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quidfree · 3 years

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prompts,.,, fem tdbk and a date gone very wrong ? ❤️

ohhhh my god anon. pump this shit directly into my veins i love this whole premise let’s go. also all inspired by whatever the fuck horikoshi was doing in this

just so everyone is on the same page here, it is not a fucking date.

it’s lunch. a singular lunch. people do that shit all the time. even katsuki does lunch, sometimes. she went to that semi-shitty diner place with kirishima that one time when the food hall was shut because some dumbass first year exploded into goo or whatever. and todoroki does lunch, too- her and deku were on some shitty lunch date like a week ago, as evidenced by deku’s even shittier selfie of them having a grand old time doing whatever the fuck they do alone.

fuck, not a shitty lunch date. a shitty lunch. whatever.

the point is lunch is a normal non-date thing people do, and the fact katsuki and todoroki are maybe not the usual suspects for it is just circumstantial. it’s not like they planned it ahead of time, or made some big thing about it. they literally arranged for it in public, so obviously todoroki didn’t think there was anything weird about it. and there isn’t! they’re both going to be in tokyo on the same day, and todoroki’s always happy for any excuse to spend less time with her old man, and katsuki sure as fuck wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to avoid her hag of a birth-giver for a few blissful hours, so when todoroki had very nonchalantly gone ‘oh, bakugou, we could do lunch then”, it wasn’t like she had any real reason to tell her to go fuck herself. like, yeah, maybe a year ago, on principle, she would have, but even katsuki can only take so much trauma-bonding before she resigns herself to the reality that she’s stuck with half ‘n half for life, one way or another, and she may as well suck it up and approach civility because said moron is determined to ignore her open malice until she plays along anyways. they’re... you know, whatever. friends. or something. jesus.

the point being that it’s not a date, and the fact that she’s getting increasingly annoyed at her limited wardrobe is just because she would have packed more shit if the crone hadn’t insisted that they ‘pack light’ so they could get cheaper train tickets for less luggage. it’s just annoying that she can’t wear anything that’s not screaming holiday.

it occurs to her as she sits and scowls at her suitcase that her mother has been watching her from the doorframe for some undetermined amount of time, which is criminal mainly because she’s a goddamn hero-to-be and getting snuck up on by anyone is a blight upon her good name. she tries to disguise the ego damage dealt by glowering murderously in her progenitor’s direction.

“what the fuck do you want?”

“you know,” the she-devil says, cocking a hip, “if you want to borrow something nicer...”

“i wouldn’t be caught dead in your shitty clothes!” katsuki snarls, which prompts the witch to immediately scowl back.

“watch your damn mouth!”

“watch your waistline! no way in hell are we the same size!”

“why you little-”

the interruption at least reminds her that she is obsessing over her clothes ahead of meeting todoroki for lunch, which is so humiliating it kickstarts her brain again long enough to grab some normal shit and get the hell out of there.

on the walk she checks her phone again. the previous day she’d had to bite the bullet and make the first move, todoroki’s infamously terrible communication skills making themselves known once more, and their ensuing conversation had been so mortifying she’d nearly cancelled all-together.

to: Half ‘n half

Yo asshole are we still meeting tomorrow or what

I’m busy as shit

from: Half ‘n half

Yes. TS

to: Half ‘n half

What the fuck is TS

from: Half ‘n half

I was signing off.

to: Half ‘n half

SIGNING OFF ON YOUR OWN TEXT

YOU THINK I DONT KNOW YOUR DAMN NAME

from: Half ‘n half

[Pin attached]

Does here at 12.30 work for you?

to: Half ‘n half

Yeah whatever

Don’t be late

And don’t think I’m forgetting the fucking signing off thing

from: Half ‘n half

Glad you can make time for mockery in your busy as shit schedule.

the venue looks like some rich person shit, which she semi-expected, but it means a lot of people give her weird looks as she makes her way inside, probably on account of the shorts and t-shirt she’s wearing if not her general vibe. some old woman actually drags her purse to her, which makes katsuki sorely tempted to bare her teeth and maybe hiss for effect, though she settles for scowling and shoving her hands in her pockets. it’s 12.27, because she wasn’t going to be late but being any earlier would have given off some dubious impression that she’s eager to see todoroki, except now she kind of wishes she’d just come for 12.30 because if there’s some reservation bullshit she gets the feeling she’s going to start fighting with the waiting staff, and then-

“bakugou,” todoroki calls, from inside, raising a hand with unnecessary formality. “you made it.”

“course i made it,” katsuki grunts, absolutely not relieved as she by-passes the suspicious looking waiter to join her outside. “think i can’t ride the damn underground by myself?”

todoroki is wearing jeans cuffed at the ankles and a white t-shirt on top of which she’s thrown on an open button-up with the sleeves rolled up, and she looks casual and normal and incidentally kind of like they dressed to match, but the important part is that she doesn’t look dressed up at all, so katsuki was totally right about the non-date situation, and also isn’t the only one totally underdressed for the shitty venue.

“you look nice,” todoroki says then, completely shattering katsuki’s brief moment of reprieve. “i’ve never seen so much color on you.”

katsuki almost chokes on her own tongue, but the worst part is that the asshole seems completely nonchalant about the weird as shit observation, focused on her stool as she takes a seat on the balcony. which- what the actual fuck? since when does todoroki issue compliments unprompted- of the non-professional variety, at that? and what the fuck does she expect katsuki to say now- return the compliment? say thanks? is this whole thing some kind of exercise in psychological torture?

well, fuck it. she can’t look like a little bitch just because todoroki said something inanely positive. two can play that game.

“yeah. you look half decent yourself. did you hire someone to dress you for the occasion?”

todoroki blinks up at her in surprise, which is totally a win and would make her more smug if she could stop feeling so weird and prickly all over. for a dangerous moment todoroki seems on the verge of blushing, but miraculously the world rights itself and the usual deadpan persists, one brow quirking up in completely feigned ineptitude.

“there was a compliment somewhere in there, so thank you, i think. i thought we were past this vendetta.”

“we’ll be past this vendetta the day you burn your piece of shit hero suit,” katsuki retorts, back on familiar ground, and relaxes long enough to squint down at the menu.

this turns out to be a mistake.

“the fuck? is this whole thing in french?”

“oh,” todoroki says, after a beat. “that makes sense. i thought my english had deteriorated.”

“are you- you didn’t know? you recommended the place!”

“it was the nearest place to our hotel,” todoroki defends, now having the decency of looking slightly put out. “coq can’t mean what i think it means, can it?”

“that’s chicken, asshole,” katsuki hisses, flinging the menu down. “great, now we’re going to have to flag down one of the shithead waiters and ask for a japanese menu. excuse me! hey! yeah, i’m talking to- what the hell, did he just blow me off? hey, jackass! you with the shitty mustache!”

“sorry about that,” todoroki interjects, when mustache asshole turns an offended stare their way. “do you have the japanese menu?”

“we only serve the food in its authentic form,” mustachioed asshole says, with frigid self-satisfaction. “might i suggest google translate?”

“might i suggest my foot up your ass, you shitty-”

“that’s fine,” todoroki says, in a flat tone that implies otherwise. “we’ll make do.”

the waiter sniffs pretentiously as katsuki thinks about all the ways she could beat his ass into next tuesday, running an aggravated hand through her hair when the wind rustles it into her face. she’d half expect todoroki to suggest they fuck off elsewhere, but when she looks back her way she finds an ill-boding gleam of determination in her eyes despite the impassive set to her face, and it’s a testament to how fucked in the head ua has made katsuki that she feels a sort of sick thrill of recognition at the sight. todoroki’s in stubborn bitch mode.

“i’ll have this,” todoroki says, sure enough, pointing to the most expensive item on the menu. “and also this. and one of those.”

the waiter’s eyes nearly pop out of his skull, and todoroki looks unfazed in katsuki’s direction, tapping pointedly at a sleek black and red credit card in her wallet. “bakugou?”

well, if endeavour’s paying....

