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amphtaminedreams · 3 years

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Spring/Summer & Haute Couture Week 2021: Whoops, I’ve Missed a Loooot (Part 2)

Hey to anyone reading,

I’m so sorry for the gap between the last fashion week review post and this one! Argh. I had no idea I posted it as long ago as the beginning of March but I think we can all agree that lockdown has fucked with our perceptions of time completely. I wish I could say the delay in posting was as simple as me being busy but I’ve also started to reflect on whether or not I want to carry on this format of posts for the time being; on the scale of problems, this one is wayyy down there in the very lower quartile of the first world region, but my motivation to carry on this kind of content in the form of long-winded text posts is...meh...not so much there anymore. At first I was thinking the issue was that working on these was my last priority on my daily to-do lists but as I’ve got back into writing fiction, it’s kind of occurred to me that the fact I was putting these posts on my to-do lists in the first place along with things like doing the ironing and contacting student finance speaks volumes. When I’m back from work or winding down, opening up Tumblr and coming back to this draft isn’t something that I think of as a fun stress reliever in the way drafting stories is. It doesn’t feel like I’m using my imagination or my creativity or expressing myself in any way and it’s not much of an escape from day to day life in the way that writing dialogue or exploring characters is. Maybe it’s because I’ve done quite a few of these posts now but I just tend to feel like I’m repeating myself, you know kinda like when you’re writing an essay and trying to fill up a word count; of course there are collections that I do have a lot of opinions on but by and large, sometimes it boils down to THESE CLOTHES ARE JUST FUCKING PRETTY, OKAY?! There’s only so many things you can say about a tulle skirt or an exaggerated collar before you want to strangle yourself with said tulle. I used to think iF VoGUe RuNwaY wRitErs CaN dO iT WhAT's MY exCusE until I realised that 1). Vogue Runway writers actually get paid and 2). for the most part all they do is explain the designer's intentions behind the collections verbatim without giving a critical opinion anyway.

I think a lot of the pressure I feel to justify what are in reality quite simple observations and opinions goes back to some of the feelings I explained in my first ever fashion week review where people who know more about fashion and have a formal education in the subject tend to be kind of gatekeep-y and elitist. It can never be that you appreciate different things about a collection but rather than one of you has taste and the other doesn’t and if it wasn’t obvious, the taste level assigned to you by the powers that be tend to positively correlate with the amount of money you have available to spend on a degree that has a reputation for failing to provide a steady income, which for most makes it an unrealistic avenue to pursue. I know, I know, the pressure is totally self-inflicted and wholly imagined seeing as I have under 500 followers on here and those who do interact with these posts most likely do so for the pictures but I still feel it, and given that I’m going to have enough external pressure to write essays when I return to uni in September, why on earth am I wasting time putting it on myself? When just posting photosets of my favourite looks is not only actually enjoyable for me but is also what other people WANT to see too? Nobody wants to read a self-indulgent paragraph like this when they’re here for the clothes and to be honest, for the most part I don’t want to write them anyway unless it’s something I have strong feelings about or if a collection can only be properly appreciated with analysis. I think I’ve made pretty clear which designers I’m a fan of, do you really need to hear me raving about Gucci or Zimmerman or Miu Miu or Balenciaga again? Is there gonna be anything revolutionary in yet another rant about Maria Grazia? Course not. I mean, if you are reading, you might have to witness those things one last time because I do intend to finish off this season’s review in this format for consistency purposes and because I’ve already got all the notes now but on the whole, I doubt anyone will miss my rambles.

So, with all that in mind, I think after I finish my S/S21 posts I am gonna start just uploading these posts without the written part. I mean, for one, the simplicity of doing this means I’m much less likely to procrastinate making them which in turn means I’ll be able to get them out right after the shows as a kind of summary as opposed to months later when they’re no longer as relevant. This will also give me more time to work on the writing I actually enjoy. Right now I’m going through and editing my 17 year old self’s “grown-up” take on the Pretty Little Liars blackmail murder mystery style plot line which I wrote back when I was completely and utterly obsessed with the show and bitterly disappointed by the last couple of seasons. The writing is pretty mediocre and often hugely cringey to read back now but I am still a fan of the basic plot and I’m genuinely motivated to see if I can make it something actually worth reading, and to get onto that ASAP; this feels especially important right now given that the HBO version of the series’ apparent upcoming release has sent that ever-present writer’s fear of seeing-your-same-storyline-done-better-by-somebody-else-thus-forever-relegating-your-version-to-being-the-poor-imitation-so-you-gotta-get-there-first into overdrive (or maybe that’s just me and my neuroses). Again, it’s a totally unfounded fear based on the fact that the HBO show will probs get millions of viewers whilst I will be doing little more than shouting into the void but anybody who’s used Turnitin to submit an essay that ultimately counts for little more than like 1% of your grade or degree will know that no matter how irrelevant your work is, the concept of failing a plagiarism check, be it via a computer algorithm or one random stranger on the internet’s assessment, is enough to conjure visions of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse galloping towards you screaming “START THE WHOLE THING AGAIN” before releasing a hoarde of 2015 Chanel vs. Walmart style comparison memes.

Now, speaking of Chanel, I should probably get back into the reviewing.

So for the last time for a little while, here’s Christian Siriano:

Siriano’s designs are a great example of work I feel guilty enjoying. I know that when it comes to quality, the high fashion community have a lot of (negative) things to say and I really can’t speak to that because quite honestly, I know very little about textile manufacturing. Solely from my own point of view though, I do like his work a lot. I wouldn’t claim for a minute that he’s a pioneer in terms of his creations but I would 100% love to wear them and I DO hugely admire his commitment to putting women of all sizes on the runway and designing pieces that don’t simply cater to straight up and down types which is more than can be said for most brands. I get that his collections are pretty formulaic, taking what has worked for the likes of Chanel and Alessandra Rich, De La Renta and Carolina Herrera, Michael Kors too (who is kind of guilty of the same thing himself), but that’s not to say his work is bad. Let’s be real, we’ve been on this planet thousands of years, we’re all taking inspiration from someone, and maybe figures like Kors and Siriano could wait a *little* longer before taking said inspiration but their aim at the end of the day is to sell clothes, not break barriers, a task which although often left to the big name brands, they too often fail at. I’m not going to lie, I’m feeling this whimsical mid-century tea party vibe, it’s elegant and it’s cutesy and My Fair Lady-esque, and you bet your arse I would be absolutely thrilled to wear one of these looks on a summer red carpet. I just can’t say no to anything tulle-maybe it’s that I was on Toddlers & Tiaras in a past life or maybe it’s that I watched too many Barbie Princess films growing up, but I like pretty much everything going on here, especially Siriano is giving us matching fedoras too. Plus, can we take a moment to praise Siriano for his COVID relief efforts? Near the beginning of the pandemic, he turned his studio into a mask manufacturing factory in order to send them out as donations, and I think that is very cool.

Then there’s Christopher Kane who once again came through with the most insanely gorgeous prints:

I mean, paint splattering is hardly a new technique but I haven’t seen it done as a print so tastefully before-it eats the Moschino biro scribble print (which apparently was copied too speaking of the tendencies of designers to “borrow” inspiration) for breakfast. It’s shit because there weren’t many looks in this collection and they weren’t really shot in a way that does them any justice but I thought I’d include the few I saved.

Comme Des Garcons is a fave of the high fashion community and one I look forward to seeing at fashion week but can never quite get behind. I appreciate the what-the-fuckery of it all with this show totally being able to pass as a run-through of some kind of nuclear waste themed scare house at one of Thorpe Park’s fright nights. I assume given that and the plastic Mickey Mouse print it’s supposed to be some kind of reference to the part late-stage capitalism has played in the hellish landscape we find ourselves in today? Or something all intellectual? In which case I made my interpretation with farrrr too much confidence. But Anyway! Who knows! I’ll leave the analysis to the fashion students, and give it one word: trippy.

Onto Dion Lee, a brand I truly do get excited to talk about because it’s rare that I don’t LOVE his work.

Without fail, Lee manages to be confidently ahead of the curve without going out of his way to announce it and his genius to everyone with flamboyant shows and exaggerated designs and extortionate prices. He is very much an underdog in the fashion world in terms of big names but you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t love his collections. His S/S21 collection is one of my favourites of the bunch. I love seeing something I’ve never seen before and the palm leaf breast plate is so odd but so cool and so perfectly Dion Lee at the same time; we’ve seen jungle/tropical inspired collections sooo many times *cough cough D&G cough cough* and THIS is how you make them fresh and unique. I mean, never in a million years did I think I’d get behind the resurgence of the gladiator sandal trend but Lee has me changing my mind. This is one of the very rare times you will ever see me using this meme to praise a man but:

I mean, he has Fernanda Ly modelling for him, that the man has taste goes without saying.

Now for a bit of a full circle moment, given that I did actually praise Dior’s haute couture collection in my first ever post; Maria Grazia did GOOD. Well, with haute couture at least.

She’s always pretty hamfisted with her references, there’s no denying, with that Grecian Goddess style RTW collection typifying that statement completely, but luckily she struck gold this time round; as someone who studied the Tudors for A-level history, seeing a modern take on the exaggeratedly feminine renaissance silhouettes with the baroque prints and the deep jewell tones got me super excited especially when you throw in the dreamy tarot theming and the nods to the mystical and arcane. Seeing as the Heavenly Bodies Met Gala (I know, I know, I need to move on) was some time ago now and Cersei Lannister’s *SPOILER* been crushed by a rock (could also be seen as a metaphor for the irrelevancy David Benioff and D.B Wise condemned GoT to when they aired that shitty ending tehe) and so probably won’t be getting a collection based on her costumes any time soon, this is the only fashion take on this kind of period dress I’m going to get…and you know what? I’m okay with that. Thanks Maria, I guess?

Her RTW collection wasn’t absolutely awful either, and slightly better than the past few collections at least. Put a monkey in a room with a typewriter (or show it enough similar well-received collections) and it will eventually write something that makes sense, don’t they say? I like the nomadic feel of a lot of the looks and there’s beautiful layering going on but the aura of exotic opulence unsurprisingly didn’t stick around for long and I found that there was a decline in quality in the midsection of the show that landed a lot of the outfits in either awkward mother of the bride at a beach wedding or The Only Way is Essex Ocean Beach PLT sponsored poolside party territory. The looks picked back up a bit towards the end stretch of the show but I wasn’t a fan of the Gucci style oversized glasses which were so out of place with the rest of the theming that if anything they seemed like a cheap grab at relevancy. So yeah, a middling, subpar Etro-esque collection which is better than usual for Dior I suppose.

Next, Elie Saab, whose S/S21 collection was kinda disappointing, tbh. Oh how the turns have tabled given that positive Dior review and my usual love of Saab’s collections.

I know his dresses lose some of their appeal when we can’t see them in motion but even ON the runway I can’t see myself being dazzled by any of these pieces the way I usually am. They’re lacking the level of detail and craftsmanship I associate with the brand seemingly in favour of block colours and suits and the issue is that the whole Disney Princess fantasy has always been the appeal for me because the silhouettes aren’t interesting enough on their own. They’re not ugly pieces, they’re nice, but does nice really have a place in high fashion when the pieces are so basic in both their design and presentation that the shots could pass as ripped from a catalogue? The strongest parts of the collection were when it did go down the more delicate route with the muted blue suits and the white feather trimmed dresses, the small, ornamental gold details reminding me of a very toned down nod to Schiaparelli’s hardware, but with regards to the bright coloured pieces, I can’t lie-they did look like something you could find in the M&S Per Una holiday section. Then you’ve got the weakest parts, which were just flat out ugly: sheer giraffe print, sweat band style elasticated waits, and long chiffon shirts that I hate to admit read as frumpy. There are times where I’ve not been particularly excited by an Elie Saab collection in the past, but I do think this is the first time I’ve actively disliked parts of it.

Conversely, Erdem’s S/S21 collection was super strong, and solidified the brand’s place in my mind as a dependable source of kooky maximalism, this time round giving us Anya Taylor Joy’s Emma wardrobe on speed. You could tell me Erdem Moralıoğlu had just raided the Bridgerton set’s fitting rooms and put it on a runway and I would 100% believe you and I mean that in a positive way because to give my unpopular opinion, the clothes were the only good thing about that show. The endearingly florid details of exaggerated bows and clashing florals were still there but this time in a way that felt more subtle and self-assured, as if the calming influence of the wooded set’d had a direct hand in the designs, giving the rugged, ethereal feel to the collection I associate with brands like Brock and Simone Rocha, all whilst keeping the parts of Erdem I’m so fond of.

Is it really much of a shock that I included pretty much every look from the Etro S/S21 show? Like, you know that Christian idea of God, like, (the voice in my head is very much taking on the dumb valley girl voice that anybody who reads this is most probably getting too) knowing our souls? I think Veronica Etro knows mine. So no, no surprise. Though there were a few unconventional touches thrown into these looks (the campier prints and nautical theming we see with the 80s beach towel print, for example, reminded me a bit of Versace) the mystical bohemian it girl that Etro designs for would still be highly satisfied. Sure, it might be a wardrobe fit for a holiday less adventurous than backpacking but if she wanted a tropical poolside holiday, this collection is the one, the paisley print chiffon mini and maxi dresses especially. I’m just gonna pretend I don’t see the monstrosity that is leggings worn as trousers-it’s a fashion rule I refuse to abandon-because they are the only stain on an otherwise expectedly gorgeous collection.

Next, an unusually reserved RTW collection from Fendi:

More in line with the wardrobe of a European fashion editor than the glamorous trophy wife (who let’s say uses that facade as a guise to ruthlessly run her husband’s whole business empire from behind the scenes because in this house we do complex female characters only), these pieces are lot “smarter” and more professional looking than Fendi’s typical offerings; where I feel Fendi usually designs for the society girl who wouldn’t mind a front page scandal, these are the kind of outfits a young member of Monaco’s royal family would wear for a positively received but business-as-usual press tour. I know, Fendi is an Italian brand, but this is more Southern France to me. We’re talking some 2nd page shots of a Kate Middleton type on a yacht on the Riviera smiling and waving as her PR team’s ideal scenario. Still, whilst fewer exaggerated silhouettes, animal prints and overtly luxurious fabrics (real leathers, silks and furs for example) mean that the drama’s a little toned down, it’s all still very expensive looking and combines the classically feminine glamour of the past and the minimalism of modernity in the artful manner that we’re used to. Maybe it’s me being a basic bitch but I always love seeing Ashley Graham on the runway too, even if brands to tend to use her as their single token plus size model.

Kim Jones’ debut haute couture collection for Fendi, however, wasn’t a very well received one. I don’t hate it personally but I can see where the criticisms are coming from. Whilst it’s closer to the version of Fendi I’ve come to expect and there were some stunning pieces which completely encapsulated that distinctive aura of luxe and glamour, there were quite a few lazy pieces which could’ve been from any designer. I also felt the collection was a bit upstaged by what seemed to be a who’s who of the modelling world; having Bella, Cara, Kate and Naomi ALL walk in one show was a bit distracting and took the focus off the clothes completely.

Giambattista Valli’s RTW collection was gorgeous as ever; the man has undeniably mastered the art of delivering classic, objective elegance, the kind of designs I feel would make you light on your feet and smell like strawberries and cream the minute you put one on. Whilst as a brand his RTW shows are rarely trendsetting, they reliably produce a plethora of unfailingly graceful and demure pieces, as appealing to your mum and your grandma as they are to young women and little girls, and this collection is another victory lap for Valli when it comes to upholding his signature tea party and artisan cupcake making and rose garden strolling and bottomless rosé brunch appropriate aesthetic. There were a lot of outfits that were bordering on overly juvenile, with structures a little too basic to justify the amount of sequins thrown on, but when it’s good, it’s so sweet that regardless of how to formula it is, I can’t help but fall in love.

Valli’s haute couture collection was stunning too and for sure a more exciting offering than the RTW. There was of course a lot of the signature tulle but it was head-turning, over the top in a way that leant far more towards the experimental than I expected. The photos themselves are 100% believable as a some kind of Vogue behind the scenes editorial shoot on the set of live action Disney princess movie (in between takes of the climactic ball scene if you wanna get specific with the vision); if you are looking for a prettier alternative to the primary colours and disruptive shapes of a Molly Goddard collection, this is the one. It’s giving the themes of excess and abundance I associate with that of the Hunger Games Capitol but through the softer lens of a Sofia Coppola movie, and being the typical cinema loving white girl I am, I’m obviously on board with that vibe.

I did SUCH a 180 on Givency’s S/S21 collection from when I first saw it to writing a review. My initial reaction was one of disappointment, I guess simply because Givenchy has given us so many bold pieces and presentations over the last few years whereas this is more low-key. After properly considering it though as I would any other brand, I came to the conclusion that I do actually really like it. It’s still got the strange, androgynous silhouettes popping up throughout and the futuristic space-age details but with a more down-to-earth, streetwear feel, albeit a very slick, glossy spin on the trends of the rabble (that’s us guys) of course before we go believing it’s achievable. On the one hand, the devil horn accents are a touch Claire’s accessories halloween range but at the same time, done with confidence they’re kind of cool and bring something new and fun to the table in line with the dark theatre of Givenchy’s last few shows.

Now for Gucci, which for the first time I have to say, if I'm attempting objectivity, is not a standout.

Like, can I just start by saying though the format it’s presented in is cute, it’s not ideal as a way of actually showing the collection. I get that the vintage shop bin vibe is a huge part of Gucci’s brand but polaroids make it SO hard to actually see the clothes, and that’s what we’re here for right? I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t like what I see here-the clothes are gorgeous, an idyllic ode to the off-duty wardrobes of Studio 54-ers, bohemian style icons like Charlotte Rampling and young Olivia Newton-John, psychedelic rock guitarists and the inhabitants of San Fransisco’s Haight during the late 60s and early 70s, Alessandro Michele’s favourite period of reference. I can’t pretend otherwise, or act like I wouldn’t want to wear the shit out of this collection. Buut, for Gucci? It’s a little underwhelming. These are the kind of filler looks we get in a typical Gucci show to go alongside the more statement pieces, which this collection is lacking. It’s just that these are designs which usually gets people talking and these pieces don’t do that. It sucks because for most other brands this would be a stand out collection, an immersive, luscious vignette of what people tend to think of as a cultural golden era, but when you’ve had a show that involved models carrying replicas of their own decapitated heads down the runway in the last 5 years, of course something more toned down like this is gonna generate a lot of “is that it?”s.

I owe Hermes an apology. Looking back, I have disliked all their previous collections for the same reason that I now really like this one; maybe it’s in part down to the frustration of still having to whack out the winter coat on occasion in May (fuck British weather and climate change), but suddenly I really appreciate the value of some good quality, versatile outerwear. Hermes is giving us that in spades here and for that, I bow down to them. The pieces on offer are clearly well-made and genuinely practical, and through the minimalist approach manage to retain both an air of timeless sophistication whilst also being youthful and on trend. The leather tactical vest co-ord I can easily see edged up and taking centre stage on one of those insane Seoul street style slow-mo TikToks that were big a couple of months ago and there are several pieces that could tie together a grunge influenced k-style look just as well as they could exist for years on end as the wardrobe staple of a high-powered businesswoman. Designer Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski’s strengths really come through with the simpler looks and it’s the patterned pieces that drag down an otherwise flawless collection; I guess because the aesthetic is very minimalist, the patterns can’t be anything overly decorative but unfortunately this has a bit of a dowdy effect when you pair it with such modest silhouettes. Disregarding those elements of the collection though, it was super good.

It goes without saying that Iris Van Herpen’s haute couture collection was breathtaking; if the fashion community can agree on anything, it’s that this woman’s work is consistently awe-inspiring. She captures the wonder of the universe, the biological structures and kaleidoscopic colours we don’t even register, through fashion in a way that others can only imitate, to mesmerising, truly transcendent effect; I can only assume Van Herpen has mother nature whispering into her ear because how the hell else do you explain her ability to take the kind of microscopic organisms they show you images of in an outdated GCSE science powerpoint and make a dress that resembles one so stunning? Care to explain, Iris? Because if there is some kind of line of communication between the two of you can you please tell the bitch I’m over this weather and that I have cute summer outfits I’m waiting to wear so can she pack this torrential rain shit in? K, thanks xoxo

See it seems shady as fuck to go from IVH to Isabel Marant like this because we are talking 2 designers with totallyyyy different approaches to fashion; Iris Van Herpen is haute couture for starters whereas Marant is commercial, and that’s her thing, but unfair comparisons aside this collection is still a bit of a let down. This is considering I do usually really like Isabel Marant collections based on whether or not I’d wear the pieces, which seems a more appropriate barometer to use to come to a quality verdict. Whilst there were a few of the elegant bohemian pieces my mind goes to when it comes to her brand, the steps outside of that comfort zone didn’t pay off; graffiti print (can be cool if done with some subtlety which apart from a few exceptions was not the case here), cheap looking reflective fabric, and MC Hammer style dungarees, it seems to be an attempt to merge 80s trends with modern urban culture, and an attempt that at times verged on the disastrous. It’s good for a brand to experiment, of course, and appeal to a wider client base than usual, but when it’s bad the unfortunate take away is that the design team don’t have the chops to pull off straying from familiar territory; designers wouldn’t be showing at fashion week if this was truly the case because disregarding the influence of nepotism, fashion is an area you need real talent, perseverance and business smarts to excel in, and so it doesn’t do a team justice when they do fail.

