#the thing about an umbrella or a diffuser is: okay where do I Put It. how do I set it in place

[blujayonthewing]

I spend a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to diffuse direct sunlight on a sketchbook for a guy who never even actually does any outdoor sketching anymore

[writingwithcolor]

Blending Mythos Respectfully

@sapphicq submitted:

Hi all! I’m trying to write an urban fantasy that explores oppression in a world that is basically the same as ours, except with magic, while incorporating magical systems and mythologies of multiple cultures. I’ve done an okay amount of research on each one that I’d like to include (still need to do more for sure, especially considering how colonization has effected mythologies). However, I’m struggling a bit on how they should coexist, since in the world I’m writing about they’re present and tangible. One example of this is fox spirits in East Asian mythology. Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Chinese mythologies each have a nine-tailed fox, and though my research says that the myth originates from Chinese mythology, it also says that each of the fox spirits carry different connotations of malevolence, benevolence, and how widespread they are, depending on which culture’s mythology is being referred to. 

The same sort of thing has been popping up quite a lot in a lot of my research. I started to wonder if I could explain these similarities within world as “different cultures have come up with different names and customs surrounding the ‘same’ thing,” considering mythology in the real world from an anthropological perspective. However I don’t want to overgeneralize, especially considering that these different mythological figures are meant to be present and tangible. If I went that route, I wouldn’t want to say something like ‘actually, benevolent fox spirits do exist, and Korean mythology about fox spirits is wrong since Kumiho are pretty strictly malevolent,’ which would obviously be an implication. All this to say: do you have any tips for multiple mythos coexisting in a way that respects the various cultures they come from?

Avoid Round Pegs in Square Holes

A mistake you sometimes see Western authors make when dealing with mythology in urban fantasy settings is to confine the universe’s worldbuilding to a particular mythology or force the rules of a single culture’s folklore onto other cultures. For instance, here at WWC, we get a lot of questions asking how to represent supernatural creatures from multiple cultures respectfully alongside fae from Western Europe, and it's fairly obvious that the author plans to treat all supernatural creatures as fae. Urban fantasy based on Greek mythology or Christian mythology often falls into the same trap. 

I think a writer can demonstrate greater creativity by embracing these differences. I think a potential way to deal with contradicting mythos between cultures is to come up with compelling reasons why differences exist. What world-building systems, philosophies and real-life phenomena allow for a framework that explains the simultaneous existence of commonalities and differences? As you know, in anthropology, there are theories that emphasize cultural diffusion as a way to explain similar customs within the same region, but there are also theories that hold that multiple cultures can develop the same traditions and principles independent of each other (See: existence of 0, lost-wax bronze casting, astronomical calendars and the use of wheels). The answers I’ve given are mostly technological. However myths and belief systems serve very real social functions as ways to keep people together and cultivate norms and mores. Lesya expands on the utility of intentional cultural diffusion below.

Similarly, within evolution, there are instances of species having common features because of a shared ancestor, but also instances where species without shared ancestors evolve to have similar features because they exist in the same environment. I believe flippers are examples of both types of evolution in marine animals.  Thus, I think you need to question your assumption that “different cultures have come up with different names and customs surrounding the ‘same’ thing.” As the world is daily proof, they sometimes do, but they also sometimes don’t. 

-Marika

First, props to you for sending us this ask. You have been thinking about this a lot and have done research into building an urban fantasy that doesn’t do the thing of putting all Asians under one umbrella. 

Second, I’m going to agree with Marika here. Rather than go for the generalization route, revel in everyone's differences. It's a way for you to acknowledge the variations in the mythology, that not all have the same origins though there may be some similarities. Instead, they may have reached the same conclusions. My advice for blending mythologies is to lean into it, and not create a homogeneous umbrella. You can make something amazing with that. 

-Jaya

Hybridity Through Diffusion

So a myth originated in China. This does not mean Chinese tellings have the monopoly on what a telling is. Marika and Jaya have gone into a possible solution, here, but what I’m going to examine here is a mental framework that a lot of people get stuck in that is actually ahistorical.

Cultural appropriation as we know it is shockingly recent when it comes to history. In the modern day, ownership boundaries of myths have become very strict because of primarily European colonialism picking and choosing everything it likes about a mythos, and, this is important: not letting up on the oppression of those peoples. There’s also a strong preference to kill those colonialism deems “wrong”, instead of creating a hybrid culture.

Historically, this got a lot more fluid.

What happened historically was primarily cultural diffusion, wherein open trade, intermarriage, and shared borders made it that myths, customs, and cultural practices were (mostly) freely exchanged without massive power imbalances happening, and then modified to fit local beliefs.

Key word: mostly. Because yes sometimes it happened that one place took over another place and imported all of its customs (see: China, Rome, the Mughals), but… often* the ruling power either backed off, was fought of, or otherwise left the region, leaving the common people to do whatever they wanted with the carcass of what had been imposed on them. Or sometimes, even, the imperial forces would actively create a hybridized culture in order to better rule others.

* in places where the ruling power has NOT backed off on oppression and assimilation, even if the colonialism is very old, then this is invalid and the power dynamics of appropriation are still at play.

Because, historically, there was a lot less incentive to simply genocide the peoples you took over (which is what made armies that did destroy all they took over so noteworthy). People were needed to keep providing food and materials, even if the new person got the resulting taxes. 

This meant there were a lot more common people to play with the stuff imported by the imperial culture. And there was a lot more incentive to hybridize your customs to the common people’s customs, leading to the sometimes-hilarious situations like “Rome assigns an equivalence in their pantheon for literally every mythology they encountered, which was a lot.” 

This also explains early Christianization, because it was a lot safer to simply adapt what you already had to make it better for your own ends than curbstomp everything that was “wrong” to your worldview. Ireland’s mythology survives in huge swaths, because it was either Christianized wholesale, or it was about “historical humans” and not fae. Norse mythology was similarly adapted for Christian worldviews, which means we unfortunately have no idea what the pre-Christian myths were.

So instead of thinking in terms of ownership, think instead in terms of diffusion. 

Myths get imported along with food, cloth, or anything else necessary for life. Myths were, historically, a way for people to explain the world around them, both in place of and alongside science. “Ghost marches” are really common, globally, because if you have wind howling in the forest, it’s going to sound like predators, and predators mean go inside and lock the door. Weaving goddesses are also common, because weaving was so necessary to survive the elements.

Sometimes trade relationships soured, and you get bad associations with the imported stuff. Sometimes the relationship stayed great for long enough it got completely adapted. This doesn’t mean any one myth is “right”, nor does it mean you have to erase historical trade links. It just means you look at the historical context, understand that cultural exchange often used to be a lot more two-way than it is in modern appropriation times, and figure out what that means for your worldbuilding.

~ Mod Lesya

[hanibalistic]

#E64C75 | HAN JISUNG.

genre | fluff, humor, best friends au, superpower au

word count | 1307

warning | none

note | hello, bub ʚ(´◡`)ɞ i hope you are having a good day! thank you for requesting and i hope this piece is of your liking!

request | from 💫 

you flinched with a frowning smile when you gingerly touched the bruise you accidentally planted on jisung's cheek. it stained somewhere near the edge at the back of his jaw, blossoming with its dark purple glory that made you grimace every time you looked at it.

he, on other hand, wasn't much concerned with the bruise on his face, though. scribbling on the wrinkled paper of his chemistry notebook, jisung was busy writing down everything he was mumbling past his lips while he kept unintentionally dodging your finger that was smeared with some medicine cream.

it has become a daily essential; medicine cream, band-aids, umbrella (to use as a walking cane), and water bottles. those things have become a daily essential ever since you found out you developed superpowers after your seventeenth birthday, and jisung had excitedly urged you to let him explore more of your abilities as a stepping stone to you becoming a future superhero.

(or a science experiment, you also liked to say.)

"stop moving!" you exclaimed in annoyance after he lowered his head and dodged you for the nth time.

clicking your tongue, you reached down to his chin and grabbed him, tilting his head up so he stays in place. jisung let out a whine with his eyes squinted in pain, his wrist flicking so the tip of his pen hit against your wrist as a call for you to either release him or the super strength.

you immediately let him go, wincing back a little in the process as your hand flew down to your chest in a fist. you kept forgetting to control your strength! this wasn't the first time you accidentally used it on him when you weren't paying attention to keep your abilities in control. it was how he got the bruise on his jaw too!

"i'm so sorry," you hissed out timidly, leaning forward to face him better.

jisung laughed nonchalantly, appearing to be more interested in his notebook than in the fading pain on his bones. he waved at you with a smile, his eyes sparkling as if he was finally seeing the light at the end of a tunnel.

"it's all good! now we know your super strength isn't just a one-time thing, just like your super speed, which we have to work on later because sports meet is coming up!" he exclaimed with gently clapping hands, his smile more forever more enthusiastic than yours.

not a second later, he widened his eyes, his mouth turning into a circle in realization. you panicked at first, wondering if any previous injuries you accidentally caused him was catching up to his consciousness, but he only brought his notebook up and muttered, "hold on, let me add that to our to-do list..."

you stared at him incredulously but your face didn't show it.

jisung was the pinnacle of your calmness about this whole messed up situation. him with his notebooks, and ideas, and checklists. he was the only reason why you haven't gone insane and gotten yourself locked up in prison for accidentally destroying the city, and you genuinely have no idea how he managed to be so collected.

you sniffled suddenly, causing jisung to tear his eyes away from his handwriting. it took him a moment to register the few tears that rolled down your face, and he slowly placed his notebook and pencil down on the bench you two were sitting on in an abandoned warehouse.

"oh, why–why are you crying?" he asked with uncertainty, his eyes visibly panicking by darting across your face. he sat up straighter, his hands going up in a fumble. he found that all he could do was giggle to diffuse the tension. "what happened? what are you crying for? all of a sudden? what?"

"nothing! it's just..." you sighed and looked away. "this is so annoying! these things always happen to me! superpowers? that doesn't even make sense!"

you cut him off before he could say more. he closed his eyes, letting you continue.

"i have no idea what kind of powers i have, neither can i control the ones i do know i have. i'm going to accidentally give myself away someday and everyone will know i'm a freak!"

frowning with a pitiful glance, he watched you slam your palms to your eyes and moaned in agony.

