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swolewhale · 1 year

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Day 1 - The Actual Beginning

Here I go doin the thing. Today was pretty much the same as usual with me. Stayed in most of the day playing Skyrim (downloading a fuck ton of mods and not actually playing). Only time I went out was in the morning for this volunteer thing. Don’t have a life or any friends near me so thought it’d be a good idea to do something that would get me out of the house.

I know that just doing the same shit over and over again isn’t gonna change anything, but it’s not like I can really do anything to change that. I don’t have enough money to just spend on random shit to go have fun by myself, especially when I don’t even know what I enjoy. Hell I don’t even have enough money to buy canned food confidently.

The only thing that I can think would actually make a difference is getting adhd meds, but that requires taking a stupid fucking test that cost 200 dollars for it to tell them the same fucking answer of I HAVE ADHD.

Anyways, that’s not happening anytime soon. My mom said that she’s got enough money to cover the cost in a medical account or something, but I ain’t doing that. I have no idea how much money she has and I ain’t gonna take any more from her. Hell I’m sure insurance could cover it but I’m also sure that they wouldn’t cover even 75% due to bullshit of thresholds or something.

I’m sure the bastards can see my recent history for medical shit. Being in a hospital due to horrible mental health (which wasn’t even as bad as it is now), heavy meds for depression and anxiety that have only been increasing more and more. Surely at some point someone would go “hey this person could die if they don’t get this one thing paid for” but that implies that people work at insurance companies. They only have pathetic excuses for people there.

Anyways, I said I do this to focus on the positives so I guess it’s time for that:

Volunteered at a cat shelter: It was only my second day doing so, but the fact that I even showed up the first day or bothered getting out of bed is something (ignoring the fact that it’s mainly because I’d be too bored being only in bed). Made friends with a couple of wobblers. A lot of the others are a bit more timid of me, but it was just my second day so.

I took a shower: I know, bare minimum, but hey we’re talking about positives. I was gonna do it before the volunteer shift, but then I realized that it would be worthless doing so since I was only going to smell terrible afterwards anyways. Said I was gonna do it after it, and actually fucking did it (the madman). Usually the “I’ll do it later” is actually never for me, so it took me an hour or 2 to do so, but hey, took the shower.

Brushed my teeth: I know, bar- wait I’ve already said that. I’m tying to get into the habit of brushing my teeth after probably over a decade of barely even doing so. Just broke the routine one day and it was all downhill from there. Never had a cavity or any problems with my teeth though, so... Anyways, gotta brush my teeth after I post this, but once a day is better than once a year.

I was going to add “ate food”, but realized that it’s more of a “I couldn’t stop myself from eating a single can of corn” since I don’t have the money to buy more food. Trying to make the shit I do have last a few more weeks, but it fucking sucks. I hate being so fucking hungry all the time. Thanks inflation, capitalism, depression, anxiety, and all the other mental illnesses that I have that may or may not be undiscovered cause that’d just be my luck.

That’s all for the positives so now I guess it’s time for the daily question because it’s my account and I’ll do what I want. Anyways,

What fictional place would you most like to go to?

I lighthearted medieval fantasy world.

Fantasy because it’s my favorite genre. I can imagine that I’m anywhere but here.

Medieval cause DnD, skyrim, and some anime as well make me more interested in that type of magical filled world. I’m sure it could work in a modern setting but I’m more used to the medieval time period having magic.

Lighthearted cause then I wouldn’t have this account and be making these post. Due to the laws of the universe for this world, everyone would be on the more positive side for pretty much everything. I know, unrealistic, but it’s fantasy for a reason.

I’m sure it was more of a location thing, but I don’t really have many that come to mind immediately. After a bit of looking around and seeing my options, either the Comet Observatory from Mario Galaxy or the world of pokemon.

Comet Observatory: Mario Galaxy was one of the first games that I played when I was younger that actually really interested me. It’s one of my favorites, if not my favorite game. The game is very nostalgic for me since it was in a time where I was so ignorant to the world around me. Hell, after many many years of not even hearing music from it, the Comet Observatory theme appeared in a daily mix and I actually cried because of it, so yeah, I hold the game near and dear. I do still have a wii and the game, but the nun-chuck is fucked so I can’t play it right now at least. All that, plus the fact that Rosalina was my first video game crush and that hasn’t gone away at all. Shy quite types get me right in my weak spot of being an absolute sucker for cuteness.

Pokemon: Black 2 was my first pokemon game and still my favorite. I don’t know if there’s a single pokemon that I actually hare or even dislike. I already love animals as is and then you make them pokemon and I wonder where the sign up list has been my entire life. It’s fucking pokemon. Also maybe fucking pokemon. I know the lore, plus you can’t tell me there wasn’t a single mf in that world that hasn’t clapped some gardi cheecks.

Anyways, that’s all I can remember and be bothered to mention today so I’ll end it here. Hopefully tomorrow will bring me blessings (free food).

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themutemusicbox · 4 years

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I downloaded a bunch of new brushes and wanted to test them out. Figured it was also a good way to get in some practice doing scenery too. And also an excuse to draw the best boys

#pokemon #pokemon sword and shield #pokemon hop #wooloo #cozmo's art

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lilibetts · 4 years

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Please wait, LoveAlarm is syncing itself to your heart!

Falling In Love With Riverdale, Theme 1: Sugar

Part 1/3

At this very moment in the not-so-idyllic town of Riverdale, Betty Cooper is 16 years, 41 weeks, 1 day, 20 hours and 34 minutes old and, to see Kevin describe it, she has been in love with Archie Andrews for 1 year, 5 months, and 14 days.

From inside the relative security of the F Hallway girls’ bathroom, she takes a deep breath to mark the magnitude of the moment, and hits [Install] on her phone. It takes less than a minute for the blue line to complete a circle and once it does, she opens the app and fills in her personal details.

Please wait, the app cheerily asks her, bright pinks and blues swirling across the screen, LoveAlarm is syncing itself to your heart!

Well, Betty sighs to herself, there’s no going back now.

LoveAlarm is the latest matchmaking app to launch and in the two weeks since, it seems like *everyone* at Riverdale High has downloaded it. It syncs itself to your heart and a bright red heart alarm would ping if there is someone within twenty feet who loves you.

Naturally, the romantic landscape of Riverdale High School has been completely leveled.

Midge Klump and Moose Mason both downloaded the app, only for it to tell Midge her love was unrequited. Ginger Lopez had situated herself in a prime location outside the gym doors when basketball practice let out—nobody within twenty feet of her—in the hopes that when the team’s star power forward, Anthony Parrish, came out, their phones would mutually ping.

Instead, it was Ben Button who walked down that stretch of the hallway; instead, it was Ben Button who made her phone ping. Then Anthony came out and *his* phone pinged, but Ginger’s did not again. According to the school grapevine, Ginger had lost her shit and called Ben a ‘baby-faced freak’.

Truthfully, the whole concept behind the app horrifies Betty, but she has to know. Making sure that every possible setting for the app is set to her phone’s vibrate function, she shoulders her backpack and heads into the cafeteria.

The walls are decorated from corner to corner with red, white, and pink streamers in anticipation of the Valentine’s Day party that will be held on Friday. PizzaShak is giving them a great deal on heart-shaped pizzas.

Her friends are at their usual table in the corner and with every step Betty takes, she is closer to knowing. When Archie hears his phone chime once she is within the twenty feet circumference, will he put two-and-two together? Will her own phone buzz with the truth? All around her, the crowded cafeteria is full of hopefuls checking their phones.

The round table has three curved benches attached to it. Kevin and Veronica share one, and across from them, Jughead and Archie split the other two. Betty slides into the space on Jughead’s left, exchanging happy hellos with her friends. Wordlessly, she hands over one of the two sandwiches she’d packed for Jughead to take. As always, he makes a show of letting out an aggrieved sigh when he spots the lettuce and sliced tomato in there with the turkey, but dutifully takes his sandwich while sliding over the remaining brownie square from his vending machine packet. This is their unspoken pact: she makes sure the bottomless pit that is Jughead Jones is sated with something healthier, he makes sure she gets a non-Alice-approved treat.

The sandwich she made is gone in three bites.

<Good?> she signs, arching one eyebrow.

<You know it,> Jughead replies, still chewing the last mouthful of turkey sandwich.

Betty has been deaf since she was three years old, after a bout with meningitis, and just because she’s well-liked among her peers doesn’t mean many of them would go as far as to learn sign language for her. That Kevin, Archie, Jughead, and Veronica have is part and parcel of why they’re her best friends.

A booted foot taps insistently against hers under the table and Betty turns away from Jughead, still grinning, to focus on Kevin.

/Did you watch The Bachelor last night?/ His hands move as rapidly as he speaks.

/No,/ Betty tells him. /Unlike you, I actually studied for the History test./

“Har har,” Kevin deadpans. They’re both distracted by Veronica clapping her hands.

“OMG!” she says gleefully, slapping Kevin’s bicep. /Kelley is an ICON! I told you./

As much as Betty loves her friends’ ridiculously dramatic day-after recaps, she’s too distracted to really pay attention to whatever last night’s spectacle had been about. Across the table, Archie is checking his phone, thumbs tapping and sliding across the screen. A wide grin splits his face and he turns the screen out to show Jughead.

3 people in a twenty feet radius love you!

Betty flushes and looks away, embarrassed. Of course. As covertly as possible, she takes advantage of everyone’s inattention to check her own phone.

Zero.

Nobody within a twenty feet radius loves you.

As Cheryl Strayed wrote, “acceptance is a small, quiet room”. As the realization sinks in, Betty watches, as if from a greater distance, Archie glancing around at the nearby tables, determined to figure out who those three people could be. After a few murmured words from Jughead that she can’t decipher thanks to his head being turned away from her, Archie takes off to make the rounds. A process of elimination, most likely.

Betty isn’t sure what she feels. Irritation more than disappointment? Relief? The latter emotion surprises her, especially now that she knows Archie isn’t in love with her. Kevin, and then later Veronica when she’d arrived in Riverdale, have been after her to confess her feelings to Archie but Betty has kept demurring or putting it off. Her usual excuse being that she’s too scared to wreck her friendship with him.

Sure, they’re right when they say she’s being a coward; but is her relief after the LoveAlarm revelation just relief that now she won’t have to actually bare her heart?

She turns off her phone.

******************************************

He knows he shouldn’t be, that this definitely qualifies as eavesdropping, but here Jughead is, glancing up and over to the table where Betty is sneakily carrying on a conversation with Veronica.

It’s 7th period Honors Bio and all they need to do is finish a worksheet before the bell rings, which is easy enough, but Mr. Beeker had also stipulated silence in the classroom, so it’s a clever loophole that Betty has found. Abby, her interpreter, is absorbed in her phone, leaving Jughead to covertly watch shifting hand shapes and fingerspelled letters.

<You’re not as s-t-e-a-l-t-h-y as you think you are,> Veronica signs smugly.

<??>

<Your phone. At lunch. You d-l LoveAlarm.> Smugness melts into concern. <Well?>

This is news to Jughead, and unwelcome news at that. He shouldn’t be surprised that Betty has downloaded that stupid app and really, he should’ve seen it coming. Dread fills him as he awaits her response.

Of course Jughead refuses to download LoveAlarm. Why would he give an app his heart data? They’d only sell it to soulless companies looking to target him with ads tailored to the object of his romantic yearning.

Betty.

The facts are these: Jughead Jones is 17 years, 3 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes old. He’s also been aware that he’s deeply, irrevocably in love with Betty Cooper for 1 year, 4 months, and 19 days. An eternity, basically.

A rare beam of sunlight has broken through the February gray outside, casting a pale glow on her downturned face, the long eyelashes that brush her cheeks. It’s the flare of her nostrils and the tight press of her lips together that tell him she’s upset.

There’s a sharp pang in his chest.

<He doesn’t.> The words, accompanied by a shake of Betty’s head that makes her ponytail bounce, are all he needs to understand.

Jughead isn’t obtuse, he knows which ‘he’ they’re talking about, the only one ‘he’ it could be: Archie. Blame Kevin, he’s shit at subtlety.

