them though. I want them to be their usual happy selves right now," Nina admitted, crossing her arms over her chest before moving to walk into the living room and out of the entry way. "You want something to eat? I'm kinda stuck in here with nothing to do."

"No I ate not too long ago, but thank you. I could use some chocolate milk though if you have it," the hazel eyed boy answered her. He was the quiet one of the three of them, preferring to sit and draw or write or express himself through artistic means. A stark contrast to his oldest brother. And he was a bit more shy in a way, so while the stockiest of the three of them, he typically slouched and almost made himself look smaller subconsciously. It was rather adorable to Nina, and it caused her to see him as a younger brother or adopted child despite him being three years older than her.

Nina went into the kitchen, getting out some chocolate milk from her fridge that she always kept for him. She knew it was his favourite, so it was something she always kept around for him in case he showed up at any point. Every now and again he would stay the night in Lincoln's room or would just show up and crash on the couch some mornings since he had been given a key, so she made sure he had his favourite food and drinks while he was there. She brought the container out to him and handed it over, not really caring if he used a glass or not since he was the only one that typically drank it. "So how have you been Bailey? Have you been able to relax much since getting home?"

"A bit. Miranda has been really helping me settle back into a casual schedule since tour ended. Still can't wait until we get to be on the road again," Bailey admitted to her.

"Yeah, Kendall has been chomping at the bit to get back on the road again too. I have to keep giving him errands to run and things to do while I'm at work even though you guys just got home. But it's still better than not getting to see him at all," Nina commented, sitting next to her future brother on the couch.

"He's just not the type to sit still. You've known that since before you even really met each other though. You commented on it the first time you were around each other, mentioning how you don't really sit still either," he pointed out to her, taking a swig of the chocolate milk.

"That's true. And I really wouldn't want it any other way. It's actually kinda cute to watch him when he gets antsy. Especially when he gets that nervous smile and how his voice gets a bit higher when he's excited or embarrassed." Nina smiled off a bit as she thought about her fiance, getting lost in thought for a moment about him.

"Will you two just get married already. You drive me crazy with all this cute shit," Bailey commented to her.

"We're trying. A wedding takes time to plan though, and we've only been engaged all of two days," she snorted, rolling her eyes at the commentary.

"Wait he finally asked you? No shit! I thought it would take a lot longer for him to finally do it," Bailey grinned to her. "Did he get you a ring?"

Nina held her left hand out to him, letting him see the ring that Kendall had gotten for her. A thin silver band with three stones on it, a purple gem with diamonds on either side of it. Bailey used both hands to hold the edges of her left hand, tilting it to get a good view of the ring. "Wow, this is actually really nice. Did you guys talk about it at all before he asked or was it just kinda spur of the moment?" He asked her, placing her hand down in her lap and smiling to her. She just shrugged in response. "I mean, we did a little bit. Just kinda talk in the quiet moments about what our life would be like together as husband and wife. We talked more about maybe trying for kids but we decided to get married first before having a baby, or at least be able to say we're engaged rather than just dating ya know?"

"That's really fucking cute. Has it been hard not to just go around and telling everyone that you got engaged?" Now Bailey was being a bit teasing again, a cheeky smirk on his tan face.

"It's not that we're keeping it a secret. We've just been a bit busy to really make it public yet. He proposed the other night when we were about to shower before bed and then I had work and then the fight between him and Lincoln happened. It's been a pretty busy couple of days," Nina rolled her eyes as him.

"You guys even shower together? Seriously do you guys leave each other's side at all?" Bailey raised his brows a bit and snorted near the end.

"We don't normally shower together. We were having a romantic evening and he followed me to the shower afterwards. That isn't an occurrence for the average day. Don't get your underwear so twisted up so quickly," Nina answered him, unable to hide how amused the comment still made her.

"Who's getting their underwear twisted?" A new voice now joined the conversation, causing the two to look up in the direction of the new speaker. Lincoln was awake and had decided to come downstairs for something to eat. He caught the end of what Nina had said and just had to figure out what they could be talking about for that comment to be made.

"Your little brother is over the idea of Kendall and I showering together once," Nina filled him in. "Good morning by the way. I can make you something for breakfast if you want."

"Nah, I'll make it. You don't have to make me breakfast. And maybe he wouldn't be so bothered by you two showering together if you didn't do things like have sex with each other in the middle of the woods at night," Lincoln crossed his arms, leaning his hip against a nearby wall that had a good view of his two younger siblings on the couch.

"You guys did what now? That's so gross! There are bugs!" Bailey playfully turned his nose up to her, grinning a bit.

"Listen, we don't exactly plan these things. We were out there and then the mood just hit. You honest to gods can not tell me you never had sex with someone in a weird place like that before. You aren't living if you haven't tried just taking your lover wherever you are when the mood hits," she tried to defend herself, though it seemed she was more digging a deeper hole for herself by this point.

Before either brother could respond to the comment just made by their sister-in-law, the door opened and closed once again, Kendall walking through the door and looking into the living room. Waiting for him there was his middle brother leaning against the wall looking quite amused, his youngest brother on the couch holding chocolate milk looking slightly mortified but wanting to laugh, and his fiance looking embarrassed yet determined. Kendall himself gave a rather confused look over what the conversation could have possibly been to have him walk in to that set up, but he also briefly wondered if he even wanted to know the answer to that question. "Do I even want to know what you guys are talking about right now?"

"We're judging you for fucking Nina in the woods," Lincoln filled him in. "And Nina is trying to say how you aren't living if you have never just, how did she phrase it?, just taken your lover wherever the mood hits."

Nina threw a couch pillow at Lincoln, the vampire boy just laughing as he let it hit him. Bailey could only laugh at the two of them before looking over at his oldest brother, noticing how he was holding his temples to hide the slight red tint that had now spread across his face. "Ya know what? I need a shower. A shower sounds really good right now," the oldest in the room commented, beginning to walk towards the bathroom by the room he shared with his fiance. "Aren't you going to take your shower buddy with you? From the sound of it, you're used to not showering alone," Bailey called out after him.

"I don't know Bailes, are you sure you wanna hear them going at it since they prefer it whenever the mood hits?" Lincoln playfully reminded his little brother, Nina now going a shade of red at their commentary.

"Actually, ya know what, Nina can you come with me? I wanna check your stitches." The room went still once Kendall said that, Lincoln losing his smile and looking off to the floor while Bailey went wide eyed. Despite the warning, the youngest brother was not prepared to hear how cold Kendall sounded when he mentioned the stitches Nina had.

The woman in question looked mildly horrified to have heard the last part come out of Kendall's mouth, her grey eyes wide as Bailey's hazel. Slowly she got up from the couch, walking over towards her fiance. As she passed by Lincoln, she placed a hand on his shoulder, a silent reassurance that was all she could manage in the moment. Kendall took her hand once she caught up to him, guiding her to the bathroom and closing the door while she got up on the counter. She took off her shirt then faced away from him, her eyes downcast to the surface she was sitting on rather than catch his eyes through the mirror. She felt gentle fingers run down her back before undoing the bandage that covered the stitched together scratches. Slow, small kisses crossed her shoulders until hazel eyes looked over what was now uncovered. Once reassured they were healing properly, Kendall looked into the mirror and tried to catch her eyes. Quickly he realized, though, that she wasn't going to meet his eyes. "Nina? What's wrong?"

"Did you really have to say that? Things were finally going well, we were finally getting Lincoln back to himself, did you have to remind him? Make him hate himself all over again?" Nina asked him, keeping her eyes low but turning around now to at least be facing him.

"They were making fun of us, it was bothering you," Kendall tried to explain to her.

"Sibling teasing and making someone hate themselves over something they're still fragile about are two totally different things though Ken," now there eyes met, the intensity of grey irises causing hazel to want to shift away now. "You took it too far with that uncalled for reminder, and you could really hurt him like that."

Kendall swallowed his breath before he could respond, letting her words sink in. She was right, he knew she was. He didn't want to admit it, but she was absolutely right this time. "I'm sorry. You're right, that was just me being angry. I shouldn't have done that." Her eyes softened towards him now, taking his hand and giving it a light squeeze. Softly his forehead rested against hers, their eyes both closing for a moment while she simply just held his hand. "You know I'm not the one who needs to know you're wrong. You know it's your little brother who needs you the most here."

All he could do is nod, leaning against the counter so as to make himself smaller before pulling away to instead rest his head on her shoulder. Her arms wrapped around him as she kissed his temple and let him rest there for a moment. His skin was still a bit warm from being out on a run in the hot sun, especially against her normally cold skin. Despite the conversation they had been having, they were rather relaxed together. Just holding each other as the seconds ticked by slowly. "There's just one thing I think I wanna know before we get to anything else though. How do you always seem to feel like you're freeing no matter where we are?"

"Honestly I have no idea. You're like my own personal heater, though, so I just got lucky that you keep me from freezing," Nina playfully responded to him, finally letting go of him now.

"I'm always glad to warm you up whenever you need," Kendall pulled away as well, winking at her at the end of his comment.

"You're just as bad as your brothers, ya know," Nina rolled her eyes at him, kissing his cheek. "Shouldn't you be getting in the shower right now anyway? You smell horrible."

Kendall laughed for a moment before going to softly peck her lips, holding her chin before pulling away. His free hand ran along where her collar rested, the black strip of leather holding a guitar pick shaped tag with his name on it. Then his hand found a gold chain that she typically kept hidden under her shirt. The only thing gold that she would wear, normally preferring silver. Yet this chain, like her collar, she never took off if she could help it. The gold chain had an actual guitar pick on it, Lincoln's name in black across the white plastic, and he ran it between his fingers for a moment before kissing her cheek. "So when are you going to admit you have a crush on him by the way? And that's why you haven't taken off the necklace he gave you?"

"What do you mean? I'm in love with you Kendall," Nina questioned, a pit beginning to form at his question.

"Nina, I know that. But I also know you were raised around open relationships and pack bonding life styles," Kendall pointed out to her. "You don't have to hide it. Bailey you treat like a brother, but Lincoln? I can tell you see him a bit differently. That you want to love him too."

Nina sighed and looked away, biting her lip for a moment while she thought of what to say next. "I didn't mean to fall for him. But he makes me feel safe, like I can trust him. And honestly I'm a bit curious. But I would never in a million life times be able to get myself to stop loving you enough to leave you for him." Kendall let go of the chain now to stroke her hair, kissing the top of her head. When she looked back up at him, there was almost amusement in his eyes. "I know Nina, I know. And honestly, right now I'm still not really pleased with him from how he hurt you. How you're saying he makes you feel safe after he caused your current stitches I'll never get. But, I'm also not saying that you have to choose between me and him. I know I'm your primary partner, I'll always be your soulmate, but if you want to try having a secondary partner to see if that works for you, then maybe start the conversation."

"You're way too good for me, you know that?" Nina commented, kissing his cheek.

"Nah, I think I am more exactly what you need," Kendall told her before going to hold her close. "And tonight, we can both sit down with Lincoln and just start the conversation. talking won't hurt, it'll just clear the air." Quietly, Nina nodded in agreement.

"Now will you shower?" She jokingly asked him, pulling out of the embrace they were in. "Yeah, now I'm showering."