J.W Anderson, on the other hand, really put his best foot forward this season and presented this work in a really cool way too which only added to the positives; whilst the way the shots were edited was funky af, it didn’t detract from the actual outfits, and if we are to see the same limitations when it comes to the F/W collections being released, this is something a lot of designers and editing teams should take note of. The idiosyncratic exaggerated shapes that we see as a recurring feature of Anderon’s collections were still on show but this time round with added femininity, billowing skirts and trailing jewellery that channel the stage looks of Stevie Nicks in a way that’s modern and functional and maybe even fit for the office if you were to work in a more creative industry with a chill boss. Could also work for a coven of witches who practice meditation by bonfires in the moonlight and burn the letters of men who wronged them in some Arizonian desert, so like I said, functional! Who doesn’t like versatility? The only thing I’m not too keen on is the shoes but they’re not so bad that it affects my opinion of the collection and they look comfy I guess.

Lastly, we’ve got to talk about Jacquemus, one of the most influential names in fashion at the moment. And yes, this time round, I’m doing it: I’m buying into the hype.

This collection is gorgeousss! I can see already that a lot of the recurring elements of the show are going to be big summer trends for this year (the cut outs and strappy details on the blouses are everywhere already) even though it isn’t hot enough to have collectively decided the time to start dressing for heat is upon us yet, and that’s always a good indicator of how successful the designer was in their vision and attempts to assess the needs and wants of fashion enthusiasts; whether I’m as big a fan of his work as everyone else seems to be, there’s no denying Simon Porte Jacquemus has always excelled at this practice if the buzz around him is anything to go by. It makes sense given the last year of us all being stuck in and suppressed that a lot of us are already romanticising the summer ahead, anticipating picnics and beach days and general Theresa May running through wheat fields type shenanigans galore, in spite of how dubious an assumption it is to make that British weather will allow for this; Porte Jacquemus has very much catered to this wishful thinking and the popularity of the whole escapist “cottage core” aesthetic, sexing it up a little bit with pieces that hug the body in ways only Mugler knows how whilst being lightweight and relaxed enough to look good with windswept, sandy hair and a little dose of sunburn. I’m talking enough to give you some cutesy freckles and rosy cheeks not PSA on the importance of suncream territory, guys, what is it with those of us on the gen Z/millennial cusp not taking sun damage seriously!? Why do I have to beg so many of my friends to wear it!? Does nobody else remember those photos they’d show you in PSHE in English primary schools of burnt people’s skin under UV lights? Or is that just me being weird and only having such a vivid memory of the images because teachers told us we had to wait until year 6 to see them due they to their “graphic” nature only for my gore-loving self to be extremely underwhelmed when we finally did get that lesson? They showed us a woman giving birth in year 4 for fuck’s sake. THAT was traumatising.

Back to the actual point anyway, with just a couple of negatives, the first of which being that the pieces are very similar to those feminine looks we saw dotted about the Jacquemus menswear collection from last year that were all over fashion Twitter. In Simon Porte Jacquemus’ defence though, it makes sense that those tones and silhouettes would be revisited in a full womenswear collection for that very reason; considering they went down so well and that lockdown gave us a bit of a half-baked summer in 2020, expanding on those elements enough for a whole new collection makes good business sense. We did get some cool additions too, mainly in the form of accessories, with the hardware details on the belts similar to those included in the Givenchy collection and the abstract hair slides being standouts for me. It was all exquisite-the shoes, the jewellery, the styling, everything 10/10. My other nitpick, and I say nitpick not because it’s not important but because it’s an issue that’s hardly restricted to Jacquemus (this casting team are far from the worst offenders, Saint Laurent I’m looking at you), is that I WISH we’d see more diversity with the models. Despite what my body dysmorphia yells at me, I am small, and yet seeing all those fucking minuscule waists made me die a little inside; it’s crazy to me that in 2020 the lack of variety in body types on the runway is still such a problem.

I must have said this a million times but I don’t want to end on a negative note so let me reiterate: this collection was STUN. NING. Plus there were some others I’ve talked about in this post that I’m sure will make it into my top 20 in the final part, Jacquemus, Dion Lee and Etro for sure; we even got some gorgeous pieces from Maria Grazia which I thought was a sentence I’d never type out. Have I said enough to not leave a bad taste in the mouth of anyone who read to the end of this post? I hope so, lol! TBH, it’s impressive given everything that’s going on that the majority of designers did roll out collections in September as usual so serious respect to them and their design teams for that.

In the next post, I’ll fingers crossed be able to include everything from Kim Shui (exciting!) through to at least Off-White (actually pretty good this time?!) and make this whole thing a 4 parter before getting straight on top of the photo posts I’m thinking about doing for the time being for the F/W21 shows. So as usual, if you did read to the end thank you so much and I respect the perseverance you must have to get through all my rambling, lmao. Hope everyone is well and coping okay and again, my inbox is always open for any post suggestions, constructive criticism, or just a chat for anyone who needs a listening ear.

Big love and thank you again!

Lauren x

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rpgmgames · 4 years

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November’s Featured Game: Grimm's Hollow

DEVELOPER(S): ghosthunter ENGINE: RPG Maker 2003 GENRE: Indie RPG, Adventure WARNINGS: Discussions of death, losing a loved one, grief SUMMARY: Grimm’s Hollow is a spooky, freeware RPG where you search the afterlife for your brother. Reap ghosts with your scythe, explore haunted caves, and eat ghostly treats on your journey through death.

Download the game here! Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! *BB: My name's Bruno and I did some of the music along with Nat! I’m super happy to have participated in this game! *NW: I’m Nat Wesley, a.k.a. Natbird! I’m a composer available for hire with a few projects in the works. I’m honored to have had the chance to work on the soundtrack to Grimm’s Hollow! *GH: Hello! I go by ghosthunter online; I started developing RPGs with a friend in school when we found out that we both enjoyed RPG Horror. I enjoy art, webcomics, cartoons and narrative-driven indie games a lot. I bought RM2K3 on sale and started pouring pixel art into it, before learning how to do things like chase scenes, cutscenes, etc. I used to fantasize about making my own game, drawing dungeons and ghosts in the back of my sketchbooks, before I finally started Grimm’s Hollow. Now I’m near the end of high-school, and I’m hoping the best for uni!

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially? *GH: Grimm’s Hollow, originally, wasn’t as ambitious or personal. It was simply just going to be “my first game”, something that I could finally put my doodles and RM2K3 skills to. I wanted a game that a younger me would have enjoyed, back when I first discovered the classic RPGMaker games and replayed them constantly for those endings. That was my initial inspiration. It eventually evolved into an action turn-based RPG that relies on timing, yet it’s mostly narrative-driven. You traverse death in search of your sibling, and try to make an escape. There are unexpected pieces of me that ended up in this game, some of which I’m still noticing even now.

How long have you been working on your project? *GH: Since the summer of June 2018.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *GH: Standstill Girl, OFF by Mortis Ghost, Undertale, Over The Garden Wall, and the animation medium in general.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *GH: Many! Making your first game is such a giant learning curve, that the list of challenges goes on. I would say that the most difficult issue I encountered (and that, in some ways, I am still facing after release) is working around the limitations of the game engine I am using. I wanted to see whether creating an engaging but simple 1-party RPG in RM2K3 (without going completely custom) was feasible, and I experimented with quick time events as part of that. I worked around the engine’s built-in formulae so players could see progress when they upgraded their stats - although the game might display as defence as “10”, in reality the game stores it as 40 since the engine splits defence by 4. Since I did not want to create an RPG which was too complex for my first game, I also scrapped traditional staples such as armour or weapons. There were also issues such as having an appropriate “game over” handling event which wouldn’t shoot you back to the title screen after you lost a battle; getting RM2K3 to play a small cutscene where you faint and respawn somewhere else was tricky. I felt that if the player had to reload after a loss, it would disrupt the game flow.

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *GH: Like I mentioned before, the game started off impersonal. I just had a soft spot for a spooky cute aesthetic, and I wanted to indulge in that. It was (and in its essence, still is) meant to be a short story, to keep the player invested for the short game length - nothing grandiose. The original draft did not have Baker play a role in the narrative - he was just an ordinary shopkeeper NPC. For a long time during development, Lavender did not even have a name. In the very first draft, she was a silent protagonist the player could name and customize. But she played a very active role in the final outline, so it was hard not to give her own unique voice when one emerged from the narrative naturally. I am glad I did; she grew on me quite quickly! Grimm was virtually unchanged from beginning to end. The only difference was that a close friend suggested that he seemed like he would be into drinking Oolong tea - so that’s what he offers you when you meet him. Timmy also did not go under massive overhauls like Lavender and Baker did, but his relationship with Lavender became much more fleshed out as I wrote the narrative. In other facets of the game’s design, there were not many changes to the original prototype.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *GH: It was just myself, doing the art, writing, programming, etc. But halfway through creating the second cave, I realised I would need a very specific sound for Grimm’s Hollow. So, I contacted Nat for music, but I also created a post on tumblr calling for a composer since there were many tracks to make. I met Bruno as a result! I am very happy with their work and I am so grateful I’ve got to work with them! (Some players are asking for an OST release, which is in the works).

What is the best part of developing a game? *GH: I really enjoyed the early stages of development: creating new tilesets, sprites and maps and piecing them together in the editor, then taking a small screenshot and sharing it with my friend over summer vacation … It was nice to see the game’s world slowly come together. I think that’s what I enjoyed the most from beginning to end: that sense of world-building, that sense of relaxation from making a small cosy game. The latter started to disappear as work and other responsibilities started to intrude, and pressure began to seep into development time - but I never stopped loving making the world and characters. I also want to say that, by lucky chance, I have met a lot of kind people from making my first game. I’m very grateful for that, so thank you to everyone.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *GH: All the time! Other RPG Maker 2003 projects are great inspirations for pixel art tilesets, as well as how to code harder features such as custom menus. They’re also just fun to play.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *GH: Lavender and Timmy are relatable to me in multiple ways. I can’t elaborate on Timmy since that would go into spoiler territory, but I somewhat relate to Lavender’s insistence on managing her life on her own - sometimes to her own detriment. I’d say the most fun character to write for was Grimm. He can be unintentionally silly while speaking in the most formal way, but also very caring too. Everything he does and says was easy to write, whereas I had to think harder for the interactions between everyone else - especially for very crucial scenes regarding their development. That being said, my favourite is still the game’s central two siblings. I can not pick between them for the life of me.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *GH: I wish I started testing even earlier! Not only does it give you a good sense of what’s missing, but seeing people enjoy what you’ve made yet get hindered by bugs is a very strong incentive to fix your game immediately. When I was lacking motivation or was stuck, I found that good feedback and support made me motivated again. I also wish that I could have pushed the deadline a little further, or perhaps released the game on Early Access since it will take me a while to refine post-release bugs - but as it is, the 31st of October really was the deadline for my game due to external circumstances (no, that deadline wasn’t just because it was Halloween!). Other than that, I wonder if using an updated version of RPG Maker would have produced the same game …? It’s hard to tell, but I hope people enjoy it for what it is - I will be working on that post-release patch soon!

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *GH: There are no current plans, but I would be happy to have the opportunity to improve and expand on the game. As it is, the game’s released for free and done as a hobby, so I would struggle to do that by myself.

What do you most look forward to now that you have finished the game? *GH: Earlier on, I was really looking forward to players’ reactions. Games are made to be fun, and I would have felt distraught if my game didn’t achieve what it was set out to do. Yet it was not just about the gameplay; it was about the narrative. I hoped that what I found funny, the player would too; what was heartfelt to me, was heartfelt to the player as well. Like sharing a laugh, or just a good experience together. I hoped they would enjoy the feeling that went into it, despite the struggle of making it against circumstance and limitations. Now, I look forward to resting and sleeping once this over. I want to explore my other interests, improve, and explore new media. I want to relax, and refocus again like I was before the heat of development.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *GH: Bugs! Some are easy to fix, but others are harder due to the limitations of the engine (e.g an error in one ending is caused by an overflow error).

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *GH: Show your game as early as possible, to as many people as possible. As soon as you have something playable, it’s ready for feedback. You’ll see if that game mechanic you spent hours refining works, or if it doesn’t work and why. You’ll understand what players enjoy and what they want more of, but also what they don’t like or don’t enjoy. And you will definitely encounter bugs. You’ll be able to pinpoint and fix minor problems early on that can easily become a larger issue later. You’ll be able to fine-tune your game so its best bits shine, and the difficulty is just right.

Question from last month's featured dev @dead-dreams-dev: Is there anything you’ve added to your game for no other reason than because you’re hoping fans will get a kick out of it? Fanservice, fourth wall breakage, references to other games, jokes, abilities that are just ridiculously overpowered and badass, etc? *GH: It’s hard to say; game design is trying to find the intersection between what’s good for the player, what the developer enjoys, and what’s feasible to implement. Every decision made should be conscious of that … I think a lot of the game’s early light-hearted jokes was not only made because I enjoyed it, but I hoped the player would “get a kick out of it” too. But more so, I think it’s because I would struggle to write a story which is serious and bleak from beginning to end. The game is a little self-indulgent in the narrative that way.

We mods would like to thank ghosthunter & team for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Grimm's Hollow if you haven’t already! See you next month!

- Mods Gold & Platinum

#rpgmaker #rpg maker games #indie games #pixel games #rpg #adventure #cute #grimms hollow #grimm's hollow #gotm #game of the month #gotm 2019 #2019 #game of the month 2019 #november #november 2019

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queenborhapreaderships · 4 years

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Would you be okay with doing a Sherlock thing where reader is really really close to him, could be romantic but doesn’t need to be if you don’t want to, and perhaps they get kidnapped (and tortured if you’re up for it??? Perhaps Sherlock can watch from a livestream the kidnapper is doing?) could be a happy ending if you wanna! I’m just here for that gud angst 😈