So, Betty had downloaded LoveAlarm and now she knows Archie isn’t in love with her. The latter isn’t news to him but he would’ve been fine if Betty had continued to go through life not knowing that particular fact. But it’s the sentence that comes next that breaks his heart.

<I have a zero. Nobody loves me.> What goes unspoken but, to Jughead, is writ large upon her face is: ‘I’m not lovable’.

He looks away from their conversation, angry that anyone would make her feel like this. Ashamed that he is a guilty party in this.

That night while lying on his bed, Jughead finds himself torn.

What he had seen earlier has given him food for thought. Which is just as well because he likes to take the time to think broadly and deeply, much in the same way he likes to eat. Next to him on the bed, his phone is open to the App Store, and LoveAlarm waits there patiently, ready for his decision.

Is Betty Cooper worth it? Unquestionably Yes.

Is he willing to risk discovery? Having his heart spilled right out there for her to see...even worse, for others to see? Vulnerable and already bruised, where it’d easily be crushed into messy smithereens?

Unable to answer that, his brain circles back around to the first question: is Betty Cooper worth it?

With a low, drawn-out groan, Jughead hits [Install] and gives corporations access to his heart.

#bughead #avarosier writes #riverdaleevents

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soranihimawari · 4 years

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West Coast kind of Love

Summary: There were certain things you know off the top of your head. One, the fact that popcorn and M&Ms should not be sold separately at the local movies is a crime; two, every other Monday of the month, the neighborhood film club would host dollar monster movies (where one of your neighbors in your apartment complex would frequently attend); and three, you might have to pinch yourself when he asks you to take a photo with you as a proof of “how things are going abroad” to his friend in Argentina...

Word count: 4.685K

Taglist: @m0nstergeneration20xx 📷 (google docs proof reader), @oitoorus, @tkags & her ⛅ (anon fam) , @oikawalovely [open still]

“Do what you love and the rest will follow”-proverb

--September XX--Thursday, 23:13 (11:23pm)

“Oh come on Yukihira,” you knocked on the closed bathroom door of your apartment.”You know I called dibs to the bathroom after we ditched those jerks at the dancehall.”

Every month you and your roommate took turns in choosing public places to go out for a night on the town. With midterms coming up for what would be the junior year of your undergrad studies, your roommate decided giving a double date a try. Unfortunately for her, those jerks were thinking of doing the deed way too early for either of your liking. You decide that spilling your peach Bellini on your friend’s outfit during the middle of the date was the perfect excuse to end the night early. More often than not, you mostly came along these dates with her as an enforcer. You two might be as different as night and day (yukihira studies medicine all hours of the day whereas your focus was the visual arts). Tonight was just one of those nights where you being there was beneficial.

“Ugh, fine,” she said opening the door revealing her freshly brushed grin. “I can’t believe you had the gall to ruin that outfit y/n.”

“Hey, whatever helps you throw it out like you did your ex then I was doing the Lord’s work for you, Yuks.” You rolled your eyes at her when she stuck out her tongue when you slithered into the ivory tiled washroom. This earned a laugh from the other member of your household.

“But because this was a bad date and I didn’t think things through this time again, that means I get to set you up on a blind date.” Her singsong voice reached your ears as you turned on the faucet to drown out her mocking tone. You paused for a brief moment while waiting for the make up remover serium to bubble up on your face before wiping it off effectively.

“With who?” you asked after you patted your skin dry post-makeup removal ritual complete. Your hair was undone from the hair elastic you pulled out of your inherited islander curls.

“I don’t know. Hmm...Maybe the guy in unit 23C? He’s awfully cute,” Yukihira mused as you leaned in her doorway. Her brows wiggled in delight when she noticed how you stared at your neighbor on move in day during your freshman move in day three years prior.

“Iwazumi? You can’t be serious,” you said. Your voice betrayed you because your eyes shined like the gods of furtune finally found their way to you.

“Do you want to or not? He’s focused, witty, determined; I have my physiology study group with him tomorrow. Why don’t you come with, best friend of mine?”

You really hated when she pulled the puppy eyes on you, knowing that you wouldn’t be able to refuse (not by a long shot).

“Ask him if he prefers coffee or tea.”

A few days later, you came home from your department’s masters class with your portfolio sling over your shoulder. Your hands were covered in literal ink stains from your latest mural macro-micro project.

“Hey, Yukihira! Have you seen where I kept my lacquer thinner?” You raise your voice slightly as you kick off your shoes by the entrance hallway. It was only then you realize there were a couple of other pairs of shoes that did not belong to either of you. That’s when you remembered your friend’s warning about her study group coming over. All color drained from your face when you rounded the corner to your living room area converted into a mini lecture hall. You clear your throat to announce your presence which went unnoticed (with the exception of your roommate). Without even looking at the board, you chose to mess with the med students’ practice case.

“And I’m telling you this is a bilateral cut to the optic nerve, Josefina.”

“The microabraisons on the left thoracic cavity allowed the victim to bleed out on the table due to the elevated use of blood thinners, ” your voice quiets the pre-med students and you smile in a nonchalant manner. You have read this problem with Yukihira so many times prior at the start of the semester that you were able to recall the prognosis off the top of you head. Being friends with a pre-med major does have its redeeming qualities although you were seen mostly honing your crafts in the art department and this was just the prime time of their study week.

“Oh! You’re back early,” Yukihira says in a warm tone. She stands at the end of the table in between you Her eyes glazed over as if to communicate that you were about to be formally introduced. You bite your tongue prior to allowing your roommate to clap her hands together as she went naming every member starting with the person on her left who was the aforementioned Josefina. When she had come full circle, her voice trailed off with a small apologetic smile.

“Aaaand this here is my roommate, y/n. To answer your question about the lacquer thinner, I put the bottle on your desk when it arrived last time,” Yukihira made sure to watch everyone’s response. She was more interested in seeing how the third member of her study group (the aforementioned neighbor in 23C) would react. His minuscule smirk was doubly noted, prompting you to fill the few seconds of silence with your own voice. After a brief trip down memory lane, spear headed by your best friend as they took a break from studying for a moment, Yukihira explained after years of being friends you learned about the medical cases for exams via osmosis. You were an unofficial member of the study group since the medical arts building was located near the visual arts department offices on campus. You chose to not let them be pushed back any further especially since their content exam was coming up later that month, so you bid them good luck.

“Don’t mind me,” your brass tone conveyed an even temper at the time. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to head to my room. You guys aren’t the only ones with an exam this week.” You raised your portfolio canister so they could see the poster sized dyed cylinder. Reams of paper filled with sketches made from ink and graphite poked through under the flourescent lights of the kitchen dining room table. The med students along with Yukihira waved and said it was lovely to meet your acquaintance.

With that you made a beeline route to your room, opened the door, and promptly shut the door. You dropped your portfolio canister next to your desk, turned up the volume of the lo-fi radio station playlist on your sound system, grabbed the nearest pillow and let out a muffled shriek to expel the remaining bits of embarrassment your friend threw you in. You were good at smaller group studies, but to be fair, given the fact that your friend was a social butterfly, you mostly seemed to rub off the “talented-artsy, yet focused,” type of woman. That night you cleaned up your outline for your stencil art piece of a fox and a hound for your take on minimalism class which had its peer critique at the end of the week.

You didn’t physically speak to Yukihira for the rest of the week. With both of you burning the midnight oil within the last few days before the exam, you noticed that the number of study group being held in your apartment had become the norm every other day (causing you focus more on a certain individual). Funny thing was he was also doing the same thing...

『from Yukihira: how many times do i have to apologize? You know I didn’t plan on having an emergency study session with iwazumi. He just showed up & wanted to chat. Besides the TA & professor chose to move up the exam date...』

『from y/n: you should of told me earlier before I came home. You know I forgive you... only if you buy me the latest ice cream along with the new Jun Ito novel. I’ll be out there in a minute till make some coffee for us.』

『from Yukihira: Mmkay & thanks. Coffee sounds good right about now anyways.』

--October XX-- Friday, 15:55 (3:55p.m.)

The weekend came through soon enough and on a Friday afternoon with no where to go, you were chilling at the comfort of your own living room. You were quick to thank the test gods for the exam being moved up once you had a proper conversation with Yukihira that morning. She mentioned she was going be out all day making sure she was able to finesse her study guide with her fellow medical study group. Since it was the end of the week, Josefina opted to have a free for all study day at the book store for those who wanted to go over last minute things according to the note yukihira left on your door that morning.

At the time of the day, you were expecting to be alone, curled up with your favorite cup of English Earl Grey Tea and a Lovecraft radio program you downloaded via the student Spotify network. Your phone vibrated and pinged with a notification from the bookstore where Yukihira placed the order for your horror novel to arrive sooner than the estimated timeframe. Because life finds it funny to pull another prank on your clown assery with your little cynical attitude, you were startled when the formal knocker was used.

“Shit!” you said when you clutched your heart as you placed your cup of tea down on the coffee table. As your put two fingers on your neck’s pulse point, you waited a few minutes for your heart rate to calm back down; you stood up and began to make your way down the hallway. Lo and behold, you were greeted by a casually dressed man who was clutching your new novel in his sunkissed hands.

It takes your brain a few synapses to register that it was Iwazumi who has been taking a liking to coming over for extra study hours with your roommate, but if anyone asked him to reply honestly, he wanted to know more about you. The human body has more than 240 bones, yet the more frequent his visits become, the more he felt himself become accustomed to befriending you both. There were instances where you joined them at the kitchen table glancing at their open notebooks and case studies; you often made tea or coffee depending on the hour of the day. On the days you had come home from the art department, Yukihira was quick to notice how Iwazumi’s usually tense face seemed to visibly relax when you came to prepare your favorite snack (m&ms and buttered popcorn). Your friend was quick to relay a text to his phone, which caused her study partner at the table to become more flustered than he already was.

Regardless of the various near misses over the next couple of weeks between you and Iwazumi (sometimes it was Yukihira’s fault other times, it was coincidental juxtopostional humour: it has happened twice on Iwazumi’s side when his friends back home noticed he was not at his usual place. [Yukihira called for a mini-study break] However, that didn’t stop you from asking him if he preferred sugar or honey for his tea & all hell broke loose (Hanamaki & Mattsun were cheering him on while Oikawa.exe has dropped the call).

All this back and forth for the past five weeks caused this moment to occur:

“I-Iwa-chan?” your voice went up several octaves before clearing your throat with a cough. “If you’re looking for Yukihira, she’s actually not here at the moment...”

“To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.”

The audio from your radio program was keeping you company. The disembodied voice coming from the main sound system you helped set up when you first moved into the building with Yukihira quoted Lovecraft as the program continued to serve in the role of filling the silence between you and Iwazumi. The gods really did that, didn’t they? your thoughts were running away with you again, chasing a reality that would be yours--or so you think.

During that thought hurricane you conjured up, you decided to pause the train of thought for a few minutes. You released your hold on your front door knob as you pulled the door a little wider in order for you to lean against the frame of the front door. Your hair was pulled up in a messy bun (on your days off, you were typically clad in tapered mint green pants and a spare white button down blouse due to laundry day), but it was enough to see the usual semi-talkative and stoic demi-god of a neighbor wear such an embarrassed expression. You pretended to not hear the barely audible, “woah,” that escaped his mouth prior to him holding up the book to you.

“Did the mail carrier drop it off to your box again?” you ask taking the book in your hands. “Sorry about that. You can come in if you want.”

You were quick to notice that something caught your arm in an attempt to stop you from walking. When you chose to not try to pry yourself away from Iwazumi’s hold, he took it as a sign to bend himself to your ear and say the following in a powerfully low tone: “Would you believe me if I said I wasn’t looking for her?”

“Yes,” you say in a timid manner, yet it was paired with a curt nod. You both had the tenacity to swat away any lingering negative thoughts.

Iwazumi took this moment to turn you around to face him by the arm he held you with. His smile disappeared when he let your arm go and instead moved his hand to hold yours with his opposite hand, he pulled the door shut behind him. You were probably too proud to admit this aloud, nonetheless, you liked the way Iwazumi’s firm grip felt in your hand; his were rough and calloused as much as yours were from years of honing your independent crafts. You gave him a kind smile before your neighbor decided to take advantage of the fact that the other person in your apartment wasn’t home; you squeezed his hand slightly and he let your hand go.