“sure,” katsuki says, slowly, and then turns her meanest smile the waiter’s way. “i want the frog legs.”

mustache clears his throat, attempts condescension. “we don’t serve that here.”

“you’re a gastronomique restaurant,” katsuki says very loudly, as other clients turn to stare, “and you don’t have fucking frog legs? is this a joke? does this napkin say authentic french cuisine or am i hallucinating?”

“i can ask the chef,” the waiter demurs, casting a nervous glance at the muttering snobs nearby, and attempts an ingratiating smile. “anything else for you, mademoiselle?”

“what did you just call me?”

once the ordering debacle is over, todoroki slants katsuki what may well be an apologetic glance, vaguely contrite frown sitting pretty atop her usual dead-eyed stare.

“i probably should have read up on the place ahead of time.”

katsuki is well within her rights to chew her head off, she thinks, but food’s on the way and she got to yell at the asshole who gave her the once-over when she came in, so she’s feeling forgiving, even in the face of todoroki’s annoyingly doll-faced apology. the bitch really has to do the bare minimum and she looks like a fucking kpop idol.

“yeah, whatever. i always knew you were a shitty ops planner.”

todoroki, who is an asshole, looks relieved at her generous forgiveness for all of a second before she quirks a brow. “between the two of us, i only count one person who has actually spoken the words ‘shoot first, ask questions later’.”

“that was in a training simulation,” katsuki protests, outraged. “and you know damn well the actors were annoying as shit!”

“i did find them slightly too committed to the role,” todoroki concedes neutrally, which totally means she agrees with katsuki 100% and is being precious about it. katsuki scoffs.

“least the view’s decent.”

“the-“ todoroki starts, in weirdly confused tones, until she follows katsuki’s gaze outward and nods in understanding. “oh, the skyline. yes.”

what else katsuki could have meant she doesn’t fucking know: they’re sitting pretty in the middle of tokyo. the only thing the hellhole of a restaurant has going for it at this point is the cityscape.

todoroki stares out into the distance for a good long moment, and with the breeze her negligently loose hair whips this way and that, red and white blur where the two halves mingle. instinctively katsuki itches to braid it flat so it doesn’t tangle. if todoroki asked her she’d tell her to just cut her damn hair into a bob or something- it’s not like icyhot has any attachment to her princess hair, and she’s got the obnoxious bone structure to pull off any length. not that she’d mention this last part. or that she’s given it much thought. it’s just fucking obvious.

if todoroki could keep her mouth shut throughout the rest of the meal, it could be sort of nice. tokyo skyline, and companionable silence, and presumably edible food. worse ways to kill some time, and way less incriminating than anything that may be said otherwise.

“i think this is the part where we make small talk,” todoroki says instead, sadist that she definitely is, as katsuki grimaces feelingly her way.

“no, we don’t.”

“well, we don’t. but this is the part where we should.”

“i don’t even believe you can last a minute of small talk, icyhot.”

todoroki looks pensive, mismatched eyes thoughtful. “...how has your day been?”

“uneventful,” katsuki says, combative, and eyes her watch. todoroki does not give.

“this place seems nice.”

“you don’t even think that.”

“how have you been finding tokyo?”

“noisy.”

“the weather seems-”

“no.”

“you look nice.”

“you said that already, dumbass,” katsuki grunts, palms crackling with sweat, and does not at all read into the way todoroki makes a stupid little movement with her mouth that could ungenerously be interpreted as a pout.

“well, i meant it, so i’m saying it twice.”

“give it up, half ‘n half, just ask me about training.”

“...how is your training?”

“i did this thing yesterday,” katsuki starts, leaning back in her chair, and from then launches into a very technical and barely exaggerated retelling of the batshit insane stunt she pulled off with her quirk the day prior. todoroki’s focused attention is gratifying, in a totally platonic non-weird way- it’s just that her parents couldn’t very well follow why exactly said stunt was as insane as it is, but todoroki obviously can, and also there’s that thing with todoroki where pulling a reaction out of her ice queen act is admittedly more satisfying than most people. it has jack shit to do with the fact katsuki’s got a very minor complex about todoroki paying her her dues, and even if it did then that’s entirely fucking reasonable considering she still hasn’t forgiven her for the sports fest incident.

it is a little weird having todoroki’s sole focus on her outside of hero shit, though. it’s not like they really hang out one on one outside of school or work. it’s kind of- unnerving. yeah. unnerving, to be making prolonged eye contact, todoroki’s expression intent but not intense the way she gets in fight scenarios, frowning lightly because she has resting bitch face but apparently genuinely interested. it’s kind of a relief that todoroki asks questions- moves them safely into a conversation, so katsuki’s not just sitting there talking and sort of dry-throated. fucking waiter, leaving them water-less.

it’s fine. they talk about training, and quirks, and then todoroki pushes her hair behind her ears and leans forward to demonstrate on a small scale this thing she’s trying to do where she melts her ice and refreezes it in rapid succession so it causes what is essentially ice rain, but there’s logistics and shit that need to be worked out for it to work the way she’s thinking it might, and katsuki knows her thermal shit so they start scrawling maths over the napkins, and then bicker over the finer points of first year chemistry, so when the food actually arrives to interrupt them todoroki’s startled blink is weirdly relatable, like she also forgot where they were.

the waiter’s there and gone before they’re really recovered from the brief misplacement, which katsuki registers only when she looks down at her empty glass.

“goddamnit- how hard is it to bring us water?”

“they only offer sparkling,” todoroki says, gravely, then outpaces katsuki’s disgust by placing her hand over her glass, ice rising before she switches hands and melts it down. “tell me if the temperature’s off.”

intensely mollified and trying not to look it, katsuki sips it. “’s fine.”

“okay,” todoroki says, faintly pleased, and tilts her head to look down at her food. “i have no idea what any of this is.”

“moron,” katsuki snorts, except it comes out way fonder than it has any rights to, and from beneath the convenient curtain of hair todoroki’s smiling a little, so she hastily stabs a frog leg and gets to eating before anyone gets any ideas.

the actual meal goes okay-ish. most of the stuff todoroki ordered is extremely pretentious french cuisine, and todoroki secretly has the culinary adventurousness of a five year old, so it befalls katsuki to impatiently attempt every dish and pronounce it edible before todoroki will deign to brave it. she’s still trying to bully an unyielding todoroki into attempting the weird bird soup thing when there’s commotion nearby. it takes the both of them approximately three seconds to spring into work-mode; katsuki’s on her feet poised for a fight before she’s even consciously thought about it, scanning her peripherals, and she doesn’t even need to look to feel todoroki unconsciously covering her back, cool sting of air signalling her quirk at the ready.

the commotion turns out just to be some old dumbass choking, relaxing them both out of their stances as she falls back to let todoroki ahead. they’re both uber-qualified for first aid shit, but she’s self-aware enough to know even todoroki’s bland reassurances are usually preferred to her bedside manner. unfortunately, the whole entourage seems to be braindead, because they’re all crowding the old guy in a panic while he chokes, his wife in shrieking hysterics.

“oh, my god, he’s choking! he’s choking! sugar-plum, stay with me!”

“fuck me,” katsuki mutters, unethically thinking that she would personally prefer choking to being married to someone who calls her sugar-plum, but todoroki’s pushing ahead with implacable calm, so she trudges after her anyways.

“excuse me. excuse me. i need access to your husband.”

“who are you? don’t touch him! help! get this woman off my husband!” wailing hysteric yells, bosom heaving dramatically. katsuki is starting to suspect she poisoned him on purpose or some shit, because no way does anyone talk like that in real life.

“she’s a fucking qualified first aid provider, lady, shut up and let her through!”

thankfully, the woman seems on the verge of an outrage aneurysm, which drags her focus away from suffocating her choking husband to dramatically pointing at katsuki long enough for todoroki to duck past her and reach the guy as he turns purple.

