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differentkettleoffishalltogether · 3 years

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An Inconvenient Affection [Chapter 1]

Summary: When a couples’ therapist is suspected of murdering his own patients, Y/N and Spencer must go undercover as a feuding married couple to draw him out.

A/N: This is the first part in a series, thank you so much for the response to the teaser! I hope you guys enjoy, and any feedback is always appreciated! ❤️

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Category: Fake Dating, Friends to Lovers, (Eventual) Smut, Fluff, Angst

Warnings: alcohol consumption, language, criminal minds typical violence, murder mention, suicide mention, stalking, cheating, please let me know if I've missed anything!

Word Count: 4.4k

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"He's forcing one to kill the other" Spencer mutters under his breath, staring so intently at the photos pinned the the cork board that he must be able to see through them by now.

"Pardon?" Y/N pipes up from her perch at the opposite end of the room, surrounded by imposing stacks of files, photos, newspaper clippings, anything to give her something even resembling a leg up on this case.

Spencer turns sharply on his heel to face the team, his hands contorted as he speaks, "The unsub, he's abducting couples but I think he could be forcing one to kill the other" he states it louder this time, tearing a photo down from the board and walking it over.

"We already know they were killed with the same gun, but why was Mrs. Milton restrained while Mr. Milton wasn't?"

Y/N screws her eyebrows together in confusion, she'd been at the scene and she'd analyzed the photos. Mr. Milton had been restrained. There was another chair at the scene that seemed as though he'd been strapped to it, the bindings were loosened but the general assumption was that he'd managed to free himself before getting shot by the unsub.

"I think our killer untied him" Reid spoke confidently, Y/N liked watching him like this. He could be so shy in his day to day life but there was something about his work that gave him a boost.

"So do you think the same goes for the Stevenson's from 4 months back? What could his motivations be for doing something like that?" Derek asks. The first case had initially been labeled as a murder suicide by the local police precinct but the most recent victims were both shot in the back of the head. Though the scenes had far too many similarities to rule out a serial homicide.

"Most likely" he nods, "though I haven't gotten to the why just yet. But what I can tell you is that our unsub seems to really hate the women" He turns his attention back to the cork board.

"Well that's not very original" Y/N quips before pulling out her cell phone to call Garcia. "Hey Babe, I'm gonna need you to find any overlap between the Miltons and the Stevensons, any clubs, stores, hangout spots, somewhere where they could've met, or met the same people. If that's too broad maybe narrow in on the wives, anywhere they would've potentially overlapped, we think they could've been this unsub’s primary target"

"But of course my Angel" Garcia's almost sickly sweet voice pours out of the headset along with he clacking of her brightly colored nails on the keys. "Hmm." she let's out a little frustrated, "They lived a little too far apart to be members of the same gym, church, what have you. Wait!" she stops in her tracks excited, "Both couples had several appointments at the same clinic, St. Andrews Medical Centre, but those records are sealed."

Y/N lets out a frustrated sigh, "Can you unseal 'em?"

Garcia scoffs, "Can I unseal them, who are you talking to? I'll have the info in 3, 2, 1, Bingo. Both couples had several appointments with a therapist, one Dr. Harris in the months leading up to and week of their disappearance" she sends a picture and attached file to Y/N's tablet as she beckons Spencer over to take a look.

"He's a therapist with a specialty in, oh," Garcia pauses, "couples counseling"

"So what were they in for?" Derek pipes up, "Is our Dr. just interested in the look or has the couples' issue got something to do with it?"

Y/N reads through the files Garcia's sent on Dr. Harris, combing though them as fast as she can for any ounce of helpful information.

"Harris is divorced?" Y/N says in confusion.

"His wife cheated on him, and she's currently married to that guy" Garcia interjects, "he wrote a whole article about it, yeesh, someone is not over it.”

"Maybe he's targeting couples where the wives have been unfaithful to their husbands?" Spencer suggests, "That would account for the unjust hate towards the women, and the implication that he forced their husbands to kill them first, perhaps he's using them as a surrogate for the vengeance he wants?"

"Maybe so, but we've got no evidence for any of this, the crime scenes were spotless, not even a trace of DNA to tie anyone other than the couples to the scene, if it is this guy then we have to prove it before we can arrest him." JJ counters as the voice of reason.

The room goes silent.

"Prove it?" Y/N asks, Hotch looks down at her, before averting his gaze towards Spencer sitting beside her.

"I've got an idea" he says, monotone and serious. “The two of you come with me.” He motions with is hand.

The two of them look at each other with profound confusion before following behind Hotch, resigned.

----

“A married couple?!” Spencer all but shouts, the office is hardly soundproof and the rest of the team must’ve caught on by now. For the ‘smartest member of the team’ Spencer sure had some gaping holes in his foresight.

“You can’t be serious!”

He stands up from his chair, shaking his head in disbelief, starting to pace around the medium sized office to work off the nervous energy building in his chest.

“This is hardly outrageous Reid” Hotch states, making sympathetic but brief eye contact with Y/N before he pinches the bridge of his nose in an effort to restrain himself. “Yourself and Y/N already have a friendship to build on, she’s worked undercover many times and your memory should make it simple for you to integrate into the false narrative she can construct. Plus, you’re a non-threatening presence to an unsub like this. What else could you possibly need convincing of?” Hotch adds with exasperation, he’d mentioned all of that and more in his initial proposition but Spencer was still reluctant.

“If I’m really that repulsive I’m sure we can find someone else to play my husband Spence?” Y/N tries to joke but there’s something about the sentence that makes her stomach uneasy.

“No!” Spencer sits again with haste, looking between the two other agents, “No that’s not it, I just” he takes in a deep sigh, “I don’t know if I’ll be any good at this, I don’t want to ruin the investigation” he confesses and Hotch immediately shoots it down.

“That won’t be an issue, our unsub’s primary target will be Y/N. She’ll be the cheating partner, your role will mostly be following her lead which shouldn’t be too difficult”

Spencer might be great at acting after all. He lets his shoulders slump and his posture relaxes entirely as though his boss has just put all of his worries to rest. But that’s not what was bothering him. Not even close.