"how am i going to save the world, i can't even save myself yet! also, it hurts! my eyes hurt, i used my super strength on myself! i'm a fucking dumbass!"

jisung gulped down a knot, his cheeks jutted out with the innocent smile on his face. he reached out to put a comforting hand on your shoulder, and he said, "i mean this with lots of love but watching you freak out like this makes me feel so much better about myself that–ahh, i don't want to help you out at all!"

he flinched back with a loud yelp when you snapped your head up at him and swatted his hand away. the menacing glare on your face far less threatening to him than intended, only because you two have been friends for too long to still think you could really get mad at each other.

"you're going to be fine, [name]!" he exclaimed after a moment of silence where he gathered what he wanted to say. "look, i've seen this phase, it happens in all superheroes–"

"superheroes don't exist, jisung."

"they will when you finally learn how to properly use your powers!" he argued. "you cannot be the only person who powers. maybe there are organizations, or there are other people just like you who just haven't spoken up yet! you can join others, or be the blueprint!"

"you just have to train and learn how to control," he muttered, "and i promise i will be here to help you... and make fun of you... and design your superhero costume..."

looking away from his face in fear that if you stared at him for too long you would get the urge to smack him again, you let out a distraught groan and leaned back against the bench, letting your body fall on his side.

staring ahead at the broken warehouse, the recollection that you have been tearing yourself to test your limits, and jisung has been risking himself to make sure he could understand your undiscovered ability was more permanent than ever, albeit it was his inner-nerd jumping at the chance to have his admired fantasy happen in real life.

what an eventful week. it probably would not have been possible without jisung screaming at you to keep going.

you would not be here without him. he was the pinnacle of your calmness and your will to continue, and you figured you owe it to him to at least try to get better at this. 

what would you have done without him, truly. 

"you are so not designing my superhero costume," you said with a shake of your head.

jisung smiled, his eyes gleaming at your words that meant more than its surface. he pursed his lips, smiling brightly as he leaned his head on top of yours and stared ahead at the falling debris of punched walls.

so many things filled with possibilities in this abandoned warehouse, the birth of the first superhero and their human sidekick.

"you need a costume," he hummed.

"no, i don't," you refused. "i am not wearing spandex. i'll save people in jeans and a hoodie if i want to."

"okay, fine," he rolled his eyes, "but i get to make up your superhero name."

you furrowed your brows, your eyes rolling up slightly then you sighed. "fine."

he grinned. "i will be the best sidekick ever."

you laughed, and he hummed.

or, well, the guy in the chair. that seemed more his speed.

[peachywise]

nullify part 2

an umbrella academy fanfiction // klaus hargreeves x reader

- part ii: the broken alarm clock || ⋆ part i ⋆ part iii ⋆ part iv ⋆ part v ⋆ part vi ⋆  more parts to be released

- synopsis: You've heard of people having rude awakenings before, but you'd never actually experienced one yourself. That was until Klaus Hargreeves broke into your apartment, banging pots and breaking your clocks. This idiot just can't seem to go away.

- notes: wow, okay thanks for all the love so far on this guys!! I hope you enjoy part two. originally this had a lot more but it got a bit too long, so I cut it in half. part three will be up pretty soon. let me know if you want on the tag list. tw in this one for swearing, fire, and mild violence.

link on ao3

_______________________

Dreams have a funny way of making unconscious fears rear their god-forsaken heads in all too terrifying ways.

You’d been plagued by a particular nightmare for years, ever since you were a kid. It used to occur every night when things had been particularly bad, making your already so cruel waking days extend longer with sleep that should have been a type of escape. Now it only happened when you felt exhausted or anxious. Sometimes both. Okay, mostly both. You should have taken some comfort in the familiarity of the dream given the particular instability of your life, but alas, it was what it was.

And it was complete and utter horse shit.

It always started the same. You woke up in your childhood bedroom cluttered with crayon drawings and clothes scattered about, everything caught on fire like juvenile kindling. Your flannel pajama pants—the ones with the ugly looking green bunnies you thought were hilarious— had just caught a bit of the flame, burning away the fabric and charring and licking the skin of your leg, bubbling and making an awful smell. You barely managed to smack it out with your pillow before forcing your too adolescent and unstable force field up.

This was when the dream would begin to differ. Sometimes different things or people trailed into the room, watching you as you watched them, the house crumbling down to burning decay and ash while you sat crying in your little bubble, sweating and straining to keep it up and full. Sometimes they talked. Other times they didn’t. As you got older, anger tended to mix in with the panic and desperation you’d felt in the situation, aimed at whatever or whoever you believed had caused the flames.

Tonight, this dream's starring opponent stood all too close to you while you struggled and wailed. Reginald Hargreeves towered over your cowered figure, but your gaze wasn’t on him. No, your eyes fixated on the uniform-clad Five and the Cheshire grinning, kohl-lined eyed Klaus behind him who greeted you with an irritatingly ironic, “hey, hot stuff.”

Odd. You’d never felt both terrified and annoyed in these dreams before.

“It’s time for you to wake up.”

Well, that was new too.

“W-what?” You sputtered out, slightly loosening the death grip tight around your legs, eyes searching Klaus as his voice ringed louder and clearer than the haze and blaze of the fire.

“Come on, wake up!” Klaus yelled again, pushing Reginald away as he stepped up closer to your bubble, close enough to burst it.

And then your eyes cracked open, and your nightmare followed you into consciousness as one of your larger pots was placed so close to your face that you nearly smacked into it on time to the wooden spoon Klaus was already rhythmically slapping it with, hollering repeatedly as he did, “wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up!”

No one could blame you for your knee jerk reaction. Any sane person would have reached over for their alarm clock and hit the person who broke into their apartment over the head like you just did now. No one would also blame you for screaming. Your brain hadn’t even registered yet that it was Klaus who loomed over you. It was a fucking jarring way to wake up, for Christ’s sake.

Klaus immediately dropped the pot and spoon to grab his head, yelling out an overdramatic, “ow!” Too bad the pot landed with a hard thud on your stomach, causing the air to rush out of you and a groggy groan to leave your still panicked body in unharmonized synchronization with his howl of pain.

The now broken alarm clock which stopped ticking in your hand probably would have let out a cry of pain too if it could. But it was dead. Klaus was going to be too in a moment.

“Look what you did!” You shouted, throwing the sheets off your body as you scrambled off your mattress, nearly tripping on your feet as you did. Shoving the clock in his face, you continued with, “you broke my clock!” using your other hand to subtly clear the sleep out of your eyes.

“I broke your clock? You broke my head!” Klaus bellowed back, gripping his forehead in a way you thought was just a little too theatrical.

Shoving his arm, your face furrowed in an aggravated frown as you grumbled out an exasperated, “and you broke into my apartment. I win. What’s next, want to break my sink as well? Go ahead, you’d be doing me a favour. It’s the only way the landlords going to come look at my shitty plumbing.”

“Oh, of course, pleasure to be of service,” sarcasm dripped from his tone, similarly to how the blood dripped on your clean carpet from the cut in his head when he removed his hand to give an equally as sardonic curtsey your way.

Great.

Turning to grab a handful of the Kleenex from your bedside table, you hurriedly reached up and pressed it to his head to stop any further damage befalling your security deposit. “stop bleeding on my stuff,”  you swore. “Come on, let’s go to my bathroom.”

“First you hit me, and then want a morning triste in the bathroom?” Klaus tisked. “My my. You’re a little wildcat, aren’t you? I like it.”

You tried to ignore the fact he just followed up that comment with a growling noise like he was one of those creepy men in old 70’s movies, but you couldn’t. Instead, you decided not to take the moral high ground and flicked his cut over where you still had the Kleenex pressed. A pathetic exclamation of “hey!” brought a smug smile to your face.

“Come on, sit down. Let me see if I have anything to clean that up with,” you muttered, ushering him to sit on the lid of your closed toilet seat, grabbing his hand and putting it on the Kleenex-gauzed wound before bending down to rummage through the cabinet under the sink. “Want to tell me how you got in and why you’re here in the first place?” Sudden dread coursed through you as images of what else he could have broken flashed in your mind. Turning back around with wide eyes, you implored, “please tell me my front door isn’t hanging off its hinges.”

“Well you certainly think highly of me,” he uttered back, sniffling loudly as he slouched forward, eyes momentarily flashing behind you before quickly glancing your way again. “Your door is perfectly intact. But you really should lock the window on your fire escape. There are some nasty creatures out there. If you don’t watch out the boogeyman might get ya.”

Of course, he fucking climbed through the window. You bet he didn’t even try the door first, knocking or breaking in. His first instinct was to just climb up and—

Wait.

“I keep that unlocked because the ladder up to the fire escape is broken and I’m on the third floor. Did you bring your own ladder just to get in here? Forget the boogeyman, I’ve got a real life psycho sitting on my toilet. Did you happen to bring a knife too? Let me just get in the shower really fast and you can fulfill your Norman Bates fantasy. ”

“I mean, if you’re offering to get in the shower,” Klaus started, but before you could whack him on his wound again, it seemed like an invisible force slapped him upside the head, jerking him forward as he gave what was now his third cry of pain in under ten minutes. You were so shocked that you fell back on your butt, eyes frantically searching for whatever had made your thoughts turn into action. This wasn’t your power, right? You couldn’t do that. You didn’t want that. You would have a panic attack if—

“Christ on a cracker, Ben! It was only a joke! Death has made you so sensitive.”

Oh thank God, it was just a ghost.

Klaus sneered as his eyes glanced up at what was seemingly air in front of him as he had a conversation with his… invisible? Yeah, sure. Let’s go with his ‘invisible’ brother. “I am just being my perfectly charming self.” He paused, face reacting to whatever Ben must have said as he made the most melodramatic eye roll you had ever laid witness too. It was a little impressive, actually. Not that’d you mention it. No, you just watched the sideshow in front of you play on in jarred, mildly entertained, fascinated silence.

“I am not scaring ‘em off—” another pause, another exasperated shake of his head. “You don’t think I know that? I know we need them. If I go back there alone, our baby assassins going to shoot my balls off!”

Baby assassin? What, is like the new tickle me Elmo? If he was trying to ease Ben’s concerns, he was doing a terrible job of increasing yours while he did it.

As Klaus continued yelling, rambling on certain obscenities in the direction of your wallpaper peeled wall, you sat back up and turned back to your cabinet, pushing various bottle beside until you found the peroxide and cotton pads. Standing back up, you walked over to Klaus and swatted your hand in front of him, hoping to diffuse whatever argument had since gotten boring and headache inducing in your mind.

