#marginally. only cuz the markings | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

oswaldsleftbicep · 2 years

Note

Hi! I'm a big fan of your account, and I think you are really underrated. Tbh, you're the only reason why I keep tumblr, so I always look forward to your post! Anyways, this is my submission for the NH matchup.

Hobbies: art (drawing and painting), writing, reading, cooking, and playing otome games. But I think most people would associate me with art. I also like to listen to YouTube videos or podcasts when making art or playing games.

My MBTI is INFJ and my enneagram wing is type 6. I'm generally a shy and introverted person, but I can also be talkative when I am comfortable.

Likes: Cats, call ducks, milk boba tea, big fluffy clouds and blue skies but also cool rainy weather, giving gifts, and my favorite colour is purple 💜

Dislikes: Thunder and lightning, hot weather, and not having enough time to indulge in my hobbies

Thanks! Hope you have a nice day 💖

askjalksjkf you're so kind

i ship you with....

Lucas!

❧ i'm gonna start with the mbti thing; it was kinda tricky cuz i had to figure out what each of the boys' mtbi's would be and i determined that lucas would likely be an enfp, although i'd say he's more ambiverted than extroverted. infj and enfp is a very solid match apparently, idk i don't know much about mbti lol

❧ lucas would totally get down with the fact that you're an artist, he just gives the vibes that he would love going to art museums and galleries. he's so supportive of all your pieces, even the ones you think are garbage. if you're ok with it, he'll find a place to hang up every single one of your artworks, his house ends up turning into your own art gallery

❧ if you let him he'd love to read your writing, he feels as if it's a way to find out what goes on inside that lovely mind of yours. he'll even suggest taking your scripts to a book binding shop so you can have your own book!

❧ he's not an avid reader, but i could see the two of you going on little dates that involve going to bookstores or reading a book together at home; it could either be the two of you reading the same book or two totally different books. if he finds something funny in his book while y'all are reading, he'd totally read it aloud to you. and if he reads a book he knows you'll like, he'll annotate it for you by underlining quotes he likes, leaving witty comments in the margins, and highlighting parts that remind him of you <3

❧ if you do end up getting some of your writings printed into book form, he'd totally annotate your work as well. he'll mark the parts that he enjoys and write his thoughts, basically he'll give you feedback

❧ you two would take turns cooking meals for one another, although y'all end up helping each other and making the meals together. you guys would have a little wooden box of recipes that you'd like to try out someday written on the cutest little cards, and there's a separate box of all the recipes you've tried and loved

❧ if he was in our world he'd probably be indifferent to otome games. he's omniscient right? kinda like how 707 from mystic messenger knows he's in a game, lucas was aware of mc choosing other routes, so i feel like mans would relate to the tragic character in whatever otome game you play give me some recommendations btw if you're not too shy about what games you play, he'd totally like have you sit in his lap or spoon you from behind and watch over your shoulder as you play, and he'd totally make fun of the terrible dialogue options or how dumb the mcs are or judge you for the character routes you decide on, but it's all in good fun. he might even convince you to let him make some of the choices lol

❧ you sound like a very independent person who likes their alone time, and you probably enjoy that kind of parallel play time interactions where it's just the two of you doing your own things but in each other's presence. i could see the two of you in the same room with you at your art station and him doing whatever it is he does in his free time and you'll have a podcast on in the background or a youtube video up on your screen that you'll both tune into every now and then. kind of unrelated, i feel like lucas would enjoy making jewelry which is one activity he'll do during your parallel play

❧ there were other characters i figured would be enfp's, but i tried to pick the one who would be most likely to easily give you your alone time and not be too loud and,, extra for you since you're generally pretty quiet. lucas totally accepts that part of you, and he kinda understands too since he's more ambiverted. he does love when you get extra talkative, especially when it's about your day or a topic you really enjoy. he likes watching your facial expressions change as you tell a story

❧ he's an animal lover for sure, but when it comes to cats vs dogs i'd say he leans just a teeny bit closer to cats, so if you ever wanted to adopt a cat or two he'd be totally down. i could see him being a duck dad too, it's so cute watching these little ducks follow him around

❧ he also prefers mild days over stormy, messy ones. if it's a particularly nice day he'll take you out on a walk or you'll have a picnic in a scenic meadow so you can watch the fluffy clouds blow by in the soft breeze

❧ i hc him as a maximalist so he welcomes the gifts you give with open arms :) but be sure to expect some gifts back. his other love language is spending quality time with you, whether it's doing something active or simply being in each other's presence

❧ whenever it storms he makes sure that you have something to distract yourself. if you're in nightmare he'll put up a soundproof barrier and an illusion on the windows to make it look like it's nice outside. if you're in your world he'll close the blinds and find a podcast or video for you to pay attention to instead, making sure to entertain you further with his side comments

❧ he'll also check in with you to see if you've done something related to your hobbies recently. he wants you to indulge at least once per day, but he also understands you might be too busy. however, if he finds out that it's been more than two days since you've even touched your hobby he'll take on your responsibilities for an hour or two, or even the whole evening, so that you can work on an art piece or knock down a few chapters. say you came back from a particularly long day at work and it's your turn to make dinner, but he hears your disappointed complaint about how you hoped you'd have time to finish a wip you started last week, he'll pause whatever he's doing, usher you to your workspace and tell you not to worry about dinner or doing the dishes for the night, he'll call you over when the meal is ready; heck would you rather eat at your workspace so you can multitask? not a problem! he wants to make sure you have plenty of you time

#let's play a game!#my. hcs #nightmare harem #shipping games #otome games

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umbra-by-jacqui-natla · 9 months

Text

Chapter Twelve

"Are you sure you're okay?" Eddie asked her, walking along the streets.

"I'm fine," Carrie replied sternly. "Like I told you a thousand times now."

The sky was a dark canvas with thin white dots glistening. Since Carrie was discarded from the hospital, Eddie had been keeping a close eye on her.

"I know, I know," he sighed, his hands in his pockets. "Just checking, that's all."

Eddie looked at Carrie, seeing her still walking and her face looking forward. Her hair was light blonde and it waved over her shoulders and back. She was still in her gym clothes with her grey hoodie. She had glossy pale skin with dimmed green eyes and dark shadows under them. Carrie's green eyes flickered as she dived into his mind yet still looking ahead.

(she doesn't seem okay. she looks tired. what's been happening to)

"Can you stop?" Carrie spoke up, her voice tinted with annoyance.

"Stop what?" Eddie asked, confused.

"Like..." she shrugged her shoulders. "Like pretending to be concerned about me?"

Eddie gawked at her in disbelief and started blinking, slowly taking it in. His lips pinched together in a hard line and his jaw went slack.

"I- I'm not pretending," he stuttered out his answer, his hands in his pockets. "I care about you being alright."

"Why would you care if I'm alright?" Carrie questioned, folding her arms. "I mean, hardly anyone cares and you're only probably talking to me cuz none of your friends are around."

"Hey, the only friend I got is a dried-out sunflower on my window sill," he replied. "And Maria. And Mrs. Chen. And even I consider you a friend."

"For someone who's a famous reporter, it sounds like you don't have that many friends," Carrie sounded seemingly surprised.

"Hang on, I do have friends," Eddie exclaimed. "There was Richard, he works as a receptionist at the MNBN building. And then, there was Anne."

There was silence between them. Eddie curled his lips and his shoulders hunched. Carrie looked at him, seeing his lowered head. Her mind dove into his head. The mixture of images and emotions was staggering and indescribable. Love. Passion. Confidence. Betrayal. Sadness. It was in a long series of events: they flashed by in a dizzying shuffle. His mind had become her library, desperately running through with her fingers trailing lightly over bookshelves. Some were lifting out, scanning them, putting them back, letting someone fall, leaving the pages to flutter wildly

(have a nice life. you're fired, eddie. i can't trust you. have a nice life. you are pathologically self-absorbed. your ego requires constant attention, and you're stubborn as hell. but i was willing to roll with it, eddie because i loved you. what you did got me fired. you used me.)

In the wind of memory and still on and on. Then, she finally reached a shelf marked ANNE, subheaded FIANCÉ. Books were thrown open, flashes of experience, marginal notations in all the hieroglyphs of emotions, more complex than the Rosetta Stone.

Looking. Finding more about Eddie than he knew himself — love for Anne and his career, cockyness, desire for giving justice to the weak, hatred for the Life Foundation, disgust for Drake, concern for Carrie herself.

What a loser.

Eddie felt something was pulling him back, weak and exhausted.

(what's going on in my head? like something is invading me.)

Carrie blinked, leaving his mind. There were many things that Eddie didn't tell her. As they walked, they spotted Maria sitting by the entrance of a store. She had a blanket covering her legs and her dark hair was still in a mess. There was a square outline underneath the front of the blanket. Carrie grinned at her and Maria smiled back at her.

"Hey, Maria," Eddie greeted her.

"Hi, Eddie," Maria said, looking at him and then looking up back at her. "Hi, Carrie."

"How's it going?" Carrie asked, placing her hands in her pockets and towering over Maria. "Any creeps coming at you?"

"None whatsoever," Maria shook her head.

"That's great to hear," Eddie said as he opened the vending machine and disappointment rushed to his face. "Oh! Yeah, we're empty." He spoke with fake enthusiasm.

Then, Maria lifted the blanket and revealed newspapers. "Cost you five dollars."

"Five dollars for a paper that's free?" Eddie looked completely bewildered.

"How did you even get hold of them?" Carrie questioned her.

"I walked all the way over to the vending machine," Maria explained, her hands gesturing from the vending machine close to the road and to the newspapers. "Got the papers out and brought 'em back over here, so you can have 'em personally delivered to you."

"You did that for me?" Eddie asked, smiling and leaning over to the wall opposite the women.

"Yes, I did," Maria replied, picked up a newspaper, and aimed it at them. "Five bucks."

"That seems pretty steep," Carrie replied, taking a sharp breath in.

"Yeah, I'm with her," said Eddie in agreement; Carrie blushed furiously.

"Tell you what, one of you give me a dollar for a song, I'll throw in the paper," Maria suggested.

"I'll tell you what," Eddie took out his wallet and opened it. "I will give you twenty bucks, but not to sing, all right?"

"That seems fair," Carrie added.

Maria pondered over the offer and, without hesitation, she agreed to take it. Eddie gave her twenty dollars and she gave him the newspaper.

"Thank you," Eddie said as he headed to the entrance door of a local shop.

"You're welcome," Maria told him.

"No. You're welcome." Eddie pointed his recently bought newspaper to her and they laughed; he walked into the shop.

"If anyone bothers you—," Carrie spoke up.

"I knew who to call," Maria replied and they laughed.

The bell tinkled as Carrie followed him into the shop. The shop was small and — until Eddie and Carrie walked in — was empty. The light shone from the ceiling, giving off the pale blue illusion. She spotted a middle-aged Mandarin woman at the counter wearing a dark blue apron and a sleeved white blouse. She had short black hair and her dark eyes were behind a pair of glasses. Her skin was a light beige shade with hardly any wrinkles. She was sorting out her counter when Carrie entered.

"Hey, Mrs. Chen," she heard Eddie greeting the woman.

"How you doing, Eddie?" the woman, Mrs. Chen, welcomed him.

"Ah, aches and pains, you know, aches and pains," Eddie let out a sigh.

"You look like shit."

Carrie cringed when she cursed. Even when she heard things like this, it was still a shock to her. She saw Eddie freeze on the spot for a few seconds before rotating his body to see Mrs. Chen.

She ain't even wrong.

"Excuse me?" Eddie asked her.

"You look like shit." Mrs. Chen repeated herself.

"And you look as beautiful as ever." Eddie groaned, rubbing his right eye, and began walking away from the counter as Carrie watched on.

"Mind is body, Eddie. Have you been meditating like I showed you?"

Carrie ambled through the store, looking at the products.

"No, I have not. And it does not work."

"It doesn't work, because you don't give it a chance." Mrs. Chen rose her voice.

"No, it doesn't work, because I bought a DVD off your cousin, and it was in Mandarin," Eddie explained.

"Tóunǎo jiùshì shēntǐ," she spoke in her native language.

"Yeah, I don't understand that, either." Eddie shook his head, his hands rolling his newspaper.

"Hǎo ba, yěxǔ rúguǒ nǐ xuéxí tā, nǐ jiù huì míngbái." Mrs. Chen's voice grew louder and pointed at her head and Eddie.

Eddie spun round and pointed the newspaper at her. "See, that right there, I don't understand what you just said. That is the problem."

"Húndàn."

Eddie stopped by the medicine range and grabbed a small bottle of Ibuprofen. Carrie walked over to him, her arms wrapped around herself. "Maybe you should consider practicing Mandarin," Carrie whispered to him.

Eddie shot his blue eyes down at her. "Oh, so do you know what she's saying?" He whispered back to her in a sarcastic tone yet his voice was husky.

His voice made Carrie's heart skip a beat. Her cheeks warmed up and her eyelids flickered as she looked at him. Her arms pressed tightly to her chest.

"To be honest, I don't know what she's saying," she softly replied, leaning over to him. "But it's never too late to learn something."

Eddie smirked.

Poseur.

"Bottle of whiskey, and don't forget my change."

They heard a male harsh voice after the bell dinged. Eddie looked over her shoulders and Carrie turned her head, following his gaze. She saw a bearded man with a beanie hat on his head, covering his dark mullet. He had a grey hoodie underneath his check-patterned jacket, denim jeans, and black boots. Mrs. Chen stared at the man with her face in despise.

"Please," Mrs. Chen begged.

The man smacked the counter, pulling a gun out from his pocket, and Carrie flinched. Eddie hid behind the shelves and gently grabbed Carrie's arm. He pulled her back to the shelves he was hiding behind. Carrie looked up at him, feeling fear in the hair on the back of her neck. It was like invisible fingers running along her spine. Eddie placed his index finger on his lips.

(don't do anything. you'll get hurt)

Of course he didn't want you to get hurt. He seems to like you.

And Carrie understood. She watched the man, aiming his gun at Mrs. Chen, and felt the anger slowly - but surely - rising inside her.

"Let's go," he barked at her as Mrs. Chen opened the register drawer. "Before the price goes up for my protection."

Carrie eyed the man, the rage creeping up in her. She heard the cash rustling from the register. A delicate growl escaped her mouth. Eddie heard it and looked down at her. He felt his hand (that was holding onto Carrie's arm) getting cold. He didn't know if it was his hand or her arm that was getting cold. As he glanced down at her, Eddie could've sworn that Carrie's pupils dilated for a second.

(burn it. burn it. burn it. burn it. burn it)

"The full payment is due," the man threatened. "Now. Make sure you have my money ready, Chen. I don't like to wait."

(burn it. burn it. burn it. burn it. burn it)

Smash his skull!

As Mrs. Chen collected the money from her register, Carrie glared at the man's gun: a nine-millimeter dark pistol. Her eyes focused on the weapon like a lion looking at its prey.

(burn it. burn it. burn it)

Rip his rib cage out! Watch him bleed!