You placed the Jun Ito novel on the kitchen counter motioning for Iwazumi to meet you there. Your kettle was still warm, however you made a cheeky joke to your newly acquired friend. (Perhaps this was Yukihira’s plan, you think). You reached into the dishwasher and was about to pour him a cup of tea, yet you couldn’t help but make a small joke at his expense for holding your hand so intently.

“For the record, if you wanted to hold my hand, you could have done so earlier,” you mention stifling a laugh, pouring the steaming water into the mug. Iwazumi mumbled something about how he liked the way your hand fit, yet you chose to throw caution to the wind and quickly planted short kiss on his cheek when you extended the cup toward him after placing the tea strainer in it.

With one hand on yours and the other was wrapped around the ceramic mug,. Your kindness was always something Iwazumi found alluring. You might not have been in the same course of study as him or Yukinira, yet you were good finding the beauty in the mundane. A few of your pieces of work were hung around the apartment and from his line of sight, your dedication to your craft was something to be admired.With every sip he took a sip to deflect from the way his thoughts were heading into uncharted territories; OIkawa, Mattsun, and even Makki were the ones more verbose on love & conquest during the days of their you:

“You’re always over at your neighbors’ place, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa teased.

“I wonder what his reason is,” Makki muses. “Mattsun thinks it’s a girl. Typical.”

Makki also noticed one of your sophomore symposium art pieces hanging behind the place where Iwazumi was sitting at the time of their weekly video call. Your avant-garde view of viewing the world was enough to set the sky amethyst hues. California does have it’s moments of striking beauty and somehow Iwazumi found it hard to keep to a straight face around his friends. His expression was usually hardened or bold, but today you sat across from him at the beginning of the call, reading up on the use of gold leaf detail work for your art restoration classes. Across the myriad of scattered medical books and various notes that were pertaining to another medical case were a tell that their friend was clearly not alone. You glance up at him quietly, a minute smile formed between you two; you write on a spare piece of paper the word, “friends” to which he nodded.

“Aww, is our little ace growing soft on us?” Oikawa’s whining was something you often heard Yukihira describe after nights like these.(She usually hung out in your room as you were placing the final touches of your latest art assignment. This month was dedicated to historic downtown with a twist of horror: modern mania & the ruiner of man. Right now, you didn’t mind the shared space of the dining room while Yukihira was out on a grocery run at the time the call was initiated.)

“Shut your mouth Shittykawa,” Iwazumi barks. His dark eyes hardened like stone and that was when Makki let out a wicked grin.

“I owe Mattsun 500 yen,” Makki chuckled.

“Holy shit,” Oikawa’s eyes bounced between his best friends and let out a low whistle. “if this woman is capable of such an amazing feat, ask her if she has a friend [for me].”

Iwazumi ended the call right then and there. He didn’t expect his heart to be beating so irratically when you walked room in your house attire for a moment to make yourself a cup of the same Earl Grey Tea. The hazy lights emitting from your room blended effortlessly with the flourescent ones in the kitchen; each beam clung to your body in such away Iwazumi was glad neither of his friends witnessed the moment he fell in love with California and all that came with it.

This afternoon was a different story as you liked the way Iwazumi allowed his natural blush to bubble to the surface of his cheeks and you could swear you saw a fraction of the high school volleyball ace shine through. The sunlight danced around the stainless steel details of the kitchen where you shared secrets, recipes, and drinks with your best friend. His free hand chose to move away from the counter finding its resting place under your chin. The cup of tea Iwazumi held earlier was placed next to the stove on the coaster by the sink.

You steady your breathing right before you felt Iwazumi’s breath on your cupid’s bow; his lips pressed against yours gingerly as though he felt his brain light up and catch a fire he needed to not run away from; everything he wanted to know about you was answered as soon as your hands cup his face. I think I like this, your conscience is egging you on to pursue his touch for a while longer. It was a silent acknowledgement of the other’s presence in the present moment.

“Hm,” you hear him hum in mutual amusement when you return his kiss. The pads of his fingers trace the highest points of your face teasingly. He wanted answers to the questions your lips asked. When you two separate for a moment, you realize you might have been too forward, but when you move your hands away from his face only to hug him in a loose embrace, you couldn’t help the next words from posing a question.

“Do you want to kiss me again?” your coquettish tone made Iwazumi’s answer very apparent as you suddenly took into account the last couple of weeks and the way both of you came to enjoy each other’s company during study group hours at either your place as the primary location or the cafe down the road from the apartment complex. (Iwazumi’s frequent visits weren’t for tutoring necessarily, about a majority of the time it was to see you as an added bonus).

Iwazumi did not have to be told twice; he enveloped you in his strong arms, he hoisted you up from under your knees and placed you a top the counter with gentle assertive force. Your legs wrapped around his fit waist as you gripped his biceps for leverage prior to letting the old ace prove his strength by placing you on top of the graphite counter like a doll.

“Comfortable?” Iwazumi’s expression was more seductive than profound.

“Very,” you reply as you unwind your legs from his body. “Where were we?”

Your hands wrapped around his neck before pulling him close to you again. A smug smile cut across both of your faces for a brief moment until your lips hovered over his for the second time. This time, you let him kiss you the way you knew he had been meaning to since he showed up at your door less than fifteen minutes prior book in hand. When Iwazumi kissed you at the current moment, the world crumbled and fell away; it was somehow comforting in a way that words would not compare to. His actions listened to the way you were setting the pace with the same tenacity as he showed you. The scent of his sandalwood conditioner mixed well with your ocean scented dry shampoo.

Your eyes were still closed when you felt your hands card through his ever-present spiky hair. His right hand rested below your ear, using the pad of his thumb and forefinger to caress your cheek and jawline again. You feel him smile against your own lips when you nipped the corner of his mouth playfully. You break apart long enough for your partner in the kitchen to began to sneakily undoing your top two buttons of your blouse to press his lips against your exposed skin. You let out a whimper in the heat of the moment the second his lips began to leave a trail of reverberating echoes in the simplest of ways securing his hold on your soul that very day.

“Beautiful girl,” Iwazumi murmurs as his eyes met yours when he was done having his fun. His voice was cautious, but when his arms began to hover over your own, you felt your heart rate speed up right as he told you this: “Tell me, what other sounds can you make for me?”

“Is that a challenge?” you retort, your hands disappearing under his hoodie to feel the fabric of his undershirt. Your hand stopped roaming atop of his chest; he was liking this. You could tell by the way he was taunting you with his smirk. “Because I was wondering the same thing. Do you want me to remove my hand?”

“No.”

Your hands could have been made of branding tools and Iwazumi wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. He chuckled at your question before you brought him down to your level and your lips met again. The sound he made upon impact was as though you broke him yet healed him at the same time; time was on your side for this one and you proved he wasn’t the only monster in the kitchen. There was a hunger there behind every kiss you let him have; you were smiling in the between long enough to feel his heart beat faster through the fabric of his undershirt.

Your hands automatically removed themselves from his shirt and were found holding on to the aglet of the drawstrings from the hoodie he was wearing. Iwazumi kissed your fingers before proceeding with posing a question to you.

“Just so we’re clear,” your voice was bold and daring. It was one of the many things he liked about you both in and out of campus grounds. The small details was what Iwazumi liked the most and the subtle tells of how you, Yukihira, and even the other members of the study group didn’t make him feel so alone like when he first arrived to California to study.

“Whatever this is between you and I, does it mean we’re...together?”

You make a sign in the air with your palms up and point between you and him. Iwazumi clears his throat as he taps his lips to tease you and that was when he saw it: a younger version of you covered in sidewalk chalk in your neighborhood (much the same as you saw reflections of the former ace/vice captain).

“If you’ll let me take you to the Monster Movie marathon on Monday,” he answered when he linked his right hand digits with your left and you capture his lips again on your own volition. Your ears perked up at this, you drop the string you played with and patted his chest with a light rapt.

“Eager to make me your girlfriend aren’t you?” You laugh and Iwazumi furrowed his brows, but you silence his worries in one swift and simple move: you kiss him with the intent of either being his salvation or his torment, either way Iwazumi was not complaining. The girl who loves to read about Lovecraftian monsters and the boy who was a monster chaser shared a love as unique as themselves: like a secret they each wanted to keep behind closed doors.

His only vice was the fact that his social call was coming to an end and every ounce of his well being was fighting to stay here with you. You back down for a moment only to showcase your best attempt at a flattering smile to match his own. Iwazumi would never let you know this at the time, but seeing that smile on your face made his list of top three things he found most precious in the world. This wasn’t a crush anymore was the proper conclusion you both concluded.

“Meet at your place at 7:30,” you suggest. Iwazumi released your hand from his to step back as you hopped down from the kitchen counter you made a seat of.

“I’ll see you then ‘Ms. Lovecraft’.” The nickname he bestowed upon you was one that made the butterflies come back in a flurry; this was the start of something special, but you didn’t know it at this point in time that the name will be used to describe your affinity for Iwazumi’s unyielding devotion to you (the seeds were planted in both of your hearts and the two of you waited for them to bloom).

Iwazumi made his way back toward the hallway and faced your apartment’s front door again. You refastened both buttons he undid prior to reaching for the door knob.

“For what it’s worth,” your not-so-innocent tone in your voice begins to come through. His darkened eyes observe you undo your top knot and shook your shoulder-length hair to reveal the fullness of your wavy locks. You place your hand on his wrist and the other was on the door knob. He stopped you from opening the door with a softened glance; pressing his lips lightly on your brow bone.

“I really like it when you come over Iwazumi. Thank you for dropping off the book.” You tap your fingers thoughtfully on your lips as a silent form of thanking him for the other part outside of the tangible order.

“Hajime, y/n,” he whispers his given name in your ear in order to get one last rile out of you before kissing your temple, and you could swear you could hear your heart beat in your ears. “Call me that from now on, ok?”

“Ok,” you swiftly reply. “Only if you continue to call me Lovecraft, haha.”

Iwazumi takes his leave when he thinksof how the next time he sees you, it’ll be filled with magic, mayhem, and the movie playing in his heart was one he would like to share with you for as long as it takes.

You rush to your room to retrieve your cell phone and immediately text Yukihira who was in the middle of her break between classes:

『from y/n: i have a date on monday night. the book came btw. thanks yukihira』

『from Yukihira: iwazumi asked you to go out with him, didn’t he? have fun and remember to not do anything i wouldn’t do. ;) 』

『from y/n: of course. and even if we did, i wouldn’t even hear the end of it from you. you’d might have an easier time talking to iwazumi than me, let’s be honest.』

『from Yukihira: (n˘v˘•)¬ oh you know me so well. see you later tonight.』

—November XX, 14:43 (2:43pm):

First dates & a glimpse into their social medias (ft. Iwazumi, Babs (y/n), & Yukihira)

Iwazumi credit

Suffice to say that Mondays became your favorite day after this kiss...😌

Bonus:

Instagram posts from our UCIrvine trio ft. Iwazumi, Yukihira, & Y/N-san

#iwazumi x reader #timeskip!iwazumi x reader #collegiate au #first kisses and monster movies #neighbor to lover #⏱queued post #iwa-chan wore glasses one day #west coast kind of love completed #🌻— flying around collecting pollen—queue #🌻.txt

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melyaliz · 5 years

Text

The Eyes of a Falcon

Fandom: DC / Young Justice

Summary: Jennifer’s new obsession leads her to an animal testing lab where she meets a new friend.

Pairing: slight Dick Grayson x Oc

Notes: This is just a fun story during the origin of my OC Jennifer O’Neal aka the Falcon.

Jennifer’s Masterlist

References to this story

Annabella is owned by @the-shadow-of-atlantis

All Masterlists @melyalizarchive

Connect with me! AO3 / Instagram / Pinterest

DONATE

-------

Ping

Jennifer glanced up from her reading to pick up her phone. Alfred’s name popping up.