“As much as I’ve enjoyed this episode of Caspar the slap-happy ghost versus his dipshit brother, can you guys shut up long enough for me to clean this cut and get you the hell out of my apartment?”

Klaus immediately closed his mouth as both eyebrows shot up. Glancing over your shoulder one last time, he stage whispered to ghost boy, “they’re so touchy.”

Reaching over, you took the Kleenex from his hand to toss it in the trash, noting how the cut had stopped bleeding. Grabbing his chin, you wordlessly tilted his face up, angling it slightly towards the bathroom’s fluorescent light, leaning in closer to inspect it.

“Looks superficial. It’s fine” you stated, letting go of his face as you twisted the cap off the peroxide bottle, tilting it to soak one of the cotton pads.

“Well which is it, am I superficial or am I fine?” He quipped back, a lazy smile curving his lips.

Deadpanning, you replied, “you’re a pain,” before unceremoniously pressing the cotton pad to the cut maybe a bit too hard. Klaus once again winced in pain as he inhaled a sharp intake of breath, jerking his head away.

Well, make that four cries of pain now in under ten minutes. If it happened one more time, you wondered if you’d get a prize.

“Such cute pajamas for someone so utterly devilish,” he jibed, reaching out a hand to absently pluck the sleeve of your brightly blue coloured flannel. You slapped his hand away and he pouted like a child scorned. Oh, boo hoo.

Pressing the cotton pad back to his forehead, a little softer this time, Klaus visibly relaxed as you cleaned the wound. “You never answered my questions. Seriously, how did you get up that fire escape?”

“Well, if you haven’t figured it out yet, my darling brother has recently acquired the art of physical touch. I climbed on to his shoulders.”

Pausing, your eyes bugged out a bit as you turned your gaze to his. You never thought about that being possible. You’d always just been worried about one robber. Fuckin’ idiot. “I should really lock that window, huh?” Klaus snorted in affirmation.

As you finished clearing the blood from his pale skin, you leaned slightly back to inspect that it looked fine. “I don’t have a Band-Aid, but I think you’ll survive.”

Klaus held up a finger, an amused look flashing in his eyes as he used his other hand to dig through too-tight leather pants pocket. Standing up as he pulled a band-aid wrapper out, you watched as he made his way over to the mirror above your sink, ripping it open and putting on a very pink, and very floral, Hello Kitty Band-Aid.

Twirling back around, he raised both hands up and motioned towards his new accessory, asking, “what do you think?”

You were quiet for a moment, then you nodded. “I think that makes sense.” Klaus grinned.

As both of you made your way back out of your bathroom and into your shoe box sized slightly messy bedroom, you crossed your arms over your chest and leaned back against the wall. Klaus made himself feel at home as he poked around the various knick knacks. “Seriously, why are you here Klaus?”

“Have you suffered a bout of amnesia since last night?” He questioned, turning a sideways glance your way before he continued on his little expedition of your things. “I’m here to bring you to meet the rest of our happy family. Five thought you would be more willing to come with me than him.”

“And here I was thinking he had some semblance of intelligence,” you muttered, pushing yourself off your wall to go nudge him out of the way when he moved to go open one of your drawers. Why would Five think you’d be more willing to go with homeless Mick Jagger? You’d only met him once. You’d only met both of them once, in fact.

“Well you’re not exactly kicking and screaming to get me out of your apartment now, are you?” Klaus almost purred, brushing a hand across your shoulder as he swirled behind you, beginning his snooping once again. “In fact, it seems like someone was all too willing to play nurse to a cut I easily could have cleaned myself.” Picking up a picture frame from your bedside table, an odd look crossed his face before you snatched it from his hands, setting it face down. Now you were getting irritated. Whether it was with him, or yourself given the unnerving truth of his statement, you didn’t exactly want to delve into it at the moment.

“You bled on my carpet. I couldn’t trust that you wouldn’t bleed on the rest of my things before you managed to do a shitty patch job,” you replied easily back, averting your gaze from his as you took a few steps away.

Klaus made an elusive ‘hmm’ noise in the back of his throat. And then he flopped on to your bed, leaning back against the headboard as he grabbed your fuzzy white blanket, wrapping it around his shoulders and throwing it over his head like a cloak, curling into it as he contentedly smiled, “cozy.”

You picked up your pillow and tossed it at his face.

“Look, you guys can’t just barge into my life and expect me to go along with whatever this is. I’ve spent a good part of my life trying to stay out your way praying I never meet your dear old dad. Now if you’ll excuse me, today’s my day off and I intend to spend it quietly alone in my empty apartment.”

“Our dad? This had nothing to do with him,” he said, sitting up straighter as he dropped the blanket off his head, studying your face with a slight tilt to his head. Looking at him in silence, you rolled your hand in a ‘come on’ to signify for him to continue and stop being so freaking elusive.

“We need your help to stop the end of the world.” Then he threw his arms up with jazz hands, excitedly saying, “isn’t that so much fun?

Huh.

Chewing on your bottom lip, you gave a curt nod before twisting around, picking your phone off your receiver as you began dialing a number.

“Who are you calling?”

“The cops.”

Boy, was he also the Flash? You had never seen someone move so fast in your life. Ripping the phone from your hand, he slammed it back down on the base then gripped both your shoulders, pushing you away from it as he completely crowded himself in your personal space. Slight alarm skittering across his eyes. “Come on, is that really necessary? I’m not playing around.”

“Why should I believe you? Trust you?” you shot back, shrugging off his grip as you folded your arms around yourself. “As fun as you are to banter with, this is fucking crazy! You guys knew what I could do. You guys knew where I worked, where I live, what my name is! Now you say you need my help saving the world? Calling the cops seems like the natural progression of how this interaction should go on my side.” Jesus, where you hyperventilating? Where was that phone? You had to get that phone.

Klaus crouched lower to your height, arms stretched out like he was trying to calm a wild deer. Bitch. “Okay sweetheart, you need to calm down for just a second,” he soothed, and you couldn’t help but exhale a short, unamused laugh. “You know us, you know what we do. Or at least what we did. The Umbrella Academy isn’t some mastermind organization, we were just a group of kids brought together by a man with a god complex who so desperately tried to mold us into those bullshit cliché, good Samaritan superheroes. We’re fucked up, but we wouldn’t just come after an innocent like you for no reason. You have free will in this, okay? All I’m doing is asking, not telling you to come. Just let me take you to everyone. Five can explain this all better than I can.” He took your continued silence as an opportunity to continue his point, adding in, “you can even bring your clock as a weapon if it makes you feel more comfortable. You’re a real danger with that thing.”

As much as you hated to admit it, he was pretty convincing. If they had wanted to hurt you, if they had wanted to use you, you had no doubt they would have forced it upon you by now. From what you had learned, it seemed nearly all of them had been estranged from their dad for a while now. Vanya’s book had been pretty enlightening on the horrors that had occurred in that house, at least from her view point. So if Reginald was the one pulling their strings, then he was pulling their strings unbeknownst to them.  

It also didn’t help that your curiosity was piqued. You always loved a good mystery.

“Alright,” you conceded, letting your arms fall back down to your sides. Klaus let out a long breath of air and happily grasped his hands in front of him, jokingly singing as he did, “Darling, you’ve made me the happiest man in the world!”

“Under one condition.”

“Oh, I was so close,” he sulked immediately under his breath, dropping his hands.

“You have to promise me that I can leave. Like no strings attached, I can drop off mid-conversation and slam the door on my way out, type of leave. I’m only there to hear what he has to say, ask some questions, and that’s it. I haven’t decided to help you guys.”

Raising his hand out, he gave you a knowing smile as he extended his pinky finger. “I promise,” he droned. Heaving a sigh, you lifted your hand to wrap your pinky around his in a child-like binding promise. He was lucky he had such sincere eyes.

Letting go, you took a tiny step back as you cleared your throat, feeling uncomfortable with the odd tension you now wanted so desperately to melt. “Well, get out. You and Ben. Let me change and then you can take me to your master, or whatever.”

“My master?” Klaus gasped, as you herded him over the threshold of your door. “Five is a child. I am clearly more superior.”

Giving a tight smile, you quirked your eyebrow up. “You sure about that? I got the impression yesterday that you’re more like his fun loving, but pitifully dim witted henchmen,” you replied, then swung the door shut in his face before he could have the last word.

[writeforcarat]

Home [Part 1]

—Cat Shelter Volunteer!Wonwoo × Reader

—Fluff

A light drizzle specked the hot grey pavement before turning into a summer downpour.

It was almost noon on a Monday and you hit the brakes of your bicycle near a subway exit, where a sea of commuters had started emerging, pulling out their umbrellas, cursing at how the rain had just put a damper on their already busy day.

You, too, had a packed schedule ahead. It was your second week working as a part-time English teacher at an academy. And while tutorial classes were held in the afternoon, instructors were expected to arrive before lunchtime—an unwritten rule you had managed to comply with up until now.  

In a hurry, you slipped into a raincoat (thank goodness, you packed one), and checked the time. You had about 20 minutes to get to the school, which wasn’t that bad. If you could just speed up a bit, you’d make it on time.

You hadn’t gone that far yet when you heard it—an excruciating yowl that only got louder as you approached the end of the street. Curious and a bit alarmed, you came to a stop, got off your bike, and brought your ears closer towards a patch of bushes, where the sound seemed to be coming from.

Another cry pierced through the humid air, and you instinctively took a step back.

Taking a peek through the bushes, you found a spotted white and grey cat—drenched, soiled, and cold—your gaze meeting its feline eyes that were veiled with agony. The poor creature tried to stand up, only to fall back down on the wet ground. That was when you noticed that it had a limp and wounded leg.

You felt a pang in your heart. You had always had a soft spot for animals, especially cats, and this was a situation you couldn’t simply ignore. A cat needs help. Your help… but you were also running late. Sighing in resignation, you shrugged off the thoughts about work (maybe, they’d understand) and scooped the cat into your arms.

“You will be fine,” you whispered to it. “I’m here.”

Somewhat comforted, the cat purred in response, and you repeated reassuringly, “I’m here.”

Shifting its weight to your left arm, you tugged your bike with your free hand and walked towards the shed of a bus stop nearby. Thankfully, the sky was starting to clear up again and the rain was nothing more than a light shower. You sat down on the cold steel seat so you could let the cat rest on your lap.