Uhh, so this kinda got out of hand. It's 3.6k words and I was barely able to stop myself. Thank you for this prompt!!! Nothing too graphic, but there are mild torture scenes, so if that makes anyone uncomfortable, skip this one! ***Particularly HumanYou’re startled awake by the sound of a gunshot, your unplanned nap in John’s old chair ending abruptly. You groan and shift your position, knowing better than to worry. Sherlock is just being Sherlock. He’s been particularly antsy lately, as a case has been getting under his skin. “What? Did I interrupt your beauty sleep? Sorry, there’s only people dying,” he spits at you, pacing back and forth the flat the two of you have been sharing for a while now. You roll your eyes at him, scoffing at his nerve. You’re used to it at this point, and know not to take him seriously when he’s acting particularly venomous, he’s just externalizing his frustration towards himself for being unable to immediately figure out who is blackmailing his brother's coworkers. Of course he’s good, he’s better than good, but you’ve been seeing a particularly human side of him lately. It’s not that he’s slipping, he’s actually been solving cases at lightning speed, this is the first one to trip him up in a while. It’s just that now he trusts you? You almost can’t believe it, given his fiery exterior, but you know him. You know Sherlock Holmes. “Yeah, because giving poor Mrs. Hudson a heart attack is going to help you solve the damn case,” you finally say after staring at him for a few seconds. He squirms under your glare before you notice his demeanor change. His eyes light up and that classic shit-eating grin grows across his face. “That’s it,” he mutters, turning with bravado and gathering his things in a hurry. “Get ready, we have a plane to catch!” “Goddamnit, Sherlock,” is all you manage before he grabs your hand and drags you downstairs in a flurry. He never seems to tell you all of the details surrounding cases he deems especially dangerous, and it makes you mad sometimes. You want to be able to help, but you can’t if he won’t let you. Sometimes, you’ll figure it out on your own and save the day, but this one is more bureaucratic than your liking so you’re alright with being kept in the dark. He eventually manages to hail a taxi and is furiously typing into his cell, you look over to see John’s name at the top and you smile at the prospect of seeing your friend. John has been busy lately with taking care of Rose and you can tell Sherlock misses him, as he’s always trying to annoy him into helping the two of you. You can hold your own, that’s for certain, but seeing John would be a nice change of pace for both of you. Before he’s able to send the message his phone rings. You see Mycroft’s name pop up and he groans before rejecting the call, on principle, of course. He finishes typing and puts his phone on silent before turning to look at you. He meets your eyes and smiles ever so slightly. “This is going to be more risky than I had initially thought, so I need you to do everything I say and don’t,” he emphasizes the word, “do anything stupid.” You can hear the worry edging into his voice.“You know I can’t promise that, you wouldn’t have brought me if I could,” you say, bumping into his side, playfully. “You know what I mean,” he says, eyes locked on you. You don’t know where you’re going or where you’ll be even in an hour, but none of it matters because you're with him. You trust him, too. With your life, because god knows he’s saved it before. Your sides are still touching and you decide to break his gaze by resting your head on his shoulder. This isn’t new for you and Sherlock, he’s been more open to touch than usual, but you’re always concerned you’re going to push him too far. Your worries dissipate when you feel the slightest amount of pressure on your head and know that he’s leaning on you too. The moment is broken by the piercing shrill of your cellphone in your back pocket. He sits back up and you move to see who’s calling you, you could’ve sworn you turned the damn thing on silent. When you pull it out, you’re not surprised to see Mycroft’s name and a rather unflattering picture Sherlock took a few years ago gracing the screen. Sherlock audibly groans and snatches the phone from your hands.“What?” he bites out, cold as ice. You can hear Mycroft’s hushed, frantic tone but can’t make out what he’s saying. The more he talks, the more jittery Sherlock becomes, not getting a word in over Mycroft’s mania. “Well lucky for you, we’re already headed that way. Be there in ten.”“What was that all about?” you ask, your curiosity getting the best of you.“Oh, this is going to be fun. Kidnapping! Can’t wait!” he says, giddiness written across his face. You can’t help but laugh at his excitement, you love seeing him like this. Despite the rather morbid subject matter you’re often dealing with, seeing Sherlock in his element, enjoying himself makes it all worth it. You know you wouldn’t trade it for the world. When you pull up to the airport a bit later, you can sense something is off. You don’t know what, but you’ve got a weird feeling in your gut about what is about to transpire. Sherlock is still riding the wave of the new revelation regarding the case, but if he doesn’t think anything of it, you suppose it’ll be alright. The cab was let in without any trouble, nobody asked who either of you were or why you’re there, and it would be safe to assume Sherlock is a household name by now, so he’d be let in without question. But they didn’t even check to see if he was there, the gate just opened. It’s less anxiety inducing to assume this is all a part of the plan, but you can’t seem to get over the thought in the back of your head that something is not right. The cab ever so slowly comes to a stop and the driver gets out, you assume to open the door for his passengers, but the second his door closes you hear him lock the doors. Your heart drops. You should’ve known. You should’ve said something. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Sherlock pulling on the door handle and banging his fists into the window. “It’s not worth the energy,” you say, still stuck swimming within your own self doubt. It’s evident in your voice and downcast eyes that you’re upset. He looks over, his face softening for a moment before grabbing your hand. Suddenly, his look of determination is back in full force. “Well, obviously not, but I refuse to sit here and let this transpire without trying” he says, giving your hand a small squeeze before climbing to the front seat to meddle some more. “We’re in the heart of the beast,” you say, still processing the predicament you’ve found yourselves in, “we’re surrounded.” Sherlock’s lack of response confuses you until you look up at him. He’s staring off at something and you follow his gaze. Oh shit. Mycroft is climbing out of a plane with his hands behind his head in surrender, a masked man has a gun to his temple. “Coward,” Sherlock mumbles, finally accepting the reality of the situation. You’re not getting out from brute force alone, this is going to take some doing. Seemingly out of nowhere, two men with automatic rifles hiked behind their backs are pounding on the door, gesturing to get out. Suddenly the doors unlock and the men rip them open. One now has his gun aimed at your head. You roll your eyes, inconvenienced at most. “I’m coming, I’m coming, settle your ass down,” you say, hoping to extend to Sherlock that you’re okay. You aren’t overly worried, more pissed off at yourself for your lack of action. The man grabs your arm harshly and jabs the tip of his gun into your back. You can see the other man practically dragging Sherlock out of the car, you laugh under your breath, knowing he’s making it as hard for the men as possible to do their jobs. They walk you both over to where Mycroft is now on his knees, arms still up.“Ah, little brother, nice of you to finally join the party,” he says, a twinge of, something, in his voice. “Some party,” you bark out and groan when the gun digs deeper into your back. “Hey, leave her out of this” Sherlock finally speaks, coming to your defense nonetheless. You all know it’s in vain, but hearing his voice is reassuring. “Where’s the fun in that?” A disembodied voice comes out of the speakers typically used to communicate with the ground staff. They’ve taken up a new purpose now, and you’re less than thrilled to hear whatever this jackass has to say. ��Oh for fucks sake, enough with the theatrics,” Sherlock yells, you look over and can practically see the gears turning as he processes what to do next.“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Mycroft mutters under his breath, “do not push these people.” “What are they going to do? Put us in time out, where’s the creativity, guys? The innovation, this whole gun to the head thing is so tired,” Sherlock says, exasperated. “You want creativity? Bring me the girl.” “Oh, here we go,” you say as you’re pulled up. You look back and see Sherlock’s eyes widening in what seems like fear? That can’t be right, this has to be part of some big plan he’s made up, so you shoot him a lopsided grin, letting him know that you’ve got this.As you’re being taken into the building, you can see the brothers being herded into the big commercial jet a few yards away. They stop you outside a door and push you down to your knees. Before you really know what’s happening, you’re blindfolded and you feel your wrists being forced into handcuffs. You grin out of spite. “Let’s get this show on the road, I don’t have all day” you push, seeing how far you can take this. You’re also beyond over this situation to begin with. You definitely seemed to have pushed their buttons and you’re made aware when you’re shoved in the room, the door slamming behind you.“Darling. Come in, take a seat, relax,” you hear the voice say. Not through the speakers, this time. He’s here. “Oh, I’d love to! Thank you so much for your hospitality. This blindfold truly is the best I’ve ever had,” you say, trying to match his sarcasm, refusing to show fear. Objectively, you’re in a weak position, but as long as you don’t show it, you know you’ve got a semblance of the upper hand. “Only the finest silk for such a fine woman” he practically purrs and you can hear footsteps drawing closer to you. You aren’t shocked when you feel a hand caressing your face, stroking your hair. This is pretty routine, the whole creepy bad guy, can't get laid, scenario. You hear him walk around you to the front and kneel down to your level. You can’t resist. You spit in his face. You’re delighted when you hear him cry out in disgust, you smile to yourself, proud of your actions. “Oh, you’ve really done it now, you bitch,” he says, tone laced with malice, “hit the cameras.” he says to what you can only assume are more of his minions. “Now, I know you can’t see it, but I’ve got your boy toys tied up in a very similar manner. I need information. I need control. I need power,” he spits out. Monologue time, you think to yourself. Wouldn’t be the first you’ve heard. “And I know it won’t be given up voluntarily. But it seems you and the detective have grown rather close, you’re always on his tail like a little lost puppy.” “Rude,” you say in an attempt to keep yourself together, if anything. He ignores you.“It’s my understanding that the boys need a bit of, let’s say, motivation, to tell me what I need to know,” This is a first. Surprisingly. You know John had been taken before to get to Sherlock, it’s about time someone decided to try and use you. It feels inevitable, these are the risks that come with working alongside him. You knew that when you signed up. No regrets. He’s worth it. “So Sherlock is going to tell me what I need to know, or his puppy is going to get sent to the pound.” You’re really over this whole dog metaphor. What is it with these people and their goddamn metaphors?You hear the man get up and walk away, you feel yourself hoisted up and are dragged in the same direction. Your handcuffs are taken off and put back on again, but this time in front of your body. You hear a rattling above you and your heart sinks. Your hands are raised above your head and connected to what you assume is a chain hanging from the rafters. One of his men yanks the chain and your body is pulled upwards so your feet are barely touching the ground. You bite back a groan, refusing to give them what they want despite how vulnerable you feel. “Now Sherlock, are you there? Can you see us?” he says to the air. You feel your blindfold ripped off and see Sherlock and Mycroft projected onto the wall in front of you. You do your best to take stock of where you are and who you’re with, but you can’t tear your eyes off of him. He’s on his knees, hands tied behind his back, and there’s a long gash across his face, from his eyebrow to the bottom of his cheek. He sees you, panicked. Behind him, a man pulls off his gag. “Leave her alone, you bastard. Get your hands off of her or I swear you’ll regret it,” he growls. You want to believe him. You want to believe he has the upper hand here, but you have to admit, the situation is looking pretty damn grim. “I’d like to see you try. Just for that, let’s see what happens when you disobey,” the man shoots back. You try to make out as many details about him as you can, but the mask he’s wearing makes it difficult. He turns around and stalks towards you. You can faintly hear Sherlock yelling in the background, but your attention is focused on the man. Suddenly, you’re blinded by pain, a shooting sensation coming from your side. You look down to see the handle of a screwdriver sticking out of your stomach. You can’t even begin to process what has happened before you’re faced with another blow, he punched you in the face. You feel the blood begin to trickle down into your eye, eyebrow cut wide open. You look up to see Sherlock struggling in his restraints and screaming. You can’t hear him. Did they turn his audio off? Or did he really hit you that hard? You can’t tell, nor do you really care. You can’t think of anything outside of the tool sticking out of your body and Sherlock on the screen. You hear the two of them talking, but can’t exactly make out what they’re saying. You feel a few more hits to your torso before you daze off into a fitful sleep. You wake up in a haze, unaware of where you are or how much time has passed. But you know you’re still hanging from the damn ceiling. You try and open your eyes, but can only manage to open one, the other crusted shut with the blood from your eyebrow. You can’t help but let out a groan, still not wanting to show weakness but it hurt so damn bad. That’s when you hear a voice. A different voice, a new voice. A voice that doesn’t immediately strike the fear of more pain into your heart. Is that? It couldn’t be. Is that John? This maybe-John speaks again and is fiddling with your restraints, trying to get you down. Definitely John. You don’t know what changed, but you’re slowly becoming able to make out what he’s saying.“It’s okay, you’re okay, I’m going to get you out of here, I promise, I brought the cavalry, you’re going to be okay,” he went on like that for a while, just muttering whatever he deemed helpful. Moreso to himself than you, you personally couldn’t imagine walking in on your close friend like this and holding it together as well as he is right now. The last thought before you drifted off again was that, once again, John Watson was saving your asses. The next time you wake up is much more peaceful. You’re lulled awake by the steady beeping of a machine you’re hooked up to. Your throat is dry as all hell, but when you realize someone is sleeping on a chair beside you, you decide it isn’t a priority. What is a priority is this curly-haired goofball of a main, gripping your hand, tighter than you’d think possible for someone unconscious. His breathing is shallow and his head is resting on your bed, curled up as close as he possibly can to your good side. You smile to yourself and squeeze his hand reassuringly. You’re alive. He’s alive. You’re assuming John and Mycroft took care of the rest. You’re still a little fuzzy on the details, but hey, it doesn’t matter as long as Sherlock is okay. He shifts in his sleep, and then mumbles something before slowly lifting his head. He woke himself up. He’s adorable. “Hey, you” you say softly, letting go of his hand to stroke his hair and get a look at that face. You grimace when you see the freshly stitched up wound looking red and angry. “They really got you good, didn’t they?” “Me? How on earth are you possibly worried about me right now? They stabbed you with a screwdriver!” He exclaims, entirely too fired up for a man who just woke up. He sees you wince at his volume and puts his head back down, nuzzling into your side in apology. “I should’ve been able to stop it. I should’ve known better than to take you with me. I knew it wasn’t going to be good, I knew it was a risk. I didn’t know they were planning on using you as leverage. I never would willingly put you in danger, but I did. And I am so sorry.” Your heart breaks at his words, his tone of voice, and his sincerity. You don’t think you’ve ever heard this man apologize, not for anything, and it kills you that he’s blaming himself. You reach down, ignoring the shooting pain in your side, and grab his chin, gently turning his head to yours. Are those unshed tears in his eyes? You know you have to fix this right now. “Sherlock, this isn’t your fault, okay? I promise it’s not. From day one, I knew something like this was possible. I knew the danger I was in and I did it anyway.” He tries to butt in, but you don’t let him. “I did it anyway because you are worth it, all of the risk, and all of the pain. You save lives. You’ve saved my life, in more ways than one, and if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t change a damn thing. You are worth it. Spending time with you is worth it. Being with you is worth it. It’s worth all of the stab wounds in the world, okay?” You take in the look on his face, the adoration and the… love? Soon, the unshed tears are streaming down his cheeks and you can’t take it anymore, damn your injuries. You place your hand on the side of his face, stroking a tear away and pull him in close until his head is resting on your shoulder, face in your neck. You can feel the hot tears on your skin and begin to trace your hand up and down his back until he calms down. Finally, his breathing becomes more even and he manages to choke something out. You can’t hear him and he repeats himself, pulling away from your neck. You instantly miss the touch of his skin to yours. “I just can’t lose you, I can’t. I wouldn’t be okay, but you deserve better than this” he manages to say before collapsing back into your embrace. “Oh Sherlock, you aren’t losing me anytime soon, okay? I’m alright, I’m alive, I’m here and there’s nothing you can do to get rid of me. You make,” you stutter at the weight of what you’re about to say, “you make life worth living,” he doesn’t respond, but instead, wraps his arm around you, meticulously avoiding your injuries. You return your hand back to his head, running your fingers through his hair. God, you love him. You don’t know if you’ll ever be able to say it to him, but you hope more than anything that he knows. Because you love him so fucking much. You can’t even tell when the two of you fall asleep, wrapped in each other's arms. The one you weren’t conscious to see was John walking in to check on you, surprised to see Sherlock had already taken care of things. Whether or not he smiled and took a quick picture of you guys isn’t any of your business, but John thinks to himself how he’s most definitely going to use the picture as blackmail for the rest of his life.Little did he know, neither of you will care. You love him and you aren’t afraid of anyone knowing. ***My inbox is open for requests! I can't figure out how to link it because tumblr ~must~ update every other week just to confuse me, but I'll write for just about any fandom I'm in! There's a list not too far down my blog. Thanks again for the request, I hope you liked it!

#sherlock #bbc sherlock #sherlock holmes x reader #sherlock holmes/reader #sherlock/reader #sherlock x reader #sherlock reader insert #Anonymous

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allie1804-fan · 3 years

Text

Malaise (Chapter 4 - A Fresh Start)

Chapter 1, 2 , 3

The new film started shooting a week later in Culver city. The session with Tara had revitalised him and he’d started to take a morning swim or do a gym session every day again. A sense of equilibrium began to return.

He was both actor and a producer on this film and would be very involved in all aspects of the production. On the first day, cast and crew were introduced and Keanu was quickly struck by the cinematographer Celia, a raven haired beauty of 45. As work got rolling, they clicked immediately, agreeing on the angles and frames for shots and not always in synch with the director which caused some friction. They were like a mini team of their own and would often stay late, talking about the next day’s frames.

Celia had been divorced for about a year. She had 2 kids but they were in their late teens so she was a fairly free agent and was finally ready to get out there again. She knew from industry gossip of Keanu’s reputation as a bit of a player and she found him fun and very attractive. A fling with a sexy movie star would be just the ticket – fun, flirtation, fucking – and she got the feeling the attraction was mutual. One night when they were on set again late and alone, she took a chance and invited him to grab a bite with her.

His immediate response was defensive

“Look just for the avoidance of doubt, I’m not looking for….”

“Me neither Keanu” she jumped in “this is just a bite to eat but if it were to turn into anything more, rest assured that I’m not looking for anything heavy or committed, just a bit of fun. I don’t bite – well not if you don’t want me to!”

“OK, let’s go!” he grinned and took her hand.

They found a Chinese around the corner from the studios and he found her very alluring and sexy as hell nibbling delicately on ribs and biting into her wantons.

They’d talked and laughed on set but in this more relaxed setting they really laughed. They had co-stars and directors in common with tales they could share from their different movies. Time flew and they were tempted to get a second bottle of wine but they were back on set in 8 hours so parted ways that first night with a quick hug good bye.

After that they got into a little pattern of eating at the same Chinese when there were late nights which was a couple of times a week. Celia was merely flirty at first but a couple of weeks in, as they stood by her car one Friday evening saying goodbye, she took the bull by the horns and opted for being totally direct.

“Keanu, can I ask you something?”

“Yes sure”

“Are you horny?”

“What!?”

“I said, are you horny? Because I am, horny I mean and needy and I like you, I find you very attractive and if you were willing …. Like I said before, I’m not looking for anything serious or ……”

Keanu didn’t let her finish, crashing his lips to hers, eyes twinkling as he pulled back.

“Can I take that as a yes then?”

“Yes! your place or mine?”

“Yours, my kids are home so I’d rather tell them I’m staying at a friends in town then bring a man home”

“Alright then, OK to follow me?”

She got in her car and followed him on his bike up into the hills and the Birds streets to his home. He opened the garage and they both parked in there and he locked up for the night.

“I’ll give you the tour in the morning, show you the view” he said waving vaguely at the patio doors “want some wine?”

“Yes! Now I’ve gone and started this, I need some Dutch courage” she giggled nervously.

He took her hand and pulled her to the kitchen and they chose a fruity red. Glasses poured, he put his arms around her waist and held her gaze.

“I’ll look after you, I promise, you can tell me anything you don’t like and I’ll stop”

He bent his head to nibble her neck and she sucked her breath in.

“Stop?”

“No, don’t stop, it’s just, you know been a while” she shuddered as he bent once more to kiss the soft skin behind her ear making her groan. Pulling away, he took her hand again and handed her a glass.

“Come with me”

They walked down a long corridor to the other end of the house and his bedroom. Luckily it had been housekeeper day that day and so the room was tidy and there were fresh sheets on the bed. The colour scheme was teal, grey and cream – manly but with some warmth too. They sat and had a sip of wine and he asked her if there was anything she wanted to tell him right away that she didn’t like and whether he needed a condom. He’d had a medical before the shoot including tests for sexually transmitted diseases and covid so he knew he was clean. She had an IUD and had not had sex since her divorce so they were comfortable to go ahead with no condom.

“lucky me” he grinned taking her wine glass and setting it on the dresser.

He stood and appraised her for a moment. She was wearing jeans and a simple v-neck cashmere sweater which hung alluringly over her full breasts.

“you really are a very sexy lady”

She laughed and blushed

“I’m just in jeans and a jumper” she protested.

“all the more alluring” he mumbled, grabbing hold of the hem of her jumper and encouraging her to let him lift it over her head and take it off.

She mirrored his actions, quickly pulling his Arch t shirt up and off and running her fingers over his pecs and down to his scar which she traced with her finger tips before palming his erection through his jeans.

That sent him into action mode and he pulled her on top of him on the bed, beginning a passionate kiss which they barely broke as they tugged and pulled at buttons, zippers and clasps and wriggled out of their clothes.

He was a little worried when he felt her tight tunnel with his fingers and took his time to make sure she was wet and ready for him before he entered her, going slowly and looking into her eyes to make sure there were no signs of pain.

“OK? He said stroking her face with the back of his fingers.

She nodded, biting her lip as the burning of his entry began to recede “like I said, it’s been a while, just take it slow for a bit”

“My pleasure” he smiled before kissing her again and pushing in just a little more until he was pushing up against her cervix. Then he pulled out, almost all the way and moved his hips slightly to change the angle.

“better?”

All she could do was moan low in her throat and push her hips up to pull him in further.

The build-up was long, slow and relentless as Keanu pulled out and went back in at the same slow pace over and over until she was wailing with pleasure.

“Harder, please” she whispered, wrapping legs around him “and faster ….. please!”

He grinned.

“anything you say maam, anything you say” He rose up on extended arms and started to pound into her. By now she was wet and wide open to him, no longer feeling any pain, just blinding need. He could feel himself getting stiffer and close to bursting and slowed slightly, dropping down to kiss her and slip his hands underneath, lifting her up so his pubic bone would press into her clit with each thrust. Deep inside she could feel an amazing buzzing sensation which increased along with the extra external stimulation and pressure.

She pulled her lips away briefly to express her incredulity

“Oh good God!”

She kissed him again as her orgasm hit and then her head fell back as bliss overtook her. The rhythmic pulsing in her pussy pushed him over the edge too and his eyes squeezed shut as he shot his warm come inside. Finally his head dropped onto her shoulder, a satisfied moan passing his lips.

“fuck that was ….. ” there were no words

“mmmmm” she couldn’t say anything either.

Inexplicably tears sprang to her eyes. It was the first orgasm she’d had (other than by her own hand) in about a year. It was pretty overwhelming.

He smiled and called her on it, teasing her about her emotion

“Hey little miss just for fun, what are the tears for?”

“Hey, give a girl a break - I thought I might have shut up shop for good you know and here I am snagging myself a movie star – I’m justified in being overwhelmed!” she teased back.

“Touche” he giggled.

“I, errr that was pretty intense though, for me too, just so you know”

“I’m glad” she said softly, not wanting to get too slushy but still feeling warm, fuzzy and happy, endorphins running through her body.

He got up and went to pee, bringing their wine back to the bed afterwards. He was utterly unselfconscious walking around naked.

“Do you want a t shirt to wear tonight?”

“No, I’m OK if you are with me being naked”

“is the pope Catholic?” he joked

“Is Luxembourg small” she joined in

“and do bears sha la la la!” he finished

They laughed together and she was glad to return to the light-hearted back and forth like they shared on set. The emotion moments before had rather taken her aback.

When the wine was finished, they were relaxed and sleepy. He turned the light off and she turned away, letting him wrap his arm around her, cupping her right breast gently in his big palm. She was the first woman to have stayed over with him after sex in over a year.

@penwieldingdreamer @fortheloveoffanfic @kindainlovewithkeanu @ladyreapermc @witty-wallflower @gatsbynouvel @bitchyslut99 @keanureevesisbae @omg-imagine @iworshipkeanureeves @fics-not-tragedies @ficsnroses @kindainlovewithkeanu @paperplanesandwallflowers

#keanu reeves fanfic #keanu reeves fanfiction #keanu #Keanu Reeves #keanu reeves ofc

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matildainmotion · 4 years

Text

The Monstrous Shame of Motherhood and the Quest for a Cure

I feel exhausted. Even-more-than-usual exhausted. Whoever knew that staying at home could be so incredibly tiring. We have our daily outings – mainly to the golf course, which is the nearest green we have. The other evening, when we had finally made it out the house, and the children were running ahead of me across the fitted-carpet grass, I had a thought: “Maybe it will be okay,” and instantly I wanted to cry. It wasn’t a thought only about the pandemic. It was about the lot: the pandemic, plus how to get an autism diagnosis for my son that supports him, plus my 78 year old mother staying well, plus my husband’s work and the theatre community surviving in a post-Covid world, plus managing to finish my book, plus both my children’s long term futures, plus the world’s long term future and climate change, plus racial inequality, plus economic inequality, plus gender inequality, plus, plus…..

In that moment I realised that a kind of deep worry is such a constant for me now that I have grown accustomed to it, so that it is like the planes that used to fly over our house in London – a noise so familiar that after a while I no longer hear it, and yet it is there, every few minutes, unnoticed, another monstrous metal groan. And when it stops - when the planes stay down, when the worries lift up - the sudden silence is startling, enough to make me cry. But – here’s the thing- thanks to the lockdown I have realised that it isn’t just worry to which I have grown accustomed in this way. There is something else, even more monstrous, which it has taken me a long time to name – and its name is shame.

I believe the shame comes from a thousand ‘shoulds,’ from the many things I feel I should be doing as a mother and am not. Motherhood, along with the paraphernalia of nappies, wipes and purees, comes with a huge bundle of shoulds. The very first thing I did, nine years ago now, on discovering that I was pregnant, was to rush out to Waterstones and buy a book on what I should and shouldn’t eat during the next nine months– and that was only the beginning. The shoulds come from everywhere, a mountain of well-meant advice, not only from books, but from doctors, midwives, family members, partners, friends, other mothers, even complete strangers. I remember standing in a shop queue with my three-week-old son in a sling, when the woman behind me leant forward and touched one of his toes. “Where’s his socks?” she said, “He’ll catch his death of cold.” On the one hand I felt reasonably confident that carrying my son around sock-less was not going to endanger his life, on the other, as a brand new mother, I was nonetheless shaken by the idea that my son’s survival was up to me, and that many different people had many different ideas about how best I should fulfil my role of raising and protecting him. At times, even my instinct, that famous maternal inner guide, seemed like a mysterious thing that someone else had told me I should follow.

Mothers Who Make began, in part, as a response to all these shoulds. When I went along to the new mother and baby groups, that I also believed to be obligatory, I noticed a distressing pattern. All too often we were simply swapping ‘shoulds’ with each other and coming away feeling worse than when we arrived. No place or position was safe: I met mothers who felt they should be breastfeeding, mothers who felt the need to put a label saying ‘breastmilk’ on the bottle they fed their baby in public, as well as mothers who felt they should be weaning their baby and moving rapidly onto solids. I met mothers who felt bad about co-sleeping and mothers who felt bad about not doing so. In those early days of mothering - when you should be feeling overjoyed - there are even charts that tell you what should be happening when, how much your child should weigh, by when they should be making eye contact etc. It is not that these charts are entirely unhelpful or inaccurate, but they certainly encouraged my constant questioning: is my child okay? Am I okay? Am I doing this right? And if I thought I wasn’t, if I was not doing what I should, I felt ashamed.

I have felt many parallels between lockdown and early motherhood – the sudden cessation of all usual activity, the focus on ‘intensive care’ and care-taking, the washing, the sense of vulnerability, the way leaving the house seems like an epic adventure, the isolation and longing for connection. And, as in early motherhood, our diverse lives are again apparently aligned. We are all in the same situation: all the mothers in those baby groups had a new born / all the mothers I know now are in lockdown due to a pandemic. This makes comparison seem possible, even appropriate. There is a set of scales around again – I weigh our lives on it and find myself at fault.

Let me give you a small sample of some of the shoulds that fly low over my home, through my mind, like aeroplanes, a few of the many that I have collected over my nine years of mothering. I should get my children to bed earlier. I should give them less screen time, or it shouldn’t happen first thing in the morning, or I should manage the whole issue of screens in a better, different way. I should give them less choice about what they eat. I should make sure they eat more fresh foods and less sugar. I should make them help around the house more. I should hold the structure of the day better. I should make sure everyone stays at the table when we’re eating. I should take steps towards weaning my daughter. I should never resort to threats – to the ‘if you don’t stop x, you won’t get y’ pattern. And so on and so forth – you get the gist. And because I do not do these things - and I imagine a thousand other mothers who are doing them wonderfully - I feel ashamed. I realise as I write this that my ‘shoulds,’ as listed here, are nice, white, middle class ones- signs of privilege. Shame is a heavy word and it is associated with far darker things than letting your kids watch too much telly. I want to acknowledge that my issues are trifling compared to those many have to navigate, but shame, whatever the context, is still shame and it is powerful. As someone who was once anorexic, I know that shame can sit alongside privilege and that, where present, it undermines the ease of even the most comfortable life.

