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melyaliz · 5 years

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Now or Later

anonymous: Jason x reader they've been dating for a while and she's become rlly good friends with Roy who she met via Jason and one day Bart comes from the future and he sees Jason's gf and he's like hey mrs Harper! And Roy Jason and gf all are like wtf does that mean and then Bart is like oh shit after he realised that he's entered the past but of a different time line. He said Mrs Harper bc in his future, Jason didn't come back to life, she met dated and married Roy. Gimme jeason drama jay! Heheheheh

Fandom: DC / Young Justice TV show

Pairing: Jason x Reader X Roy Harper

Notes: Happy Halloween! I love how none of my stories are ever on trend with the season.

All Masterlists @melyalizarchive

----

“Good luck kid,” she said as Bart grabbed the power core he needed for his time machine. Her gray and white hair pulled back in a braid half her head shaved showing off her scars proudly. Once beautiful now hardened by the turn on the world. “Go save our world, save my husband,” she said before pulling out her crossbow shooting at the minions who had them almost cornered. Trying to make his an escape root.

“I will,” Bart said nodding before dashing off. Leaving her to fend for herself. He knew she could. He prayed he was right as he ran.

Or maybe she wouldn’t have to if he succeed.

Crash the mode.

---

You laughed tossing your hair back as you pulled out your crossbow. A million other weapons strapped to your back but there was something about the sound of a bow that just was so comforting.

“Don’t worry Hot stuff, you covered hot stuff” you said letting another round of arrows loose on the crowd. You had been flirting with your boyfriend Jason and his outlaws this whole mission.

Ok more like flirting with Starfire the whole mission.

“Watch out your girl is going to leave you for Star” Roy laughed as the red head in question ducked letting her adversaries fall from the arrows.

“Many would, given the choice,” you added jumping down high fiving Roy.

“I don’t see why you must leave anyone to be with me” Starfire said knocking out another goon with such grace she made it look like a dance.

“See Jason I don’t have to leave you.”

“Ok haha so funny.” your boyfriend said coming up behind you shooting a goon who was running at you with a huge ax. Who even were these guys? Like, ok Paul Bunyan, who uses an ax anymore?

“I don’t see how you can’t appreciate how hot this is” Roy added summoning the jet as the four of you come together ready to be picked up.

Turning you laughed leaning forward as Jason pulling you into a deep kiss -there may have even been some tongue, “I don’t really share well” he mumbled and Roy made gagging noises next to you.

“Gross. Just get a room you too”

“Aw Roy don’t be jealous, I promise I’ll give you Jason back soon,” you said pulling at Jason’s belt winking up at your boyfriend as the Jet floated overhead dropping down a rope for you. “But, not tonight, tonight I was promised a much overdue date night.”

Date night was amazing, as was the morning after, and the morning after that.

In fact date night turned into date week and probably would have been longer if a certain redhead hadn’t barged in.

“Jesus you two! It’s 3pm. Where are your clothes!?!”

“That’s what you get for barging in Roy!”

“Well, I wasn’t expecting you too to STILL be in bed.”

“It’s a bedroom what else would we be doing in here?”

“Ok, ok, but still…”

“What brings you to our love nest, Roy?”

Roy laughed at your comment, eyes still on the ceiling, “Dick apparently needs us at Young Justice Hall or whatever they are calling it these days”

“Ok”

Roy stood there glancing down at you “Ooookkkk” you said again waiving your arms to shoo him out.

“Alright, alright I’m leaving!”

After he left Jason leaned toward you kissing you on your shoulder, “I love you” he whispered, “Not sure if I mentioned it,” he added tracing a few of your scars that ran across your shoulder, “but you are perfect”

“You may have… just a few times” you whispered kissing him on the lips

He chuckled as you deepen your kiss, his hands wandering across your body

You pulled away “Don’t start or we will never leave...”