[livingcorner]

Secrets of In the Night Garden

His hand slaps down on the sketchpad. “Don’t read that,” says Andrew Davenport, refusing to move his fingers, despite my cajoling. “It’s terrible.” His hand is covering a short rhyme, written in pencil, that was his very first attempt to devise a song for a shapely piece of blue fluff called Iggle Piggle, who first came to life on these sketchpads three years ago, and who has since all but taken over the world.

I’m astonished to find Davenport so unwilling to let me see the rhyme. It’s not as if his reputation as the king of kids’ TV isn’t assured. As well as being the co-creator of Teletubbies, which in its 13 years has travelled to 120 countries and generated £2bn, Davenport is the man behind In the Night Garden, the gently surreal bedtime show for pre-schoolers of which Iggle Piggle is the star. In the Night Garden – which first aired on the BBC in 2007 and features engagingly colourful characters who meet, play, sing, wander about, then tuck up for bed – may even eclipse Teletubbies: it has already conquered 35 countries and territories, from Norway to China, where book sales have reached 1.5m. More importantly, for at least a year, the show was pivotal in getting my own daughter, now three, off to bed. As far as I’m concerned, Davenport is bigger than Santa.

You're reading: Secrets of In the Night Garden

We turn the page. “This is the first ever drawing of Iggle Piggle,” says Davenport, who is opening up his prized sketchbooks to an outsider for the very first time. The Guardian’s photographer, also the father of a toddler, and I both gasp. Davenport points to the figure’s floppy, bean-like head. “That head shape was the main feature. It became characteristic. With a drawing, you can create reality immediately. Character almost forms itself: you can switch off your editorial mind. In the Night Garden all started from this sketch. He’s a sort of a lost toy, a floppy character who has made his way through the world somehow.”

The first ever Iggle Piggle drawing. Photograph: David Levene

Iggle Piggle is now making his way through the world all the way to the stage: the In the Night Garden Live show opened in Liverpool last month and has just arrived in London, before heading for Glasgow and Birmingham. “For a long time, I didn’t want to do a stage show,” says Davenport. “It’s difficult to create something that works for a theatre audience in the way that a TV show works for one. And conventional theatres are simply not designed for two-year-olds, with those seats they can’t see over.”

Read more: History of Gnomes | LoveToKnow

The solution takes the form of a travelling inflatable theatre fitted with baby-friendly touches, such as microwaves for the warming of milk (promising a whole new kind of interval drinks bedlam). Audiences are offered a choice of two stories. “One features Iggle Piggle losing his blanket,” says Davenport. “The other features Makka Pakka washing everyone’s faces.” Neither story, it’s safe to say, will come as a great surprise to regular viewers of the show, many of whom are parents who find its soothing antics easier on the eye and the ear, not to mention the imagination, than Teletubbies.

We flip to the first ever sketch of Makka Pakka, outside his cave, dripping sponge in hand. Where did the idea for this bear-like, pint-sized wiper of faces come from? “Often, children don’t like having their faces washed,” says Davenport. “If you can make a playful version of that, it will defuse the situation, if you like. I thought it was quite funny to have him just come on with a trumpet and interrupt the whole narrative – to make everyone stop and have their faces washed. It seemed quite truthful for a child.”

The first Makka Pakka sketch. Photograph: David Levene

Davenport, 45, has no children of his own, but a godson, he says proudly, “has lived through In the Night Garden”. Tall and slim, with cropped hair and a quick laugh, he wears a dark blue shirt and looks as smart and spotless as his studio in London’s East End. At his desk sits a keyboard and a phone – he sings into its answering machine if he thinks of a tune while he’s out; a piece of software turns it into music.

Shelves bear the sort of books you might expect: A History of Toys by Antonia Fraser, and Seeing Things by Oliver Postgate, Davenport’s hero and the creator of his own favourite kids’ TV show The Clangers. “Who wouldn’t want to live underground on a separate planet?” he says with relish. “It’s a totally alien world that’s just fantastic.” Some titles are, however, a little more cerebral: The Developing Child by Bee Boyd, The Language and Thought of the Child by Jean Piaget.

The original Upsy Daisy design. Photograph: David Levene

He quotes Piaget when I ask him to explain the phenomenal success of In the Night Garden, and how it manages to be both soporific and entertaining. “I’m not sure soporific is the right word,” he says, pointing out that the show finds very young children just as their play is expanding out of the mere physical (bang it, chuck it, break it) and into the world of ideas. “Piaget had this notion of operational play and symbolic play. Up to a certain age, a child will take hold of a doll and bang it to see what it sounds like. Then, at a certain point, that doll becomes symbolic. It starts to stand for a person. It’s that kind of play In the Night Garden is accessing. And it’s that, I think, that is so calming.”

Read more: Yellow Garden Spider | National Wildlife Federation

Before setting off to meet Davenport, I’d asked my daughter if she had a question for Iggle Piggle’s daddy. “Why does Iggle Piggle have to go to bed?” she said. “That’s a really interesting question,” says Davenport. “He’s the connection for the child, the one who goes to sleep at the beginning and enters the Night Garden. But he’s also, crucially, the only character not in bed at the end. ‘Somebody’s not in bed – Iggle Piggle’s not in bed.’

“Bedtime really commands a child’s entire day. Very often children don’t have a proper sense of time. They live with the idea that, at any moment, someone could just take them from what they are doing and send them to bed. It can be a difficult moment: being suddenly alone. So In the Night Garden makes a metaphorical explanation for sleep, which is one of the only things in a child’s life it can’t be accompanied on. That’s why you have the image of Iggle Piggle alone on a boat at the start, floating on a dark swelling ocean that’s a metaphor for sleep.”

Source: https://livingcorner.com.au Category: Garden

source https://livingcorner.com.au/secrets-of-in-the-night-garden/

[freya-amelia-smith]

EVALUATION !

This project is called MULTIVERSE, and my task was to create a zine using a collection of words linking to this topic that was given to use on google classroom. With these words, I were asked to pick out a minimum of 12 words and did so, but I only dedicate my zine to four words out the 12, and those four words were PARALLEL, REALITY, TIME AND ELEMENT, all the work I create during this project was created using the programs of adobe photoshop, illustrator, Lightroom, InDesign and procreate. 

A zine is a small looking magazine that norThis project is called MULTIVERSE, and my task was to create a zine using a collection of words linking to this topic that was given to use on google classroom. With these words, I were asked to pick out a minimum of 12 words and did so, but I only dedicate my zine to four words out the 12, and those four words were PARALLEL, REALITY, TIME AND ELEMENT, all the work I create during this project was created using the programs of adobe photoshop, illustrator, Lightroom, InDesign and procreate. 

A zine is a small looking magazine that normally is used for advertisement or to spread the word about something, In my case, it was to show artwork that portrays word that I have chosen.

A big part of this project was researching because I need to first research about zines as I didn't really know what they were I also need to research how to make one and how they work so I was able to create mockups and outcome that are the right size after doing this it helped me a lot to understand zine, and I was able to get on with creating, but then I knew it was time to create the outcome to go in my zine so I had to research and look up a lot of artist and designers for inspiration the pain website I used for inspiration was Pinterest due to me being able to create a board that I could go back to and inspire me.

The artist that I research that helped me a lot would probably be Ranganath krishnamani because he enables me to find a style that I like and help me open my mind to think or outcomes that I create this artist help me with the topic of reality as he a series of outcomes called a shift in the playing field and before I found him I knew I wanted to use social media and technology in my outcome, but didn't know how to do it so when I found his work it inspired me and I was able to think of loads of different ideas. 

Each page in my zine is dedicated to a topic of my choice and the target was to show that word through artwork, for example, the word PARALLEL I used images such a building and shapes line and by doing this I put art together that represented parallel another page in my zine was about time so I used a lot of clocks to show that topic, the big part of this project is the MARS side or it MATHS ART RELIGION AND SCIENCES so another thing I had to have it mind was making sure I was showing this throughout the project and in my outcomes.

With me creating my zine I thought they would be a load of different problems doing it but in fact, there wasn't that many the main problem that I came across was one finding artist that had focused on the word time as I was really struggling with inspiration I need someone to inspire me but after a lot of searching on Pinterest and Google I finally came across outcomes that inspired me but was still unable to find an artist that focused on the topic time another struggle and I think the last struggle I had was trying to keep a team throughout my project and in my case, it was a colour pallet I wanted to use my colour pallet through but sometimes it would fit with the aesthetic so I have to think and think until I come you with and outcome using the colour pallet that I choose but overall the journey of my project had many ups as i was creating consatly but had some down fulls exspesaly went I have a brain block on ideas but came over quickly due to looking at pintrest the that got the ball rolling so a smooth journey i would say with this project.

As this project had a task that was very different from the other projects that I have done there was a lot of learning involved and learning new skills and techniques including different programs to learn such as in design and new techniques on photoshop the main skill that I learn that I’m really pleased with was the dissolve effect/liquefy effect on photoshop that is used in my time poster in my zine another new technique that I approached was a log print/rubbing this was another technique that I used on my time pages for my zine and it was interesting to learn a new skill and in the future, I may want to learn about wood printing similar to linocuts and screenprinting but using wood. Are used a lot of old skills that I have collected over my time at college including collage thing halftoning and just my way of laying out my artwork and also a big part of graphics and getting my topic out there was using typography and I learnt a lot about how important typography is and I learn every day when creating new outcomes.

My favourite skill overall that I have learnt would be the liquefying effect on photoshop and also photography. I knew a lot about photography as I have grown up in a photographers household but I learn a lot more about capturing the topic of something through a photograph and I also learn a lot about Lightroom as that is where I edited the photos. With photoshop I watched many videos on how to do the liquefying effect and now I have that skill which I’m really happy about. I mentioned in my blog that I wanted to learn the program in design and I’m learning as I go along and I’m still figuring out the program watching videos but hopefully, I will be able to use that throughout my time at college and after and hopefully mastering it similar to illustrator and photoshop.

Due to us being a national lockdown the college isn’t open so we have been having to work from home and to present our work we have been using the website Tumblr I created account name is multi-verse and was adding all my outcomes and journey throughout this project onto my blog I really do prefer doing it a digital way rather than writing in a journal and sticking stuff in a sketchbook as one it gives you better quality pictures and it also allows you to choose statics and have a theme of your whole website page. Are used different ways to show my work and the journey of here the most common way was doing screenshots of how I got to an outcome and explaining step-by-step how I did it I also uploaded videos on my blog for me drawing on my iPad which is a cool way of seeing the development of an outcome. By doing all this work in this type of way I feel that I have displayed multi-verse and the project brief well on my blog and I feel that if someone was to look at it they would get an understanding of what it’s about and know what it’s about. Because especially at the beginning of my blog by explains a lot about space the multi-verse and theories delving into the more science and maths side of it and then as you go along through my blog you see research in me developing outcomes and by doing this I was able to develop outcomes to the best of my ability and be pleased with the outcome is at the end and then look well done.

With my blog I started off with a brain block I didn’t know what to do so the first thing I did to plan for this project was create spider diagrams that I could put all different connotations of my chosen word onto and search pictures on Pinterest and add them to the board by doing this I was able to refer back to them when I had another brain block further into the project. I also created a layout of how I wanted my zine to look and this helped me have a strict approach onto the scene as I knew that I wanted it to look like that so I stuck with that and as it was on my blog I knew that that’s what I showed that I wanted to be like so I wanted my outcome to show that I had followed my planning. And there are many different ways once I finish my outcomes that I evaluated them but normally I would just put my outcome on my blog and explain what my intentions were and what context I wanted to show and talk a little about the piece of artwork. One thing that I find it’s really important with any project is you try and see your work from someone else if you and try and give yourself critical feedback so you can push yourself and work harder I always do this on every topic are normally I get my family members to look at my artwork and say things about them and things that I need to change and things that are good so I work on it until I’m happy and pleased with everything on the page.