Back in Jan 2019 I wrote a blog about guilt. I now think I was muddling up some of my guilt and my shame. In general, I feel guilty about specific instances that have an immediate, present moment, ground-level reality: I shouted at my son when he blasted water over the bathroom with the shower head and that triggered one of his big, aggressive rages. If I feel guilty about something, I can say sorry about it, to the person or people I have wronged, and then it’s over. Shame, for me, is more like the ongoing aeroplanes, it is long term - a long haul flight. On the bad days, motherhood seems like a very lengthy exam, the end of it still twenty years away. My children are not the examiners – certainly not for now – they are the results. Depending on how the children turn out, I will pass or fail. There are external examiners, keeping track, making notes, of all the things I am doing or not doing. And who are they, these examiners? I think, somewhere in my psyche, there is an impressive panel of them, made up of everyone who has ever shared ‘a should’ with me, from the author of the book on what to eat during pregnancy, to the woman in the queue who wanted my son to be in socks, to the many other authors, friends and strangers who have offered me advice - they are all sitting there, scribbling on their notepads, shaking their heads. They are not bad people. Many of them are people for whom I have enormous respect, which makes it worse. I believe in their advice – seriously, I should be following it.

In my blog on guilt, I found my guilt a figure – made it into an image that helped me connect to the things that mattered to me, lying underneath the guilt. It turned out to be a Mary Poppins-like character, flying a kite. I think my shame has a very different form. There is the panel of judges, frowning from a distance, and then there is the shame herself, much closer in, and, like the sound of the low-flying planes, she’s monstrous.

My son’s latest obsession is the Beast Quest books (he has moved on from My Little Pony - woe betide you if you mention his former interest to him). There are over a hundred Beast Quest books, all with the same basic formula – boy meets monster. Giant birds, snakes, insects, spiders, bears, apes, hounds, trolls, ogres, dragons – you name your flavour of nightmarish monster, it will be there. I am glad to say there is a reasonable spread of gender representations across the monsters – sadly none of them are trans but there are some mothers. My ‘shame monster’ is definitely a mother. She is immense, stinking, gruesome and green. Her roar is the soundtrack of my days, to which I have grown accustomed. In some of the Beast Quest books the beasts are evil and must be destroyed, but in some they are good, set under an evil curse, from which they must be freed. I think my monstrous shame mother is one of these – good at heart but under pressure, after years of judgement, she has turned malevolent. And here is the irony: I believe her malevolent aspect has a more toxic impact on my children and our household, than any of the things such as screen time, sugar, late nights, unstructured days, which have driven her into this terrible state. Her constant growling makes me tense, fractious and very, very tired. I don’t think I can go on like this. So, what to do? How to release her from the curse? And who would she be without it?

Often the opposite of shame is presented as pride. But I think pride too is problematic – the panel of judges, external examiners, is still present in the dynamic, it’s just that they are giving out good marks instead of bad. So, if the shame-beast, when transformed, does not turn into the proud mother, who does she become?

As ever, when I am wrangling with a question in my mothering, I look to my making for answers. Throughout the lockdown I have been writing whenever I can. Always, when the children are having their screen time. Often, when I should be getting them dressed, or focussing on making us breakfast, or preparing them for bed. I don’t write because I should. I write because I want to do it, because it helps me give things meaning, because it brings me joy. I think back to that teary moment on the golf course, watching the children run ahead of me over the grass. What made the worry lift, the planes stop, the monster turn out good? Yes, I think it was a moment of joy. I think, when the gory green monster is not sweating with shame, she is lit up with joy.

So much, so often, is laid at the mother’s door. On the one hand we are ‘just’ being mums, with minimal status, doing an insignificant job, and on the other, we are accorded huge significance – everything can be traced back to us, to our care or the lack of it, our early influence. I do not wish to deny our responsibility as mothers, but I do not believe our shame helps us to shoulder it, or that we should shoulder it alone. When I started Mothers Who Make I wanted it to be a held peer-support space where women could share their challenges without shame, and celebrate, even cultivate, their joy. I wanted to create a group in which we did not find further fault, did not inadvertently end up undermining or judging one another, adding to the great big bundles of shoulds already carried. It is why it is still vital to me that we welcome every kind of mother – breastfeeding, bottle-feeding, those who keep their mothering and their making strictly separate, those who take their children to work – every kind. It is also the same impulse that lies behind our Matronage scheme. Rather than a panel of judges telling us whether or not we are worthy, I want to see whether we can hold each other up. We have been asking people to become our ‘Matron Saints’ by giving us the price of a coffee a month - £3. We need 300 of you to become self-sustaining. So far we have a fantastic 99! Once we reach 100, I am going to announce a new project in celebration– a way, I hope, to keep the same ethos of grassroots peer-support alive and kicking – kicking off the shoulds, turning them into wishes and dreams.

And in the meantime, whilst you are all rushing to bring us over the 100 Matron Saint mark, (go here to do so: www.motherswhomake.org) these are your questions for the month: as a mother and/ or as a maker what are the ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’ you carry around with you? Do your ‘shoulds’ turn into shame? And then- as an antidote to this -what brings you joy? In your mothering? In your making? As we slowly emerge out of this pandemic, can you do more of this? Can you create a more shameless world? Can you help make the monsters joyful?

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bbyboybrock--archived · 5 years

Text

Serendipity (C.B) | Chapter 15

Summary: Serendipity: (n) the chance occurrence of events in a beneficial way

Popular youtuber Isabella Hart, known as Bella to her audience, bends over backwards to separate her youtube life from her private life. Known for her overall clean content and her bubbly attitude, Isabella has a wild side to her that only those inside the youtube community know about. When Bella meets Colby during one of the trap house parties she finally meets someone she can be her genuine self with. When trouble arises after their meeting, will Bella be able to hand the pressure or will she destroy her relationship with Colby as well as herself in the process. [This starts in 2018]

Written: 2019

Word Count: 2,882

Warnings: swearing

Serendipity Masterlist

"Colby, if you don't get out of my car and get on your flight, Sam, you, and me are not going to be happy." I sit in the drop-off area for LAX. A few people are just angry honking at me for prolonging my designated drop off time.

"I'm going, but only if I know you're going to be okay. Only if you're going to be fine while I'm gone." I look past Colby at Sam who is waiting for him outside.

Colby's been like this for a week. Sam and Colby have had this trip planned for a while, but since I nearly died last week he's been trying to push back the trip. Normally, Sam would put his best friend's feeling first and push the trip back indefinitely. But every time I heard them talking about it, I would go behind Colby's back and tell Sam that they're still going. If they don't go now they're going to run out of videos soon. I already ruined my career, and I'll be damned if I let my personal shit ruin Sam and Colby's careers too.

"Baby, it's fine. I'm a little better than I was last week. And if shit hits the fan again, I have people here who can help out. We talked about this. Don't do this to Sam."

He pauses for a second and closes his eyes, "Fine, but we'll talk a lot."

"Okay, fine. Go before Sam comes and drags you out of the car." I give Colby a quick kiss goodbye before pushing him out of the car. As soon as the door closes I lock the door before he changes his mind. I watch them go inside and quickly drive away before the airport security gets on my case.

For the past week, I've stayed at the trap house. The only ones who knew about my trip to the hospital were Sam and Colby, but whenever someone saw me in the house they would treat me like a doll. Because they assumed that I would fall apart. Considering everything that happened, they assumed right. Jake wouldn't even hang around me for the week unless someone else was in the room. Luckily for him, Colby would hardly let me out of his sight. I could only get peace in the bathroom; if I was in there for longer than 5 minutes he would panic. I know he means well, but it made everything even more overwhelming.

Yesterday Colby took me out of the house for the first time, after a lot of persuading. The whole week I didn't have a phone or my laptop. Which was fine because I was surrounded by other people and if anyone wanted to get in contact with me, they could ask Colby or come to the house. But now that I'm going back to living alone in my apartment, Colby insisted that I get a new phone. It was one of the conditions of him going on his trip. So he took me to the phone store, where I had to explain why the phone was broken and why I had to get a new number. On top of that, I had to go grocery shopping. While we were out, Colby also decided that we should eat out. Needless to say, I had enough of the outside world. I couldn't even enjoy my time because I was nervous that someone would approach me and bring up the whole leak situation.

****

I get into my apartment and lock the door. I scan the living room for a second before going into my room and collapsing on my bed. Alone at last. Besides the members of the trap house, Colby's Netflix account, and Colby the only other thing I had to keep me occupied and sane was paper and pen. I wrote a lot. You could call them poems or songs. The only reason I'm looking forward to being home alone is being about to play around with my instruments and see what comes of it. I dropped my dance and music minors last week too. They weren't as fun as I hoped and what I wanted to learn I figured I could learn on the internet instead of spending more money than I already have. Speaking of school, I'm glad that I decided to take online classes this semester. I got ahead weeks ago so all I have to do is just take it slow before everything catches up.

I stare at the ceiling for a little bit before pushing myself off my bed and dragging myself to my office. All my youtube crap is still out. My cameras, mics, and lights face a corner that hides my computer and instruments. My desk is cluttered with SD cards and my external hard drive. There are so many edited and unedited videos that I worked so hard on that are probably never going to see the light of day now. Even if I decided to go back to youtube, I can't just go back to posting the same content. It's just not me anymore.

I slowly and carefully start packing away all of my youtube gear in a box. Even if I never do any of this again, I might be able to sell or give my stuff to someone who could actually use it. As I push the box of stuff into the small closet my phone begins to ring. I slide my phone out of my pocket and quickly answer.

"Hello?" I close the closet door and drop myself to the floor. The box was heavier than I imagine.

"I was just calling you to tell you that we're about to take off. Why are you out of breath?" Colby says on the other end.

"Oh, you know... just cleaning up. I'll probably be asleep or something when you land though. Just text me. Have a safe flight, I love you."

"I love you too. I'll call you tomorrow." I end the call with Colby and go to mess around on my instruments for a few hours.

****

I sit in my car parked in front of the slap house making sure I have everything. A few days ago, after messing around on my instruments for a while, everything began to sound decent. I wondered what it would sound like with actual studio sounding music. I wanted to do it myself because I would have full control but I have no idea where to begin. Luckily, I remembered that Mike is doing just that. I asked him last night if he could teach me how to mix music on my computer.

"Hey, why are you just sitting in my driveway?" Mike says as he comes from the house.

"I'm just thinking." I grab my back and exit the car. I give Mike hug and follow him inside.

"I was surprised to hear from you actually. You've been like, dead to the world for a while."

"I didn't have a phone for a week. My number got leaked and I kind of broke my phone. Where are Kev and Aryia?" I sit down on the couch and set my bag on the floor.

"They're at work. So what did you need help with?"

"I will pay you or take you out for lunch—"

"Now I'm scared. What do you need me to do?" I ignore Mike and grab my notebook out of my bag.

"Calm down, I'm not going to ask you to murder someone for me. It's just that in the past week and the past couple of days I was messing around and— You know what? Just look." I don't know why I can't say it.

Mike takes the notebook and flips through it for a second. I sit nervously as Mike scans a few of the pages.

"Wait, is this entire notebook filled with songs?"

"I mean technically yes. The very first page is blank because it's a thing I do. Then immediately after that, I have a table of contents. Before I even began filling in the songs. I had the lyrics on sheets of paper. Then when I transferred them into the notebook I thought that I should add a little drawing based on the song. Then when I was doing the actual music part I figured that each instrument should have its own set of pages so each song is in there multiple times." I stop myself from talking too much. When I thought about fixing my songs up last night I became excited for the first time in a while.

"And what did you need my help with? Did you want to collab or something?"

"No, at least not right now. I was trying to record everything to see how it would sound together. But the way I was doing it was sloppy and time-consuming. I know you mix and make your own music. I was just wondering if you can give me some pointers. Like what program to use and how to use it. Like I said earlier, I'll pay you or take you to lunch." I stand there for a second and watch Mike consider helping me.

"I don't want your money, but I will take your offer for lunch." He takes my notebook and walks into his room. I follow quickly behind him.

****

After nearly two hours of Mike trying to teach me how to make music on my computer, we decided to go out to lunch. And because it's such a nice day out, we decided to eat outside. For once, it's not boiling or freezing. The temperature is just right. I'm not as nervous to be out in public like this. Everything should have died down a bit.

"So, what are you going to do? Become a singer?" Mike asks in between bites of his burger.

"I haven't thought about what I'm going to be doing. Right now, this is just a hobby. How are you doing? Like, really doing." I take another bite of my patty melt.

"In all honesty, I'm doing a lot better. I'm just focusing on myself and music. Jesus, I should be asking you that."

Mike and Xepher broker up not too long ago because Mike wasn't doing well mentally. He did what I tried to do with Colby. Colby, like Xepher, understood why a break was needed. But it wasn't going to work if I had to stay with Colby for a while. He would have gladly taken the couch if I told him I didn't feel comfortable with him sleeping next to me. But Mike and Xepher had a clean break, meaning no contact what so ever. That would have worked for us too because I scared Colby shitless.

"I'm okay. I moped around for a week, so I'm forcing myself to do other things. Which explains all of this." I finish my patty melt and just sip on my shake.

"Don't push yourself too much. Where's Colby?" Mike eats a couple fries on my plate.

"Colby is somewhere in the world doing illegal shit with Sam. I have all of his information on my phone in case of emergencies, but I highly doubt I'll need it."

"Those two are fucking lucky." Mike and I joke around and talk about random topics a bit more.

While Mike and I get back on the topic of music, I feel something ice-cold suddenly be poured on my head. I jump up and keep my head down to avoid whatever is on my head from dripping into my eyes. I slowly stand up and turn around to find two girls with empty cups in their hands laughing. One of them has her phone in her hand.

"What the fuck was that for?" Mike asks walking next to me.

"You looked a little thirsty there, we thought we could help you a bit." One of the girls with long, dark brown hair says. Her friend with short red hair cackles like the witch she is.

"I didn't know prostitutes worked during the day? What's the matter, went broke after losing all of your sponsorships?" Said the witch.

"You—"

"Mike, drop it. They're not worth it." I put my arm out to stop Mike from making things worse.

The server walks out and to see what the commotion is. I go in my bag, grab two twenty dollar bills and put it on the table. It's more than our food cost but at this point, I don't care. I grab my bag and grab Mike's hand and high tail it out of there. The whole time I bite my tongue to keep myself from crying. The whole time we are walking away, tweedle dee and tweedle bitch follow us yelling insults. I let go of Mike and turn around to face them.

"Will you please leave us alone? I've literally done nothing to you two." My efforts to not cry in front of them falter as tears escape me.

"I think us having to see your fat naked ass all over the internet counts as torture. If you wanted to be relevant again, there are so many other things you could have done."

"You shouldn't believe everything you see online. And you really shouldn't talk about things you don't understand." I stop myself from yelling at them and walk off.

"Stop following her or we'll call the police for harassment," Mike says before following me.

I don't even know where I'm going. I can't go to my car, the seat will be sticky and a mess. Can't just walk back to mine or Mike's place, they're too far from where we are. Eventually, I stop walking and crouch down in the middle of the sidewalk crying. I had a slightly bad feeling about today when I woke up. I brushed it off as paranoia and left. Everything was going so well today that I let my guard down. I should have listened to my gut.

"Isabella, come on. Let's sit here for a second." Mike helped me up and took me to a bench.

"L-let's just go," I say trying to wipe my tears. I'm really sticky.

"Wait here for a second." Mike runs off towards the shops.

While waiting I touch the top of my head. One of the things that was poured on me was definitely a juice. The other feels like a smoothie. Those dumb bitches really spent money to pour two good drinks on my head. Or maybe they bought those drinks to enjoy but then wasted them. Either way, it's ridiculous.

Mike comes back with a CVS bag. He sets the bag between us and starts pulling things out. He pulls out a couple of big water bottles and some wipes.

"Take off your shoes, I'll clean them. Here take the water bottles and rinse out your hair or something." I kick off my shows and hand them to Mike. I stand up and walk a little bit away from the bench and start pouring the water over my head. A few seconds later a familiar ring tone fills the silence. Mike digs in my bag and looks at it. He sees that I can't answer it and takes it upon myself to answer my phone.

"Hey, Colby... Yeah, it's Mike... Izzy? She can't come to the phone right now... Why do I have her phone? That's a long story... That's also a long story—" I take the phone from Mike and brace myself before putting the phone to my ear.

"Hey, babe, what's up? Aren't you supposed to be breaking into bandos right now?" Hopefully, Mike didn't make things sound suspicious.

"Sam and I finished earlier than we thought and I wanted to surprise you but everyone is too busy to pick us up. Getting an uber to the airport is nearly impossible. Are you busy?"

"I was hanging out with Mike but I was just about to drop him off. I can be there in half an hour."

"I don't want to rush you, we can find another way home."

"Trust me, it's fine. I'll see you soon." I hang up before Colby could ask questions. I give Mike a look for answering the phone.

"I'll go with you and drive. I had nothing planned for today." Mike says as he cleans my shoes.

"You don't have to. I'm fine. It's fine. Everything is fine. It was a momentary setback, but all is good."

Mike looks at me with sad eyes. I smile at him and finish dumping the bottles at me and slip my shoes on.

****

I dropped off Mike and went to the airport to pick up Sam and Colby. I could tell by the look on their faces that Mike told them. I had changed, Mike bought me some clothes while he was at CVS and changed before leaving, and my hair was mostly dry. I was hoping that it would look like I went to the beach. Luckily, neither Sam or Colby mention the incident. I drop Sam off and bring Colby to my apartment, per his request, and spend the rest of the say with him. He doesn't mention it for the rest of the night.

#colby #colby brock #colby fan fic #colby fanfic #colby fan fiction #colby fanfiction #colby brock fan fic #colby brock fanfic #colby brock fanfiction #colby brock fan fiction

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dailyskyferreira · 5 years

Text

Sky Ferreira Returns With an uncompromising vision and the studio hours to back it up, the enigmatic singer is back with a new single—and a promise that her first album in six years will be worth the wait.

So, what’s Sky Ferreira been doing all this time? Well, for the last 35 minutes or so, she’s been in the bathroom.

“I’m so sorry,” she says when she finally emerges, eyes wet, arms full of winter layers. It’s a late-February afternoon at New York City’s Russian Tea Room, the fabled blini-and-caviar haunt of candy-red banquettes and eternal Christmas ornaments where Madonna once worked the coat check. About a half hour ago, the 26-year-old singer turned up for our afternoon-tea reservation only to disappear in an immediate whorl, as if a czarist vortex sucked her into the basement. What she had thought was an asthmatic flare-up, she now explains, was actually a pretty severe anxiety attack. A panicked twinge remains in her expression, like the distant memory of tasting a lemon. In town from Los Angeles for three days, she tells me, “I’ve been anxious to the point that I haven’t slept at all.”

It’s a nerve-wracking moment for Sky, a pop artist, actor, and model who’s lately been keeping a low profile. This is partly because she seems to find the social contract of the PR exchange stressful, but also because she doesn’t want to suck up all the air before she gets a chance to breathe. “You really can get sick of someone’s face,” she says, as only someone who has loaned their own to Jimmy Choo and Calvin Klein could. “I don’t see the point of doing a bunch of photoshoots or press when I don’t have anything out.”

The fact that she hasn’t had anything out might be the biggest stress of all. Signed to Capitol Records at 15, Sky spent years in teen-pop A&R purgatory—groomed as a naughty-girl-next-door type with mall-Shakira hair and prefabricated singles with names like “Haters Anonymous” and “Sex Rules” (“We are animals/No matter what we deny/Our bodies strong, like magnets” are actual words she sang)—only to have her minders decide she wasn’t worth the trouble and shelve her long-promised full-length debut. Rather than give up, she used money she’d earned modeling and finished the album without their help.

Released in October 2013, Night Time, My Time was a rare major-label triumph of craft over product, a purposeful barrage of seething recriminations coated with ’90s-grunge textures and ’80-pop incandescence. It sounded like “My So-Called Life”’s Angela Chase mainlining John Hughes films and channeling her existential anguish into a record—except Night Time was the vision of a 2010s 21-year-old, and the truths were all hers.

The right people loved it. In the spring of 2015, Sky announced her second record’s name was Masochism and promised its first single that summer. The summer came and went, then the fall, and some winter too. On that New Year’s Eve, she addressed the delay obliquely on Instagram (“I refuse to put out something that isn’t honest”) and promised “in 2016 you will hear it.” In 2016, you did not, and now it’s 2019, and, still, no album. At this point, she can’t post online without some commenters popping up to heckle, “where’s the album sky” or “MASOCHISM!!?” or “still waiting,” like they’re hungry people rage-texting Seamless.

These impatient fans aren’t alone in their enthusiasm. “She’s one of those beautiful, rare people who can probably do anything,” says Debbie Harry, who’s had Sky open for Blondie. “If there’s anybody I would ever be jealous of, it would be her.”

Naturally, all of this—the anticipation, the unfulfilled promises, the time lapsed since her last release—is adding to the pressure she puts on herself. She feels like she has to explain. “It wasn’t by choice.” It wasn’t creative paralysis, nor was it a creative hiatus. “I wasn’t just taking time for myself the last five years.” During that time, she landed a half dozen movie roles, but she says she didn’t decide to focus on acting instead. “I never stepped away from music.” She alludes to vague external hindrances: “I’ve been at the mercy of people the last few years”; “gatekeepers”; “the rug pulled out under me”; a “someone at my label” who undid the generous arrangement she had to work with Kanye West musical director Mike Dean; and the very real issue of a young woman telling men what she wants and not settling for less. Then the labyrinthine nature of her production process is, as you’ll see, akin to playing charades blind-folded while riding a dog, and everyone else guesses with kazoos. Plus, she’s a perfectionist. Obsessive. She’ll do 800 takes. She’ll consider every option—and then she’ll consider it again.

