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lluvguts · 3 years

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Cool Blue ; Chapter One

⤹⋆⸙͎۪۫｡˚۰˚☽˚⤹⋆⸙͎۪۫｡˚۰˚☽˚⤹⋆⸙͎۪۫｡˚

through sunsets we wander

⤹⋆⸙͎۪۫｡˚۰˚☽˚⤹⋆⸙͎۪۫｡˚۰˚☽˚⤹⋆⸙͎۪۫｡˚

☽ warnings: none

☽ fic masterlist

⤹⋆⸙͎۪۫｡˚۰˚☽˚⤹⋆⸙͎۪۫｡˚۰˚☽˚⤹⋆⸙͎۪۫｡˚

By the time Alberto had rowed out into the furthest stretch of waters toward that quaint little island he'd been eyeing for months, it was already nearing dinnertime. He promised his foster father, Massimo, and younger sister, Giulia, he would return to the Marcovaldo home with a lovely new piece for their kitchen or else Massimo's hearty dish of alfredo wouldn't be served to him.

Alberto had grinned at the promise. He knew that even if he came home with a stick figure drawing of himself, sitting cheekily on a beach someplace, they'd hang it on the icebox and love it regardless.

He'd done a few paintings of the sunset from their home, sure, but it was the beautiful curve of greenery this approaching island offered that Alberto just couldn't refuse. There hung something familiar in it's many trees and overgrown bushes somehow, but Alberto just wasn't able to place it. As he neared he hurried to moor the boat by the section of the island mostly taken up by dark, porous shore rocks. He chanced to teeter at the bow before jumping onto the closest boulder, its surface nicking his heels in a few spots but he didn't mind. He hated to wear shoes ever since he was a child, and Massimo had even claimed when he'd discovered Alberto as a wide-eyed toddler, he was absolutely shoe-free. The ground was damp with the constant ebb and flow of the ocean, and for the heat seeping into Alberto's toes from the sparkling sun-kissed sand, he felt oddly at home.

Alberto glanced at the sun, hardly able to resist reaching out a hand to remark on the beauty of it. He spun back to fetch his bag of paint supplies, clutching the case to his broad chest so as not to let anything plop into the ocean. From where he was standing, precariously but full of glee on the rocky shoreline, there was a small alcove just beyond Alberto's line of sight. There were a few times he'd wished he'd brought at least a pair of sandals--or perhaps he could use his work smock and tie it around his heels--as he walked down the beach, because the ground was steadily rising in temperature as the sun baked the sand, but he tried not to complain much when there was so much to marvel around him.

He set his bag down on the ground by a rocky pool, which Alberto promptly sat beside and rolled his pantlegs up so he could dangle his ankles in the warm water. From where he sat, he was given a perfect view of the sun, creeping closer and closer to the horizon, so Alberto pulled out his pad of paper and a few pencils just to sketch for a while. He shaded the trees around him, drew each jagged rock, and perfected the way the sun kissed the ocean and left sparkling trails down the horizon. He could draw today, just to soak up the scenery and get his concepts down, then bring out the paints tomorrow. Massimo would probably joke and ruffle his already messed up head of curls once he got back, with smudged fingers and no canvas, but say all was fine. As he worked he hummed to himself, a song from some old record Giulia played on their gramophone (or, as a younger Alberto favored calling it, the magic-singing-lady-machine) after dinner and the kids were cleaning up. Still focused on the page, steadily filling, Alberto reached out a hand and groped around in his bag for an eraser without looking. When he didn't find one, he grumbled a bit and pulled his hand back, only to realize he'd shook loose a few sticks of charcoal and a paintbrush that rolled across the ground and fell, soundlessly, into the pool. The brush floated along the surface but the rest slipped below the surface.

"Merda!" Alberto hissed, trying to grapple one of the charcoals with his toes but it only sank further into the murky blue below. He shut his eyes and opened them again, more than willing to dive down there and retrieve those precious charcoal sticks. They cost him quite a few allowances and extra shifts at the Pescheria.

But then something happened that made Alberto leap from his spot and hold his dripping knees closer to his chest.

One stick of charcoal was flung from the pool and landed on the grass a few feet from Alberto's bag, soaking the ground in black. Then came up another, this time closer to Alberto. He flinched at the torrent of gravity-defying art supplies, allowing himself to inch closer to the mouth of the pool, reflecting his green eyes wide, breath held, waiting. Another reflection flashed across the pool's surface, something vibrant that made Alberto look up. But there were no trees or even a bird to cast the reflection.

Alberto let his head fall. And, blinking back at him, with the paintbrush that had been bobbing balanced on its nose, was what looked like a fish. But fish didn't have huge yellow eyes that made Alberto think of his cat at home, Machi, but not in an endearing way. Fish weren't that smart. Alberto had seen sea turtles and dolphins many times before, and they were intelligent, sure, but nothing compared to the humanlike stare this creature had fixed on him now. It stuck it's face out of the water, wincing at the harsh sunlight making its scales shine a deep teal. When its big yellow eyes trained back on Alberto, he saw the creatures features darken from underneath the water line.

"I think you dropped this," It whispered, in such a soft and shy way it made Alberto take in a ragged breath. Okay, fish definitely didn't do that. Was this thing...actually talking to him? The creature stuck its webbed fingers from the pool and took the paintbrush, staring at it for a moment before handing it out to a speechless Alberto.

"Woah! Uh...H-Hello?" Alberto breathed, gingerly taking back the brush.

The not-fish waved, only a slight shake of its hand above the surface of the water, and Alberto noticed the thin claws on the ends of its fingers.

"I'm not supposed to talk to you," It whispered again. Alberto watched the stream of bubbles that floated along the pool's surface as it talked. He still had no idea what he was conversing with, the creature seeming less and less like a fish and more as something from his imagination. It waded in the small pool, he noticed, forearms paddling softly without stirring the water. Its movements so effortless it left Alberto in awe. And if he gazed into the deeper parts of the water, he swore he saw a tail lazily lapping behind the creature.

"I...uh, I could only imagine why," Alberto squeaked. The paintbrush was still in his hands but he was now gripping it so tight his tan skin was turning white at the knuckles.

The creature stifled a giggle by placing one clawed hand to its mouth, but even still Alberto caught a glimpse of its sharp teeth. If he hadn't run away now, that was a pretty good red flag to be packing his things and high-tailing home--but he didn't. He wasn't exactly afraid of this thing staring back at him. Just a bit baffled by it, he was dying to look closer but the more Alberto craned his neck down into the pool to see, the creature shied back into the depths.

"What are you?" Alberto asked aloud, more to himself but still he knew the thing heard him. "Sorry! Was that rude? I'm not trying to be mean, but you aren't exactly the type of seal we'd see in Portorosso."

The creature's cheeks turned a darker blue, and it glared at Alberto. "I am not a seal." It hissed, its tiny lip pulled back to reveal that set of sharp teeth again.

"I get it! I get it! I said I was sorry! I'm just trying to figure this all out," Alberto scratched his head, looking back at his sketchbook for a moment.

"I don't even look anything like a seal!" It was still stuck on the stupid seal comment, with its blue eyebrows furrowed and eyes dark. The more Alberto heard the creature talk he realized, with a flush of embarrassment or something else, that it was a boy. Not a thing. Not an it.

"Okay, so you're not a seal. We've established this." Alberto was gathering his sketchbook and supplies to put back in the bag. The paintbrush was resting at the mouth of the pool. "Are you some type of...seahorse? Or an overgrown fish?"

The boy spit out a stream of water into Alberto's face.

"I'm a monster," He said promptly, his voice on the edge of staying shy or holding a grudge for the seal comment. "So...you should be afraid of me."

Alberto let out a laugh. This cute little thing? "Sure, sure. That makes much more sense." He stuck out his hand at the boy. "Well, nice to meet you, sea monster...Or, uh, whatever you are. I'm Alberto Marcovaldo."

"Alberto..." The boy repeated in a hushed voice, looking down at the water now as he said it. He flinched backward at Alberto's hand, looking up at his fingers with burning yellow eyes. Without knowing much of what to do, the boy kicked his legs until he was treading the water, letting the top of his head graze Alberto's open palm. The small fins around the crown of his head brushed Alberto's hand, smooth and slippery like seaweed. Alberto decided he was quite pleased with the weird texture of it.

The boy closed his eyes and let out a small noise, the side of his face now pressed to Alberto's hand. He had a fin on his cheek that neared his fingertips, and when Alberto touched it the boy trilled, almost in greeting.

"Oh, uh, are you ok? I think you're supposed to shake my hand." Alberto stated. He found his face felt uncomfortably hot watching the weird gesture the boy had just made, and even more so at the soft noises rumbling in his throat.

For a moment the creature considered extending his hand and taking Alberto's outstretched fingers, but stopped with a low growl, blushing blue.

"I'm--ugh! I'm not even supposed to be out here!" He wailed. "If they find me out here with, with a land monster? My mom's gonna kill me! I've uh, I've got to go, so um..." The boy looked at Alberto's paintbrush sitting within his reach and took it.

"Goodbye."

He ducked back under the water. In a second his head of blue fins dashed back up.

"Forever."

Land monster? Alberto could laugh. He'd never heard that one before. But he scanned the mess before him, the slimy puddle of water next to his leg that the boy had left when he took (stole) his paintbrush, the droplets scattered along his sketchbook, all blazing in angry red as the sun finished its journey along the sky.

Alberto scrambled up from his spot, mentally slapping himself. He had a hard time rowing the boat this far out while it was daytime, it was sure going to be hell finding his way home in the near darkness. As he stumbled along the shore and dropped his things into the boat, he wondered if he had the right paint colors for the boy's eyes.

Wait, he hadn't even gotten his name! Do sea monster-things have names? Like humans do? Oh, what did it matter? The boy said he could never come back to the island again. Their awkward five minute interaction was all they had. But Alberto was still stewing it all over as he made his way back to Portorosso, now relying on the oil lamp beside him and the glowing stars above.

/ / /

"Figlio, you're late."

Alberto rushed to hang up his bag and wash his hands. Giulia seemed to have been stuck with doing Alberto's dinner chores in his absence, setting the table and pouring waters. When he passed her she stuck her tongue out at him and smashed his offending pinky toe with her sandal.

"Ouch!" Alberto steeled his eyes at her from across the table, but she only grinned devilishly. Massimo was still expecting some sort of apology for almost missing dinner so he cleared his throat and pulled back the chair for his father to sit. "Sorry, Papa. The place where I set up my paints was pretty far, and I got carried away and lost track of time."

"Blech, Alberto, you stupido, at least change your clothes...you reek like fish..." Giulia sneered as Massimo handed them their plates.