He’s had a stupid schoolboy crush on Y/N from her first day at the BAU. He’d like to think it had come later but he knew it had been almost instant. Her first day had been on Halloween 2 years earlier, he’d been explaining the historical origins of the holiday when Y/N corrected his pronunciation of the Irish word Samhain.

“It’s more like ‘Sah-whin’ than ‘Sam-hain’ in spite of its spooky origins it’s actually the current Irish word for November” she spoke up from her seat in the bullpen, setting up some stationary at the once empty desk next to Spencer’s.

“Y/N L/N,” she stood up outstretching her hand, “I guess I’m your new co-worker” she half-smiled, her nervous energy getting the better of her as he ignored her gesture and just looked at her palm instead.

“He’s just weird about touching” Emily reaches out to reciprocate the handshake, “I’m Emily Prentiss, it’s nice to meet you, this little guy here is Spencer Reid” she says as she places her hands on both of his shoulders and shakes him gently

“Dr. Spencer Reid” he corrects quickly, shooting her a tight lipped smile paired with an even more awkward half-wave.

“Oh, a doctor” she raises her eyebrows, “best not tell my Mom I work with a doctor or she’ll be hounding me to marry you” she cracks. It’s obviously a joke but Spencer can’t help but recall the conversation now and how prescient it feels.

“We can work out the details together if you think that’ll help you feel more comfortable?” Y/N reaches out her hand to touch his forearm to steady him in his seat. He’d grown so used to her casual touch by now that he barely noticed it. But this time, with his rolled up sleeve, feeling her fingertips against his bare skin it felt as though he was going to combust. How was he going to be able to hide this childish infatuation if they had to masquerade as a married couple. What if she touched him literally anywhere else. She was a profiler too, of course she’d notice.

“It’s paramount that it looks natural. This unsub knows the ins and outs of what it’s like to be a married couple so I’ll expect the two of you to prepare accordingly” Hotch is stern and focusing on Y/N as he speaks, “Work on it together, tonight, and report back to me tomorrow morning. We’ll make our decision on how to proceed then.” he says before dismissing them from his office.

They stand in the bullpen in unsure silence for a moment too long before Y/N speaks, “So, your place or mine hubby?” she leans on the last word and it feels comical coming out of her mouth but it still makes something in Spencer’s stomach tighten.

——

Garcia sends them away with piles of notes and transcriptions from each of the couples’ sessions so they could aim to predict the kind of questions they could be asked. Digging through interviews with Mrs. Milton’s friends it became apparent that she’d been stalked in the weeks leading up to her abduction, and potentially longer. Y/N and Spencer had to be prepared for that eventuality too.

Each of the couples had had at least 4 appointments before they were abducted, so the new Mr. and Mrs. Reid had to come up with several hours worth of talking points, along with day to day appearance of living as a married couple in order to be prepared.

Shouldn’t be too difficult.

Spencer was already making moves to walk back his commitment. Now that he was in Y/N’s living room pages strewn about the coffee table he was finding the whole situation a little overwhelming.

“Look I don’t think I’m up for this, I’ll just call Morgan and see if he can do it. I’m so bad at lying Y/N, I’ll get us both killed” he lets his head flop down into his hands.

“Hey, hey, calm down. Just rest your head between your knees and take a few deep breaths” Y/N coaxes and he does as instructed, his heart rate dropping to normal again almost instantly. It might be the breathing exercise but it’s probably her hand tracing up and down his back over the fabric of his dress shirt that’s actually calming him.

“The golden rule of working undercover is to tell the truth until you absolutely have to lie” she says softly, continuing her movements along his spine. “Sure we have to lie about being married, and about my infidelity. But that doesn’t mean everything has to be a lie. We can pull stories from our real lives and force them into our Legend.”

“Legend?” he says into his own lap, just loud enough for her to hear.

“Mmhmm” she hums, her finger tracing circles between his shoulder blades now, “Our Legend, it’s like our profile, our history, for our undercover identities. We’ll build it together so that we know it inside out. But it doesn’t have to be a total fabrication.” Her voice is gentle and sweet as she explains.

Spencer sits up straight again, looking to Y/N with a furrowed brow and she continues, “Remember the first time we hung out outside of work?” She coaxes and he nods. Even if he didn’t have an eidetic memory he would never forget.

“You asked me to go see that Russian film and you translated it into my ear the whole time?” He smiles at the memory, “And I just hadn’t told you that I spoke Russian yet” she giggles.

She was going to tell him right as the movie started, honestly she was, but the way he had to lean in so close to whisper the words in her ear, so close that she could smell his soap and shampoo. She would’ve told him, but then he would’ve stopped.

“Then we went to that noodle place next door and you started to fact check a bunch of my translations?” He finishes the story.

“That’s the one!” She sees him ease into the seat on the sofa, his body beginning to relax, “So how about we keep things simple, that was our first date.” Y/N states so plainly, like the suggestion doesn’t make Spencer’s heart skip a beat.

“Yeah, okay.” he nods in agreement swallowing the lump in his throat.

“Great, so we have our starting point” she pulls out a notebook and makes a note of it, he leans over to peer at the writing on the page.

“November 18th” he says quietly and she turns to him confused,

“That was the uh, the date, the date of our ‘first date’” she nods in agreement and puts the date next to the bullet-point in the notebook

“November 18th” she repeats content.

——

“We’re Spencer and Y/N Green. We’ve been together for 2 years, married for just over a year. We eloped in Vegas after going to visit Spencer’s Mother. He’s a professor and I’m a bartender. That bar is where we met. We have opposite schedules in order to facilitate my infidelity.”

Y/N and Spencer stand at the top of the room facing the team gathered at the round table, the pages of their legend tacked to the board behind them.

“I found out after I left work early 4 months ago. Y/N doesn’t have a consistent partner but revealed she’d been casually sleeping with other people for the 6 months prior. She agreed to stop at the time but continued to cheat. This time we’re seeking professional counseling to see if we can save the marriage.” Spencer finished the story with ease. Turning to Y/N to shoot her a small smile.

Once they’d worked out the overall story, the details came easy. He wouldn’t let on but he was pretty confident he may know everything there was to know about his ‘wife’ already.

“Okay, if you both feel confident I can start making the arrangements with Garcia to set up an appointment for you two” Hotch stands up from the table turning back on his way out.