But the primary reason it’s taken so long: Sky doesn’t just want her new songs done, she wants them to be good. By good, she means, executed the way she intended, no matter how long she waited to find the right violinist. Properly mixed so they don’t accidentally sound like pop-punk in the car, because “someone puts some shit on my voice” and she forgot to play them in an Uber. (Sky never learned to drive.) Songs that know their place in the broader pop continuum, not what’s hot on streaming. “I’m not looking for ‘a moment,’” she says. “I’m looking for a career—and real careers, you build them.”

She’s deemed two songs good enough to share with me. The first single, “Downhill Lullaby,” is a five-and-a-half-minute, goth-noir, chamber-pop piece—with strings!—that could have easily closed an episode of the revived “Twin Peaks.” (The association may be deliberate: Sky appeared in the show’s 2017 return, deeply admires its director, David Lynch, and the series’ music supervisor, Dean Hurley, produced the song alongside her.) Another forthcoming track, tentatively titled “Don’t Forget,” is a new wave time warp, a lovely bit of nostalgia therapy for people who were never there—even if it is, according to Sky, “about burning down houses.”

By now we’re settled into a booth, one Sky has selected in the empty part of the restaurant, far away from her manager and publicist, who’ve come along to chaperone. Her natural espresso roots have outrun her hair’s blonde highlights, and her dark T-shirt reads “CHICAGO METAL MANIA.” We’ve managed to order tea by asking the waiter to bring what he likes (a nice, orangey, spicy chai) and then momentarily horrify him when Sky asks if, instead of sending the teeny triangular sandwiches with mayonnaise back to the kitchen (she hasn’t touched them, and mayo makes her gag), we can give them to someone who’s homeless. “I’ll get you the ones without mayonnaise,” the waiter says, taking them away.

“I don’t have a back-up plan,” Sky says. “I never have. I don’t have an education. I don’t know how to, like, play music in the [traditional] sense. I’m socially awkward and stuff—I couldn’t really do a lot of other jobs either,” she says. “Literally, there’s no other option for me. So this has to work.”

There are many Sky Ferreiras. There’s Sky the model, a Hedi Slimane muse who’s walked the runway for Marc Jacobs and perfected a glare so haunted the Bates Motel must be jealous. There’s Sky the actor, who played a key supporting role in director Edgar Wright’s big-studio heist flick Baby Driver, but doesn’t have an agent. There’s Sky the live performer, who battles stage fright, but who also opened a 2014 Miley Cyrus arena tour, fell down an elevator shaft on night three, and still took the stage the next day.

There’s also the Sky here at the Russian Tea Room, whose left dimple comes as a surprise because, come to think of it, you’ve rarely seen photos of her smiling. The Sky who shouldn’t eat gluten because of an autoimmune condition, but doesn’t really tell people about it because it sounds like bullshit. The Sky who’s watched enough “Game of Thrones” to see her pets’ personalities reflected in the show’s characters. (For the record, her cat Egg would be a Lannister, while his brother Squirrel would be from the North.)

This Sky speaks in em dashes. It’s less that she loses her train of thought, and more that her thought train is screeching onto a new track. Sometimes you’re right there with her, but other times you’re watching the conversation from a distance like a detached caboose that just kept going straight. “I know I keep going in circles,” she says, “but my mind kind of always does that—spins.”

You don’t interview this Sky as much as steer her, but first you listen. “I’ve always been really shy,” she says, six minutes in. “I was actually mute for years when I was a kid.”

Little Sky Tonia Ferreira hummed along to the radio before she could talk. Raised around Los Angeles, mostly Venice Beach, her young parents split when she was a baby. Her dad tended bar, sometimes with her in tow, and when his roommates got cable, she devoured MTV. “I always hung out with a lot of adults,” she says. “I was, like, one of those kids.”

Being one of those kids meant she didn’t know how to talk to the kids who knew how to talk with each other. She was bullied constantly. She also had trouble with numbers and spelling—she suspects she’s dyslexic, but never got tested—and for a while, was so unhappy, she stopped talking altogether. “I had really long hair, didn’t speak, and had dark circles around my eyes,” she says, describing herself as a child. “I looked kinda feral.”

As the story goes, Sky’s first-grade classmates didn’t know she could talk until she sang “Over the Rainbow” in school. “As long as I can remember, I’ve felt the most like myself when I was singing,” she says. (Roughly 18 years later, she covered the Wizard of Oz ballad at David Lynch’s Festival of Disruption, and the director still raves about her version, telling me, “It was incredible. So beautiful.”)

She lived with her grandmother, who worked as a hairdresser. One time when Sky was around 7, she sang for one of her grandmother’s clients. Impressed, the man suggested she join a gospel choir. The man was Michael Jackson. So she did. Jackson also gave a 9-year-old Sky some grown-up advice that’s shaped her approach to art and music ever since: “He was like, ‘Don’t focus on things that are just around you—you need to look back to the history of music.’ And that’s what I did.”

Yes, Sky went to the Neverland Ranch—“a lot.” She also went to Jackson’s other houses. No, she didn’t witness anything untoward. “It wasn’t just because I was a girl,” she tells me, a few days before the controversial HBO documentary Leaving Neverland aired. “I was around a lot of kids.”

Yes, she’s grown hesitant to talk about her grandmother’s larger-than-life client—for all the reasons you’d expect, along with a few you might not. Like, that it’s difficult for people to wrap their minds around the fact that the King of Pop could be a formative elder acquaintance in the casually anodyne way of, say, a dancing-school teacher or a little-league coach—someone whose small encouragements could be so big. “I was really quiet, but when someone sees something in you...” she says of Jackson, before abandoning the thought. “I had a connection to him, but I’m not, like, his family.”

Sky has also routinely been asked to account for the bad behavior of men in her orbit. A dominant narrative surrounding Night Time, My Time’s 2013 release was her relationship with indie rock band DIIV’s frontman, Zachary Cole Smith—an ex-boyfriend with whom she was arrested that September. He was the driver of the vehicle in which heroin, ecstasy, and a stolen license plate were found (and someone who’s since publicly acknowledged his struggles with addiction). Throughout that album cycle, the arrest became a more delicious red herring than anything Sky had actually done.

“The thing that’s still so fucked up about that: I didn’t have a drug problem, I dated someone who had a drug problem, I was in a car with someone who had a drug problem,” she says. “No one wants to talk about how my charge got dropped.” And the whole Kurt and Courtney star-crossed mythos that dramatized the headlines around the arrest? Spare her. “I was really young; I wasn’t even 21 yet for most of it. That wasn’t my great love story of my life,” she says, adding, “The people that have treated me so much better—they’re the ones who deserve the attention, not that guy.” (Presumably, one of those people is her current partner, Elias Bender Rønnenfelt, frontman of the Danish punk band Iceage.)

Those who have followed Sky’s personal life could easily read “Downhill Lullaby” as an extended metaphor about a tumultuous relationship: “I can see that you want me/Going downhill too/Going downhill into a lullaby.” But she’s adamant about distancing her songwriting from the egos of her ex-boyfriends. “That’s the one rule I made,” she says. “The one thing that I’ve always had is my music. If someone treated me badly, they don’t get to have that. I don’t want to drag the weight of what they did around forever.”

For Sky Ferreira, time is not a flat circle, but rather a sticky mass of saltwater taffy. She tends to run late, but once she’s present and engaged, she can summon an Iron Man endurance. At the Russian Tea Room, two hours of conversation easily floats into six-and-a-half, and eventually we’re the last diners to leave. Somewhere in this elasticity, she talks about her refusal to give up on the work. “I’ve literally been using my life savings to do this record.” She is not motivated by money—to her, time isn’t money, but money is a thing to buy more time.

This springy relationship with time can make Sky seem almost anachronistic. In conversation, her offhanded pop-cultural mentions span director Todd Solondz’s 1995 cult indie Welcome to the Dollhouse, Courtney Love, the 1980 Loretta Lynn biopic Coal Miner’s Daughter, the 2018 iteration of A Star Is Born, and the cheerful ’60s sitcom “The Andy Griffith Show” (which she concedes, “No one my age knows”). Sky’s reference points, like Michael Jackson once advised, exist within a totality, not a blip.

One of her artistic lodestars glows brighter than the others: When Sky was 13, she discovered David Lynch. “He’s the first person who ever saw the world the way I saw it,” she says. “It was the first time anything made sense.” You can see Lynchian dream logic throughout her work. In fact, the staggering, airy title dirge from Night Time, My Time came to her in a dream. “I wrote it in the middle of the night, half-asleep,” she remembers about the album closer, which was built around a line spoken by the doomed girl at the center of the “Twin Peaks” saga. “Then I woke up the next day and I finished it in an hour. I still have the notes; the handwriting’s all fucked up. ” When she finished the song, she knew the album was finally done.

So Sky’s cameo in “Twin Peaks: The Return” had the meta-ness of astral projection. She played Ella, an enigmatic bar patron who talked about a penguin and flaunted a “wicked” armpit rash. “She played that scene so perfectly,” Lynch tells me. “She inhabited that character and made it real from a deep place. When she scratched that rash, you could really feel the itching!”

“Downhill Lullaby” summons the creeping orchestral gloom of “Night Time, My Time.” A sweeping arrangement in five parts, Masochism’s first single begins with a sashay of strings and an interpolation of the unmistakable squee of the Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” followed by a murmuring, angered bass. Sky exhales a numb indictment—“You leave me open/When you hit me”—and amid the layers of kettle-drum thunder and keening violins, there’s seduction and revenge, confusion and queasiness, silkiness and elegance. It sounds like the last thing Daniel Day Lewis’ Reynolds Woodcock hears before the poison takes hold in Phantom Thread.

This habit of visualizing music—Sky does it too. Except for her, it’s the first step of many in the song creation process: “I see it like it’s projected in a movie theater.” “Downhill Lullaby,” in particular, began with a vision of water in darkness. “Lakes kind of terrify me,” she explains, recalling a childhood memory of feeling lost in a Maryland forest that packs a similar unease. “In a lake, by yourself, you look at the bottom and it’s murky and still and you can’t really see anything or feel anything—and if you do, it’s fucking terrifying. It always feels like something will grab you and pull you under.” The eeriness became the foundation for the song.

She likens the ordeal of making “Downhill Lullaby” to Mickey Mouse’s Fantasia turn as the sorcerer’s apprentice. “You know how all the brooms are making a gigantic mess and the water starts rising and rising and rising and rising?” she says. “It was sort of like that: Magical, but at the same time, ‘What is going on?’ And then cleaning it all up.”

Her technique is more like a collagist—one who both scavenges her raw materials and oversees the fabrication—than a traditional songwriter. Conceptually, she works backwards, starting a song with an imagined outline of the final arrangement, isolating each sound element, and then embarking on the oft-laborious task of identifying studio musicians with the time and patience and willingness to conjure each sound individually, so that once she’s gathered all the pieces, she can begin the meticulous process of putting them all back together.

This unorthodox approach to songwriting has led to recurring logistical difficulties for Masochism. Namely, figuring out how to articulate what she hears so that someone who’s not in her brain can actualize it. “Nobody really understood what I was trying to say or wanted to do on paper,” she says. “It was a really long process.”

Sky never learned how to read music and she’s too self-conscious to use instruments that aren’t her voice in front of others. So if there’s an obvious reference point—like a certain note in a ’90s-radio staple she wants imitated—she’ll play that for her collaborator. But when there’s not, she’s often like a conductor asking to summon a mood.

In the case of Danish violinist Nils Gröndahl, who recorded all the strings on “Downhill Lullaby,” she recalls telling him: “‘Play it as if you’re one of the birds in Snow White, singing underwater, while slowly being suffocated by plastic.’” And you know what? In the end result, it’s easy to hear all that.

Additionally, Sky is even more particular about her final mixes. She will only be satisfied after she’s evaluated her song in seven different listening contexts: a car stereo; a smartphone with “regular” headphones; a smartphone with Apple earbuds; a smartphone’s built-in speaker; on a laptop; through “really bad, bad computer speakers—like the ones that came with Dells back in the early 2000s”; and the lush splendor of the studio, which is a personal luxury because, as she notes, “most people aren’t gonna listen that way.”

And she goes through this convoluted course of action for every song. It’s no wonder Masochism has taken so long. Says Sky, “I’ve accepted this is how I work and stopped feeling bad about it.”

Two Fridays after her insomniac New York trip, Sky is on the line, self-confidence restored, completing a high percentage of her sentences. Earlier in the week, she received the “Downhill Lullaby” master, immediately dropped her phone and shattered its screen, so now she’s on speaker. “I was like, I hope this isn’t a metaphor?” At least she’s laughing.

As for Masochism. She tells me she produced most of it herself, wrote with Los Angeles-based dream-pop artist Tamaryn, and worked with Ariel Pink collaborator Jorge Elbrecht. The proper album is coming, Sky swears, almost positively in 2019. Granted, she said the same thing last year—and the year before that and the year before that and the year before that—but this time, she has finally loosened her grip on some songs.

“Downhill Lullaby” may sound like dying Disney birds and “Don’t Forget” may be electro-pop arson, but Sky promises “more poppy” songs on Masochism too, as well as more “abstract,” orchestral stuff. “It’s very big, but also very violent,” she says, half-chuckling. “But not all the songs are super-dark.” Beyond that—the number of songs, tracklist, other credited collaborators—who can say? Sky can’t yet. She has some songs in mind she’d still like to write.

#sky ferreira #2019

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nightlynightwing · 5 years

Text

a night of rest

word count: 1,772 ship: f.jord/anya notes: this takes place at the end of this past week’s episode. it’s technically a two-parter, but the second half is… a bit more spicy. we’ll see if people want it lmao. also, there’s a scene mentioned thats based on this drawing that i plan on also writing out eventually. also, this is Mostly Canon, but it might change later into the campaign, so (shrugs)

Beau and Jester were having their conversation in the stairway as they made their way to their room. Their voices, though they spoke in “whispers”, were loud enough to carry all the way down to the main floor. Anya could hear Caduceus’s basey voice reply, followed by Caleb calling up the stairs, also in response. The girls expressed their annoyance, and everyone in the Nein couldn’t help but laugh.

Anya stood up from her chair, smoothing out her cloak. She took in the sight around her, watching as Caleb pulled out a small flask, and Anya could already guess what was going to go down. She made her way to the stairs that would lead to her room on the XorHouse’s second floor. “Ah, you headin’ up?”

Anya almost bumped into Caduceus as he made his way back to answer a summons from Caleb. He gave her a smile, one of those he would give that made Anya feel safe.

“Yeah, I probably should,” she nodded in thanks as Caduceus sidestepped to let her up into the stairs. “G’night, Fairy Floss.”

Caduceus returned her sentiment as she ascended, her aching body crying out for the sweet embrace of her mattress. Though, at this point, she honestly couldn’t tell if the pain she felt was physical, or if the emotional stress from everything that had happened was taking some sort of external toll on her body. Probably both.

She had just reached her door and was pushing it open when she heard the sound of footsteps from around the corner; Fjord almost bumped into her as he turned to head down the hall towards his own room.

“Ah,” Fjord stopped himself, taking a step back. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Anya responded, her voice soft.

Images, memories of moments spent with Fjord suddenly flashed in her mind; times she had been alone with Fjord, and the feelings that had erupted in her chest when she thought she might lose him in the fight against the Laughing King; feelings that he had seen on her face, and heard in her voice. Stronger than that is the memory of the warmth that flooded her whole body as she sat beside Fjord, separated from their group, barely illuminated by the light of the fire, and their faces mere inches from each other.

They stared at one another for several seconds, the time stretching between them, awkwardness thickening the air.

“We… We should talk,” Fjord managed to say.

Anya gave an embarrassed laugh. “Yeah… yeah. Come on in.”

Anya pushed her way into her room, lingering with her hand on the door as Fjord slipped inside as well. Closing the door behind him, Anya shuffled around the room quickly, using the small shafts of moonlight shimmering through her curtained windows to guide her to the candles scattered around her room.

When she had finished lighting a few, their warm, dim glow revealed Fjord standing in the middle of Anya’s room, awkwardly glancing around.

Clearing her throat, Anya pulled a chair away from her desk, gesturing Fjord to sit. As he complied, Anya went to sit on her bed.

For a moment, silence hung in the air like a fog, and Anya just looked Fjord’s face over as he studied her in return. The flickering illumination of the few candles she lit made his features more intense…

“So…” Fjord said.

“So.” Anya’s spoke softly, and she had to clear her throat to rid herself of a weird catch in her voice. Now that they were here, she had no clue what to say, so she just said the first words that came into her mind, “Are you okay?”

This must have taken Fjord by surprise, because it took him a moment to answer.

“I… guess I’m alright. Alright as I can be, anyhow,” he responded. “What about you?”

“Just the same, I suppose…” Anya muttered, absentmindedly rubbing at a bruise on her ribs.

“Well… what happened?” Fjord asked, his tone hesitant. “I know things’ve been… different between us for a while now, but I ain’t ever seen you act like that,”

Anya felt her stomach clench as she remembered how she had screamed her throat raw in the battle against the Laughing King, calling Fjord’s name as she desperately tried to figure out a way to save him; how hard and uncontrollably her tears had fallen as she had shakingly tried to use the last of her arcane energy to heal Fjord as much as she could, because she couldn’t help but think of herself mourning over his beaten, lifeless body.

“I… I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t think I’d ever felt that way before.” She looked down at her hands, thinking back to how hard they were shaking; she elected to blame these memories for their slight tremors now.

“How did you feel?” Fjord’s voice was low.

Anya swallowed nervously, and it took her a moment to find the words to respond with.

“Like… if I lost you, I wouldn’t know what I’d do with myself.”

Her words lingered in the air, sinking into Anya’s own mind, and she could feel her face beginning to flush.

“You said things have been different for a while,” Anya said quickly. “What do you mean by that?”

It was Fjord’s turn to search for words. Anya could almost see his brain working to put his thoughts together, his hand in his chin, fingers covering his mouth that she could see was slanted in a frown. His eyebrows furrowed, leaving creases in his forehead.

“I’m sure you remember that night we were alone in the woods,” he began. Anya nodded. “It’d been growin’, that feeling that things were… weird. That somethin’ was changing. And that night really brought it to a head…”

Anya couldn’t tell if the dancing shadows of the candlelight were just playing tricks on her eyes, or if Fjord’s cheeks seemed darker in the way only a blushing orc’s face could be.

“Those feelings…” Fjord had been looking off to the side, but when Anya spoke, he turned back to her. “Those feelings from that night, I’ve felt them before. But… they’re feelings I’ve been used to only feeling for a night, with someone who understood they wouldn’t be there the next morning…” Anya face was really burning now, and a strange lump had formed in her throat, pounding in rhythm with her racing heart.

She forced herself to look up, to look Fjord in the eye, who was looking at her with an intensity she knew wasn’t just a trick of the light.

“This is the first time those feelings have lasted so long.”

Maybe Fjord could feel it too, the dizziness that had suddenly swept the room, the weird electricity that raced all along the top of Anya’s skin, and that’s what made him stand, made him cross the room to meet Anya, and maybe it’s what made Anya stand up from the bed to meet him, as well.

Anya had no clue how long they stood there, eyes locked as if in a trance, just inches from each other. She felt as though someone else had decided to move her hands as they reached up to grasp at the front of Fjord’s shirt, tugging to move his face down close to hers. They’d been this close before, tantalizing and magnetic, always interrupted by confusion or the voices of others. No voices came this time, and the confusion that still lingered wasn’t enough to break the force pulling them together.

Fjord was the one to close the inch of difference, and Anya felt her stomach jolt when Fjord’s lips met hers.

The kiss was soft, slight, tentative and curious. Their skin barely touched, and they let themselves stay like that for just a moment, drinking in all these new feelings. It was Anya who pushed, let the embrace deepen enough that she could feel Fjord’s newly sprouting tusks underneath his bottom lip. Fjord’s hands were on her waist, and the pressure of his touch felt warm and strangely heavy.

This wasn’t their first kiss, but it was so, so different. Before, everything had been so strange, new, and a little daunting. Now, everything seemed to fit into place; one of Anya’s hands had curled up and around Fjord’s neck, cradling his nape and pulling him closer to her; Fjord’s arm moved to wrap around Anya’s body, curving her body into his so that their stomachs pressed together, his other hand gripping at her waist more tightly.

Lips parted, breath quickened, the room was thick with this strange energy holding them together, and Anya could feel her heartbeat echoing through every inch of her body. It wasn’t until her lungs were screaming that she finally forced herself to break away.

Her breath came in hot puffs, stirring the stray strands of ruffled hair. When she pulled back, Fjord’s tongue was left lolling out slightly, a small string of saliva connecting it to Anya’s lips that quickly broke as Anya moved away. Fjord removed his hand from Anya’s waist, using a thumb to swipe the stray strand of spittle away.

There was another stretch of silence until Fjord moved his hand, gently swiping Anya’s hair from her face, tucking it behind one ear and letting his hand drift to tangle with her short, choppy hair.

Lightly pressing his forehead to Anya’s, Fjord whispered,

“Will these feelings still be here tomorrow morning…?”

Anya let his words settle, let herself really feel everything she was feeling in that moment; what she had said before was true, the emotions rocketing through every nerve were ones she had felt before. But these were different, just like everything that had happened with her lately. These felt so much deeper, so much more frightening… and so much more exhilarating.

“I think so…” she breathed back to him, putting her face close enough that her lips faintly brushed against his as she spoke. She raised her hand to touch it gently to his cheek, and a spark of something flashed in her eyes as her mouth tilted into a crooked smile. “You could always stick around and find out…”

Anya was expecting Fjord to laugh, to end their encounter here with notions of it not being the right time, or too soon. And she was perfectly fine with that; her suggestion wasn’t entirely serious, just her throwing out her usual playful musings. Her remark of “just kidding” and the beginnings of a laugh were just gathering on her tongue when Fjord tilted his head a bit his mouth curling in consideration.