With this project a big part to me was the context as I wanted to show the words well through using artwork I feel the best piece of our that does show context is my reality pieces because you can see many different feelings and emotions through that piece of artwork and people can link personally to it where is with the other ones they do show context but not as deeply as the reality pages. But overall this project has worked really well and I’m really happy with how my final mock ups came out each page portrays a word in a good way and you know what the theme of the pages I’ve used many different skills and techniques including digital drawings typography log prints etc, but there are weaknesses to my outcomes and I would like to work on them in the future if I had the time and that would be maybe changing the theme of the background within the project as that was one thing that I was wary about and was concerned but the reason I chose are quite bold and colourful background with me looking at the word multi-verse and focusing on the word multi and thinking of loads of different colours so I had different approaches to the topic and they link back to everything which I think is a good thing to have but I play to my strengths which is always a good thing as you know that there will be a good outcome at the end by also worked on my weaknesses and learn new skills which I will use in further projects.

[jess-readallaboutit]

Evaluation~

Throughout the whole Black Holes and Black Books: Multiverse project I have researched many artists to inspire my work, however the first artist that has impacted my ideas would be Tom Philips’ book art series. I was inspired a lot in the beginning of my Little Black Penguin Book by his book art series A Humument and how he drew many designs on his pages with biro pens and used techniques like hatching and cross hatching to create different patterns on the pages, I created many of my own designs in my book and used similar techniques as he did, these designs filled many of my pages and became some of my favourite pages throughout my book.

Emma McNally also impacted my artwork, her art related heavily to the project as she had created black hole-like figures and also forms like star constellations. In my Black Penguin Book I traced constellations and layered them to make different patterns, I then traced them onto some of my book pages. When I spray painted I also managed to use the black spray paint and create a black hole-like figure, this was unintentional but then it reminded me heavily of Emma’s work. Her structured work and use of lines also inspired me for other designs in my book and portfolio work.

The third biggest inspiration for my work isn’t specifically one artist, however it is work by many different artists found on Pinterest. Pinterest was very helpful to find inspiration throughout the project as it holds a variety of different ideas from different artists. It allowed me to access sources at any time in the project if I was running out of ways to fill my book and contains a lot of amazing and unique work.

The main themes for this project were Black Holes, the constellations and multiverse’s so a lot of my work was based around these 3 subjects. For my black book I also included the theme of experimentation, It’s experimental because I didn’t just choose one theme for my book as I wanted it to contain a variety of different techniques and ideas. I created 2 boards that were coated with white paint and drilled to make constellations, then I screen printed a design I had created onto these boards with black ink. Another theme would be love and hate, this was the theme of my black penguin book and I took many words and quotes out of my book and used it in all of my work, so love and hate was quite a big theme in my project. I used the theme of love and hate in my screen print design for my boards, art inside my book, sketchbook pieces and A2 portfolio work. Using the theme of my book throughout my project was very useful because it gave me more ideas and more ways to make my artwork complete as I used words and quotes in my drawings to show meaning in them.

I have learnt many new processes and skills throughout this project including, screen printing, collaging, drawing with charcoal, layering, spray painting, making dry point and intaglio plates and the process of drypoint and intaglio printing. I had done some screen printing in the last project, however in this project I feel that I have improved and learnt how to make my prints more professional by simple changes like the amount of ink on the screen and properly cleaning the screens. Before this project I had never used spray paints before in my art, I learnt how to use it safely and create cool art in my black book by spray painting through a word stencil that I had created myself relating to the theme love and hate, I became comfortable with experimenting with the distance I sprayed the bottle and the colours. I had also never made drypoint or intaglio prints before this project, however I learnt how to create a plate and also how to print them professionally. For intaglio and drypoint prints I learnt that you need to print onto damp paper so that the ink is absorbed, I experimented with the amount of ink I left on the plates and easily grasped how to use the printing press.

In the Thursday drawing sessions I learnt to be more experimental with the materials I use, for the stones ’n’ bones drawings we drew around stones and bones to create forms and at first these looked messy and unfinished, however once I started adding more details and depth it looked more put together. I became more confident in decision making and learnt that if I didn’t like a piece then it can always somehow be improved by sometimes even adding the tiniest detail. I created strange figures and forms throughout these sessions but they all hold much detail and unique ways of working and also include messages in them with words and quotes from my little black book.

I think both my Little Black Penguin Books are the most successful piece of art I have created throughout this project because I really love the idea of doing art in a book, I think its unique and different from just creating art in a sketchbook and its more intriguing to me. I chose it as the most impactful because I feel that it contains the most experimental work that I have created through the project and I heavily enjoyed working on all the pages, it contains screen prints, spray paints, different techniques of drawing and a variety of ideas. I also like that it doesn’t just contain one theme throughout the whole book as I was able to do whatever I wanted in it and be free with ideas.

If I could display my work anywhere in the world at any time in history, I would display it in Germany in 1878 as that is where the author lived and my Little Black Penguin Book was published at that time. Another reason for that specific year would be because the telephone was invented in 1876, so technology would’ve been very new at that point in history and I would find it interesting to compare it from all the way back then to now.

The 10 words I would use to describe my outcomes would be:

-Love

-Hate

-Experimental

-Constellations

-Black Holes

-Universe

-Multi-universe 

-Interconnected

-Abstract

-Intriguing 

If I needed music to go with my outcomes then I would choose Hayloft by Mother Mother because its one of my favourite songs at the moment and I love the instrumental, I also listened to this song while working on my outcomes so it was a source of motivation for me throughout the project.

When I was working independently at home I spent around 5 hours a day completing work and sometimes worked over 5 hours. I work on the table in the dining room, here’s a picture below.

At the start of this project I didn’t know how to produce intaglio and dry point plates, I also learnt the process of printing them. I learnt how to screen print on different surfaces and improved my techniques, another thing I learnt was how to spray paint professionally.

I had started a second penguin book over the holidays and I once again experimented with cutting sections out of the pages, sticking those cut-outs onto another page and drawing fun patterns. Since we are now in another lockdown we have not completed our white boards with screen prints on, but once we are back in college I aim to put nails into the drilled holes and use string to create the constellations, I also picked out 2 words from my book to spray paint in gold onto both my boards.

The presentation techniques that I have used within my project have effected my standard of work because I learnt how to efficiently use materials, tools and machines. My dry point and intaglio prints wouldn't have been to the standard they are now if I didn't have the helpful presentations beforehand, as I learnt how to create dry point and intaglio plates and how to print them, the printing process is a messier and longer process than a lot of the others learnt in the project but I feel as though I was able to create many prints in one day for my project because I had listened well to the instructions taught. I can also confidently say that if I ever need to create prints in the future, I will be able to produce them a lot easier than before, as I am now familiar with all the techniques. This is the same for screen printing, however I had done a bit of screen printing in my last project but my skills have developed even further throughout this project. I have also been introduced to many new ways of creating art and I have enjoyed producing a lot of the work throughout the project, I will definitely use the skills I have learnt in my own independent artwork and also future projects.

[kafeuka]

[1/1] of random doodles, sweet treats and bubble gum hair

▬ title: of random doodles, sweet treats and bubble gum hair ▬ wordcount: 5585w ▬ pairing: jeon jungkook/park jimin ▬ summary: Jimin works at a cafe as a barista and Jungkook's the son of Jimin's boss. Together, they're just two boys in love.

☆ note: this was requested by yunieusagi and it is A SHITLOAD different than the real request, i have to apologize for that. i know it's a lot different than what you had it mind, but i just can't seem to write it??? idk what the fuck's wrong with me and i am really really really sorry for that. i can't believe this took me a lot of time and the end product is... quite... unsatisfactory... but however, enjoy! thank you for requesting and once again, i am so sorry for how it turned out. (๑>ɷ<๑) read on AO3 here. request here.

▬▬▬▬▬▬

Jungkook had a strong urge to yell at his father to piss off and stop intruding with his life (just like any other kid on their rebellious phase) but he really did not want to irritate the man who provide him with food and daily pocket money. Especially not when Jungkook was dying to get himself the latest video game so he could lock himself in his room and boast to his friends how he managed to finish the entire game in one seating.  

He entered the café through the backdoor, greeting Somin who was on a break and nodded his head to Yien.

The smell of coffee wafted in the air, making him scrunched his nose delightfully as he took the nearest seat at the counter. While initially he hated the idea of him staying until closing time, he figured he might as well do something productive while he was at it.

In Jungkook’s dictionary, however, productive meant filling his sketchbooks (and textbooks) with doodles and sketches of random things and people.

His father was away for a business meeting and he was given the job to lock the café. He could have lied and given the keys to one of the workers but his dearest father had specifically assigned him to the task. Mingyu once suggested that his father was probably having high hopes that Jungkook would have taken the family business and Jungkook thought it was a crazy idea, but it seemed to make more sense now although Jungkook made it crystal clear that he wanted nothing to do with the café.

Breathing in the scent of coffee, he flipped open his sketchbook and took out a mechanical pencil from the pocket of his hoodie. His mind was as blank as the page of his book, and when the lead touched the paper, he began scrawling and doodling whatever he could. Sometimes he would draw people, at times he would draw animals. Half of his sketchbook was filled with drawings of people; they did not serve him as an inspiration, but rather something for him to work on.

He was not searching for perfection, but just a proof that he could bring an image of them to life.

Jungkook was drawing Minghao from memory – which he totally sucked at (and now Minghao looked like he got ran over by a lorry) – when he felt a presence in front of him. He looked up to find Jimin was smiling at him, small hands gently pushing the ceramic cup towards Jungkook.

Jimin was one of the new workers his father hired recently, the only one in the café he was unfamiliar with and he absolutely had no intention to, as Jimin had bright pink hair that grab everyone’s attention. He swore even trees would turn to look at him if he passed by one.

“Hey. Jungkook, right?” he asked, beaming as if he ate light bulbs for breakfast.

Too bright for Jungkook’s liking.

“Yeah,” he answered, drawing lines on Minghao’s hair.

“Somin told me to make this for you. She said it’s your favourite.”

Jungkook casted a glance at the ceramic cup which was filled with whipped cream drizzled with melted Nutella and topped with tiny marshmallows along with chocolate pocky sticks. Hot chocolate, just for Jungkook, just the way Jeon Jungkook likes it.

“You made it…?” he questioned, sounding sceptical.

The regular hot chocolates were different than Jeon Jungkook’s Hot Chocolate. Unlike the Regular Hot Chocolates for Basic People, Jungkook’s had extra whip cream, extra melted Nutella, extra tiny marshmallows and extra chocolate pocky sticks because he was that extra.

(And also because he was the boss’ son, and he liked all the workers who tried to kiss his ass and pamper him around.)

The bubble gum-haired man nodded, smiling once again.

“Don’t worry, it’s as good as Somin’s. She’s the one who taught me after all.”

“Okay…”

“Alright then, I’ll leave you to your work. You’re taking the university entrance exam this year, yeah? Good luck!” Jimin grinned once again, this time pumping his fist in the air before ruffling Jungkook’s hair and proceeded to work.