"Hush, Giulia." Signor Marcovaldo gave her a small pat on her shoulder then turned to Alberto. All concern lost, he asked. "Where did you go to paint?"

"The island...?" Alberto chanced a look across his water glass to see their equal expression of shock and horror.

"The island?" Giulia shrieked. She let her fork fall and alfredo sauce splattered on the table cloth. "Fratello, that place is swarming with monstro marino!"

"Sea monsters, really Giulia?" Alberto tried to sound calm, but his heart rate picked up. "There's no such thing."

"Actually, Alberto, there is." Massimo pointed to the newspaper clippings decorating one kitchen wall, still frames of what appeared to be creatures with glistening teeth and bloodied scales.

"But Papa, those papers are fake! You said so yourself! Ercole's father only made those to scare people." Alberto argued.

"They are a menace to this town." Massimo stared into his plate of pasta. "My only hope is that you never get to see so yourself. They are killers."

Well, the one I met today didn't seem like a bloodthirsty monster, Alberto wanted to spit back, but held his tongue.

"Did you at least get to draw anything?" Giulia asked. Alberto sighed, glad they let the subject on sea monsters drop for the time being.

"Y-Yeah! I actually did," He boasted, rising from the table to fetch his bag. He undid the latch and took out his sketchbook, walking while flipping the latest page open for Giulia and Massimo to see.

Giulia's eyes widened and she barked out a laugh. Massimo smiled faintly, giving Alberto a solitary thumbs up.

"What? What are you laughing about?" Alberto turned the paper around and gasped. The entire page was warped and still damp, the lovely pencil drawings now only faint grey smears along the paper.

"That's-That's not funny!" Alberto growled at Giulia, who was wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. "It was the boat! A wave must have hit the side, or something!"

"Oh, yeah, Alberto. Blame the boat," Giulia giggled.

Alberto huffed and slumped back into his seat. That sea monster.

Machiavelli sashayed into the kitchen, smelling the dinner on the table or perhaps the laughter lightening the air. He curled up next to Alberto's leg on the ground, rubbing his cheek and whiskers along his bare ankle, purring for a taste of the alfredo sauce.

"No, Machi. You can't eat human food." Alberto chastened him, nudging his face away from the table leg. Giulia laughed harder.

"Hah! He smells the fish on you, 'Berto! Were you taking a swim with Papa's catch today, hmm?"

"Giulia, I said that was enough!"

He smells the sea monster on me, Alberto thought. He glanced down at Machi again and stiffened when he realized his purrs had really been growls.

/ / /

"Oh, Giuseppe, I'm so stupid!" Luca dropped his head into his hands and a flurry of bubbles chased his fins. "I can't believe I actually talked to him!"

The school of fish floated beside Luca, unblinking. Giuseppe, the goatfish in interrogation, only blew a tired bubble from his mouth and huddled closer to Luca.

"I saw these weird sticks floating into the water, and they stained the water black like those oil spills Momma had warned be about, but still I went to see what it was!" Luca took Giuseppe by the hand and cradled him to his chest. "I wasn't expecting to see a land monster up there. I just didn't want those things in the water."

"But," Luca continued to himself, as his herd of fish were clearly unable to do much of anything, least of all lend him advice. "That weird stick with the soft thing at the end was really pretty, Giuseppe. It was purple! The wood was purple! How did he do that?"

"It was Alberto that did that, I think. He painted it purple." Luca jumped up in glee, then floated gracefully back onto the rock he'd been sitting on, giggling at the dark sea above.

"Ugh!" Luca was a ball of emotions. "How could I be such an idiota? I took something from The Surface! I had to hide it, of course, but still!" He pet Giuseppe's scales and the goatfish blew some bubbles in Luca's face to calm him down. "He looked so much different than the way Momma talks about the land monsters. Alberto wasn't scary...he didn't have a harpoon, so that's a good sign, right?"

Luca looked to Giuseppe, and sighed. "I don't know what's happening to me..." Luca murmured to himself, gingerly touching his face and remarking how warm it was in the cool ocean water. It had been like that when Alberto was watching him too, with those bright green eyes. Green like the sea glass Luca had collecting on the rocky ledge of his bedroom cave. When he stared at Alberto, something tingled in his belly, burning low and delightful. He knew what that meant, though he tried to press it down into his abdomen until the feeling eventually drifted away.

"Oh, sharks, I'm just a dumb little crab, aren't I? I even tried to scent him! But I couldn't help it! That land monster smelled so...different. Like the sun, you know? All warm and fuzzy...it was so sweet. Oh, if Momma finds out about this...It's not good, Giuseppe. Not good at all."

"Luca, tesoro it's time for dinner!" Signore Paguro called from a few yard away in the Paguro home. Luca gasped and a trail of frightened bubbles drifted pass his eyes. He grabbed his moss-covered staff and herded the school into a more manageable spot for the night, and swam toward home.

#luca #luca movie #luberto #luberto fanfiction #luca paguro #luca fanfiction #alberto scorfano #luca x alberto #luca and alberto #luca 2021 #gay fish boys #luca pixar #disney luca

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brezchez · 3 years

Text

~~~

Feelings

Logicality, High School AU 💙🖤

~~~

TW: None

Pairing(s): Logicality, background Prinxiety

Word Count: 2,016

Logan stared at Patton as he worked away with his math homework. He was biting the tip of his pencil, staring down at his book focused and concentrated. A few strands of his soft, caramel curls fell down in front of his slipping glasses and as he pushed them back up, Logan refrained from brushing them out of the way himself. He felt his face getting warmer and warmer the longer he stared at the boy opposite him and his heart skipped a beat when Patton tilted his head. Perhaps Virgil and Roman were right; was he able to feel emotions after all?

Finally realizing how long he had been staring for, Logan quickly snapped himself out his trance, readjusted his tie and glasses and resumed with the task at hand.....only to be distracted once again a few moments later. Patton's hand was outstretched on the table, just within in reaching distance for Logan to place his on it. It was dusted with freckles, just like his face and Logan so desperately wanted to hold it, but no. They were both meant to be doing work, and that was what he should have been focusing on. So, he would focus on that for now.

***

"Thanks for the study session again today Logan! And thank you so much for helping me with that last question, I really couldn't get my head around it!" Patton laughed as he packed his bag, getting ready to leave.

"You're most welcome Patton. Although I do have to inquire how you would be able to 'wrap your head around something'. Your head is not flexible enough to be able to move-" he was cut off by a delicate touch to his lips.

"Remember, Lo; it's just a figure of speech," Patton giggled. He found it adorable how literally Logan took things and although most found it aggravating, he didn't mind and personally found it hilarious.

"Oh, yeah. Right," Logan replied, unconsciously blushing furiously. Patton quickly lowered his finger from the two soft lines they were once planted on. Logan expected him to move, but he didn't and he instead stayed rooted to the spot, as he stared curiously into the mocha brown eyes walled by a pair Warby Parker glasses. He felt Patton's cornflower blue eyes glide along his face where they eventually rested on his lips. His gaze flickered between Logan's eyes and his lips and he began to lean in ever...so...slightly...

"Y-You should get going now. It's getting dark." Patton's eyes widened and his eyes followed Logan's finger which pointed to the window. As he turned away for a small moment, Logan scrunched up his face, annoyed at himself for interrupting what could have been the highlight of his evening, of his life.

"Yeah. I guess I should," he said, an underlying tone of sadness was masked behind his bubbly response, "See ya tomorrow Lo-Lo!"

"S-see you."

***

"God, what was I thinking?" Logan thought out loud, getting Roman and Virgil's attention. They were sitting next to each other in front of Logan and turned around when they heard his exasperated complain. He told them what happened the night before and of course their reactions were exactly what he predicted them to be.

'You idiot!' 'Why would you stop it?!' 'Are you crazy?' 'But you were so close!' were only some of the responses.

"I dunno Lo? What were you thinking? You had a golden opportunity right there. You could have started off something amazing, but no. You just had to ruin it, didn't ya bud?"

"Now, now, now Virge. That's only gonna make him feel worse. Can't you see he's already upset with himself enough as he is?" Roman slung his arm around his boyfriend's shoulders and gestured to Logan. He was staring sadly at Patton, who was sitting a few desks away, doodling in his notebook. Virgil looked at his friend sympathetically and immediately regret what he had said.

"You're right. Sorry Logan."

Logan turned his head, nodded then smiled at Virgil, indicating that he accepted his apology before averting his gaze down to the desk.

"I want to be with him, I really do. But I just do not believe that I am able to provide him with everything he wants or needs. For starters, we're complete opposites. He's very emotional, and joyful and happy and jubilant, whereas I, on the other hand, feel nothing. Alexithymia is a figurative curse. And Patton deserves someone who is a better match to him. He deserves someone who can give him the world. That someone is clearly not me," he said, his voice stained with sorrow and sadness. Roman and Virgil looked at each other, their eyes full of pity for their closest friend. They all quickly glanced over to the boy Logan pined for, who didn't seem to notice them, and that's when Roman had had enough.

"Okay Logan. That's it," he said in a voice that was stern and loud, but quiet enough for only just the three of them to hear, "You say that you can't feel emotions, right?"

Logan was caught slightly off-guard by Roman's sudden outburst.

"W-well yes. I have told you this time and time aga-"

"Well, how do you feel when you're around Patton?"

"What?"

"How do you feel when you're around Patton?" Roman repeated. Logan stared at him for a moment, turned to Patton, and then back round to his friends.

"I....I don't know....I've never really...."

"Do you feel happy when you're around him?" Roman asked as he winked at Virgil, whose eyebrows were raised in confusion.

"Yes" Logan replied, slowly.

"Do you feel sad when you see him crying or down?"

"Yes"

"Do you feel scared when he is in danger or trouble?"

"Yes"

"Disgusted when other girls are hitting on him? Angry when people make him upset?"

"Well, y-yes I don't know what you're implying Roman."

Virgil, who had now caught onto what his boyfriend was doing, rolled his eyes and they both said in unison,

"You have feelings for him."

"What do you-" Logan's eyes widened in realisation. Virgil and Roman smiled at each other.

Roman cocked his eyebrow, "So? What you gonna do about it?"

***

Logan and Patton were studying with each other again but now Logan was unusually more nervous than he had ever been with Patton before. He twiddled his fingers and struggled not to stare at the boy opposite him.

"Hey Logan?" Patton asked, his eyes still directed at his paper, "Can you help me with this question please?"

Logan shuffled his chair over to Patton and took a look at the problem. It was a question about algebra - Patton's weakest point in math. Pointing to the paper with his pen, he explained the question and what techniques he could've used to solve it. He became so engrossed in his own conversation that he didn't notice Patton fixated on his face, paying no attention at all to what he was saying; he just listened to the velvety texture of his voice. As he finished the question, Logan raised his face, only to be met with Patton so ridiculously close to his. He felt his face heating up and leaned back quickly to stop any and all attempts he had to seize Patton's face and cover it with kisses.