Then, the man felt his right hand heating as he held the gun in that hand. He smelt the smoke from his gun and hissed, dropping his gun onto the floor. Mrs. Chen let out a small gasp, hoping he didn't hear it. He spotted the cash on the counter and snatched it, putting it in his pockets. He crouched down and grabbed his gun; it burnt his hand, making him hiss. He took his hat off and — covering his hand with his hat — picked his gun off the ground. The man snarled at Mrs. Chen and stormed out of the store, slamming the door behind him as he left.

Eddie removed his hand from Carrie's arm and leaned away from the shelves.

"Are you okay?" Eddie asked in a quiet tone.

Carrie nodded. She stared at the front door and a dread of fear washed over her. That man might hurt Maria.

"I need some air," Carrie replied coldly and walked out of the store.

Eddie watched her leave the store. He grabbed a sandwich and headed to the counter. He placed the sandwich and the Ibuprofen on the counter and looked up at Mrs. Chen.

"Life hurts, Eddie," Mrs. Chen commented. "It just does."

Eddie paid for the sandwich and Ibuprofen. Mrs. Chen gave him a receipt and he left the store. When he left, he saw Carrie speaking to Maria. Carrie looked over at him.

"She was checking on me," Maria said. "Heard there was a bank robbery in there."

"Yeah, that's good," Eddie said and looked at Carrie. "Can I ask you something?"

"Okay?" Carrie replied, sounding uncertain, and said goodbye to Maria; she then walked beside him.

"How is this happening when you're around?" Eddie questioned her.

Carrie's breath became uneasy. She wrapped her arms around herself and sighed. Her heart pounded as if she could feel it beating in her head. Her fingers tingled as she gripped her arms tightly.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about," Carrie replied nervously.

"Well, for starters, you frightened the thugs that attacked Maria. You had a seizure but you came out of the hospital just fine. And now, that robber burnt his hand from his gun."

Don't.

Carrie swallowed and hummed. "It's just a coincidence, Eddie. Or maybe I have bad luck, I don't know." She shrugged her shoulders and hummed again. Then, she glared back at him. "What do you want from me?"

"I want to know the truth," Eddie said. "I want to know how all of this is possible."

"What do you think happened?" she snapped.

"Like I said, frightening thugs, had a seizure and surprisingly covered, burning guns. And, if I recalled, you encountered a black goo that spoke perfect English to you and had a conversation with it."

Carrie was so mad she could feel the tears coming; she tried to force them back by grinding her teeth together.

"You think I'm crazy?" she asked sternly.

"I didn't say you are," Eddie replied, his words slowly coming out of his mouth. "I just want to know what's happening."

"No one will believe that, right?" Her voice held an edge of derision.

"I'm not going to tell anyone."

"Can't you just count your lucky stars and get over it?"

They arrived at the Hotel Schuller and went inside, walking up the stairs.

"You're not going to let it go, are you?" she said.

"Nope," Eddie replied.

"Well... I hope you enjoy disappointment."

Carrie opened the door and went in. She slammed the door and locked it. She threw her back against the door and sat on the floor. She pressed her knees to her chest and placed her forehead on it. Her scream was muffled and a few lights flickered.

You did well, Carrie. You did well.

Link to Chapter Thirteen

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writer59january13 · 2 years

Text

Mine slovenly unkempt appearance spelled embarrassment

spurred by most recent therapy session

with Renee Cardone

whereby thematic thread

stitched how yours truly sewed

coping modus operandi,

viz avoiding emotionally volatile situations

courtesy mine trademark signature reactions

rather than be in compliance with expectations.

Said nonconformist passive rebelliousness

especially affected our eldest daughter

me and the missus begot

even when she became potential human, which zygote quickly multiplied and divided, and upon first blush

if blot of amalgamated undifferentiated cells shown to botanist visible to the naked eye,

he/she would understandably, possibly,

and easily misconstrue specimen as ergot

housed whip smart Rorschach inkblot sized being who expressed disdain NOT

be linkedin with me, her disheveled papa, who underwent extensive cosmetic surgery

and rigorous physical training

to become taikonaut.

No rhyme nor reason why

yours truly recalled how

me very late (long deceased) mother

(earlier in her fitbit livingsocial years)

non verbally communicated disgust

(nsync with audible sigh)

quite often ultimatums

blasting fulminating nauseating

scathing well nigh

she loosed loathing against

grungy looking son (guess who)

futilely escaped wrath of Harriet Khan

clamoring upon rooftop high

offering birds eye view

out of earshot and eyesight aye

catching sunbeams while smiling wry

cowardly lion sought divine intervention

courtesy sheltering sky

acres of shingles I sprawled

these lovely bones did lie

property of garden variety generic guy.

She who helped beget and birth

sole heir inheriting gamut of behavioral quirks

linkedin with many predecessors,

who trod, slunk, roamed...

across planet Earth.

Best bet said present day scribe i.e.

poetic, nonesstablishmentarian, liberal,

jesting, humble, freelance, dilatory bummer

whose hindsight evinced a student dumber

than his classmates wheedled

(as targeted scapegoat) by bullies their flummer

re: entrapped - worse louse than lice

internalized trauma left figurative tread marks

analogous to raging road runner

pressing accelerator pedal of hummer

driven by (an actual person)

one Roger Kummerer, jogged me memory to recollect if yours truly not mistaken his older sibling Marsha gave a preemie kitten to Amélie mine eldest sister, (whom she named Twinkles) scores of decades in the past, when our family lived on Lantern Lane.

Despite agonizing vicious tongue lashing

courtesy parents against their flesh and blood,

which venomous invisible whiplash

never petered out against

peckerhead son of a gun

(even when sundry bloke

got married and gladly left home)

abusive treatment markedly

left appalling, loathing and percolating

ambivalence if though mama passed away

(these last eighteen plus years) wrung

cash crop of poetic endeavors,

albeit resultant lackluster

literary crafted aspirations

many describing marginal existence.

Memory of mom overshadowed

by similar facsimile thereof

think shrieking banshee,

an indelible psychological imprimatur, I strive to acknowledge emotional reverberations to date (June eighth, 2022).

My trademark wordsmith fashioned communiqué

impossible mission to shake off bittersweet feelings toward once (former)

Arthur Murray dance instructor, which fancy footwork synchronized with favorite

debonair handsome young fella (papa)

both flirts buoyant with elan and energy

only thru death will angst become free

interestingly enough hands will clap with glee, cuz versatile wordsmith he meaning this logophile will cease knee dulling anonymous readers now me (Phil) Anders heads off into the virtual blue beyond.

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pluviatrix · 3 years

Photo

based on the very traumatic real story of when my cows got out and we found em in our front yard at breakfast 😩ah so goes the life of a country boy

#WE LOOK OUT AT BREAKFAST . I SEE A COW STANDING BY THE FENCE AND SAY oh damn she's close huh MY DAD THEN GOES UH OH #WE SPEND HALF THE GD MORNING TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW SHE GOT OUT.#TURNS OUT HALF THE FUCKIN HERD GOT OUT THIS ONE COW WAS JUST THE ONLY ONE WHO STUCK BY THE HOUSE.#THERE WAS A FUCKING HOLE IN THE FENCE!!!! they came back when i called cuz they thought they were getting food BUT. MY COWS!!!!!#the trauma is deep. i'm still haunted by how they broke through the fuckin fence in the first place #are our cows roided out?? did one of the calves have enough and hulk smash its lil shit head through the barb wire? no one will ever know #anyways #lu twilight #linked universe #linkeduniverse #marginally. only cuz the markings #loz #legend of zelda #twilight princess #link #loz tp #loztp #mj art #have i posted thrice today? yes. will i do it again? yes. this is what exactly 0 (zero) pussy does to a mf #also self care is dressing twi like a hillbilly. carhartt + wranglers + unseen cowboy boots! yee to my haw

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burstingsunrise · 2 years

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Greetings Molly,

I am headed south into the wilderness tomorrow with my dance team and as such, this may be my last correspondence. I need you to know that one here comes the two to the three to the four errybody crunk out on the dance floor

Sorry we picked up an interfering transmission we are back now. To the regularly scheduled program. Melancholy kaleidoscope.

So anyways. What is a really good way to make a bad day marginally better? I headbanged to blink with my smoothie this morning and it was just. So nice. I bought a sleeping bag at target today for aforementioned adventure and it's built for people 5'8" and under. I'm 5'10". So that should be fun!!!!!!

What else. OH remember when cake wore gymnastics shirts. Post those cuz I can't on anon. Please.

Fun fact this week marks a year since I found the creek for the first time I'd just walked my roommate to the bus stop so she could go to the airport and fly home for Thanksgiving and then I biked past home and kept going down the road I'd only been halfway down before and then boom there it was. Life changed forever. An entire year defined by a single body of water.

Sometimes (often) I look at my balcony and remember our seven hour call. I think I drank whiskey. Something about a dog eating pizza crust. And freaky Saturday. I love you a lot. Sometimes I have dreams about visiting [redacted] and hugging you outside a coffee shop where we then sit down outside and talk about life and also random shit like vacuum cleaners. Because I love vacuum cleaners. Um. This feels like my time to go. Love you again byeeeeee *dial tone*

Greetings Adri @cringeycal,

important things first: cake in gymnastics shirts. (some bonus actual cake too bc it was too easy).

as you can see, they seem to have wandered into a goodwill where a gymnastics fan from approximately 1991 dumped a pile of threadbare gymnastics-related shirts and decided it would be a good idea to buy them. and they were right! it was! i am charmed!

okay, onto the next most important thing, your life.

i think you implied that you are going to submit to the elements on your camping trip and never return. possibly because you are going to become a sentient tree? which i support fully. be whatever you want to be. trees don't need sleeping bags. two problems solved.

a good day to make a bad day marginally better? looking at a cute dog. having a cookie. a personal dance party is a pretty good option too; hope your neck isn't too sore from the headbanging. i always dreaded hairography in dance class. sore neck for days.

happy creek-iversary! crazy that it was just sitting there and you had no idea and now it's such a big part of your life. would you have found it if you hadn't kept biking down the road that particular day? who knows! but you did find it, and you found your log, and you found creek boy calum!

i love you and i would love to sit at the coffee shop talking about vacuums with you. we could annoy other patrons by being loud and obnoxious, see some cute dogs on the street, maybe that boy you saw on campus will wander by, who can say. hopefully no dream demons would appear to ruin things.

pls don't die on your camping trip and if you decide to become a tree send an owl messenger or something to let me know.

-like she a groupie and i ain't even on tour...maybe she heard that i rhyme hardcore-

#ask #sucking chalk #did you send this after i randomly woke up at 230am #were you actually writing an ask when you said you were writing asks #eyes emoji #don't die in the woods pls #maybe you should bring a secondary blanket #a supplement to the sleeping bag #i didn't know sleeping bags had like...sizes #aside from 'child' and 'adult'#i used to have a purple sleeping bag that my bff SWORE was blue #she was wrong i was right

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nitewrighter · 3 years

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Make the AU, Nitey

Just for the record, this is @azaeleia ’s fault because I really like this art and I’ve pondered how a Gakuen AU might look for a while.

----

The thrum of cicadas whirred from the trees that marked the edge of campus, their sounds seemingly gaining momentum over the open air of the track and the green. Overwatch Academy was a stately boarding school with a sleek modern architecture that seemed to have echoes of old Georgian dignity. Genji slumped against the stucco wall of the gymnasium, smacking his lips to try and get the blood from his teeth. He wiped the back of his hand across his nose and mouth and huffed at the streak of red that marked the back of it, sticky in the kicked-up dust and grunted with some disgust. The blaze of furious adrenaline was fading and the bruises were setting in. He just needed a few seconds before getting up, that was all. He glanced down at his uniform and sighed--it was covered in dirt and grass stains from the tussle, and a few specks of blood from his nose and lips.. What a mess... he wouldn’t hear the end of it from Hanzo.

Classes for the day had let out nearly two hours ago, and now were the few hours devoted to intramural activities such as sports and arts and other programs before the students were called in for dinner in the dining hall and sent to their dorms for the evening.

Or in Genji’s assailants’ case, wander off to the areas of the campus that were too far-flung to be monitored and unintentionally re-enact Lord of the Flies. They were bullying Zen (again), and Genji intervened. He wasn’t sure if he could really say his intentions were purely noble, rushing to defend Zen, as he often found himself in fights by virtue of his own mouth--but he figured he was a lot more used to fights than Zen, and thus here he was, dirty, bruised, and feeling more stupid than heroic.

“Genji!” A pair of scuffed saddle shoes skidded to a dusty halt in front of him and Genji glanced up to see a familiar skinny figure in a blouse and the blue pleated skirt of their uniform. Angela Ziegler carried herself stiffly, and sometimes you could make out the faint lines of her back brace through her blouse. She buckled over rigidly, like a doll, with her hands on her knobby knees to catch her breath.

“Class rep...?” said Genji, squinting to make eye-contact with her. Angela Ziegler was a bit of an odd duck among their peers, one of those kids who acted like a mini-adult while not being aware they acted like a mini-adult. She was a favorite of Professor de Kuiper, elected to the position of Class Rep not because she was popular, but because she was universally recognized as a busybody who would probably push her way to the position anyway to see that things got done. As she pulled herself back up to an upright postion, head eclipsed the sun but was still blinding in its blondness. “But,” Genji eked out the words, “How did you--?”

Angela looked back over her shoulder and Genji made out another kid, bronzey-tan, shorter and even skinnier than Angela with a close-shaved head, sage, heavy-lidded eyes, and the remains of a surgically corrected harelip.

“Zen, I told you to go,” said Genji trying to push himself up to his feet, the stucco prickling the skin of his palms with the action.

“I did, and then I got help,” Zen answered mildly.

Genji shot him a dark look as Angela looked around, “Did you see where they went?”

“It’s fine,” Genji said, his voice half a growl, “They’re long gone by now.”

“Who was it?” said Angela.

Genji’s lips tightened.

“Genji,” Angela put her hands on her hips.

“Just Max and his goons again,” Genji said sullenly, “So crying to Professor de Kuiper isn’t going to do anything.” Max’s family were wealthy donors to the school. Kids like him tended to only get a slap on the wrist, come back to inflict more pain as a reaction to getting in trouble, all the while getting better at not getting caught.

“We wouldn’t be crying to him--” she started but then huffed and held out a hand to him, “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

Genji took her hand and she and Zen helped him up to his feet. She blinked at a dirty, bloody abrasion on his arm and another on his hand from when he was shoved hard to the ground. “You can walk, right?”

“Of course I can walk,” said Genji, limping a little.

“This way,” said Angela, taking his non-injured arm and walking around the gym.

“I don’t want to go to the nurse,” muttered Genji.

“I have a first aid kit in my gym locker,” said Angela, “It’s closer.”

“Nerd,” the scoffing word came out of him on reflex.

“It’s coming in handy, isn’t it?” she said, arching an eyebrow at him. The three of them headed over to where the locker rooms of the Gym emptied lead out to the green. In the distance, the school soccer team thundered around the grass, their shouts and laughs mingling with the screech of cicadas.