I’m almost there

Glancing at the library clock Jennifer realized it was close to closing. Better get checked out and meet Alfred outside. Gathering up everything the brunette quickly darted toward the front coliding with a tall man in a dark suit. Letting out a soft squeek Jennifer dropped her books everywhere.

“Oh excuse me,” Jennifer said bending down picking up her books. The man watched her, Jennifer could feel his eyes studying as she gathered her things.

“You look familiar”

“Oh,” Jen said getting up confused,

“Are you a performer?”

“No, but my mother was a dancer about 14 years ago, Deborah Wayne?”

“You look just like her… but... “ He paused leaning forward slightly studying her face. Jennifer bent backward trying to get a little distance from the man. Personal space buddy, “You must have your father’s eyes.”

Blinking slightly Jennifer frowned. She had been heard several times how much she looked like her mother. But, her father’s eyes were hazel while Jennifer’s were a blue-green color. Maybe he meant the shape?

“Well thank you,” Jennifer stammered taking a slight step back giving herself a bit of room between her and this man in his crisp black suit. In her pocket buzzed with a text coming through. Glancing down she saw a text from Alfred letting her know he was outside ready to pick her up. “My ride is here… but it was nice to meet you Mr--” She paused waiting for him to give his name full intent to run a background check on this man with no sense of personal boundaries. Perks of having Batman as an uncle.

“Nice to meet you too little Miss Deborah Wayne.” The man in the black suit said holding out his hand.

Deciding to also not give any information either Jennifer shook his hand before talking out.

“You know most people sit in the back,” Alfred said as Jennifer slid into the front seat next to her uncle’s butler.

“Yeah but then I can’t talk to you,” she said placing her books by her feet before buckling in.

“Was it a success?”

“Very much so, got all the books I’ll need for my phycology paper and a few on cybersecurity also…” she bent down pulling up Le Miserables “the movie comes out next year so I want to brush up.”

“Sounds like you have a few days of reading ahead of you.”

“Just in time with everyone gone.” Jennifer chuckled flipping through the large novel excited to go home and start it. “It’s just you and me this weekend Alfred. We should order pizza and have a full sleepover.”

“I was thinking maybe some nigiri?”

“Alfred! Did you hear me mention that I was missing my local shop in Japan?”

“I may have”

“I guess the pizza could wait one day.”

Glancing up Jennifer caught sight of herself in the reflection of the window. Frowning she reached up pulling down the small sun visor mirror catching the reflection of her eyes looking back at her. Bright blue with hints of green. Slightly oval in shape with thick dark lashes that matched her brown hair.

“Something wrong miss?” Alfred asked as the teen next to him frowned at her reflection.

“No,” Jennifer said closing the visor turning to look out the window as they approached the mansion. “Just got lost in thought about how excited I am for that nigiri.”

------

Jennifer flipped through the books while typing out notes on her laptop on the kitchen island while Alred prepared their dinner. While, as Alfred had pointed out, she could probably get more work done at her desk or even in the -newly found- Batcave Jennifer preferred to study with other people around. It made her feel just a little less alone.

“I thought you had a psychology paper?” Alfred said glancing down at the book on DNA and human expiration.

“Yeah, well…” Jennifer paused glancing sheepishly up at Alfred, “I just needed a few more questions answered for… another class.”

“I don’t remember you taking anything medical-related.”

“I…” Jennifer felt her face heat up and tears fight back behind her eyes. Stupid don’t CRY! She wasn’t sure if it was from the memories of Ryan coming back. The body of that little boy laying slumped over in his closet…

NO STOP IT.

“Jennifer…” Alfred’s voice was soft as he reached out touching Jennifer’s hand, “There wasn’t anything else you could have done.”

“I know,” Jennifer said choaking back a few wet laughs trying to push off the rush of feelings. “It’s more, I’m interested in this rise of Meta’s and.” she glanced at her books than back at the screen “Call it a hobby.”

“Maybe it’s a Wayne trait.” Alfred said more to himself than her, “To become a little obsessed with your hobbies.”

“Yeah, maybe it’s just written in my DNA”

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

“Wow we were gone like four days and it looks like your room exploded,” Annabella said as she came into her cousin’s room. Books and papers lay all over the floor like a huge map. A rainbow of sticky notes covering everything.

“Hey Zen! Glad to be back?”

“I guess,” Annabella said looking around the room for a moment before turning to her cousin.

“Did Dick get the stuff I sent him?”

“Yeah, I think? How come you are just helping him and didn’t just join the team?”

“Alfred has better food?” Jennifer said laughing as Annabella bent down catching the glimpse of a picture of some kittens.

“What are you doing anyway?”

“Research.”

“On Selina?” the young Wayne asked holding up a picture of Selina Kyle dressed up in her leather Catwoman outfit.

“You know her?” Jennifer asked feeling a rush of excitement. “She’s been at a few of these labs that do animal DNA testing and… I’ve been trying to figure out why.”

“She’s very into animal rights, almost too much sometimes.” Annabella said, “used to date dad and she was always nice to me.”

“Kinky,” Annabella frowned and Jennifer quickly caught herself “I mean… interesting. Anyway, could we talk to her?”

“Sure why not.”

----

Finding Selina was harder than Zen had let on. Apparently, if Seilna didn’t want to be found while on her animal crusade she wasn’t going to be. But then again, did Jennifer really need to find her to ask what the labs were really up to when you could wear a mask and call yourself Animal-gender?

Ok, that’s not really fair, Robin wasn’t Robin boy… but still. BatMAN and CatWOMAN had dated. For some reason Jennifer was getting a bigger kick out of that then she really should.

“That’s Dick’s bike.”

“Zen!?! How long have you been there?” Jennifer asked turning to her cousin

“I followed you down, you were really lost in thought. Also, what’s with the mask? Are you going out? Are you going to the Young Justice? Can I come?”

“No, I’m breaking into a lab and don’t want anyone to know it’s me and I’m pretty sure uncle will kill me if you come.”

“Do you even know how to break into a lab?”

“Dick’s been showing me some stuff.”

“Do you like him?”

Jennifer paused, where did that come from? Yes, she liked everyone, she was a people person, she liked lots of people. Plus it helped that Dick liked to show off so just a few “wow can you show me how to hack into a quantum level security system” with a few batting eyelashes could get you very far.

“I like Dick but not the way you are insulating.”

“I think you’re wrong.”

“Ok”

“So can I come?”

“To the lab?” Jennifer sighed thinking it over, I mean uncle let her hang out with the teen league. Plus being alone in that creepy animal lab… did sound a little scary.

“Sure, you have your own bike I’m assuming.”

“Of course”

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

“These… I have never felt Animals like these” Annabella frowned as she walked through the cages while Jennifer scrolled through the files downloading the ones that seemed like the information she was looking for.

“What do you mean?” Jennifer asked her cousin glancing up for a moment. From one of the cages, a large Falcon watched her. He was so still, his yellow eyes making eye contact with him. Almost like he was listening to her.

Ok weird.

“I don’t know how to explain it” Annabella mumbled, “Like… some of them I can’t hear.”

Jennifer glanced at the bird again, his eyes flickering from her to the girl then back at her, “Which ones?”

“Those Rats are faint and… Annabella glanced at the bird who was now looking at her. Body so still for a moment he looked stuffed. “Him too.”

Quickly Jennifer did a search on F-22d19. Files and videos popped up. Her eyes scanning through it “oh… my… god…”

“What?” Annabella asked turning from a cage where a few puppies were sitting. One of them licking her fingertip.

“This place is way more than animal testing… these findings… they are from humans. Crossbreeding and meta geans. This place is super low level but…” Jennifer paused clicking deeper in her eyes flickering to the Flacon in his cage. The bird’s head leading forward slightly. Their eyes met and it nodded. Like it noded.

It fucking knew what was going on.

Jennifer felt goosebumps running up her legs as she downloaded the information.

“Annabella? Annabella?”

“Oh shit it’s Dick,” Annabella said cluching her earpiece.

“Oh hey, Dick.”

“Why is my motorcycle outside KOLE Bio Lab?”

“It’s a long story.”

“One I feel like your father would like to hear about.”

Both girls looked up to see Selina Kyle standing in the doorway. Arms folded over her chest.

“Selina!” the younger girl launched herself at the leather-clad woman hugging her.

“Catwoman…”

“And who are you?” Selina asked pointing to Jennifer as she hugged Annabella back.

“Just another curious cat?” Jennifer said flashing her a weak smile hoping the woman would appreciate some cat humor.

“What’s going on? Jen are you here too?” Dick’s voice sounded over the headsets. Jennifer bit her lip trying to stay calm.

“Well if you stick around that curiosity is going to kill you, I am about to set this place a light. Just need to let these little babies free.”

“Are there more?” Annabella asked.

“Three other rooms, this place is just where they keep the recent experiments. The homes and I use that term loosely, are down the hall.”

“I’ll help!” Annabella said, “I can keep them calm.”

“Give me 10 more minutes?” Jennifer asked biting her lip knowing she was asking a lot from a woman she had only just met.”

“Make it 5, I don’t trust boy wonder out there.”

“Robin’s outside?”

“Saw him riding up when I got here.”

“Shit ok, I’ll hurry.”

Nodding Selina and Annabella dashed off to free the animals leaving Jennifer to finish her work.

“Robin?”

“Yeah?” he sounded annoyed

“I’m sorry but… can you just wait there? We are coming.”

“Why are you in there Jen? What is going on?”

“Nothing.” Jennifer lied as she quickly dragged a few more files onto her hard drive.

“Don’t look at me like that?” she said to the falcon as he came closer to the bars giving her a rather judgy look. “I’m letting you and everyone else out I promise.” a simple nod and the started circling his cage, antsy.

“Is someone there?” Dick asked shit that’s right he could hear her.

“Just another bird boy, he may even be cuter than you.”

Dick laughed at that, “I doubt it. What, you think I’m cute?”

“Sure, objectivly you’re a good looking guy.”

“Uhhh thanks, your good looking too… objectively.”

Jennifer was about to respond when the alarm went off. REALLY? It had only been two minutes.

“Really Catwoman! I’m telling your boyfriend.”

“Jen, What's going on? Did you just say Catwoman?”

“No time.”

“Shoot!” Jennifer moaned as the animals started freaking out in their cages. Lights flashing and… did she smell smoke? “Shoot!” Jennifer said getting up. How was she supposed to open these doors? And Dick’s constant questions in her ear wasn’t helping. Pulling out the ear peice she put it in her back pocket with her harddrive.

“How do we get out?” Jennifer asked turning to the falcon. I mean he already acted like he knew it all. However, all she got was a screech large wings flapping.

Think Jen Think….

Then she saw it. How could she have missed it? A panel on the wall with numbers on it. A string of keys and a switch.

Quickly she grabbed the keys flipping the switching praying it was that easy.

Come on.

And it was.

The doors swung open animal escaping in a frenzy all of them seemed to be gathering around her. Quickly she dashed through the cages picking up any animals that would hurt themselves if they lept from the higher cages. All of them rushing toward the door the moment their feet hit the ground.

All but a small white kitten who’s little claws clung to her hissing at the sight of the laminated floor.

“Fine princess,” Jennifer mumbled tucking the kitten under her arm as she quickly trying to doge the animals as she reached the door fliting it open.

“Let’s go!” she screamed running down the hall grabbing a fire extinguisher as she ran, her small army of lab animals after her.

The large falcon at her side flying next to her its screeches like a battle cry.

----------

“Where’s Jen?” Robin asked his sister as she came running up Selina in tow. The whole lab alight with activity. Catwoman laughed turning to her handy work.

“Worried your girlfriend can’t keep up?”

“You just left her in there?”

“She should be fine…” Annabella said her tone less sure than her words.

A Large crash came from the large bay window about a yard away from them, the second floor.

“Viva La Revolution!” Jennifer’s voice cried following the shattered glass as she flew out landing, surprisingly gracefully, on the emerald grass below. Animals swarming around her, rushing toward freedom. Mice, rabbits, and even dogs rushing past her like a small army dashing off in every direction toward their freedom.

Slowly the brunette stood, a swarm of birds flying around her before taking flight into the night sky.

All but one.