"I-I'm sorry I should stop getting so up close to you. I really don't mean to. I can see that you're getting uncomfortable," Patton looked away and laughed awkwardly. Logan caught sight of this, and his heart ached at the thought that he made Patton uncomfortable, when it was in actual fact vice versa, but for good reason. He closed his books and picked up his bag.

"Thank you again for the study session Logan. I can see that I've been making you uneasy for the past few days when we do homework together. I really don't know what's come over me," he said in a quiet voice. Logan looked at him with sad eyes, fearing what he would say next.

"I........I understand if you...don't want to carry on with these anymore," Patton stood up from the table, "But I just want you to know that I loved doing this with you and that you are the best teacher I've ever had." He forced a smile then turned to walk away from the door.

Logan opened his mouth to say something, but no noise came out. He watched silently as Patton moved further away from him, seeing his last chance of happiness slipping through his fingers once again.

'So? What are you gonna do about it?'

The voice in his head yanked him forwards and he grabbed Patton's wrist, just as he was about to open the door. Patton reacted quickly to the contact, turning around, his eyes widened.

"I um..." Patton's eyebrows were raised in anticipation as Logan struggled to get his words out. He shook like a leaf and moved his grip from Patton's wrist to his hands, still staring at the ground in fear that if he looked into those blue marbles again, he'd get lost in its endless maze, and never find a way out.

It was now or never.

"Patton," Logan cleared his throat and his pulse started to quicken, "It has come to my attention, with the ever reluctant help of Roman and Virgil, that I um.....I have feelings...for.....you. Well, it was only implied by them. Frankly I don't know what these feelings are, and I never knew that I had any. Emotions are a.....complicated concept." He slowly lifted his gaze from off of the floor and raised his head. As soon as he met his gaze, their eyes were instantly locked and Logan softly gripped Patton's hand.

"But.....whenever we're apart I always have this unknown urge to be near you again. I constantly want to be by your side, and......even when we are together I don't feel like we are close enough."

Patton opened his mouth to say something but was quickly cut off by Logan; he hadn't finished and wanted to get everything out first before it all went down the figurative drain.

"And about what you said earlier: you could never make me uncomfortable and I apologize if I made you feel uneasy in any way. My responses to you, my stuttering, my nervousness, was all due to the fact that I, allegedly, had feelings for you. These moments with you, I cherish, because.....I love being with you. You make me feel.......emotions," Logan looked down and furrowed his eyebrows as he realized that what Roman and Virgil had said was in fact all true and he was.....

In love with Patton.

He looked back up and saw Patton, beaming at him. A few tears stained his cheeks, which made Logan worry.

"Patton? Are you okay? Why are you crying? Was it something I said?" He lifted his hand to his cheek to wipe away the tears. Patton held it as Logan stroked it softly.

"Yes. Yes it was something you said," he replied and Logan's expression became even more troubled. He widened his eyes as Patton rolled his, "But not in that way."

Patton swiftly placed one of his hands on Logan's cheek and the other on his tie and pulled them both simultaneously. Their lips connected and Logan's eyes widened in surprise, but soon closed as he sunk into the kiss, his hands finding their way to Patton's neck and waist. He felt him tug harder on his tie, pulling him deeper into the kiss, both his hands now around Patton's waist, and Patton's fingers tangled themselves in his chocolate locks. Patton eventually pulled away first and Logan couldn't help but feel a small sense of anger, sadness and lust as he reluctantly pulled away too. Patton released a relieved laugh, their foreheads touching and Logan smiled.

"Is this..." he began and Patton looked up at him, "Is this......love?" Logan stared innocently, like a puppy, into Patton's kind eyes.

Patton replied, "Yes, yes it is," and he eagerly pulled Logan back in for one more tender kiss.

#aaagggghh im making myself mushy at my own fanfic :3 #sanders sides #fanfic #logicality #prinxiety #fluff #high school au #one shot

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the-cheese-writes · 3 years

Text

Feelings ~ Logicality

(With background Prinxiety)

TW: None

Word Count: 2032

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

Logan stared at Patton as he worked away with his math homework. He was biting the tip of his pencil and staring down at his book focused and concentrated. A few strands of his soft, caramel curls fell down in front of his slipping glasses and as he pushed them back up, Logan refrained from brushing them out of the way himself. He felt his face getting warmer and warmer the longer he stared at the boy opposite him and his heart skipped a beat when Patton tilted his head. Perhaps Virgil and Roman were right; was he able to feel emotions after all?

"Remember, Lo; it's just a figure of speech," Patton giggled. He found it adorable how literally Logan took things and though most found it aggravating, he didn't mind and personally found it hilarious.

"Oh, yeah. Right," Logan replied, unconsciously blushing furiously. Patton quickly lowered his finger from the two soft lines they were once planted on. Logan expected the boy in front of him to move, but he didn't and he instead stayed rooted to the spot, as he stared curiously into the mocha brown eyes walled by a pair Warby Parker glasses. He felt Patton's cornflower blue eyes glide along his face where they eventually rested on his lips. Patton's gaze flickered between Logan's eyes and his lips and he began to lean in ever...so...slightly...

"Y-You should get going now. It's getting dark."

Patton's eyes widened and his gaze followed Logan's finger which pointed to the window. As he turned away for a small moment, Logan scrunched up his face, annoyed at himself for interrupting what could have been the highlight of his evening, of his life.

"Yeah. I guess I should," he said, an underlying tone of sadness was masked behind his bubbly response, "See ya tomorrow Lo-Lo!"

"S-see you."

***

'You idiot!' 'Why would you stop it?!' 'Are you crazy?' 'But you were so close!' were only some of the responses.

"I dunno Lo? What were you thinking? You had a golden opportunity right there. You could have started off something amazing, but no. You just had to ruin it, didn't ya bud?"

"Now, now, now Virge. That's only gonna make him feel worse. Can't you see he's already upset with himself enough as he is?" Roman slung his arm around his boyfriend's shoulders and gestured to Logan, staring sadly at Patton, who was sitting a few desks away, doodling in his notebook. Virgil looked at his friend sympathetically and immediately regret what he had said.

"You're right. Sorry Logan."

Logan turned his head, nodded then smiled at Virgil, indicating that he accepted his apology before averting his gaze down to the desk.

"Okay Logan. That's it," he said in a voice that was stern and loud, but quiet enough for only just the three of them to hear, "You say that you can't feel emotions, right?"

Logan was caught slightly off-guard by Roman's sudden outburst.

"W-well yes. I have told you this time and time aga-"

"Well, how do you feel when you're around Patton?"

"What?"

"How do you feel when you're around Patton?" Roman repeated. Logan stared at him for a moment, turned to Patton, and then back round to his friends.

"I....I don't know....I've never really...."

"Do you feel happy when you're around him?" Roman asked as he winked at Virgil, whose eyebrows were raised in confusion.

"Yes," Logan replied, slowly.

"Do you feel sad when you see him crying or down?"

"Yes."

"Do you feel scared when he is in danger or trouble?"

"Yes."

"Disgusted when other girls are hitting on him? Angry when people make him upset?"

"Well, y-yes I don't know what you're implying Roman."

Virgil, who had now caught onto what his boyfriend was doing, rolled his eyes and they both said in unison, "You have feelings for him."

"What do you-" Logan's eyes widened in realisation. Virgil and Roman smiled at each other.

Roman cocked his eyebrow, "So? What're you gonna do about it?"

***

"Hey Logan?" Patton asked, his eyes still directed at his paper, "Can you help me with this question please?"

Logan shuffled his chair over to Patton and took a look at the problem. It was a question about algebra - Patton's weakest point in maths. Pointing to the paper with his pen, he explained the question and what techniques he could've used to solve it. He became so engrossed in his own conversation that he didn't notice Patton fixated on his face, paying no attention at all to what he was saying; he just listened to the velvety texture of his voice. As he finished the question, Logan looked up, only to be met with Patton so ridiculously close to his. He felt his face heating up and leaned back quickly to stop any and all attempts he had to seize Patton's face and cover it with kisses.

"I-I'm sorry. I should stop getting so up close to you. I can see that you're getting uncomfortable. I really don't know what's come over me," Patton looked away and laughed awkwardly. Logan caught sight of this, and his heart ached at the thought that he made Patton uncomfortable, when it was in actual fact vice versa, but for good reason. He closed his books and picking up his bag.

"Thank you again for the study session Logan. I can see that I've been making you uneasy for the past few days when we do homework together," he said in a quiet voice. Logan looked at him with sad eyes, fearing what he would say next.

"I.....I understand if you...don't want to carry on with these anymore," Patton stood up from the table, "But I just want you to know that I loved doing this with you and that you are the best teacher I've ever had." He forced a smile then turned to walk away from the door.

Logan opened his mouth to say something, but no noise came out. He watched silently as Patton moved further away from him, seeing his last chance of happiness slipping through his fingers once again.

'So? What're you gonna do about it?'

The voice in his head yanked him forwards and he grabbed Patton's wrist, just as he was about to open the door. Patton reacted quickly to the contact, turning around with his eyes widened.

It was now or never.

"But.....whenever we're apart I always have this unknown urge to be near you again. I constantly want to be by your side, and......even when we are together I don't feel like we are close enough."

Patton opened his mouth to say something but was quickly cut off by Logan; he hadn't finished and wanted to get everything out first before it all went down the metaphorical drain.

Logan looked down and furrowed his eyebrows as he realized that what Roman and Virgil had said was in fact all true and he was.....

In love with Patton.

He looked back up and saw Patton, beaming at him. A few tears stained his cheeks, which made Logan worry.

"Patton? Are you okay? Why are you crying? Was it something I said?" He lifted his hand to his cheek to wipe away the tears. Patton held it as Logan stroked it softly.

"Yes. Yes it was something you said," he replied and Logan's expression became even more troubled. He widened his eyes as Patton rolled his.

"But not in that way."

In one swift, smooth motion, Patton placed one of his hands on Logan's cheek and the other on his tie and pulled them both simultaneously. Their lips connected and Logan's eyes widened in surprise, but soon closed as he sunk into the kiss, his hands finding their way to Patton's neck and waist. He felt him tug harder on his tie, pulling him deeper into the kiss, both his hands now around Patton's waist, and Patton's fingers tangled themselves in his chocolate locks. Patton eventually pulled away first and Logan couldn't help but feel a small sense of anger, sadness and lust as he reluctantly pulled away too.

Patton released a relieved laugh, their foreheads touching and Logan smiled.