“how dare you speak to me that way? who do you think you are?”

“ma,” chinless moron number one says, clearing his throat. “i think that’s one of those future pros from TV.”

“what?”

“you know, ma,” chinless moron number two adds, glancing nervously between them. “the one that explodes things. you know. from UA.”

katsuki takes great pleasure in watching recognition dawn in the old cow’s beady eyes, but in any event there’s a hacking noise and then the old man’s coughing out a bone into his plate as todoroki steps noiselessly back from the table.

“he’s fine now. enjoy your dinner.”

“god, that was gross,” katsuki says, as they ignore the woman’s sputtering and return to their seats. todoroki tilts her head.

“not really. if he’d thrown up it would have been.”

“not the choking guy,” katsuki scoffs, casting a glance back his way. “his wife. talk about theatrics.”

“she seemed more afraid of us than her husband dying.”

“for good reason,” katsuki mutters darkly, spreading out in her chair. “i hate civilians.”

“i don’t think she recognised us,” todoroki counters, pensive, and absent-mindedly takes a bite of the weird soup before she screws her face up like a betrayed kid. “oh. you didn’t say it was sweet.”

the look on her face thoroughly distracts katsuki from asking what other reason the pearl-clutcher could possibly have to be so terrified at the mere sight of them; instead, she chokes back a laugh, stifling a grin. “what are you, five?”

“i don’t think i like this,” todoroki says, mournful, which makes katsuki grin harder. she can’t help it- todoroki looking stupid is her kryptonite.

“then don’t pick a restaurant where you can’t read the menu, next time.”

todoroki’s midway to looking up, but for some reason her expression transforms instantaneously, which makes katsuki reflexively try to quash her amusement. todoroki always gets weird when she’s smiling.

“next time?”

motherfuck. obviously she didn’t mean next time like next time, she meant next time like- hypothetically, in the future, when todoroki’s on a lunch date with someone else. a lunch non-date. she’s just about stopped sputtering furiously long enough to try and express this sentiment when it occurs to her that todoroki seems- pleased, one eye soft sky-blue when katsuki accidentally meets it, and that draws her up short long enough that she ends up just muttering lamely to herself. fucking todoroki.

on the heels of this utter embarrassment, she downs the rest of her water, scowls in a neat 180 at everything in sight, and wonders for the first time in her life how the fuck extras get through dates. not that this is one.

it’s fine. they’re done eating, and no one’s died, and katsuki is no longer fifteen and thus mostly trusts her ego to lick its wounds and recover from the ordeal. even if they stick around for desert that’s only another half hour of this to endure. as long as todoroki doesn’t make any sudden moves they’ll be fine.

...the problem is, of course, that sudden moves are todoroki’s modus operandi. katsuki has not forgotten the bitch calling them friends on national television in the same breath that she was vociferously denying them being anything of the sort. in todoroki’s fucked up brain, they’re always ten steps ahead of whatever they actually are- considering katsuki’s come around to privately acknowledging she’d take a couple more stakes through the gut for the asshole, in todoroki’s world they're practically hitched.

platonically. platonically practically hitched. this is not a thing, goddamnit. no matter the weird looks aizawa’s been giving them, or utsushimi’s nefarious schemes, or the alarming cardiopulmonary condition katsuki’s been developing of late. she’s not some shitty yuri protagonist pining over the nearest female bishōnen in her vicinity.

admittedly if she was to pine over anyone it sure as fuck wouldn’t be some guy, but that’s besides the point, since pretty damn near every person on earth is just some guy by her standards, regardless of gender. the fact that todoroki is not one of said people is entirely irrelevant.

her internal irritation is so distracting that she misses the tremors nearby until entirely too late, by which point todoroki’s stupidly perfect brows raise an incremental fraction and she goes: ‘oh’.

when todoroki goes ‘oh’, some shit is about to go down.

katsuki turns slowly with an impending sense of doom, and sure enough, the sight that greets her is so nightmarish she seriously reconsiders whether the entire day has been just that.

“don’t freak out,” a giant building-sized deku booms, apologetically, as his hideous giant face stares at them. “it’s just a quirk thing.”

it’s probably a good thing katsuki has gone speechless with outrage, since it permits todoroki’s constantly composed ass to ask useful questions katsuki probably would have coated in a fair amount more threats and cursing.

“midoriya. i didn’t know you were in tokyo.”

“well, i wasn’t meant to be,” deku says/booms like a foghorn, as the restaurant clientele shrieks and stampedes behind them. his sheepish expression is even more punchable when magnified. “it’s a long story. it’s almost sorted out now, though. i just saw you guys from over at the NPA office and thought i’d come ask if you maybe wouldn’t mind lending a hand? i wouldn’t ask but there’s going to be a lot of cleanup and your quirks would be really helpful to-”

“we’ll do it as long as you shut the fuck up,” katsuki yells, to cut him off, massaging her temples. “the monologuing’s bad enough when you’re not about to burst my fucking eardrums, jackass.”

“oh, sorry! i’m trying to be very quiet but this body’s just hard to get used to- thank you so much for helping, i didn’t mean to come bother you on break...”

“it’s fine,” todoroki says, and then seems to realise that her monotone doesn’t reach midoriya’s giant-ass ears and clears her throat, raising her voice to a shout. “it’s fine. let me go deal with the bill and then we’ll go.”

“sorry?” midoriya whisper-shouts, craning his monstrous head closer to them, the sight of which will haunt katsuki for the rest of her life. “i can’t hear what you’re saying!”

“she said she’s going to go pay for our nice fucking lunch,” katsuki hollers, with no small sense of satisfaction, as deku winces and todoroki slinks off. “since you want to come crashing it like a dipshit.”

“sorry, kacchan!” deku begs off, flapping hand gestures creating enough wind to knock over a nearby umbrella stand. “i just thought it would be a lot of help if you came to oversee the fall-out- especially with the building damage-”

“we’re good,” todoroki announces, to katsuki, apparently having given up on matching her in decibels. she’s got that classic hero look on her face, already in work mode, but just when katsuki’s about to do the same and jump into action, the look wavers a little and she frowns vaguely awkwardly. “thanks for doing lunch.”

“huh?” katsuki stutters, thrown, and then scowls at nothing in particular, stalling. todoroki’s the one who paid, albeit indirectly- it’s typically weird of her to be all formal about it all of a sudden, leaving katsuki to attempt to wriggle them out of the awkwardness of the moment. “i didn’t do shit except show up and eat, weirdo.”

“it’s been abnormally hard to show up and eat in the circumstances,” todoroki replies, a little wryly, and more concerningly a little resigned sounding. which is just unnatural, because todoroki may have expanded her range of emotions considerably since first year but resignation is not on her usual roster, and there’s nothing to be resigned about unless she had some kind of vested interest in this whole fiasco playing out any better than it did.

which she didn’t, obviously. katsuki’s been through this. she chose the nearest possible venue and rocked up in jeans and a t-shirt, and- and why is the fact that todoroki never dresses so normally out of class only now occurring to her, again?

she’d said ‘i think this is the part where we do small talk’. the part of what?

“yeah, whatever,” katsuki says, automatically, as her brain plays catch-up, which is the excuse she will forever stick to for what leaves her mouth next. “should have known you’d be a lousy date.”

todoroki goes ‘what?’ at the same moment deku does, ten times louder and more bug-eyed, which reminds katsuki that 1) deku is still there, 2) deku is still as big as his martyr complex, and 3) deku is the fucking worst, and allowing him to trap her into friendship is somehow responsible for this, she’s sure of it.

“can we go handle this fucking mess or what?” katsuki snaps, instead of screaming or breaking deku’s very large nose or maybe self-immolating in abject humiliation, hands erupting into explosions as she jumps onto the balcony railing. maybe if she throws herself headfirst into the debris she’ll concuss herself and turn amnesiac.