Letting out a moan Jason flipping you over so you were straddling him. His arms wrapping around your waist. Kissing your hips, stomach, chest, as you looked down at him trying to muster the will to fight him.

“Ohhh make Dickkie bird wait” he told you between kisses making his way to your lips.

------

“How’s your little one doing?” Dick asked Roy as the archer waited for the rest of his team,

“She’s good, oddly good. You would think with her mom she would be a little more of a… handful.”

Bart was only half listening as he waited with Jamie and Tim for the Outlaws to show up. He knew Roy a little in passing but had never met the rest of the team, but he had heard stories. Apparently, they were deadly accurate and still hadn’t come across a mission they couldn’t complete. Perfically in sync. Something they Young Justice needed at the moment.

You walked confidently into the base. Don’t show any weakness. While you didn’t like new things you also knew this was a good change. Much like your team’s name suggested sometimes you guys didn’t always do things… above the books.

As you walked into the base a red-haired boy, you assumed was the speeder from the future, looked up. When he saw you his eyes light up. “Y/N Harper!” Impulse said dashing toward you giving you a hug.

“Fucking what?” Bart pulled away to see Jason standing behind your mouth open,

“Oh… uhhh… Roy said his daughter so… I thought you guys were already married. Who are you?” The last comment was at a very annoyed Jason.

“What is he talking about?” Roy asked coming up next to you. You glanced from Bart to Roy who looked like he had gotten punched in the gut. That was nothing to the look Jason was giving you. His face was white as you knew he was coming to the same conclusion you were.

“I… uhhh, got to go” Bart mumbled dashing off

“Please tell me that isn’t the kid who is from the future,” Jason said his hand taking yours holding it just a little tighter than normal. You winced as you looked from Jason to Roy. The awkwardness thick in the air. Part of you (ok all of you) wished you could dash out like Bart.

Dick sighed rubbing his temples “Yeah, shit you must be that woman he was talking about.”

“What woman?”

It turned out that in the future you took Bart under your wing teaching him. Bart hadn’t said much other than your husband, Roy had died trying to save your kids, a few years before Bart had come to the future.

Also apparently you were a pretty badass.

Halfway through the story that Dick and Jamie pieced together, Jason had left. Next to you Roy hadn’t stopped moving obviously totally conflicted. Maybe as much as you were.

Years Eariler

Jason had called you in for backup. The two of you didn't know each other long. Meeting while both going after the same ring of gangsters you both had decided to work together instead of copeet. And after that you both kept running into each other. Whether intentional or not you would never admit.

But this was the first time he had officially asked for your help.

“I need your… spark.” he had told you as you both lay in his bed. You laughed rolling out from under the sheets grabbing your shirt that had been thrown across the room the night before.

“Anything for you hot stuff.”

So you had been sneaking around the large warehouse setting up your beautiful explosion when you noticed the archer, Arsenal, in a bit of trouble. His back against the wall while trying to take down 7 or 8 guys. Not that he wasn’t doing a good job, but Jason had asked for your help so why not?

Three went down as you shot your crossbow Arsenal taking out two by bashing their heads together as you jumped down knocking out another. One more ran toward you only to shot down, one in the leg one in the arm.

“So you’re Y/N”

“How did you know?” You asked turning to the red-haired archer.

“Ohhh just a hunch” Roy laughed pulling out on arrow shooting a gunman who was behind you. You glanced over your shoulder before turning back to you pulling out your explosive trigger.

“Ready to blow this popsicle stand?” you asked “I loaded up this building with so much CC there will be nothing left but dust.”

“Please tell me you added some fireworks in.”

You laughed “obviously, what other way could you celebrate New Years?”

“Of course you are Jason’s.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Present

“Hey” Roy said taking a seat next to you.

“Hey” you mumbled looking up at him

“What are you thinking about?”

“The first time we met”

Roy smiled running his hand through his messy red hair before putting his hat back on, “Awww the day you met your future husband.”