Zen held down the button on a drinking fountain and Genji sloshed up water onto his face, feeling it go from lukewarm to shockingly cold as he washed and watching his own watered down blood splash pink against the white of the fountain’s basin. He got a mouthful of water and swished it around, trying to get the dirt and blood from his teeth.

“Got it!” Angela briskly walked out of the girl’s locker room just as Genji was spitting bloodied water into the drinking fountain’s basin, and he made eye contact with her. She had a neat little first aid kit in hand but her lips were pulled back from her teeth in a grimace at him spitting. Genji looked up at her from the fountain, face dripping, moving to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand again, but she reached into the breast pocket of her blouse and held out a cloth handkerchief to him. His brow crinkled as he gingerly took it from her, and he couldn’t keep eye contact with her as he padded at his face with the handkerchief. He looked from the handkerchief to her but she was already sitting down on the bench outside the locker room and rifling through the little first aid kit. Genji pressed the handkerchief to his mouth, then padded it around his dripping jawline and the wet margins of his face.

“Here, sit down,” said Angela, taking a small disinfectant wipe from the first aid kit and tearing it out of its wrapper.

Genji moved to sit but grunted in pain in the process at what was surely a wide bruise on his leg.

“You were limping earlier,” said Angela.

“Yeah.”

“Is the skin broken?” said Angela.

“I don’t think so,” said Genji.

“Zen, can you head to the science lab? Professor de Kuiper has an ice pack in his fridge. Just say it’s for one of the soccer players.”

“Mm-hmm,” Zen gave a short nod before jogging off.

“Why were they picking on him?” said Angela, wiping the disinfectant wipe across the bloody abrasion on Genji’s arm as Zen exited earshot. Genji drew in a sharp inhale through his nostrils as she wiped grains of gravel from the injury.

“‘Cuz he’s weird,” said Genji with a shrug.

“He’s not weird, he’s nice,” said Angela, in her mini-adult way.

“He’s nice in a weird way. I guess it makes other people think he thinks they’re better than him,” mumbled Genji.

“Well that’s just childish,” said Angela crisply.

“I mean, we are kids,” said Genji.

“That’s not an excuse!” said Angela.

“You’re a kid too, you know,” said Genji.

“Exactly! Like, it’s not hard to be nice!” Angela rubbed the disinfectant wipe a little too hard and Genji winced, “Sorry--! Sorry...”

Genji snorted a little.

“What?” said Angela.

“Nothing, I just...it’s kind of funny that you say that when you’re getting mad,” said Genji.

“I’m not getting mad!” Angela argued and then caught herself, “Oh--you--! You need to be more careful! You should have gotten an adult! When they were picking on Zen, you should have gotten a teacher! Not gone all.... fighting... guy! Who fights things!”

Genji rolled his eyes. “You’re class rep. You wouldn’t get it,” he muttered.

Her big blue eyes widened with insulted alarm. “What wouldn’t I get!?” she said.

“Well... you and Zen... the teachers like you,” said Genji.

“So?” said Angela.

“So they treat you better,” said Genji.

“So everyone has to treat Zen and me worse to make up for it?” said Angela, setting the disinfectant wipe aside.

“I don’t know,” sighed Genji, leaning against the painted brick of the locker room. He blinked a few times. “Do they treat you badly?” he said, glancing over at her.

“No... they don’t... treat me like anything,” said Angela, now taking a bandage and wrapping it around the abrasion, “...they...don’t talk to me unless they have to. Maybe if they forgot an assignment...” she trailed off and then caught herself, “I mean--I--I hang out with Mei! Sometimes... when she’s not with her tutors...”

Genji looked over at her, his brow crinkling. Her blond hair was shrouding one eye as she worked. She always seemed so smart and together that he had never really considered she could be lonely. Her eyes were fixed on his palm now, wiping another disinfecting wipe across its heel,

“Thanks,” he said quietly.

She glanced up.

“For uh... all this. I’ll clean up more at the dorms but... this helps. Are--are you going to tell...?”

“...not unless you and Zen get in trouble again,” said Angela, glancing off, “But--you should feel like you can go to the teachers for help! That’s--that’s what their job is...” she trailed off. She furrowed her brow. “And--and you can come to me, too. I’m the class rep, after all.” A small smile spread on her lips.

“Sure thing, class rep,” said Genji. A pause passed. “You know... on Thursdays, there’s like, a whole 3 hours between where the AV club leaves the media center, and the janitor comes in to kick you out, so sometimes McCree and I watch bad horror movies in there.”

“Bad horror movies?”

“Yeah! And you eat a bunch of junk food and make fun of them! It’s great!”

“...why wouldn’t you just watch good horror movies?”

Genji huffed. “You’re killing me, Rep.”

Angela blinked. “Wait--are--are you saying I can come? On Thursdays?”

“Yeah,” Genji shrugged.

The brief, heartbreakingly bright emotion that rippled across her face, the awe, made Genji’s stomach lurch. She quickly tried to regain her composure before focusing on unwrapping another bandage. “Yeah! Thursdays!” she tried to sound casual as she placed the bandage over the scrape on his hand, “Thursdays are--I like Thursdays.”

Genji smiled a little and she pushed her hair back from her eyes. She smoothed her thumb over the adhesive bandage she had put on the heel of his palm. There was a steadiness to the motion that caught his attention, how much care and warmth that tiny action seemed to hint toward.

“I’ve gotten the ice pack,” a calm voice piped up and both of them flinched to alertness. Angela quickly released his hand and they both looked up to see Zen calmly presenting a blue ice pack which Genji eagerly grabbed and put over the bruise on his leg with a sigh of relief. Angela blinked a few times and then quickly stood up.

“Well--um-- is-- does anything else hurt?” she said, holding her little first aid kit in a white-knuckled grip.

“Uh.. I... think I can handle it from here if you need to go,” said Genji.

“Yes--I just remembered I.... have... homework. So much homework. And I should do it. So I’ll... see you in class?”

“Yeah,” said Genji, “See you in class.

“Mm-hm,” she gave a quick nod and then quickly disappeared back into the locker room. Genji sighed and pressed his back against the wall behind the bench, before he noticed a small rag crumpled at his side.

“Hey--Rep, you forgot your--” Genji picked up the handkerchief and pushed up from the bench and grunted, pressing the ice pack to his leg as he became aware of his bruise again with his own movement, but then he looked at the handkerchief, now soddened with blood and dirt and water. What was he going to do? Call her back and have her take the filthy thing? He sighed and sank back onto the bench, holding the ice pack to his leg with one hand and the damp, dirty handkerchief in the other. He glanced back at Zen to see him smiling with such an irritating serenity that Genji wouldn’t be surprised if it were the sort of expression that got him into trouble with Max or his goons in the first place.

“What?” said Genji.

“Are you going to give it back to her?” said Zen.

“I dunno, it’s stupid. Who carries around cloth handkerchiefs? It’s gross. Look at it, it’s gross already.”

“...you could wash it and give it back,” Zen said with a shrug.

“Well of course I’m going to wash it before I give it back,” Genji huffed only to see Zen was beaming now. “Oh get over it.”

#gency

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betterdaysareatoenailaway · 3 years

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RANDOM REVIEW #2: ANY GIVEN SUNDAY (1999)

“This game has got to be about more than winning. You’re part of something.” Any Given Sunday (1999), directed by Oliver Stone and featuring Jamie Foxx, Dennis Quaid, Cameron Diaz, Al Pacino, LL Cool J, James Woods, and Matthew Modine, is my favourite sports movie of all time. Of all time.

I’m not betraying my favourite sport by saying this. The Mighty Ducks is a kid’s movie. It’s okay, but it’s not a timeless classic. I don’t like the Slap Shot series, Sudden Death is fun but silly, and the Goon movies were a missed opportunity. The only truly good scene in Goon is the diner scene where Liev Schreiber tells Seann William Scott: “Don’t go trying to be a hockey player. You’ll get your heart ripped out.”

Such is the sad circumstance of the hockey enforcer. They all want to play, not just fight. Here’s a link to a video in which the most feared fighter in the history of the NHL, Bob Probert, explains that he wanted to be “an offensive threat...like Bobby Orr,” not a fighter: https://youtu.be/4sbxejbMH4g?t=118 Heartbreaking. But not unusual.

Donald Brashear, Marty McSorley, Tie Domi, Stu “The Grim Reaper” Grimson, Frazer McLaren: they all had hockey skills. But they were told they had to fight to remain on the roster, so they fought. As Schreiber says in the film: “You know they just want you to bleed, right?” If the players don’t bleed, they don’t get to stay on the team. So they fight, and they pay dearly for it later. Many former fighters have CTE or other head injuries that make day-to-day life difficult. The makers of Goon should have taken that scene and run with it. I was so disappointed they didn’t, especially given what happened right around the time the film came out, with the tragic suicides of Wade Belak, Derek Boogaard, and Rick Rypien, all enforcers, all dead in a single summer. So Hollywood hasn’t even made a good hockey movie, let alone a great one. Baseball has a shitload of good films, probably because the slower pace of play makes it easier to film. Moneyball has a terrific home run scene, Rookie of the Year does too. Angels in the Outfield was a big favourite of mine when I was a kid, plus all the Major League films, and Bull Durham.

Football has two good movies: The Program (1993) and Rudy (1993).

And football has one masterpiece. The one I am writing about today.

A young Oliver Stone trying not to die in Vietnam. ^ Now, I know Stone is laughed at these days, given his nutty conspiracy theories and shitty behaviour and the marked decline in the quality of his films (although 2012’s Savages was underrated). I know Stone is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but do you want a football movie to be subtle? Baseball, sure. It’s a game of fine distinctions, but football? Football is war. And war is about steamrolling the enemy, distinctions be damned, which is why Any Given Sunday is such an amazing sports film. I love the way it shows the dark side of football. In fact, the film is so dark that the NFL withdrew their support and cooperation, forcing Stone to create a fictitious league and team to portray what he wanted to portray.

This is not to say the movie is fresh or original. Quite the opposite. Any Given Sunday has every single sports film cliché you can think of. But precisely because it tries to stuff every single cliché into its runtime, the finished product is not a cliched mess so much as a rich tapestry, a dense cinema verite depiction of the dizzying highs and depressing lows of a professional sports team as it wins, loses, parties, and staggers its way through a difficult season. Cliché #1: The aging quarterback playing his final year, trying to win one last championship. (Dennis Quaid)

Sample dialog: Dennis Quaid (lying in a hospital bed severely injured): Don’t give up on me coach. Al Pacino: You’re like a son to me. I’ll never give up on you. ^ I know this sounds awful. But it’s actually fuckin’ great. Cliché #2: The arrogant upstart new player who likes hip hop and won’t respect the old regime. (Jamie Foxx)

Cliché #3: The walking wounded veteran who could die if he gets hit one more time. Coincidentally, he needs just one more tackle to make his million-dollar bonus for the season. (Lawrence Taylor)

Cliché #4: The female executive in a man’s world who must assert herself aggressively in order to win the grudging respect of her knuckle-dragging male colleagues (Cameron Diaz). Diaz is fantastic in the role, though she should have had more screen time, given that the main conflict in the film is very much about the new generation, as represented by her and Jamie Foxx, trying to replace the old generation, represented by Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid, Jim Brown, and Lawrence Taylor. Some people think Diaz’s character is too calculating, but here’s the thing: she’s right. Too many sports GMs shell out millions for the player an individual used to be, not the player he presently is. “I am not resigning a 39-year old QB, no matter how good he was,” she tells Pacino’s coach character, and you know what? She’s right. The Leafs’ David Clarkson signing is proof positive of the perils of signing a player based on past performance, not current capability. Diaz’s character is the living embodiment of the question: do you want to win, or do you want to be loyal? Cuz sometimes you can’t do both.

Cliché #5: The team doctor who won’t sacrifice his ethics for the good of the team (Matthew Modine).

Cliché #6: The team doctor who will sacrifice his ethics for the good of the team (James Woods)

Cliché #7: The grizzled, thrice-divorced coach who has sacrificed everything for his football team, to the detriment of his social and familial life, who must give a stirring speech at some point in the film (Al Pacino…who goes out there and gives the all-time greatest sports movie “we must win this game” speech)

Cliché #8: The assistant or associate coach who takes a parental interest in his players, playing the good cop to the head coach’s bad cop (former NFL star Jim Brown).

Best quote: “Who wants to be thinking about blitzes and crossblocks when you’re holding your grandkids in your arms? That’s why I wanna coach high school. Kids don’t know nothing. They just wanna play.”

Cliché #9: The player who can’t stop doing drugs (L.L. Cool J).

Okay, so the first thing that needs to be talked about is Al Pacino’s legendary locker room speech. Now, it’s the coach’s job to rile up and inspire the players. But eloquence alone won’t do it. If you use certain big words, you lose them (remember Brian Burke being endlessly mocked by the Toronto media for using the word “truculent?”). The coach must deliver the message in a language the players understand, while still making victory sound lofty and aspirational. This is not an easy thing to accomplish. One of my favourite inspirational lines was spoken by “Iron” Mike Keenan to the New York Rangers before Game 7 against the Vancouver Canucks in 1994. “Win tonight, and we’ll walk together forever.” Oooh that’s gorgeous. But Pacino’s speech is right up there with it.