“um,” deku is saying, when she turns a withering glare his way. “um, yes! yes! yeah! let’s go do that!”

so she jumps skywards, explosions blasting her high into the air, and very scrupulously does not look towards the sounds of slick ice forming just behind her until todoroki skates into her peripheral vision, hair waving flag-like behind her. ahead there’s a building with a crater clean through it where deku must have erupted from, though when she turns to comment she finds him a fair deal behind them, lumbering pace slowed further as he avoids stepping on anyone or anything along the streets. instead her eyes lock on todoroki’s where the latter is staring at her, face unreadable, and she bristles hard enough to disrupt trajectory, correcting course rapidly before she plummets into an office.

“what?”

“i’m a lousy date,” todoroki repeats, neutrally, over the wind. katsuki grits her teeth.

“and what about it?”

she’s bracing for a lot, but not the horrible, sickening eye-crinkle thing todoroki does, dark eye twinkling even as her expression stays carefully impassive. “you think you can do better, then?”

“hah?”

“next time,” todoroki intones, very precisely, and then dips ahead like a complete coward as katsuki goes a color never previously visible to the human eye, sifting through about fifteen emotions before she decides to stick to outrage.

“what the hell? you suck at asking people out, icyhot!”

“you don’t have to say yes.”

“what, you think i can’t do better than this mess? you’re on, asshole.”

“i look forward to it,” todoroki says, gravely, and then there’s a collapsed building to handle and shit to do and if anyone wants to ask why katsuki is so especially gleeful in blowing shit up they wisely keep their mouths shut. she just likes the job, all right.

(for the record, it’s still not a date until katsuki says it is.)

#qui repond #qui ecrit #anon #prompts #tdbk #todobaku #fem todobaku #fem todo #fem baku

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cryptobitmonkey · 6 years

Text

Can China Contain Bitcoin?

It was only a matter of time before Bobby Lee, CEO of China’s longest-running Bitcoin exchange, found himself in the crosshairs of Chinese regulators. His exchange, BTCC, had occupied a gray area of Chinese law, neither licensed nor explicitly illegal. Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that can be sent electronically around the world, and its growing popularity made Chinese authorities nervous. In 2016, most Bitcoin trades worldwide were in Chinese yuan.

In January 2017, BTCC was investigated by China’s Central Bank. In September, China announced that it was banning initial coin offerings (ICOs), a popular fund-raising method for startups that use digital coins or tokens. Even then, Lee thought exchanges like his were safe. Later that month, Chinese regulators made it clear that BTCC and other domestic virtual-currency exchanges had to close, an attempt to make it harder for the general public to enter the market and buy bitcoins.

Lee says that he was neither shocked nor panicked, just dismayed. “Ah, finally, the party’s over,” he thought. “The party has to end sometime.”

Bitcoin, introduced by a mysterious and since vanished character named Satoshi Nakamoto, came into the world around the time of the 2008 financial crisis. The fact that it was not backed by any central authority appealed to those who distrusted governments and big banks. Since then, the currency’s rise—especially its popularity among speculators, who helped push the value of one bitcoin from under $1,000 to more than $10,000 during 2017—has presented governments with a challenge. Should they allow this new kind of money, even though it makes it easy for people to send funds relatively anonymously—a feature that is attractive to money launderers and other criminals? Should they try to suppress it, in hopes of maintaining full control over monetary policy? Or should they embrace it, as the Japanese government has done, even passing a law to recognize Bitcoin as a legal payment method?

Bitcoin transactions are recorded on a blockchain, which is a public, censor-proof ledger that is continually being updated by a network of computers throughout the world. The decentralized nature of virtual money should make it impossible for any one country to shut it down. China’s crackdown put that foundational belief to the test. The news of BTCC’s shutdown briefly caused the price of a bitcoin to plunge. China, after all, is known for trying to control seemingly uncontrollable things. Beijing has been surprisingly effective at fencing off the Internet with an army of censors and a Great Firewall that blocks sites like Facebook and Twitter, and yet its online communities and commerce flourish. China is now developing its own digital fiat currency, an apparent attempt to make financial transactions cheaper and more traceable, as well as to combat counterfeiting.

None of this would seem to bode well for Bitcoin. Yet weeks after the crackdown, nearly everyone I spoke to in China’s cryptocurrency community was in strikingly good spirits. They were optimistic about the future of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies in China, whose crackdown wasn’t as all-encompassing as it might have seemed.

Speed limits

China’s cryptocurrency world resembles a Silicon Valley of the East. People dress casually, work in shared maker spaces, and scribble on whiteboards. They are global, ready to jump on a flight to New York or Tokyo to seek out a business opportunity. “It reminds me of the Internet community in 1995. Everyone knows each other,” says Gao Dongliang, a blockchain investor. Similar to early devotees of the Internet, Gao explains, people in China’s blockchain community share a belief in a world-changing technology.

One member of this community is Lu Bin, the CEO of a Shanghai-based blockchain startup called Andui. The energetic Lu, who got a PhD from Louisiana State University, says he helped come up with the term yitaifang, the Chinese name for Ethereum, a Bitcoin-inspired virtual-currency network built for more complicated financial transactions.

In late August Lu did an ICO to raise money for Bihu.com, a communications platform that uses blockchain technology. In ICOs, startups issue a new virtual token to the public, sometimes on the premise that the token will be necessary for use of the startup’s product. High demand for that product should, in theory, make these virtual tokens gain value. Bihu.com aimed to be like Twitter or Reddit, except that users could reward good content with “keys,” the platform’s own token.

Lu was thrilled by Bihu’s ICO. He says he raised over $20 million in a matter of hours. He believed there was no way that venture capital would deliver that kind of result. Then the following month China’s ICO ban came down, and Lu had to give all the money back.

He took it in stride. Lu acknowledged there was “frustration within the team” and a general “waste of energy.” But nonetheless, he felt that the ICO ban protected average investors against fraud.

charged two ICOs that were supposedly backed by investments in diamonds and real estate. Neither had “any real operations,” the government alleged. In China, the fraud problem appears to have been exacerbated by the participation of relatively new and inexperienced investors.

Da Hongfei, founder of an alternative cryptocurrency called NEO, says the ICO crackdown was necessary for China. NEO had its first ICO in 2014 and has since risen to become one of the top cryptocurrencies in the world by market value, at over $2.5 billion in December. The company says it offered to refund investors after the ICO ban, but they preferred to keep their NEO tokens.

To illustrate why he supports the ban, Da describes a recent trip he took to Germany. He was struck by the experience of driving on the autobahn, which has no speed limit. Germany is able to do this, he says, because “they have good-quality roads, they have a very strict test for a driver’s license ... Everybody is obeying the traffic rules, and they have very good-quality cars.” He adds, “If we don’t do a speed limit in China, or even maybe the United States, that would be a disaster.”

China didn’t just impose a speed limit on virtual currency, however. It shut down the entire highway. Perhaps Chinese officials banned ICOs until they figure out how to regulate them. Lu, the entrepreneur who had to return $20 million to investors, hopes that this is the case. He says ICOs present a new business model in which users are stakeholders in the company, which gives them an incentive to invite their friends to join the platform. Lu believes that the virtual-currency exchanges will reopen but be run by the government. He says China will take regulation cues from the outside world, particularly the United States. The SEC recently signaled that it would take a more aggressive stance toward ICOs, perhaps by requiring ventures to register with the commission and disclose extensive information to investors.

For now, Lu will continue to work on Bihu.com from Shanghai, raising capital with private investment. “We are believers,” he says. “We believe the Chinese market is eventually going to open.” If cryptocurrency is going to be a real thing, he says, “China does not want to miss the train.”

Miner threat

Before Bitcoin got too hot in the country, Chinese authorities were cautiously accepting of the technology. In May 2013, state-run CCTV even aired a short documentary about it. That same month, Zennon Kapron notes in his 2014 book, Chomping at the Bitcoin: The Past, Present and Future of Bitcoin in China, more Bitcoin wallets—the software that holds and manages people’s private cryptographic keys—were downloaded by computers in China than in the rest of the world put together.