Jungkook muttered in annoyance under his breath, fixing his tousled hair.

Jimin was lying when he said it was as good as Somin’s because somehow, it tasted better. Not as sweet as Somin made and Somin’s always extra sweet when she made things.

It only dawned to him that the café was closing down when he heard Yien shouting a ‘bye!’ from the kitchen, exiting through the backdoor. Jungkook groaned, sitting up straight to crack the kink on his neck. He was slouching the whole time he was sketching and he was not proud of the final product. Not at all.

“I’m going home, Kook. Jimin’s still here so don’t lock him in, okay?” Somin sing-songed, patting Jungkook’s shoulder as she passed by. “Bye!” she chirped, waving a hand while the other pushed open the glass door.

“Bye.”

Just as he was about to pack his stuff, he turned to find Jimin was working on something behind the counter by the blender. He let out a sigh, wishing for the young barista to hurry up. From how concentrated Jimin was, Jungkook figured it would take him some time before he could close up the café.

The café was empty except for the two of them. All the tables were cleaned and chairs slotted perfectly on top of them. He was suddenly itching to sketch the empty place. The lights outside were still on, and the book shop across of them still had a few customers inside as they closed an hour later than them.

Jungkook sighed as he scratched his head, not knowing the right words to say to Jimin. He racked his brains to find polite version of ‘hurry the fuck up’ but instead, the only thing he could say was “Uhh…” making him sound like an idiot.

Finally, after struggling internally, he murmured, “Excuse me… but we’re closed now, just so you know.”

“Sorry,” Jimin giggled. He had his back turned to Jungkook, making it difficult for the boss’ son to see what he was up to. “I’m trying this new recipe and thought it’ll be great.”

‘What does that have to do with me?’

“And since Mr. Jeon isn’t here, I think you should try it.”

“Maybe some other—”

“And it’s done!”

Jimin turned to him with a huge grin, wiggling his eyebrows as he presented Jungkook a pink cupcake on a plate, frosted with swirly cream cheese and topped with rainbow sprinkles. Jungkook did not have the heart to tell Jimin that he did not trust any food that had the colour pink in it, specifically because it looked as if it was puked by unicorns and it was just plain weird.

“What do you think? Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Uh…”

“Cmon, give it a bite! You’ll like it.”

By then, Jimin had taken a seat in front of him, hands on his chin. Jungkook’s plan was to get the hell away from there as fast as his legs could. However, Jimin’s sparkling eyes caged him to stay seated and reluctantly, he reached out for the plate. Jimin batted his eyelashes excitedly, his big smile stretching to his pierced ears.

Jungkook gave him a fake smile, silently praying that he would still live after taking a bite. The cupcake looked wonderful, too wonderful to be true and sometimes, certain things that looked wonderful tend to have bad effects. Like that one game he downloaded last week for example. The previews looked neat, but turned out it was a ripped off of Candy Crush.

After a few moments of hesitating and cursing his father inside his head, he took a small bite and —

“How was it?”

— he took another bite again and again and again.

“Holy shit.” His eyes were wide open, gawking at the half-eaten cupcake.

“What what what?” Jimin bugged, eyes as wide as Jungkook’s as his feet tapped repeatedly on the floor. “Is it bad? Oh god, I knew I shouldn’t have—”

“No, no. This…” Jungkook swallowed. Oh god. “This is good. Jimin, this is the best thing I’ve had today. No, all week!”

A faint pinkness dusted his cheeks, tips of his ears burning red as he grinned again. “You’re flattering me.”

One bite later, Jungkook was only left with the paper cup and pink crumbs. He let out a sigh of content. “That was good.”

“You have something…” Jimin murmured, reaching forward to grab hold of his chin.

Startled, Jungkook stayed frozen in his seat, unable to move with Jimin’s eyes staring intensely at him. Jimin wiped the corner of his lip gently before backing away to his seat and licked the cheese cream clean from his finger.

Jungkook tried to suffocate a flush that was trying to creep on his cheekbones and snorted. “Could’ve just told me, could you.”

Jimin smiled again, this time it reached his eyes, making them curve like half-moons. “Wouldn’t wanna waste it.”

“Freak,” Jungkook muttered under his breath, looking away and pretended to be busy packing his stuff. “I gotta close down the café. Hurry up, will you? I have school tomorrow.”

  ♡

  “Are you saying that, that guy over there,” Khunpimook said, jerking his head towards Jimin’s direction, “Super cute uni guy, flirts with you?”

“Shh, not so loud!” Jungkook gritted his teeth, hitting Khunpimook on his arm.

Khunpimook winced in pain, rubbing on the sore spot whereas Mingyu only let out a chuckle at his friends’ antics. Seokmin came to their table after getting his orders and sighed dreamily, “Jimin is so cute.”

“What,” Jungkook deadpanned.

Mingyu snorted.

Khunpimook sardonically grinned. “Oi, bros don’t steal bros’ hoes.”

“He’s not my hoe. He’s not a hoe!”

“Nobody said anything about him being your hoe, you hoe,” Khunpimook shot back.

“Ooooh,” Seokmin wiggled his eyebrows, giving Jungkook the creepiest smile he had ever witnessed in his eighteen years of living. “Somebody has a crush~”

“That all make sense now! No wonder you’re eager to come here today!” Mingyu clapped his hands together. The others on the table gasped dramatically before smiling creepily at Jungkook.

A humiliated blush climbed up his neck and face, and as he opened his mouth to defend himself, Jimin came towards their table to serve Seokmin his latte.

“Latte for Handsome Guy?”

“That’s me,” Seokmin beamed proudly. “Thanks, Jimin.”

“More like handsome horse,” Mingyu snickered, earning a high five from Khunpimook.

Jungkook gagged internally at how cheesy Seokmin was being. And he gagged even more when Jimin smiled at him, as if he was enjoying all the attention Seokmin was giving him. Mingyu nudged on Jungkook lightly, just as he usually did whenever Jungkook had a crush on someone but it was unnecessary this time because Jungkook totally did not have a crush on Jimin.

No way.

He did not realise he was staring at Jimin until Jimin looked up to him and smiled. The same smile he had given to Seokmin. “Hi, Kookie.”

Khunpimook whipped his head to Jungkook in a speed of lighting, nose flaring and mouth wide open at the nickname Jimin was calling him. Jungkook had to pretend he did not see the ridiculous face Khunpimook was making, afraid that his dumb reaction would have implanted funny ideas inside Jimin’s head. Mingyu, on the other hand, snorted while Seokmin took a sip from his straw as he wiggled his eyebrows.

Jungkook faked a cough to hide his momentary loss of rationality, not looking at Jimin when he replied, “Hey.”

Jimin smiled again before walking back to the counter and as soon as he went away, the boys started to nudge Jungkook and teased him for his red face like the great friends they were.

“Somebody’s in love!” Khunpimook whispered, although Jungkook was certain the elephants in India could have heard him because Khunpimook was not given the ability to lower the volume of his annoying voice.

“Sorry, bro. I will give him up for you,” Seokmin said earnestly with a hand on his chest.

Mingyu chuckled rather loudly. In fact, it was so loud that the couple two seats away from them turned with concerned expressions on their faces.

“Give— give up? What are you talking about?” Jungkook exclaimed, flustered.

“Shut up, Kookie,” Mingyu interjected, imitating Jimin horribly by raising his voice an octave higher and prod his arm with his finger. “We all know what Seokmin’s talking about.”

“Yeah, now I just have to inform the others in the group…” Khunpimook muttered, fingers vigorously typing on the keypad of his phone.

“Oi, OI! DON’T YOU DARE—”

  ♡

  “You seem to be enjoying drawing a lot.”

“Hm?” Jungkook flushed, instantly covering the book with his arms. It was completely useless though, as Jimin had seen his horrid drawings of muscle bunny.

He was sitting in front of Jungkook with his chin resting on one hand, head tilted slightly as he smiled. “Are you applying for art when you’re entering Uni? You’re good at it. Although… I couldn’t really tell what sort of creature that was.”

“It’s Cooky,” he muttered, face scarlet with embarrassment.

The only people who had seen his drawings were his circle of friends and like the jerks they were, they made fun of it. Not that Jungkook really minded, it was not as if he was doing it seriously.

“Cooky…?”

He caught onto his confusion quickly and added, “He has a face of a rabbit and human body.”

Jungkook begged his mouth to stop betraying him. If his friends would not understand what Cooky was, how would Jimin? It was only the third time they ever talked, and they were not on that level of friendship yet (honestly, Jungkook did not want to be friends with Jimin) ((He wanted to be more, but Jungkook did not know that yet)), so why did he felt a little bit excited to talk about his child to Jimin?

Jungkook looked down on his art before closing the book.

A hint of smile glinted at Jimin’s lips, almost as if he found Jungkook to be endearing.

“And no, I’m not going to take art. Father would want me to take business. He knew I hated science.”

“Hm.” Jimin exhaled loudly through his nose, changing his other hand for him to rest his chin on. “Why would you want to take business? No offence to Mr. Jeon, but he’s not the one who’s going to study at the university, isn’t he?”

Jungkook twisted his lips to the sides a bit and slouched. “Father was right… art’s not going to bring me anywhere. Not here, anyway.”

Jimin smiled fondly and Jungkook hated the way he wore the smile on his face. It made his insides turn and his heart beat accelerating painfully as if he was running a marathon. He did not like how hard his heart pounded, how his mind blanked out when Jimin did that.

“You’re wrong. Your father’s wrong too.”

Jungkook was taken aback by his blunt statement, but made nothing to interrupt him.

“You love drawing and I can see that you’re good at it. If you really enjoy it, I think you should go for it. Perhaps you could take it as your minor subject,” Jimin suggested. “Besides, you can earn money by drawing too, you know. My friend’s a webcomic artist, I could ask her for help if you’d like.”

“Really?” He could not contain the excitement in his voice, only for the small light of hope he was holding to disappear completely in the darkness when it dawned to him that he had no time to be horsing around. “That’s nice of you, but I have exams to think about.”

“Yeah, and yet here you are, drawing half-man half-bunny and me.”

Jungkook’s eyes widened in surprise as he took a sharp intake of breath. After screaming internally, he asked with a shock, “W-what? L-look, no, it’s not—”

Jungkook’s face was as red as the apron he was wearing, trying his hardest to explain but he could only sputter indignantly which gave Jimin a spark of satisfaction as he smirked.

Seeing Jimin sardonically grin made him took a deep breath and berated himself to stop vomiting whatever words he could find inside his brain. Two deep breaths later, he managed to calm himself though his cheeks were still tainted red.

“Don’t get the wrong idea, okay. I drew everyone,” Jungkook explained, ears burned hot. His eyes skipped around the room; everywhere but not Jimin’s eyes. “I tend to draw anyone on my line of sight when I’m bored.”

“Does that mean I should get out of your line of sight then?”

Jungkook sighed exasperatedly, his cheeks turned a darker shade of red.

“I’m just kidding, Kookie. You’re so easily flustered,” Jimin giggled, getting up from his chair. “I was flattered for nothing then…” his voice drowned into a whisper, but Jungkook managed to hear it loud and clear.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” he chirped. “Let’s go then. It’s almost eleven.”

  ♡

  The one-week Jungkook’s father had been gone, Jungkook learnt a lot of things.