“You know, when you get old in life…things get taken from you. That’s parta life. But you only learn that when you start losin’ stuff. You find out…life’s this game of inches. So’s football. In either game – life or football – the margin for error is so small. I mean…one half a step too late or too early and you don’t quite make it…one half second too slow, too fast, you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They’re in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches that’s gonna make the fuckin difference between winnin’ and losin’! Between livin’ and dyin’!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_iKg7nutNY Somehow, against all odds, Any Given Sunday succeeds. It is the Cinderella run of sports movies. You root for the film as you watch it. The dressing room scenes are incredible…the Black players listen to the newest hip hop while a trio of lunkhead white dudes headbang and scream “Hetfield is God.” There is a shower scene where a linebacker, tired of being teased about the size of his penis, tosses his pet alligator into the showers where it terrorizes his tormentors. There is a scene where a halfback has horrible diarrhea, but he’s hooked up to an IV so the doctor (Matthew Modine) has to follow him into the toilet cubicle, crinkling his nose as the player evacuates his bowels. There is a scene where someone loses an eye (the only scene in the film where Stone’s over-the-top approach misses the mark). There are scenes that discuss concussions (which is why the NFL refused to cooperate for the film), where Lawrence Taylor has to sign a waiver absolving the team of responsibility if he is hurt or paralyzed or killed. I wonder how purists and old school football fans reacted to the news that Oliver Stone was making a football film. If they even knew who he was (not totally unlikely…Stone made a string of jingoistic war movies in the 1980s) they probably thought the heavy hands of Oliver would ruin the film, take the poetry out of every play. But the actual football is filmed perfectly. The camera gets nice and low for the tackles. It flies the arcs of perfect spiral passes. It shows the chaos of a defensive line barreling down the field. When Al Pacino asked quarterback Dan Marino (fresh off his own Hollywood experience acting in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) what it was like to be an NFL QB, Marino said: “Imagine standing on a highway with traffic roaring at you while trying to read Hamlet.” A great explanation. Shoulda made the movie. So the football itself is fabulously done. Much better than what Cameron Crowe did in the few football scenes in Jerry Maguire. The Program had some great football, as did Rudy, but neither come close to the heights of Any Given Sunday. In one of the film’s best scenes, Jamie Foxx insists that his white coaches have routinely placed him in situations where he was doomed to fail or prone to injury, and we believe him because white coaches have been doing that to Black players for decades. Quarterback Doug Williams, who led his Washington Redskins team to a Superbowl victory in 1987, was frequently referred to by even liberal media outlets as a “Black quarterback,” instead of just “quarterback,” as if his skin colour necessitated a qualification. Even now, in 2021, the majority of quarterbacks are white, although the gap is gradually closing. The 2020 season saw the highest number of starting Black quarterbacks, with 10 out of a possible 32. Quarterback is the most cerebral position on the field, and for a long time there was a racist belief that Black men couldn’t do the job. Foxx’s character is a composite of many of the different Black quarterbacks who came of age in the 1990s, fighting for playing time against white QBs beloved by their fan base, fawned over in hagiographic Sports Illustrated profiles, and protected by the good ol’ boys club of team executives and coaching staff. Foxx’s character isn’t demoted because he can’t play the game. He wins several crucial games for his team en route to the playoffs. He’s demoted because he listens to hip hop in the dressing room, because he recorded a rap song and shot a video for it, and because he’s cocky. Yes, the scene where he asks out Cameron Diaz is sexist, as if her power only comes from her sexuality, not her intelligence and business acumen, but it’s meant to show how overly confident Foxx is, not that he’s a sexist prick. Any Given Sunday isn’t a single issue film. It’s basically an omni-protest piece. It gleefully shows football’s dark side, and there is no director better than Oliver Stone for muck-raking. He’s in full-on investigative journalist mode in Any Given Sunday, showing how and why players play through serious brain injuries. How because they are given opiates, often leading to debilitating addictions (this happens in all contact sports...Colorado Avalanche player Marek Svatos overdosed on heroin a few years after retiring from injuries). As to why, Stone gives two reasons. One, team doctors are paid by the team, not the players, therefore their decisions will benefit the team, not the players. And two, the players themselves are encouraged to underreport injuries and play through them because stats are incentivized. James Woods unethical doctor argues with Modine’s idealistic one because an MRI the latter called for a player to have costs the team $20k. But the player in question, Lawrence Taylor, plays anyway because his contract is stat incentivized and if he makes on more tackle he gets a million dollars. Incentivizing stats leads to players playing hurt. And although I loathe this term, a lazy go-to for film critics, Stone really does give an unflinching account of how this shit happens and why. When Williams is inevitably hurt and lying prone on the field, he woozily warns the paramedics who are placing him on a stretcher to “be careful…I’m worth a million dollars.” It’s tragic, yet you’re happy for him. The film really makes you care about these guys. Thanks to the smartly written script, the viewer knows that Williams has four kids, and you’re pleased he made his bonus because, in all likelihood, after he retires, his injuries will prevent him from any kind of gainful employment (naturally, they give the TV analyst jobs to retired white players, unless Williams can somehow land the coveted token Black guy gig). Stone is not above fan service, a populist at heart, and he stuffs the film with former and then-current NFL players, a miraculous stunt given the fact that the NFL revoked their cooperation. Personally, I think this was a good thing because it meant Stone didn’t have to compromise (the league wanted editorial say on all issues pertaining to the league…meaning they would have cut the best storyline, which is the playing hurt one). It also meant that they had to rename the team and the league. While I’m sure this took away from the realism for some fans, I’m cool with it. It also allowed the moviemakers to name the team the Sharks, a perfect name for this roving band of predatory capitalist sports executives. In another example of fan service, the call-girl Pacino’s quintessential lonely workaholic character rents a girlfriend experience from is none other than Elizabeth Berkley of Showgirls, who had been unfairly blacklisted after the titular Verhoven/Esterhaz venture, a movie my wife showed me one day while I was dopesick, which I became so transfixed and mesmerized by that I forgot I was. As mentioned above, the only misstep in the film is one of the offshoots of the Playing Hurt arc, where a player loses an eye on the field. Not because he gets poked, but because he gets hit so hard his eye simply falls out. A medic runs onto the field and puts the white globe on ice. Stone cast a player with a glass eye in order to achieve this effect. No CGI! Still, the scene is unconvincing, a tad too over-the-top. But this is Oliver Stone. At least Any Given Sunday’s sole over-the-top moment is a throwaway scene lasting all of thirty seconds. It easily could have been a secondary plot-line in which government officials try to sneak a Cuban football prodigy out of Castro’s communist stronghold but the player is brutally murdered the morning the officials arrive at his apartment to escort him to the private plane. Or else the team GM is revealed to be a massive international cocaine dealer. Or the tight end is one half of a serial killer couple. The film follows its own advice, focusing more on the players growth, particularly Beamon’s (Foxx). The anonymity of the title, Any Given Sunday, elevates the game, not the players. Thank God, the movie doesn’t force Beamon to assimilate into Pacino’s mold. He buys into the team-first philosophy without renouncing his idiosyncratic POV or his fierce individuality. This is a triumph. One of my biggest problems with sports is the flattening effect it can have on creative individuals. Players take media training in order to sound as alike as possible during media interviews, a long row of stoic giants spouting cliches. It’s boring. Which is why media latch onto a loudmouth, even while they scold him for it. All sports are dying for an intelligent mouthpiece who can explain his motivations in a succinct, sound-bite-friendly, manner. Sports are entertainment. As much as I love Sidney Crosby, in my heart I have to go with Alexander Ovechkin because Ovechkin is far more thrilling, both on and off the ice. Unlike almost every other NHL star before him, all of whom were forced to kneel and kiss Don Cherry’s Rock Em Sock Em ring, Ovechkin defiantly told the media he simply did not care about Cherry or Cherry’s disgusting parental reaction to one of Ovie’s more creative goal celebrations (called a “celly” in the biz). On the play in question, Ovechkin scored the goal, then dropped his stick and mimed warming his hands over it, as if his stick were on fire. As cheesy as the celebration appeared to the naked eye, it’s both a funny and accurate notion. Ovechkin was the hottest scorer in the league for many years and his stick was on fire, metaphorically speaking. The only celly I can think of that matches up in terms of creativity and entertainment value came from Teemu Selanne in 1993, who scored a beauty of a goal, threw one of his gloves straight up into the air, then pumped his stick like a shotgun while “shooting” his glove. Of course, Cherry took exception to it. Cherry’s favourite goal celebration features Bobby Orr putting his head down and refraining from raising his hands over his head. Cherry’s idea of an appropriate goal celly is no celly at all. This from a man who claims “we’ve got to sell our game.” But when an arrogant player shows up and he’s not white, he’s in for a shitload of bad press. Foxx’s Beamon illustrates this beautifully when he yells at Pacino after Pacino cuts him for an older QB who has lost four games this season. “Don’t play that racism card with me,” Pacino warns. “Okay…okay…” Foxx nods, “Maybe it’s not racism. Maybe it’s ‘placism’…as in…a brother got to know his place.”

youtube

Here is the original theatrical trailer, featuring Garbage’s classic “Push It.”

youtube

Above Lawrence Taylor begs Matthew Modine for Cortazone. There’s also a great scene where Pacino is trying to figure out where he has gone wrong and Diaz just looks at him. “You got old,” she says simply. No enterprise is more cruel to an aging human being than sports. And this movie makes football a big giant corporate machine that chews players up and spits them out, injured and drug addicted, after four or five years. Those who play for a decade are lucky. This is still how the NFL works. And the NHL is increasingly becoming a young man’s game. Experience matters less and less.

When I started watching hockey in the 90s, players regularly competed into their late 30s. Not so anymore. Players peak at 23-24 now, and are often out of the league by age 35. Thornton and Chelois are exceptions, not the rule. After more than two hours, Any Given Sunday finally lurches across the finish line, bravely refusing to give its viewers a traditional happy ending, in the great tradition of underdog sports films like Rocky and Rudy. The bombshell dropped by Pacino’s character at the end feels less surprising than inevitable, but by now the movie has explored so much of professional sports' seedy underbelly that you're glad it's over. The film is great but exhausting. Stone seems to be advancing the notion that the sport itself is pure, but the people in it are corrupt. If money weren’t involved, the game would be played for its own sake.

I agree with this. People playing pond hockey are engaging in wholesome fun, not necessarily practicing to make a professional league. Commerce corrupts the purity of the game, and the extent to which it corrupts is directly proportional to how badly the individual in question needs the commerce. Of course, the sport is highly racialized, with people in positions of authority white, and those being told what to do with their bodies Black.

Any Given Sunday is an important film, but it never sacrifices entertainment for the sake of moralizing. That it pulls off such a strong moralistic stance is a testament to the actors, who are all incredible, and the material, which is among the strongest of Stone’s career.

He never really made a great movie after this one. So check it out sometime.

#betterdaysareatoenailaway #anygivensunday #al pacino #jamie foxx #dennis quaid #james woods #matthew modine #jim brown #lawrence taylor #cameron diaz #ll cool j

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thatheathen · 4 years

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“Seize the day. Then set it on fire.”

We are living in that cyberpunk dystopia now, the very type Philip K. Dick warned us that could happen and is slowly creeping its way into our personal lives/minds and that's mainly due to big internet providers and the fascist governments whipped by corporations hijacking all modes of freedom even virtual freedoms. everything is connected in the system the ruling class decided and you are a slave with in that caste system until you die. oh gee fun.

I feel bad for the devs that are forced to time crunch for this month. CD Projekt RED better compensate their workers for pushing this game out for them greedy selfish CEOs who are attached to this game that will no doubt be a hit and make tons of money, but at what cost? video game developers need to desperately unionize before its too late to even do so as most triple A games are made by wealthy liberal and or centrist elites who pretend to be progressive but actually hate unions, socialism, sharing, comradery, solidarity, grassroots fund raising cuz that’s all anti-capitalist and bad you see.

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism and that's exactly what cyberpunk is; it's a genre of unchained sci-fi yeah but it's also showing capitalism on steroids, corporations gone rogue and eating up all the earth's resources just to produce enough power and energy to run a whole city now requires a while country of power to push harder and harder to keep that light pollution at the maximum. animals should be going completely extinct in a cyberpunk future, what do humans even eat?

To my mind cyberpunk should be about breaking away from cultural programming that makes us hate each other, fight and kill, it always boils down to those who have and those who have not social structure. That's a lot like Feudalism and a false sense of safety for all people. Cyber-feudalism is how it's structured underneath the veil. “Seize the day. Then set it fire.”

Cyberpunk seems like a countercultural idea within the hyper-capitalist world that's still very male dominant. The feminine exist only to tantalize the masses, domestic females to slaves of profits and glamour. The brutal police forces ignoring human rights laws daily. Journalism is remotely impossible. So is the world of cyberpunk really a world of freedom and choices? Cyberpunk can be seen as a connection of like minded folk hungry for freedom and not need to fall into crime to survive. For many that’s the world you’re forced to live in or die in. rights are not natural handed from god, they are taken. cyber-rights seems like a fruitless fight in a hyper-cyber-capitalist reality; big brothers eyes everywhere. mass surveillance that would make PKD’s jaw drop. cyberpunk-world cops are thugs beyond what we could imagine and could kill you on sight if they chose and nobody will care or not be able to do anything. nobodies memories can be trusted unless you express a certain class. all the punks, rejects, anarchists, anti-corporation, hackers, etc. are all outsiders, terrorist suspects. Every queer person or Muslim or any kind of marginalized group of that era is vulnerable as the system doesn’t favor them nor see a reason to protect them, with fascist-leaning politicians WANTING certain groups of people to literally die out. Those who struggle in any unequal world are going to be feeling the most pain. Lots of pain may mean; drug addiction to numb this awful reality, mod addiction to be less human maybe or change your identity completely. Lots of pain could also mean lots of anger towards the system and the state that’s making life so miserable for the 90% the citizens who have no power. cyberpunk 2077s idea is an “anything-goes” kinda place. here’s a sci-fi GTA/Witcher3 sandbox about a fucked up capitalist future that’s super fun and action packed!! It’s okay it’s not real though. Meanwhile capitalism as it exists today is grinding down the working class including the Dev employees working on Cyberpunk as I type this. long hours for the same pay. was it worth it? will it be worth it? will cyberpunk be the GAME that will end labor abuse in the gaming industry?

People who are different, people who reject authority and anti-human social constructs, people who are spiritual without an organized religion, people so different and taboo to where the ruling elites see them as a threat, mocking those gross punks/queers/dissidents, but love their style and aesthetic because the rich have no soul and ZERO creativity. stealing is what rich assholes do best. rich people steal everyone’s aesthetic claiming it as their own and you begin to see YOUR aesthetic in the media regardless if it's offensive, it’s just unfettered anarcho-capitalist-land, there's no more restrictions to anything really. like ayn rand vision that would result in Bioshock’s world. that was a steampunk nightmare to an extent. point being the rich can do anything. money is power and it only matters to those who thirst for power. Many people just deal with money and hate at the same time cuz what other choice do people have? Poor people get no choices and all the bad days.

The rich and powerful will indulge in the vices of the poor to get another experience; meanwhile the real poor struggle to survive in this electronic hell world and your only choices are to fight and kill these hyper-corporations that run the planet's economy basically and that sucks. seems prophetic in a way to see what the future would be like if capitalism still stood and there was business as usual. I think a true dystopian cyberpunk world is full of dark skies and contagious air due to the extreme pollution i.e. climate change the previous generations of humans ignored and still ignore because profits and luxury and drugs and opulence and legacies and authoritarian rule is far more important to uphold you see. "human nature" is always condescendingly professed as an argument killer to why capitalism is the only way because hooomons are deep down real mean and violent... which is not true.

Human infants literally can't live without being held and nurtured in a healthy environment. Humans are wired to love and communicate. humans lived a long time cuz they worked together. Humans lived even longer when they learned to domesticate animals leading to agriculture. only in the last 20,000 years have humans begun to grow their ego and misunderstand its message and purpose. fascists and billionaires take advantage of human minds and fool people into thinking there's no other way to live. it's a fucking lie. human beings are disconnected with nature. wires and cables are not non-nature, those are materials derived from nature. everything is nature, but not everything is natural like human concepts fabricated by civilizations.

“Deleuze and Guattari describe capitalism as a kind of dark potentiality which haunted all previous social systems. Capital, they argue, is the ‘unnamable Thing’, the abomination, which primitive and feudal societies ‘warded off in advance’. When it actually arrives, capitalism brings with it a massive desacralization of culture. It is a system which is no longer governed by any transcendent Law; on the contrary, it dismantles all such codes, only to re-install them on an ad hoc basis.” ― Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?