“Y’know… I think I just might.”

#self insert #self ship #self shipping #self insert oc #self shipping oc #the moon and her sea #if you'll be my boat #anya moonsbane #kieru writes

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raisingsupergirl · 5 years

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Pain, Pain, Go Away

I'm no stranger to suffering. I've lost loved ones. I've waded through mental anguish. I've had 10/10 blinding pain in my neck and low back that left me bed-ridden. And since those physical injuries over two years ago, I've dealt with some level of persistent, chronic pain. On top of that, as a physical therapist, I work with patients enduring all levels of physical and mental suffering on a daily basis, and if I don't force myself to connect and sympathize with what those individuals are going through, I'll suck at my job. So, yes, pain is something I'm acutely (and chronically) aware of, but when my alarm went off yesterday morning, I stretched out to full length without a single twinge of discomfort, and it was glorious. I stretched again. I twisted and turned, shaking away a little tightness and some popping joints, and still no real pain. And it was in that moment that I had a revelation.

First off, let me explain that I'm a Christian. I believe in continued life after our physical bodies fall away, and because of that, I believe that all pain truly is temporary. This has led me to some strange (and sometimes unpopular) opinions. Like pain, everything we know is temporary. At some point, everything will end. We live in a fallen world that has harbored pain since the very beginning. So when my friends get all doom-n-gloom over the latest president or headline, I shrug my shoulders and keep rolling. I interact with the world one handshake at a time. I remember that the "big one" could hit at any time, that this life is just the beginning, and that every good moment that I have is a gift. This perspective has also impacted how I deal with pain. When I run my big toe into a doorway, nociceptors (a certain type of nerve ending) send electrical impulses jumping up to my brain, which in turn sends an explosion of its own electricity throughout my body. Chemicals are released, which further interact with my nervous system, and I'm left with a cascade of reactions, opinions, and choice words. But in the end, it's just another shrug of the shoulders. It's my body letting me know that something unfortunate happened based on an external stimulus. And either I can choose to dwell on it, or I can move on. Which leads me back to my revelation…

As I said before, I've dealt with chronic back pain for a couple of years now. It was there when I woke up, and it was there when I went to bed. It became a part of my life. I once had a patient explain it like this: "It's right here." He held his hand up in front of his face, blocking his view of everything except his palm. "My pain is right here all the time. And it never goes away." It was so simple, but so true. My back pain had painted my reality a different shade, a darker shade. It impeded my higher functions, my optimism, my pursuit of joy. It wasn't debilitating, but it was limiting. And at a certain point, I forgot what it felt like to be pain-free… until the past couple of weeks.

My recovery has been a culmination of things. First, the long, tedious repair of intervertebral discs and the surrounding tissue have nearly run their course (thank the Lord, seriously). Second, I've been working on my posture, spinal range of motion, and core stability since my injuries (it pays to be a PT). Third, the daily workouts I've recently started (shout-out to Morning Meltdown 100, Jericho McMathews, the BeachBody crew, and my wife for peer-pressuring me into this crazy journey) has been the absolute perfect combination of physical challenge and full-body awareness to push me across the finish line. And lastly, I truly believe that these events resulting in this pain-free period of my life have been a part of God's greater plan. Why? Maybe because I'm weak and couldn’t take it anymore. Maybe because I'm going to have to endure something harder soon, and I needed this reminder of what being pain-free felt like. Maybe because I've simply gone through that phase of my life, and now it's time to start the next. But whatever the reason, here (finally) is my revelation:

Pain is inevitable in our life, but it does not define our life.

I think I used to give pain too much power--too much potency. You see, my pain was never really constant. Even at its worst, my neck and back pain gave me brief moments of respite. Even in the darkest grip of depression after my dad died, I experienced glimmers of vivid joy (which really is miraculous when you consider the persistent chemical effects of depression). But they were so short-lived that I never really had time to appreciate them, and every time this or that pain finally faded, it seemed that I would soon become distracted with some new heartache or stress. None of it was enough to really knock me down, but it was enough to be, as my patient explained it, in front of my face. And I almost let it define me. And that's a terrifying thought.

I know people who live with true chronic pain (yes, I'll now admit that my pain was never truly chronic). They say that every waking moment hits them with some form of distracting, physical discomfort. I can't say for certain if this is true, or if the chemical and psychological struggles that accompany chronic pain simply veil their moments of potential respite, but either way, their struggle is real. And of those people, many of them see that pain as a part of who they are. Which sucks on a grand scale.

God created us for one purpose: to love the Lord our God with every part of our being, and to love everyone else as we love ourselves (yes I'm aware that that sounds like two purposes, but God often does funny things with numbers). But if our pain is a part of who we are, does that mean that we're supposed to love God with that pain? If you don't happen to be a Christ follower, let me put it this way: could you possibly use your terminal cancer to better love your family? No, of course not. You could accept the fact that you're going to die. You could find new beauty in the world through realization of your mortality. You could gain appreciation, insight, and perspective, but those are all byproducts. Nothing about that actual cancer allows you to love more deeply. And every pain (physical, psychological, etc.) is the same way. They can be the spark that propels us to appreciate the pain-free times, but not necessarily. If we don't have some other, deeper force driving us to find that appreciation, pain only destroys. And when we allow pain to become a part of us, it destroys from within.

So, my back doesn't hurt right now. I have other concerns and stresses. I have fears that could steal away my appreciation. But that's not going to happen. I'm going to enjoy this time. I'm going to use it to take stock of what I have, of where I've been, and of what glorious adventures lie ahead. God has given us each a beautiful journey. And while we may endure pain on that journey, it's only a fleeting thing, a passing storm. And in the end, the sun--

Well, crap. This just went from profound revelation to cliché greeting card. Oh, well. It had a good run. Hopefully you got the point. And I've got some pain-free frolicking to do. Thanks for reading. Buh-bye, now.

#pain #chronic pain #faith #christianity #perspective #inspirational #Team Beachbody #beachbody #morning meltdown 100 #momblr #mumblr #dadblr

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captainbebold-blog · 5 years

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Blog post numero 2

So, following on from my previous and very first blog post last month, I would firstly like to say how genuinely surprised I was by the amazing comments and words that people fed back to me. I would like to thank those individuals and to anyone who took the precious time to read what I wrote as I really hadn’t thought ahead of any consequence after posting the blog.

I would also like to add how great it felt to open my mind and heart and just blurt out words that were there for all to see, I found it therapeutic and I would urge anyone else who is thinking of doing something similar.

You will come to learn that by reading what I write, if you didn’t already know, I am honest, perhaps a little too much, but I love that about myself (oh yes, a woman in 2019 affirming a positive quality about herself without the need of validation from anyone else). And by being honest I will say that this blog post was particularly difficult for me to get started on. Not difficult in the sense that I found it emotionally testing but perhaps in trying to articulate myself genuinely.

The topic that I would like to talk about this month is school, jobs and careers. Funnily enough, the definition of the word “work” as a synonym can also be known as “exerting oneself” or “to slave away”. The word “career” can be defined as “an occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person’s life and with opportunities for progress.” Now, I’m not sure what thoughts or opinions will cross people’s minds when they read this to themselves, but for me, here’s why I have trouble accepting both definitions.

Let me start from the beginning, buckle up.

From a young age, I was never really interested in school, I mean realistically why would a four-year old child who has spent the only years of their life so far playing and being free, understand or let alone choose why they had to go to a place called “school”.

But I knew and believed that it was important for my future. I believed so based on the values that my mum had taught me and that it was important for me to study hard and pay attention. My Mum had a difficult childhood and upbringing and therefore she never really got the opportunity or better still, the choice whether she wanted to go to school or not. So out of respect and love for my Mum, as well as sensing that she wanted to ensure I got the opportunities that she didn’t.

The school years are a blur from the age of 4 right up to high school and then university. The things that I enjoyed outside of lessons were dance class, singing (I cannot sing but that didn’t stop me) and reading. I remember being called a book worm and my teacher once called me his human dictionary. I would despise doing homework and think it was a load of crap. All I wanted to do was read, and read aloud to anyone who would listen, I would follow my mum around the kitchen reading aloud to her frequently.

As I got older, I enjoyed art class and it was the only hobby I happily and actively chose to do, I was good at art, I think it was the only subject in my entire life I ever achieved an A in. All the hobbies that I have mentioned above all have one thing in common, they are all creative and imaginative activities. Yet, that wasn’t enough for me to realise.

Throughout my teenage years, I didn’t excel in anything at school, along with raging hormones and my primary concerns being if my trousers were tight enough on my arse (I didn’t have one back then) or if the vending machines would have sold out of Chocolate Milk by the time I got to the canteen at lunchtime.

For me, I was at school because what else was there? It’s not like I had a choice to do anything else, or did I? I had a great social life. Life was carefree in comparison to now and “being an adult”. You aren’t taught life skills or what to expect once you leave school. To a certain extent you are protected in this bubble where there is no need to think outside of that. Teachers and parents alike would say, school will help you get a good job/career like it is the only thing that matters on planet Earth.

When high school finished at the age of 16, I still had no idea what career I wanted to pursue or what I wanted to be. I felt an element of pressure for that, like I would slip behind in life if I didn’t decide quickly. I often thought, when will I know what I want to do, or I would ask myself what was wrong with me? I told myself that the best way for me to have a successful career was to educate myself more, and by doing so I chose to go to college and study for A Levels. I told myself, Dayna you didn’t put your all in before but now is your chance to get higher grades and I cannot accept failure because then where will I get in life?

For my A levels I chose to do Psychology, Travel and Tourism and Health and Social Care. I was happy with these subjects because for the first time in my academic life, I was given the choice to decide for myself.

I loved Psychology, I absolutely loved it, it helped that my teacher was bonkers and 80% of his vocabulary was the word “fuck”. He had worked in prisons with sexual offenders for most of his career and once he even brought in a schizophrenic patient with multiple personalities to class. I have always had a real interest in how people operate and theories etc. Travel and tourism was something else I was interested in because I am a real geek when it comes to travelling, and not in the way that you think either. You could be thinking that it’s because I want to see the world (who the fuck doesn’t?) but that wasn’t the driving reason. It’s because I’m a massive geek and I have a weird genuine interest in modes of transport; planes, trains, you name it (but mainly those two). Again, I unashamedly love that about me. And, lastly, Health and Social Care was for me personally, the least interesting choice, I think I chose it at the time in case I decided to work with children or the elderly.

Anyways – I don’t want to bore you with my every single life choice I had made by the time I was 17 but I did my A levels and I was still not getting higher grades. Not because I wasn’t capable, but because I was lazy and couldn’t be bothered. Sure, I loved listening to the facts and information that I was being taught but I used to think, why do I have to write an essay about this topic that I have just learnt. What does it prove? I remember thinking to myself, I don’t want to do this. But I would also be thinking that I was lazy and that I was sabotaging myself for not caring enough about my future. In hindsight, I have since realised and learnt that the schooling system is just wrong. On so many levels. It makes me smile when I think back as a few of my closest friends made the decision to leave college before the first year was over to go down a different route in life, i.e. get a job etc and I remember my mindset at the time was; omg they are going to fail at life (quite literally).

During college I decided I would go on to university. I still couldn’t give a definitive answer about what I wanted to do long term as a career, but I did want to experience more and let’s be honest, university was a 4-year party. I started university at Leeds Metropolitan in September 2011 and graduated 4 years later with a degree in International Hospitality Management. I absolutely loved university. I still stand by the decision that university was hands down one of the best experiences of my life. Whilst I was at university, I had a part time job because I couldn’t afford to live without it. I worked as a Kitchen Assistant for Wetherspoons and for the most part I hated it. The main thing that made it worthwhile was that I worked with completely crazy people who were fun and had something to teach me as I had never met people similar in the past. Working in the kitchen helped me rule out a chef career and gave me an insight into the hard work, long hours and stress that chefs endure.

My university course was a sandwich course which meant that I had to complete a year’s work experience in the industry to count towards my degree. I always had a real interest in hotels and the way they operated so I decided I would apply for a receptionist role in a hotel in Leeds. I remember writing my CV and printing 50 copies, putting on a suit and then walking around the entirety of Leeds walking into each hotel handing in my CV to a member of staff. I would like to add that I could have easily just looked for jobs online and applied that way, but I thought that it showed willing by actively going in and introducing myself. I never heard back from any hotel, except for the one that I got the job in.

The hotel I worked in was a large hotel with 134 bedrooms and a leisure club and spa that had 5,000 external members alone. When I started it was tough and on my first day, I was so nervous I couldn’t even answer the phone. But I stuck at it and was promoted to Team Leader 8 months after I joined, and I worked there for just under 3 years. I remember when I started working there, I really enjoyed it. I would work long shifts, up to 12 hours per day and double shifts where I would finish at 11pm and be back in at 6am the next day. I would bend over backwards based on the knowledge that I was doing a great job. But then I began to realise that I wasn’t appreciated. I wasn’t appreciated through words or emotions, or through tangible elements such as pay incentives or reward. I write all of this for a reason, I began to realise, and things started to add up. I started to focus more on the employees and how they felt and what motivated them rather than the business or how many people I could sell an upgraded room type to.

Motivation is a word that can be defined in a thousand and one ways, I would know, I wrote 12,000 words for my dissertation on that topic alone. Motivation is something that has been researched and built upon over the years and is something that all companies should take seriously.

For me personally, I am motivated intrinsically, I like to feel warm and gooey inside knowing that I have achieved something to be proud of or I have made someone else smile with my words etc.

Other people may be more motivated by objects and items, money, and what they can purchase with the money.

For example, you could argue that a Doctor or a nurse must be intrinsically motivated because we all know how little they are paid for the years of studying and ball breaking dedication they put into helping others and saving lives.

Eventually I realised which career path I wanted to embark on, Human Resources. It had clicked in my mind that I wanted to work with the employees of a company as my customers rather than the customers that were buying the products or services from a company. So, I started searching for HR roles within the hospitality industry, I still loved the hospitality industry so I wanted to remain there, but I wanted to work more with supporting the employees and by doing so, they would support the company. Richard Branson, one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time says, “A company is people. Employees want to know, am I being listened to or am I a cog in the wheel? People really needed to feel wanted”. I got my first HR trainee role and relocated back home and started my first ever “real 9-5” job.

To cut another ultra-long story short, about a year after I had started the new HR role, even though I really loved it, I began to think to myself – is this all there is? You could call me overly ambitious but knowing myself I am just impatient. And somewhere along the lines, between graduating university with all the hopes and excitement that I first had and being a few years down the line in my career, reality set in and the little voice in my head said, be realistic.

But why should I tell myself to be realistic, I am a millennial. I come from an era where parents told us we could be anything that we wanted to be. When you are five years old and you dream of being an astronaut or a cowboy, your parents agree with you because it is harmless right? so why would you ever think that you were being unrealistic?

Working in HR I know that it is still widely frowned upon to look at an applicant’s CV and see that they have “job hopped” since they graduated. Recruiters and employers who aren’t willing to adapt to change believe that it shows a lack of stability and loyalty from a person if they change roles and companies every year or so. Well gone are the days where our grandparents would start a job at the age of 16 and do the same job until retirement at the ripe old age of 65. The world today is changing at an ever-increasing rate and who is to be certain of what tomorrow brings?

I am now in this process and point in my life where I have started to expose myself to new information and learn something that was foreign to me. As I said in my previous post, we don’t know what we don’t know. But when you start to focus your attention towards something, it manifests. Another core belief of mine is that everything happens for a reason, and that we are exposed to certain life events on purpose.

I have realised at the age of 27, that I don’t want to work for another 40 years until I can retire and live off state pension. I don’t want to work for someone else’s goals and objectives, I don’t want to be told how many hours I must work per week. I don’t want my financial stability to be in someone else’s hands. The list goes on and on.

It is fine to say, I don’t want this, I don’t want that, but the question is: do I have the power to change it? Absolutely. I revert to my previous comment about the fact that we tell children they can be anything they dream to be. So why is it that if I tell someone at the age of 27 that I am starting my own business and I am going to be an entrepreneur they look at me like I am batshit or tell me to be realistic? My grandma used to tell me when I was a teenager, study hard, why don’t you become a doctor. And even at a young age I would think in my mind, the only reason is because it would look and sound good to others so that she could say, “My granddaughter is a Doctor”.

I write all of this with no disrespect to a single soul. No disrespect to my loved ones or friends. Because 6 months ago, I was included in the 93% of the population that all live within the “rules” and norms of society. The rules being that you go to school, study hard, get good grades and then get a good job and jump through hoops for 40+ years of your life to provide for yourself and family and then you get to retire just a few years before death (if you make it that far). The late Jim Rohn, who was one of the world’s most famous entrepreneurs and motivational speakers said, “Formal education will make a living; self-education will make you a fortune”. It is correct, formal education does make you a living. I can honestly say hand on heart that I have never needed to use Algebra in my life since leaving school and that a calculator gets me through just fine. Self-education is what we choose freely, we have the choice to invest in ourselves or not.

One of my pet hates, which I am totally guilty of doing in the past is when people say, “Happy Friday” or “thank god it’s Friday”. Isn’t that sad? Society has created a monster, to the point where people may not even be necessarily conscious of what they are doing daily because it is like being on a hamster wheel. The daily commute to work at the same time every day, the same route, the same things that we see each day.

Maybe it is just me reading too much into it. But I do believe that to a certain extent, Instagram is also promoting the hamster wheel by having emojis that say “TGIF” or a Camel with the word Wednesday above it. I feel like people are wishing their life away, for 5 days of the week to be over, to then “live” for the other two.

I need to keep emphasising the point that I am not writing any of this as if I am better than anyone else, I have been doing most of the above for my entire life up until this point too. I am simply sharing what I have experienced and learnt and where I am at present in my life.

I have been at the point where I would wake up in the morning and would have rather done quite literally anything else but go to work because I hated my job, and I knew that I didn’t have a choice but to go because of one reason – money. Money was the primary reason and control over me having to go to a workplace. As Charles Bukowski famously says, “how in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30am by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, force feed, shit, piss, get dressed and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?”

The reason that it strikes an emotional reaction inside me is because I have come from a family and background with little money. Most things have been a struggle. For example, when I turned 17, the legal age to drive a car, I didn’t pass my driving test straight away because my family couldn’t afford to fund the lessons, and neither could I. So, I passed my test when I was 19 instead, after I had earnt the money myself out of stubbornness. My mum offered to help me countless times, but I was adamant I would do it myself even when my friends would mock me for being lazy and not passing sooner. I have never had money chucked at me for things, holidays etc. And when I did have the financial capacity to have more freedom, I chose wrong and got myself into debt because I went to Ibiza and festivals etc. I don’t regret any of the decisions I made, because it was all a part of the learning process.

But since I started to invest in myself to become better, I realised that in the past, I had chosen to accept what was handed to me, instead of trying to create my own journey or spending time trying to find what my passions are to create a life that I chose, not that I slept walked through.

One of the most eye opening and invaluable books that I have read is “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. There’s an old saying, that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, I used to believe that the rich were conniving and unjust. People say that the rich keep all the money and don’t help “the poor?” Why aren’t the poor doing anything to help themselves? Well, Robert also says that the word JOB stands for “Just Over Broke”. Perhaps I am being overly cynical but for me, this quote stands true as the sky is blue.

I find myself talking and talking so I guess I should wrap it up.

What I have learnt based on reflection and through changing what I pay attention to is that most of society is messed up. We are sent to school from a very young age and are kept there until the age of 18. We aren’t given the freedom or information to understand that we can think outside the box and that we don’t have to go to work for someone else. But then think of it another way, if everyone was taught at school that they could be an entrepreneur and teachers provided real life and world changing examples like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs… then wouldn’t there be too many “successful people” in the world. But that wouldn’t happen because people are like sheep, they follow what is “normal” or they prefer living in their comfort zone.

The world is forever evolving and whilst it is scary, it is also so exciting. Mary Augustine says that we become happier in life when we realise that life is an opportunity rather than an obligation. The amazing entrepreneurs that I mentioned above should be the people we are thanking and counting our blessings for, for the opportunities they have provided to the entire world. Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook, Steve Jobs for Apple, Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom for Instagram, to name a few. They have enriched so many people’s lives because of their innovative minds, for being brave enough to think outside of the box and push and believe in their dreams even when the fear of the unknown was greater. Astoundingly, millions of people choose to spend their precious time keeping up with the Kardashians plastic faces on Instagram, so if they became rich for doing nothing… then the world is our oyster!

Much love xxx

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project-pectin · 5 years

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Day 27 to 34 - Mega Weeklong Recap

26th November 2018

(image shows a finished character sprite for the game Mirrorboy I’m making)

Hello Dev Diary I abandoned for daaaaays! :3

I had a super intense week and couldn’t find the time post dairy diary entries... >-<’’’ BUT I can write recaps like the past ones for your prying eyes, ‘cause have a private diary as well (which I never miss to write in since I established that habit for almost 2 years w/o breaks °^°). I will use those entries to reconstruct what I had done!

So what happened??:

Day 27 (SUN, 18th Nov ‘18)

It was a cozy Sunday. But due to the good progress I made on the day before I was really motivated to continue writing the first part of the story and I did just that!