"Is this..." he began and Patton looked up at him, "Is this......love?" Logan stared innocently, like a puppy, into Patton's kind eyes.

Patton replied, "Yes, yes it is," and he eagerly pulled Logan back in for one more tender kiss.

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

Awwww I'm getting mushy at my own fanfic :3

I didn't think it was fair to have so much angst in my previous one shot, especially with the situation regarding Patton and Logan in that AU, so here's a fluffier story. I hope you enjoyed!

~ Bre

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfic #fanfic #logicality #logan sanders #patton sanders #fluff #gay #brewrites

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oceanic-stims · 6 years

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Stim Tag!

Thought as a neat ice breaker I would try the Stim Tag, created by Ashton Daniel on YouTube. I’m definitely a big fan of them and I wanted to try it myself. Feel free to try it too if you like! Here goes!

Why do you stim?

I stim to help block out sensory input and to help regulate my emotions. I also stim to help cope with my anxiety.

When did you realize what stimming is/why you do it?

I realized what stimming was when I began looking into sensory overload after coming across a post on Facebook where someone was talking about how their anxiety would get so bad due to lights being too bright and their being too much noise ,etc., which I found relateable to my own experiences with anxiety, and someone responded saying that that sounded a lot like sensory overload.

Have you ever made a stim toy? What’s your favourite to make?

I have made a few stim toys in my time. A few years ago in science class, I made slime (I did it before it was cool :P). I’ve also made a beaded key ring using pony beads and I’ve made a stress ball by putting this really Bad™️ store-bought slime into a translucent balloon.

What’s your go to stim for…

Being happy and/or excited? Happy Flapping, bouncing, skipping

Anxiety or stress? Rocking back and forth, skin picking, tapping my fingers or foot or scratching my head

Upset? Rocking back and forth

Overwhelmed? Rocking, snapping my fingers, and if it gets bad enough I’ll start banging my head

Sensory-seeking? Finger Flicking

Any other strong emotions/feelings that make you stim?

Nope

What’s your favourite texture?

Faux fur/fuzzy things

Do you stim with your mouth at all? Do you have a chew toy or do you use something else?

I used to bite my fingers when I was anxious or upset, but I recently got the Jellyfish necklace (in iridescent blue) from Stimtastic and just the other day I got the Gem Beads necklace (in grey, white and navy blue), also from Stimtastic. Both are wonderful and I definitely recommend them.

Do you use a weighted blanket, vest, plush, etc?

Besides my chest binder, which is not weighted for safety reasons, but still makes for a good pressure stim, I don’t own any weighted items for pressure stimming. i would however love to get myself a weighted blanket in the future and I have been eyeing up stimtastics weighted stingray for a while.

What’s your favourite stim toy you have?

I’ll name off a few because I can’t choose: my tangle, hedge balls, Stimtastics concentric circles necklace, my fidget spinner and thinking putty

Is there something on your stim toy wish list?

A few things actually: a textured tangle, ARKs Krypto-bite in “ghost” (translucent), and kinetic sand.

Do you remember the first stim toy you had/have?

I remember having one of those rubber jellyfish yo-yo things, and I had a water-wiggler/snake, but I cant seem to remember anything else.

What’s your favourite body stim? Favourite visual stim?

My favourite body stim hands down has to be hand flapping. My favourite visual stim is definitely kinetic sand.

Do you have pets you like stimming with? (Petting them, cat’s purrs, etc)

My Parson Russel Terrier, Patch, has a thick, wirey coat that is pleasant to stim with sometimes. He also makes a good pressure stim when he sits on me.

Do you have echolalia and do you use it to stim at all?

I do have echolalia, but oddly enough it seems to always be the most strangest and inappropriate phrases, most of which seem to be various references to vines. I can’t explain this one...but I can say that I don’t use it to stim.

Do you watch stimmy videos and if so what’re your favourites?

I do watch stimmy videos, with my personal favourites being slime, kinetic sand, and orbeez.

What’s something not made to be a stim toy, but you use it for stimming?

The drawstrings on my hoodies and pajama bottoms for sure, as well as knead-able erasers, and silicone pencil grips.

Favourite simple stim toy, like rocks or buttons or fabric?

I often fiddle with the buttons and zippers on my shirts and jackets to stim in a more discrete manner.

Is there an everyday action you find stimmy, like skipping or brushing your hair?

I often skip or bounce when I am excited or happy, which is usually at one point or another day to day, so I guess that counts.

Are you more of a sensory seeker or avoider?

It depends on the situation really. Some days I am a seeker and others I am an avoider.

What’s your go-to stim you do without thinking about?

it would definitely have to be rocking or tpping my fingers or foot. i also find myself doing raptor hands subconsciously all the time if that counts.

#not a stim #stim tag #stimming #icebreaker #get to know the mod #about the mod #ocean #sea #sea creatures #stim blog #visual stim #tag challenge

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gallery19chicago · 4 years

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Meed4: The Power of Identity - Meet The Applicants

Gallery19 is excited to start introducing our applicants for our fourth annual juried competition, Meed4: The Power of Identity. A call for entries was put out, and a wave of applicants answered our call! We’d like to thank all that have answered us so far.

Now introducing, Jeffrey Eden

Jeff Eden is a visual artist specializing in two-dimensional works, specifically, drawing and painting. He currently resides in Bowling Green, Ohio where he is pursing his MFA in two-dimensional studio art at Bowling Green State University. A combination of happenstance and disenfranchisement with the corporate world has led him to furthering his education and focusing fully on creative endeavors after too long a period of dormancy.

Hailing from Charlestown, Rhode Island, Jeff first discovered a love of the creative arts after spending a childhood determined to master drawing his favorite Sunday comic strip characters, namely Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes. No serious consideration to it as a career was made manifest until, within his junior year of high school, Jeff stood in awe of Van Gogh’s Starry Night on a class field trip to the MoMA and also ignited a major controversy over a politically-charged sculpture he had entered into a regional competition. In a humorous twist, the piece only placed Silver, though it was without question the most-discussed. Having firsthand experienced the power of art both as a dumbstruck viewer and slightly oblivious creator, upon completion of high school, Jeff set his sights on central Ohio and earned his BFA with a concentration in drawing at Ohio Wesleyan University in 2011.

(work pictured: The Fear)

Post-graduation Jeff was afloat in the proverbial “real world.” Wanting some semblance of a creative career Jeff had a short-lived stint as a tattoo artist apprenticing under Anthony Kunce at the aptly-named Anthony Kunce Tattoos. It was an intimidating medium and Jeff enjoyed his work at the shop greatly, though due to the owner’s health, the doors had to eventually close and Jeff found himself toiling away in his longtime campus foodservice employment; a career that left him overworked, underpaid, and with nothing for a creative outlet. Countless weeks of tedium and frustration left him anxious and disenfranchised. Seeking solace in the grandeur of Ohio’s natural spaces as an avid outdoorsman reignited a creative spark that had laid dormant, and after his company lost their contract Jeff was overjoyed at the prospect of finally making the dream of continuing his art education a reality.

With fiery vigor he set about putting his outdoor immersions to canvas. A love of painting fostered by his undergraduate mentor, Frank Hobbs, became his focus and obsession and have come to form the apex of his creative endeavors and the groundwork for his graduate work forthcoming. In the short time between losing his previous, mind-numbing employment, and enrolling at Bowling Green State University, Jeff has begun the first steps to a career as a visual artist. He is presently working on innovating the way in which he paints by focusing on intense colors and textures, those elements that speak to him on a primal level and allow him to make sense of his “abstracted realities.”

You know what the most difficult thing in the world is for me? Talking about my art. I know, that doesn’t bode well for the fact that I’m doing just that but bear with me a minute. I promise to be as brief as possible. For me, there is nothing more exhilarating than the act of mark-making. If you really sit and think about it, mark-making is the cornerstone of the artistic experience. Back to when I was a kid and I first became interested in drawing, I was obsessed with mastering drawing my favorite cartoon characters; specifically, Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes. I would spend countless hours drawing them until I could do so from memory- fun fact, I still can. As I got older and practiced my drawing over and over, I eventually picked up paint brushes, I dabbled in ceramics, and even made some sculptural pieces (I’ve got a couple stories from those that I’d love to share with you sometime). I realized that the act of mark-making, both when it is successful or an utter disaster, is what fascinates and compels me above all else.

(work pictured: Space)

What about mark-making? For one, what’s not to love about the sensation of dragging a pencil or brush across a surface and making a representation of your mind’s eye? I’m always dabbling with alternative means of creating an interesting mark; be it, heavy impasto, or a calculated gentle touch, or the inclusion of eclectic media simply because intuition so directed my hand. In my figurative work I am fascinated by the simple act of making a mark and, in so doing, creating the likeness of a person. Shy and reserved by nature (that is until I break out of that, then the problem becomes shutting me up), I don’t tend to make familial connections with people readily. Being transfixed in the rendering of a person’s likeness affords me a certain “other” connection that, to me anyway, creates an intimacy that transcends simple social convention. This is true also of my time as a tattoo artist; quite literally, leaving a cherished mark on another person-the sharing of a fleeting moment of complete trust and surrender; it’s poetic, really. This is why landscape fascinates me so much: through my mark-making I create fond remembrances of places visited, taking note of elements that really struck me as fascinating, or beautiful. It’s a feeling of oneness nearly identical to my figurative work; I create a representation of a moment that becomes a part of my creative, emotional being. When rendering a landscape, my marks afford me my own little corner for meditations on the grandiosity of our natural world. In this sense, cultivating reverence is my penultimate goal. Oh sure, there’s a myriad of ways in which I could apply this to the greater cultural mindset, but really, if I could convince my viewers to sit awhile and indulge in my mark-making in such a way that it forces them to consider their own? Well, that’d be just fine with me. For me the essence of what makes something sublime is to be present in the process of making, leaving your mark upon a surface, and hopefully, leaving such a mark upon your viewers.

I think I’ve rambled on quite enough. Hope to see you on the hiking trails sometime. Until then, take care of yourself and the world around you: it’s all we have, and yes, we are all in this together. But hey, to paraphrase The Big Lebowski, “that’s just, like, my opinion, man.”

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cessanderson · 4 years

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Adding some color to the entry https://ift.tt/3bUXapx Sara @ Russet Street Reno What a strange time to be alive! With the corona virus shut down eliminating my photography business, I've been going a little crazy like most people. We are a very extroverted and social family, so we've been trying to get outside to say hi to neighbors, but still be safe. In all this uncertainty, I have found myself very uninterested in editing photos I've taken of my kids, being on the computer for any length of time, and being creative in general. I just have lacked the drive, and the kids (and cleaning up after them) take up so much of my time! Luckily, I finally have a project that got me excited to share. For the last five years, I've been walking in my front door and staring at an empty wall at the bottom of the stairs. Like this....