I want a cyberpunk game where it's a good kind compassionate civilization, a star trek like society, full of infinite exploration into the cosmos and into our minds... I want a cyberpunk world worth protecting, protecting the people from sneaky politicians (demagogues) and authoritarian thugs ready to install the capitalist religion of endless self-destruction and pain. remnants of evil scatter and reform, we must always help people who struggle under capitalisms spell.

#thatheathen #cyberpunk #crunch #capitalism

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saiyanhajime · 4 years

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My First Artist Alley at a Comic Con… What I’ve Learnt

I’ve thought about selling my wears in artist alley for something like ten years now… And aside from feeling like my stuff isn’t good enough to compete until relatively recently, the main reason I hadn’t given it a whirl until now was the cost. I couldn’t understand how it would be financially viable, and if you’re here to find the quick answer to that same burning question, the answer is it’s not - at least for me. But if I’m being honest and perhaps a little harsh, I can’t really see how it could be what I would consider truly “worthwhile” for all but the most successful artists in the alley when you factor in all expenses.

But would I do it again? Hell yes. Did I have fun? Absolutely! Was there value in networking, making friends and social media gains? Yes, yes and yes!

I went to London Comic Con Spring run by Showmasters. I choose this con because of a few reasons, namely that it was the next local con with tables left when I started seriously obsessing over wanting to do this.

The stall was very reasonable at £80 (but I paid an extra £30 for an additional person to help out.)

This convention is a lot more Film and TV focused than was ideal for what I thought my audience would be - with their main highlight being their guest signings. I knew this going in and my assumptions were right, I think. That said, the “small press” section of the event was wildly varied, but it did feel like actual comic creators were doing the best of us all.

The Expenses

The costs add up, fast. A £ here and there and you’ve racked up £500 or so worth of expenses before you’ve even factored in potential travel, food and hotels… Let alone time. I know you’re probably thinking you wouldn’t spend that much, but believe me - if you record EVERY cost related to getting your stall together, you’ll be shocked how fast it accumulates. You’ll find yourself looking at all the £3-5 you spent on bits n bobs wondering how the final sum is so high.

I know what you’re thinking… You can do it cheaper. I just didn’t try hard enough to get these costs down. But believe me, I did.

I spent way more time than was worthwhile researching costs - these prices include VAT & they include shipping - I wanted the most accurate picture of the hard cash I would actually have to spend up front… And the oddly expensive ones like the postcards cost so much because I effectively paid a premium to have multiple designs. My logic was to try lots of different things, learn as much as possible, but have few in quantity of each design. That way, the flops hurt less. You pay more per item for that privilege, but what’s the use in having 100 of something that won’t sell? I’d rather learn from x10 of something even if I’m making half the profit “per item”.

That’s a mistake a think so many businesses make - don’t think of profit per item, think of it in profit on entire expenses. I made a huge loss, just like I expected. :) My 100 postcards for example costing £50 makes them 50p each, and selling at £1.50 means £1 profit per postcard. That’s £100 profit! Except I only sold 10 - that means a £35 loss for the time being. It’s not a profit until you recoup the whole cost. And I thought of the whole cost as that £550 sum from the get go. Only once I cover all accumulated costs am I making a profit.

But most of these costs are reusable… I could go to another con tomorrow and only pay an additional £150 or so for the table, travel, etc. and have enough stock and a decent display. And that’s my intention - don’t give up, do a few, then evaluate. THEN give up. :)

So realistically, you need to be willing to waste £800+ to find out if this game is for you. That’s a big chunk of money not to be sniffed at and you should be aware of that before you jump in.

The Products

What should I take? Who should I order it from?? How much stock do I need???

These are unanswerable questions because they are highly personal. I see soooo many “where should I get prints from??” with people expecting an easy answer. There isn’t one. But I can try and explain why there isn’t one. I think a lot of newbies assume creators don’t want to share their suppliers because they’re being protective or don’t want the competition - nonono, it’s that the answer is different for everyone. An established, popular and successful artist in the alley is likely ordering huge bulk orders from a supplier that has a minimum order of hundreds or thousands. What good is that information to us newbies? It’s useless.

Prints

In the end, I took 7 print designs…. All fanart, with 4 of the designs being Dragon Ball, 2 of the designs Sonic the Hedgehog and one of GLaDOS from Portal 2. Two of the designs were on A3 and the rest on A4.

I ordered A4 and A3 prints from different suppliers, as they were cheaper this way, EVEN with the postage factored in - which is absolutely ridiculous I know, but you begin to see why “x company is best for prints!” is a useless piece of advice. But sit tight, cuz it gets way worse.

I ordered as few as possible, but a couple of websites had the same price for 5 as the other did for 10, etc. so I went with the one that offered more for the same, obviously. I had x6 (including the display print) of each A4 print and x10 of each A3 - not because I thought they would sell twice as much, just because that’s the least I could get for the cheapest price! And to make matters even more complex - I made those orders based on coupons I had found and you often can’t see the total inc postage until you’ve got everything in your basket and entered your address and email. I looked at maybe 20 suppliers. Imagine how long that took, just for prints. And if I did the same thing tomorrow, it wouldn’t be the same suppliers who were cheaper - coupons and offers change the game, quantity required changes the game. Getting 30 A4 prints might be cheaper on one site, but it might be better to get them from another if you’re after 40, and it definitely will be if you’re wanting them to be all the same - then you can probably get 100 for less than I paid. Nightmare. And you find yourself going “but I can get 100 of the same print for £17 - maybe it’s worth the investment…” Maybe? Who knows! Probably not though.

I don’t think I’d bother with ordering A3 again anytime soon - the main reason is that A3 cellophane bags and carrier bags big enough for such a large print are quite a considerable added expense… And a lot of potential buyers commented how they loved a print but just don’t have the wall space. I also couldn’t find a supplier that would offer to print less than 10 A3 prints in one design. One buyer commented that they would get one of my other prints if it was larger - but would they? I know from experience selling online that people often say “oh man I’d so get a ____ if you did one!” and you do and you even link it to them and then silence. Don’t take what potential customers say too seriously, unless you’ve got a decent number of them telling you the same thing. But for me, 3 people telling me that on top of my other reasons for disliking A3 is enough to go, ok… Forget A3.

Perhaps my best piece of advice is to sign up to every supplier's newsletter. I get emailed deals almost daily now and if you’ve got the time to play with, it’s worth getting your stuff ready for print and just sitting and waiting for that coupon to drop. 15-20% off can make a huge difference to your margins. I purposefully waited until January to place my orders, expecting a post Christmas assortment of deals, and I was right. Bare in mind that many suppliers can take a while to get stuff to you and it might not be right - so don’t cut it too late to order things. I ordered everything just under two months ahead of the con and had plenty of time to then play with and practise setting up how I was going to display things.

So, how did the prints do? I sold out of the Sonic and Shadow print - including the display, which I sold at a marked down rate. I sold 2 of each A3 print - Great Ape Vegeta vs Goku and GLaDOS… 1 of Majin Vegeta, 2 of Fleetway Super Sonic. None of Gogeta or Shenron.

So, Dragon Ball wasn’t so hot, Sonic absolutely was. Is that a long term trend, or just this con? Hell if I know.

I didn’t have a portfolio book with my prints in on the table - I thought that was a waste of space if I can fit them all up on my display - but with hindsight, you get two types of people... Those who aren’t interested in artist alley stalls and pass through at a distance and a print up high MIGHT catch their eye and bring them over. But the vast majority of people you’ll sell to have their eyes down at the tables as they pass. This was the most important thing I learnt - I’d read so much about how important it is to use “vertical” space and tried to get as much off the table as possible, but by day 2 I was spreading more out on the table until every inch of it was covered. I often had to tell people about my prints and they would look up having not noticed them! I had read that people recommend having a portfolio book for people to thumb through - but I hadn’t really understood the benefit of that. Having people touch and interact with stuff on the table is such a valuable interaction that sparks natural conversations. It’s really important to have physical stuff ON the table, perhaps more so than getting a fancy vertical setup. If you’re strapped for cash - ditch the idea of grid cubes or similar completely. Just lay stuff out.

Postcards

When my postcards arrived I immediately realised I’d made a stupid mistake. I was obsessed with getting the display vertical and having lots of different designs. Having so many different postcards to display was a nightmare that I think impacted the whole setup. The wall they created took light away from one side of the display, they were really quite oppressive! - and I knew this before I even went to the show, but I didn’t know how else to display them. I don’t think I would order postcards again, they barely sold… But the 90 I have leftover will be displayed in a photo album on the table next time for sure. Seems so obvious now! They were a HUGE waste of money - they’re expensive for what they are to get made and the retail price of them is abysmal. But, there were a couple of times when people who didn’t have the money for a big print maybe wouldn’t have bought anything, but I had something cheap and cheerful to offer, which was nice. The other cool thing about them is you can have your website on the back and it doesn’t seem out of place or weird.

The main problem with finding a postcard provider was I couldn’t find anywhere that would do small print runs to allow me to order several designs, so I ended up going with the one company I knew who’d do that - Moo. But man are they expensive - I could have got 500 postcards of one design for less than half what I paid for 100 of 25 diff designs - but again, having the variety mattered to me.

Postcards are a pain and not worth it, which explains why I so rarely see them for sale. Lesson learned!

If you have a decent inkjet printer, postcards are super easy to make and I used to do this before I lost patience with inkjet home printers and switched to laser. Just get thick photo paper, already the correct size!

Stickers

I had a mix of kiss-cut and die-cut stickers that by day two I was spreading out on the table and absolutely getting more sales as a direct result… They still didn’t do exceptionally well, but I don’t regret having them. They’re a solid low-retail-price staple of the artist alley table. Pieces of art with a purpose, especially in the age of reusable water bottles. A couple of fellow artists noted that my stickers were very cheap priced at £1.50 and I kind of agree. I think next time they will be £2 and this won’t negatively affect sales. There’s a common fallacy that making something cheaper will increase sales - the likelihood is that it won’t, and when you think how many more sales you have to make to gain the same profit, you realise this is the case. Just that small difference of 50p would mean you have to sell 25% less stickers to make the same amount of money. Isn’t that insane? When you think of it this way, pricing your items right really matters.

I also had sticker sheets - the Baa (from Dragon Ball) ones I only sold one of, to a child who I’m not sure even knew what they were from, but the Sonic sheet did pretty well! I didn’t see many other artists rocking Sonic stuff - or even much Sonic stuff on the wider show floor - which is surprising given the recent film release. I guess I just tapped into a niche, but it’s hard to tell.

Several suppliers of stickers offer multiple designs as standard, or a small surcharge for having multiple designs. Shop around. Stickers are overpriced from many suppliers. The popular choice of Stickermule often run deals where you can get 50 for £19, but even this deal price is quite expensive for x50 of the same sticker. They are by far the best quality stickers, to be fair to them… But you don’t need x50 of one sticker for the purpose of artist alley. I’ve jumped on Stickermule promos in the past where they charge £1 for 10 stickers. That’s a great opportunity to try out design you’re really not sure about. I can’t stress enough how important newsletter signup to suppliers is!

Honestly, Zap Creatives are the only company I’ve used that I would recommend without a second thought. Their customer service is exceptional, their postal packaging is not only environmentally friendly but also adequate (I had a lot of issues with other suppliers packaging and items arriving to me damaged! Another reason you need to order far in advance.) and their prices are transparent and extremely good value. They have free postage (globally, I believe!), which makes it so easy to see how much you’ll be spending at a glance. They have detailed “how to” pages for setting up your files. They’re a dream come true. Sign up to their newsletter, follow them on socials, give them your money - they deserve it. Not sponsored, just genuinely impressed.

Comic

Back at Uni a friend and I made a little comic, and I got some more copies made and took it along because, why not… It is COMIC con after all, and this convention actually calls the artist alley “small press”. It sold pretty well for an independent original to a wide variety of people, young and old. It made me really happy to see an original work sell! You’d be surprised how cheap getting a book printed can be - but be willing for the pages to be slightly misaligned and the paper quality eh. But if you just want a cheap comic printed or a zine, it is very doable in small runs even as low as 10. Remember that stuff doesn’t need to be perfect. Don’t stress over imperfections. I wouldn’t recommend the supplier I used because their delivery was an abysmal royal shit-show, but their customer service made up for it and then their re-delivery was only a slightly less abysmal royal shit-show on the second attempt. So, I won’t mention them.

On that note - if a supplier isn’t good enough, get in touch with their customer services and be nice but tell them it’s not good enough. Give them a chance to fix things.

Traditional Art Originals

I took a lot of traditional media original artworks with me, mostly because I had them already. I sold one low value original.

This was a little heartbreaking because the sale of just one high value original would have pushed the worthwhileness a long way - but it is a lot of money to expect people to spend and is a luck of the draw situation, for sure.

However, the larger ones definitely attracted attention to my stall and created conversation - so I’d say if you have larger originals or small low value quick drawings, they’re worth bringing, but I wouldn’t make any for the intent of selling in the future.

I don’t think a single person thumbed through my plate rack of originals. It was a poor display idea. Don’t recommend it at all. But I can’t think of a better idea other than individual easel displays which take up valuable table space better used for spreading out other items flat.

How could I have done better?

I think having more variety of franchises in my prints was the only HUGE mistake that I kinda knew before I arrived might be an issue. The reason I didn’t was I was worried about space and this could have been avoided had I just listened to the advice I read and had a portfolio out - I even have an A4 portfolio book! Stupid. I’m stupid.

Would I have done enough better to make a profit? No way haha.

How did other people seem to be doing?

It didn’t seem like anyone was doing particularly well… But without knowing peoples numbers, it’s hard to say. And I doubt many people keep the obsessive books I do.

I am pretty sure a lot of convention artists don’t realise the amount they are spending vs the amount they aren’t making… But I could be wrong. There’s a lot of talk of “making table” which I did make back, but I came nowhere close to making back all associated costs. I think for it to be legitimately financially “worthwhile”, you’d have to take about £2k over a weekend - to account for the time and all expenses and paying yourself a decent wage. And if your prints are £10 each, that’s more than 10 prints sold an hour. No one was anywhere near this busy. No way.

A few artists told me this isn’t the most amazing show in the first place and they’ve done worse than they did at this same show last year, even if it seemed physically busier at times this year. A lot of this game is luck of the draw - who’s turning up, how much do they have to spend, what's the weather doing, etc. etc…

Do I need a card reader?

My sales were about 50/50 cash and card… But I ran out of exact change at one point, so being able to take card payments saved the sale. I have a Sum Up reader as it was the cheapest to buy up front and I had no issues with it the whole weekend. At £20 it was a bargain. I think I would rather have that than the cube display grid, for example.

Do you have any cost shaving tips?

Oh hell yeah!

First up - like I said before - sign up to every single potential supplier newsletter. Some of them send out coupons almost weekly.

I bought very little in the way of display equipment and salvaged the rest...