It’s easy to understand why many Chinese people would be attracted to Bitcoin. In China’s heavily regulated financial environment, speculating on the currency represented one of the few investment options for the retail investor, Kapron observes. In 2013, the Shanghai stock exchange had been underperforming for years. Real estate prices were too high for many ordinary people, but you could buy a fraction of a bitcoin for as little as one dollar. By mid-2013, Chinese exchanges were moving more than $35 million in bitcoins each day.

The speculative fervor threatened to get out of hand. Beijing was also worried about yuan leaving the country. China caps yuan outflow at $50,000 per person per year. While it’s not clear that large numbers of people were using Bitcoin to evade Chinese capital controls, the potential was there. People in China could buy bitcoins in yuan, sell them on an American exchange, and then withdraw the sum in dollars. In late 2013 Chinese authorities struck back, banning financial services companies from dealing with Bitcoin exchanges. People could no longer withdraw yuan from their bank accounts to directly buy bitcoins on Chinese exchanges.

It wasn’t long before Chinese people figured out how to get around this obstacle. Instead of paying exchanges directly from their bank accounts, they used cash to buy vouchers that could then be traded on the exchanges. Alternatively, purchasers could send money to the personal bank account of someone who worked at an exchange.

The latest restrictions are more draconian, with cryptocurrency exchanges now shut down. But once again, workarounds have emerged. Some people have turned to online and offline peer-to-peer trading. People can also buy and sell digital currencies on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, which is blocked in China but can be accessed by virtual private networks (VPNs) that get around the Great Firewall. People who already own coins can just go online and trade them on an exchange that is based overseas. There was even some trading on WeChat, China’s massively popular but heavily monitored messaging app.

more than two-thirds of bitcoins were made in China. Much of the computer hardware used for mining is manufactured there. Miners use a great deal of computing power, and some Chinese computer clusters used for the process enjoy access to relatively cheap electricity. The growth and dominance of Chinese mining has led to fears among some that the country has too much influence over the future development of blockchain technology.

A founder of a pool of miners, a person who goes by the name of Discus Fish, says that China’s local governments once encouraged mining, particularly in mountainous areas that produce hydroelectric power. The mines were using energy that would otherwise have gone to waste. Then in September the political environment changed, and he feared some local governments would no longer welcome mining. But others in the mining community were unconcerned. Zhao Qianjie, a vice president of BTCC, notes that the company’s mining pool was not influenced by the crackdown on its Bitcoin exchange. And in China, if something is not explicitly verboten, then it’s full speed ahead.

Getting around control

What is clear is that China has made it more inconvenient for newcomers to enter the Bitcoin market. But maybe this isn’t such a bad thing. At least so would argue James Gong, a Shanghai-based cryptocurrency expert who founded ICOage, an online platform through which ventures could promote and raise money for their ICOs. Launched last January, ICOage closed down in September. He says that most of the ventures on his platform were not Chinese, and that the overseas projects were generally higher in quality than the Chinese ones. “People who don’t understand blockchain or digital currency shouldn’t be participating in this market,” Gong says. “The risks are too great. Raising the threshold for ordinary people to trade digital currency is good for the industry as a whole. Some Chinese people were blindly investing. They would buy anything.”

Even now, Chinese people who want to trade cryptocurrency are likely to find a way. China is making trading difficult but not impossible. Beijing employs a similar strategy for censoring the Internet. It’s possible to use a VPN to jump over the firewall, but for many people it’s too much mafan, or trouble. Besides, they are happy with domestic platforms like WeChat. Yet even if China introduced its own digital currency, people might be willing to go the extra length to use Bitcoin.

“With Bitcoin, people will be more motivated to get around control,” explains Duan Xin-Xing, former vice president of the global Bitcoin exchange OKCoin and now executive president of the Hangzhou-based blockchain startup 8btc. “The Internet is a network of information; Bitcoin is a network of money. It has real value.”

The word “Bitcoin” may have become more nearly taboo in China, but “blockchain” has not. Han Feng is the Beijing-based cofounder of the Elastos Foundation, which ambitiously plans to build a whole new Internet powered by blockchain technology. This fall, Han planned to teach a Tsinghua University course that would be webcast all over the world. He prepared for months. The camera stands were already arranged. Then the university promoted the course on WeChat and called it “the first course on Bitcoin at Tsinghua University.”

Han was upset by Tsinghua’s lack of political instincts. Why would you use the word “Bitcoin” at such a sensitive time? Sure enough, the online course was canceled, but Han wasn’t deterred. He proceeded to teach the class on Tsinghua’s campus in Beijing under a more politically correct title, “The Smart Economy and Blockchain.”

is even part of the Communist Party’s 13th five-year plan. The technology provides a tamper-proof, intermediary-free ledger for payments and various other kinds of transactions. Michael Casey of the MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative has argued that China sees blockchain as a useful tool for advancing its regional interests, especially in trade.

China would prefer to take blockchain without Bitcoin. “The central government wants to use blockchain to ensure the trustworthiness of public and administrative data, but they don’t want people to print their own money,” says Ben Koo, an engineering professor at Tsinghua University.

China may also hope to replace Bitcoin with its own digital currency, but Bitcoin enthusiasts in the country, like Bobby Lee, say that China’s version would be a “completely different animal.” He explains, “It’s going to be a controlled, centralized currency that happens to be digital; it happens to have some encryption technologies in it.” If the new currency is subject to the same monetary policies, interest rates, restrictions, limits, and regulations as traditional currency, Lee says, “then it’s going to not compare to something, like Bitcoin, that’s truly free.”

When winter ends

China’s crackdown has demonstrated that no one country can stop Bitcoin. That’s the beauty of the decentralized network: if one nation bows out, others pick up the slack. After China clamped down, much of Bitcoin trading moved to Japan and South Korea. “Blockchain is a global technology,” says Han, cofounder of Elastos. “Different functions work in different countries. If you want to exchange, you go to countries with friendly laws, like Japan. If you want customers, you go to China. If you need a technology community, you go to the U.S.”

Not only has the Chinese ban failed to stop Bitcoin, but the price of a bitcoin rebounded and continued to hit record highs. Chinese regulations may even have contributed to the surging price. “When China started regulating Bitcoin, it sent a message that China takes this currency very seriously,” says Yan Chen, CEO of NBL, a service for storing cryptocurrency wallets. “The market sees that Bitcoin is something that governments are afraid of, so it must be really powerful.”

NEO’s Da thinks that China’s crypto community will shrink over the short term, and that there will be a “winter” for some time. But he sees the overall outlook as bright. He believes that Chinese capital controls will not be around forever, and their removal will give the Chinese government one less reason to be wary of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin presents China with the same challenge that the Internet once did. The Chinese government was initially suspicious of the Web, because letting it in would mean relinquishing some degree of control. But Beijing ultimately decided that keeping the Internet out would be worse, since that would cut China off from the global economy. The dilemma posed by Bitcoin has one key difference: it’s way too late to isolate China from the rest of the world. “Bitcoin cannot be forbidden in China,” says BTCC’s Zhao. “As long as there is one cable available from China to the outside, then Bitcoin will survive.”

That means for now, Bitcoin has passed the China test. “Bitcoin itself did not break after China banned it,” Lee says. The virtual currency has delivered on its promise that it could not be defeated by any government, even one as powerful as China’s. Or, as Lee puts it, “Every time you try to whack Bitcoin and it doesn’t die, it becomes stronger.”

Hear more about Bitcoin from the experts at the Business of Blockchain on April 23, 2018 in Cambridge.

Source

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609320/can-china-contain-bitcoin/

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everettwilkinson · 7 years

Text

Chuck Says, “I Told You So!”