Day 28 (MON, 19th Nov ‘18)

On this day I was getting more worked up over the amount of work I had to do and continued conceptualizing Character Designs. I fixed a few things of designs I already made too. I stayed at home instead of going to the office. But my light cold subsided. xux

Day 29 (TUE, 20th Nov ‘18)

A friend wrote me the night before and I didn’t have the resolve until this morning to write her back. Having done the step I was really motivated to get outside today and finish things! And so I did and finished designing the character “Mirrorboy”. Yes, named just like the title of the game! :3 After letting eZombo have a look I began working on the outlines of the character sprite. The first for this game. I decided that it would be good to start with a character the player sees early in the game. So the following characters (like romanceable side characters) would look even better when my ability to create art “solidifies”. You know, like manga which start off with a style and then evolve into a more “focused” style. Because I like to explore new drawing/painting techniques with each project there is bound to be a learning curve for me. And therefore slight changes in style.

Day 30 (WED, 21st Nov ‘18)

Stronger feeling of doom surrounding my project. I woke up thinking something like “Wow, yesterday’s progress was good! But HOLY SH*T THERE’S STILL SO MUCH TO DO.” So I went to the office, very determined to finish more stuff. Bae came to visit and I felt really bad about letting him entertain himself with deltarune and anime while I worked. We only see each other once a week or so. So this was a special occasion. q-q I finished a good part of the characters I was working on. I really enjoyed being in the zone today. We still had a cozy evening despite the hustle.

Day 31 (THU, 22nd Nov ‘18)

I was prepared to go visit the doctor today but I missed the train out of town and postponed the appointment. I then headed to the office. I scripted a bit and continued character art until I was really eager to make a short track. I finished the track in a really short time - which made me happy that I was getting more comfortable with Ableton. I continued working on character stuff after I went home. I set out to implement the first characters by the end of the week.

Day 32 (SAT, 24th Nov ‘18)

I didn’t work on this Friday spend time with a friend for the whole day. Therefore I decided to catch up on work during the weekend. I met another couple friends today before resuming my work in the evening. They really motivated me as an artist and I really want Mirrorboy to be good and genuine. However I was getting increasingly anxious about the balance of time I put into my project and time seeing people. I never considered myself a work-a-holic. Rather someone who’s very passionate about what they create. It pains me every time I have to decide what’s more important to me - the people or my work. (๑-﹏-๑) And I’m grateful to the few people in my life who understand my passionate side and who give me the space to be myself and yet welcome me like an old buddy when I return from my work.

Day 33 (SUN, 25th Nov ‘18)

I finished the character sprites and started scripting a character creator. It was great help to have other Boys Laugh + projects to take as a reference. I still needed to get used to Ren’Py’s language. I kind of feared scripting it at first but I soon found myself feeling success for scripting/coding something I usually don’t do. I squealed in my room when characters started moving and showing expressions in the game!! But I pushed myself a little to hard this night and almost fell asleep on my notebook.

Day 34 (MON, 26th Nov ‘19)

The character creator was still messing up with a transition I wrote. So spent the whole day figuring out how to fix it and completing the character creator screen with all things nice. eZombo helped me by pointing out things that aren’t explicitly written in the Ren’Py documentation and offering ideas for solutions. I felt accomplished by the end of the day. :33 I’m really proud of my work and am already excited for when it will be released! >u<

Part of my “absence” from the diary was a habit I have, which coincides with how I react under pressure and unfavourable external factors...I feel more safe shutting myself off from society when I’m very stressed for a continuous duration and then I just do things on my own (whether it’s resting or working) like a hermit. (´-﹏-`；)

But this time around I’m glad to found myself out of this hole after just a week. And this is also thanks to friends who randomly called out to me. I’m very grateful to have them and having the freedom to do what I chose to with Mirrorboy. (´･∀･`)

And thanks to anyone who actually read all of this!! My blessings are with you <3333

#feelings #diary #devlog #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame #development #personal #depressed #artists on tumblr #life #worklife #illustration #gameart #cute

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thenervespore · 3 years

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COMMERCIAL LAW WRAP UP

Hello World!

It is August 16, 2021!

My last bar-related post here was May 11, 2021 - more than three months!!!

Well, time flied soooo fast. Again, it has been three months. Technically, May 12 was my FIRST DAY OF OFFICIAL BAR REVIEW. It means that I should have been GAME MODE ON from that day forth.

But what can I say. Things don’t cease to be fluid. I mean even if you plan things out, even if you are motivated and determined to stick to your plan - there would be deviations. The plan presupposes that you are steady in everything. It presupposes that you are predisposed everyday to study and you accomplish what you planned to accomplish for everyday. However, like every idea translated to reality - there has some distortions which took place. There were bad days, sad days, paralytic days and days were you cannot do anything because you cannot...just....figure...out...why....you....can’t.

However, looking back, things which are important despite the unexpected and unforeseeable things and the deviations to the plan:

1. Just keep moving forward whatever happens.

2. Despite the pressure, have a calm and composed mind.

3. Be more realistic in your actions - the end goal is that you absorb and understand concepts. So if you think you NEED to read 300 pages per day to end in the right schedule, rethink if you really UNDERSTOOD what those pages contain. Otherwise, ALL IS A WASTE.

These three things has always been my compass despite all of the challenges in the external world. I dissociate myself with everything else which is not essential as of the moment - in order for me to maximize my learning capacity and to be able to think things through properly.

I cannot, out of my good conscience, omit this personally mandatory process of journaling in between.

I actually said in my last posts that I am going to post random passages or stuff here. But apparently, I cannot do so because life is just so HECTIC. Like you cannot breath out of the impossible readings that you need to read. There would be times where I would literally just read from waking up to sleeping down. Everything else is just inserted in between. More over, I have friends to assure me that I have emotional support and I can unload all these emotional baggage attached to being a barista. So letting things out through the ink seemed less indispensable that months.

However, the thing that I am missing is I cannot really discuss or let out my bar substance related feelings and reactions to them. Apparently, if you are a barista, you have the privilege of having a clue of the overview of law as a whole. Well, when we where in fourth year, this was also the case because that was a review year. My point is, for someone to relate to the things you want to share, they must also be at least fourth year law school students. Haru actually is someone who could really relate and discuss with me on anything I wanted to discuss. However, he is also busy with his life. Also, we cannot really discuss also with our fellow baristas because everyone else are busy with their readings. Chances are, you are not reading the same subject at a certain point of time.

So in order for me to synthesize and understand my downfalls and my strengths as to a bar subject better, I am establishing a hobby of evaluating my 2nd reading and reading them first for the preweek before I really dwell into the substance of the subject.

I just finished my SECOND READING OF COMMERCIAL LAW. It means I do not have the opportunity to really gulp in new concepts, I just have to review the things I already read in the preweek.

More or less, I already read the pertinent laws with few exceptions: take note that I haven’t read yet Investor’s Lease Act, The Special Economic Zone Act of 1995 and Use of Duly-Stamped and Marked Containers. OK, I am going to include them during my printing of Criminal Laws later. But the thing is these are obscure subjects which are least likely to be sources of Bar Exam questions. But it better to FEEL LIKE YOU LEFT NO STONE UNTURNED.

Well my general feeling as I finished Commercial Law is I feel confident already with this very obscure and technical subject when it comes to the general rules and concepts and also to some nitty gritty in between.

During law school, Commercial Law is not something I excelled in. Personally also, I feel like it is one of the subjects where I literally feel like reading it in the first time every time. That was my general feeling when I first read Commercial Law subjects in the review. I mean, the first subject in Commercial Law is Insurance. When I read Insurance for the first time, I had a panic attack because I realized that I did not really understand the concepts when I was in lawschool.

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT THING TO UNDERSTAND.

There are two ways of studying things: either (1) you just memorize OR (2) you memorialize. You memorize when you just put into mind the key words or key phrases. People even memorize entire codal provisions or entire definitions in lawschool. Personally, memorizing is my strength. That is why I also survived my undergrad course BSBiology which is in need of a lot of memorization skills. However, we should always understand that MOST OF THE THINGS WE MEMORIZE ARE ONLY STORED IN OUR SHORT-TERM MEMORY. However, when you MEMORIALIZE, you try to cast your mind away from the construction of the phrases, from the choice of words but you try to get through THE SPIRIT OF THE LAW. What it really means. Why does it matter. Why is this written here. Remember, law always has a reason d’etre. THERE IS A STORY BEHIND THEM. They are not written there just for the sake of it. They are written there because they are supposed to have PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS. They are supposed to govern human conduct, maintain peace and order and ensure that justice and fairness will always be the general rule for the conduct of things. When I was studying Insurance, these are the things I realized: 1. I did not really try to understand the importance or context of this law.

2. I just memorized the codal provisions or definitions in order for me to answer in the exams.

That is why I was really frightened because everything seemed to be foreign to me when I read the reviewer. Hell, this should literally be the third time I encountered this subject because I took this during third year, fourth year and then now.

As I was cruising through the reviewer, my mind was just acknowledging I MEMORIZED THIS PREVIOUSLY. But I did not really try to understand it. I am saying that I did not try to understand it because if asked to explain in MY OWN WORDS, I could not do it. Which is another point that I want to emphasize, the true test would be that you can EXPLAIN THINGS IN YOUR OWN WORDS.

Sometimes, we get anxious to deviate from the wordings of the law because the law is very technical. We say it is very technical because the certain words would have a very technical meaning under the law or jurisprudence even if we use them differently or arbitrarily in ordinary usage. Therefore, we are afraid that we will fail the scrutiny of the professor because we do not follow what was written in the law. The usual tendency is that we skip actual comprehension and go straight with memorization of the text of the law. However, this should not be the case.

I tried to go over my past examinations and I try to evaluate my downfalls in answering in the exam. As I said, I have an upper hand in memory skills that is why if you could see my exam notebooks, you can see that I can give you entire provisions of law in almost a photocopy finish. However, I realize that because I memorized the provisions, I also wrote PARTS OF THE PROVISION which are not really pertinent to the question. I know one of the training in Ateneo is how to spot the issue and that there will always be a specific provision of law which would apply to a certain scenario. I do not disprove this. I concur. However, there would be instances when instead of one long provision which is applicable, there would be two intertwined parts of different provisions which are applicable. If we look at jurisprudence, we would really appreciate the intricacy of the law because of this. The reason is that provisions are not cast out of isolation from each other, they are supposedly a part of a bigger body of thoughts which could be correlated with each other. They could actually be applied with one another.

So I realized that I was making an unnecessary show-off. I just proved to people that I can memorize stuff but I did not really convey the deeper passion I have for law which I know I have in me.

So my point going back is that READ BETWEEN THE LINES BEFORE READING THE LINES. Do not skip this process. Or else you are lost in the long run. So do not memorize right away. Read through the annotations, discussions and try to understand what message they want to convey first and then the next step is try to correlate how different legal luminaries explain these concepts in their own words and justifications and be guided with what certain terminologies are acceptable and commonly used. Again, the learning process is characterized by repetition by repetition by repetition. But it should not be repeating MEMORIZING THINGS again. This is important in moving forward. If you really are passionate in going forward in studying the law, you should at least have an understanding of the general rule. If YOU ARE STUCK ON MEMORIZING THE WORDINGS OF THE GENERAL RULE, then you would not have the time and energy to appreciate the slight deviations, intricacies and applications of the rule. The legal vocation is just like other vocations. We make an analogy to a painter. To a common mind, we only know the color green. But a painter would know the different hues, shades and other intricate details about the color. The hair could be split for as many times if you are passionate in your vocation. It is the same with the law. There will always be new stuff that you will learn no matter how many times you read things through. There will never be a time where you completely know everything about the law and never miss out a detail. It is humanly impossible! However, the desire to follow this longingness would be a good indicator that you have the passion to follow this vocation.

I remember my Labor Law professor Father Gus who keeps on telling us that he has read the case of LVN Pictures vs Philippine Musician’s Guild and he learns something new everytime he reads it.

KNOWLEDGE IS CUMULATIVE. We might have read a material and not fully comprehend all parts of them in one instance. However, in the interim, we learn new things, we expand our knowledge. And then we read the same material again. We now understand it better, even differently on various occasions. A common example is when we read cases when we were in first year vs in fourth year law school. When we read again the case in fourth year, we understand the case better in its entirety. This is true even in cases where you thought you understood the case very well. This has always been a source of excitement for me. That is why I prefer reading cases in the full text because I am appalled by how interconnected things are. However, in bar preparations, we should also be practical and realize that

1. reading full text takes a lot of time and time is very precious

2. it is more on a luxury than a necessity.

More over, the bar exam has already split the law into eight (8). So the interconnectedness that you could have in your answer would be limited by what certain bar subject you are taking.

For example, there are a lot of obligations and contracts (OBLICON) concepts in Corporation. Actually this is because in some jurisdictions, corporate contract law is a subject of its own. However, in the bar exams, it would be unfair if the examiner would focus on oblicon concepts albeit intricately related to corporations. What I remember here is the case of rescission of subscription agreements. The concept of rescission is actually governed by Civil Law. However, this case is intricately connected with the Trust Fund Doctrine. So, I think even if “rescission” is under Civil Law, it could be used as a term or situation in Commercial Law but the discussion would be those falling under commercial law concepts. So here, instead of discussing the concept of rescission, we discuss the trust fund doctrine and how this doctrine would be superior to the right to rescission. We have two concurring rights here, the right of the creditors of the corporation to have the equity held in trust for the satisfaction of their claims and the right of the subscriber to rescind a contract based on the grounds provided under the Civil Code. However, the Supreme Court has already ruled that the greater good will be subsumed if we put a premium to the trust fund doctrine rather than to grant the right of rescission. This is not founded on the law. This is based on the wisdom of the highest Court of the land. That is why another thing which is important is keeping abreast with the decisions of the Supreme Court.

Which takes me to my BIGGEST ANXIETY. I am not entirely confident that I am updated with the latest doctrinal decisions of the Supreme Court.

In my second reading, I focused entirely in memorializing the codal provisions. My reason here is that I should atleast have a complete central basis for everything which could probably be asked in the exam. This has always been my primary way of synthesis since then. I always identify the central idea and branch out everything from there. This method of branching guided me to do what I did in the second reading which is to read the codals first. However, Commercial Law is very hectic in a way that it is the ONLY BAR SUBJECT WHICH HAS A CODAL WHICH HAS THREE VOLUMES. Therefore, reading the codals themselves would consume most of your time. All this time, I am also just having faith in the fact that our law school professors has already honed us and gave us most of the doctrinal cases that we need to know.

However, there are two propensities regarding the Bar Exams:

1. Questions which came from the cases decided by the Bar Examiner AND

2. Questions which came from the LATEST doctrinal cases.

I already had an idea of the cases of Leonen. However, I realized that I really do not have an overview yet of the doctrinal cases of other Ponentes especially the latest en banc cases. That is why I need to identify newest case lists in Commercial Law and read them or insert them in my time. Okay, so I would make this a habit AFTER I FINISH THE REQUISITE NUMBER OF HOURS I HAVE TO STUDY IN MY PRIMARY REVIEW SUBJECT.

That would be the last furnishes I have to put in my constructed building.

PROBLEMATIC AREAS:

Now, I am going to identify problematic areas I have:

1. In insurance, obscure subjects such as microinsurance, compulsory insurance coverage for agency-hired workers, non-default options in life insurance. Always remember the name of the case of Vicente Henson II. vs. UCPB General Insurance which set out the new guidelines as to the prescriptive period for actions by the subrogee-insurer against the person who caused the loss, damage or liability. This is the most recent doctrinal case with respect to insurance. Also the case of Insular vs. Alvarez which is a Leonen case could probably go out also. Lastly with respect to judicial bonds, the leonen case of Milagros Enriquez vs. Mercantile Insurance (2018) guides us that the effectivity of the judicial bonds is during the pendency of the action irrespective of the agreement between the bond company and the applicant.

2. THE ENTIRE PRENEED CODE is a problematic area in a way that this is not actually discussed anywhere. However, I just take note here that certain regulations for Securities and certain features of a Life Insurance are relevant here. Like SRC, there is a need for a registration statement for the plan and actually EVERY ADVERTISEMENT you have for the plan should be approved by the Insurance Commission. As to the features of grace period, instead of 30 days , we have here 60 days and instead of 3 year period of reinstatement we have 2+2 (nondefault options + reinstatement)

3. As to Transportation, the Public Service Act and the Warsaw Convention are kind of shaky. I have to remember the concept of ruinous competition etc.

4. I haven’t read Partnerships for the second time hahaha, I think I can answer here.

5. Corporations. Of course Corpo is the most complicated subject here with six pages in the Syllabus out of 16!!!! Imagine! But I have to believe that I put extra attention here. I know the backstory why. In lawschool, my grade here is 74 but my professor rounded it up to 75. In otherwords, I was somehow reconsidered (this was my second reconsidered grade other than Persons in first year). So I graduated knowing to myself that passing corpo was PRIMARY BY VIRTUE OF A SAVING GRACE. It is a constant reminder for me to be extra attentive and put extra effort in this subject. In my first and second readings, I have to be faithful that I did justice to my law professor’s decision and I did not forgo it. I WILL NOT LET HIM DOWN.

6. Securities. THIS IS THE MOST OBSCURE SUBJECT IN THE COMMERCIAL LAW. I honestly still have alot of gray areas here. Maybe in the preweek I have to give extra attention here.

7. Banking. Obscure topics like Selective regulation and rates of exchange haunts me still. I literally know nothing in them and understood poorly here. I just moved forward because time is running out but I could also not see anything being asked here. PDIC charter should be prioritized because this is something I do not know in lawschool. hahaha like literally.

8. Intellectual property I could say is a strong subject back then. However, I should always remember that I struggle in Copyright and Other Related Rights just because it has a lot of codal provisions which are obscure and not really subjected to jurisprudence but we could still say that they could still be subject of controversy and be applied in the future.

9. Special Laws - AMLC, FRIA and Data Privacy. No other explanations. I found these laws very obscure, especially the latter two. So I also have to prioritize them in the preweek.

EVERYTHING IS OFFERED TO ALLAH.

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tkmedia · 3 years

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Q&A: Pavan, Humana-Paredes looking to make history in Tokyo