I borrowed some plate stands from my nan, I took empty cardboard displays from ASDA and Sainsbury's (I’d try Walmart or Target in the USA). These were great because they fold down flat for transporting, are light and FREE! Keep your eyes peeled when you’re out shopping for ones which might be the right size for your products. Often times you can transfer the one or two items left in them to another box in the store, or they’re simply empty. I found ASDA best for having completely unbranded boxes. I also made some stands for my small originals from thick card rather than by expensive display racks that are heavy to transport and cost a bomb.

Pick local shows if you can and research thoroughly your transport options and the cost. Parking, trains, hotel costs and eating out can be extortionate additions to your overall expense that are easily forgotten.

Make sure you can carry your setup and don’t need to spend additional money on an Uber or something to help you move shit around!

Use what you have. Don’t buy storage boxes and suitcases and trolleys if you don’t have to. Sure, they might make your life slightly easier, but maybe wait and see how your first few cons go.

Any other tips or things you wish you’d known?

One thing that was kinda stressing me out was leaving stock overnight, but I realised there’s a whole show floor of high value figurines down there...

Leaving the stall unattended isn’t a big deal, either. Obviously take your money with you, but your neighbors can let potential customers know you’ve popped to the loo and I saw several “Back Soon!” signs throughout the day. I took a friend mostly as company, but I would confidently do a con alone having seen how much of a non-issue this is. Having a friend is great for chatting and having a chance to have a look around the show and chat to other artists, though!

I’m not sure carrier bags are necessary. They’re a pretty substantial extra expense you can skip.

Check all your stock as soon as it arrives in the mail. I had an order of cello bags for A4 prints where about 50% of the pack were unusable as the bottom seal with just... open.

Oh! And the “Sundays are always quieter” rhetoric? My Sunday was twice as good as Saturday, despite being quieter on the show floor.

Overall...

I really enjoyed myself. I loved everything. Chatting to customers, chatting to artists, seeing what people were selling, people watching, eating junk, setting up, tearing down and having a friend to chat with and chill the whole time. I gained a pretty significant Twitter follower boost over the weekend and gave away approximately 150-200 business cards as well as meeting some awesome new friends.

I’m not sure if I will be back for the same show next year - we’ll see. I’d like to try a bunch of different shows with different audiences. Many overlap in terms of being around the same time of year. And all the while I’m carrying limited stock to see what works and what doesn’t, I’m reluctant to book two close together.

I’m lucky enough to live in London - so I have access to several big conventions throughout the year on my doorstep.

I have a table at Hyper Japan in July. A very different con to this one with a table almost half as big. So I suspect most of what I’ve learnt won’t even apply! But that’s kind of exciting. My logical brain tells me not to make more stuff, but I think I’ve got the con bug now and just wanna make more profits!

I hope this has been slightly useful to anyone toying with the idea of doing a convention. I recommend checking out @howtobeaconartist here on Tumblr as well as Ben Krefta’s incredibly detailed experiences of being a UK convention artist.

Another thing I found helpful was to watch youtube video walk-arounds from previous years at the same show - see what people are selling, their set-ups, get a feel for space, see if you see the same people returning year after year. Here’s a video from the show I’ve just done! Artist alley starts at around 7:50.

#artist alley #my art #saiyanhajime art #saiyanhajime #conventions #comic con #lccspring #london comic con

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yamithediaperdork · 4 years

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It’s a living (Ben 10 omiverse)

it was a nice and peaceful day in Bellwood for a change, though considering it wasn't the main stream universe's Bellwood that made a degree of sense. In fact even as the main verse Ben sat across from his counterpart, enjoying the Mr.smoothies of universe 23 they could both relax as Seven-seven and Tetrax had decided to stay on earth and work as a team with 23, so were out patrolling. "So, not that it's not awesome to see you from time to time..but usually you showing up means something about to go all fucky fucky...Sooo what brings you here?" 23 asked. "things don't ALWAYS go bad when i show up!" Ben protested, huffing a little. "Mmmhmmm..So you showed up and I get attacked by my future team mates..you show up and the Ben war..you show up and Mad Ben.." 23 said, counting off on his fingers. "..Damn uh.. well I promise, no world ending stuff this time." Ben said, sweat dropping. "I uh.. ok so i told you I recently moved out and got my own place right?" "And yet you haven't invited me back once." 23 said and blew a raspberry to show he wasn't really offended. "eheheh well fact of the matter is I mightttta gone a little beyond my means and kinda sorta..I'm like a week from getting kicked out." Ben said, poking his fingers together sheepishly. "Heh, and what, you want a place to crash?" "welll more thinking maybe since I've been helping you and all that jazz, you could spot me a couple of grand to get me in the clear and stuff?" Ben asked hopefully. "eh..I learned the hard way not to loan friends money Ben. it's why me and my Gwen aren't on speaking terms." 23 said, then took a big drink of his smoothie. "however, I AM willing to help you MAKE the money you need, and more." "...Doing what?" Ben asked, confused. "Cuz gotta say, I've tried the retail thing back home and when you have to stop doing stock to fight alien invaders, you don't keep your job for long." "Pffft as if I'd let you work retail! Nah man! You know I've leveraged my frame and endorsed a TON of things right? Part of how I'm rolling in dough? Well I got this one wanna be sponsor who I'm not big on the product, but they are offering a crazy amount of cash. I figure they'll settle for the Ben of anther universe, you do the gig, we split the money 50/50, and everybody wins." 23 said, taking out a note pad and a pen. "Look uh, not to sound ungrateful, but if I'm the one doing the modeling or whatever, shouldn't I get more then half? and what are you writing down?" Ben asked. "That's how much your half of the deal will be, and I think you'll find it more then fair." 23 said and smirked. Ben frowned and picked up the piece of paper, looking down, then did a double take as his eyes went wide. "Holy crap! what am i modeling off? Missiles?!" he asked, his voice going higher then normal. "nah, no weapons of mass destruction in that sense.. though bet you'll still clear rooms." 23 said and gave a impish grin. "You'll be working for huggies." "..Say what?"

After half a hour of back and forth, and Ben admitting he really didn't have a better option, the two took off, transforming into XCLER8 and Speedyquick instead of hailing a cab and made their way to the huggies headquarters. since 23 was used to this sort of thing Ben mostly let him talk over the contract and tried not to get boarded out of his mind as they talked returns and profit margins, only tuning in when the executive they were talking to (who if Ben didn't know better, he'd swear was this universes version of Charmcaster) brought up diaper usage. "Of course seeing your other self in our new line of Lil' stinkers would do wonders for our promotion of them, but if we could show them being used it would really help sell other points. we're taking photo shoots for magazine spreads and of course some tv and internet ad's. the more you and your client can promise us in terms of selling these diapers are for big babies who need to be put in their place, the more zero's we can add to your check." She said, smiling. "Wait..as in..you know.." Ben interrupted before 23 could talk, and unable to say what he was thinking, and blushing badly, he make fart noises with his mouth. "Heh, yes, we want you to go dooty in your diaper." Hope said, smirking and watching the two boys reactions. "N-No way! I mean I'll wear them and crawl around and stuff, but I'm NOT taking a dump in diapers!" Ben huffed and crossed his arms, shaking his head and well, looking just perfect for the target audience. "Maybe I should give you and your client a moment to talk this over. we can make a deal without the diaper usage but it's going to cut into the bottom line." Hope said and got up and left the room. "Can you BE anymore of a brat?" 23 hissed at Ben. "But..but..she wants me to-" "Yes, I know. I was there. Look Ben, I'm putting my neck on the line for you here, if my other sponsors hear about what a crabby brat your being here, it could affect me. Also your the one who came to me for help, so wouldn't like crapping yourself in huggies and making a boat load of cash once be better then doing a bunch more commercials to make the same amount? And who the hell from your universe is gonna see you doing this anyways?" 23 asked. "But I don't wanna poop in a diaper!" Ben whined and shook his head. "and you can't make me! so th-" he started to add, then suddenly he was yanked out of his chair and over 23's laps. "W-what are you doing?! and when the hell did you get so strong!?" "I've been working out since the mad Ben thing. and I'm gonna do what anyone does with a whinny brat.." 23 said and smirked, tugging down the back of Ben's pants. "I'm gonna spank you." Yanking Ben's skid marked stained briefs up and giving the bigger boy a wedgie and exposing those cheeks, 23 paused. "Last chance to be a good boy and let me handle this." he said. "Y-You don't have the balls!" Ben cried out, his voice carrying. "I gave you a chance." 23 said and shrugged, then brought down his hand on Ben's bubble butt over and over, turning the cheeks nice and red as Ben bawled like a baby.

Since the office wasn't sound proofed, and many people knew that both of the Ben's were in the office, it attracted A LOT of attention as the bigger Ben's voice filled the floor with the sounds of wails and there was the unmistakable sound of buns being tanned. Hope smirked as she listened, feeling she had pegged the relationship between the two boys right, and waited till there was just the sound of the bigger Ben sobbing before going back into her office, and fighting back a chuckle as she saw the bigger boy in the corner, his pants in his chair and his undies still hiked up. the boy had his nose to the corner and his hands on his head, and was whimpering and sobbing gently. "I'm sorry for that, somebody needed a attuide adjustment." 23 said. "oh don't be! I just wish we had recorded that! would of been perfect for the set up of a commercial!" Hope said and chuckled. "well I can always spank him again." 23 offered, chuckling to as Ben whined loudly from the corner. "So, may I assume that your both on board with widdle Benny making uh-ohs and tinkles in his diapers?" Hope asked. "I dunno, Ben, are you ok with messing your diapers?" 23 asked. "Y-Yes! No more spankies!" Ben cried out, his hands going from his head to covering his poor buns. "i think that answers your question." "excellent, then I'll draw up the contract, and if we hurry we can have Ben in the studio in about 2 hours. Make sure he gets LOTS to eat, we wanna show off how the Lil' stinkers hold up to even the biggest messes." Hope said. as 23 and Hope chuckled, Ben whimpered and found himself sucking on his thumb having ALL the regrets.

a hour and half later and a semi pot belly Ben was leaning back in his folding chair, in front of the set and belching off and on. He still hadn't been able to reclaim his pants though he'd been allowed to tug the wedgie out at least, though this just got loads of comments about how diapers might be a good full time choice for him. Ben had swallowed back any come backs or threats he had in mind as every time 23 was quick to pat his still sore booty. going on Hope's advice 23 had forced Ben to chow down, though while the catering table was set up with all sorts of awesome snack foods, including Ben's favorite, chilli fries, it was the large pyramid of at least 23 jar's of prune baby food that 23 had directed Ben to, helping the bigger boy and spoon feeding him as the crew setting up the large nursery chuckled. "Come on ben, one jar to go. you can do it." 23 was saying, grabbing the last jar and smirking at Ben's baby food covered face. "D-Dude..I'm not joking..if I eat one more bite I'ma hurl." Ben whined. "that's what you said two jars ago." "by all means, call my bluff, just when your wearing baby food on your shoes, remember i warned you." Ben said with a weak smile then a LOUD and nasty belch. 23 made a face and waved the air in front of him. "Man, if it smells that bad now.. Maybe i should excuse myself to the other room when you crap yourself." he teased. "N-no way..if I'm doing this..you're watching AND smelling!" Ben whined and Belched again. "Can i get something to drink?" he asked. instantly he realized he should of worded his request better as 23 got a large baby bottle filled with what was hopefully milk, and popped it in Ben's mouth. it only took a few sucks on the nipple to realize that of course, it was formula, and Ben scuched up his face. "Hehehe I have to say Ben, you are JUST too cute like this. I might have to try and lock you into a long term agreement here." 23 teased then winced at the glare Ben gave him. "Kidding! Kidding!" pushing the bottle out of his mouth, Ben went to say something but was cut off as Hope strolled onto the set. "Ok people, time to make some magic. baby Ben, we need you in wardore." she said then pasued. "Oh, Do you know how to put a diaper on?" she asked, suddenly looking sheepish. "N-No." ben whined and a loud toot came out his bottom. "Oh er..I don't think we have time to teach you before you unload." Hope said, holding her nose. "it's ok, I'll diaper the big baby." 23 said happily. "of course you will." Ben muttered, but let himself be lead off to a side room where there was star on the door, with his name on it. "great...I'm about to become famous as a diaper boy.." Ben whined. lead inside 23 just chuckled. "Mr.Devil, he's ready for his close up."

The diaper was MASSIVE, and for a second both boys just stared at it, wondering if Ben was gonna be able to even walk in the thing. it was easily the equal to 10 normal diapers layered together and was a soft baby blue (whether that was a marketing choice or just when they had been making these things expect 23 to model them, neither boy was sure) anther loud toot from Ben's back door which sadly filled the small dressing room had both boys holding their noses, and broke them out of their trance. "I..I don't wanna do this. I'm scared." Ben whined, looking at 23 with pleading eyes and starting to squirm in a way that told him their deadline was coming up fast. "Sorry buddy, we signed the contract. but I'll make sure this goes as fast as possible. all you have to do with whimper and cry, and act like you've been acting, and I'll be doing the voice over." 23 said and reached up, patting Ben's head. Ben whined but let himself be laid down on the teddy bear print changing mat on the floor and just lifted his arms to let 23 tug his shirt off. "we're gonna have to enroll you in a exercise program if we need to keep feeding you like this." 23 teased, noting that while Ben wasn't chubby, he had enough pudge on him to look a bit like baby fat, and the baby food in his tummy wasn't helping. Sliding Ben's undies off 23 tossed them in a trash can behind him, then unfolded the massive diaper as Ben whined. "W-why'd you toss out my undies? A-and were are my pants? F-For after?" he asked, feeling so small and helpless as 23 lifted Ben up but his legs to get the diaper under him. "hush, you let me worry about that..though..heh.." 23 paused the look down at Ben's exposed crotch. "Didn't know you shave." "I uh..haven't gotten my pubes yet.." the bigger in so many ways, but not where it counted boy said. "well that explains your cute widdl-" "Watch it!" Ben huffed and for the first time moved to use his Omimatrix. "Ok ok..Sorry." 23 said sweat dropping. "I've had THREE girls interested in me by the way, so it can't be THAT small!" Ben added and 23 smirked and powdered him lots. "And how many of them saw you down there?" 23 asked, as he tugged the diaper up. "and of those that saw, how many stayed interested?" with the diaper tapped up Ben sat up with a bit of effort, but was blushing and wouldn't look 23 in the eyes. "L-Let's just get this over with." Ben huffed and tried to get up on his own, only to keep falling back on his puffy butt. "That's what I thought." 23 chuckled and then held out his hands, Helping Ben get to his feet. the bigger boys BIG diaper had his legs spread and Ben was barley able to waddle, several times needing to stop and take 23's hands as they made their way out onto the set. 'If i make it though this I'm moving to a smaller apartment so i never have to ask this son of a bitch for a favor again.' Ben thought.