Good day… And a Happy Friday to one and all! I’m having a tough time focusing this morning, and my infusion confusion hangs on, and this morning, it’s making it tough for me to see clearly. I need some Johnny Nash right now… I can see clearly now the rain is gone… But, hey! I’m not going to let seeing double or blurry words on a screen stop me! It was crazy at the doctor’s office yesterday and the infusion center… What should take no more than 2 hours tops, took 4 hours… UGH! The Late Great, Dan Fogelberg greets me this morning with his song: As The Raven Flies… I used to play that song on my guitar… But wouldn’t remember the first chord now… UGH!

Well, I guess I could say to U.K. PM May, “I told you so!” I would get to needle her in the worst way because as I said months ago when she took a chance and called for this election in hopes it would strengthen her position on BREXIT negotiations, and I said that she was “taking a risk she didn’t have to”… The pound has gotten caught up in all the exit polls, and the final count. Yesterday the pound was sitting pretty at 1.2983, when the polls and bookies had pretty much said the Tories would maintain their majority in Parliament. This morning, the pound is 1.2732, and has been as low as 1.2705 overnight.

A hung Parliament pretty much means that the Tories will have to form a coalition Government, which means they won’t have the strength going into the BREXT process than that would have had, if PM May had not been so greedy… The U.K. is now going to find that negotiations on Trade with the European Union, and all the other things that need to happen, are going to be a real pain… And all along the way, I fully expect that the pound will be caught in the middle, and that doesn’t bode well for the pound, in my opinion…

Well, what’s bad for the pound is bad for the rest of the currencies, as they are, for the most part, sucking wind this morning… One exception is the Swiss franc… It appears that a lot of the pound selling crossed into francs, and that won’t make the Swiss National Bank (SNB) happy campers. Remember that the SNB is all about a weak franc, as long as the rest of Europe is weak, and weaker is what they are this morning, as the Big Dog, euro, lost the 1.12 handle yesterday, and has not attempted to win it back…

Gold lost another $ 9.20 yesterday… On Monday this week, I asked the question about which asset would reach their psychological level first… Euros at 1.13, or Gold at $ 1,300… Unfortunately, I must have put the kiss of death on them, because neither one is close to those levels now, as they’ve both moved in the wrong direction the last couple of days. But what? Me worry? Not really… I really do still believe that Gold is about to go on a run to higher ground, and that the Big Dog, euro, will be the main beneficiary of dollar weakness that will come later in the summer when the Fed has to admit they shouldn’t have been hiking rates into economic weakness, and loses what credibility they have left… Of course that’s just how I see it, you know, my opinion, which could be wrong, right?

Over in China last night, they printed their May CPI (consumer inflation) and it showed a strong jump from 1.2% to 1.5%, and the renminbi was allowed to appreciate again… What’s going on with the renminbi I asked a week or so ago? It now appears that the Chinese want the renminbi to settle in below the 6.80 figure, and probably want to see it around 7.50 by the end of summer… Yes, that would represent a nice appreciation from where it started a couple of weeks ago around 6.90…

There’s been no word from the Chinese Monetary Policy Authorities (CMPA) about the announcement that they would change the way the renminbi was fixed each day… I don’t know what to expect from the CPMPA, they could radically change it, or just make a minor change. But with all the hoopla of announcing that they would make the change, I’m leaning toward a major change…

Wouldn’t it by tre-cool if the Chinese used Gold as the basis for their fixing? I mean why not? As I’ve said for 7 years now, I believe the Chinese are accumulating Gold for two reasons… And one of them is to first float their currency in the open market, and then back it with some percentage of Gold, thus making it the most attractive currency in the world! So, this could be a precursor to that scenario, having the value of Gold (on the SGE, not the COMEX) relate to the renminbi’s fixing… See how I tied that all together with a nice neat bow? (Sometimes you amaze me Chuck! The way your mind works is amazing! HAHAHAHAHAHA!)

The Chinese CPI print has allowed the Aussie dollar (A$ ) and New Zealand dollar / kiwi to maintain their levels and not get caught up in the mess going on everywhere else that was caused by the U.K. election results…

The price of Oil slipped to the $ 45 handle in the past 24 hours… Last week, the price of Oil was $ 50, and this week its $ 45… and looking like it is going to slide further… Yesterday, on my way home from the infusion center, I had to stop for gas, and I noticed that gas prices haven’t yet dropped to reflect the drop in the price of Oil… I did pay less than $ 3 for Premium gas, so I guess I wasn’t that upset, but still, I would expect gas prices to have dropped more by now!

When I first began driving, I know it was a long time ago, and no, we still didn’t use horse and buggies in the City! But when I first began driving, the price of gas was 23-cents a gallon for Ethyl! You would pull into a gas station, and a young man would come out, greet you, ask you if needed a fill up and while the gas was being pumped into your car, he would wash your windows…and check the air in your tires if you asked! Well, all that passed, the price of gas skyrocketed to more than a $ 1 (oh my, the humanity!), pump the gas yourself stations popped up, and then years later, pay at the pump, and here we are… Thanks for sticking with me through that little nostalgic trip…

So… the former FBI Director, Comey, testified yesterday, and from what I can tell, there’s no real smoking gun here that should throw the President’s policies off the tracks… But a lot of the dollar move since yesterday is about dollar shorts unwinding… And you can see it in the Dollar Index, which was 96.78 yesterday morning and 97.45 this morning…

And the final piece of the triple-witching Thursday, was the European Central Bank (ECB) meeting… And here’s where there are two schools of thought from what ECB President, Draghi had to say… the first thought is that Draghi signaled that there was an end to stimulus in the future… And the other thought is that nothing changed, and bond buying and negative rates will continue through 2018… The euro traders took their cue from the 2nd thought and sold euros… I’ll let you decide which thought is appropriate by letting you read what Draghi had to say… “The ECB now expects borrowing costs to stay at present levels for an extended period.”

I’ll also point out something that was left out of his talk.. In previous meetings Draghi had always reminded everyone that “rates could go lower”, and those 4 words were missing yesterday, and that’s what really got some traders excited… But, like I said, traders went with the 2nd thought, and that cost the euro the 1.12 handle…

OK.. onto other things… Well, besides the Political problems in the U.K. the night didn’t have much for us, and neither has the early European session… Today’s U.S. Data Cupboard is basically empty, and there are no Fed speakers today, so we’re all on our own today with the currencies… I would never say that about the metals, though… there’s just too much “outside interference” in my opinion…

Speaking of the metals… As I said above, Gold lost $ 9.20 yesterday to close at $ 1,277.60… The number of contracts traded yesterday was a whopping 243,000! That’s right 243,000 contracts traded just in Gold… So, it wasn’t all selling of Gold yesterday that led to the $ 9.20 loss… At one point, Gold was $ 1,291.50, and later in the session it fell as low as $ 1,273.50, before settling at $ 1,277.60 on the day… The early morning trading has Gold down another $ 3… Which is quite strange to me, given the goings on in the U.K. but it is what it is, and I’m not going to worry myself about it, for I look at like this: Every time Gold gets whacked, it just gives Gold buyers an opportunity to buy it cheaper!

I was thinking about the early days of World Markets at the old Mark Twain Bank… Frank Trotter started the division, that had Peggy Jourdan as our currency trader, Neil George, Chris Gaffney, Mark Elmore, John Kaupisch, Jedda, and me… It was a fun group. I recall my wife bringing us treats all the time, and the time Chris Gaffney showed us his spider bite, that’s all I can say about that! But this is where it all started… It’s where I first began to study currencies, foreign bonds, and economies… It was 1992, and the Pfennig was born… That was 25 years ago! I was a young man then, but had already been in the investment business since 1973! So, an old man on the desk!

To recap… Well, it’s all about the Hung Parliament in the U.K. after the elections yesterday, and the selling of the pound, which crossed over to all the other European currencies, except the Swiss franc, which was the beneficiary of the pound selling. Gold lost $ 9.20 and Chuck wonders why, given the news from the U.K. China prints a stronger than expected CPI, which allows the antipodean currencies to hold their levels and not get caught up in what’s going on in Europe. And besides all that, Chuck rambles on about different things today, someone needs to shake him and get him on track today! HA!