“Great work agents.”

——

There were no appointments available until the following week, which comes as both a stress and a relief. On one hand it gives them more time to prepare, but on the other hand it stretches this whole situation out further.

Garcia coaxes Rossi into inviting everyone over for the evening with little to no real effort. More than anything Spencer just wants to go home and read in the peace and quiet of his living room, but Y/N sits herself on the edge of his desk before he has a chance to leave for the night.

“You coming kid?” She picks up his satchel off the ground to hand it to him as he stands, he takes it from her before shaking his head.

“I don’t know that I’m up for it” he scrunches up his nose a little as he says it, it’s one of the nervous ticks he’s got that Y/N loves the most.

“Aw c’mon. My husband is gonna make me go to a party on my own? No wonder I went and cheated on you” she shoves his shoulder gently, antagonizing him just a little. He chuckles as he and shakes his head softly. “But seriously Spence, it’s been a rough day and half, and it’ll be an even weirder week. It might be good for you to blow off a little steam, get out of your own head” she reaches up to ruffle his hair as she says it.

He loves that. The way she has to reach all the way up on her tippy toes to get to the top of his head but she still insists on doing it. He softens with so little convincing.

“Y’know what, you’re right” he sighs, slinging his bag across his shoulder, “Lets get out of here.”

And it’s already worth it to see the smile that spreads across Y/N’s cheeks.

——

“I can see it, I think pretty boy here’s a bit stiff but you can pull it off” Morgan squints at the two of them sitting next to one another around Rossi’s table.

“Hey I’m not stiff” Spencer jumps to his own defense before the table erupts with laughter. He wants to fight it again but Y/N’s hand comes to rest on his forearm laying on the table between them.

“Yes you are Spence, but I married you anyway” she makes an exaggerated kissing face before the table begins to giggle yet again. Spencer doesn’t mind this time because after the joke is over her hand doesn’t move from it’s position.

“Oh, oh, oh!” Garcia almost begins to vibrate in her chair, “I’ve got a great idea, we should test you guys”

The team starts to holler and the sound throws Spencer’s head back into chaos. Each time he felt his heart start to palpitate he hoped Y/N couldn’t tell.

Garcia pulls out her phone and starts to look for questions, “What did they wear on your first date?” She asks with a quirk of her eyebrow.

“A light blue sweater with black pants and boots” Spencer answers with no hesitation.

“No fair!” Y/N yelps, “this game is rigged, the kids got an eidetic memory!”

“Alright then, I’ll change it up, who’s the tidiest?” Garcia asks, and that’s also unfair because Y/N knows it’s Spencer but doesn’t want to pay him that compliment. Before she can speak he’s already on it though.

“Me, is that not obvious?” He jokes,

“Yeah okay that one’s right too” Y/N sulks.

“What’s their dream job?” Garcia offers and Y/N jumps in before he can answer first.

“Aha! Magician!” she yelps and Spencer turns to her, eyebrows pulled together.

“Yeah, how’d you remember that?” he interrogates.

He knows exactly when he told her. Y/N was having a moment during a case. it was getting to her more than she’d like to admit but Spencer could tell. She’d knocked on his hotel room door one evening when she couldn’t sleep, she knew it wasn’t his strong suit either.

He’d let her in, settling on the bed. This was one of the better mattresses they’d had in a hotel. It helped soothe the muscles that had been tensed all day. Y/N didn’t want to talk about why she couldn’t sleep. This was the first time it happened, but they’ve found themselves in each other’s hotel rooms over and over as the cases went by.

They both knew that what they were searching for was distraction, and comfort, but they wouldn’t admit to the last one.

“Just tell me something, anything”

Spencer had to wrack his brain looking around the hotel room when something struck him. “Do you want to hear an interesting hotel fact?”

“Sure Spence, shoot” she murmured into the pillow she had curled up in her lap.

“Did you know that the ‘Sky Beam’, a bright light that shoots out of the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, attracts so many insects that it has established a new ecosystem of moths, bats, and owls” he says with fervor but he can see from the way her face contorts that he’s put the wrong foot forward.

“Not a gross fact Spencer” she knocks him in the head with her pillow, not too harsh, but rough enough to ruffle his curls.

He skims the room again, eyes landing on a few coins scattered on his bedside table. “How about a magic trick?” she looks at him strange but shakes the expression away and nods.

Spencer picks up a coin of the nightstand and shows it to Y/N with enthusiasm, “See just a regular coin” he jokes and she returns the look exasperated.

“Alright, spoilsport” he holds it out to her pinched between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, moving his left hand over the coin quickly before it vanishes. He then holds out his two empty palms to Y/N for inspection.

“Nah, bullshit” she says, pulling his open palms towards her. He snaps them away before she can look too hard. Pulling his hands back in towards himself he waves one in front of the other and the coin reappears between his fingers.

“What?” is all she can say, and he’s accomplished his goal of distracting her now. “How’d you do that?” she picks up the coin and starts to inspect it closely, with no idea what she’d even be looking for.

“A magician never reveals his secrets” he smirks, confident now that he’s left her so dumfounded. She snaps her head up to look at him, throwing the coin back into his waiting hands.

“So you’re a magician now?” she jokes, reclining back onto the pillows below her and turning her head to look up at him. He follows suit, lying down on his own pillows next to Y/N and returns her gaze.

“Yup, that’s actually what I wanted to do when I was a kid. Still do if I’m honest with myself. So I guess if this FBI thing ever goes belly-up I’ve got a back up plan” he says it like it’s just a silly joke but Y/N can see it’s a little more than that. Spencer joined the BAU so young he almost didn’t get to have a childhood at all, he barely even chose what he would spend the rest of his life working at.

“You have to teach me that one sometime” she yawns, shutting her eyes softly.

“Anytime” he smiles, even thought she can’t see it, and watches as her breathing evens out and she’s asleep. He’s gone not long after. He wishes he had the energy left to stay awake, watching her for even a few moments more so that he could commit the sight to memory. But something about her presence in his room, in his bed, just put him at complete ease and he couldn’t help but fall asleep.