I bought a few items for this wall a few years ago (haha classic Sara move) and they have sat in a basket since then. My problem was that I wanted to add color to this little wall, but I didn't want to continue the color ALL the way down to the family room since it's all connected. I dreamed up trim/ moldings, sharpie designs, all kinds of ways to stop the color here...but nothing really resonated with me. Then I saw some wall inspiration in one of my photography groups, and this idea was born. I love it so much!

I love making our ugly raised ranch cute ONE SPACE AT A TIME! The idea of this technique is to blur the line between the two colors (usually white, but SW Popular Gray in my case) with paper towels and brushes, and make a watercolor type design. When I first decided I wanted to do this, I took stock of the paint samples I had in my house to minimize my time at Home Depot. I had these three colors and a quart of my popular gray paint to try it out on cardboard: from top to bottom, BM Hale Navy, BM Newburg Green, and SW Gale Force that we used in our master bath in Minnesota.

Hale Navy was too purple-y/navy, Newburg was too green (but I still liked it a lot) and Gale Force was the best of both worlds! I didn't quite have enough to do the project, so I made a quick trip to Home Depot and vowed to never go back until things were back to normal. We also needed a new wax ring for our main bathroom because our toilet was leaking, so I justified my 'essential' trip that way. I bought this quart and a whole gallon of SW Creamy for our main bathroom, which is a very boring post for another day. We did end up replacing our very first was ring, and we were successful! Here is my starting point for this project:

I recommend lightly drawing in pencil where you want the 'line' to go ahead of time, I didn't do that at first and the second wall turned out much better with a guideline! I put the gray right next to my wet line, and then used a paper towel to smear the colors around.

I also used a flat brush that I got with my fusion mineral paints, it worked nice for the more 'sponge painted' areas.

In hindsight, I should've applied the gray to the entire wall on the right side before doing this part. It's also tricky because the dark colors require two coats, and it's almost impossible to do that after it dries without seeing the shiny brush strokes where you touched it up! I look at it as extra texture and not a big deal.

I tried to add areas where the white went farther into the blue to add interest, some work better than others, but I love the randomness of it all.

Stupidly, I forgot to take photos of the wall without the other elements up, so I apologize. I was so eager to add my decor! The star is a Smallwoods wooden sign, which is a photo I took during our trip to Rocky Mountain National park last year. I love this, because I didn't want anything with glass to show a strong glare as this area is hit with sunlight all day. I chose a portrait crop to fit into the blue part of the wall better and leave more room for my shelf and hooks. As you can see, Smallwoods added saturation, exposure, and changed the coloring of the mountains to be quite aqua, which is sort of disappointing. However, it still looks beautiful so I won't complain too much.

The shelf is another one of the cool acrylic shelves from CB2 that I used in my office nook. I love these shelves, and they are so great for tight areas where you can't have a shelf stick out too far. They are also great for containing things with the tall raised edge. I love leaning photo frames against them, and I'm on the hunt for the perfect frame(s) since this one is just a placeholder.

The hooks were a Target find, and they are amazing quality and price! I made a simple template out of posterboard to make sure they were lined up correctly. I spaced them out to perfectly fit under the 24" shelf, then poked holes through the paper and attached this to the wall in order to drill.

I love how solid these are! I used a very small drill bit to make the holes, so I didn't even need to use anchors. The thought of putting 8 anchors into the wall was not appealing. Side note, the center screw of the shelf did catch a stud, so I didn't use anchors for those, either!

It turned out exactly as I had pictured in my mind. Love the texture of the white paint behind the decor. I did choose to keep decor elements simple as the wall painting is a busy feature in itself!

And after this wall was done, I realized I needed to continue this over the door to the other wall. It just didn't make sense all alone, but once I did the stair wall, it was perfect!

I did a slight 'wave' shape with the blue, and it's beautiful! I love how this technique allows me to keep my house mostly light with just a small amount of drama painted on.

Here are some glamour shots!

It looks pretty with the light on, too. I love this light, even though it barely clears the door.

Here are some before and afters of this fun little redo!

Just for fun, here is a throw back 'before' and after! Oh em gee, those were dark times. Literally.

Let me know what you think of my little project! Hope you all are safe and healthy!

#Russet Street Reno

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chimneypainter · 5 years

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Some ladies have a great deal of shoes, others prefer to spend their hard-earned cash on nice handbags. Some gather kitchen area gizmos, books, hours at crossfit, or felines. Me? I gather paint. My entrance storage room holds all my paint supplies and is currently house to nearly eighty canisters of paint, stain, sealer, as well as spray paint. I understand, ludicrous ... you do not have to tell me. My point is that for many years I have learned a whole lot concerning painting as well as have some suggestions that will certainly make painting a space easier, quicker, and also much less messy!

SPACE PAINTING IDEAS & METHODS 1. SKIP THE TAPE Area paint ideas and also methods

Painters tape is great for a great deal of points, but when it involves repainting a room painters tape is essentially the most awful. It takes forever to tape a room and you need to utilize a lot of it. If you have actually textured wall surfaces as well as ceilings (like I do), then forget it ... paint is going to leakage under it anyway. If you have a stable hand (and even if you don't) I advise missing the tape and also making use of an excellent tilted brush instead, (this one is my outright fave) this not only offers you a lot more control however need to conserve you a ton of time (as well as money).

2. ALWAYS GET THE STUBBY BRUSH Which paintbrush is finest?

The kind of brush you utilize when paint actually makes a significant difference.The economical ones do not offer you a smooth finish, plus they dropped like crazy and also leave behind bristles as you repaint. I have actually tried virtually every brush out there and my absolute favorite is this set by Wooster. There is something regarding the squat manage that uses it extremely very easy. The angle is excellent for reducing in and the bristles are high quality. It's the only brush I purchase currently (unless I'm making use of an oil based product, after that I use disposable foam brushes). Additionally, it's excellent for getting involved in limited rooms, like when you paint furniture.

3. USE FLOETROL How to provide furniture a silky smooth finish (as well as lots of various other terrific pointers!).

This idea is actually a lot more for paint furnishings, trim, and also cabinets than walls, yet it's so excellent I can't not include it. Floetrol is a liquid paint conditioner that prolongs the drying out time of latex paint, which just about gets rid of any type of brush marks and gives you a completely smooth coating. It's amazing. Likewise, it's economical and easy to find. It's a have to have for any DIYer.

4. YOU'RE NOT ALSO GREAT TO USE A DROPCLOTH. dropcloths aren't simply for untidy people (and lots of various other stuff you never ever found out about paint).

I like to take shortcuts. I such as to begin tasks without doing appropriate preparation work, even if I'm wish to repaint a bit of my new color to see what it appears like ... which obviously morphs right into full-fledged paint. Making use of a dropcloth is not something you ought to skip though. Also if you have a damp rag to wipe up drips or never even drip in any way, you till require a dropcloth. Reason being is that when you make use of a roller, each time pull it across the wall it spins as well as sprays teeny small streaks of paint throughout your floor. Trust me ... I have a few multicolor floorings as well as a multicolor counter top. Evidence ...

This is why you must utilize a dropcloth.

These teensy paint flecks are so tiny you would certainly never also notice them ... that is until you observe them, then you will certainly never be able to unnotice them and they will drive you insane. They don't come off conveniently either, or in any way in my instance. So save on your own a headache as well as use a dropcloth.

Likewise, while we get on the topic, here is one more reason dropcloths are necessary. When Adam and also I were couples we lived in a teensy little apartment in northern New york city. One of the very first things I asked when looking at the apartment or condo was if I was allowed to paint the walls, to which I obtained an extremely quick "NO, never." So later that week Adam and also I remain in our brand-new apartment or condo, painting. It's cold and snowy outside and also I'm using my common paint clothes as well as a good thick pair of winter months socks. We're about finished with the first wall surface in our new (carpet) living-room when the phone rings. I rush across the space to the phone and action directly right into the paint tray with my very absorptive wintertime sock. I made it a couple of actions prior to I realize what took place, whereupon I freak out, jump around on my clean foot, as well as be up to the ground, slinging paint from my sock sponge the entire time. Adam couldn't decide if he intended to laugh or be totally frightened ... luckily everything occurred over a dropcloth so giggling was an appropriate reaction. Anyway, this is another reason to use a dropcloth, because I make certain this very same situation plays out in living spaces throughout the nation. (This is where you nod your head in agreement).

5. PUT YOUR PAINTBRUSH IN THE FRIDGE. maintain your paintbrush from drying out with this method (and also great deals of various other painting pointers!).

If your life is anything like mine, after that painting occurs in about five-minute increments over the course of a week approximately. It appears that as soon as you obtain your rhythm and also start making development among your youngsters needs a treat, or a drink, assistance going potty, or a full-on quarrel breaks out over a pencil or a rubber band or something else completely absurd. When this occurs you have a couple of choices, you can rinse your brush and help your kids, ignore your children and wish that yelling orders/threats will be sufficient, or place your brush down as well as hope you come back prior to it dries. That is exactly how painting operated at my house till I was reminded of a trick I made use of to do ... place your brush in a ziplock bag as well as put it in the fridge. You can place it in there for approximately a week and it will be flawlessly functional. This saves A Lot time (as well as paint). You can additionally use this method with rollers, simply cover them in saran wrap or place them in a grocery store bag with a rubber band around the manage.

6. LINE YOUR PAINT TRAY WITH TIN FOIL. Make painting much easier as well as less messy with this easy trick!

Right here is an additional idea for easy paint tidy up ... wrap your paint tray in tin foil prior to pouring in the paint. After that when you're done you can just ball it up as well as throw it away. I've also done this with trash can, but I choose tin aluminum foil given that the bags have a tendency to move a lot.

7. PAINT CANISTER LIDS WITH SPOUTS ARE AMAZING. Space Painting Idea.

So you're ready to paint your space. You split open your paint can and also put the paint right into your paint tray. Immediately paint is diminishing the side of your paint can and additionally loads the rim. You recognize you can let the paint being in the rim or else you will never ever obtain it shut, so you run your finger around the rim, causing more paint to leak down the can. "whatever" you think "let's simply paint already". When you've ended up paint one of two things happen ... either the paint left in the rim is still wet, as well as when you pound the metal lid back on the wet paint comes flying out and splatters on your face, OR the edge paint is dry as well as you spend an embarrassingly huge portion of time attempting to dig it out with a screwdriver to ensure that the lid will shut.

I'm right here to inform you, there's a better way. Take 3 of your hard-earned dollars and purchase a paint can cover with a spout. The first time you utilize it you will understand that your pre-paint lid self was a pinhead. The red paint covers by Shur-Line are my absolute favored due to the fact that the spout folds down totally flat and also you can still stack your 57 paint cans effortlessly.