The large falcon gently floated down landing in her open gloved hands. It nodded it’s large head at her as if thanking his savior. Then spreading his wings he took flight. The momentum of his motion making her long brown hair fly out as if she too had wings.

As if she too could fly away into a crystal filled sky. Join them, free from the cages that held them. The pain, that needless pain, that kept them chained to the ground.

To fly away as free as a bird.

The sight was unlike anything Dick had ever seen. In that moment he didn’t even recognize the girl. It was as if at that moment she transformed into someone… something else.

“Woah”

“You’re girlfriend's something else.”

“She’s not… never mind, You ok?” Dick asked walking toward Jennifer who turned to him blinking as if she had just woken from a dream.

“I…”

“Meow”

“Kitty!” Annabella squealed dashing toward the little animal. It took one look at her and ducked back into Jennifer’s jacket pocket. Jennifer couldn’t help but laugh.

“Princess didn’t want to run with the others so I had to carry her,” she told her cousin fingers stroking the soft white fur.

In the distance, the sound of sirens could be heard.

“And that’s my cue” Catwoman said giving the kids a little salute before running off into the night with the other free animals.

“We should go,” Dick said nodding toward their bikes. “Will you be able to ride with the cat?”

“I think I can keep up.”

“Cool.”

-GET TAGGED!-

Tagging: @royslittleharper @the-shadow-of-atlantis @coffee-randomness @werewitchling @xx3fsxx @daisyboobear @jason-redhood @hello-i-lovespiderman-blr @ocelysium @pinkwitch21 @tomhncharliep

#Dick Grayson #Young Justice #Young Justice fanfic #Young Justice OC #Young Justice x oc #Young Justice x reader #Jennifer #Feathers #Dick Grayson x reader #Dick Grayson x oc #DC x oc #DC oc #DC fanfic #My writing #my fanfic #my oc

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pidgeonspen · 5 years

Photo

Had to rebuy and download CSP on my laptop and I downloaded a bunch of new brushes and needed to test them out, so I colored a sketch I’d done of @nuttyrabbit‘s Gambit a while back.

... Also an excuse for teef.

#my art #gifts for peeps

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mysticsparklewings · 5 years

Photo

Colored Pencil Workshop (Free Resource!)

Download for free here: http://fav.me/dd15m1v

____

Graphic Design is such a chore sometimes. :P So what is this, exactly? This was inspired by Coloring Bliss on YouTube, who uses the sheet that inspired this one for her colored pencil reviews. Since the moment I saw it I was hoping she'd eventually release it for others to use because it seemed so thorough and useful. I remember a while back in a video she mentioned they were thinking about making it available on their website, but that was a while ago and I was unsure if it ever came to fruition and also got a little impatient; So I decided to make my own. This technically works out a little better since I was able to customize it to my personal needs. And I did specifically go out of my way to make mine different in some aspects to hopefully stay out of trouble. Likewise and also because if they ever do release theirs to the public it will likely only be for the "Premium" or higher members on their website, I'm posting mine for free. Now, the above image, as I said, was custom made to suit my own needs, and I'll go pretty blow-by-blow over what's here and my intention in a second, but just in case, if you hit the download button on the right, in the .ZIP file I've also included a "blank" version that does not have the Tan/Gray Paper slots filled in and named and the testing boxes at the bottom do not have labels, so that if you so desire you can better customize it to fit your own needs, too. My major rules for either version (the regular one or the "blank" one) are: 1. Please DO NOT remove the "Created by MysticSparkleWings" Mark 2. Please DO NOT re-upload or redistribute the empty worksheets without my explicit written permission (If you've say, filled one out for a review/blog post/etc. and want to upload it, that's fine as long as you follow Rule 1) Now then, as for my intention of how you would actually use this (or at least how I'm going to use it): Up at the top, left to right, we have the "Color Samples & Mixing Test" and instructions, and an area for information about the pencils. Hopefully, these are pretty self-explanatory. The Color Samples I personally will be picking based on my Pocket Color Wheel for the Primaries (Red, Yellow, Blue), and then using those three to mix the Secondaries (Orange, Purple, Green). This tests both mixing ability and color matching/how the color choices for that particular set were to a certain extent, and when completed will also be a nice pop of color to the page . Then you would give that test a Star Rating. Same with Packaging Appearance of the pencils under the information section; I used Star Ratings because that just makes more sense to me to be able to quickly compare different sets, as well as it might be helpful when recommending pencils to others or writing a review. Also, I will note before moving on that by "Available Colors" I meant "Number of Colors Available," but the former fit better both in terms of space and in terms of how it sounds to me. It wouldn't make sense to try and write literally every single color name on that one little line. Oh, and the "Core" line is for the size of the core and stuff like if it's wax or oil-based. Moving on, we have what I call a "Pigment Check" even though it's not labeled, the Softness/Durability Test, and a box for Notes. The Pigment check is meant to test how well the white pencil works if the set came with one (which is particularly important to me), how true of a black the black is (again, using my Pocket Color Wheel), and to see an example of how well they show up on my toned tan/toned gray papers, each section with its own star rating. (I didn't just fill in a solid color; I grabbed pieces of the paper in Photoshop from scanned pictures I had so they would at least visually mimic the look/texture so I don't have to go chop off triangles every time I need to test some pencils) The Softness/Durability Test is a slight modification of Coloring Bliss's "Core Usage Test." It's meant to provide an opportunity to judge how soft the core of the pencil is, if it has any issues with breaking, and it'll give an idea of how layering works with them. The idea is to do three layers; light pressure, medium pressure, and hard pressure, to fill in the circle completely. This also provides an opportunity to see how long the pencil can go before it needs sharpening and then how it sharpens, and then all of that gets another star rating. (And me personally I might end up writing over top of the finished test with a Gel Pen as a test of how they work over the pencils, as I've had issues with that in the past and couldn't manage to squeeze a dedicated Gel Pen Test area in this already packed sheet). The Notes area is for things you might notice during testing, additional tests you might have, any star ratings you need to explain to yourself, etc. Stuff like that. I wanted to have at least a moderate bit of space for that, just in case. Then we have the erasing test, which is explained on the sheet pretty well, I think. I didn't give this one a star rating partly because it was a little tight and also because I didn't think it was necessary. No colored pencils erase perfectly, and generally speaking, results will vary from color to color. And for me personally, I just need to see how well (or not) it lifts off to determine if that's something I need to be worried about or not. The "Overall Rating" Is technically next as we move down the page; And again I think this should be pretty self-explanatory. This is essentially what you would rate them on a site like Amazon, though there are two ways you could go about getting this rating: 1. Be like me and just go with your gut after taking all of the tests and information into consideration, or 2. Average all the other star ratings together. At the bottom, we have arguably the most important section: All the other tests. For me, I have one for layering, blending, blending with the Derwent Blender Pencil, blending with a Colorless Alcohol Marker blender (my choice being the Prismacolor Brush one), and an area to test water resistance; All things I've found myself doing repeatedly on scrap paper. This way I'll have all the tests in one dedicated place where I can refer back to them at any time. But you can write in whatever tests you want on the blank version since I figured not everyone would want to test the same things as me. (This was actually a sticking point with me on Coloring Bliss's; If that version was released there were some tests included that I just simply wouldn't use because they aren't techniques I practice, etc.) I think this will be a good resource for myself to figure out what pencils do what things best, and in theory, I'll be wasting less scrap paper and time trying to test things as they come up. Plus, I'll have more of a standard when doing pencil reviews. (Though all of the tests are based on things I was already checking for; that'll just make it easier to compare and to refer back to after I've not used them for a while). It took my three days of on-and-off working and tweaking, but I think it was worth it. Although if my printer would just print the thing the way I wanted it to begin with, I could've been done a little bit sooner. Which is my excuse for why the overall placement may be a bit off/weird. But hopefully, you guys can negotiate with your printer better than I can with mine. Like I really don't understand; I designed the thing on an 8.5"x11" canvas, so in theory there should have been literally no issue, but it kept trying to give it a border so I had to keep adjusting it bit by bit to get it to print in the right place, and I still haven't gotten it exactly perfect. But I did manage to get it close enough that I'm going to live with it until my knowledge of how to adjust the printer settings and what size canvas to use to manipulate it into printing correctly expands. But hey, it's done and now we can all test out our colored pencils to our hearts content ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

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angeltriestoblog · 5 years

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On-brand stories from my childhood

I remember this tweet going around a few months ago, soliciting people’s most on-brand stories from their childhood, things they’ve done or words they’ve said as a kid that sum up who they are at present. I wanted to participate so bad when I first saw it on my timeline, but I knew that being the eccentric, one-of-a-kind kid I was, it would take me a long period of reminiscing (and more tweets in a thread than anyone would bother to read) to put down everything worth noting. So, here it is: 10 of the weirdest, Most Angel experiences from my youth, for the lack of a way to put it, accompanied by photos of baby me because let’s face it, they make everything better.

ONE: When I was about four, my parents took me to a building very near our house to have my IQ checked. They had an inkling that I was a gifted child, and wanted to confirm it with a professional. So, I was escorted into an office, and subjected to interrogation to assess my competence in several areas of giftedness - much to my dismay, since all I wanted was to get that interview over and done with so I could read books in the library next door. There was this one part where the person in charge of me was trying to test my kinesthetic abilities by getting me to follow this aerobics routine that she was making me do. “Step step one, step step two,” she was saying while stomping to the right and stomping right back in place. I told her I didn’t want to do it, because I didn’t want to look like a fool.

TWO: I had this knack for correcting teachers. As a kid, I was hyperfixated on learning all the countries in the world and their respective capitals, with the help of this flash cards set that I got from Toy Kingdom. So when there was this time that my Filipino teacher had said that there were only two countries in the world with names that started with the letter Q, five year old Angel was very quick to correct her. “Miss Melissa, there’s only one country that starts with the letter Q! It’s Qatar!” I told her. She replied, “No! Quebec is a country, too!” This argument persisted for a bit until she made us do a seatwork, which gave her the opportunity to leave us to go to the computer room for a bit (since cellphones weren’t given Internet capability back in 2006). She returned and told me, “Angel, tama ka nga. Di pala bansa yung Quebec, hehe.”

THREE: It’s become common knowledge to everyone in my life that I wrote books growing up, but my body of work extended way beyond my very inventive fiction (alternatively called, me putting my own twist on the fairytales I read growing up) and creative non-fiction (me telling everyone how my day, half true-to-life, accurate detail and half-imagination). I remember going through the family laptop one day, and coming across the corporate profile of my uncle’s company, where my dad was working at the time as the technical assistant to the president. Being the child I was who wanted to emulate everything her father was doing, I wanted to make a copy of my own too but I was unfortunately unemployed. Thankfully, I took matters into my own hands and made up a company of my own, which I aptly named Pamper and Pretty. Excuse the fatal grammar error, but I was six and was yet to be familiarized with what parallelism in writing actually was. I drafted a whole corporate profile, complete with the list of my employees along with their corresponding duties and responsibilities, as well as a list of all our products and services.

And of course, how could I forget my professional resume?

FOUR: I even looked far into the future and prepared a spiel for when we’d be looking for new employees, as well as a list of rules and regulations to follow if ever anyone would pass our grueling hiring process. My favorite is rule #26, which goes “Drug pushers are not allowed in the store.”

FIVE: While we’re on the topic of business, I guess it’s worth boasting that I was able to sit in a meeting my mom had back in the day with the rest of the members of the Systems and Methods division, and I was asked to take the minutes for a change. I’m aware I’m making absolutely no sense, but after much inferring, I guess it revolves mainly around IT, monitoring procedures and AARs.

SIX: I was a proponent for self-help at a very young age too, creating a list of five rules to live by, which I referred to as my “straight line project”. For which reason, I have absolutely no clue. One part reads: “Always watch out for a kid bullying some one so you can save the person being fought, then do the same thing that the bully kid did to your friend like for example when they are fighting in a swimming pool that the bully is trying to push your friend, you should save your friend and push the bully kid to the pool.” I advised. Turns out I had an attitude and a knack for retributive justice from the very start.