Like so many things in their friendship he’d assumed he was the only one to remember it all so vividly. Despite how often Y/N proved him wrong he would never get used to it.

“Of course I remembered you wanted to be a magician Spencer. How was I supposed to forget that, you still haven't taught me that coin thingy” she feigns annoyance but really she’s just had a glass or two of Rossi’s expensive wine and is feeling brave.

“Sorry Y/N I tried to teach you that, your coordination is just that bad” he shrugs and takes a sip from his own glass.

Derek interrupts, scanning the screen of Garcia’s phone for an interesting question before he appears to land on one, his face lighting up.

“Of the two of you, who’s the better kisser?” Derek says with pure confidence that catches Spencer so off guard that he almost spits out his wine like he’s in a cartoon.

“We haven’t– we don't need– we uh” Spencer stammers having next to no clue what he’s even trying to say.

“I’m sure it’s 50/50, isn’t that right Mr. Green?” Y/N reaches her hand up to cup his cheeks, pushing his lips into a small pout. The red wine staining his lips ever so slightly so that they’re just a shade pinker than usual. And Y/N can’t help but stare at them for a second too long before looking up into his eyes.

He looks uneasy, and a little nervous so she lets go of his cheeks, letting her hand fall down to rest on his forearm once again, grazing the exposed skin.

“You gotta at least play the part pretty boy” Derek laughs, “What happens if this therapist starts asking about your sex life, are you gonna clam up, freak out?”

And he hadn’t thought about it. But it made sense, the sessions were going to be about ‘cheating’ which is by it’s very nature linked to their sex life. This was worse than he thought.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it Morgan. I’ve thought of it all.” Y/N waves off the comment, gripping Spencer’s arm a little tighter as she spoke in an effort to comfort him. “You know what, I actually think it might be time to head out.” She stands up from the table, rubbing her ‘husband’s’ shoulder as she moves so that he follows suit, recognizing this move as her saving him from the interaction.

They’re out the door together with minimal teasing in under 3 minutes, piled into a cab beside each other with no real plan other than to leave that table.

“Do you want to go by to yours and watch old reruns of The Twilight Zone?” Y/N offers and Spencers shoulders almost melt into the black leather of the seat behind him.

“So so badly” he groans, letting his eyes close as he falls back against the headrest.

——

Thank you so much for reading, comments, reblogs, and tags are always appreciated! ❤️

Let me know what you thought about this chapter here <3

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viria · 5 years

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I’m planning to buy the same tablet you’re using, a genius pen tablet according to you faq, but lately I see people asking you questions about using iPad Pro instead? Have you switched or was iPad Pro only temporarily? What are the pros and cons of each device? Thank you Vika!

Oh, I actually didn’t pick up genius tablet after bying ipad pro;; I feel so bad for it sometimes!I might not be able to give very wide spread feedback on each, but from what’s on top of my head:Pros of Genius Mouse Pen i608x (I think;;) :

• It’s cheap! Here it costs like maybe 35 USD at the moment.

• It will last you a long time. I had my previous Genius mouse pen for at least 6 years I think, and even then it still worked, the only issue was that usb wire only worked in a certain angle);

• It’s compatible with any PC and therefore there is a huge variety of programs -Paint tool SAI, Photoship, Clip Studio, Open Canvas, etc. You can really choose what fits best for you.

• It’s easy to install (at least was for me) and works wonders (especially considering it’s not expensive for a tablet).

• Battery in the pen lasts for months and very easy to change (if needed).

• There are couple of extra nibs to change the used one from your pen.

Cons of Genius Mouse Pen i608x:

• It needs USB wire to work, so it is useless without PC or laptop, therefore it isn’t super portable.

• Doesn’t have a screen of it’s own, so once again you need to look in the monitor when drawing, and at first synching your hand with the eye can be a bit unusual (especially if you’re used to look directly on what you’re drawing).

• Pen nibs as well as the protector on the tablet get scratched and stop feeling smooth quite soon. The feeling of drawing on it is rather gritty, especially after long time use. I had to (try) and smoothen the nibs with mild grain emery paper to get more use out of it. ( you can still draw just fine, but the feeling is kind of scratchy, but you only understand it if you have something to compare it to, so initially it wasn’t exactly an issue).

• In this exact model I had some kind of glitch happen (although rarely), where I needed to restart my drawing program because the pen lost it’s sensitivity. Goes away easily though.

• There is no screen.

Now to ipad!

Pros of Ipad Pro 10′5:

• It’s very portable! You can carry it around with you everywhere, if drawing on the go is something you love doing.

• It has a screen, so it’s almost like drawing traditionally but digital edition. It feels quite professional, and it’s just...different, compared to having to look at the monitor.

• Procreate! A very (if not most) popular drawing program. Costs 10$ of one buy, and becomes one of your best friends. I really love it much better compared to SAI, and I feel like it extended my drawing abilities.

• The feeling of drawing on the screen is very smooth, which I really enjoy.

• It boosted my productivity by A LOT, simply because I feel so good when I draw on it. Like the sensations as well as looking at what you’re drawing, I feel much more motivated drawing on it. (and drawing a lot means improving so that’s quite a plus as well)

• There are different screen sizes - you can choose 10′5 or 12′9. • Picks up colours beautifully.

• Procreate has a huge set of brushes, and even if you’re not satisfied with them there are planty sets to buy or get for free.

• When it runs out of battery it usually doesn’t feel that you just sat to draw, as well as the pen battery, lasts quite a while and charges quickly.

• Apple pencil has an extra nib, but I am still on my first and I feel no need to change it.

• It runs very smoothly! Both as a drawing tablet and a tablet you use for regular non artistic things.

Cons of Ipad Pro 10′5:

• The most obvious - the Price. It is very expensive. I have one of the cheapest (without card and with 64gb memory), and it’s still 1000$ (I guess it’s apple but like. ouch). BUT I think you can search for refurbished ones.

• There is a chance of it not lasting as long as you’d like for it to. I know people whose ipad lasted a couple of years, which is..unfortunate, and I kind of fear it.

• After a bit less than a year of use mine stopped charging fully, it always stops at 93%, sooo even though that’s not game changing it’s kind of meh (perhaps anyone knows what’s the issue and how to fix it?)