8. ANY COLOR, ANY BRAND NAME. Tips and Tricks for repainting a space. Do you recognize that you don't need to buy paint colors from the shop that makes them? Truly, it's true, I do it constantly. Allow's say you fall for a paint color at Benjamin Moore however don't want to pay Benjamin Moore costs. You can go to Home Depot or Lowes and also ask to blend that shade for you in among their brand names. You do not even need a paint chip, just tell the staff member at the paint counter the name of the shade you want from one more paint store, they can make it. Paint stores have each others formula kept in their computer systems simply for this reason, I've done this a ton as well as never had an issue. Do you instantly feel so totally free knowing this? So go ahead and also love those Benjamin Moore or Sherwin Williams shades that are $60 a gallon and also get the exact same color for half the rate at the equipment store.

9. ALWAYS BUY A PAINT EXAMPLE FIRST. Interior paint guidance.

I don't know why, however this has actually been a tough lesson for me to find out. I like to assume that bringing paint chips home as well as taping them to the wall is sufficient, however you can not obtain a real feeling of a shade with a teeny small paint chip. Examples are $3 each (at the very least in the house Depot) and also are 100% worth it. That's not all though ... when you get the sample house, make use of the entire point! Painting a solitary brush stroke will not give you a great feeling for the color, particularly there is already a shade on your wall. I just recently repainted the primary hallway in my residence and bought 3 paint samples, repainted a percentage of each one in a couple of places, chose, as well as wound up disliking the end result. Therefore the factor I haven't mentioned it on the blog site yet.

So there you have it, nine painting tips and tricks that I learned by hand. I seem like I require a tenth one to round it out but I'm currently attracting a blank. I make sure next time I paint I'll identify one more one ... that's the method it seems to go around here. Anyhow, leave as well as appreciate tidy, easy, frustration-free painting!

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your-dietician · 3 years

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Billie Eilish and the Pursuit of Happiness

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Billie Eilish and the Pursuit of Happiness

210413_ROLLING_STONE_06_1486_v4-billie-opener – Credit: Yana Yatsuk for Rolling Stone

From the outside, the house isn’t terribly different from others on the block: a cozy bungalow in L.A.’s Highland Park neighborhood with an old lilac tree blooming near the entrance. In fact, it’s legendary: the place where a prodigal teenager and her older brother recorded the album that made Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell the queen of Gen-Z pop.

It’s a location familiar to any Eilish fan, and at first glance on an absurdly beautiful day in April, not much appears to have changed about the house in the couple of years since it became famous, along with its teenage occupant. The O’Connell family’s rescue dog, Pepper, trudges through the backyard, now joined by Eilish’s year-old rescue, Shark, a gray pit bull. Signs of home-schooling linger in common areas, like an old-fashioned pencil sharpener attached to the wall and dingy supplies precariously placed on a desk.

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But look closer, and plenty is different. For starters, contemporary pop’s most famous home studio, set up in the childhood bedroom of Billie’s brother Finneas, is no longer a studio. Instead, the siblings’ mom, Maggie Baird, has taken over the space. “It still looks similar. There’s just no equipment,” Billie insists as she greets me in her kitchen, gathering ingredients and utensils for the cookies she wants to bake. Her mom’s added a blue rug to the bedroom and sleeps there with their cat, Misha. “We kept [the studio] for a while, then we were like ‘We don’t need this,’ ” Eilish says.

Finneas moved out a couple of years ago, settling down in Los Feliz with his influencer girlfriend Claudia Sulewski. He constructed a new studio in his basement, where he and Eilish began recording music last year. Eilish is, at first, cagey about admitting that she’s moved out as well. “I’m secretive about what’s really going on,” she offers conspiratorially, rummaging around the cabinets of her parents’ kitchen like a college student visiting home on a long weekend. “It’s been a couple of years now where I’ve been doing my own thing. But secretly, because nobody needs to know that.”

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Eilish hasn’t been totally lying about where she lives; she still spends a lot of nights in her childhood bedroom. “I just love my parents, so I want to be around them,” she says, shrugging. Maggie and her husband, Patrick O’Connell, buzz in and out of the kitchen, commenting on the cookie baking and helping Eilish use the old oven. Eilish is sporting her new blond-bombshell look. A 180 from her formerly signature black-with-green-roots ’do, the new hair caused an uproar when she debuted it on Instagram in March. Today it’s damp from a shower, and she’s cozied up in a black T-shirt from her own merch store, along with a pair of matching sweats. On today’s menu are vegan, gluten-free peanut-butter-and-chocolate-chip cookies. She’s reading off an old recipe displayed on a food-stained printout that has clearly been well-utilized over the years. Eilish used to make them whenever she was sad. “It was a therapeutic thing for me,” she explains.

It’s been a while since she’s made the cookies (“You’re seeing history,” she teases). She’s found other ways to process her feelings, namely through writing her second album, Happier Than Ever, which is due out July 30th. The title is no fiction: She has, in fact, felt happier than she ever had before. But like a lot of things in her life, it’s not quite that simple.

“Almost none of the songs on this album are joyful,” Eilish explains, refuting the possibility that her second album is the bright, cheery counterpoint to 2019’s When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? The Babadook-inspired debut conjured up vivid memories of night terrors and lucid dreams over textures ranging from industrial electro-pop to jazzy ballads. Her videos were just as dark, full of spiders and black tears covering her face.

On the surface, Happier Than Ever is a different kind of nightmare. Emotional abuse, power struggles, and mistrust — stories drawn from Eilish’s life and the lives of people she knows — take up much of the lyrics, alongside musings on fame and fantasies of secret romantic rendezvous. The sound is mellowed out from the haunted-house sprawl of her debut: lush, somber, mesmerizing electronic soundscapes trickle down your spine, right along with Eilish’s words.

And yet, even on the darkest songs there are moments of reflection, growth and, most important, hope. This is an album from someone who began to heal long before she wrote it. Or at least tried to.

“Have you ever gotten stung on your head by a bee?”

Eilish mentions she got stung “like 20 times” on a camping trip when she was eight or nine. It’s a story she’s told before. “I don’t know why that popped into my head,” she says. “Why did that pop into my head? I have no idea.”

She posed the question after a bit of mesmerized silence as we watched Shark go to town on an empty can of peanut butter. Eilish doesn’t like silence; she even narrates the cookie baking like a food vlogger. She shows me how to make oat flour (“It’s literally oats on their own; pour them in this thing [a Vitamix blender], full power”) and figuring out the right chocolate chip to peanut-butter-dough ratio. (“Some people like too many. I like too little.”)

“I can’t go to the bathroom without watching something on my phone,” she says. “I can’t brush my teeth. I can’t wash my face.” Over the past year she rewatched a lot of things: Sherlock, The Office “probably like six times,” New Girl “like four times,” Jane the Virgin. There was also time for Good Girls, Killing Eve, The Flight Attendant, The Undoing, and Promising Young Woman “like four times.”

“It’s all on my phone,” she explains. She rarely watches anything on TV, except The Twilight Saga, which she took in for the first time recently, with a friend. “I just watch it while I do anything because it takes my mind off the reality of life. I should go on My Strange Addiction,” she says, coincidentally referencing her 2019 song of the same name (which, by the way, samples dialogue from The Office).

Eilish can’t really go outside anymore. There are paparazzi and creeps waiting for her every move, and some have threatened her safety to the point that she needed a restraining order against them. The instant recognizability of her When We All Fall Asleep-era look — bright-green hair, oversize clothes, saucer-like ocean eyes — helped keep her caged. She grew resentful: “I was a kid and I wanted to do kid shit. I didn’t want to be not able to fucking go to a store or the mall. I was very angry and not grateful about it.”

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When We All Fall Asleep and the image she projected at the time marked her uniqueness from the rest of the pop world. But those things also cemented a view of her she’d love to leave behind. I mention an instruction during a musical challenge on a recent season of RuPaul’s Drag Race where a competing drag queen was told the song she was performing was “very Billie Eilish.”

“What do they think when they think that? Do they think what the internet thinks, which is whispering or whatever the fuck people say? Anytime I see an impression on the internet, it just reminds me how little the internet knows about me. Like, I really don’t share shit. I have such a loud personality that makes people feel like they know everything about me and they literally don’t at all.” She wants people to understand a few things: “That I can sing. That I’m a woman. That I have a personality.” Happier Than Ever offers a statement on all of the above.

“Anytime I hear somebody say, ‘Oh, your songs sound the same,’ it gets me. That’s one thing I really try hard to not do. I think the people that say that have literally only heard ‘Bad Guy’ and ‘Therefore I Am.’ ” Both of those songs feature Eilish’s tendency for muted, moody sing-rapping. These days, she’s channeling the jazziness in her voice, a timbre honed from years of touring, on songs like “My Future” and “Your Power.”

Eilish’s privacy was more precious than she had initially realized. She put a lot of herself out for the world to consume early in her career, when she was an “annoying 16-year-old” (her words) trying to engage with her fandom the way she wanted her favorite artists like Justin Bieber to do back when she was a preteen fan. “It’s sad because I can’t give the fans everything they want,” she says. “The bigger I’ve gotten, the more I understand why [my favorite celebrities] couldn’t do all the things I wanted them to do.”

She struggles to find the right way to frame it. “It wouldn’t make sense to people who aren’t in this world. If I said what I was thinking right now, [the fans] would feel the same way I did when I was 11. They’d be like, ‘It would be so easy. You could just do it.’ No. It’s crazy the amount of things you don’t think about before it’s right in front of you.”

Eilish describes her life as “normal as hell,” and at times, it is. She’s watching Twilight. Going on first dates again, as discreetly as possible. Getting first tattoos (she got a giant black dragon on her right thigh in November and “Eilish,” in an ornate, gothic font, in the middle of her chest the day after the 2020 Grammys). “That’s why it’s hilarious when I see, like, ‘10 reasons why we think Billie -Eilish is in the illuminati,’ ” she says. “I’m like, you know how regular I am, dude?”

She wants to share more details with her fans, but the thought makes her nervous. The songs on Happier Than Ever are buzzing with the fear of “interviews, interviews, interviews,” of the names of abusers or toxic friends being forever tied to her, of her own words coming back to haunt her.

“I wish that I could tell the fans everything I think and feel and it wouldn’t live on the internet forever. And be spoken about and called problematic, or called whatever the fuck anybody wants to call any thoughts that a human has,” she explains. “The other sad thing is that they don’t actually know me. And I don’t really know them, but obviously we’re connected. The problem is you feel like you know somebody, but you don’t. And then it’s like, yeah. It’s just a lot.”