SEVEN: I also found a couple of letters I addressed to Santa as the Christmas season approached, where I requested everything from “world peace” to the entire Diary of A Wimpy Kid series. Talk about being a versatile queen! My favorite of the bunch was the last one I made, where I included directions and a sketch to get to our new house, because we had moved residences earlier that year. I just didn’t want Santa to get lost, and sneak in my old house only to find out that I was no longer there.

(Fortunately, my mom was able to print out all those files I had saved to the family computer before I promptly infected it with a virus that wiped out its entire memory. The lengths seven year old Angel would go just to download Young Guns by Wham! from Limewire.)

EIGHT: I was elected as class president multiple times in grade school, which you would think would mold me into becoming an active student leader. But, my term was constantly shrouded in controversy. I was always tasked to write down the list of noisy students on the blackboard, I’m not exactly sure if this qualifies as public humiliation but I wasn’t concerned with that at the time and did everything I could to fulfill my duty. A classmate of mine was singing a High School Musical song at the top of her lungs, and I asked her to stop. Usually, that does the trick and sends the noisemaker back to their seat but she ran out of the room and brought her mom upstairs because she got upset.

NINE: I also rode on a classmate’s bag, which resulted in her mom going upstairs (I have no idea why their moms spent the entire day in the waiting room on the first floor too, man) and scolding me, saying that her daughter’s bag is not a pony. I was also accused of calling my classmate stupid because she was only Top 7 out of all the students in class, while I was Top 1, which was false by the way since “stupid” was considered a curse word in our household until I was 10. Perhaps the best scuffle I got myself into was because I had checked my classmate’s homework with red crayon and put several drawings of hearts and stars, as well as reassuring comments along the lines of “Great job!” and “Congratulations!” around his perfect score. His father literally had me sent to the principal’s office. Parents then had way too much time on their hands, I swear to God.

TEN: If we don’t take into consideration the whole fiasco that involved my Teletubbies stuffed toy*, my first brush with “love” happened when I was in kindergarten. I had a crush on one of my classmates named Kevin, who is the scrawny little boy that you see beside me in the pictures below. I don’t remember anything else about him, not even his surname, and I haven’t heard of nor seen him since our pre-school graduation ceremony. All I have to remember him by are these photos, and a video that my mom took of both of us where he was seen flapping his arms around and making weird facial expressions, while I would squirm out of kilig in response. Weird. The worst part of it all? I didn’t even like him because he was cute or funny or nice to me: it’s just because he was named after my favorite Backstreet Boy.

(*In case anyone's curious, up until I was about three years old, my parents and I lived in Malabon with my maternal grandmother, who was tasked with taking care of me while my mom and dad were both at work. She was fond of watching Filipino teleseryes while taking care of me: they often had their fair share of kissing scenes, but I was practically a baby at the time who wasn’t capable of processing or remembering the things she was seeing on TV. Or so they thought. My mom said she had walked on two year old me making out with my cousin’s Teletubbies stuffed toy one time. She then promptly asked my lola if they could keep me as far away from the television as possible once Pangako Sa’Yo came on. Can’t blame her for that, honestly.)

That’s all I can think of right now, but I know there’s plenty more where that came from. Hope everyone is having a fruitful Holy Week celebration. Wishing you nothing but love and light, always always always.

Angel

#personal #on brand stories from my childhood #i'm baby #i was so cute as a kid omg what happened #look at all that POTENTIAL #angeltriestoblog #angeltriestoshowhowcuteofakidshewas #angelsucceeded

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etcwrites · 7 years

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Missing & Unknown

Lancelot Week Day 2 @lancelotweek

Prompt: love/hate

Rating: General Audiences

Status: Completed

Summary:

Lotor is still new to the alliance and Paladins of Voltron are a touch distrustful. But no worries, Lancey Lance has the perfect solution: A party! (Post S04)

AO3 Link

“Regretfully, I must decline.”

A line appears between Lance’s eyebrows, confusion bleeding into his expression and creasing his otherwise perfect skin.

His immediate response is to ask why?! Why would Lotor decline his proposal?

From every viewpoint, attending a party should make perfect sense. Besides being extremely fun, (because, please Lancey Lance knows how to throw a fabulous party) it creates the perfect opportunity to socialize with allies, solidifying their newly formed alliance and allowing Lotor to gain a little bit of trust.

“Decline?!” he exclaims, voice going high before he could control it. “You realize that half of the alliance distrusts you and the other half hates you, right?”

Lotor doesn’t even blink but still Lance can see how his words hit at the core. The prince must realize his situation as well. With his strategical thinking and innate need to analyze, Lance knows that Lotor perfectly understands the delicate situation that he faces. With barely a month under his belt as the new ally of Voltron (and with the fact that he is Emperor Zarkon’s freaking son) he stands on thin ice.

“I’m aware, Paladin of Voltron.” Lotor replies, voice soft but his chin up, looking almost adorably stubborn.

“No, no,no, no, no stop right there!”

“I apologize-“

“No, it’s fine. Just call me Lance. Not-” Lance grimaces at the formal words. “Paladin of Voltron”

For a second confusion passes through Lotor’s face, elegant brows rising before tension bleeds out his shoulders, slowly transforming into a smile. Albeit not a nice smile, but still a smile.

“Lance…” he repeats, voice pleased, commanding, testing…

A shiver runs down Lance’s spine before he can understand what is happening.

“Uh-“ he stammers, already feeling the color rising to his cheeks. “Yes, so…the party! Uh- I think you should attend, you-”

Lotor leans back on his chair, eyes travelling up and down Lance’s body to finally settle on his face. “I realize this is a personal party, a celebration of a birth date.”

“Yes, a birthday.” He replies, trying and failing to keep the color away from his face. Why does Lotor have to be this pretty and have such a perfect hair?! “But it is hardly an exclusive event. We’ll have ambassadors from the coalition, even a few people from the Blades. And there will be cake and decorations! Oh man, you know Hunk makes a mean chocolate and chocolate chips cake that you can’t even believe your taste buds! And music! Pidge found a way to download songs from her archive so things might get pretty wild, if you catch my drift!”

Lotor makes a contemplative noise at the back of his throat, head leaning against his fist, and a small smile settling across his face as he regards Lance and his nervous rambling. This time the smile looks softer…

“You seem quite excited for this event.”

“Well…yeah.” Lance sobers up and focuses on Lotor. “I want this to work. To achieve peace throughout the universe, we must first get to know each other.”

“Get to know each other?... Indeed…”

“Uh-“ Lance blinks, heart leaping to his throat at Lotor’s suggestive tone. He must be dreaming… “I mean! We must try to understand each other! And, what better way than a party, right?!”

For a second silence hangs between them, time stretching out and filling space. Lance prepares himself for another rejection, the amused smile on prince’s face unhelpful at easing his suspicion. However, when Lotor uncrosses his legs and leans forward into Lance’s space, he is entirely unprepared.

“Such a compelling case,” Lotor murmurs, long hair brushing against Lance’s knees. Then fixing his gaze on the other, he smirks. “Count me in…Lance”

Heat suddenly burns inside his stomach, sucker punching and rendering him speechless for a few seconds. As Lance takes a sharp breath, eyes fleeting across Lotor’s face, the other leans back with fingers linking and a knowing smirk settling across his lips.

“Uh…good! Sure thing!” He mentally shakes himself, rising to his feet in a smooth motion and turning to leave. “I’ll let you know about the details.”

With an affirmative nod from the prince, Lance turns back and moves out, all the while feeling Lotor’s burning gaze down his back.

Strange…

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

“You did WHAT?!”

Lance can see a vine popping across Keith’s temple and wow, does it look malicious, much like Keith’s entire aura right now.

“Hey!” Lance retaliates, indignant and high pitched, because he has pride (and really believes this might help them secure another alliance, but that’s beside the point and it has absolutely nothing to do with how pretty Lotor looked just minutes ago! No! Nope! NOT happening! )

“There is nothing harmful about it, so keep your hackles under control, huh, mullet!”

“We don’t even know his intentions or his agenda!” Keith continues.

“Ahh, yes… I side with Keith on this one, man. I mean, this is Lotor we are talking about, you know evil crown prince of Galra, massive planner, schemer, because he looks like a schemer… You guys remember how he was always one step ahead of us, right?!”

Lance swallows down his sigh. Of course he knows what Hunk is talking about and he loves his best bud but sometimes the big guy worries too much.

“Guys, relax!” he gestures with his hands, palms turned towards them. “Everything is gonna be just fine. C’mon, it is just a party!”

Keith still looks like he is ready to give him another piece of his mind but Lance swiftly turns towards the mostly silent occupant in the room. “Besides, Pidge is okay with it, and it is her birthday!”

Promptly every other face turns to the girl, who is typing on the transparent tablet. “It’s fine.” she replies nonchalantly, eyes never leaving the screen. Lance opens his arms towards her and gestures as if he is presenting something. “See!”

Now Keith looks constipated and Hunk looks quite a bit sick but Lance is almost convinced he can turn this around and stop the team from harassing Lotor when a shadow lands on four of them, causing every head to turn towards the source.

Over the seats of the common room Shiro stands, looking down at them and for a second Lance thinks he is going to be reprimanded for taking liberties, only to relax as Shiro shares his opinion. “I think we all should try to see this as an opportunity to get acquainted with Prince Lotor and introduce ourselves as well.”

“I agree” As Allura moves to stand next to Shiro, Lance feels a warm feeling settle across his chest. He can only guess what it means to lose all of your family, all of your people and yet, find the strength to overcome your pain and even accept the race that caused such a tragedy.

She is amazing, Lance thinks. More than amazing…

“This is a chance to gain new allies such as Prince Lotor and strengthen our relationships with our existing ones”

“Also,” Lance intervenes, plopping beside Pidge and pulling her close with an arm around her shoulder “to have fun!” Turning to wink at Allura, he smiles brightly. “It is a birthday after all!”

At the corner of his eye Lance can see Pidge sending him a look but up close he also notices the corner of her lips turning up.

“Ah-“ Allura says, suddenly embarrassed. “Yes, you are absolutely right, Lance.” Her voice has gone soft. “It is to have fun as well.”

Across the room Keith’s scowl has no rival. Lance suspects, it is because he is allergic to having fun.

But finally, he thinks ignoring all of that. Something is going right!

Turning back to Pidge, he grins.

“Just leave it to me!”

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The party is… a disaster!

Well, probably that is an overstatement but where is the joy if it is not an overstatement!

Still…it is going pretty rocky for Lance.

And, don’t get him wrong, it is not the countless clueless aliens and their preferences towards juuust the right music. It is not the weird, weird gifts gathered around Pidge (seriously who gets a human being a purple acid bomb!). Strangely… it is not Keith, with his stupid frown and sulking tense expression. It is not even Lotor, who is for the most part calmly nursing his drink beside the bar and basically keeping a low profile.

No! It is Matt and his stupid sibling love!

Lance grits his teeth as Matt once again hugs Pidge close, wide grins plastered across their faces and it is great to see them as happy as this, because a) cute, b) happiness is a treasure in vast freaking space and c) it means the party is amazing and Lance is proud of himself.

But…

It hurts.

Sighing Lance turns his eyes away and quickly excuses himself from the company of a few Balmerans. He seriously needs a drink to take the edge of, fingers clenching into tight fists as he desperately tries to control his feelings.

As he passes through the crowd he can feel longing settling across his chest, a sudden feeling of loss pulling at his heart. For a second his sister flashes in the shadow of Allura, in the way she flicks her hair over her shoulder , the next moment he can see his brother’s smile on Hunk’s face and –

Lance catches sight of Matt and Pidge -

-that warm feeling that surrounds his heart whenever his little cousin hugs him…

Lance turns his eyes away, heart squeezing painfully.

I miss-

No! He can’t deal with this right now. Not in front of all these people, not when it is Pidge’s birthday!

Moving towards the bar, he bypasses the various snacks and immediately reaches for the spiked punch.

Vaguely he is aware of another set of eyes watching him but at this point, he can’t find it in himself to care about anything. Pouring a generous portion, Lance turns towards the exit, the sudden need to be alone almost choking him. He needs space; he needs to be away from happy families, away from reunions, reminders and most certainly birthday parties.