• I don’t really mind, but many people are irritated on how the pen needs to be charged with it just sticking out of your ipad ahah

• Not exactly a con of the device, but there are times I wish I bought a bigger version, since I usually use it at home and bigger screen is a bit more comfortable to draw on. But that’s sometimes and mostly I am glad I bought 10′5.In conclusion, if you need something cheap that works well - genius is a great option. Especially if you’re a beginner and you aren’t too sure whether you’d really be drawing on it a lot.

But for me, in terms of pretty much every single aspect (ehem for the price) ipad wins? Despite the price I really think it was worth it, and I will probably buy a new one once this stops working. It boosted my productivity, it’s enjoyable to draw on, you can draw on a coach (troublesome not with my neck but you can), on the go and in cafes!

I also heavily enjoy procreate so I’m generally very happy that I ended up buying it. I always carry it on the trips and even if I don’t necessarily have time to draw we can always chill and watch something, because hotel TVs are often on a language you don’t understand.

(I also read fma on it so I really enjoy that too hahaha)

Hope it helps!

#viriasanon

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scrawnydutchman · 4 years

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My Animation Journey: Thomas van Kampen

Hey everyone! It’s been a VERY long time since I updated my blog, huh?

So for this post I thought I would do something a little different. For those who don’t know, I’m a professional animator. I have been for about two years now. I’ve worked on shows like Trailer Park Boys: The Animated Series, Care Bears: Unlock the Magic and Curious George. I’ve also been a part of a few other projects before that like the crowdfunded feature film Dawgtown. Reason I bring all of this up is I figured it might be helpful to some folks if they knew how exactly I got to this position. Nowadays it feels like if you throw a rock you’ll more than likely hit an aspiring professional artist, but for as many as there may be a lot of them aren’t actually sure if they can make it due to a number of doubts. Maybe they can’t afford schooling. Maybe they aren’t in a region where the industry is prominent. Maybe they just don’t know what they have to do to get studio attention. I personally feel that the story of how I broke in to the industry is pretty unique so my hope is that reading it might help many an aspiring artist gain confidence and maybe even fill in the blanks for their own story. So without further ado, let’s start at the beginning.

Part 1: The Beginning

My entire life I’ve always been a storyteller. When I was in elementary school I used to make little comic books out of stapled pieces of printer paper and hand them out to my classmates. In high school I wrote a 100 page fantasy novel and wrote/directed a play in drama class. My grades were never all that good, but I always scored high in art and creative writing projects. Here’s a comedy skit I put together back in high school with my friends (warning: incoming cringe):

youtube

As a testament to my love for storytelling, I thought for a very long time my destiny lied in live action film making. But that didn’t exactly pan out the way I hoped. For one, I was rejected from my nearby institute’s video production course 3 times. For another, I didn’t exactly have all the skills necessary to direct a production involving multiple people. Film proved to be a difficult path for me because I couldn’t work around peoples’ schedules and I couldn’t find the locations I wanted for the types of stories I wanted to tell. Best I could ever do was comedy skits. All this compounded failure left me drifting for a little while after high school.

But then, on my 18th birthday, my dad pulled me aside to give me a proposal. He said that since 18 is such a milestone, he and my mom wanted to do something extra special for my gift. He told me I have two options: I can either get $100 dollars to spend on whatever I want . . . or, if I had something in mind for starting a career, he would spend as high as $800.

Obviously I wanted to take the latter. But I wasn’t sure what to do. Film wasn’t panning out. My mom and dad at the time tried to pressure me into app development and computer coding because they seemed like safe ventures, but I couldn’t entertain something like that. Whatever it is I chose, it had to allow me to tell the stories that I wanted to tell.

Then, it hit me. I suddenly remembered hearing about this animation program called “Toon Boom” back in high school comm tech. So I thought “why don’t I do animation?”. After all, I could already draw. Plus, with animation you don’t have ANY of the limitations of live action. You can create anything you can imagine with animation and you can make everything yourself from the comfort of your room. I knew it was going to be a time consuming thing, but after a bit of soul searching I knew this is what I wanted for myself. So I told my dad about it and he managed to find a student copy of toon boom animate for cheap on Ebay (back when it didn’t go by Harmony). So I got that for my birthday and got to work. I still have my very first cartoon here:

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Oh yeah, it’s awful. I had a VERY rudimentary understanding of how animation worked. I drew everything haphazardly with my mouse. I didn’t know how to use motion tweens all that well so in some places I just copy pasted assets and rotated the drawings slightly. I stole copyrighted music (which miraculously I haven’t been caught for yet). I recorded the dialogue on my phone. Worst of all, I didn’t even know how to properly compress my video. Believe it or not, this took me a month and a half to make.

But you know what? Everyone I knew loved it. My feed blew up and everyone made a point to tell me how funny they thought it was. I remember my dad saying “toon boom seems like a good investment!” Needless to say, the positive reinforcement was very encouraging.

I’m hoping the takeaway here is two things:

1. Knowing what you want in life is a deep, soul searching process, but once you find it, committing to it isn’t all that hard, even if it’s tedious as hell.

2. The best way to get started in anything is to just, well . . . get started. Make something. ANYTHING. even if it’s not that great. For as poorly as this cartoon has aged, it resulted in me getting my very first commission from my brother where he asked me to make a music video for his band. It also resulted in me getting a drawing tablet for Christmas later that year. Even bad content is better than having nothing in your repertoire at all. Try getting your ideas out no matter what.

This boost in confidence eventually resulted in me going for making long form content. I wrote, animated, edited, voice acted and directed TWO episodes of a show featuring the character you see in my very first cartoon. The first episode took me half a year to create and the second took me a WHOLE YEAR. But you know what? I was showing clear signs of improving all the way.