“Not funny,” you said rolling your eyes, “Why are you taking this so lightly?”

“I mean I’m the one who lucks out in this scenario.” Roy chuckled “I mean even my death sounds pretty epic,” However, his smile faded when noticed you weren’t finding the same humor in this situation. “But in all seriousness, it doesn’t mean much. If Bart is right and Jason was dead in his timeline things… are different now.”

You both lapsed into silence.

“Hey Roy, that time we met and you said you knew I was Jason’s because of a hunch, what did you mean?”

Roy sighed looking down at his boots as he tapped his heels, “Only Jason could find the perfect woman.” he said looking up at you.

“Roy,” you whispered feeling your heartbreak, all those memories of Roy. those glances you had always thought were just your imagination. All those lingering touches, hugs that were just a big tighter. Those smiles and jokes. You had banished those thoughts as you just being a silly girl.

“Look,” Roy said turning to you, “Maybe I have feelings for you but I also love you as a friend too. And Jason, I love Jason like a brother. And I’m not the type to break a great thing. And Jason and you are a great thing.”

“But in another world, we were a great thing.” you whispered doubts creeping in. Maybe you were meant to be with Roy. Maybe you had made a mistake with Jason and it was the faits way of correcting itself. It wasn’t like you hadn’t made mistakes before in your life. Many mistakes. Some had scars to prove it, both inside and out.

Maybe you chose the wrong one.

“Hey that’s not fair, I’m trying to be the bigger person here,” Roy said

“What am I supposed to do?” you said looking at him. Roy shrugged,

“Are you asking me? The king of bad decisions?”

You couldn’t help but crack a smile, you both had that in common. Something the two of you had always joked about. You and Roy would just be in so much trouble if Jason wasn’t always bailing your asses out.

Jason.

Standing up you shoved your hands in your pockets. “I have to go,” you mumbled walking away leaving your future husband (in some timeline) behind you.

-----

“Y/N, I’m not letting you go”

You looked up from the bag you were packing, off to find answers. I mean this is the world where Gods existed and boys from the future came to save us all from blue aliens who were trying to destroy our planet. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities you could find the answers to the questions you were looking for. Maybe on some himalayan mountain or some sandy beach. (You hoped it was the latter)

“Jason, what if this is the universe telling us we aren’t supposed to be together? I mean I don’t want to wreck the timeline.”

“The universe also said I was supposed to be dead and look at me, do I seem dead.”

“I just…”

“Do you have doubts… about us?”

You winced, it would be a lie. But it wasn’t really Roy that gave you those doubts. It was yourself. You had always been a lowner. Someone who relied on themselves. And now here you were, being told your good friend was your husband and your boyfriend was… well not.

What about your children? Bart had said you had kids. If you didn’t end up with Roy would that mean they would never exist? And Roy was, Roy. Your good friend, someone you would trust with your life. Something you had never thought you could do again. Trust.

But Jason, he had been first. He was… Jason. The man who had pulled you from a very dark path and took you on the adventure of your life. You loved him so deeply sometimes it hurt. And you couldn’t lie, scared you.

What if you weren’t supposed to be with any of them? What if this was life’s way of finally catching up. Pulling away from the good… no amazing thing you had.

Your fingers danced over the scars on your arm. The scars that reminded you that you didn’t deserve either of them. Didn’t deserve that happiness you had felt.

Your head hurt.

“I don’t know Jason.” he pulled away from you as he if you stabbed him, a hot crowbar at the heart. “No Jason. I just. I love you, you said grabbing his hand. I love you so much it’s just. What if I was meant to be with Roy? I mean, what if we aren’t meant to last. I just…”

“You love me or you don’t,” Jason said eyes hard.

You winced, your whole life had been running from people, believing they would always leave you. And there was a certainty that something would work out, but it wasn’t with the man in front of you.

Maybe safety was with the other. Or Maybe rocking the boat would tip it.