Think. You said to yourself before resolving to text your supervisor to inform her about your “emergency.” You didn’t go far into detail, really. That you would explain only if worse comes to worst later. You then started searching for cat shelters nearby. Multiple results returned, with the closest one about eleven blocks away.

Chimes pleasantly rang, as you opened the door of Happy Cat Shelter and Veterinary Clinic. The cold air from the AC sent a chill that crawled on your skin, which the cat probably felt, too, since it snuggled closer to your chest.

“H-hello?” You called out, a tremble caught in your throat.

“Welcome to Happy Cat!” You heard someone respond from the inside; his voice deep yet friendly. A crashing sound reverberated through the walls of the office. “Be there in a sec!”

The shelter was not exactly big, but it wasn’t small either. From where you were standing at the receiving area, you could see cats crawling and prancing about in their playroom, and to your right, you eyed the door of the clinic with a sign that said the doctor was out, making worry flood through you. The next closest shelter with a vet was much farther away, and you couldn’t afford to take another side trip.

You glanced down at the cat. It was so exhausted; its sleepy eyes had fluttered shut.

A door swung open, and you looked up with a start. A lanky bespectacled boy clad in a black shirt came walking towards you, wiping his hands on his jeans. “I’m sorry about that,” he apologised before letting out a gasp, as you and the cat became clearer to his sight. “Oh my God.”

You realised that you were still dripping wet, a puddle surrounding your feet, locks of your wet hair matted on the sides of your face. Of course, your makeup was messed up, too. Shit. You were not a pretty sight, nor was the injured cat in your arms. You lowered your head in embarrassment.

“Please, don’t move. You might slip,” the boy said concernedly before you could even utter a word, his hand gesturing for you to stay put. “I’ll go get towels.”

Wonwoo wasn’t having an easy Monday. He wasn’t supposed to be working, but two of his co-volunteers called in sick, and the shelter’s manager, who was on vacation, begged him to cover for their shifts.

Not that he didn’t want to come in for duty, it was just that he had previously asked for a few days’ off, as he had to work on an important project before the summer break began. It didn’t help that the cats were also being extra temperamental and extra energetic, thrashing about the place with much vigour.

So when he saw you standing at the door—drenched and in distress—he knew that his day wasn’t about to get easier. Nevertheless, it had always been in him give help to anybody who needed it—be it a person or a cat. In this case, both.

The bespectacled boy returned shortly with a rag, which he dropped to the floor to absorb the small pool of water around your feet, and, as promised, soft and clean towels. He handed out one to you, and as you accepted it with a “thanks,” he carefully took the cat into his arms with another towel, whispering soothing words to it.

“I saw her on the street,” you said, wiping yourself dry with the towel. “I was actually on my way to work, but I couldn’t leave her. She’s wounded and injured.”

“I can see that,” he said, intently examining the cat in his arms. “Thank you for bringing her here,” he glanced up at you.

Now that he was standing closer, you finally had a better view of his face, and, God, he’s handsome. With his dark fringes falling just below his eyebrows, you instantly noticed his stunning eyes that showed both sincerity and softness as he looked at you.

You’d be lying if you said that the sight of him carrying the poor cat you’d just rescued didn’t make your heart melt a little.  

A bit flustered, you turned towards the direction of the clinic and said, “I’m not sure to what extent you can help, but, please, keep her safe until the vet arrives.”

“Of course,” he said almost instantly. “The vet won’t be here until after lunch, but I will give him a call, since this kitty needs to be treated.”

“Thanks,”

An awkward pause engulfed the room, and you realised that you hadn’t even introduced yourselves to each other yet.

“I’m Y/N,” you said just about the same time he told you that his name was Wonwoo. Both of you let out a sheepish laugh.

“Nice to meet you, Y/N,” he said, diffusing the tension. “Let me bring her inside first. I’ll be right back,”

“Erm, I should get going,” you said matter-of-factly, motioning towards the door.

“Hang on,” Wonwoo snapped, “I know you’re in a hurry, but we have protocols here. There’s some paperwork to be dealt with before we officially take in any cat.”

“Right,” you bit your lower lip, starting to worry more about work at that point. “I understand, but I am running really late right now.”

Having thought of a quick solution, Wonwoo shifted the cat’s weight to one arm, then swiped a clipboard and a sheet of paper from the reception desk with his other hand and suggested, “Perhaps, you could, at least, give us your contact details and bring this drop-off form to fill out and submit later. We don’t usually do this, but I’ll try to explain the situation to my boss. I’ll call or text you if anything turns up. Would that be alright?”

“Yeah, sure,” you nodded, taking the clipboard and form, grateful that he was being considerate enough. You quickly wrote down your name, mobile number, and email address on the contact list on the clipboard, and handed it back to Wonwoo. “Here you go.”

“Thank you, Y/N,” he said, and reminded you to come back with the drop-off form filled out before you left.

A wave of relief washed over you, seeing how your co-workers didn’t seem to notice your absence earlier when you arrived at the academy about 30 minutes later. They said hello like they usually did, as you walked into the teachers’ office; some were even offering you lunch food. Your supervisor was also nice enough to ask if you were okay and give you a clean shirt to change into.

Your classes ran smoothly that afternoon. The gradeschoolers enjoyed the vocabulary exercises you had prepared for them. They surprisingly expressed much excitement about their pop quiz, too, when you said that top scorers will get a choco pie each.

As you were packing your things, looking forward to calling it a day, your phone buzzed, an SMS popping up on the screen. Although it came from an unknown number, you already knew who it was from. You tapped on the notification to read the entire message.

“Hi, Y/N! Kitty’s okay now. No need to worry anymore. Just don’t forget to sign the form and bring it to the shelter. You can drop by tomorrow. We’ve also got some good news.  -Wonwoo”

The message tugged the corners of your lips upwards into a smile. For some reason, receiving that text made you feel so much better after a long day.

“Hey, look at that beautiful smile,” your co-instructor quipped, as she walked by.

You looked up from your phone, still beaming. “What?”

“Did your boyfriend text you? I haven’t seen you smile like that before.”

Your eyes widened and your lips parted, as though to say something, but not a word came out. Your co-instructor chuckled at your expression. “You’re adorable. See you tomorrow!”

“See you,” you said, happily thinking about what tomorrow will actually bring. [PART 2]

Thanks for reading until here! I didn’t actually intend for this story to get this long, but I guess I got too carried away with writing it. Anyhow, if you enjoyed this scenario, hit like or reblog and please do look forward to the continuation of the story.

My Q&A is also open to requests. Don’t hesitate to drop some prompts or suggestions, and I’ll see what I can do!

[shanceshklance]

Shklance Writing Request

Hi!! 

I really love the Shklance pairing! I am so thirsty for that shipping. So, what about a writing about Lance keeping a secret that he is a witch (like charmed tv show witch magic)  and so is his family.  Also major love with a bottom lance, top Keith, and top Shiro. 

By the way, I am so glad I stumbled upon this tumblr page. My voltron addiction has been satisfied completely!

Anon^^

-_-_-_-

I haven’t gotten on in a while due to my spark for writing Voltron isn’t as strong as it used to be. But I do love this idea so I’ll give it a shot. ❤️❤️💙💙🖤🖤

-_-_-_-

Lance was having a hard time hiding it from his partners anymore. Magic was a constant thing in his life and so were Shiro and Keith. The way they treated him was just so special, he didn’t want to ruin it with them figuring out his secret.

It was something he kept hidden from everyone and anything except his family. Since his family was also magic it was nice to visit them, which he had been doing more recently as a secret way to use his powers more frequently. He would sometimes slyly use them around his partners with a slight of his hand and a whisper of a spell but it was becoming harder.

They seemed to be thinking something was up with him visiting his family so often. Lance really was struggling to keep his magic in check around them especially when he would use his magic subconsciously with strong emotions. Finally they were going to find out, not in the best way.

Lance was heading out, his fingertips literally starting to spark with unused magic and power. As headed out he called back, “I’m leaving now! I’ll be back soon!”

As he reached for the door he was stopped by Keith.

“Where are you going this time? You keep leaving to go visit your parents almost two times a day now? Is something wrong?” Keith spoke as he grabbed Lances hand gently.

Lance shivered, his magic almost bursting at the seams. The touch from Keith made his heart pound and his magic pulse and become hard to control. Shiro came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder gently.

“Yeah. Are you alright? Is everything okay at home?”

Lance shivered and nodded, answering, “I’m fine. I just enjoy visiting my family a lot. You guys know how much I love my siblings and parents.”

Shiro and Keith shared a questioning look as Lance seemed to be almost close to shaking with energy.

“Are you sure? You keep leaving whenever we start being emotional and lovey dovey. Are you sure you’re okay? Are we going to fast or making you uncomfortable?” Shiro asked, rubbing Lance’s back gently.

The touch made sparks go down his spine, magic just dancing in every vein and nerve as he tried to calm himself down. “I’m good, I just wanna visit my parents”

Keith’s grip tightened a slight bit on his hand as he spoke, “Are you sure? You always leave us whenever we start getting closer and cuddling. It’s frustrating. Are we scaring you off? Do you have someone else?”

Lance felt as if a fire was bursting from his skin as he heard Keith speak.

“I don’t have anyone! I have both of you! Why would I find someone else or leave!”

His magic starting to burst from his finger tips as he got frustrated.

“I love you guys! Why would I do something like that?? You know I love you guys!”

“Then why do you always leave when we try to kiss you or do anything with you like that?” Keith asked, exasperated and obviously frustrated.

“Calm down Keith,” Shiro said as he put a hand on top of Keith’s that was onto Lance’s.

“We trust you Lance, but the way you act is almost like you don’t want to be loved by us,” Shiro said as he tried to diffuse the situation.

“I do!” Lance bursts out, magic finally bursting from his body as the lights flickered and a blue energy erupted from his skin as he heaved breath from his lungs.

“I do! I just want to protect you guys!” He says, pulling his hand from there’s and waving it out, lights flickering again and house shivering with energy.

Keith and Shiro both startled stare at him for a moment and look to one another. Lance is breathing heavy and struggling to control his restless power as he tries to breathe.

“I just can’t control myself and I don’t wanna scare you away! I don’t wanna hurt you or you two to hurt me,” Lance puts his hands on either side of his head and closes his eyes as he tries to calm himself. His body pulsing with magic and power as Keith and Shiro slowly come to terms with what is happening.

“You have magic Lance?” Keith says bluntly, reaching out to put a hand on Lance’s again.

Lance meekly nods as his finger tips shake with power. Keith puts a hand on top of his and pulls him into a hug.