Here are the episodes:

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Part 2: Making connections

So at this point, my motivation to break my way into the arts was in full throttle. I was SURE that animation is what I wanted to do in life. Making little shorts was cool and all, but I still needed to learn how to get professional attention. So there’s a number of things I did:

For starters, I needed to know what employers were looking for when I apply for a job. I remember way back, around the time i was halfway through making episode 2 of the Peacock, I was talking to a friend of my brother’s at his birthday party. I told him I wanted to pursue animation professionally (I believe this was after we were talking about the music video I made for my brother) and he said that he knew a guy in Vancouver who was doing 3D animation. I asked for his name and then later that night looked him up on Facebook. Once I was sure I was talking to the right guy, I wrote him a lengthy message about how much breaking into animation would mean to me. He told me that he was visiting my home town for a little while anyway and he generously donated his time to answer my questions about the industry over coffee. He told me all about demo reels and how I would need to structure it and what kind of knowledge that studios were looking for and all that type of stuff. I was also recommended to talk to another professional in my home town and she told me to get started on a portfolio website. So I took everything they were telling me and started applying it.

my niece told me about this organization in my hometown that she found out about through the grapevine. This place called the “Quickdraw Animation Society”. It was this organization dedicated to helping local artists find their voice and gain the skills necessary to make their own animated films. I thought this was perfect!! College was sort of off the table for me since my dad highly encouraged getting an education at this trade school and he told me he wouldn’t pay for an education that didn’t guarantee a job at the end (and looking back knowing the kind of debt i could have fallen into, I kind of side with him on that one). But Quickdraw was offering animation courses for cheap! Even i could afford it on my part time retail salary! So I took Quickdraw’s classes and used them as a vehicle to start making even more of my own projects.

Here’s just one of several short animations I made while studying under Quickdraw:

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But my involvement with Quickdraw didn’t stop there. I made a point to volunteer for them in their move and their fundraising efforts and their little animation showcases. I made a point to REALLY get involved with their community. That ended up being arguably the most instrumental decision in my career. After a while I got done making my very first Demo Reel. I was ready to start officially applying for jobs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx5OHGfYz-4

I know this reel doesn’t seem like much, but believe it or not, with the help of the Quickdraw Animation Society, this reel ended up getting me my first two major animation gigs.

The takeaway here is: get involved with a community. Reach out to people. Get yourself out there. Don’t be afraid to ask professionals questions and accept that a lot of this is going to involve relying on the kindness of strangers. Nobody gets anywhere without somebody helping them.

Part 3: Thomas the Freelancer

After I completed my very first demo reel, as fate would have it Quickdraw began emailing me among others about new job opportunities popping up. The first time they informed me of a job post, it was somebody looking for an artist to create animated backgrounds for a stage play performance of “Curious George”. I was among the very first to send my application and this was the very first time I used my demo reel to try and land a job. The next day, their recruiter contacted me on the phone and started with “thank you for including a demo reel instead of putting the illness on me to track down your work like other applicants”. See how important a demo reel is? I ended up creating every background for every scene of that play, which was projected onto the screen behind the performers as they did their thing.

After that, Quickdraw informed me of ANOTHER job post. This time it was a children’s book author in Edmonton looking for an animator to help her win an animated film pitch contest. The winners of this contest would get a grant of $10,000 to create their animated short which would then be featured on Telus’ Storyhive platform. I sent her my demo reel and she brought me on to help put together the assets we needed to make the cut. And guess what? We were among the few who were selected to earn the $10,000. This resulted in me flying for the VERY FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE to Vancouver, where we would attend a workshop detailing the conditions of the contest. I also happened to meet even more animation friends on the plane (they were sitting right across from me and were other winners of the Storyhive competition).

In the following months I would dedicate almost ALL my free time to this short film. I even quit my part time job so i could commit to it full time (a decision my dad was thrilled about, I’m sure). I did all the storyboarding, background design, character design and animation BY MYSELF. If anything in the development cycle was visual related, I was the guy that did it, taking notes from my directors all along the way. In hindsight, I definitely should have asked for more help since the final product has a few flaws, but this is still a milestone achievement in my career.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmTuwIeEoqA

At this point, I had somewhat made a name for myself. I had credentials. I had recommendations from clients. Gerry Mouse would go on to be featured in multiple film festivals: My film festival debut in fact. As you can imagine, my ego was at an all time high. After the film released I updated my demo reel again and felt like I was ready to officially start applying for full time studio work in the industry.

As I would come to find . . . it wouldn’t be that easy.

Part 4: The Dry Spell

Gerry Mouse was the last big success of mine for quite some time. What followed was an entire year of doing ‘freelance work’ . . . .which is a polite way of saying I was mostly unemployed with only a few small gigs inbetween. I was relentlessly applying for studios all over Canada, hoping SOMEBODY would give me the time of day. In some places, a few studios even offered me the chance to do a test . . . but due to circumstances that I’m honestly embarrassed about in retrospect, I either failed them or couldn’t complete them at all. My dad eventually started pressuring me to get any kind of employment I could get my hands on, but even trying to find work in low requirement fields was proving to be fruitless. I was getting depressed, which was compounded on by the fact that I had gone through a hard break up around that time as well. it wasn’t ALL bad though. Around that time I made another short film called “A Lovely Stroll”, which would later be featured in both the Florida Animation Festival AND the Open World Animation Festival (which is kind of like my debut as a writer and director, not just the crews animation lead).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afN2v3pBiqQ

It was also around this time where I got a month long remote gig from a studio in Toronto that was . . . honestly? Best paying gig I ever got to this day. It’s too bad that never amounted to anything bigger. I also started doing a wee bit of animation for Dawgtown too, but that eventually ran dry due to production complications. The bulk of that time was just spent by me being depressed and uncertain about the future, earning what ever money I could with small commissions here and there.

Then, within my endless pushing of applications hoping for any studio in all of Canada to notice me, I happened to send an application to Copernicus Studios in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The human resources department responded to my application saying that they weren’t hiring at the time, but they were gearing up to recruit for something that summer and may contact me again with the opportunity to do a test months down the line.

And that’s exactly what they did.

When I received the animation test from Copernicus, I was more determined than ever. I was going to dedicate as much time as I possibly could to making this test look the best it could be. I remember spending VERY late nights being very paranoid about every little detail and frantically looking up whatever I didn’t know about Toon Boom at the time. After I submitted my test, I was counting down the days for their response.

They got back to me in a reasonable amount of time and asked if I would be interested in a video interview. I was freaking out and wanted to make ABSOLUTELY sure I could impress. I cleaned up as well as I could and made sure to answer all their questions honestly and concisely.