Hope grinned ear to ear and had some of the photographers snap shots of Ben needing help with walking, before coming over with a baby blue bonnet and bib that had white text in comic sans, that read BRAT. Ben would of argued about the add ons, since he was pretty sure that hadn't been in the original deal, if it wasn't for the fact he was using every ounce of control NOT to mess himself too soon and have to start all over. "There we go, don't you just look adorable~" Hope teased and tickled Ben's chin. "A-Ah.S-Stop that..w-we hafa hurry up..I..I can't.." Ben whined and rubbed his tummy, a muffled fart coming out and making hope take a step back. As they started to film, Ben for the most part blissfully blacked out, but of course got to watch the commercial after, with everyone praising him on what a good boy he had been.

"Hey everyone, Ben 23 here, and bringing you yet anther great product. So, brats, we all know one and we've all thought about putting them in their place, but where do you even start to get what you need for it?" Came 23's voice, on a screen of black. "Well the answer for that, Is huggies. That's right, the same company you've been trusting to look after your little bundles of joy is here to help you put those same bundles of joy turned into over sized brats back into little baby's." the screen came into focus and there was Ben, a glazed look in his eyes and holding his tummy, in all his big baby glory. "Most of you know about my other universe counterpart, but what you don't know is that he's a grade A BRAT. as a favor to his friends back in his verse, we're giving Baby Ben the punishment he deserves. isn't that right baby ben?" 23's voice asked as Ben whined and pouted. "Pwease, no wanna go poopies! I'm sowwy!" Ben cried out. "now now Ben, you don't want anther spanking do you?" 23's voice asked, and it was the yelp of fear that sold it as Ben totally lost control. the camera zoomed in as the back of Ben's diaper rapidly started to expand, and loud gross farts were heard. Ben for his part was face down ass up, and pounding a fist on the floor as he filled his diapers, crying and howling but really, it only made the shot better. "Lil stinkers is made with a new material that allows for up to 40 times the normal amounts of waste, which means even with 22 jars of baby food in baby Ben's tummy these diapers won't leak, or your money back." 23 said. the diaper only started to take on a dirty stain of brown in the back as the material reached down to Ben's knees. "with our new smell block guards in the diaper, you'll only get the faintest whiff of the the mess the big babies made. Sure it spares the brat but if your brat is anything widdle Benny here, you're gonna be punished enough changing him." with a few last sputtering farts Ben was apparently finished and sucking on his thumb as he got up on his knees, looking to the cameras. "C-Change pwease?" Ben whined. "Oh silly Ben, if we just changed you right away, where would the fun be in that? with added rash protection built into the diaper, along with bratty baby brand powder, Our little Benny can go 12 hours without a change!" hearing that Ben bawled again, both hands coming up to his eyes and there was just no two ways about it, he looked like a giant baby. "See you in 12 hours little guy! enjoy your poopie diaper." 23 said cheerfully. Ben's cries were muted as they went to the last of it. "Lil stinkers by huggies. put your brat back in diapers, and in their place. Available at a super market near you in two weeks."

Ben naturally wasn't actually kept in the poopie diaper for 12 hours, though they did take the chance to get all the pictures they needed for him in his poopie diapers, with 23 posing in some of them with him. Such as having Ben in his arms, Ben over his lap and pretending to give him a messy spanking, and of course 23 pulling the back of the diaper open as Ben sat on his ass, hugging a teddy bear and sucking on a pacifier and 23 holding his nose. If 23 was being truthfully though he was glad he was wearing his baggy pants as the site of Ben like this almost had little hearts in his eyes and he was tempted to try and keep Ben like this. Still a contract was a contract, and once they had enough footage they got Ben changed into a clean diaper but out of the bib and bonnet, and with his t-shirt back on. Ben was actually in the crib that was part of the set up when he came out of it, the staff and Hope and 23 where having a few drinks. "C-Can somebody come let me out? And.. get me big boy undies and pants?" Ben called, using the crib railing to haul himself to his feet but swaying dangerously if he let go, so knowing he couldn't get out. if the crew heard him, they ignored him and kept talking among themselves and laughing, annoying Ben. "I SAID, SOMEBODY LET ME OUT!" Ben yelled and stomped a foot, slipping and falling on his padded rear. "oh great, the baby is awake." 23 said, smirking and winking to the crew who all laughed. "Your not freaking funny! Let me outta here NOW or I'm going way big!" Ben growled and started to fiddle with his watch. "Way big?" a crew member asked. "as in he's gonna be a big boy?" "No! as in the alien who's 100 feet tall!" Ben huffed and got the watch ready to go. "-sigh- I'll handle this." 23 said and walked over, holding his hands up. "heyy heyy..it's OK Benny. we don't need to bring aliens into this. you're all done here and we'll cash your check at the first bank of Ben then you can go home. OK?" "i want outta this diaper, I want outta this crib! and i want big boy undies and pants!" Ben huffed, keeping his hand over his watch. "heh, your terms are agreeable. we only re-diapered you because you were out of it, and I don't really wanna change anther poopie diaper." 23 lied. He would of totally loved to keep changing Ben's diapers but clearly the little guy had been pushed to his limit.

As it turned out they couldn't find pants in the studio for Ben, or a pair of undies so the poor hero ended up standing in line with 23 at the bank in his t-shirt and diapers, which normally would of caused problems but with 23's technically owning the bank, it was brushed over. The first thing they did after getting the check cashed was go shopping and get Ben a pair of sumo slammer boxers, then off to the food court for him to get the taste of the baby food and formula out of his system, though he wasn't able to eat his full order. 23 joked about how they should of gotten him a happy meal as he wiped up the chilli stains off of Ben's face. after that it was time to go home and Ben gave 23's hand a shake. "..ok, you saved my ass from having to move back home..buttt don't expect me to come back here till this ad campaign is over and done." Ben said. "heh, come on, didn't a SMALL part of you have fun?" 23 asked. "hahahaha NO. Today was the most horrible day of my life, and with the shit I've been though, thats saying something. Maybe you can come over to MY universe sometime and be a diaper boy for me though." "heh. or just show up with a diaper bag." "..Shutting up." with that Ben went back to his home universe, very much richer. Or so he thought.

as it turned out their money while looking the same on the outside, was made differently and raised all sorts of flags when Ben went to go and deposit it in his universe. there was a public cry of outrage that a hero like Ben would try and destabilize a local economy like that, and there was talks of official charges of counterfeiting and maybe even jail time. Not even able to get his cash back, and the Plumbers having to give him the cold shoulder publicly to save face, Ben decided to take a little bit of a vacation (2-7 months while the plumbers legal team got him out of the mess) back in universe 23, figuring that 23 owned him, AND wanting to give him a piece of his mind.

"baby Ben! back so soon?" 23 asked, delighted as a red faced Ben made it to his pent house. on the way over Ben had been recognized, teased and scolded for not being in his diapers and had seen billboard with him in all his blacked out diaper baby glory. "ha.Ha. we have a problem." Ben said, and then nodded to 23's couch. "mind if I take a seat?" "Only if you promise not to make a puddle." 23 joked, but moved aside as Ben came in and flopped down. Ben spent the next 10 minutes explaining out what had happened, as 23 looked upset and shook his head. "Man, that sucks. I'm sorry, i didn't know!" 23 said. "well, I need a place to stay for a little while till i get the OK to go back..so I was wondering if y-" "would put you up here for a few months, heh,. that can be arranged. don't think you'll be able to get a place on your own here unless you just did more commercials though, rent in the city has gone up since i live here." "Not like i have a penny to my name anyways, and was gonna ask if you'd rent me a place..Buttt staying here I guess won't be so bad." Ben said with a little smile. "there is a small price I'd like you to pay..But in return for humoring me on this onnnne tiny little thing, I swear you'll want for nothing while staying with me. all the junk food you could want and any video games, the whole nine yards." 23 said, blushing a little now. "..why am i getting a bad feeling about this?" Ben asked. "well see.. they didn't need the stuff they used in your commercial after you left..so they gave it to me for free..and you were just SO god damn cute.." 23 said, getting up and leading Ben to yup, a recreation of the nursery from the set. "FUCK NO!" "oh come on Ben! i promise! no baby food this time and pop in your baby bottles! Pleasssse?" 23 asked, bringing his hands together. "why in the world would i agree to do that for a few months? I could just go do anther commercial, then get my own place here!?" Ben pointed out. "one, because as your agent I control whether you do anther shoot, it's actually part of the contract, two, if I tell my bank not to cash your check who else do you think will cover that much. three, and this is the kicker. where else can you go to with ease to hide out? you really think mad Ben is gonna welcome you with open arms?" "..Fuck my life!"

And so one week after promising himself he'd never be a big baby again, Ben found himself in two of the thick blue diaper's and in a t-shirt top, crawling behind behind 23 and pouting like crazy. "Don't you think top is over kill?" Ben whined. "I'm the one paying for them. so just shush and look adorable." "Not funny." Ben pouted and then realized it would be harder then hell to get off and on the couch's and just sat on his diaper butt in the living room. "So what d-" "I want chilli cheese fires, I want a two liter of coke, and I want the latest sumo slammer game five minutes ago!" Ben huffed then grinned. "..Demanding aren't we?" "and i quote: I swear you'll want for nothing. I want all of that." Ben said smugly. "you know, i could of just spanked you." 23 teased, going to grab the phone and make the food order. instead of Ben telling him off however, the threat had a amusing and smelly effect instead. Ben froze at the memory of that and then well, with him being double diapered it was a little hard to tell since there was no smell, but 23 could of sworn Ben just got a little taller. "heh, Did somebody just make me a present?" "NO!...yes." "Good boy. I'll change you after you eat, if your a good boy." 23 said and winked. "...this is gonna be a long 2 months."

the end?

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funknrolll · 4 years

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Celebrating Lizzo, the epitome of self-love, self-acceptance and inclusivity: a lesson we all needed to learn

Melissa Viviane Jefferson better known as Lizzo has come a long way to get where she is right now. One of the most influential and renowned artists on the music scene. The pop star is standing out for her empowering lyrics, her meaningful message of self-love, self-acceptance, self-worth, and inclusivity.

The artist born in Detroit in 1988, soon fell in love with music. Indeed, as early as third grade she started forming girl groups and writing songs with her friends. Then at the age of 10, she moved to Houston, Texas, and joined her school’s marching band as the first flutist. At first, the artist self-taught how to play the flute, and then during high school, she learned the technique and eventually got private lessons. This was when her passion for the instrument started and it’s going on still today. In fact, it is not a mystery that the flute is still so much present in Lizzo’s music and live performances to the point that the artist named it after Beyonce’s alter ego, Sasha the Flute (the instrument has also an Instagram account @sashabefluting). The pop star kept studying music during her college years, attending the University of Houston. Eventually, she dropped out to move to Minneapolis where she joined the all-female R&B groups The Chalice and GRRRL PRTY. During those years she met the music legend himself Prince and became one of his protegès. Eventually, Lizzo and her Chalice bandmate Sophia Eris collaborated with the Purple One on the song Boy Trouble on his 2014 album Plectrumelectrum.

Now Lizzo appears to be one of the most confident and self-aware artists. However, all this confidence was not something that she achieved overnight. It took her time and effort to get where she is now. In fact, in her interview with CBS Sunday the artist recalls “I take self-love very seriously because when I was younger, I wanted to change everything about myself. I didn’t love who I was.” … “I was insecure about me… I was insecure about my body, I was insecure about my hair, my smile, I was insecure about my personality ‘cause I was so different I was so nerdy kinda dorky, I was insecure about the way I talked, I was insecure about my voice, everything”. Eventually, the artist managed to push through all her insecurities and became the powerful, confident artist we all know and love. However, this transition was not easy to achieve. Indeed, as the artist said in an interview for CBS Sunday Morning: “You can’t scrape away the trauma, that trauma can’t disappear, you just have to go back to that trauma and just try to make a sense out of it… I had to address every layer of insecurity… I body-shamed myself every single day” … “when I’m looking at my body and shaming every little thing about it I have to look at all those things that I’m shaming and I have to find love in those things”. Indeed, it is not a mystery that the artist has always spoken out about this relevant topic. As a matter of fact, her performances, her music, and even her Instagram page are a celebration of self-love. In fact, as the artist said during an interview for the magazine Essence: ”I love creating shapes with my body, and I love normalizing the dimples in my butt or the lumps in my thighs or my back fat or my stretch marks.“.

Moreover, Lizzo had everyone’s eyes on her during her performance at the VMAs 2019. The pop star gave indeed, one of the most empowering performances backed up by an all-female and all-sizes dancing crew behind her. With that performance, the artist was delivering a message of self-acceptance, self-worth, and inclusivity, especially for the most marginalized groups of women in the USA. The next day the artist shared some thoughts on her performance on her Instagram page, pointing out that every woman on that stage had her story of why they did not believe they belonged in the spotlight. “Every woman on that stage had a story of either why they shouldn’t have been on that stage or why they didn’t believe they deserved to be on that stage, including myself. “Imposter syndrome” is a privilege to the most marginalized group in America. Not only were we taught to believe we didn’t belong in the spotlight, but when we finally get to a place to self-worth the world tries to knock us down. Not this time. The world smiled with us. The world sang us. The world saw our beauty last night. The world saw black women feeling Good As Hell and cheered us on.”.

Moreover, Lizzo has always taken her music very seriously. Her first solo album Lizzobangers dropped in 2013, followed by Big GRRRL Small World in 2015 and Coconut Oil, her Atlantic Records debut EP, in 2016. Coconut Oil even climbed onto the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. However, her latest album Cuz I love You brought her to fame. Not only are the sounds and the arrangements extremely original, but most importantly the message of self-love, self-acceptance, equality, feminism, positivity she is putting out through her music is so inspiring, motivating, and life-changing.

As a matter of fact, in songs like the hit Juice, the artist is encouraging her listener to “shine and live a better and happier life”. Additionally, in many other songs, the positive message is still much present. For instance, in Like a Girl the artist is encouraging her audiences to emancipate themselves, to fight for themselves, to be strong, and to be self-made. Exactly how I feel is characterized by a quite straightforward lyric and meaning: to stay true to ourselves and to be real. Indeed, quoting some lines “Love me or hate me/ I ain’t changing/ and I don’t give a fuck. Subsequently, Soulmate is practically a love letter the artist wrote to remind herself that to be loved and to change the world there is need to start loving herself first and that as the artist sings “figured out I gotta be my own type” and be aware of her self-worth. All the songs the artist has written are an emotional journey through her memories, life, and feelings. Indeed, as Lizzo said herself “My songs feel happy, but they come from a sad or frustrated place”… “My songs are always the silver lining or the ‘somewhere over the rainbow’ moments”. Songs such as Truth Hurts and Crybaby were indeed written and recorded through tears. As the artist recounters in the interview with the magazine Elle “Those songs are actual anecdotes, like real stories about real moments in time. ‘Pull this car over, babe’—that is something that happened to me. ‘New man on the Minnesota Vikings’—that happened to me. ‘Old me used to love a Gemini’—that happened!”.

The artist has also been extremely open about mental well-being on her Instagram account. Indeed, last June in one of her posts, she wrote: “I’m depressed and there’s no one I can talk to because there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Life hurts”. Then her fans showered her with comments thanking her for speaking out and for being completely open and honest about this delicate issue. The artist then shared some thoughts on this topic saying “You realize that people truly care about you and they’ll help you, and they don’t mind helping you”… “Being in those places is inevitable for me; I’m going to end up there again” then she adds “But the fact that I’m prepared now to go to those places—and I have a toolbox, and I know I can pull myself out—is really helpful to me in my mental health journey.”.