“Why’d you hide it from us? You really think that we would be scared off by your magic?” Shiro asked as he took Lance’s other hand in his.

“Yes.. I can’t control it when I get strong emotions so whenever you guys would become lovey dovey or give me affection I just get so energetic and my magic is uncontrollable.”

Shiro and Keith smile to one another and pull him into a hug.

“We would never be scared off by you Lance, we love you.”

Lance opens his eyes to look at Shiro and Keith. He looks almost on the edge of running away from them. After a moment he seems to calm down a bit and lean into the hug more.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. We are both definitely sure of that, isn’t that right Keith?”

“Yes. Why would you think we were so worried about what was going on with you. Come on and cuddle us now and calm down”

Lance smiles meekly and nods, allowing the two to lead him back to their shared room and pull him into their cuddle pile between them. He relaxed a bit, magic dancing along his fingertips as they cuddled him and watched.

“Thank you. I love you guys.”

_-_-_-_-_

I tried to make it nice and lovey. I don’t know if you wanted nsfw but i dot do that unless it’s on my Ao3 @Sammy_Caliburn. But I recently write a lot more for Umbrella Academy and soon Detroit: Become Human, and original stories. Feel free to come check out the posts I have of Shklance and what other works I have there!

[stillness-in-green]

Salt-Sweet Curse (6/?)

More of the mermaid AU as brainstormed by @codenamesazanka!  New party member!  New party member!  If mermaids are real, then...?

They had headed deep into the countryside, city turning into town turning into village.  Shigaraki had clammed up again after the big sharing session, poor thing.  Poor cagey thing.  

'He helped me get away the first time,’ was all he’d been willing to say beforehand about how he knew the person they were looking for.  They were named Sako, apparently, and Shigaraki hadn’t known where they lived but had known where to go to find out.  

And when to get there. The when part had been important, for reasons he’d refused to explain.  

When they’d abandoned the car off the road and hiked through the mountains for something like two hours, that had been weird.  When they’d found the river and Shigaraki had set to stripping and packing up his clothes, that had been suspicious.  She’d followed along dutifully, curiosity a flame ready to set her whole body alight.

And okay, she might not have believed him if he’d told her, but at least a squidge of warning might have been in order, Toga thought as she gawped from beneath the shadow of the bridge at the procession overhead.  

Floating flames and gray wraiths; towering red-skinned oni and dancing little children twirling paper umbrellas with drawings of eyes that winked and blinked; chattering tengu and kitsune swapping jugs of sake that warmed her cheeks just to smell them, and white-skinned women trailing cold that tipped her wet hair in frost.  

It was the Night Parade, the hundred demon march, and all right, if mermaids were real, then it stood to reason this could be too, but to see it, spinning and flickering before her eyes with a vividness that cloth paintings and cheap TV effects could never hope to match, that was so far removed from absent conjecture that her whole life might as well have just changed genres.

How Shigaraki knew about this, how he even planned to spot his friend, much less catch his attention…

She was going to have a lot of questions to ask when the parade was over, that was certain.  For now, she heeded the warnings of bedtime stories and kept her mouth shut. 

At least until Shigaraki came up with a stone in his hand and started scanning the crowd.

Toga clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her alarmed squeak and dropped down to the surface of the water.   

"Calm down," he told her in an undertone as she grabbed at his wrist, "it's barely a pebble."  His eyes narrowed, beginning to track along the bridge, and, despite her hissed protests, he palmed the stone into his free hand.

She sucked in a breath and went under.

From below, the river’s surface diffused the parade into an arc of gold across midnight blue. Shigaraki’s tail glimmered in the light, ethereal silver, his translucent fins periodically curling through the water to keep him upright.  Toga propelled herself downwards to the riverbed and tucked herself into the uneven rocks, eyes wide as she stared up through the murky waters at the waving ribbons of light.

--   --   --            --   --   --            --   --   --

Some while later, she perched halfway out of the water on a stone outcropping, staring at the spirit that had slowed his pace in the parade more and more until he’d finally dropped out of the back and been left behind.  He dressed like a man going to a party (in fairness, assuming the parade counted, he had been), a flashy red dress shirt and black double-breasted vest, fancy gloves, and a fancier top hat flagged with a cream-colored feather worn over short auburn hair.  A blank white mask covered his face but did nothing at all to dampen his personality.

His hands moved, constantly—a radical change after the weeks she’d spent with Shigaraki, who moved like he was being charged money for every extraneous gesture.  Sako gesticulated.  He pattered like a showman and he could barely sit still, hopping up to pace along the shoreline or re-enact some past event, crouching down next to them as suddenly as he’d spring up and move away.

“Good heavens, it’s been—what, eighty years since I’ve seen you last?”  He had a nice voice, a theatrical baritone, indulgent in its cadences and rhythms.  “And over a century before that.  You never come to the south anymore.  I suppose I know why, of course, but still, it’s a shame to see so little of you.  And you’re so thin; I know you don’t need to eat, but don’t you humans still find it pleasurable at least?  Enjoying yourself a little won’t put you on his level, you know.”

Shigaraki, who lay stretched out on the bank with his head cupped in one hand and the air of a student watching a classroom clock count down towards the last bell, snorted but otherwise remained silent.  

“And you have a companion now, I see!”  Sako turned to her and Toga blinked to suddenly see her own face—eyes still caramel dark from her last meal—instead of the mask.  She-he smiled, lean and mischievous, and spun in place, back to the mask by the time he’d completed the turn.  “Your name, young miss?”

Toga grinned even as her heart fluttered.  The Night Parade was one thing, and had somehow passed them by without incident, but actually having a youkai’s direct attention was another.  Was there a right answer?  One that he’d lash out at her for, with scissors or sword or some other weapon?  But then, if he did attack her, she’d be justified in counter-attacking and he certainly looked physical enough to bleed.

“Toga Himiko,” she chirped, one hand inching towards her purse.  “It’s nice to meet you!  How long have you known Shikkun, Sako-san?”  

“Shikkun, is it?” he asked, reeling back in exaggerated delight.  “Shigaraki, can it be you’ve made a friend at last?”

“I didn’t come to introduce her.”  Shigaraki rolled his eyes.  His lip curled up as he went on, “He’s got my scent again.  I need you to throw him off.”

Sako sobered.  He raised one hand to his chin—or the lower edge of his mask, anyway—finally going still.  

“That gets trickier every time.  Do you know, he had an onmyouji in his employ the last time?”

“And how would I know that?”  Shigaraki looked away, out over the water.  Annoyance tightened his mouth, and—guilt, maybe?  The night just kept getting more interesting.

“By visiting, perhaps?” Sako shot back, a sudden sharpness to his tone.  “The man’s spiritual sense couldn’t have been that high if he didn’t sense something off about his employer—”

“Or money buys a lot of ignorance,” Shigaraki muttered, equally scathing.

“—but his charms were still quite difficult to evade.”

“But you managed though, right?” Toga interjected.  She beamed when they both looked at her, Sako tilting his head, Shigaraki hiding a smirk in his lank hair.  “You escaped from a real onmyouji!  That’s so cool!”

“Young Toga, you flatter me.”  Sako pressed one gloved hand over his heart.  “A tactic certain others in the vicinity could stand to try, might I add?”

Toga giggled as Shigaraki rolled his eyes again.  

“Are you gonna help or not? Because we need to keep moving if not; you know the south’s his home territory.”  

“Do you have any other options?  I’m genuinely curious.  And I know how lying looks on your face, so don’t try it.”  Sako spun in place again, and Toga nearly applauded to see Shigaraki’s face with such a foreign expression of playful mischief.  

“You’re still the only noppera-bou I’m on speaking terms with,” the real thing said, tone flat.  Noppera-bou, so that was it.  Well, that made sense.  And answered the question about what Sako’s face looked like under the mask.

“And you with such a winning disposition,” Shiga-sako quipped, turning away and back again, mask returned.  “But I do hate to leave friends in the lurch.”  

“So you’ll help?” Toga piped up, her heartbeat beginning to pick up with the prospect of new adventures.

“It does an old spirit like me good to get out into the world now and again,” he conceded.  “Meet new people, get new faces…  Yes, I suppose I can help a little.”

“Yay!” Toga cheered, letting the excited peal ring out long and loud enough to cover Shigaraki’s muttered, “Finally.”

[atmilliways]

Stuck on the Outside Failing to Look In (Just Like in Real Life)

This @mtl-trick-or-treat fic is for @tanyonlee, who asked for either a treat of “Very cute Skwistok!!” or a trick of “Skwisgaar and his gmiltf girlfriend XDDD.” 

It was while writing this bit that I realized, hey, I’m writing this for a Halloween event, maybe it should have some actual Halloween in it. Thank you to @little-murmaider for the costume suggestion. All the other suggestions were close seconds, you are all superstars. 🎃 

Here’s part three! (1562 words)

(part 1) (part 2)

~

Halloween day dawned cold and crisp over Mordhaus — but the five members of Dethklok all slept through that part. It wasn’t until a much more reasonable eleven am that three hunched figures sat around the sawblade kitchen table, piled high with breakfast pastries, clutching steaming cups of black, black coffee in their hands.

“Fuck, okay,” Nathan rumbled after a few mouthfuls of blessed caffeine. “I call this what-the-fuck-do-we-do-about-our-guitarists meeting to order.”

“Uh, exchusche me, I’m a guitarischt?”

Pickles rolled his eyes. “Yeah, bass guitarist. That’s barely an instrument.”

Murderface glared at the drummer, but chose not to dignify it with a response. Not an audible response, anyway — he may or may not have mumbled something containing the word Thunderbottom into his coffee.

“Stop bitching and pay attention,” snapped Nathan, who was absolutely not a morning person. “Look. Toki keeps going off and costing us money in damages and lawsuits, and Skwisgaar’s being even more of a moody asshole than usual. We’ve gotta do something about it.”

There was a drowsy silence while the three men tried to think while still in the process of waking up.

“Does anyone else get the feelin’ that they’re, like... eggin’ each other on or someshit?” Pickles asked finally.

“Let’sch juscht put ‘em in a room together and lock the door,” Murderface grumbled, still smarting from the jab at his instrument.

“That’s...” Nathan paused, mulling the suggestion over for a minute. “... Not the shittiest idea I’ve ever heard. Good job, Murderface.”

The bassist replied by flipping him off with his still-bandaged band, his other busy grabbing for a powdered donut.