We move outside, to the sole picnic table in the yard, and enjoy the warm, crumbly peanut butter cookies. Shark finds a particularly bright patch of sunlight to lie in. Suddenly, he hops up and runs along the fence, in response to the barks of a neighbor’s dog that he desperately wants to befriend. Eilish is a bit jealous.

“Don’t you just wish that was you?”

billie eilish rolling stone cover

“My mom was saying this yesterday,” Eilish says. “When you’re happier than ever, that doesn’t mean you’re the happiest that anyone’s ever been. It means you’re happier than you were before.”

After an adolescence plagued with depression, body dysmorphia, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts, Eilish started feeling better in the summer of 2019, while on tour in Europe. It was shortly after the release of When We All Fall Asleep, and she was seeing a therapist, had just broken up with a boyfriend, and was joined on the road with one of her best friends (as well as, of course, her parents and brother). “I was thriving,” she says. “I felt exactly like who I was. Everything around me was exactly how it was supposed to be. I felt like I was getting better. I felt happier than ever. And I tried to continue that.”

Early 2020 was a whirlwind. Eilish swept the Big Four categories at the Grammys and started a headlining tour that would have eaten up most of her year. She was more excited than she had been for previous tours, which left her with sprained ankles, shin splints, and chronic pain. She played all of three dates before the pandemic forced her to cancel the rest.

Eilish kind of got to say goodbye to the When We All Fall Asleep era (and the look that helped make her famous) at the Grammys this year, performing the one-off single “Everything I Wanted” with Finneas. Happier Than Ever was nearly complete, but she wasn’t yet ready to show off her new blond look. So she hid it beneath a green-and-black wig. “It was weird,” she reflects. “I was playing this former Billie Eilish with green hair, singing a song from a year and a half prior, while I have 16 new songs that I haven’t put out yet. The fans didn’t really even know that it was a goodbye to an era. That’s kind of heartbreaking but endearing at the same time.”

Recorded as the world went on pause, Happier Than Ever was an opportunity to dig into her personal trauma. “I went through some crazy shit, and it really affected me and made me not want to go near anyone ever,” she says, though she declines to give details.

Like everything Eilish does, the lyrics are sure to spark debate, side-eye emojis, and conspiracy theories as people ponder who she’s singing about. The songs are a mosaic of experience, ripped from her own life and those of people she knows. They juggle deadbeats, secret lovers, emotional abusers. Eilish won’t name names or get into specifics, and she’s quick to remind that this is not just her life she’s talking about. But she also says the stories in the new songs are more honest than When We Fall Asleep, which she describes as “almost all fictional.”

Eilish says she’s letting go of the Old Billie, who would tuck away her own emotions to make others feel better. “There’ve been times where I’ve been really affected by somebody, and I said to them, ‘I need to tell you how you’ve made me feel.’ And they said something that was like, ‘I can’t handle this right now. I just can’t handle this right now. This is going to be too much for me.’ ”

She says she spent so long “being fucked with” and had to realize that while the toxic traits she sings about were often born out of pain, that doesn’t make it OK. “I was talking to a friend about their life, and they told me all this crazy traumatizing shit that happened to them. And I’m like, ‘Oh, right, you don’t have to treat everyone like a piece of garbage, just because you’ve been hurt.’ It’s OK to be traumatized by something and have bad instincts, but also, there’s no excuse for abusing people. There just is not. I feel like everything is excuses all the time. Excuses, excuses.”

Album opener “Getting Older” was particularly harrowing to write. “Wasn’t my decision to be abused,” she sings over a delicately plucking synth beat. By the end, she lays bare what’s on her mind. “I’ve had some trauma/Did things I didn’t wanna/Was too afraid to tell ya/But now I think it’s time.” Eilish recognizes how shocked listeners may be by the rawness of the song. “I had to take a break in the middle of writing that one, and I wanted to cry, because it was so revealing. And it’s just the truth.”

The title track, which starts like a mopey breakup song, then fires off into an electric-guitar-driven rager, was the first thing she started writing for the album, back on the European tour where she felt like she was thriving. The rest of the songs bare different kinds of catharsis, teetering between sexy, electronic beats and warm folkiness, reminiscent of her earliest music. Each song is delicate, sensuous, and balancing naked vulnerability with a bit of self-protective confidence posturing.

Writing about her deepest emotions wasn’t easy for someone who had painstakingly kept the details of her relationships under lock and key. “I’ve been in two [relationships],” she says. “I’ve experienced a lot in what I have done. But I’ve never been in something really real and normal.” The news cycle and fan response to her Apple TV documentary, The World’s a Little Blurry, earlier this year cemented her decision not to name names or get specific about details in the new songs. People are like “ ‘Well, you’re an artist, so when you put something out there like that, you can’t expect people to not dive into it more.’ Yes I can,” she says. “You should absolutely respect me giving you this much information and saying, ‘This is all you get.’ The rest is for my own brain.”

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The most the world has gotten to see of Eilish’s romantic life was in The World’s a Little Blurry, which spanned from the final weeks of recording When We All Fall Asleep in late 2018 through the 2020 Grammy Awards. Eilish wasn’t necessarily psyched for it to come out. “I don’t like to share that part of my life, and I was not planning on sharing that part of my life ever,” she says.

Her ex, Brandon Adams, an artist who performs under the name 7:AMP, played a pivotal role in the film. The World’s a Little Blurry showcases a painful give-and-take between Eilish and Adams, who was then in his twenties. In the aftermath of the documentary, fans went after Adams and his family on social media.

Many have assumed Eilish’s chilling single “Your Power,” which mentions a relationship between a teen girl and an older man, is about Adams. Eilish — who released the song in late April, along with a statement saying, in part, “this is about many different situations that we’ve all either witnessed or experience” — strongly objects to this notion. “Everybody needs to shut up,” she says. The documentary, she insists, “was a microscopic, tiny, tiny little bit of that relationship. Nobody knows about any of that, at all. I just wish people could just stop and see things and not have to say things all the time.”

Eilish describes herself as “clingy,” but since she and Adams broke up in 2019, she’s spent the past two years trying to learn how to exist on her own. “I didn’t know how before,” she explains, “which is ironic because I had never been in a relationship that allowed me to really exist with that person anyway. My emotion always is because of somebody else’s, and that had been such a big pain in the ass.”

She’s still trying to grow out of that. “You heal eventually.”

Eilish and I actually weren’t supposed to meet at her parents’ house. She wanted me to see where she recorded Happier Than Ever, in Finneas’ basement studio. But a pipe burst, nearly destroying the space. “The room had to be completely rebuilt,” he explains later over Zoom. “But my hard drives, synthesizers, and guitars and stuff were all fine. I feel very lucky for that.”

Eilish speaks with relief at how much less draining the recording process for Happier Than Ever was compared with her debut. It was partially due to some peak-mom advice from Maggie early in the pandemic. After nearly a month of lockdown, Maggie suggested that her kids get on a weekly schedule. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Eilish would drive her matte-black Dodge Challenger over to Finneas’ house. Some days they would write songs. Other days they’d play Animal Crossing or Beat Saber. Every day they would eat good meals: “A lot of Taco Bell, homemade pizza, taro boba, Thai food,” Eilish lists. “Crossroads and Little Pine. Nic’s once. Fatburger once. It was such a reward.”

In The World’s a Little Blurry, the teen’s misery is palpable as she finishes When We All Fall Asleep. Eilish and Finneas had been largely left to their own devices, but pressure still loomed from the label. There were deadlines (the album was due right around her 17th birthday), constant meetings, and an expectation that a star was about to be born, thanks to a couple of years of growing buzz. “I hated every second of it,” she admits. “I hated writing. I hated recording. I literally hated it. I would’ve done anything else. I remember thinking there’s no way I’m making another album after this. Absolutely not.”

This time, there was no pressure. No notes from the label. No meetings. No rush to meet deadlines. “No one has a say anymore,” Billie says. “It’s literally me and Finneas and no one else.” On April 3rd, 2020, the first day of their new weekly work schedule, they wrote “My Future.” Within a couple of months, they realized that they were making an album.

She pulls out a clear acrylic sign holder with the track list written in marker, songs clearly erased and moved around. “I think I’m going to frame this,” she says, smiling. There are some water stains on it, since it got drizzled on when Finneas’ studio flooded.

The 16 songs on the album are the only 16 they worked on. The pair are completists: Once they start a song, they have to see it through with meticulous precision until it’s perfect to them. The way the album sounds is a testament to that, each song a unique, avant-pop soundscape that elevates the baroque trip-hop-ness of her debut.

billie eilish rolling stone cover

“I admire artists that can make, like, three songs in a day and keep doing that over and over,” Eilish muses. She compares songwriting to running, in that it would be “fucking exhausting” to do all the time. “Songwriting is like that for me. I’m pretty good at it, but it takes a lot out of me. I feel like I just ran a marathon whenever I write a song.”

Finneas saw the change in his sister this time around. She liked writing songs, feeling less tortured by the process than before. “It’s been awesome as a big brother to see her become more confident and feel more ownership and just to be more excited than I’ve ever seen her about the music that we’re making,” he says. “I also just think she has objectively gotten even better. That’s my opinion. If she were an Olympic gymnast or something, she would’ve gotten better. She’d be able to do a higher vault or something.”

Since “Bad Guy,” Finneas has become one of pop’s most in-demand producers, working with everyone from Tove Lo to Selena Gomez. He also has his own solo career that’s taken off, though the studio flood came at the worst time possible for it, as he was working on his debut album. Eilish has found Finneas’ career outside of being her creative partner to be “fucking great” and easy for them to adjust to. “It doesn’t interfere at all, and it’s fun for him,” she says. “He only does what he wants to do. He’s not a slave to it.”

“I scratch a lot of itches working with Billie,” Finneas continues. “I think my primary goal was to just go deeper. This was Billie’s sophomore album, you just . . . you have the opportunity to go further inward and further down in your Mariana’s Trench.”

Finneas says that their process is “50-50” creatively, and he speaks proudly about the gated tremolo and distortion that elevate songs like “Oxytocin” and “NDA,” two tracks that look at romance and hookups through the lens of a very famous person attempting to have both under the radar.

“Billie Bossa Nova” takes that theme one step further, building a fantasy around the life of a touring pop star. “We have to do a lot of goofy bullshit when we go on tour, where we enter through freight elevators in hotels and stuff, so that paparazzi doesn’t follow us to our room,” he explains.

“And so we acted as if there was also a secret love affair going on in there of Billie being like, ‘Nobody saw me in the lobby/Nobody saw me in your arms,’ as if there was a mystery person in her life during all of that.”