Two of Canada’s strongest medal contenders will be competing on the beach in Tokyo even though they spent the better part of the last year away from a beach and away from each other.Beach volleyball duo Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes won gold at the world championships in 2019 and came in to 2020 ranked No. 1 in the world. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and they were away from each other in different cities in different countries, and not training as they usually would in Hermosa beach, Calif. The longest period they’ve gone away from the sport and away from each other proved challenging with the uncertainty of if or when the Olympics were going to happen. Now they’ve been able to reconnect on and off the court, and have regained that No. 1 status heading into Tokyo. They’ll take the court at 11:00 p.m. EDT on Friday to start their pursuit of a gold medal. I caught up with them ahead of the Games to learn how they’ve overcome the obstacles put in their way in what was a trying 2020 season. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.) SPORTSNET: You were one of the first to qualify back in 2019. What has this purgatory been like where the Games were deferred in 2020, and now we’re finally here in 2021? Melissa Humana-Paredes: It’s been a long process from when we’ve qualified to now — so long almost that I forgot the privilege and the luxury and the meaning behind what it meant until this last month, seeing all the other teams finally qualify. It hit me. It was like, “Oh my gosh, we’re so close — we’re there.” It’s been such a long journey. Having the luxury of being qualified for so long was great at the time, especially during the uncertainty. And it forced us to find another goal to go after, which was to head into the Olympics the No. 1–ranked team, which we did accomplish, which was fantastic. It feels like it happened so long ago that I’m feeling those emotions all over again this last month as we head into the Olympics. It’s such a meaningful experience. I’m so proud of how far we have come because I think there was a time where we felt it was a little unfair we had such great momentum. We felt we were in the best shape heading into 2020, and then everything kind of got taken away. And so, to regain that confidence and regain that momentum means a lot. But it was a lot of hard work. What were some of the specific difficulties that you had to work through given the last 18 months was anything but normal? Sarah Pavan: Melissa and I were in separate countries actually for most of the pandemic, so when it started in March , we were naive enough to think that we would be reunited in a couple of weeks. Mel headed back to Canada. I stayed in the L.A. area where we usually train. And that couple of weeks became several months, so that was a challenge. We just we didn’t train on sand together really from March until January. And then we had the added challenge of Melissa was working out in her living room. I was working out by myself in my garage. And just other countries were starting to open up as the summer of 2020 progressed. We saw our competition start to play national tour events or train. A little bit of uncertainty and doubt started creeping in like, “Are we going to be the same team when we come back together? Are these other teams going to catch up to us? Are we still going to have those intangible things that make us such a great team?” But I think something that we did really well is we knew that we could only control the things that were in our control. And the pandemic was not — the situation in Canada and where we were was not in our control. We just really took it upon ourselves to do the best with what we had and to be as ready as possible when we were reunited. Wishing superstars @SarahPavan and @melissa_hp10 the best of luck today representing Canada at the #2020TokyoOlympics from all of us at #WorkinMoms. Let’s get that ! pic.twitter.com/BZtds4wJUL — Workin' Moms (@WorkinMoms) July 23, 2021 You have made Canadian history on multiple fronts. Now that you’ve reached this level, do you feel an external pressure that anything other than a gold might not be reaching those goals that others have for you? Pavan: I think Melissa and I are really good at keeping things in perspective, and from the outset of our partnership we have been very honest in the fact that an Olympic gold medal is our goal. We have not shied away from saying that. We have always believed and created those expectations for ourselves. The fact that there are whispers or other people are now talking about that, that doesn’t change how we prepare or how we approach every training session or every day. If anything, I think it’s flattering because people are paying attention to our sport. People are noticing beach volleyball and the great things that our program has done in recent years. We can’t really get hung up on the expectations of other people because then then we’ll go crazy. But I think the most important thing is that we’re accountable to each other and we’re going to do everything in our power to prepare for every match as best as we can, and to enter every training session with the objective of getting better and performing to the best of our abilities. You mentioned people noticing your sport, noticing the two of you, and there’s so many great Olympians. This is our biggest team since the early ’80s. But Kraft looked at you two as worthy of celebrating. Now, a bunch of Canadians are going to get to celebrate you as you go off to the games and send you messages. What does that partnership, and really that ability to hear firsthand from Canadians cheering you on, mean to you? Humana-Paredes: We’re so honoured to be able to work with Kraft peanut butter for this campaign for multiple reasons.... But it’s the meaning behind the campaign that I think resonates so deeply with us. This Olympics is so different than what any athlete imagined it would be. And this being my first Olympics, too, you know, it’s a little heartbreaking to not have the full experience. But that’s why this campaign is just so meaningful because we can still feel the support and the love from Canadians who can send their cheers and their good wishes and good luck vibes directly to us so we can still feel like we’re a part of something bigger. And having ... the stadiums empty without fans is going to be really, really strange for us. And so, this will kind of give us that boost of energy, kind of give us that element that we’re missing. I really want to encourage all Canadian fans to send their cheers to us and they can do it throughout the entirety of the Olympics, and we will actually receive them. It’s not like it’s going to go into the cloud or whatever — it will come into our ears, and we will be able to feed off of that energy. And it will just make us feel a part of something bigger. Again, just walking into an empty stadium is not what we envisioned, but this campaign is really meaningful because it kind of gives us that purpose again. Do you have a plan as to when you might consume those messages? Pavan: I think I’ll probably listen to them pre-match. You know, when I visualize a match or playing in big moments, the crowd is always a part of that. And so I think I'll listen to them in my visualization process and before the games, just to et me ready to compete at my highest level. This team is pretty special, and 60 per cent of it are women. We know that 60 per cent of the coverage of sports being on women doesn’t really happen. Why is it important to continue to celebrate female athletes and to tell their stories? Humana-Paredes: Such a great point, and I think it’s so important that women and young girls especially see female role models and female leaders in the space, especially in the sporting world. There are tons of studies. It’s better for society to have women in sports. It’s better for women to feel the emotions and the rush and learn all the skills that sports gives you, because it translates beyond sport into life after sport. It builds so much character and gives you just a wealth of knowledge. And it strengthens your personality. Beyond that, it’s also a lot of fun. And I think it’s important to have something that you’re super passionate about, whether it is sports or not. Our sport sometimes gets a bad rap, but I hope that young girls can look at Sarah and I and either feel inspired to pick up the sport or feel inspired to play a sport and just ... find their passion in life and pursue that and know that anything’s possible because, you know, we’re doing it and we're living our lives that way. One of the references that those young girls can now consume is the series that you were a part of. You as athletes are filmed all the time. was a little bit more invasive look at your lives. What was that experience like? Pavan: It was really cool. Neither of us had ever really done anything like that before, and it gave us a really great platform to open up and really show people who we are, because I think a lot of people have an idea based on watching our matches or what is shared in the media or on social media, et cetera, of who we are. But that’s not always like really diving into our full personality. It was really fun to be able to be ourselves, to goof around sometimes, to be honest, about how we felt after losing matches or not getting a good finish at a tournament or, like, joking around with coaches — you name it. It was fun to show that we are people beyond volleyball. And beach volleyball is something we do, but we’re so much more than that. And I think it was a great opportunity to really showcase that. We are fun-loving women as well. In doing some research for this interview, one of the articles I came across was “the 10 hottest female beach volleyball players.” And I kind of got sick to my stomach thinking that this is something that is still out there. How do you balance the fact that in your sport you get the opportunity to show your strength and your tenacity, but also at the same time, knowing that as athletes you’re just trying to compete, and you can be objectified at the same time? Humana-Paredes: I think Sarah and I can both agree that this has been kind of an underlying narrative of our careers where often our uniform gets more attention than our play. And I think that goes across the board for a lot of female athletes and a lot of female sports. And I think I think what’s so important that we do is to show up every day and to show up as our true selves and show up as our strong selves and just play the sport that we love. All we can do is perform and show up and people can write and say what they want. We just have to write our own narrative and write our own story. And at the end of the day, we're here to perform. I think you kind of have to block out some of that narrative, but also correct it and every time we have an opportunity like this with the media or, you get a comment on social media I will always correct it and respond back and try and educate my stance on certain things. But for our sport, it’s sexualization of our uniforms. For me personally, it’s an easy balance because I know what my priorities are, and I know what my true worth is, and I had nothing to do with my uniform, and I’m here, and I show up on the court every day 100 per cent focused on performing and being the best I can be on the court — being a fantastic partner, hopefully, and just a good person. The story of you going to Tokyo is not just about the two of you. It’s also the village that’s around you and family-member support staff that many of which, sadly, won’t be able to enjoy Tokyo with you. What’s it mean to you that you’ll be there, but you’ll know that back home there’s a huge contingent of people who, have a big part in you being there? Pavan: Oh my gosh. Actually, my sister sent me this thing the other day and she asked people in my life or anybody who felt compelled to send me a message to make a little video. And I watched it the other day, and I was shocked at the number of people who had well wishes to send or messages of love and support. And, you know, it’s easy to get wrapped up in our tiny team unit of me, Melissa, and our coaching staff and support staff. But there are so, so many people out there who love us and believe in us and want to see us succeed. And I’m not kidding when I say I sobbed through the whole thing because I was just so touched at the outpouring of love. I’ll turn the tables on both of you. If you were creating a message and sending a cheer to your other Canadian athletes that are competing, what would that be? Pavan: Oh my gosh, this is a really good question. I’m, like, sweating. That’s a tough one. I would probably say that just by showing up and by having devoted your life to your sport, you are already a champion because being a high-level athlete takes such a high degree of discipline and commitment and belief that it’s just incredible that you’ve made it this far. And I would say you know how to be a champion. You have put in the hard work, and you are ready for this moment. And I can’t wait to see you shine on your biggest stage, and know that I believe in you, and we’ll cheer for you. Humana-Paredes: Oh my god, that was so meaningful. I love this question. Okay, let’s see. I would probably tell them to embrace the butterflies that they’re probably feeling and relish in the moment and don’t let a second slip them by. I think it’s really easy to let the pressures of the game and your performance weigh on you. But kind of similar to, say, I reflect on how far you’ve come and what you’ve already accomplished because that speaks volumes and there is very few people who get to do what you are doing right now. Look back on this moment and don’t have any regrets on whether or not you lived it to the fullest and that you enjoyed every moment of it. Read the full article

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lexxikitty-blog1 · 6 years

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Lucky Loser by Yolanda Wallace Read: February 2016 Rating: 5 Stars

My second book that I have read by Yolanda Wallace. I was both somewhat nervous about trying another book by this author, and excited to do so. Both feelings developed for the same reason – the first book I had read by Wallace had been one that I had read recently and had felt to be a rather solid 5 star book. And so, we turn to ‘Lucky Loser’, or, this book here.

[Inserted after the fact: I lost this review rather early on, so, I’ll note up here – I loved this book. A lot.]

It’s somewhat unfortunate that I ended up somewhat ill right around the time I had read this and roughly 5 other books (well, that’s awkward – I was ill-ish from about Friday of last week until, say, this morning). Unfortunate in that I could read, but doing things like writing reviews was a tougher thing to tackle. Though I still did, mostly. But for three books. And the first of those is from before this ill time. So . . . this is boring. Let’s get to the book.

This book opened in such a way that I almost beat it with a stick and ran screaming away from it. Or, in other words, it opened with the lead character (well, there are two points of view, but Sinjin Smythe’s portion seemed vaguely larger) being unable to keep from being wrapped around another woman’s finger. A nasty bitchy woman who loved to undermine her and was doing Sinjin a very bad turn – both career wise and relationship wise. I really didn’t want to read a book wherein the two somehow overcame the obstacles to find that they were each other’s true loves. That would have been really annoying and sickening. But, before I set the book on fire and never looked at it again, I reconfirmed something I thought I had seen in the books description. The name of the two women in the opening part did not match the name of the women in the book description that were supposed to be the main characters. And so . . . I put the lighter fluid away and actually gave the book a chance. Since the book was supposed to be about Sinjin Smythe and Laure Fortescue, not Sinjin Smythe and . . . um, whatever and however you spell Victoriaovich’s name (Viktoriya Vasilyeva).

A funny thing happened along the way. Despite the lowish rating this book enjoys, both in terms of overall rating, and in terms of just the average rating of those who are on my list of friends, I found myself rather drawn into this book and story.

To a limited extent, I think I know why there are certain books I like while others kind of dislike (or not love), books I kind of dislike (or not love) while others like/love them, and while there is this third category wherein everyone, including me, love the book. That was an awkward sentence.

I’ll put what I originally wrote behind spoiler tags, not because it spoils anything in this specific book here, but because I do not yet have the ability to convey my specific thought I desired to convey, and probably won’t find that ability any time soon. <spoiler>I’m probably, in a way, reading into things a little. Though it is based on this book, and most other books I’d read recently (including that ‘Course of Action’ book – which will be the stand in for the second category of books (those that I vaguely dislike while others love). ‘Give Me A reason’ stands in as a representative of the third category (books everyone seems to love/or at least like). This book here, as in ‘Lucky Loser’, is the representative of the first kind of book (those that I love and others don’t – I mean, it did have a 3.55 rating before I read and rated it).

To a limited extent it boils down to emphasis. The main thread/theme of the book. For example, ‘Course of Action’ is a book about an actress and a rich woman with many businesses (for the sake of simplicity, I’ll call her the executive producer, since she is also that – of the film the actress wants to act in). There are ‘other stuff’ going on in the book, but the book is mostly a ‘relationship’ book – seen through the lens of having both internal and external pressure being brought to bear onto the relationship. The most important thing, basically is what I’m driving at, is the relationship. That and plenty and lots of sex. The ‘other story’ type stuff was there, just not as important. Personally I was looking for more of the ‘other stuff’ – including the stuff about the movie. Therefore I was vaguely disappointed. Of course I’m probably reading into what others liked and disliked the book. On the other hand – ‘Give Me A Reason’ had as one of the main themes this ‘relationship’ thing, but that was neither the main nor only theme. The book was a mixture of themes (relationships, family, PTSD, teaching, crime, sex, etc.). Hmms. I think I’m wasting mine and everyone else’s time. I could probably have written this review twenty years ago, but my brain doesn’t function any longer. Or something. Well, I supposed I’ll finish up since finishing up involves the book this review was supposed to be about anyway – the emphasis, the main point, of this book, ‘Lucky Loser’, is not the relationship, but . . . um . . . I don’t think it’s specifically ‘overcoming yourself’ but saying ‘sports’ seems limiting.</spoiler> Yeah, I’d probably be better just eliminating the last two paragraphs. Instead I’ll just put it behind spoiler tags.

The long and short of all that I hid behind the spoiler tag above is that this specific book has less of an emphasis on relationships, and more on an elusive ‘something else’. I won’t attempt to define this ‘something else’, though I suspect it has something to do with ‘sports’. I did have a thought while reading this book – using a sports theme can add tension to a relationship, the good and bad kind of tension, and potentially side step some of the somewhat overused clichés used in ‘other’ books (though there was an awkward moment there between the two). While at the same time side stepping one of the hurdles that a different type of romance book uses to add tension – external threats like big evil men/the environment/etc. Side stepping ‘knowing’ what’s going to happen. Like, say, reading a James Bond book – there’s lots and lots of danger, but it’s a James Bond book – the reader ‘know’s that whatever tension and danger exists, Bond will still triumph (in actuality, he doesn’t always, but I’m trying to make a point here, so let’s pretend ‘not dying’ is good enough). As opposed to a sports book. You can have a great riveting; uplifting sports book . . . and not know the ending. Know that, of course, x is going to do y. Sure, Rocky eventually won, but not in the first movie. Basically is what I mean.

Shesh, I keep adding these ‘extra’ little side things. I should have just done one of my reviews where I have ‘character’, ‘romance’, ‘plot’, etc. sections. Instead of me bouncing around like crazy.

The book opens with Sinjin Smythe watching as her girlfriend of the time (and that might not be the correct word to use – the girlfriend one) wins the US Open. Doesn’t help matters that Sinjin had been her opponent in the champion match, but those things happen. An important thing, though, is what happens afterwards – Sinjin and Viktoriya ending up in bed together that night. After Viktoriya basically saying that doubles tennis doesn’t matter (or words to that effect) – which is important because Sinjin is in the champion match for that one as well . . . tomorrow. But Viktoriya wants to celebrate her own singles championship right then and there – or at least that night. No matter that this will make Sinjin tired. And stuff. Because . . .even more than ‘doubles doesn’t matter’ is that Sinjin’s feelings don’t matter, what matters is what makes Viktoriya happy. Yeah, see, this is why I wanted to set this book on fire. Gah, I thought, No way I wanted to read something like this here. Luckily I had noticed something – the book moves from here to three years in the future. And is not about the bitchy Viktoriya and the easily lead (at least by Viktoriya) Sinjin.

Three years later Sinjin is attempting to recover from a mid-season knee treatment procedure. And is attempting to qualify for Wimbledon. I should probably note, now, that Sinjin is British (mother is from Nigeria, I believe, and I don’t know where father is from). This is important. Because Wimbledon, if you the reader of this review don’t know, is in England. And they haven’t had an English winner in a ton of years (I forget now how many is mentioned in the book, 34?). Of course they don’t really expect Sinjin to be the one to do it – at least not any more. She’s fallen so far down the standings she isn’t really on them any more (ranked in triple digits). And has to go through qualifying matches to get into the tournament. To which she loses. See, this is like Rocky! Okay, so this book was about 22 pages in length and is about how Sinjin failed to . . what’s this? Oh, someone pulled out, and so Sinjin is that ‘Lucky Loser’ that’s on the front of the book. A lucky loser because she lost her last qualifying match but was had done well enough that when someone pulled out; she was at the top of the list of those waiting for someone to pull out.

Also involved at this tournament is Viktoriya, but she’s both important and not important. Or, in other words, she isn’t the other point of view of the book. No, Sinjin has her point of view, as does Laure Fortescue, of France. Laure had had her own little burden to carry – in the similar manner had the weight of Wimbledon on her back (English – 34 years), Laure had the French title weighing her down. But she begins the Wimbledon portion of the book without that specific weight. She’s interested in winning Wimbledon, though, again.

The book proceeds following both women as the move through the tournament – both on and off the court. Helping each other get ready, and helping giving tips about competitors. (A point is made that the women’s side is more helpful and stuff, with exceptions (like Viktoriya) than the men’s side of tennis).

Well, I really messed up this review so I’ll just flee with a few closing thoughts. I, unexpectedly, loved the book and seriously considered some way to convey that fact more than just having it on a 5.5 shelf. I’m still seriously considering putting this even higher than that, even though there is nothing higher among my shelves, as of yet. Ah, this switch over to only being able to convey my rating in full stars (or artificial half stars). Long ago were the days when I could rate something 4.433 and be able to tell it apart from a book I rated 4.421. Basically, I mean, this book would have used to have been a solid 5 star book. But because I have to include everything I’d have rated 4.65 up to 5.0 in the past as 5 stars, I have to add stuff to show that a specific book is ‘more than’/’better than’ etc. *Shrugs* Just feels weird to have a book that I want to rate 4.65 stars up at the 5 star level; even worse if I put it down at the 4 star level (ah, where art thou, ½ stars?). 4.65 star books resting uneasily next to 5.00 star books on the 5.0 star shelf. Mmphs.

Review Written: February 25 2016

#Sports Fiction #Bold Strokes Books #Lesbian Fiction #Lesbian Romance #2016 Reads #Book Review #Lesbian Book Review #5 Stars #Favorites

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mattyunijourneybrief11 · 4 years

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Week 1 - Module Introduction

The first session back was different to what we are used to at university however it worked really well, with features such as the ‘raise hand’ feature impressing me as it felt like you were in the classroom physically. The chat room as well as the microphone/camera connectivity enabled smooth communication.

We were introduced to our new brief, which provides us with the opportunity to direct our areas of specialism as a digital designer by engaging with an external brief with real-world constraints.

We were given 6 examples of external briefs which give us the opportunity to work with an external partner.

As a mature student, I feel that this brief is crucial for me to create connections which could hopefully lead to a work placement.

In the session we created a group padlet which enabled us to write down what we want to get out of the project. The overriding theme I got from this was that we all want to gain real world experience working directly with a client.

Straight away, after being shown the briefs on offer, I instantly gravitated towards the Barclays brief.

The brief is a to create a Virtual Reality tour experience for Barclays Eagle Labs. The challenge is to recreate an Eagle Lab in realistic immersive detail, enabling potential and existing businesses to experience what one looks like.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people have been apart, with many employees and students working from home. Meetings are now online on services such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, so businesses have had to adapt to the situation. Having a Virtual Reality tour enables people to visit Eagle Labs online either on a computer or a virtual reality device.

What is Barclays Eagle Labs?

Barclays Eagle Labs is a place to:

Network

Connect with entrepreneurs, industry-leading corporates, investors, and a growing talent pool. Just about everyone.

Learn

Get the latest startup info, insights, templates and tools to build your business.

Grow

Discover grant and funding opportunities, experienced mentors to guide you, and reduced rates on products and services.

This brief is extremely attractive to me for a many reasons:

The chance to work for a prestigious company such as Barclays will provide incredible experience and will look attractive on my CV

The opportunity to work with other creative people on my course, hopefully developing a working relationship that can move forward after we finish the degree

I love UX/UI design and designing smartphone applications, however this is a different proposition that will give me variation for my portfolio

I will be able to improve my confidence by having meetings with prestigious people. Usually, I would shy away and do an easy brief, however this is a challenge I want to pursue to improve myself

I also truly believe I can help Barclays as I am an empathetic designer who will put the user first at all times

I want to enhance my experience designing UI for Virtual Reality, which will be part of the future of design

I had made my mind up straight away, so I got to work creating a Milanote, which is a platform to collate sources and ideas.

What is Virtual Reality?

Virtual Reality is a virtual experience of the real world. The experience is similar to real life, with the user able to transport to genuine worlds or computer generated environments. Devices such as the Oculus Quest, or Google Cardboard make this possible.

For example, a company could train its employees without the safety risks that result from training.

The Process for Designing User Experience for Virtual Reality

It is absolutely critical to consider who you are designing for, and what experience you need to create. What kind of products do these people use? Are they comfortable using VR? If not, how do you make them comfortable when doing so. Questions such as these need to be asked.

Canvas Size

The image below visualises a 360-degree environment looks like when it is flat. This representation is named equirectangular projection. This is then wrapped around a sphere in the virtual environment, which is what the user sees.

The most comfortable viewing area for a virtual interface is one-ninth of the screen, which is 1200x600 pixels. This takes into consideration ergonomics and intended viewing distance.

Intended Viewing Distance

It is important to consider the resolution of the virtual reality display. The user interface will unfortunately look slightly pixelated depending on what device you are using, so this could make elements such as text and buttons hard to see if they are really small. To help with this, it is important to not make the interface busy, and include only the relevant information instead of a big paragraph of text and many small buttons and images. In simple terms, it is essential to design content that fits the viewing distance; don’t make a small screen with a lot of text on it that is far away from the user.

For example, this diagram below visualises the viewing distance in Distance-independent millimeters. Distance-independent millimeter is an angular unit that stands for one millimeter from a metre away.

Ergonomics

When thinking about designing interfaces for virtual reality, it makes you think of futuristic interfaces and crazy new features that are stunning. The reality of this however is that they would be very hard to use, unless you were a big virtual reality fan who spends at least an hour per day using it. The majority of people are new to this technology, so this is absolutely essential to understand at this moment in time.

Therefore, the experience needs to be as comfortable as possible for the user; we have to take into consideration the viewing angles. For example, the interface needs to be within the angles of:

- Up/down between 20 degrees and 10 degrees

- Left/right between 55 degrees and 30 degrees

- Side-to-side 15 degrees each side

Below is the comfortable content zone for the user to view from. The peripheral zone and the curiosity zone should not be entered by the interface.

Staring down for long periods of time can damage the neck of the user, so I will need to make sure that the interface is not directly below them. Having a poor posture puts pressure onto your spine, which can then lead to permanent nerve damage on the spine and also the neck.

Avoiding Motion Sickness

Because VR is essentially a simulation of real life, our body isn’t used to the technology. We may be moving in the virtual space, yet stood or sat still in the real world. This plays tricks on you, which makes you feel nauseous. This is because the physical and virtual world have mismatched. Because our body needs time to get used to the technology, it is essential to ensure users are helped as much as possible whilst on that journey.

Button Placement

To make it easier for the user and not overwhelm them, buttons need to not be placed in close proximity. Also, if there are many small buttons next to each other, the user may click the wrong button by accident.

Designing UX/UI for Virtual Reality: Principles to Consider

Don't expect the user to know what to do or where to go. Understand who will be using the service and why

Not many people have accessed VR due to cost and lack of apps

Create an experience as close to the original one of physically being at the eagle lab

Don't overwhelm the user with a wide array of features on an interface that is confusing

Create a minimalist environment

Focus on the user experience and the interface will work around that

User research

Wireframes and digital prototypes

Canvas size

Software to use

Text readability and optimal distance

Ergonomics

Posture

Motion sickness

Button placement

References

https://uxplanet.org/designing-user-experience-for-virtual-reality-vr-applications-fc8e4faadd96

https://app.milanote.com/1KnikI1OiuzLcp?p=hKGXEVvcgcF

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