“What if they kill each other?” Pickles asked.

“We’ll stay nearby,” Nathan said firmly. “I’m pretty sure if any of us get seriously hurt, that... thing would happen again.”

They all shifted a little uncertainty at that — except for Murderface, who inhaled at the wrong moment and started coughing and hacking on powdered sugar, which diffused the feeling somewhat. Because sure, That Thing had been brutal and badass and a rush, but the idea of it was still unsettling. It was the kind of experience that you half hoped, half worried would happen again someday.

Nathan reached over and gave Murderface a helpful couple of thumps on the back, which helpfully knocked over his coffee into the bassist’s crotch.

~

SEVERAL HOURS LATER.

A klokateer had just finished bringing three fresh drinks to the hot tub when Pickles suddenly sat up from his relaxed slouch and asked, “Wait, don’t we gotta figure out how to get both’a them in the same room in the first place?”

“Uh.” Nathan’s brow furrowed. “Yeah... I guess we do.” He took a long pull from his beer. “So, uh... if anyone has any ideas, that’d be great.”

“Schuper leaderschip right there,” Murderface deadpanned.

“Shut up! I had the idea to come up with an idea, I’m fucking worn out.”

“It is Halloween,” Pickles said slowly, ignoring the bickering with the ease many years’ practice and more substances than just alcohol in his system. “Meybe we could tell Toki some story about trick or treatin’?”

“But what about Schkwischgaar? He doeschn’t even want to go out for schweet poontang anymore now that he’sch deschided to schack up with that fat grandma.”

“Yeah, what’s up with that?” Nathan grunted. “Skwisgaar doesn’t even know the word monog... mogon... m... hrnnnnn... He doesn’t know what settling down even means.”

Pickles shrugged. “Feck If I know. Meybe we can grab ‘em while he’s still sleepin’, throw him in wherever, boom, lock the door, done.”

“But that only worksch if he’sch aschleep... What if we juscht tell him the fat grandma isch waiting for him schomewhere, and when he goesch in that’sch when we lock the door.” Murderface sipped thoughtfully on his Bloody Mary, then made a face. “Ugh, thisch thing isch dischguschting!”

“Dood, then why’d you ask for one? Give it here, I’ll drink it.”

“No, it’sch mine,” Murderface whined, holding the glass as far away from Pickles as he could and thus giving Nathan a good look at the cocktail onions decorated to look like eyeballs and a set of plastic vampire fangs floating in the thick cocktail. “It’sch feschtive!”

“What’s you guys all doin’s up so earlies? Trick or treats hasn’t even starts yet!”

The three men in the hot tub turned in unison to look at Toki. Somehow he’d managed to sneak up on them despite his costume, which requires a moment of blank staring to fully take in — from the ridiculous umbrella hat on his head to the ludicrous arrangement of base drum, cymbals, and various horns slung on his back like a backpack, completed by an array of mouthpieces clustered around his face like an addition to his already weird facial hair and his Flying V strapped to his front.

Plus, there were coins dangling from the umbrella, clinking against each other every time he moved. Nathan and Pickles exchanged one of those what just happened here and could it have anything to do with…? looks, because he shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on them with all those noisemakers on. They weren’t that drunk yet.

“What the fuck?” Nathan asked finally, speaking for everyone as per his job description.

Toki grinned proudly. “I ams a one man band!” He punctuated the statement with a cymbal crash, operated by some sort of hand lever. “Where’s Skwisgaar? I bets he ams too lazies to even does a costumes...”

“He’s prahbly still sleepin or something. What’s... with all the coins, dood?” Pickles asked.

The flicker of disappointment in Toki’s eyes was so brief that his band mates didn’t even notice, quickly replaced by exaggerated childlike glee. “They ams my tips what’s I get for playing goods!”

“That’s, uh...” Nathan glanced around, searching his brain or possibly the room for something to say that wasn’t too jackassy but not an outright lie either. It was hard to tell sometimes what might set off one of the rhythm guitarist’s violent tantrums, and Toki’s bubbly mood could just be the manic before the storm. “...Uh... sugar-free?”

Murderface, still staring, spoke up in lukewarm agreement. “Healthier than playing for candy, that’sch for schure.”

“You got your insulin, right?” Pickles asked reflexively.

Toki nodded and beamed and played a riff on his guitar, accompanying it with various clashes, bashes, and honks.

In the midst of the cacophony, Pickles turned to the other two and said in a low voice, “This is a tickin’ time bomb. You guys wanna get this over with now?”

“...Yeah.”

“Schoundsch good. I’ve got my tascher in with my clothesch over there.”

“Okey.” Pickles leaned back and raised his voice again. “Hey, that’s real good, Toki! You wanna start trick or treatin’ early this year?”

Toki stopped the assault on their ears and clapped his hands together in excitement. “Oh boys, does I!” He paused. “But… it doesn’ts starts until suns-set, I thoughts?”

Murderface, ever a champion of messing with people, literally leapt up in his eagerness to cover this plot hole in their story. “Nope! I know a neighborhood that schtartsch early, scho letsch get thisch schow on the road!”

As one, everyone in the room groaned and shielded his eyes in dismay.

“Goddammit Murderface,” Nathan bellowed, “stop freeballing in the hot tub!”

~

ABOUT HALF AN HOUR LATER.

Nathan pulled his dethphone out of his back pocket. “Okay, I’m going to text Skwisgaar now. Everybody ready?”

Pickles nudged at Toki with a sneakered foot to make sure he was still down for the count, getting the hoped-for lack of response. He nodded and flashed a double thumbs up.

From his position by the door, Murderface held up his taser in wordless salute.

They’d decided that the one man band getup presented too many improvised weapon possibilities, so they’d tasered him into unconsciousness, removed everything but his clothes, and made a couple klokateers carry him down to the studio. To make the whole thing more fair, they’d also decided to do more or less the same to Skwisgaar as soon as he stormed in.

“... Wait, how come I gotta do all the taschering? My hand schtill hurtsch, schomeone elsche do it thisch time.”

“This isn’t the time for whining, Murderface,” Nathan called as he and Pickles hid behind the couch, just in case. “This is your time to shine!”

~

Text log between Skwisgaar Skwigelf and Nathan Explosion:

NE (5:29:27pm) — Hey, come to the studio.

NE (5:41:02pm) — GET YOUR ASS DOWN TO THE STUDIO RIGHT NOW.

NE (5:43:26pm) — Some of your pickups in the new track need some work.

SS (5:43:56pm) — WHAT

SS (5:43:57pm) — BOLLSHIT

SS (5:43:59pm) — THEMS WAS PERFECTION

NE (5:45:37pm) — Prove it. Just get in here.

SS (5:45:44pm) — THIS AMS SLANDER ON MY NAMES I WILLS PROVE IT ALL OVER YOURS DUM BITCHTITS

~

ONE AMBUSH LATER.

Pickles was helping Nathan drag an unconscious Skwisgaar into the booth with the equally unconscious Toki, when the drummer suddenly dropped the pair of booted ankles he’d been lugging and asked, “Wait, don’t I have some sorta dentist appointment to go to later today?” 

He glared at his band mates. 

“How come neither’a you dooshbeags reminded me? Now I don’t got time to pour bleach on my teeth first!”

[inuashnar1]

Apple Pie

In a tone that startled me out of a spellbound writing fervour, Susannah piped up with a phrase my Chinese ears had never hear before -

“I want to make an apple pie.”

I suppressed a surprised giggle - stifling it with a grin that didn’t reach my eyes. I felt it hop through my chest like a grasshopper running away from young children trying to catch it with their small chubby paws. I pushed my glasses up my face and realized how near-focused I had been. Nose pressed into the 2013 MacBook air. My right thumb was starting to feel signs of carpal tunnel as with each successive keyboard slap my entire arm twanged with a vibration that shot up my wrist, and ended at the base of the right side of my skull. Ouch - I grimaced. I hastened to rub out the neck kink that was growing, feeling the aggravation of the day filter in.

We had been working all afternoon and into the evening. Writing applications for dance jobs that we loftily aspired for in our unstable, anti-climactic, work environment of Canada. Dreams of working for stable companies abroad with full time employment in the ‘European Umbrella of Employed Dancers’. I desperately wanted healthcare and a pension. She desperately wanted validation and a break. Over the course of the work period, only hushed whispers between Susannah and I were vocalized - as if we were deftly diffusing a ticking time bomb.  Questions like:

-Why do you want to dance for our company in Sweden? Wow, why do I want to dance for you, uh, well, I am interested in learning about the swedish language and I think living in sweden would fully compliment my lonely nature?

-Tell us about your dance practise? Wait. What is a dance ‘practise’? What sort of ‘practise’ requires thought besides a thinking practise? My practise is applying for danceWeb three years in a row and not getting any feedback on how to talk about my ‘practise’ - and that’s my praxis.

-The more I talk about myself, the less I know about myself, and I need to talk about myself in order for me, myself and I, to properly showcase why I’m a great addition to your company, but as I talk about myself, myself included, gets confused about my own needs and wants, so I start to use myself as a platform to show you the potential in myself as a new hire, instead of actually just talking about myself, because I don’t truly understand myself enough to sell you, or myself, on the product of me, myself, or I.  

-Music is a huge part of why I move and why I choose to move. Without music I wouldn’t even walk. There’s no point in not keeping 4/4 time if there isn’t your own internal Big Band playing. And if I didn’t know what music was, would I be able to even have a Big Band in my head? I don’t think so. Ah, one, and a two, and a three, and a four- -Do I want to dance for Rosas? Yes. Do I know HOW to dance for Rosas? Absolutely not, I think I would have to start using cocaine.

-Companies are like the Avengers, made up of carefully selected individuals with ‘skills’. Like, who is Iron Man? Or Black Widow? And have they ever had a Civil War?

-If I say, “ I am seeking to understand the suppression/succession of internal biases throughout my colonized physical geography, and how I conflate the metaphysical within, to the without,” is that too much for a bio? I should just put, “ In her free time, Tia likes to pretend to be a monster that hides under the beds of children.”

“I want to make an apple pie.”

I groaned through my grinding neck bones, as I tiled my head, right then left. The bones of my neck snapped with relief and I sighed, feeling the kink emit just a touch of pain - the sensation of maybe snapping my own head with my muscles felt pleasurable after all of this bemoaning work.