Things like the courses Jimin took in Uni. (He was a math major while his minor was chemistry. Screams hell to Jungkook, to be honest.)

Things like how Jimin preferred strawberry over chocolate. (Jungkook found himself craving for the strawberry cupcake one night he was sketching comic panels about Cooky and Jimin happened to be making a batch on the next day.)

Things like how Jimin’s eyes crinkled at the corner when he smiled. (It was the most beautiful thing Jungkook had ever seen.)

He did not mind closing up late if it meant he could spend a little bit more time with Jimin. Being five minutes alone with Jimin would already sufficed. His sketchbooks were filled with pink colours, all which belonged to Jimin’s hair. He was extra careful when drawing Jimin now, often turning onto the next page to pretend he was sketching Cooky whenever Jimin was nearby. Jimin always gave him The Smile as if he knew what Jungkook was hiding.

A part of him hated how easily Jimin made him open himself up. Jungkook was shy to begin with, although he appeared to be stoic during first meetings, but he found himself telling his ideas to Jimin and Jimin was always supporting and assuring Jungkook his ideas mattered. His heart always felt full when Jimin praised him.

Instead of laughing to his face about how ridiculous his ideas of Cooky was, Jimin only smiled endearingly and asked if he could see more sketches of Cooky.

And when Jungkook lied on his bed in the middle of the night, eyes wide awake as he stared at the ceiling and head filled with images of Jimin smiling like the pink-haired angel he was, this was the exact moment when Jungkook realised.

‘Shit, I’m in love.’

  ♡

   “You’re in WHAT?”

“Quiet!” Jungkook hissed, slapping the back of Yugyeom’s neck.

“Son of a bitch, it hurts!” Yugyeom whined, rubbing the wounded area before punching Jungkook on his arm.

“That’s what you get for being loud!”

Yugyeom rolled his eyes in annoyance and winced. “Motherfucker,” he muttered under his breath. He glanced at Jungkook before grinning and nudging his best friend playfully. “So, it was true, huh? What Khunpimook said in the group?”

“That was not true. Jimin was certainly not my—”

“You and Seokmin should fight to the death for Jimin’s honour.”

“Kim Yugyeom,” Jungkook sighed, stopping to place a hand on Yugyeom’s shoulder dramatically. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

Yugyeom shrugged his hand off his shoulder. “What do you plan to do then? Just watch him creepily from afar like the King of Creep Land you are?”

“I don’t know,” Jungkook whispered in defeat. “What do people do with their feelings? Puke their feelings out and flush them down the toilets?”

“If it was that easy, Mingyu would have been over Jeonghan now,” Yugyeom murmured.

“Unhelpful, Kim Yugyeom.”

“As if you have better ideas.”

“I think… I think I actually do.”

   Jungkook had never spent so much time and effort doing something before in his whole life. The pocket money he received from his father was spent on high quality pens now rather than the video game he was dreading to play.

Each stroke was perfectly thought of, and he was careful when choosing the colours.

It might seem stupid but he thought it will be worth it.

It had to be.

   ♡

  Jimin’s shift started a little later after six as his class ended around five. He greeted their regulars with the same smile and enthusiasm, and occasionally he glanced to the seat near to the counter to find it was empty. It had been days since Mr. Jeon arrived from his trip which meant it was unnecessary for Jungkook to be there as he was not in charge with closing down the café anymore.

Still, Jimin hoped Jungkook would stop by to say hi. Sometimes he would come by during lunch with his funny group of friends, but Jimin would be in Uni then. He gathered this information from Somin, who was more than glad to share anything Jungkook related to Jimin. He could not stand the teasing, but Somin might be right on this: he did like Jungkook.

(“He’s a kid, Somin,” Jimin protested with a pout.

“He’s eighteen, Jimin,” Somin countered back with an eyeroll. “Besides, he’ll be your junior in Uni next year.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Yeah? Then give my boy some love. I think he likes you too.”

“Somin!”)

Jimin turned red at the memory of Somin insisting that Jungkook liked him too. At the start, Jimin just wanted to be on the boss’ son good side but their little talks got a little bit more interesting as time passed by and Jungkook always made him smile more than he was supposed to. He loved Jungkook’s creativity, how he wanted to make another world of half-men and half-bunnies and he absolutely, terribly, deeply in love with how concentrated and serious Jungkook was when it comes to drawing.

Jimin was brought back to reality when he heard a familiar yet small “hi”. He turned to find Jungkook was in front of him, hands fiddling with what seemed like a new sketchbook. He would be lying if he said his world did not brighten up even the slightest.

(Because it did. Jungkook always made his day better.)

“Hey,” he said, a little too excited. He cleared his throat in an attempt to tone down his excitement and repeated, lowering his voice down a little, “Hey.”

“Uh, well, I-I’ll have the usual,” he stammered.

“Alright,” Jimin chirped. “Long time no see, Kookie.”

“I know, haha, I’ve been so busy.”

Jimin raised an eyebrow. “Can’t drop by to say hi?”

For some unexplainable reason, Jungkook choked on air and struggled to let the words out of his mouth. Jimin chuckled, shaking his head at how flustered Jungkook became. “You know I was joking, right. You’re busy, I get it. I’ll get you your drink in a sec.”

“Thanks,” Jungkook murmured.

Just as he grabbed the ceramic cup, Somin came to poke Jimin on his side and squealed. “So, what did he say? Did he say he love your eyes or your beautiful smile? I always knew Jungkook was a romantic! That boy may look like a stone, but he’s cheesier than cheese. If that makes any sense.”

Jimin rolled his eyes, huffing. “No. He just came by to draw again, I think.”

“Draw you, you meant?”

“It was only one time, Somin. He only drew me once, I’m pretty sure he draws you too.”

“He does, actually. He draws everyone. I think that’s just creepy,” Somin shrugged.

“Nah, it’s cute.”

“Love makes us blind,” Somin sighed dramatically.

“I’m not—”

Somin cut his sentence of with feign enthusiastic “Talk to you later!” as she skipped to the register to take a customer’s order.

When Jimin brought Jungkook’s hot chocolate to him, the boy appeared restless. His foot was tapping vehemently while he was staring intensely on the cover of the notebook. He almost jumped in surprise when Jimin placed his drink on his table, making Jimin almost felt sorry for startling him like that.

“Here you go.”

“Thanks, uh, Jimin?”

“Yeah?”

Jungkook glanced at the wall clock and murmured, “I… I wanna talk to you.”

Jimin was bewildered at Jungkook’s sudden change of behaviour. It was always Jimin who approached Jungkook first, who struggled to make a conversation because Jungkook always replied with a word or two. He was elated that it was Jungkook who wanted to interact this time.

“Sure,” Jimin conceded, glimpsing on his wrist watch. Ten minutes until closing time. “Ten minutes, alright? I gotta work.”

“Okay.”

    It was the longest ten minutes of Park Jimin’s life.

He was excited and scared at the same time of what to come. From his observation (aka stealing glimpses of Jungkook through the break room’s window), Jungkook was only drinking his hot chocolate rather than drawing. He seemed to be staring at the clock a lot too.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Jimin muttered to himself, excitement surging through his veins when it was only one more minute until ten.

What was Jungkook going to say? He could not come up with a reason to assure himself that it was nothing serious but from Jungkook’s nervous expression, Jimin’s head can only conjure the worst-case scenarios possible.

What if Jungkook chose to drop out of college because of Jimin’s talk? He knew he should have kept his mouth shut. Now, he was going to get fired for causing the drop out of Mr. Jeon’s son and he would have to find another part time job.

Or what if it was even more serious than dropping out? Maybe Jungkook wanted to run away to become a cartoonist and wanted Jimin’s help to find somewhere to live.

Or what if Jungkook had a terminal illness —

His freaking out session was interrupted when his watch gave a little noise, signalling it was already ten. He glimpsed through the window to see Jungkook was still there.

“Oh my god,” he whispered to himself. “I’m going to ruin his and my life.”

“What the fuck are you muttering to yourself about?” Chanyeol interjected.

“Nothing,” Jimin answered, a little too quick that it raised suspicion and Chanyeol’s eyebrow. Chanyeol focused his gaze to where Jimin was staring and his lips quirked into a smile.

“Ooh, I see now. Go get it, lover boy.”

“Shut the fuck up, no one’s getting anything tonight.”

“Well, I do. I’m gonna get fucking la—”

“I don’t wanna know.”

   Anxious? Totally.

Scared? To the very.

While Jimin preferred for them to be talking alone, he felt relief that there were still customers around.

With shaky fingers, he pulled the chair and sat in front of Jungkook. “Hey.”

“H-hey.”

Jimin cleared his throat, shifting in his chair and hoped his nervousness was not evident when he said, “So… what do you wanna talk about?”

Jungkook sniffed, staring at his fingernails when he spoke.

“As you know, I’m terribly bad at expressing myself with words.”

Oh my god.

“So, I hope this would be enough,” Jungkook murmured, sliding the sketchbook to Jimin.

Jimin scrunched his eyebrows in confusion, slowly looking up to Jungkook only for to Jungkook look away when their eyes met. The cover of the sketchbook was dark blue, different from the usual black one Jungkook brought.

He was hesitant at first and when he turned to the first page, the worries dissipated into thin air.

Jimin’s eyes grew bigger, fingertips grazing lightly against the paper. On top of the page was written ‘First Night’ with a date written in smaller size underneath it. Jimin did not know what it was at first until his eyes travelled south to see four comic panels drawn by Jungkook.

The first panel was a drawing of the first hot chocolate Jimin made him. The text box next to it read:

Jimin snickered, not daring to look up to Jungkook. The next panel was a drawing of the strawberry cupcake Jimin made for him with a lot of tiny little red hearts surrounding it. Jimin could not help but cracked a smile at the adorable drawing.

He moved to the next panel which had a drawing of both of them sitting on the table. Jimin took his time admiring it, he knew Jungkook spent a lot of time trying to perfect it. He captured the colour of Jimin’s hair perfectly, although he exaggerated a little by drawing sparkles and flowers next to Jimin’s face.

Jimin could feel his cheeks heating up when he read it. He was not sure how he could look up to Jungkook now. In his defence, Jimin did not flirt, never did anyways, not to Jungkook. “That incident” Jungkook was referring to had to be that time Jimin wiped the frosting off Jungkook’s lip – he swore it was accidental, that it was just his reflex. He had no idea it had such an effect on Jungkook.

The last panel had a sketch of Jimin smiling. It made Jimin’s heart all warm and as Taylor Swift said it, all he felt “in his stomach was butterflies”.

His finger lingered on the drawing of him longer than it should and just as he was about to look up to Jungkook to say a few words, Jungkook panicked. “That’s not the end! Turn! Turn to the next page… please…” his voice drowned into a whisper and he coughed to mask his embarrassment.

Jimin could feel his heart on his throat and jaw dropped in amazement when he revealed the next page. The top panel was a drawing of Jungkook being flustered with two think bubbles drawn on top of his head. The first think bubble had a doodle of small building labelled ‘uni’ while the next think bubble had a doodle of pencil.

Jimin was smiling so much that it began to hurt but he did not care.

The bottom panel was much bigger than any of the panels Jungkook created. It was a drawing of Jimin’s backside view. This had to be Jimin’s favourite because of the radiant colours and little glitters Jungkook added to the pages; it was different than the others as this one had longer texts on the text box situated on the left corner of the panel.