Also during her live performances, the artist is delivering a powerful and empowering message to her audiences. Indeed, during one of her concerts in Glastonbury, she encouraged her fans to love themselves because “we can save the world if we save ourselves first… and we can all change the world”. In another concert, the artist explained the powerful purpose of her music and performances: “I do this because I love to make people smile, I love to make people feel better… I wanna make the world a better place”.

And this is not over, because, in February the artist entered the 62nd annual Grammy Awards with 8 well-deserved nominations. She opened the event with a powerful and poignant tribute to Kobe Bryant who passed away in a helicopter crash. The artist stepped on stage in a black sparkling ball gown and surrounded by a full orchestra she performed a mind-blowing, majestic medley starting with her latest album’s title track Cuz I Love You. The next song in line was Truth Hurts and Lizzo’s long time companion Sasha the Flute could not miss. What a dynamic duo!! The artist flexed some of her impressive flute skills before the last chorus. Eventually, Lizzo won (well deservedly I would say) three awards, including best pop solo performance for Truth Hurts, best urban contemporary album for Cuz I Love You (Deluxe) and best traditional R&B performance for Jerome. During the acceptance speech for pop solo performance, the singer honored one more time Kobe Bryant. ”I want to say this whole week I was lost in my problems and then in an instant, all that can go away and your priorities really shift. Today all my little problems I thought were as big as the world was gone. I realized people are hurting right now,“ Lizzo said. Then she thanked the artists for ”making music that moves people again, that liberates people,“ "you guys create beautiful music. Thank you for lifting me up. Let’s continue to reach out, hold each other down, lift each other up”.

The artist was then honored with the Entertainer Of the Year at the 2020 NAACP Image Awards and she enchanted the audience with another heartwarming and powerful speech: “ I want to shout out to all the big black girls that I bring on stage with me. I do that because I want them to know that they are the trophies” … “Every last one of you, you are the award! We are so special!! We are such a beautiful people, this is just a reminder of all the beautiful things that we can do”.

During these months, Lizzo did not forget to spread good energy and positivity leading a group meditation to promote healing. The artist turned her Instagram into a meditation sanctuary where she encouraged her fans to find some peace and calm during the pandemic. The video featured Lizzo playing her flute while seating in front of a collection of crystals and burning sage. The artist then graced us with some uplifting words “I wanted to empower everybody, I wanted you guys to know that we have power, you have power. You have the power to eliminate fear.” … “I wanted to take the time today to do a mass meditation, 30 minutes of your time, and if you can’t stay the whole time that’s fine. But we’re gonna come together and we’re gonna take deep breaths and we’re gonna join in agreement and we’re going to try to eliminate the fear as much as we can” … “ We really need to listen to each other, we really need to feel each other out, we really need to be there to help each other, we can’t be afraid of each other”.

Speaking of the pandemic, we also saw Lizzo taking part in Lady Gaga’s One World: Together at home concert. The artist delivered a heartfelt, powerful, and personal rendition of Sam Cooke’s A Change is Gonna Come. She could not have chosen for a more appropriate song for the times we are living in the middle of the pandemic. After finishing the performance the artist enchanting us with some words of hope and love “Thank you to everyone working hard to keep us safe, thank you to everyone staying home and keeping themselves safe, I love you. We got this. We’ll get through this together. “

The cherry on the top of the pie, the singer keeps being a fierce queen supporting not only mental health but also advocating self-love and body positivity, encouraging her fans to practice self-care and love. Even today on her birthday, she asked us as a present, to write under her last Instagram picture some nice comments about ourselves and eventually she reminded us to “shake that ass”. A real queen and role model for everyone ❤️ wishing queen Lizzo a beautiful and happy birthday, I will go and practice some self love and shake my ass, just as she taught us!! All hail to the queen✨

Don’t forget to show Lizzo some love today✨

Thank you for your attention. G✨

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violet-knox · 5 years

Text

Dry Run

Year 6 - Chapter 36

Summary: Severus asks you to meet him in the astronomy tower after class and you are left to wonder why he is acting so mysterious during Potions.

Word count: 2568

A/N: I’ve noticed my writing’s changed and my word counts increased a lot. I hope y’all like the new style cuz it seems to have stuck with me lol

Previous Chapter - Chapter 1

After Charms class, you thought you would head to your dorm and pick up a book for some light reading later before you made your way to Potions. But just as you were about to turn left in the direction of the Gryffindor tower, someone pulled you back into a dark empty classroom to your right with such an intense force, you almost fell over. You were startled and was about to pull out your wand until you heard the door slam shut and you were pushed against the adjacent wall, stunning you into place. A familiar pair of lips crash into yours, and you soon relaxed, realizing you were in no danger.

“Severus,” you whispered, eyes closed as you parted, lips ghosting near one another. You enjoyed the light touches of his lips before the need to feel him overtook you and you wrapped your arms around his neck as your lips met his once more.

Severus pressed you against the wall, causing you to moan at the feeling of his chest against your own. Your lips moved in sync and you felt his nose digging into your cheek as he went to deepen the kiss, slipping his tongue between your lips.

As soon as you parted the kiss for air, he attached himself to your neck, kissing the little skin exposed from your uniform before beginning to suck and bite, leaving love marks wherever he went. You closed your eyes and leaned your head back as you smiled, enjoying his praise. Tangling your hands in his hair, you thought about how often he seemed to be stealing kisses from you between classes.

This wasn’t the first time he had taken you by surprise, and although you thought you would never get used to it, you certainly didn’t mind. He’d grown so comfortable showing his affection for you, it was hard to believe that he used to be so shy whenever you kissed. It was as if he had questioned if you were truly together, but he had clearly left that thought well behind as you felt his hands gripping your hips. You noticed as well how much he loved kissing your neck and as he moved up towards your jaw you realized, that was his favorite place to attach himself to. Perhaps he enjoyed the taste of your skin, or the smell of your hair.

“Severus,” you whispered, “We have class.”

He mumbled against your skin in response, showing no interest in stopping what he was doing. You closed your eyes taking in his touch, from his lips, to his hair, to his thumbs that begun to rub small circles on your hip bones, before trying again.

“Severus-”

But as soon as he heard you speaking again, he bit down hard on your neck in protest, causing you to gasp and tug on his hair before slowly relaxing your grip. He tightened his hold on you as he pressed himself further into you, hoping you wouldn’t want to move from your position.

Your thoughts soon vanished as your mind focused on Severus and his love for you. Five minutes, you thought, five minutes and then we will head to class. You tightened your arms around him, burying your fingers further into his hair.

He soon began making his way to the other side of your neck, leaving identical marks before moving back up towards your jaw. He always left so many marks when he got this excited and it was becoming harder to hide them all. You just hoped the collar of your shirt was high enough to cover them for class until you had time to find a charm to remove them later.

Several minutes went by before you spoke once more.

“Severus, we’re going to be late.”

He mumbled again before connecting your lips with his one last time for a slow passionate kiss, savoring the moment before pulling away from you. “Fine,” he whispered as he admired all the marks he’d left on you, smirking with pride. He gently outlines some of the love bites on your jaw and you let out a happy sigh. You smiled at him before picking up your things and reaching for the door.

“Will you meet me in the astronomy tower after class?” he asked you, “Before dinner.” you looked back at him and saw a hint of nervousness in his eyes. He was doing that thing every time he got agitated, shifting in place and avoiding your gaze. You normally made your way there anyways, but when you saw him scratching the strap of his bag that hung over his shoulder, you knew there was a specific reason behind this strange request.

“What for?” you asked as you let go of the doorknob. What possible reason did he have for wanting to make sure you would meet him after class? It’s not like you would go anywhere else anyways.

“Just come, will you?” Severus moved towards you and placed a hand over the door, not wanting you to leave until you promised to show up.

You paused and looked at him, trying to read the rigid expression on his face, before responding. “Sure.”

Satisfied, Severus opened the door and let you lead the way to the dungeons.

You could hardly focus during class as you kept glancing over at Severus, wondering what was on his mind and why he insisted on meeting you after class. He acted so normal in front of everyone else, it was astonishing how he was able to hide his clingy side that only made itself apparent in front of you so well. He was so attached to you when you were alone with him, constantly begging for attention, like a puppy would its owner. But as soon as he would step out of the comfort zone of your privacy, he’d stiffen up and return to his usual demeanor. Of course, this wasn’t how he had always act with you. He was reserved with you at first, afraid what he had with you was only a fantasy, convincing himself each morning that he had merely imagined kissing you last night. But the second he saw you looking at him with such care in your eyes, he let those thoughts melt away, replacing them instead with how much he had grown to love you.

You opened your potions book as soon as Slughorn instructed you to begin brewing and turned to the appropriate page. As you looked over what ingredients you needed for Shrinking Solution, you noticed that Severus had already begun brewing, all required material neatly placed around his cauldron. His skills in potions always astonished you. He was always the first to finish, though Lily had once beaten him to it when making Calming Draught last year. You could still remember the look on his face when she handed that vial over to Slughorn. He was awestruck and couldn’t venture how she’d beaten him to it. Though his expression was rather amusing, you couldn’t help but wonder where her potions skills had come from as well. It didn’t seem to matter now as it appeared she’d fallen behind this year. In fact, you had managed to beat her in brewing your potions each class and you wondered if this was due to her diminished relationship with Severus as you knew you had him to thank for your new miraculous potion making skills.

“Finished already?” you suddenly heard Professor Slughorn say only an a half hour after you’d began brewing. You snapped your head up to see Severus handing him a small vial of his finished potion and was surprised to see him finish so early. This had to be a record of some sort. You were only a little over half way done, how had he finished so early? Was he that eager to finish class? Your curiosity only strengthened as you watched him clean up his work station and slump back into his chair. He pulled out a blank piece of parchment and began to frantically write, hunched over in a way that didn’t allow anyone to peer at what he was doing. Whatever it was, you imagined it to be very important and private by the way he’d positioned himself and the focused look on his face. You looked back at your own cauldron and focused on finishing your potion, hoping he would help ease your curiosity after class.

You finally finished soon after and quickly handed your vial to Slughorn, warranting yourself second place for quickest brewed potion. You sat back down and peeked over at Severus over the book you were pretending to read. He was still so focused on that parchment. By the look on his face, you would have guessed he was working on enhancing a potion, but he normally never did that on a spare bit of parchment. He much preferred the margins of his textbook for reasons you would never understand.

It almost seemed to you that class would never end, but finally Professor Slughorn dismissed you and you quickly filed out of the class alongside your classmates. Once the crowd dispersed, you walked ahead and found Severus as he walked out of the Entrance Hall. Sprinting forward, you snuck up behind him and slide your arm around his elbow.

“So why did you want to meet up today,” you said softly as you let him guide you to the astronomy tower.

“Do I need an excuse to see you?” he said smirking down at you as he pulled you closer. You giggled as you approached the tower, eager to see what had gotten into him today.

As soon as you walked to the top of the tower and Severus closed the door behind him, he wrapped his arms tightly around your waist, pulling you close to him. You wrapped your arms around his neck in return, smiling up at him, waiting for him to give you any sign of why he was so persistent in having you here tonight.

“So, Slughorn had to teach all the Slytherins how to dance this morning,” he informed you.

“McGonagall did the same for us,” you replied. He nodded and hummed in acknowledgment before he continued.

“Well, I was sad that we were split by houses because I didn’t get to dance with you,” he began to back away from you before taking your hand and walking backwards to the center of the room. “I thought perhaps we could have our own practice, here.”

You giggled as you placed your free hand on his shoulder, humoring him. “There’s no music,” you whispered shyly. He was so forward, it seemed out of character for him. Then again, you had seen him in a whole new light when you started dating. The hard exterior you were so used to had slowly cracked open, revealing a mushy love-struck boy.

“We don’t need music,” he spoke softly as he pulled you closer by your waist and gripped your hand tighter in his. He straightened his back before he began to sway as you followed his lead, looking straight into his dark eyes.

You smiled, feeling your heart beat faster as you felt a shower of warmth wash over your body. A few minutes later, you decide to get closer to him as you laid your head on his shoulder, tightening the arm around his neck. He responded by letting go of your hand and hugging you tightly by your waist as he continued his slow sway. You began to play with the hair at the nape of his neck as he lowered his head to bury his face in yours.

Closing your eyes, the grin on your face grew wider as you cherished this moment with him, exciting you further for the day you would dance at the Yule Ball together. You had such a clear image in your mind. You would be wearing such an elegant dress, Severus in his dress robes and you would both be dancing so gracefully on the dancefloor, the world disappearing around you both as you gazed into each other’s eyes. You would kiss him just as the music stopped and simply hold each other until the night ended.

As your dream faded, you lifted your head to look back at Severus, tucking some of his hair behind his ear, allowing you to get a better view of his face.

You both had come so far as a couple these last few months, you couldn’t believe how long it had been since your first kiss; the first time you had opened your hearts to one another. The feeling you both got around each other was surreal, something you thought was only mentioned in fairy tales. At times, you would find yourself checking the calendar as it was hard to believe years hadn’t gone by yet. That’s how close you had gotten to him, though it didn’t hurt to have all those years together as friends behind you. Is that why you felt your souls merging together? Why you could see yourself with him in your old age?

For the first time, you could actually see your future, or at least some version of a future you thought you would never have. A future spent with Severus, living together, sharing your lives with one another, finally sitting down to have dinner together. Meals had to be the hardest thing about being a couple from two different houses at Hogwarts. It was bad enough to be separated by house names and colors in class, but you were obligated to sit at different tables for meals and it hurt every time you parted from one another. But if you lived together, outside of Hogwarts, you could have every meal together, talking about your day or even reading in silence. Severus could cheer you on in the stands when you played Quidditch as you knew it was something he would be unable to do for you next year. You knew his lack of support wouldn’t be his fault and you knew that he would do what he could in private, but it still broke your heart to imagine him clapping for the opposing team, especially after you told him just how important Quidditch was to you.

“Thank you for this,” you said softly as he slowly stopped swaying. The little practice dance was a blessing you were so thankful for. It brightened your day and you absolutely loved how he thought of you when Slughorn taught them to dance. What a sight that must have been; the walrus looking man dancing with some poor Slytherin girl. Never in a million years would you have imagined Severus suggesting dancing with you like this, but you were glad he did as it helped ease your thoughts of seeing your date uncomfortably shifting around in the corner during the Yule Ball. “You are definitely a better dance partner than the fourth year Gryffindor boy I had to dance with this morning.”

He chuckled as he went to cradle your face with one hand. He was happy to see you so content with something as simple as a musicless dance. You closed your eyes once more, leaning into his touch, placing your hand over his. As you opened your eyes, you watched as he slowly leaned in, pressing his lips to yours, ending the night with a lovely kiss.

Next Chapter

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