What were you supposed to do?

-GET TAGGED!-

Tagging: @royslittleharper @the-shadow-of-atlantis @coffee-randomness @daisyboobear @werewitchling @jason-redhood

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confrontingbabble-on · 5 years

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“On a Sunday afternoon, humanist chaplain Greg Epstein stands in front of about 90 people in an MIT auditorium. It’s an eclectic group, with young kids and college students, thirty-something parents and gray-hairs all attending because of a shared disbelief—no one here has faith in God.

“People who don’t happen to believe in a god, or affiliate with a traditional religion, still want to support one another in living out our positive values.”

”Religion isn’t just fading from campus, though—all throughout the city, faith is dying out. It’s a notion that once seemed unthinkable. Not so long ago, religious institutions permeated city life, forming communal centers for the pious and the profane alike; they simply were the community. Increasingly, though, religion’s power is giving way to the church of scientific inquiry. Religion’s importance in people’s lives is on the decline across the country, but the Bay State is on the trend’s leading edge, tied with New Hampshire for the official title of least religious state, according to the Pew Research Center. Massachusetts is tied for third in what statisticians call “religious nones,” people who say they’re not affiliated with any religion, at 32 percent of residents. Compare that to the 33 percent who said religion is “very important” in their lives. Or the 40 percent who told Pew in 2014 that they’re “absolutely certain” they believe in God—the lowest among the 50 states. Or the scant 23 percent who attend a religious service every week.The result of all of this is that Boston—the cradle of Puritanism in Colonial America, known as the most Catholic city in the nation during the 20th century—has become a secular town in the 21st. Many people, young and old, are concluding that religion doesn’t fit their ethics or their lives. They judge religion for the times it’s created conflict rather than bridging divisions. They believe in equality for women and LGBTQ people, and they won’t join patriarchal or anti-gay religions. New belief systems now dominate the city: higher education’s critical thinking, science’s demand for evidence, technology’s drive for results, liberal politics’ notions of progress and social justice. Some of this is a reaction to national politics—an expression of Boston’s sense of itself as a besieged liberal bastion—but it’s also a rejection of the Old Boston, the Irish-Catholic city on a hill.

“Prior to 2002,” ...“the archbishop of Boston had a direct line to any Massachusetts politician he wanted to talk to.” That time is long gone, says Margaret Roylance, vice president of Voice of the Faithful, a group of lay Catholics formed in 2002 to press for church reforms. “I don’t think the church is the 800-pound gorilla that it was. Politicians are not afraid to support something the church opposes...”

There was a time, of course, when religion and the church taught Bostonians morals and how to treat one another. Scripture, from the Bible to the Koran, provided foundational guidelines for humanity and social justice, not to mention the basis for the Golden Rule. Church leaders also taught us the value of hard work and kept us in line. Not so much anymore. “Catholic church leaders used to have a kind of moral force in Massachusetts,” says Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University. Big civic debates in Boston, such as whether to host the Olympics, would have included the Catholic leadership’s opinions. Now they don’t.

“In the olden days, you’d always go to Catholic leadership,” Prothero says. “Nowadays, I just don’t see why you would. They used to matter. I just don’t think they matter anymore. I think the moral capital has been spent.”

Even many Catholics who’ve stayed in the church don’t much care what the leadership thinks anymore. “Catholics, whether on the progressive or conservative end of the scale, none of them really trust the bishops to do the right thing,” Roylance says. The sex-abuse cover-up “made us look at them differently...”

The sex-abuse scandal may have hurt all churches in Boston, not just Catholic ones, says Stephen Kendrick, senior minister at First Church Boston, a Unitarian Universalist congregation. He recalls talking about Catholic clergy sex abuse in one of his first services after taking over First Church in 2001. “I said it’s going to affect us, because it makes a whole generation of people feel distrustful of authority and particularly religious authority,” he says. “I think that’s a particular challenge in Boston. That is a wound that is not healed. And it affects every religious institution in this city.”