“Wow… Kookie… I…” Jimin murmured, reading the words over and over again. He gulped and blinked to clear the mistiness from his eyes. To say he was touched would be understatement because the drawings were beautiful, the drawings of Jimin were wonderful and it dawned to him that this was how Jungkook saw him.

The next page had a doodle of Jungkook making a heart shape using his hands and the text below said:

“Holy shit,” Jimin muttered, bewilderment was evident on his face. He looked at Jungkook, whose face was scarlet in embarrassment.

Jungkook had to force himself to look at Jimin straight into his eyes, determined to make Jimin know how sincere he was. Clearing his throat, he spoke. “I like you, Jimin.”

“J-Jungkook—”

“It’s okay if you can’t return my feelings. Just as a reminder, I am Mr. Jeon’s son, which meant I can come here whenever I please until you like me back—”

Jimin erupted into fits of giggles, his crescent eyes appearing as his body vibrated.

“— I’m serious,” Jungkook exclaimed with a pout, face turning even redder than before.

At this, his giggles turned into laughter. Jungkook pouted, crossing his arms together.

“Are you done?” Jungkook asked scathingly as he watched Jimin wiping a tear away from his eye.

“You don’t- you don’t have to make me like you just because you like me.”

Jungkook frowned.

“The feeling’s mutual, dummy.”

Jungkook’s mouth dropped to the floor. His brain chose to repeat Jimin’s sentence over and over again and when he finally registered it, he clamped his huge mouth shut. “Oh.”

“Mmhm.”

“Oh. Uh. Really?”

“Really.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“I like like you. Are you sure you like like me too?” Jungkook asked slowly, emphasizing the like.

Jimin let out an exasperated sigh. “I do.”

“So…” Jungkook murmured, daring to look abashed as he scratched his nape. “Are we boyfriends now or…?”

Jimin giggled. “Sure, if that’s what you wanna call me.”

“You do know that means you’re mine right? Like, really mine. You can’t smile to Seokmin anymore, he always has the hots for you. No smiling at the customers either, that one regular was always eying you whenever she’s here. She’s so creepy, ugh—”

“As if you’re not staring at me either.”

“Oi.”

“I’m joking, chill!”

“What have I gotten myself into…” he sighed, staring helplessly at Jimin. Jimin only gave him a smile.

“Somin was right.”

“About what?”

“You’re cheesier than cheese.”

“What the fuck does that even mean…”

  ♡

  “Damn it, I really wanna see what’s inside that book!” Somin grumbled, tiptoeing to peek at Jungkook and Jimin through the glass on the break room.

“You’re such a weirdo, Somin. I should’ve called the police,” Chanyeol muttered.

“Is it okay for us to stare at them like this?” Yoonji fretted.

“Shut u— LOOK AWAY LOOK AWAY THEY CAUGHT US STARING.”

[nontxt]

While searching YouTube to find videos of typewriter demos (there are lots) I came across this guy named Joe Van Cleave from Albuquerque, USA who has a whole series of videos of him test-driving numerous manual and electronic typewriters in his collection (216 episodes!). I stumbled upon another series of his called ‘confessions of an office supply junkie’ where he reviews different types of stationery. Now it’s my turn to confess: this is also one of my obsessions, and it goes as far back as my early primary school years. I’ve always had a soft spot for nice stationery, but I tend to favour stuff that’s practical rather than novel. Pen and paper (in the form of pads and notebooks) are the bread and butter, and are amongst my favourite objects. I’m lucky that I live above a large shopping centre where there is no shortage of good stationery merely steps away from home, mainly from Japan. To this day, my favourite stuff comes from Japan. But in the past year or so I’ve noticed that the stationery departments of the two Japanese department stores nearby have shrunk in size. I might be one of the culprits of this demise, as roughly a year ago I replaced my paper notebooks with an iPad Pro and the Goodnotes app that I’ve been raving about. Guess visions of a ‘paperless office’ has finally caught on, after its prophecy in Business Week more than 40 years ago. Of course the first vision of it dates further back by Vannevar Bush in 1945 in an article in The Atlantic Monthly titled ‘As we may think’.

As for many art school-educated people like myself, we have been taught to keep a ‘sketchbook’. We were told to keep it close by at all times, even by your bedside, as you never know when ideas may strike. (Before art school I only had a Filofax, remember those?) Not being much of an artist-type, I struggled to fill the pages of my thick sketchbook. The standard kind that you could buy in Canada had a black hardcover with a heavy cartridge stock inside, casebound. The form of this kind of sketchbook carries the weight and pressure of having to draw a lot and all the time, which just isn’t me at all. I much prefer writing and sorting out ideas by means of words, with occasional drawings as annotations to figure ideas out and to structure concepts. I do sketch layouts, even to this day, and of course to explore letterforms as a type designer.

By the second year of art school I moved away from these black casebound sketchbooks to something I was more familiar with: black hardcover with bright red spine and reinforced corners, casebound with a light weight paper inside, faintly ruled in light grey. I bought these from Vancouver’s Chinatown, which I used in secondary school back in Hong Kong. This cheaper alternative immediately provided a freedom that the more expensive ‘artist’s sketchbooks’ didn’t have, and the ideas and thinking process suddenly felt less precious. I began to fill up the pages quickly and went through a few of them.

After that I tried different kinds of notebooks and wasn’t loyal to any particular kind/brand. I mainly used ruled paper, and experimented with different increments. How I felt about them depended on the typical size of my handwriting at the time and the kinds of pens that I used. My handwriting has shrunk over the years and now consider 6mm to be optimal. Off and on I tried using ruled index cards and carried a stack of them around held together with a bulldog clip (a so-called ‘hipster PDA’). Or just carrying one A4-size piece of random paper folded twice in my pocket (with a tiny pen) to think things through at a café. Off and on I had also used yellow legal pads and quad pads. My absolute favourite pad is ‘Project Paper’ by Okina Company Limited which won the ‘Good Design Long Life Award’ in 2010. It has been in production since 1985. This ultra smooth paper is very crisp and is extremely high quality, with a very faint non-repro blue 5mm grid. An absolute joy to write with. Not exactly cheap but worth every penny.

For a short while I was into the Moleskine ‘Cahier’ ruled journal. Softcover with a smooth yellowish paper, saddle stitched, 128×210mm. Portable and with a nice proportion. The 6mm line rules are not quite faint enough unfortunately.

Size and thickness of the notebook are important, and so are the smoothness and thickness of the paper stock. I find page sizes that are too small restrict thinking. Standard sizes like A4 or US Letter are a bit too big and document-like. B5 seems to be ideal for note-taking, planning and ideation. The paper stock should be rather thin and smooth, and with not too many pages for portability. Line rules should not be printed too dark or they will detract from the content (see Edward Tufte’s ‘layering and separation’ principle). My last favourite paper notebooks have been Kokuyo’s Campus 3BTN notebook. The paper is super smooth, with 6mm rules and dots, which makes it essentially a grid paper without the distractions of vertical lines. How ingenious.

Well, paper notebooks are now a thing of the past for me. When I started using Goodnotes almost two years ago, I never looked back. Writing on an iPad is still not entirely satisfactory, even with the fantastic Paperlike screen protector. But being able to have any pen thickness and colour at one’s disposal, and the ability to search, bring in images, export in vector PDF format and sync across devices far outweigh traditional pen and paper in my opinion. I replicated the Campus 3BTN pattern as a Goodnotes template to make the rule increment to be exactly 6mm wide when displaying in full width on my iPad Pro 11-inch. The size of the device, incidentally, is almost exactly B5 as well. That is by no means to say that my stationery obsession has been cured – not quite just yet!

Thank you for reading this far. Next up: pens – watch this space.

(written in Byword)

[shootmesenpai]

Question tag for AO3 writers~~

I found the original questions on AFF a while back, and I thought since I’ve been tagged in so many meme things lately, I’d also tag a bunch more people in this one XD Since the questions were designed for AFF, I’ve reworked some of them to fit for AO3 writers. I also removed two questions rather than trying to translate them to AO3 terms. So, I’ll fill out my answers first, and then put the blank questions again at the bottom for you to easily copy and paste!

1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean?

I came up with "Shootmesenpai” for my Tumblr originally a long time ago. It was pretty much a play on the whole “Notice me senpai” thing. Pretty basic and not very witty but it just ended up sticking so I even used it for AO3.

2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback? (bookmarks/subscriptions/hits/kudos)

Happy Birthday Aomine 

3. What is your AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it?

My icon is Aomine Daiki. I choose it because he is my favorite boy and almost all the fanfics I have written are from his perspective. 

4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters?

I’m not a very popular writer and my stuff is pretty low key so the commenters are fairly random. I have some friends that comment so I suppose they count....kinda. 

5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again?

Blackbird or the Ladder series by @emungere is amazing and I have reread them a number of times. I also have a huge soft spot for Across the Way by @gintamajustaway and that is not even finished yet. 

6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked?

I am only subscribed to two stories at the moment since a couple just finished recently, but I have 29 bookmarks for things that need to be read. I’m kinda bad about actually doing this instead, I just leave 100 tabs open on my phone. 

7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most?

I haven’t actually written any AU’s yet but I like reading student/teacher ones, yakuza AU’s or college AU’s. I would like to write a college AU one day as it’s not too far from reality so I think I may be able to handle it. 

8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total? (you can view this on the stats page)

Oh, an embarrassingly small amount....I think I only have 29 subscriptions and 44 bookmarks...definitely, nothing to write home about. 

9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are afraid of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!)

Honestly, I don’t really have much. I would like to write something really aggressive and complex but I don’t do well with long stories. A yakuza story with some rough subject matter (similar to Harada) would be amazing but....that's a bit much for most of the ships I enjoy. 

10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc.

I would like to finish my one long story and possibly rework a lot of it. It was the first one I wrote and looking back I can see a lot of flaws. I need to honestly just start writing more and learn the fundamentals of good storytelling. Even though I enjoy writing smutty one-shots the most, I still have ideas for long stories that I’m not confident enough to begin. 

11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often?

I mainly write for AoKuro or AoKuroKaga which I guess is a bit rare for the KNB fan base. I also love ultra rare pairings like NijiHai. 

12. How many stories have you posted on AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)?

5 total works with one unfinished. 

13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program?

I have the next chapter started with Realization and Loss but it’s only a paragraph....that’s it at the moment. 

14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head?

A little bit of both, my friend and I talk story ideas every once in a while so some of those are permanently locked in my head. There are some I came up with on my own that I have written down in a sketchbook somewhere. 

15. Have you ever co-authored a story?

Nope, I come up with ideas with a friend sometimes so it kinda feels like it has been co-authored at times. 

16. How did you discover AO3?

Just following the links of the fanfic rabbit hole. 

17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on AO3?

Oh god no, I am extremely casual in my writings. I freak out for having like 5 kudos on a fic. I bow down to the famous authors. 

18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers?

Not that I’m aware of, again I am bottom of that totem pole. 

19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write?

I mean @humanitys-shortest-soldier kinda encouraged me after I continued to bug her about showing off her amazing writing skills. Other than that though @gintamajustaway was a huge inspiration, they are so amazing that I really have no words. 

20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author?

I don’t think I’m qualified to give advice but I guess I would just say, don’t be afraid to put your ideas out there. Even if you think it’s weird, or you think your writing skills aren’t up to par, just do it! There are people out there who will encourage you and make your whole day with their kind words. I promise you. 