For What It’s Worth… With yesterday being a long infusion day, I didn’t have a FWIW article this morning, until I opened up Ed Steer’s letter (www.edsteergoldandsilver.com ) and found one right away! This is a Bloomberg article from Billionaire Investor, Paul Singer, and his thoughts on the monetary and fiscal policies today in the world, and it can be found here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-07/elliott-s-singer-warns-system-may-be-more-leveraged-than-2008?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

Or, here’s your snippet: “I am very concerned about where we are,” Singer said Wednesday at the Bloomberg Invest New York summit. “What we have today is a global financial system that’s just about as leveraged — and in many cases more leveraged — than before 2008, and I don’t think the financial system is more sound.”

Years of low rates have eroded the effectiveness of central banks to contend with downturns, Singer said at the event in an interview with Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein. “Suppressive” fiscal, regulatory and tax policies have also exacerbated income inequality and led to the rise of populist and fringe political movements, he added.

Confidence “could be lost in a very abrupt fashion causing conceivably a ruckus in bond markets, stock markets and in financial institutions,” said Singer, founder of hedge fund Elliott Management Corp., which is known for being an activist investor>”

Chuck again… Well, while the opinion of a Billionaire Investor, shouldn’t sway our thoughts completely, the should be kept on file, and added to all the other thoughts we get on the financial system, which to date aren’t good, right?

Currencies today 6/9/17… American Style: A$ .7536, kiwi .7209, C$ .7402, euro 1.1183, sterling 1.2735, Swiss $ .9717, … European Style: rand 12.9243, krone 8.5160, SEK 8.7420, forint 275.04, zloty 3. 7450, koruna 23.4545, RUB 56.94, yen 110.33, sing 1.3840, HKD 7.7954, INR 64.28, China 6.7939, peso 18.23, BRL 3.2699, Dollar Index 97.45, Oil $ 45.80, 10-year 2.20%, Silver $ 17.31, Platinum $ 939.54, Palladium $ 870.80, Gold $ 1,276.20 and SGE Gold $ 1,295.46… (this price is from the previous night for China)

That’s it for today… I can see clearly now, the rain is gone… I knew it would take a little while for things to clear up, and they did! Well, Kathy returned home yesterday, and this morning she was up early (on Eastern time) and clanging pots and making noise while I tried to concentrate on my writing. So blame her if I got off track too many times this morning! HA! It’s supposed to really heat up this weekend here. While I love warm weather, really hot weather is a notch below warm weather… But I’ll take it any day over frigid cold weather! Yesterday, I said, we needed to “let tomorrow be”, and see what happened? We woke up, and the world didn’t collapse! So, let’s let tomorrow be again for Monday… Head East takes us to the finish line today with their song: Never Been Any Reason… The diner where the band’s picture is taken for the album is the Olivette Diner, and my good friend, Duane and I go there for breakfast at least twice a year! And it was in the shopping center next to our (EverBank’s) first office! We shared some office space with the PayChex Co. But there I go again being nostalgic! Alrighty then, I’m in no shape to have any fun today, but you can! So, go make this a Fantastico Friday! And Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler Managing Director EverBank Global Markets Creator / Editor of: A Pfennig For Your Thoughts 1-800-926-4922

http://www.everbank.com

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melindarowens · 7 years

Text

Chuck Says, “I Told You So!”

Chuck Butler Managing Director EverBank Global Markets Creator / Editor of: A Pfennig For Your Thoughts 1-800-926-4922

http://www.everbank.com

The post Chuck Says, “I Told You So!” appeared first on Daily Pfennig.

Daily Pfennig

source http://capitalisthq.com/chuck-says-i-told-you-so/ from CapitalistHQ http://capitalisthq.blogspot.com/2017/06/chuck-says-i-told-you-so.html

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ellenartpaige · 7 years

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On Monday 23rd- Friday 27th of January 2017 I enjoyed my time exploring Berlin the capital and largest city of Germany. I have never been to Germany before or been on educational trip abroad before so this was an exciting new experience to absorb.

The General Aesthetic:

My impression of Berlin was that the architecture of the buildings were grand, impressive and a spectacle to look at and enter. What I really like about the architecture aspect was that although consisting of strong and very large yet infrastructures, everywhere felt like it had a very open feel with breathability to it. Everything looked really well cared for and respected. Although it was also a very decorated place with splashes of spray paint splattered in gatherings sometimes in more unrefined parts like alley ways or on the side of a flat building surface next to a demolition or construction site but if there was graffiti there it was usually an impressive work that strikes as picture worthy and beautiful with a lot of colour to it.

In general Berlin was a superbly pleasant place that wasn’t very busy or hectic as one would presume of a city but I’m guessing this is all because of how spread out this very large city is which made the trip so easy and peaceful. On the weather experience I found it was easily baerable although warm clothing, gloves and scarf was however essential.

The Museums:

What I loved most about my journey was the fine quality of the variety of highly impressive museums and galleries that they had to offer. Berlin should really take pride in its vast range of galleries that made the journey so worth the time and the money.

The Finance:

Germany wasn’t too expensive either it was pretty similar in comparison to my own country however I did hear that the pints could be pricier but luckily that isn’t something I like to drink. What was really great was being able to obtain a museum pass that was only €12 with a STUDENT CARD (I must remember to bring to all my journeys). The Museum pass gained me entry to a delightful range of top museums in Berlin which made the exploration run really smoothly and worked out much cheaper than paying admission each time in every museum.

The Accommodation:

The Hostel I stayed at was called the Generator it was a pleasant Hostels with comfort, facilities and services all to a great and pleasing standard! .

The Dilemma of the Trip:

There was one thing that didn’t go so well. The compulsory and one and only mask museum called the Ethnologisches Museum (also known as the Ethnological Museum) was shut down for a relocation!!! In all honesty I was gutted, but I and everyone else laughed it off easily. Although this museum offering the most relevance to my mask Field project the other handful of museums that me and my hostel group resorted to seeking out was fantastic and thoroughly compensated for this error.

How I Researched on my trip:

I took many photos on my fast moving and active journey through Berlin’s wonders and it will be these treasured images and my memory that I can look too to influence more mask designs that I wish to create for my 3D project.

The Research in Pictures and Drawings:

These are the first few pictures. (Plane picture from the Monday travelling and the rest from the activities on the following Tuesday).

This is the Ethnological Museum that was unfortunately shut for a relocation during my visit.

An interesting theatre that I often passed.

Me excited on the plane to Germany!

After realising the problem with the shutdown Ethnological Museum. My first visit was a trip to the Berlin Wall to witness the fun graffiti art that adorned it:

I loved all the colours that flowed to one another and the fact that it was a very long strip of wall that had art piece after art piece going all the way along it, it made the long walk a fun and interesting one. I really felt the voices in these illustrations too as a direct call out to the eyes and mind of the public being in such a great location of a very long and popular path route it really pulls the eyes to its attention.

Next stop was the Bode-Museum where I captured these images of the artworks I enjoyed shown below:

The art here really had a continuous flow with each other as a collection. It was rather a graceful and gentle rhythm found in the art here as if the art wants us to listen to a soft voice or message.

On Wednesday the 25th of January I went to the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin (also known as the Museum of Design in Berlin). I was not allowed to take pictures here but I didn’t realise till after I took a few shots and was then swiftly approached by a member of staff to give me the message. I instead went on to absorb the artwork through a deep study of reading and examining the artwork from differing angles. I also spent some time drawing the artwork too.

The Bauhaus was a fun exhibition because I could sense a quirky vibe that can be seen to grow in unusual and surprising ways from the artwork here. I felt like this collection had a more fast paced and spontaneous rhythm that bounced off and too one another like ZAP ZAP. I feel like this museum reminded me of what it feels like to get a thrilling flow of ideas coming in all at once.