Giving a fake half smile to one of the Olkari representatives, Lance pushes through the crowd, his eyes momentarily catching Lotor’s before turning away.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

In the silence of an empty corridor, Lance leans against the wall, knees folded and eyes focused on the flickering lights scattered across the vast space. He wonders if he will ever get the opportunity to see his family again, to feel his mother’s warm arms, to hear his dad’s joyful laugh…

Space is too large, Lance thinks, pushing at now the empty cup. And Earth is so far away.

The sudden forlorn footsteps pull him out of his thoughts, head reluctantly turning towards the intruder. He really doesn’t want to explain himself to the team, their faces too familiar, too close… And he doesn’t have the strength to pretend for a member of the coali-

As Lotor turns the corner, Lance can feel his brows rising in surprise. In the low light of the corridor Lotor looks divine, regal with perfect skin and piercing eyes…. and entirely out of place.

“Uhm-“ Lance stammers intelligently. “What- why- why are you here?”

One of Lotor’s eyebrows rises, an amused sly expression replacing his neutral one. “As one of your guests, can’t I enjoy the various corridors of your castle?”

Lance can’t help his frown. “That doesn’t even make sense. There is nothing interesting here-“

“You seemed upset”

Lance’s voice hitches at his throat, a lump settling right at the center.

“I’m fine,” he tries, avoiding the other’s gaze and turning his head towards the stars. “Just needed some space.”

Lotor stays silent but takes one more step towards Lance. “Would you mind if I stay here for a while?” Before Lance can complain, the other leans against the wall beside him. “It was getting rather…tense surrounded by coalition forces.”

Sneaking a look, Lance pushes down his sigh. “Sure,” he says. “Though I find that hard to believe. And you should be trying to make friends, not hide in a corridor.”

“Ah!” Lotor murmurs, amusement clear in his voice. “Such a sound advice.”

This time Lance turns to glare up at the prince. “Hey!” he complains “I’m fine! This is just tempor-“

“You were excited for this party, were you not?” Lotor diverts, looking away from Lance and focusing on the stars. “ What changed?”

“Uh- nothing!” Lance exclaims, voice suddenly spiking. “Nothing changed… It is just-“

I miss-

Swallowing he stops, words choking him and his heart breaking under the weight of space, of distance, of endless war. He doesn’t know if he will ever be back, if he will ever see his cousins, his aunts and uncles, his siblings, parents… mom…

Before he can stop himself words tumble between his lips.

“My family…” Lance starts, vision blurring “when I was back home…”

He tightly closes his eyes for a few seconds, forcing himself to calm down, to gain control of his voice. When he reopens them, they are shinning with a new force. “We used to have these huge birthday parties.” He pushes on, voice getting stronger with each word, memories providing strength instead of causing pain, as he continues to share.

“And, ah- everyone came in. The house would be full! My cousins, all of them! They are all younger than me and oh, you should have seen it! When it comes to parties the first year is always the best one!”

Vaguely Lance can feel Lotor sliding down the wall to settle beside him.

“I remember Phillipa! She took her first steps on her birthday, that little rascal! She was adorable, trying to stay upright with her chubby hands grabbing onto the sofa-“

Suddenly stopping Lance bites his lip. Why was he even talking about these things?!...

“I guess…” he admits, voice small and low but finally ready. “I- I miss them. There is only somethings you can share with your family”

Beside him Lotor hums, though Lance isn’t sure if he understands.

Silence stretches between them, filling up the space and almost becoming deafening.

“Where are your Generals?”

At the sudden question, Lotor’s jaw clenches, his fingers growing tense then gradually, deliberately relaxing.

Lance bites his lip. Abort, abort!, his brain screams at him. “You,” he starts, nervously cleaning his throat. “You don’t have to tell me. I just thought…it was odd.”

As Lance watches, Lotor looks away, eyes searching the endless space. This time the silence that comes between them is oppressive, restricting, almost making it impossible to breathe.

“It was me,” Lotor says, in the end, successfully throwing Lance into a loop.

“You? How so?” Leaning forward Lance rests his head on his palm.

For a second Lotor looks like he might give an honest answer, eyes thoughtful and fingers linked, before his face closes off. “Galra do not have the sentiments you have described.”

“Pffft! I don’t know what you are talking about” Lance argues, letting it go and trying to keep things light. “Keith is half Galra and he is such a ball of sunshine when it comes to friendship.”

Lotor looks unconvinced but soon his features relax as he catches up to the joke.

“But,” Lance continues. “ He still cares…”

The other turns towards the window once again. “I understand he is no longer a paladin.”

A sudden anger rises inside Lance, disappointment squeezing around his heart. Vaguely he realizes this might be a ploy by Lotor to gather more information, to identify their weaknesses and divide the team, but sometimes you gotta give in to get something in return. “He wanted to go another way, yes. But that doesn’t mean-“ A sudden lump clogs up his throat. And he knows he had agreed with the others when Keith asked to join the Blades of Marmora, he knows they had this giant group hug, showing their support and acceptance but still…the thought of Keith leaving - It still hurts…

“-that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about the team.”

Lotor hums once again, voice soft and contemplative. “Perhaps.” Then turning towards Lance he fixes his gaze on the other. “For Galra, loyalty and sincerity don’t come naturally. We-“ He pauses for a second, expression staying forcefully neutral, before continuing. “Survive… and do anything to ensure our goals, whatever they may be.”

Oh-

“It sounds lonely.”

That wasn’t what Lance had meant to say but once he says it, he can see how true it is. Beside him, Lotor looks surprised and even though it only lasts for a few seconds, it is enough.

Lance pulls his knees towards his chest, linking his long arms around his bent legs. “Whether in the shape of kin, relatives or friends, family is important.” He murmurs, looking at the floor. “They love you and stay with you even though you are not at your best. They are there to support you, to keep you in line, to show you what can be better, how you can be better. And-“

He pushes his lips together, fingers biting into his arms.

“- and I’m sorry you didn’t have the chance to find yours yet.”

When he looks up there is confusion on Lotor’s face as if Lance is an alien life form, hatching right before his eyes and once again Lance waits for that look to turn calculative, even turn into something similar to how he had regarded Lance before the party, amused, flirty, manipulative… But it stays the same.

Cleaning his throat Lance then leans back and shoves Lotor’ arm slightly. “Besides,” he points out, trying to lighten the mood. “You can’t really do worse than Zarkon. The guy literally tried to kill you.” Smiling Lance gives the prince a wink. “You can only go up from there.”

Shock is evident on Lotor’s face, brows raised and eyes wide open but before Lance can try something else to pacify the situation, the other speaks.

“You are a peculiar one, aren’t you?”

“What?! Peculiar? I’m peculiar?! I’ll tell you what Prince Lotor-“

Then suddenly there is a laugh, barely and short but it is a laugh, from Lotor nonetheless.

Lance grows silent, his eyes fixed on the other.

“I apologize” Lotor says his voice loaded with amusement, eyes soft. Then…

“Thank you…Lance.”

A new exciting energy passes through Lance, the way his name sounds in Lotor’s voice causing a shiver to run down his back. However, it is different than before. Now it feels warmer… better.

Lance cleans his throat, feeling color spreading across his cheeks.

The other gives him a half smile, a second later his face slowly closing off and smile turning into a calculating smirk.

But Lance can tell a first step when he sees one.

And for now, he’ll take what he can.

#LancelotWeek2017 #lancelot #voltron legendary defender #voltron #etc.writes #missing & unknown

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tapwrites · 6 years

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XP-Pen Artist 10S v2

Yeah... that’s a mouthful ain’t it?

I recently got myself a graphics tablet... with a SCREEN!! I’ve been wanting one of those since I knew they existed, but for the longest time only the insanely-priced Cintiqs were available.

In recent years, it turns out, other manufacturers have branched into screened graphics tablets also--slowly bringing down the price to an attainable level.

I got my Artist 10S for £199.99 from Amazon. Let me tell you how it went.

From the Top

I have done art before. I was half-decent at it when I was around 10 or so. But it’s been a while. I got myself a decent “dotted” sketchbook and started sketching things out in it to run my RPG sessions. That’s really what gave me the bug to get into drawing again. And to actually buy a tablet to do so!

I downloaded Krita, a free Photoshop-like application for artists. It’s super-powerful, once you figure out how it works. But there are plenty of tutorials online about that if you’re interested in checking it out.

...But anyway, Krita has some nice smoothing algorithms you can turn on for drawing with a pen tablet. The pen doesn’t have tilt and rotation detection, but pressure sensitivity works well with Krita and gives me plenty of expressiveness to get on with. And I was pretty instantly busting out some sweet curves!

It was a pretty amazing experience, really--getting to draw freehand while also having the capability of undo, erase, etc. I’m not saying it brought a tear to my eye, but it was a nice moment. 😂

Config

The tablet has 6 “Express Keys” along the side, which are configurable to key combinations. When you hold them down, that key is held down (this’ll become important later). I currently have them set to things like canvas pan/zoom/rotate, and a couple of other “hold to use” shortcuts.

The pen is somewhat triangular along the barrel, meaning it won’t roll around on your desk. But it’s smoothed out enough to feel just fine in your hand. It has two barrel buttons, though these are only configurable to mouse various clicks and a preset “brush/eraser” toggle (which didn’t work with Krita out of the box). There is no “eraser” button at the other end (like a pencil with an eraser at the other end)... but I’d find that too fiddly and time consuming to flip it around anyway.

The lack of options for the pen is a little disappointing. Things like this are insanely easy to implement in code--as demonstrated by the express key options. So there’s not really any excuse for it other than the company being small, and this product originally belonging to a different company XP-Pen... bought out or something? I dunno. We’ll get onto them in due course.

Oh, a little side note... the configuration app is only readily accessible from a system tray icon (in Windows). This is fine when you first install the drivers. (And then install the updated drivers so the tablet actually works.) But it has a habit of just... disappearing. After Hibernation or Sleep, that icon tends to wander off somewhere.

And all XP-Pen have to say on that score is to give instructions on how to make it appear again--which only works half the time and may require a restart anyway. I’ve since figured out where the config application itself is kept, and made a shortcut to it in my start menu. In case anyone else is having the same troubles as me, here’s the file path: “C:\Windows\SysWOW64\tabcfg.exe”

Screen

This tablet has a screen! Still getting over that XD

The screen is only 10.1″ corner to corner, which is a little smaller than the average screen tablet such as the Cintiqs. But it’s plenty big enough when it’s sitting right in front of your for actual drawing.

Another reason I pulled the trigger on buying one of these is to get a second screen. I often watch various Youtube videos in the background while I’m playing games and whatnot. I used to prop my Chromebook up next to my regular monitor. This worked fine, but pausing everything when someone came in to speak to me (just a politeness thing I like to employ; nothing sneaky going on)... was a bit of a hassle. And balancing the audio between devices had its own fiddliness (besides the piddly Chromebook speakers not being able to get loud enough for quieter videos).

But now, with two monitors hooked up to the same computer, everything’s a lot easier. I can move windows between screens easily enough. And pausing a video is as simple as moving the mouse over to the other screen and clicking.

Colour Calibration

However! I am having some trouble with the colours. I was drawing away just fine, a simple cartoon character to try out the shading tools and so on and get used to Krita. Then for whatever reason, I saw the picture on my main monitor. The skin tone was way off--too red for what I was actually going for. It seems the tablet screen likes to give everything a yellow tint--making picking colours pretty tricky.

I’ve tried keeping a preview window open on my main monitor so I can see the “true” colours, but this is really not conducive to a productive work space. Or something ^^

I spend a few days trying to configure the colour management side of things from Windows and NVIDIA (the tablet has back light brightness buttons and that’s it)... but it’s just darned fiddly! I can never quite be sure if it looks right or not--or if both screens at least look similar. All I want is a “click on a colour on the screen, and remove some yellowness from it.” You wouldn’t have thought it would be that hard to do, would you?

But instead I had to use gamma, brightness, and contrast sliders. I think I get brightness and contrast... and I thought I knew what gamma was. But it just never turns out quite how I expect. All I want is a step-by-step tutorial on “First, get your gamma correct across all colours. Here’s how you do that...” And so on and so forth.