21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go?

I do basic plots, mainly just large points that I want to hit. Everything else just slowly forms around those foundation pieces. 

22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do?

No, I haven’t gotten any bad comments yet but I am always open to them. I handle criticism well and I think bad comments can help a person grow to become a better writer. 

23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..)

Ummm.....probably really serious stuff. I love writing smut and I read a lot of garbage so it helps but the serious stuff requires a build up on top of a solid foundation. Those are definitely weak points for me. 

24. What story(s) are you working on now?

I have Realization and Loss....which I will probably finish...one day. Other than that though I don’t have anything in the works, although I was prompted today to write more Brotp for AoAka. 

25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)?

Yeaaaa, I really shouldn’t but sometimes the idea is too fun to wait. 

26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself?

Nope, I just write when I have the time or a burning idea. It has been a while since I have done anything though. 

27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started?

I think I have improved a bit, there is still a lot that I need to work on. I would love to eventually get back into it and improve my fundamentals and basics storytelling abilities. 

28. What is your favorite story that you’ve written?

Haizaki’s Day Off, it was just a lot of fun to write and I really enjoy writing for Haizaki since he is a huge asshole. 

29. What is your least favorite story that you’ve written?

I don’t really have a least favorite but if I had to say...it would be Realization and Loss. It was my first one and I still need to finish it, but looking back I see a lot of errors and crutches throughout the story. 

30. Where do you see yourself (as a writer) in 5 years?

Probably close to where I am now, I love writing but I don’t think I am cut out for anything serious within the field. I love drawing and a lot of my free time is spent trying to improve there, while also finding the courage to post it. 

31. What is the easiest thing about writing?

Coming up with the basic plot and all the fun bits that it involves. 

32. What is the hardest thing about writing?

Actually sitting down to write it.....also in-character dialogue!

33. Why do you write?

I write because sometimes an idea is too fun to keep to myself or between my friends. I write so that hopefully other people get some enjoyment out of the weird stuff I create. 

Anyways that’s all the questions, so I’ll put them here as well without the answers to easily c+p.

1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean? 2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback? (bookmarks/subscriptions/hits/kudos) 3. What is your AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it? 4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters? 5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again? 6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked? 7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most? 8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total? (you can view this on the stats page) 9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are afraid of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!) 10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc. 11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often? 12. How many stories have you posted on AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)? 13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program? 14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head? 15. Have you ever co-authored a story? 16. How did you discover AO3? 17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on AO3? 18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers? 19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write? 20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author? 21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go? 22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do? 23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..) 24. What story(s) are you working on now? 25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)? 26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself? 27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started? 28. What is your favorite story that you’ve written? 29. What is your least favorite story that you’ve written? 30. Where do you see yourself (as a writer) in 5 years? 31. What is the easiest thing about writing? 32. What is the hardest thing about writing? 33. Why do you write?

Tagged by: @humanitys-shortest-soldier

I tag @emungere @gintamajustaway @criscura and other amazing writers who want to tell all us beginners how it’s done. 

[insertvisualinput]

Artist Asks Meme (Long Post Alert)

I took the questions from this post, and decided to just answer all of them without waiting for prompts, because... why not?

Also, apologies for the long post. I could have put all this under a cut, but I want it to show in its entirety on my blog page. I will tag from now on all posts like this under “long post”, if that is something you would like to blacklist from your dashboard.

1. When did you get into art? As soon as I could hold a pencil. Sure, I may have held it like Beast initially held his spoon in Disney’s The Beauty and the Beast feature film, lacking the finer motor skills due to me being barely out of diapers. That didn’t stop me from drawing thousand legged potatoes and trying to pass them as horses. However, I suppose art became to hold a deeper meaning to me during my last years of elementary school, and all the way through junior high. I had finally become deeply depressed due to bullying and being ostracized by my fellow children. My family was having a difficult time as a whole, and I decided to bottle everything in, thinking I’d only cause more worry otherwise. I would eventually come to harbor suicidal intentions. During that time drawing became an outlet for me to both express and process my emotions, so it naturally became an important necessity in my daily life. It may very well be that was something that ultimately gave me just about enough strength to keep moving forward. Unfortunately, l would later lose my passion to do art. I didn’t really see eye to eye with my high school art teacher, and that really ate at my love for doing art, seeing as it had always been something very closely linked to myself and my enjoyment rather than that of other people. I got tired going about my art as I was expected to. It would take years for that passion to rear its head again. So here I am now, learning everything all over again! 2. What art-related sites have you ever signed up for? I started out on Elfwood in my teens, then also signed up for deviantART. I eventually deleted both of these galleries, once I stopped making more art and checking the activity on these sites started to feel like a chore rather than something fun. Now I have a gallery on deviantART once again, which I update pretty much whenever I have the intention to put something up on Tumblr as well. But I definitely consider my dA account more of a means to keep in touch with a couple of cool people and their artistic endeavors. This Tumblr gallery I consider more my “real gallery”... for no particular reason really. 3. Show us your oldest piece of art you have on hand. FEAST THINE EYES.

This is not the oldest one I have on hand, though. That one has already been posted separately on my blog. 4. What defines your artistic style? That is ridiculously hard to answer to be honest. I experiment so much it becomes difficult even for myself to pinpoint what exactly it is that defines my style. There are certainly some recurring elements, like how my humans tend to have elongated, exaggerated bodies (which is something you can already see in that older drawing above). I suppose that’s one thing that defines my style - a type of exaggeration of proportions and lines. I don’t really give a shit about the dos and don’ts regarding how to make art. Legs for example bend in ways they shouldn’t, and it’s a purely artistic choice from my part. I think it adds a layer of expression to my work, without which the piece would be a lot more boring to look at. I suppose the fuckton of experimentation I do is also something of a defining feature in my art, but it’s more of a personal element than something others can recognize my art by. 5. Do you practice other styles/have you tried other styles in the past? Welp, I think I pretty much brushed on this already above there on question four. Yes, I do, and yes, I have. 6. What levels of artistic education have you had? I have no formal education whatsoever. Though, I did take one course at my local adult education centre. It assembled only about once a month for half a year. It was an alright course, but the teacher’s tips felt very blatantly influenced by her own personal tastes in art. I felt like I was being pushed to express myself in ways that didn’t really feel like me at all, so in the end I never showed up for the last gathering. 7. Show us at least one picture you drew or sketched recently that you did not put on a public site. This practice picture drawn with ink didn’t make the cut mostly because I used the exact same perspective and general composition as for my Cheap Art Supply Challenge piece. But also because I am not that fond of it.

8. What is your favourite piece that you have done? A lot of times I just like the newest piece I’ve made the most, but there are certain works that hold additional value to me even when time passes. It’s been four years since I made it, but I’m still fond of this painting. It was the first time in years that I took up watercolours again, so the piece holds certain personal value to me. For that reason, I could even go as far as calling it my favourite. 9. What is your least favourite piece that you have done? I’m not sure I can decide. Not because I’d have so many not-faves, mind you! I can look back to the pieces I’ve made and think the ideas weren’t as cool as I thought back then, or that the techniques are horrible in comparison to what I’m capable of now. But I still do not really dislike them, because they remind me of how far I’ve come, where my foundations are, and which elements I decided to stick with. They remind me of the steps I’ve taken, and so I can’t really dislike them. 10. What do you like most about your art? Hmm, I think my favourite element in my art is just how unpolished a lot of it is. Like I have no qualms about leaving details vague. For example, a lot of times I draw less details on hands if the body shape is my primary interest in a piece I’m working on. Detailed works are very cool to look at, but there is also nothing wrong with leaving things to the viewer’s imagination, or leaving certain parts simple in order to encourage the viewer’s gaze to move where you want it to. 11. What do you like least about your art? I can’t really say. Despite all my artistic shortcomings, I am rather fond of it overall... Maybe just my lack of readiness to draw more diverse body types? Which is more of an occasional “Should I be doing that?” type of thought, rather than something I perspire over every time I draw and see I have once again created something of the lean and mean variety. 12. Have you ever considered taking commissions? Yes, and I have done some commission work in the past. Currently I have no particular drive to take new ones, however, as I’m more interested in experimenting different things as I see fit. 13. Are you looking to pursue a career in art? Not really. There was a time when I entertained that thought, but realistically speaking, I don’t think I’d work too well under the constant pressure of having to be as productive as possible at all times. I would quickly lose what art means to me, and with that, the joy it gives me. It’d just become another thing I must do to make ends meet. That, I do not want. 14. What do you like drawing the most? Human faces and animals are the most relaxing thing for me to draw, and looking at my sketchbooks, drawing them seems to be bordering on obsession. Other things I enjoy drawing, though less often, are unnecessarily long legs, skeletal figures, and armour.

15. What do you like drawing the least? Backgrounds. I have yet to figure out how to get them to look like they are actually part of the picture and not just their separate thing that is there. Environments overall are rather tricky for me, though I have made some brave attempts. Buildings are hard. Drawing lush vegetation is hard. Having very little patience a lot of times doesn’t encourage learning either. 16. Do you draw more fanart or original art? If fanart, what fandom do you draw the most of? Original art, which you might not guess looking at my blog here, since I started it just when I was about to go on a fanart loop for quite a few months. Wanting to draw fanart comes to me in certain intervals. Overall, however, I find it way more fun to draw whatever comes out of my head and hand, rather than following an already existing example. 17. What would you absolutely refuse to draw? Smut. It’s just not something I feel compelled to create. 18. What is your purpose for drawing? It makes me happier. I was going to go on a tangent about how it calms me and how meditative drawing is, how it gives me that feeling of having accomplished something, etc. - but what all that really boils down to is that simple statement. Drawing makes me happier. 19. What medium/program do you use the most in your art? Ink and watercolour are what I use the most by far. There’s something lovely about watching them spread and mix uncontrollably on a wet surface. Every now and then I get into the mood of trying other types of traditional media, though, like acrylic paint and oil pastels. Right now I’d really like to try my hand at encaustic painting... but getting the necessary equipment is an investment of over a hundred euros. That’s far too much for me in my current situation.

20. How would you rank your art? (poor, mediocre, good, etc.) I am sorry, but I will flat out refuse to answer this one. Ranking one’s art encourages comparison to people you admire. I am really hard pressed to see how this could be anything but toxic. 21. Do you believe there is such thing as “bad art?” Maybe. Art that never evolves anywhere, in any way, but remains absolutely stagnant? Be it on a personal level, or on a more encompassing level that challenges already existing traditions of art. On a personal level it doesn’t need to be very visible evolving either. In my mind, it’s enough if it’s something as small as “I have come to use this one colour I never before felt I could use with success.” If the question comes down to something as mundane as “Do you enjoy the art you see or do you not” being the defining element that discerns good art from the bad... Then my answer would be no, there is no such thing as bad art. I could never claim there is with good conscience, based only on my subjective likes and dislikes. 22. List at least one of your “artspirations.” Oh, I have so so many! And not all of them related to visual arts, even. But there is no point in making such a long list, so here are but a few of them: Gustave Doré and his many illustrations. I am particularly fond of the ones he made for Don Quixote and Orlando Furioso. Yoshitaka Amano. I find myself rather drawn to the elegance displayed in many of his paintings and drawings. Albrecht Dürer and his highly detailed woodcuts. Ayami Kojima and her masterful use of traditional means. She is self-taught too, which in and of itself is inspiring. Lian Quan Zhen and the beautifully lush colours in all his watercolour works. Paul Koudounaris and his absolutely gorgeous photographs of the lovingly decorated catacomb saints. (Picture below from his publication Heavenly Bodies, Thames Hudson Ltd, 2013.)