“I write songs with my brother, and we kind of have to plug our ears when we’re writing about desire for other people because we’re fucking siblings,” Eilish says later. Songs like “Oxytocin,” named for the hormone released in the bloodstream due to love or childbirth, has her wondering “What would people say . . . if they listen through the wall?” over a slinky beat. The folky “Male Fantasy” features her distracting herself with pornography, then meditating on the effect porn has on men.

“The thing is, we’re very open about both of our lives, so it’s not weird, really,” she continues. “It’s just fun. It’s songwriting and it’s storytelling. We just have to think about the art of it and not think too hard about [the lyrics].”

As 50-50 as they are, Finneas drives home the fact that everything is under Eilish’s name for a reason. “In many instances we’ve been asked about our relationship as a duo when it’s billed as a solo artist,” Finneas says. “It’s her life. It’s all her world. I’m helping her articulate that, but it’s really her experiences that she lived through, and on this album she let me into it a lot. But I don’t know what that’s like to go through.”

He quotes his friend, the singer-songwriter Bishop Briggs, who says writing is how she copes with everything. Finneas agrees. “Billie making this album was her working through a lot of this stuff.”

When Eilish releases a new song, she can’t listen to it again. It disappears into the universe, only to be heard by its maker if she happens to catch it as it’s played on radio every hour on the hour. “It’s not because I don’t like it anymore,” she explains. Happier Than Ever has become Eilish’s favorite album in the world, but she’s already mourning the loss of it, months before it even comes out. As we talk, it’s a couple of weeks before the first single is even public knowledge.

“I don’t know how to explain this, but all the songs on the album feel like a specific time, because they feel like when I wrote them and made them,” she explains. “It’s so funny that to the rest of the world it’s going to feel like a certain moment for them, and it’s going to be so different than mine. That’s such a weird, weird thing to wrap my head around. And I will fucking love it. I love it. That’s the reason you do this. It’s for that.”

When Eilish and I speak one last time, “Your Power” has been out for a few days. It spurred reflective conversations online, with many women sharing their own experiences with sexual or emotional abuse. The lyrics about an older partner taking advantage of a younger woman struck a particular chord, and Eilish herself is still processing that reaction.

billie eilish rolling stone cover

“I feel like people actually really, really listened to the lyrics,” she says, flopping around her room in an oversize Powerpuff Girls shirt. “I was scared for it to come out because it’s my favorite song I’ve ever written. I felt the world didn’t deserve it.”

She broke her own Instagram “like” record that weekend as well: Her shoot for British Vogue showed her in more revealing clothes than she had ever been pictured in, channeling Forties boudoir shoots. The images were a topic of internet obsession for days: Was it a betrayal of her more “modest”-seeming fashion before? Did she make the decision herself? But it’s not like her body hadn’t been up for debate even when it was clothed: Her baggy outerwear was used to shame her peers, and she was subjected to belittling, fatphobic assumptions from the too-curious. “I saw a picture of me on the cover of Vogue [from] a couple of years ago with big, huge oversize clothes [next to] the picture of [the latest Vogue]. Then the caption was like, ‘That’s called growth.’ I understand where they’re coming from, but at the same time, I’m like, ‘No, that’s not OK. I’m not this now, and I didn’t need to grow from that.’ ”

Like her fashion experiments, Happier Than Ever is not about resetting who Billie Eilish even is. It’s about expanding the definition and range. But like she feared, she stopped listening to “Your Power” after it came out. “I don’t know. Something changes,” she says, still confused by her own habit.

The song has already taken on a life of its own, so she doesn’t have many expectations for how people will react to the rest of the as-yet-unheard songs. She’d like to make a visual for each track, and plans to embark on a world tour at some point.

She has one other wish for her new music. “I hope people break up with their boyfriends because of it,” she says, with only the slightest tinge of humor. “And I hope they don’t get taken advantage of.”

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doodlewash · 6 years

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My interest in art started as a North Carolina kid fascinated with comic books. I spent much of my early teens trying unsuccessfully to emulate the comic artists of the day. But, I wasn’t one of those kids who was drawing and painting from the day I could hold a pencil. I really wasn’t interested at all until I was about 11 or 12.

Eventually, I took art classes in high school and considered art as one option for college and career. Of course, I chose something completely different because who does things the easy way? Within a few years though, even that career path – that of a newspaper writer and photographer – brought me back to art in the early days of computer graphics and desktop publishing.

While I don’t do as much with graphics as I used to, it is still a part of my day job. Earlier this year, I created all the posters for the 2017-18 season for a local little theatre in a combination of traditional and digital techniques.

During those first few years in newspaper, and later in the printing industry, I didn’t completely lose interest in traditional art. But it was more of a way to kill time than anything serious. Around 2004, I decided to get serious again and began exploring acrylics for a while. I found I preferred to use acrylics more like watercolors than oils and realized I was drawn more to the watercolors of other artists rather than other media. So, I tested the waters, so to speak, and haven’t looked back.

I’ve loved cars since I bought my first one in the 1980’s. My fascination with them from an artistic standpoint – mostly the rolling sculpture of Detroit’s golden age in the 1950’s – started with the success of my first car painting in acrylics. Of course, shiny sheet metal, chrome reflections and rough rust are a very different story in watercolor. But once I figured out various techniques to get those textures right, I found it to be a lot of fun, especially rust.

So, I’ve got a lot of car paintings floating around. But, I see too many artists who seem to be one-trick ponies; they only ever paint one subject. Sure, they usually do that one subject very, very well. And, I understand they paint what they get paid to paint. But, I can’t imagine they don’t get bored.

I certainly get bored looking at the same thing over and over on their websites. Instead of falling into that trap, I’ve tried to explore other subjects – landscapes, figures, portraits, and still lifes. I’ve been especially successful with musical instruments, shoes, figures, and horror-related subjects. The last few years I’ve been concentrating on landscapes and portraits.

I’m also trying to get away from photographic realism by studying the recent British Impressionist watercolorists, my favorite being John Yardley. It’s too easy to get bogged down in details that don’t tell the story of the painting in question. And, I see too many paintings in which everything in the image is razor sharp and finely detailed.

Having spent some time as a professional photographer, I’m well aware of the ability of a well-crafted photo to direct the eye with depth of field, leaving unimportant portions of the image out of focus. I’m trying to bring that capability and technique to my paintings, especially my landscapes. It’s part of a technique I’ve taken to calling loose realism.

That’s really just another way of describing what most people are talking about then they use the word “painterly.” In loose realism even main subjects need not be photographic to be convincing. Backgrounds and foregrounds can be loose, wet, and indistinct. One method I use for achieving this, and for forcing myself to see a reference photo more simply, is to use Photoshop or other programs to modify the photo, defocus some areas, obscure details, and often brighten colors.

One of the things that has always fascinated me about watercolor is how the simplest images often can be the most effective. That doesn’t necessarily mean they were simple to create, though some are. It just shows that complexity, unerring detail, and edge-to-edge focus aren’t a requirement for a pleasing and effective painting.

The biggest problem with loosening up is that most people, at least in my area, are more interested in photo-realism, especially when looking for car paintings and commissions. So, I’m walking a tight rope between the looser paintings I want to do and the photo-realism the public wants, i.e. sometimes I too paint what I get paid to paint.

Technically, I’m pretty straight-forward these days. In the past though, I’ve used a couple different, somewhat unusual techniques.

An example of Payne’s Gray underpainting

Early on I used a grisaille-type underpainting that I learned while using acrylics. I don’t see many people using or even talking about this technique with watercolors, but I found it quite effective. To do this I painted what most people would consider a value study with a very thin, watered-down Payne’s Gray. Once I had a good grayscale painting done, I added transparent color washes.

Since Payne’s Gray is a staining color and I kept it very thin, it didn’t lift when I added the later washes. If the underpainting was too heavy, though, it could have lifted and altered successive washes and made a real mess. I suppose any staining color can be used for the underpainting. But, a thin Payne’s Gray is nearly neutral, so the transparent colors laid on top are only affected in value, not color or hue. By the time I completed the painting, only I knew there was an underpainting layer.

An example of charcoal and watercolor

Another technique I had a lot of success with – and also learned while using acrylics – is using charcoal as an “underpainting.” This technique starts by doing a complete, finished charcoal drawing of at least the main subject if not the entire image. I spray one thin coat of workable fixative over the charcoal drawing. It might sound counter-intuitive at first. But, without the fixative, you’d have a mess when you started adding watercolor washes.

Anyway, after I let the fixative gas out at least a couple hours, I painted with watercolor as normal. I had to lay it on a little more heavily. But, with practice and patience, watercolor will soak through the fixative and adhere to the paper.

I haven’t used either of these techniques for a few years. These days I’m just using good old Da Vinci paints (mostly) in a fairly limited palette of ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, phthalo blue, permanent rose quinacridone, a warm and cool red, a warm yellow, yellow ochre, raw umber, burnt Sienna, sepia, sometimes manganese blue, and neutral tint or Payne’s gray. No, I don’t use a cool yellow because over time I found I just didn’t use it. My color mixes just never went that direction. So, now I just don’t bother.

Arches and Canson’s Moulin du Roi 140 lb. in cold-pressed and rough are my favorite papers. In the brush department, I’ve used everything from natural sables and squirrels and faux sables and squirrels to natural/synthetic blends and full synthetics. But, right now I’m really digging the super-cheap Snap! synthetics from Princeton. I’ve always liked a good amount of stiffness and spring. Snaps definitely cover that while also holding a lot of water/pigment.

Over the years, I’ve found that if I really wanted to get better, painting had to become an obsession. When I’m not painting I’m thinking about painting. The best advice I can give to someone just beginning with watercolor or any medium, or just wanting to get better, is to paint. Paint often. Paint every day. Paint something, anything, even if it’s just color swatches. The more you have a brush in your hand the more natural it will feel.

An example of a 5”x7” portrait painted during lunch hour at work

Actually, now that I think about it, color swatches are a great idea. Not only will they help with brush control and water control, you’ll also learn how each color looks and feels with varying amounts of water. I keep one of Da Vinci’s full-pan paint boxes at work and spend a few minutes before work and at lunch every day painting small 5”x7” and 8”x10” figures, portraits and landscapes. It’s great practice; it’s relaxing; and I’ve actually sold several of these paintings.

They aren’t always quick; most take two or three days to complete. But, many of them are good finished paintings, not just sketches.

That also brings up another great aspect of watercolor; you can set up and clean up in a couple minutes making it easy to paint on a moment’s notice. As for me, some days those few minutes at lunch might be the only chance I have to get a brush wet – and that makes all the difference.

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#WorldWatercolorGroup - GUEST ARIST: "Fueled By Fascination" by Anthony Billings - #doodlewash My interest in art started as a North Carolina kid fascinated with comic books. I spent much of my early teens trying unsuccessfully to emulate the comic artists of the day.

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