There are plenty of test-card images out there, which are a good start. But nothing giving you a list of instructions.

See, if you fix the brightness and contrast, it doesn’t necessarily mean things look right. So then you mess with the gamma and nothing makes sense any more. It seems as though you need to adjust all 3 at the same time to be sure you’re actually making any progress.

I even had a Windows bug where my colours wouldn’t stick. I had to create a new user account (with all the headaches of setting things up all over again) just to fix that issue and make any progress whatsoever!

/sigh/

And this doesn’t even talk about the contrast issues it already has. No matter what I do, it’s too bright in some areas and too dark in others. And with my colours fixed the way they are now, they look closer to my main monitor but not perfect. And they make some things just look a tad awful, across the board.

I’m managing, though. Using it for art--at least black and white art--is great, and as long as I focus on the tablet itself, the colours work just fine.

I did contact XP-Pen, to see if they had a solution. Most companies allow you to download an .icc file--a colour profile so the computer can correct a monitor’s output perfectly--but they just straight-up don’t. After 3 workdays of waiting, they told me to use Windows’ built-in calibration tools--which of course I’d been bashing my head against for the past week.

In case anyone else is having similar colour problems, I’ll give you the settings I used to half-fix it. Note that this is far from perfect, but it certainly seems a lot better than it was before, to my eye.

As I have an NVIDIA graphics card, I used their control panel to change the settings to the following values:

Red: 85% Brightness, 25% Contrast, 0.69 Gamma.

Green: 62% Brightness, 25% Contrast, 0.89 Gamma.

Blue: 90% Brightness, 25% Contrast, 0.72 Gamma.

I think the “All channels” part is just an average of the 3 colours. But in case it’s not...

All channels: 77% Brightness, 25% Contrast, 0.76 Gamma.

XP-Pen

That brings me onto the company itself. From what I understand, they’re a small company out of China? Or maybe the US? Or both? It’s really hard to tell from their website.

But anyway... I can only assume they’re too small a company to really provide decent support for their products. The response time is way too high, considering the price tags attached to their products. And the “shrug” attitude instead of providing solutions didn’t go down well with me.

Now, there are devices out there that calibrate a screen for you. The cheapest I could find is £90, and comes with a single-computer license. And that’s fair enough; most people don’t need them, and the ones that really need them are photography professionals who have to be willing to shell out some cash or produce poor work. But I’d prefer not to have to get one just to use it once and never look at it again.

The thing is, with this calibration thing, XP-Pen saying something very telling to the customer. They aren’t willing to get a calibration tool themselves, use it on a tablet, and make the resulting .icc file available for all of their customers to use--at least as a good starting point. Instead, they insist that each individual customer buys one themselves if they want any hope of getting relatively accurate colours from their purchase.

I may contact them again, to point this out to them. I mean, it may be that my unit is simply faulty and should be replaced... but then it should be replaced.

/sigh again/

Overall

I am happy with using the tablet. The tech is amazing, for the price. But such a lack of support is really dragging down the experience.

I highly recommend getting a screen tablet. If not this one, then perhaps another. Maybe your Artist 10S won’t have this issue at all and it’ll be perfect right off the bat.

It’s so awesome to be able to draw on your screen, and has really helped me get back into art-ing. I can already see improvement in my skill over the past week, through drawing every day after such a long time not drawing at all!

#Graphics Tablet #Screen #Colour Calibration #Xp-Pen

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belmayneblog-blog · 7 years

Text

January 2018

The following post was submitted by a former resident of Belmayne in Dublin. Due to ongoing legal issues surrounding defects at the property the author has asked not to be identified. The opinions expressed are those of the author. Defects in the development were reported in the media back in 2012 (see post here) and NAMA have part-funded fire-safety repairs for 80 units owned by NAMA (see here).

We went mad borrowing…

On the contrary, we saved diligently for many years to build up a deposit to purchase a home. Then when this had been achieved, like many others in a climate of outrageous property price inflation, not held in check by government, a loan was attained to purchase a home to live in, not invest in.

This is another sorry story of developers bailed out by a government agency but residents left holding the overflowing can of, developer, local authority and government failure. Failure of the developer and many relevant government and local authorities to enforce building controls.

I am a former resident and alleged property owner in Belmayne.

I am not involved nor have I ever been involved in construction, but have picked up some concerning facts during a protracted legal case to get identified failings in the construction of the property remedied. Four years ago, I moved my family out of the development into rental accommodation due to concerns in relation to the lack of fire protection in the development. Out of a property which I’ve been advised is of dangerous construction, and which poses an imminent threat to life should a fire occur.

What initially manifested itself as acoustic problems quickly led to the discovery of serious breaches of ‘mandatory’ building and fire safety regulations; I repeat ‘mandatory’ because breaching these regulations means breaking the law, it’s really that simple…oh but self-certification, sure it was bound to fail, or was it?

Regulations were put in place to protect people when purchasing properties. Because people have lost their lives in the past, and apparently, we’d done the right thing, learned, and introduced appropriate controls. Regulations, which if adhered to and enforced are adequate to ensure properties are built safely.

But unfortunately, these breaches are repeated extensively throughout the development. Belmayne as I understand it is a mix of concrete, steel frame and timber frame townhouse and apartment units. A large proportion of the units are timber frame. Most of the timber frame construction involves high-density units for which in my view it is generally inappropriate. Timber frame vested-interests will claim otherwise ‘designed / built to standards used all over the western world etc.’ however a quick search online will show many instances of the failure of these building systems to contain a fire.

It is inappropriate because if it is not designed and built to a high standard and to regulation, and should a fire take hold, these structures burn very quickly due to the inherent lack of fire protection. This is borne out by the catastrophic fire in Millfield Manor, Kildare, where six terrace houses burnt down in less than 30 minutes. They share almost the same design and construction as the timber frame properties in Belmayne. This is timber frame with a block facade and a cavity in between, which is often incorrectly fire stopped allowing for carbon monoxide and fire to travel between units unnoticed.

Amazingly no one lost their lives in Millfield, probably due to the time of day, but that is not a defence (see Examiner article here).

That’s not to say timber frame cannot be built safely, but is it worth taking the risk given the outcome if buildings are not built correctly? It is my understanding that most timber frame construction in Ireland by law, or any other innovative building system used in any other EU jurisdiction for that matter, requires what’s known as an Agrément Certificate to ensure they meet ‘mandatory’ building regulations, this is because these systems usually do not have a long history of use (see link here). Belmayne used the Kingspan Century Medium Rise Timber Frame Construction System, 01/02/2004 amended in 2007. The amendment is important as it shows corrections were made to this design three years after it was originally certified and around the same time it started to be used in Belmayne. Elements of the design appear to make reference to or have been repurposed from previous concrete designs or practices, which are not appropriate for timber frame. So for example compartment floors have intermediate floor design, which I’ve been informed, is a condemnable shortcoming (see NSAI link here).

And so this is where the problems began...

In many cases the basic design of timber frame is not done fully in accordance with ‘mandatory’ building regulations. This has nothing to do with self-certification, the design is flawed from the outset and much of the building is prefabricated then erected onsite. The benefit of this is of course that they can be constructed quickly, not necessarily cheaply. So practically every building using the design shares the same inherent flaws. The Agrément Certificate is drawn up by the manufacturer and certified by the NSAI. The Agrément Certificate sets out the design and the associated collection of materials, which must be used in accordance with their intended purpose or as specified and tested by their manufacturers and used accordingly in the context of the building system / design. So, the building system itself must meet ‘mandatory’ building regulations and in turn fire safety regulations, it’s on this basis that fire certificates are issued.

‘Irish Agrément Board Certificates establish proof that the certified products are ‘proper materials’ suitable for their intended use under Irish site conditions, and in accordance with the Building Regulations 1997 to 2006.’

Problem is the suitability of the materials and the overall design often comes nowhere near ‘mandatory’ regulations. So, the design does not fully comply with the regulations to begin with, but is certified by the relevant standards authorities nonetheless. However, any property using a flawed design, which does not meet regulations, should not receive a fire certificate or planning, so technically should not legally exist.

Add to this, builders with lack of expertise in this type of construction who can’t even follow the flawed design when erecting the structure and fail to put in the adequate fire stops etc., often because it interferes with their block work. Plus, certifiers, indicating substantial compliance, whatever that means, surely it complies with regulations or doesn’t? Without ever inspecting or being able to inspect the properties properly.

Many of the problems then become buried within the enclosed envelope of the finished structure, so are hard to see even if you were to enlist the services of a surveyor. They would need to open up the structure to get visibility of the problems. Where the designs are flawed, the problems are repeated throughout most of these types of developments. There are a huge number of properties with inadequate fire protection all over the country. There have been a number of fires in recent years in timber frame developments.

Terenure an older build but fire spread through a terrace of houses at roof level (see CJ Walsh article here).

Airfield, Swords a fire started by a handy man fixing a timber frame balcony with a blow torch, which spread up into the roof space & through the terrace of dwellings (download Irish Concrete PDF here).

Millfield Manor, Kildare mentioned earlier, a catastrophic fire (see Examiner article here).

At least 6 engineers acting on behalf of residents have inspected 6 / 7 properties including my own alleged property in Belmayne. Very experienced, and knowledgeable engineers with many years of expertise in structural engineering, in particular as it relates to fire protection. Also, engineers acting on behalf of the Developer, Stanley Holdings, whose loans were transferred to NAMA, also with decades of experience. Many issues have been noted, including serious structural failures which should mean the properties are condemned, yet the Developer and Local Authorities have publicly declared nothing is wrong with the properties other than an 80mm gap at ceiling height for which they’ve conducted ‘un-certifiable’ remedial works in 220+ units funded by NAMA to the tune of approximately €4 million, possibly more.

They’ve also been quietly attempting to ‘un-certifiably’ fix identified problems with incorrectly fitted slabs in the common roof space, yet the properties are supposed to be fine other than the 80mm gap. Conducting ‘Pyrite’ works in ground floor common areas without notifying residents or working with them to coordinate or complete similar works on the floors of the privately-owned units.

Dublin Fire Brigade also inspected the plans and again found nothing wrong. This was some time prior to a recent inspection, ‘which I repeat’, uncovered many issues, many serious. They didn’t even bother properly inspecting the properties themselves, not that they’d know what to look for! Many of the failings in the common areas would put their own personnel at risk if entering a building where a fire had started. Plus, they would struggle to locate the fire once it entered the cavities. Even the so-called fixed properties such as the ones in the video clip below; show serious lack of fire protection. The clip demonstrates the potential for fast spread of dangerous gas and fire into four properties in less than ten minutes (watch video here).

Responsible parties including the government allowed this to happen and they are trying to quietly brush it under the carpet, too big & hot (excuse the pun) to handle. Regular and repeated outreach to government departments / ministers, has resulted in recommendations to seek legal advice. Even though, the ‘mandatory’ regulations particularly in relation to how they apply to these buildings and as set out in the Building Control and Fire Services Acts, which I might add are in statute and have not and cannot be changed, other than by both houses of the Oireachtas, yet have clearly been broken.

Self-certification cannot apply as a defence. Contact with Local Authorities including the Council and recently the Fire Service have resulted in recommendations to seek legal advice too, rather than them exercising their legal obligation to enact an enforcement order, given the serious nature of the problems and imminent threat to life. Insurance companies continue to provide block insurance at exorbitant rates even though the management company has not briefed them on the full extent of the identified problems, which would surely mean no insurer would accept the risk.

Unfortunately, the initial reaction from the legal profession is usually to revert to type, many have never heard of an Agrément Certificate. They will look to put the purchaser back in the same position as they expected to be in when they purchased. Unless of course, you instruct them otherwise. Importantly ‘caveat emptor’ does not apply with new builds and what they fail to grasp is that in order to create separate entity and 60-minute burn time and proper compartmentation as dictated by the regulations, every connected unit needs to have the same remedial works completed to make them all compliant, it’s not sufficient to fix just one and it’s not sufficient to address just one problem.

Is anyone going to be accountable now, or when it’s too late?

#dublin #belmayne #fire safety #timber frame #construction

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