23. What do you think you could stand to improve on? Everything. I’m not really the type to stop and think I shouldn’t strive to improve more on a certain area just because I happen to like whatever I’m already doing. There are always elements I can refine, new methods of expression to test, and just plain something I could do better or at least differently enough to keep things interesting for myself. 24. Do you have a shameful art past? (recolour sprite comics, tracing art, etc.? Oh no, why end on such an embarrassing note! Cruel, cruel person, that came up with these questions. The short answer is yes. The long answer is, well, I would copy other people’s artwork, making only about just enough changes to replace the characters they drew with my own ones. Just thinking about it now makes me cringe! In case you were left wondering: None of those pictures were ever published anywhere, and have long since been burned with fire. And that’s an accurate description of what happened to them. All of them.

--- Turns out some versions of this meme also include: 25. Draw a picture! So here’s a quick pooch. Thanks for reading!

[dustsparrow]

Oh! Your blog is alive! Welcome back! Answer all the odd number questions?

Well hey! I didn’t realize how long it had been since I posted here haha. I’m alive and doing well. Most of my energy toward this site goes to reblogging stuff to my side blog @stufftoshowcrow (I guess this is sort of a plug but by no means do you all have to check it out)

And I’ll get to the questions later today! I’m out with a friend for the day but I didn’t wanna leave you hanging. Thanks for asking!

Time for those answers! (under the read more)

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most? Dancing’s Not a Crime by Panic! at the Disco, Irony of Dying on Your Birthday by Senses Fail, Instant Crush by Daft Punk, Somewhere in the Between by Streetlight Manifesto, Your Love by The Outfield, and Shut Up and Dance by WALK THE MOON (these are just recent ones on my mind)

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17. The closest book was my sketchbook and it’s got a drawing of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles on it that I think I referenced from somewhere. I may post a picture later if there’s any interest.

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say? “Ok I should be home in about an hour” from my dad

7: What’s your strangest talent? I’m pretty good at chugging alcohol but stuff like hard sodas or rum and coke. And that usually only happens when I’m already a little drunk and want to maintain it.

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you? Technically (said by my bf). He said it was never finished so I never heard it

11: Do you have any strange phobias? I’m slightly afraid of escalators and elevators. Elevators is because I hate when they rock and I’m afraid they’ll fall and escalators is because when I was a kid, there was an escalator at the local book store that seemed pretty steep and I felt like I’d fall off when I was young and it sort of continued on into adulthood. It’s not as bad now but it’ll pop up sometimes.

13: What’s your religion? I was raised Catholic, went to a Methodist church from middle school to high school, and now I’d consider myself Agnostic. I was never officially Methodist so yeah, I’m not really religious.

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? It’s a bit of both. Being an artist, I like to dabble in a lot of different art forms and one of those being photography. I love photography and I’ve even gotten into making my own videos. So I know my way around a camera and I’m used to being behind the camera but I like when I get the chance to be in front of the camera. It may be a little vain but I really like photos of myself and seeing myself at different angles.

17: What was the last lie you told? Oh shit, I can’t really remember. I know the funniest lie I’ve told recently is I convinced a coworker of mine that one of our other coworkers is my brother because we look sort of alike.

19: What does your URL mean? I went with Novakid-Outlaw because I really enjoy the game Starbound and the Novakids are my favorite race. They’re sort of like cowboys so that’s where the outlaw part is from. It used to be “Novakid-Bandit” but I figured Outlaw sounded better.

21: Who is your celebrity crush? Brendon Urie

23: How do you vent your anger? A lot of it is spent yelling at terrible drivers in my car. Some of it is directed at my coworkers who don’t do their job and I’m already done with the day. I try to use some of it on artwork, I know one time I smashed a TV for a friend doing a photography project. That was a lot of fun.

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? Video chat because I like seeing the other person’s face. But talking on the phone is also nice if I want to talk to that person (so like talking to my BF verses my dad. My dad is weird to talk to sometimes).

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love? I hate the sound of nails scratching one of those holographic cards that has that terrible texture. I love the sounds of cats purring (and my boyfriend’s voice).

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens? Ghosts are iffy but for sure Aliens. Space is too big for us to be the only living organisms.

31: Smell the air. What do you smell? I’m in my room so nothing. I’m too used to the smell.

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast? East Coast since I live nearby and the most I’ve done on the West Coast was go to Vegas and it was stupid hot.

35: To you, what is the meaning of life? Doing what I love with the ones I love.

37: Do you believe in luck? I guess because I’m the luckiest girl to be dating the best guy in my life. He’d disagree but I do love him a whole lot and he’s made my life a lot better.

39: What time is it? I got this ask around noon and I’m getting around to answering it at 11:12 PM (as I’m typing this answer)

41: What was the last book you read? I guess Scott Pilgrim. I haven’t read a book in a while. It’s sorta sad

43: Do you have any nicknames? Many

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had? In recent years, I burned my arm at work and it hurt like a bitch. I still have a scar. In middle school, I broke both of my wrists (not at the same time but only a month had passed when my first wrist healed and I broke the other).

47: Do you have any obsessions right now? Okami

49: Ever had a rumor spread about you? Not really cause I’m not that interesting that people talk about me.

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong? If it’s a big enough wrong. I’m still upset at my ex but that’s justified.

53: Do you save money or spend it? I spend it. I need to work on saving money.

55: Love or lust? Love

57: How many relationships have you had? 3

59: Where were you yesterday? Work and home

61: Are you wearing socks right now? Nope

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you? Jokes and slight teasing

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr. Aight, that’s too much work, nope

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM? Playing Okami

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off? Yes

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do? Save the dog. I can find another job. I’d feel terrible leaving the dog behind.

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love. (I have both but) Love

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number? 7815

77: How can I win your heart? No chance because someone already has my heart

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far? Giving my current boyfriend a third date those 2 years ago.

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone? She died doing what she loved most. (*boyfriend’s/husband’s name here*)

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart. Love. How cliche

85: What’s the last song you listened to? Your Love by The Outfield

87: What is your current desktop picture? Bulbasaurs

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on? If my mom ever asked if I’ve lied to her recently because she made me promise her once that I’d never lie to her again.

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power? Shape-shifting

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? My first instinct is to say my last relationship but I know it sort of helped to shape me. So I guess I would say I’d avoid dating the last guy but I wouldn’t avoid him entirely.

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go? Germany

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car? Yes. When I was a kid, my mom took me to pick up my brother and his friend and she brought mini cupcakes along. I ate a bunch of the chocolate ones and I threw up on my brother’s friend when they got in the car.

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say? Let’s be real, I have no clue.

Finishing this up at 11:39 PM and I’m super grateful to anyone who’s read all of these! I hope these are entertaining to read and I hope everyone has a wonderful day/night!

[slipofthetongue]

It Began With Dinosaurs

The first-time mankind found ways to write was the single step out of the long, cold emptiness in the natural world, when the frogs, birds, crocodiles and dinosaurs thought we could never fit in. Hell, that is what the rest of us did when we discovered writing; to fit in and be accepted. To put our souls bare, even if it is just among the dead processed plants we call pages and papers. I picked up writing second only to drawing (I remember putting up a triceratops drawing on my board by the double-decker bed), and it was only in a later part of my life that my first exposure to writing was taken seriously. 

* * *

Even so, I couldn’t exactly remember where did these writing trails come from, the beginnings of the beginning as it were. There’s one in particular, amidst the juggernaut and cloudy memories of childhood, I do remember my first serious (so-called) writing. To any kid writing a page off from your buku latihan, or school book is a big deal. Any kind of stories go, I guess it’s a big deal because I never heard anyone else in my class doing it! The years was 2000 to 2001. I didn’t know that writing can be a fun thing to do and you can be as creative as you can. Reading stories was the furthest thing I imagined being in the realm of creative literature and didn’t think I’d be cut out for writing anything creative like those children books. As a young boy, growing up in household of journalists, book enthusiasts and national newspapers, I’d never go along with this interest to write. Not only did I prefer drawing, my parents never seemed to promote it anyway. So, often asked when you’re a kid what is your hobby, it was far from it being writing (I don’t think it changed now either, maybe?)

And then, I saw Walking with Dinosaurs.

Okay, not in a big explosion of universal enlightenment (though it probably saves the existential question back in my degree), but I love dinosaurs. I saw Jurassic Park, and my mother and father took us to the British Natural History Museum. I collected dinosaur figurines, drew triceratops’ and T-Rex’s on papers and posted it on the wall. I really was a dinosaur geek back then. But the show was something else; Walking with Dinosaurs was my Games of Thrones. We didn’t have cable TV, and not many dinosaur documentaries were on it, so I would wait every Monday night at 9pm (or 10pm?) to watch it with my family. The intro montage was so memorable and the show hasn’t even started yet! Each week covered different kinds of dinosaurs and different geographical periods, which all culminated in the end, with volcanoes and meteor showers. Kenneth Brannagh narrated the whole show but I knew only so much later that it was the voice of Professor Gilderoy Lockheart in the Chamber of Secrets. I was hooked on it, and watching the making-of episode definitely sparked that interest in creative production and process. I paid attention to every single scene of the dinosaurs, always in awe. That paved the way for another less popular documentary on dinosaurs called When Dinosaurs Roamed but I was immediately into dinosaurs whenever they were on the screen.

One day, I discovered a Walkman.

I was conscience that I was still writing about my favourite show and subject, something that later would be called ‘fan fiction’. I took a pencil and wrote it on my buku conteng (we couldn’t afford any sketchbook so most kids just used their spare school notebooks to doodle or draw) and the first paragraph of what seems to be my own version of a dinosaur documentary. What was more fun for me afterwards, was that I recorded my voice narrating the whole paragraph. It was awesome. I get to try out the tape recorder, and hear my voice. In tape version! I was having so much fun with it, I recorded it for the second time. Adding a few lines here and there and later returned the Walkman to my father (probably took it without his permission!). I remembered it entitled “Walking When Dinosaurs Roamed”, conveniently based on the two documentaries mentioned earlier. Along the penciled paragraphs, I remember the Apatosaurus, probably a Tyrannosaurus Rex somewhere, and even the famous Velociraptor. Time fleets and I lost the paper it was written on, along with possible scattered stories of dinosaurs that I grew up with.  

* * * 

Dinosaurs and all its pop culture attributes might lead most to become a scientist or a geologist, but it led me to write creatively, passionately even. It was easier to forget that it began that way; after all the writing classes, the friends and mentors made along the way, new stories to be inspired be with, I’m surprised that I didn’t write this piece earlier on. Was it too late? No. Was it too soon? Unless, I published more and write more, this is perfect timing. Was it necessary? Yes, along the line. Here I am, after completing my degree and write for both fun and work, I do find men’s primordial intellectual activity to stick with me, probably until the last words are on my gravestone. It is bittersweet to think back to those fond memories: the triceratops drawings, Jurassic Park, dinosaur action figures. But, yes. My writing beginnings started off with a Walkman, a pencil, a cheap notebook

And whole lot of dinosaurs.

- Sufi Khirul Bahri