“What are you talking about,” I replied, finally able to tear my eyes away from the laptop. Susannah was grinning with glee - a terrifying face. Like a 3 year old about to tell you their master plan for winning the game of capture the flag at the local playground, but they don’t have the best use of the english language yet, so all you feel vibrating off of them is pure un-filtered personal self belief. I might gander to call it CONFIDENCE.

“I want to make an apple pie, and I don’t want to know how to make it.” she declared, fingernails gently scratching, pawing, at the large oak kitchen table that could honestly be called a raft by its sheer size.

I paused. “What? Wait, what do you mean? Like, just ingredients?” “Yeah, something like that. I kinda wanna see if I can do it? I’ve made apple pies before, but not without instructions, and I want to test myself. See if I can actually do this thing and succeed.”

Susannah, smile still plastered on her face, sat back into her chair, arms folded and eyes swimming with mischief. I was intensely amused. This could turn out to be absolutely catastrophic. What about the stress of not knowing how to make a pie? Of having all the raw materials, but only having a vague idea of what goes where. She was basically building a bicycle with only the mental image of a bicycle as her reference.

“Okay. Okay,” I began, “How about I buy the ingredients? And then you can make the pie - I’ll find a simple recipe. Most apple pies are made the same right? Apples, flour, butter, sugar -“

“Hey, hey, hey! No more clues!”

“Ingredients aren’t clues Susan. Oh - Okay, maybe they are.”

“I don’t want to cheat. I don’t want you to tell me anything. I want to see if I fuck up or not. That’s the point - will I fail, or will I make an apple pie?”

She shrugged - face still brimming with unadulterated snarkiness. I scoffed and felt my body get buzzed with excitement - my friend was going to make an apple pie, and it might be a disaster - who else could we get to see this disaster?

“We should make a Facebook event,” Susannah says, as if pulling the thought right from my soft brain matter.

“Oh my god. That’s a brilliant idea Susan. We can livestream it too. I wonder who’s in town to invite to this?”

“I want to do it soon.”

“How soon is soon?” “We will do it tomorrow.”

[slrlounge1]

How to Become a Real Estate Photographer | Step By Step Guide

Thank you to HDRsoft for sponsoring this tutorial series and making it possible. The tips given in this tutorial are based on professional experience by our full-time photographer staff, and are our own opinions and advice.

How To Get Started In Real Estate Photography

Real estate photography is a challenging but fun and potentially lucrative line of work. It can be a great side income, or a full-time career!

It might seem simple at first – just take pictures of houses and rooms, and get paid! However, there is certainly a lot more that goes into it, from the preparation and shooting to finding clients, communicating with them, and ensuring their satisfaction with a beautiful final product.

So, we’ve created this quick but thorough tutorial to help you get started. We’ll continue this series with additional tips on how to actually photograph real estate itself, the gear you need, the post-production, and the business side of things. So, read on, and stay tuned for more!

Step 1 | Get the Right Gear For Real Estate Photography

Believe it or not, even though real estate photography does require a few particular bits of camera equipment, none of it is especially exotic or expensive. This is because of the basic nature of photographing such subjects as interior rooms, or exterior property images, which is, you’re photographing a static subject that you have complete control over. This means you don’t need a camera with pricey features like action-tracking autofocus or high frame rates, etc.

Two camera features which will indeed come in handy are the ability to bracket multiple exposures, and the ability to trigger a flash. Thankfully, all advanced/serious cameras (and even most beginner models) have both of these features.

So, what is the most important piece of gear? A solid tripod. Next, a wide-angle lens. However, since you’ll be on a tripod most of the time, your lens does not need to be an exotic fast-aperture one, it just has to be wide-angle, or what’s known as ultra-wide.

If you have these two items (a sturdy tripod and a wide-angle zoom lens) then almost any camera body will get the job done! Even a crop-sensor camera body can be used for totally professional results (as long as your wide-angle lens is made for that body).

A fourth item that will be of great use is a basic wireless flash. You can use this to illuminate interiors, either by bouncing the flash off the ceiling and walls behind the camera, or by using a diffuser such as an umbrella or softbox. However, this bit of equipment isn’t entirely critical, so don’t be intimidated by the thought of having to shop for softboxes and light stands and radio triggers, yet!

Alternately, if you’re not interested in flash, (or more likely, you’re photographing large exteriors where flash is simply not an option!) then the final tool will be a professional HDR workflow and software.

Step 2 | Get Image Editing Tools for Real Estate Photography

Even if you have a solid tripod, a great camera, and the best lens for the job, you still need to know how to edit the images you take! A Raw processing program is a must-have for almost all professional work, however for real estate photography there will be a need for advanced Photoshop processing, as well as an HDR (High Dynamic Range) processing application. You might even need to process multiple HDR images in batches for particular jobs.

Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop can get a lot done all by themselves, and HDR software such as Photomatix Pro offers both high-quality and advanced tone controls for editing bracketed images, as well as highly efficient batch processing capabilities.

Check Out Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC

Check Out Photomatix HDR Software

We’ll get deeper into the equipment in a future article, so stay tuned for that. For now, this basic guideline should be able to get you started.

Step 3 | Learn and Practice Photographing Real Estate

Before shooting a paid job, you absolutely must practice, and be sure of exactly what your camera gear is capable of. Not only will it help you work efficiently when you’re on a “real” job, it will also help you ensure that you deliver highly professional results.

In future articles of this series, we’ll dive to real estate photography techniques, tips and tricks, so be sure to stay tuned to this series.  To get started, here are a few critical concepts.

Understand What Images to Capture

Start with understanding the right images to capture. The best thing you can do is practice, while closely studying existing property listings and images of the types of things you’re most likely to actually photograph. As a general rule, get one or two images of every interior room, (or have the client make a list of the specific rooms they want to be photographed); and get 3-5 images of property exteriors, including the front yard and the backyard.

Learn More: 6 Quick Tips For Better Real Estate Photography (Infographic)

Watch Your Angles

Be careful not to angle your camera upward or downward too much, because vertical lines should usually appear as close to perfectly vertical as possible. This can be corrected in post-production, but only to a certain degree.

Understand The Dynamic Range Of Your Camera

Digital camera sensor dynamic range has come a long way in the last 10 years, but it’s still not infinite. You should always understand just what your camera is capable of; never tell yourself, “oh, I can recover those shadows in post-production!”

Even if you just bought a fancy new camera that everybody says has amazing shadow recovery, you still should perform a test. Shoot a dramatic sunset with a property or other subject that is in complete shadow, start by saving your highlights, and see how many stops (EVs) you have to brighten the exposure before you can see into those shadows.

Since exterior property images are almost always best at sunset or twilight, you’ll want to make sure you always capture the full dynamic range of a scene when you’re on the job. Unfortunately, each camera has very different setups for exposure bracketing, so play around with it and make sure you know exactly how to bracket a scene very quickly before you go out on paid jobs!

Building A Portfolio For Real Estate Photography

Getting into any portfolio-related business is always a catch-22: how can you get professional work if you don’t have a portfolio of professional images to show potential clients? Thankfully, real estate photography is actually one of the easiest fields to build a great portfolio for!

First and foremost, you can of course practice with your own home, if you can make some of the rooms presentable enough. Or if you have a friend who has an ideal home, they might be willing to allow you to photograph a couple of rooms.

Also, anything that you can photograph in a public place is fair game! Just be respectful and safe, as always. (It helps to carry business cards stating that you’re a photographer.)

Of course, you can always cold-call real estate agents in your area. You might get a “no” 19 times, but the 20th might be a yes… Alternately, sometimes online vacation rentals (Air BnB, VRBO, etc.) could use a few great interior and/or exterior images.

Lastly, keep in mind that this is just your portfolio, not an actual property listing. As such, feel free to use Photoshop extensively to clean up and beautify your images! If there’s a window with a brick wall or an ugly backyard outside, try swapping it for a beautiful view of a beach or a mountain. Such tricks would never be allowed in an actual listing, of course, but it’s good practice for your Photoshop skills! (One thing that is very common in actual property listings is, using Photoshop to swap a boring sunset sky with a more dramatic one.)

Real Estate Photography Business – Getting Work

When you’re ready to actually charge money, it may not be enough to simply put your portfolio online and get business cards printed. These days, the process of “breaking into” any photography market is pretty involved, and often a long-term game.

Firstly, of course, you’ll want to do the obvious: reach out to real estate agents in your area, or to other photographers in the area who might need an assistant on bigger jobs. Also, there are many other channels you can pursue, from paid advertising online, to good ‘ol SEO, (Search Engine Optimization) or even in-person sales at local events or cold-calling phone numbers you see on local property “for sale” signs.

As with any business endeavor, it can take a lot of hard work to get your foot in the door. The key is to just keep trying different things, and don’t give up!

Should You Shoot For Free First?

It might be okay to photograph one or two jobs for free if you really do need the practice, and can’t promise professional results yet. Just make sure that you’re not being taken advantage of by a client who absolutely could have paid you at least some small amount for your time. There’s something about your sheer dignity, that makes a huge difference between asking for a mere $50 or just doing a job for absolutely nothing.

When you really do know what you’re doing, though, you should be charging money. No matter how many times you hear, “I can’t offer you money this time, but if you do a good job, there’s a chance we can pay you on the next job,” don’t believe it!

See, here’s the deal: When you shoot for free, that client will probably expect to be able to get away with it again. Worse, however, is this- every time you do an unpaid job, you’re building a reputation as a person who shoots for free. This sets a precedent and makes it all the more difficult to charge money later. Imagine trying to charge a client $5,000 or $10,000 for a job, when just a few years ago you did free work for them. Awkward!

So, take pride in your professionalism when you say, “I’m sorry, I can’t accept future business as payment for current work; thank you for understanding!”

Read More: 10 Real Estate Photography Mistakes To Avoid

What should you charge?

Ideally, what to charge for real estate photography will depend entirely on the area/value of the property itself, as the scope of the job, as well as how much time you will spend working on it.

For example, if you can shoot and post-produce the entire job in half a day, that’s one thing, but if you have to spend a few hours consulting with the client, renting the right gear, plus a half day or a whole day shooting the images, and then of course another day (or more) doing advanced post-production, …then you’re going to need to charge a lot more.

We’ll get into what to charge, and how to go about setting up your pricing, in a future article.

Before we move on, here’s a basic overview. Of course, the exact numbers will vary depending on your location, but a “quick” job might only pay $100-200, or as much as $500-1000. A larger job may range from just a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars.