And then . . . they officially offered me a role on the production. You can’t imagine the rush of joy that went through me when I first read that email. After years of grinding and twiddling my thumbs I finally broke my glass ceiling. The idea of a random kid from Alberta breaking into a niche industry like that with no college education was unheard of. They told me in the video interview that the contract was for a Netflix animated adaptation of a classic adult Canadian sitcom. At the time I thought it was going to be Corner Gas. It turned out to be Trailer Park Boys. Once we got the news, I celebrated with all my family and friends and my dad and I planned my move to Halifax; a city on the complete opposite side of the country.

This next bit has nothing to do with the animation stuff, I just think it’s an interesting tidbit to share:

At first, my dad and I were struggling to find a place for me to live in the city. The problem was that my new contract wanted me to start in late May, but every lease of every apartment naturally wants you to start living there the first of the month. But, the biggest stroke of luck in the universe would happen to me. My dad happened to call one apartment’s office and explained to them what my situation was and they said

“funny you should mention that . . .I have two tenants here in my office RIGHT NOW that are looking for somebody to sublease for them and they need to be moved out by May 25th. If Tom subleases for them he can be in there before June no problem.”

WHAT. ARE. THE. CHANCES. OF. THAT??????

My apartment’s previous tenants were super nice too. for a thousand dollars they gave me their double sized bed, their microwave, their working desk, their couch, their vacuum cleaner and a bunch of other things to help me get started. They also went out of their way to get me nice things like a laundry card with $20 on it, a map of Halifax, a cupboard stocked up with insta-noodles, some cheap cutlery and bowls. . . . they went super out of their way to be nice to me on my first move and I’ll never forget that.

At the time I thought a stroke of luck like that was a sign from God that I was pursuing my destiny. To this day I think that still might be true. My takeaway here is don’t give up no matter what. Even if things seem uncertain at times, perseverance and tenacity will pay off in the end.

So with that, I said goodbye to my family and friends and moved to Halifax to begin my adult life as a full time PROFESSIONAL animator. I felt like I could take on anything.

And that . . . wasn’t 100% true.

Part 5: Growing Pains

I was very excited to work on my first studio production in house and it was through this contract that I met some of my closest friends ever. I learned more about toon boom and animation in 3 months than I did in 3 years of freelancing. But it wasn’t all fun and games. In fact, a lot of it was VERY VERY stressful and I ended up making more mistakes than I care to admit. In retrospect it’s easy to forgive myself because that’s just what happens when you’re that green, especially with a journey as unorthodox as mine, but at the time I did NOT take it well at ALL. See, at this point I was 100% motivated to be the best artist I could possibly be. As far as I was concerned not much else in life mattered that much. And that made me toxic. I had a hard time emotionally with taking criticism for my work. I started getting argumentative with my friends. I overworked myself. I tried to have a sense of humor for my problems but the self deprecating jokes only made me feel worse. What followed was nearly 2 years of feeling what the industry pros call “imposter syndrome”. I had it BAD. But luckily, I get by with a little help from my friends. I started opening up about what I was going through and luckily the people around me have been very reassuring about my right to be where I am. But the feelings of inadequacy DID end up leaving a dent in my work at the time and by the time Copernicus was recruiting for another toon boom show, I was not one of the few selected. But there WAS an alternative. They had just opened up some positions for their flash show (which was Care Bears: Unlock the Magic). They gave me the opportunity to do the flash test and I accepted. At the time I didn’t know very much about Flash . . . like, at all . . . but I sat down to learn as much about it as I could in the week that I had and I had done JUST well enough on the test to get myself another contract. From then on I spent nearly a year mastering Flash. Then, I was eventually brought on to Curious George to help on shadows and revisions. Then, shortly after, Copernicus asked me if I’d be interested in doing the builds test. I said yes, learned a bunch of stuff on the fly and got that job too. That’s what I’m doing right now.

The takeaway here is more an important lesson for when you DO make it rather than your journey to that point. When you break into the industry, you’re going to be met with a LOT of challenges. this industry is highly competitive and highly demanding. It’s not enough to be a skilled artist; you also have to have the grit to be a dependable team member. Matter of fact, at a time when my skill wasn’t cutting it, my grit was what helped keep me from washing out. And also, don’t be afraid to try new things. In an industry as volatile as animation being a jack of all trades is a HUGE selling point.

My advice is stay determined and, more importantly . . .try not to let failure get to your heart. keep your head up, allow yourself to heal, and forgive your mistakes. You’re not always going to stick the landing, but that’s okay. If you stick with it, you’ll still come out of that situation with more than when you entered.

Conclusion:

So why did I share all of this? I shared it because I know a lot of young, aspiring artists out there are uncertain about their future. I know you might feel like you can’t do it because you don’t know everything or you don’t have all the right credentials or you might screw things up if you try. I want you to listen to your heart and pursue what you want anyway. If I can make it, you can too. And take pride in the story of your journey. If you succeed, even given your circumstances, your story will be valuable in a way that mine couldn’t possibly be. I know a lot of my success has to deal with inordinate luck and I will forever be grateful for that, but I will always be just as grateful that I had the fortitude for when times were at their toughest. Go out there. Make what you want to make. Do whatever you can to learn the basics even if you can’t go to college. Ask for help. Get as involved with a community as you can. Whatever you start, stick with it. Be patient. Embrace challenge. Take those leaps of faith. Finally . . . forgive yourself for the times that you fail.

To finish off this post, here is a montage representing my animation journey from 2014-2020. Best of luck, all you artists out there

https://www.facebook.com/tom.vankampen/posts/10221173577866185

#animation #2dart #2d animation #toonboom #cartoon #career advice

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bigyack-com · 4 years

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‘The Far Side’ Is Back. Sort Of. Gary Larson Will Explain.