After the Bauhaus that day me and my group who were a mixture of creatives from different practices in the art school a part from a few who I already knew from my illustration course took a trip to visit one of Germany’s landmarks. The landmark I visited was the Brandenburg gate which according to my research is a monument and symbol of the tumultuous history of Europe and Germany but also of European unity and peace.

I really enjoyed making new friends who I can continue to work alongside with my ongoing Field project and gaining additional variety to my artistic contacts who I can gain a lot of ideas and insights to further expand on my creative knowledge and practice.

On Thursday the 26th of January I set out with my newly acquainted friends Lucy and Lauren who are both from Fine Art who I didn’t know before going on this trip, to a TATE MODERN gallery showing leading artist in contemporary art, Artist Bhupen Khakhar’s artwork.

I liked this piece because of the use of transparency, interesting collage and layering.

This is a piece I liked because of the colour contrast that tells me straight away that Khakhar has a mindful of negativity in his sleep here.

I love the vibrant colour pallete that makes the image deceptively happy at first impression.

I was really enjoying the layering and wash work of his painting technique with this piece.

I really like that quote “You Can’t Please All”.

What struck me at first with Khakhar’s paintings in the exhibition was the incredible use of vibrant colours in his works that really caught my attention at first glance and drew me in. But once I inspected the work with a closer examination a more disturbing and unsettling aura became more louder the more I looked at it and noticeable in every one of the paintings present in the gallery.

From the paintings alone it became clear to me and the gang that this artist was a homosexual in a time and place where there was no acceptance or place for this behaviour within the society. The paintings became saddening and also slightly maddening that some would say became slightly more insane or uncomfortable with a look at the next painting across the wall. But what I only could receive from Khakhar’s personal life exposed this way was that there was a pained discomfort about himself in a community and world that could not accept him for who he truly was.

Also in his paintings it showed an also sad insight into a time in Bhupen Khakhar’s personal life when he became severely ill with cancer to which he painted himself covered in disease seen spread in painful rashes all over the body. Both in the room of the exhibition shows and internal pain and an external/physical pain with both just as sore as each other. I can see how this work really relates to my topic of Men’s Mental Health in my subject and how it also can be useful to my mask making to which I intend to carry this topic into.

I also snapped some shots whilst travelling to the exhibitions that day, some of the glorious buildings and some of the beautiful views.

Next up we decided to walk to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and to take a look at the “place of information” and attached underground centre that holds the names of approximately 3 million Jewish Holocaust Victims.

According to my brochure the memorial also known as the Holocaust Memorial is designed by architect Peter Eisenman which comprises 2,711 concrete stelae and was built from 2003 to 2005. To be honest I didn’t understand the concrete blocks and didn’t feel as though they gave off any sense of being a memorial whatsoever. It was far too unclear and vague that I could only see what it actually was which was just concrete blocks. I can understand the controversy that has so heavily come about from my research. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_to_the_Murdered_Jews_of_Europe#Public_reception_and_criticisms

It wasn’t until I had experienced the information centre below that I was certain of a most horrible time in the world’s history of the Holocaust. But still I could not link the architecture of the monument with the holocaust which was just so separated completely as being too irrelevant. The place of information underground centre was a very overwhelmingly terrible reminder that made me imagine and feel the fear of the victims and witnesses of the Holocaust. There was some rooms that I could not be in for too long as it was too much death to hear as they played out story after story of a victim one by one on an endless tape and in another there was a room where I read every note that was handwritten onto toilet papers, torn pages from a book or anything the jews could get their hands on explaining their fears, experiences and thoughts that brought me closer than ever to the victims as I recited the exact words they had processed as they wrote it down on that material. I hated so much what has happened to so many people we as a group all felt pretty awful by the end of it, hurt and teary eyed. We only hope that something like this will never happen again.

To make the most of our last full day out in Berlin we ended the day with an adventure back to the museum island area which is towards our final stop at the hostel for the night. The Museum Island is made up of 5 spectacularly large museums (shown below).

1 is the Altes Museum (Old Museum) – A collection of classical Antiquities/Eqyptian Museum. 2 is the Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) – A collection of 19th century painting and sculpture. 3 is the Neues (New Museum) – An Eqyptian Museum for Pre and Early History. 4 is the Pergamon Museum – A collection of Classical Antiquities/ Museum of Ancient Near East/ Museum of Islamic Art. Finally 5 is the Bode Museum that I went to on the Tuesday (Sculpture Collection/Museum of Byzantine Art/ Works from the Gemaldegalerie/Numismatic Collection.

The island was beautiful and we wanted a cheer up after the sadness we felt for the experience we had at the Jew memorial site so we went on in to the Alte National Galerie.

The Alte National Galerie

This was what I enjoyed inside this fantastic Museum:

I really enjoyed this museum because it had a lovely large variety of artwork that would take me to a new experience with every brilliant piece that pulled me from one room to another. I particularly fell in love with the stunning paintings of dream like places that took me away to the new and wonderfully constructed places of outstanding beauty and I also was captivated by the paintings that had a lot of action and people involved in physical labour it made it ever more interesting with a moment so full of movement yet frozen magically in time. Like a picture taken unknowingly to the people hard at work I feel like I had travelled back in time and I was spectating from within the room or space to which they were all so concentrating working in. I just loved becoming a part of the work especially when there were paintings so huge and positioned so it almost fit the entire height of the room making it close to the ground level to which I was standing on, I could almost step into the works.

The final choice of museum that day was a visit to the Neues Museum also known as the Egyptian Museum. From word of mouth this place was apparently fantastic, my friends who had already seen said they loved it.

Here is the pictures of the artefacts that I enjoyed in the Egyptian Museum:

This Egyptian Museum experience was great I loved how much symbolism there is and I wish I could translate the encryptions or have the translations to hand so that I could work them out so I could get a little closer to this alien culture. There was a lot of modified faces and also animal heads or features used on the artefacts that I could easily pick elements from for my mask designing if I wish too. I liked entering a new world of artefacts to walk amongst it made my world feel so different and their world feel so unusual.

On the Friday we had time to explore a little more of the city and its public graffiti art in its nooks and crannies.

My Drawings:

These are observational drawings of artefacts I enjoyed at the museums and some mask ideas that came about during my time in Berlin.

Observational study from within a museum in Berlin.

Observational studies from within a museum in Berlin.

Mask ideas completed in the Generator Hostel I was staying in and some coffee shops in Berlin.

Mask idea completed in the Generator Hostel I was staying in and some coffee shops in Berlin.

Mask ideas completed in the Generator Hostel I was staying in and some coffee shops in Berlin.

For some of my mask designs I have been looking at masks that reflect happiness, pride and wisdom as I thought about the positive feelings of enjoying life and myself as a contrast to the more pained work that reveal a loss of this sight of the world that I have returned to seeing again. I can connect to both of these contrary ideas with my own experience and path that I can recall. So therefore I feel it is my duty with this time on this project that I am combining with my subject topic of men’s mental health to show both experiences and to hopefully take a mind to another direction to grow in oneself through a desire for a wonderful and rewarding change.

It was all worth research hunting and absorbing the ideas of even more creative minds first hand in a new environment and culture it really was a beautiful and enjoyable place and I felt very welcome by the friendly faced German people there. I definitely feel like I have learned a lot from going outside of my home to witness the art of further afield it has expanded my knowledge of the creativity present in the world. I want to even go further out of my comfort zone and go beyond the UK if I can for next time simply because I’ve learnt how exciting it is to get out there and find the art. It’s an adventure that has a lot of purpose to my position as an illustrator and the results really pay off and provide a lot of insight about the culture and fascinating perspective and extraordinary experiences that differ or relate to my own.

Berlin Trip – What a wonderful time! On Monday 23rd- Friday 27th of January 2017 I enjoyed my time exploring Berlin the capital and largest city of Germany.

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