Even if you have to start on the low end and work your way up, the absolute best thing you can do for yourself is, keep track of all the hours you spend on each job, plus running your business in general, …and add it all up. Not only can you determine what you’re actually paying yourself by the hour, but just as importantly, you can determine just how many jobs you can actually fit into a single week.

In future articles, we’ll dive deeper into the business side of real estate photography! Please leave a comment below if you have any particular questions on the subject.

Read More: Workshop Review: Fstoppers Art Meets Architecture

Conclusion | Getting Into Real Estate Photography

This article should provide you with enough information to give real estate photography a try, however, there is still much more to learn! So, stay tuned for additional articles that get into greater detail about the gear, the shooting, and the business aspects of real estate photography. In the meantime, please leave a comment below if you have any questions about real estate (and architectural) photography, or the business behind it, etc.

Thank you again to HDRsoft for sponsoring this article! If you are thinking of getting into real estate photography, or any type of photography that requires bracketing and HDR processing, check out what they can do!

from SLR Lounge https://www.slrlounge.com/how-to-become-a-real-estate-photographer-step-by-step-guide/ via IFTTT

[slrlounge1]

How to Become a Real Estate Photographer | Step By Step Guide

Thank you to HDRsoft for sponsoring this tutorial series and making it possible. The tips given in this tutorial are based on professional experience by our full-time photographer staff, and are our own opinions and advice.

How To Get Started In Real Estate Photography

Real estate photography is a challenging but fun and potentially lucrative line of work. It can be a great side income, or a full-time career!

It might seem simple at first – just take pictures of houses and rooms, and get paid! However, there is certainly a lot more that goes into it, from the preparation and shooting to finding clients, communicating with them, and ensuring their satisfaction with a beautiful final product.

So, we’ve created this quick but thorough tutorial to help you get started. We’ll continue this series with additional tips on how to actually photograph real estate itself, the gear you need, the post-production, and the business side of things. So, read on, and stay tuned for more!

Step 1 | Get the Right Gear For Real Estate Photography

Believe it or not, even though real estate photography does require a few particular bits of camera equipment, none of it is especially exotic or expensive. This is because of the basic nature of photographing such subjects as interior rooms, or exterior property images, which is, you’re photographing a static subject that you have complete control over. This means you don’t need a camera with pricey features like action-tracking autofocus or high frame rates, etc.

Two camera features which will indeed come in handy are the ability to bracket multiple exposures, and the ability to trigger a flash. Thankfully, all advanced/serious cameras (and even most beginner models) have both of these features.

So, what is the most important piece of gear? A solid tripod. Next, a wide-angle lens. However, since you’ll be on a tripod most of the time, your lens does not need to be an exotic fast-aperture one, it just has to be wide-angle, or what’s known as ultra-wide.

If you have these two items (a sturdy tripod and a wide-angle zoom lens) then almost any camera body will get the job done! Even a crop-sensor camera body can be used for totally professional results (as long as your wide-angle lens is made for that body).

A fourth item that will be of great use is a basic wireless flash. You can use this to illuminate interiors, either by bouncing the flash off the ceiling and walls behind the camera, or by using a diffuser such as an umbrella or softbox. However, this bit of equipment isn’t entirely critical, so don’t be intimidated by the thought of having to shop for softboxes and light stands and radio triggers, yet!

Alternately, if you’re not interested in flash, (or more likely, you’re photographing large exteriors where flash is simply not an option!) then the final tool will be a professional HDR workflow and software.

Step 2 | Get Image Editing Tools for Real Estate Photography

Even if you have a solid tripod, a great camera, and the best lens for the job, you still need to know how to edit the images you take! A Raw processing program is a must-have for almost all professional work, however for real estate photography there will be a need for advanced Photoshop processing, as well as an HDR (High Dynamic Range) processing application. You might even need to process multiple HDR images in batches for particular jobs.

Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop can get a lot done all by themselves, and HDR software such as Photomatix Pro offers both high-quality and advanced tone controls for editing bracketed images, as well as highly efficient batch processing capabilities.

Check Out Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC

Check Out Photomatix HDR Software

We’ll get deeper into the equipment in a future article, so stay tuned for that. For now, this basic guideline should be able to get you started.

Step 3 | Learn and Practice Photographing Real Estate

Before shooting a paid job, you absolutely must practice, and be sure of exactly what your camera gear is capable of. Not only will it help you work efficiently when you’re on a “real” job, it will also help you ensure that you deliver highly professional results.

In future articles of this series, we’ll dive to real estate photography techniques, tips and tricks, so be sure to stay tuned to this series.  To get started, here are a few critical concepts.

Understand What Images to Capture

Start with understanding the right images to capture. The best thing you can do is practice, while closely studying existing property listings and images of the types of things you’re most likely to actually photograph. As a general rule, get one or two images of every interior room, (or have the client make a list of the specific rooms they want to be photographed); and get 3-5 images of property exteriors, including the front yard and the backyard.

Learn More: 6 Quick Tips For Better Real Estate Photography (Infographic)

Watch Your Angles

Be careful not to angle your camera upward or downward too much, because vertical lines should usually appear as close to perfectly vertical as possible. This can be corrected in post-production, but only to a certain degree.

Understand The Dynamic Range Of Your Camera

Digital camera sensor dynamic range has come a long way in the last 10 years, but it’s still not infinite. You should always understand just what your camera is capable of; never tell yourself, “oh, I can recover those shadows in post-production!”

Even if you just bought a fancy new camera that everybody says has amazing shadow recovery, you still should perform a test. Shoot a dramatic sunset with a property or other subject that is in complete shadow, start by saving your highlights, and see how many stops (EVs) you have to brighten the exposure before you can see into those shadows.

Since exterior property images are almost always best at sunset or twilight, you’ll want to make sure you always capture the full dynamic range of a scene when you’re on the job. Unfortunately, each camera has very different setups for exposure bracketing, so play around with it and make sure you know exactly how to bracket a scene very quickly before you go out on paid jobs!

Building A Portfolio For Real Estate Photography

Getting into any portfolio-related business is always a catch-22: how can you get professional work if you don’t have a portfolio of professional images to show potential clients? Thankfully, real estate photography is actually one of the easiest fields to build a great portfolio for!

First and foremost, you can of course practice with your own home, if you can make some of the rooms presentable enough. Or if you have a friend who has an ideal home, they might be willing to allow you to photograph a couple of rooms.

Also, anything that you can photograph in a public place is fair game! Just be respectful and safe, as always. (It helps to carry business cards stating that you’re a photographer.)

Of course, you can always cold-call real estate agents in your area. You might get a “no” 19 times, but the 20th might be a yes… Alternately, sometimes online vacation rentals (Air BnB, VRBO, etc.) could use a few great interior and/or exterior images.

Lastly, keep in mind that this is just your portfolio, not an actual property listing. As such, feel free to use Photoshop extensively to clean up and beautify your images! If there’s a window with a brick wall or an ugly backyard outside, try swapping it for a beautiful view of a beach or a mountain. Such tricks would never be allowed in an actual listing, of course, but it’s good practice for your Photoshop skills! (One thing that is very common in actual property listings is, using Photoshop to swap a boring sunset sky with a more dramatic one.)

Real Estate Photography Business – Getting Work

When you’re ready to actually charge money, it may not be enough to simply put your portfolio online and get business cards printed. These days, the process of “breaking into” any photography market is pretty involved, and often a long-term game.

Firstly, of course, you’ll want to do the obvious: reach out to real estate agents in your area, or to other photographers in the area who might need an assistant on bigger jobs. Also, there are many other channels you can pursue, from paid advertising online, to good ‘ol SEO, (Search Engine Optimization) or even in-person sales at local events or cold-calling phone numbers you see on local property “for sale” signs.

As with any business endeavor, it can take a lot of hard work to get your foot in the door. The key is to just keep trying different things, and don’t give up!

Should You Shoot For Free First?

It might be okay to photograph one or two jobs for free if you really do need the practice, and can’t promise professional results yet. Just make sure that you’re not being taken advantage of by a client who absolutely could have paid you at least some small amount for your time. There’s something about your sheer dignity, that makes a huge difference between asking for a mere $50 or just doing a job for absolutely nothing.

When you really do know what you’re doing, though, you should be charging money. No matter how many times you hear, “I can’t offer you money this time, but if you do a good job, there’s a chance we can pay you on the next job,” don’t believe it!

See, here’s the deal: When you shoot for free, that client will probably expect to be able to get away with it again. Worse, however, is this- every time you do an unpaid job, you’re building a reputation as a person who shoots for free. This sets a precedent and makes it all the more difficult to charge money later. Imagine trying to charge a client $5,000 or $10,000 for a job, when just a few years ago you did free work for them. Awkward!

So, take pride in your professionalism when you say, “I’m sorry, I can’t accept future business as payment for current work; thank you for understanding!”

Read More: 10 Real Estate Photography Mistakes To Avoid

What should you charge?

Ideally, what to charge for real estate photography will depend entirely on the area/value of the property itself, as the scope of the job, as well as how much time you will spend working on it.

For example, if you can shoot and post-produce the entire job in half a day, that’s one thing, but if you have to spend a few hours consulting with the client, renting the right gear, plus a half day or a whole day shooting the images, and then of course another day (or more) doing advanced post-production, …then you’re going to need to charge a lot more.

We’ll get into what to charge, and how to go about setting up your pricing, in a future article.

Before we move on, here’s a basic overview. Of course, the exact numbers will vary depending on your location, but a “quick” job might only pay $100-200, or as much as $500-1000. A larger job may range from just a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars.

Even if you have to start on the low end and work your way up, the absolute best thing you can do for yourself is, keep track of all the hours you spend on each job, plus running your business in general, …and add it all up. Not only can you determine what you’re actually paying yourself by the hour, but just as importantly, you can determine just how many jobs you can actually fit into a single week.

In future articles, we’ll dive deeper into the business side of real estate photography! Please leave a comment below if you have any particular questions on the subject.

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Conclusion | Getting Into Real Estate Photography

This article should provide you with enough information to give real estate photography a try, however, there is still much more to learn! So, stay tuned for additional articles that get into greater detail about the gear, the shooting, and the business aspects of real estate photography. In the meantime, please leave a comment below if you have any questions about real estate (and architectural) photography, or the business behind it, etc.

Thank you again to HDRsoft for sponsoring this article! If you are thinking of getting into real estate photography, or any type of photography that requires bracketing and HDR processing, check out what they can do!

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