Just shy of 25 years since its last original installment, the offbeat comic strip “The Far Side” has returned. In a manner of speaking, but please don’t call it a comeback.“I’m not ‘back,’ at least in the sense I think you’re asking,” said Gary Larson, the cartoonist who created it, via email last week ahead of a website revival. “Returning to the world of deadlines isn’t exactly on my to-do list.” Beginning Tuesday, the “Far Side” site will provide visitors with “The Daily Dose,” a random selection of past cartoons, along with a weekly set of strips arranged by theme. There will also be a look at doodles from the sketchbooks of Larson, who said: “I’m looking forward to slipping in some new things every so often.” (Previously, there was no content on the site.)“The Far Side” became a cultural phenomenon after it appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle on Jan. 1, 1980. The single-panel comic, which ran until Larson, now 69, retired in 1995, featured men, women, children, animals and insects in often offbeat and sometimes inscrutable situations. One installment, “Cow Tools,” featured a bovine in front of a worktable with an odd assortment of implements. The image was described on Reddit as the comic’s most “notoriously confusing cartoon.” There were also occasional controversies: A chimp once described Jane Goodall as a tramp, though she later wrote the foreword for a collected edition of the series. One scientist even named an insect after Larson. After stepping away from his daily deadline 24 years ago, Larson said he rarely drew, except for Christmas cards. But even that was not easy. It “had turned into an annual pain because I seemed to always be dealing with clogged pens, dried-up markers, or something else related to lack of use,” he said. That changed when he tried working on a digital tablet. “Lo and behold, within moments I found myself having fun drawing again,” he said. Here are edited excerpts from the email interview.What was your inspiration for “The Far Side?”It probably all started with “Alley Oop.” I had always liked to draw as a kid, and I remember being grabbed visually by that strip. I was especially fascinated with the dinosaurs, and that’s when I started drawing my own, along with other animals. No cows, though. Later came a major influence from Mad magazine, especially the style and humor of Don Martin. I think that’s the first time I actually laughed at a cartoon. Still later I was taken with the cartoons of Gahan Wilson, B. Kliban and George Booth. All these cartoonists seemed to attach a lot of importance to nuance and composition. There was something almost organic going on between the humor and the art that conveyed it.Did any cartoons provoke controversy?Man, controversy never seemed too far away from me, especially during my first year of syndication. I truly thought my career may have ended a number of times. I remember one I did of a couple dogs that were playing this game, where they were smacking around a cat hanging from a long rope attached to a pole. I called it “Tethercat.” To me, and I assume my editor, it didn’t cross any line because this was just a game dogs might play. But that one got people stirred up. Especially cat people. Doing something controversial was never my intention. This was just my sense of humor, and the kind of humor in my family. I never drew anything my mom wouldn’t have laughed at. Of course, my mom was insane. I’m kidding! Well, maybe a little.I’ll forever be grateful to fans, who in those early days often rescued “The Far Side” from cancellation, or campaigned to get it reinstated. Why did you avoid recurring characters?I would have felt locked in. I just wanted to go anywhere my mind would take me, from bacteria to outer space.When I first met the editor of my syndicate-to-be, he asked about developing recurring characters. The moment scared me. I didn’t have a clue on how to approach character-based cartooning. And then he dropped the idea just a few minutes after bringing it up. To me, characters were only in a cartoon to serve an idea, to play a supportive role just like any film actor might, but in a film so short it was only a single frame.But my own version of central casting started taking shape. I could sometimes be asked by someone if I would draw “that nerdy kid” or “that woman with the beehive hairdo” and of course I knew who they meant. But I didn’t assign a specific name or persona to any of them. One of my characters could be teaching a class one day and get trampled by an elephant the next. You would never want to get too attached.Was it initially tough to pitch “The Far Side” to newspapers or your agent?I never really “pitched” my cartoons to anyone. Seems to me cartoons have to speak for themselves. My goal was to see if I could get editors to just look at my work. Other than that, I stayed out of it.I did manage to sell a handful of cartoons to one very small weekly, for which I received $5 each. Aside from that, though, the few doors I knocked on were of the revolving kind. But the handful of times an editor actually did look at my work, not only did he or she not rain on my parade, they seemed to take a genuine interest in me, and ended up giving my self-confidence a boost. Then a big shot in the arm was when The Seattle Times started running my cartoons on a weekly basis. It didn’t last forever — too many complaints, I was told — but it ultimately motivated me to head down to San Francisco, where I walked through the doors (again, unannounced) of The San Francisco Chronicle, and the rest, as they say …At what point did you know the strip was a success?My own benchmark for success was pretty basic — I just wanted to be able to pay my rent. Beyond reaching that goal I really didn’t care much. I was doing something I loved, getting by, and that’s what mattered. So, in my own eyes, I think I became successful somewhere in my second year. But I’m not sure I ever quite shook the sense that the whole thing might be a house of cards. I always felt like yesterday’s cartoon was yesterday’s cartoon, and I was only as funny as today’s.And then there was “Cow Tools.”“Cow Tools” is difficult to describe, so I don’t think I should attempt it here or it could turn into an essay. But the bottom line is that it was a massively confusing cartoon. When that came out, suddenly I found myself being called by reporters and doing interviews about a cartoon with the inane title, “Cow Tools.” I think one newspaper even held a contest to see if anyone could figure out what it meant. It got kind of wild.But, in a weird way, this is how I first came to realize that there was something going on, and that there were other humans actually reading my cartoons. Cartooning is kind of a loner endeavor. You draw stuff, you mail it in, draw stuff, mail it in. Which “Far Side” cartoons are your favorites?I’ve always been more inclined to remember the ones I wish I hadn’t done. There was a time when I felt embarrassed about a fair number of them, mostly because I thought they were kind of stupid or corny. Or they flat-out tanked. But now when I look back at those cartoons, I think many of them have a kind of innocence to them, and they don’t bother me so much.As for favorites, these days I’m actually having a harder time just remembering many of them. I don’t have cause to look at them very often, and when I do it feels sort of like bumping into an old friend you haven’t seen or thought about for years. Are there any strips you wish you could take another stab at?I retroactively tweaked some captions on a handful of cartoons after they were initially published, trying to dial them in just a little better, but I almost regret doing even that. I think it’s possible to keep refining something until you’ve managed to kill it. Even the warts probably play a role. What is it like to have two species named after you?Amazing. And truly flattering. Truthfully, I think it’s officially only one species, a chewing louse that lives exclusively on owls. I believe the other one, an Ecuadorean butterfly, hit some kind of taxonomic snag. But hey, I’m honored to get the louse! I can die now. Read the full article

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