As shattering as the sex-abuse scandal has been, it’s hardly the only reason people are leaving Catholicism—in one national survey, only 32 percent of former Catholics named the scandal as one of the reasons they left. In fact, among the religiously unaffiliated in general, 60 percent said they left their childhood faith because they simply stopped believing in the religion’s teachings.

Friday night comes as a time to relax instead of attend Shabbat services, and Sunday brunch beckons the family instead of a 9 a.m. service. In other words, Kendrick says, “What happened to the Catholic Church in the last 20 years didn’t just happen to the Catholic Church.”

They’ve seen the surveys that show the number of religious nones exploding and the number of professed Catholics declining. “The power of the Catholic Church to move a civic agenda or political agenda is much reduced...”

From...https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2018/12/11/boston-given-up-on-god/

#nonreligious #atheist #agnostic #secular humanist #skeptic #Religion #Christianity #religious insanity

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newstfionline · 7 years

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Why these parents want their kids to have an ‘old-fashioned summer’

Amanda Paulson, CS Monitor, August 8, 2017

BOULDER, COLO.--When parents ask Julie Turchin why she allows her two daughters so much independence--including freedom to roam their California neighborhood and walk home from school--she often cites an experience she had when she was 9.

She and her friend had been dropped off in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass., with a plan to take the subway home. When the T broke down, the girls inadvertently got on the wrong bus and ended up at Ruggles station--not a great part of Boston at the time. They got off, consulted a map, and made their way back to the right place--1-½ hours late, but very proud of themselves.

Six years later, when Ms. Turchin got separated from her high-school classmates in Russia, she didn’t panic, but used her broken Russian to figure out the transit system.

“It wasn’t a big deal, because I’d been figuring out how to get home, lost on the subway, since I was 9,” says Turchin. That experience “gave me pride, independence, and a skill that’s important to have later in life. That’s the kind of stuff I think we don’t give our kids, out of fear they’ll end up [at] Ruggles.”

Days spent playing outside with friends, and without parents, used to be a hallmark of summer vacation--and parents like Turchin are trying bring back elements of those old-fashioned summers for their own kids. It is, however, more complicated than just telling kids to come home when the sun goes down: For one, there are usually no other kids outside to play with.

But more child development experts are warning about the harm that’s caused by overprotective parenting and fear-based decisions, particularly as kids get fewer chances for risk-taking, unsupervised free play, and time away from adults.

“Children throughout history have always played and explored largely with other children away from adults,” says Peter Gray, a psychology professor at Boston College and the author of “Free to Learn.” “That’s how their learning occurs, it’s how they practice skills…. We have more or less done away with the culture of childhood.”

Part of it is the reality of having two working parents with busy schedules, but there’s also the fact that it’s hard to find friends who also are free to roam, homework is more abundant, and activities like soccer ramp up in intensity at a far earlier age.

“It feels like everybody is operating at a faster pace,” Turchin says.

So much scheduling means many kids spend far less unstructured time outside, says Angela Hanscom, a pediatric occupational therapist and author of “Balanced and Barefoot.”

She started to get concerned when she saw so many kids who were having issues with falling, paying attention, and poor balance. She realized they were spending little time outdoors, and, when they were, much of their behavior was restricted: Schools didn’t allow kids to hang upside down on the monkey bars; parents didn’t let their kids spin in circles or roll down hills or climb trees.

“We’re taught to do no harm, but we’re at the point where we’re restricting children in many ways … and it ends up negatively affecting their development,” says Ms. Hanscom, who ended up founding a nature program, TimberNook, to help kids get unstructured time outside.

A spate of articles and books in recent years have touted things like the benefits of dirt for developing children, the need for parents to step back and parent less, and the importance of free play and risk-taking outside.

Some neighborhoods are working to create an environment where it’s normal for kids to play and bike on their own. And while it’s impossible to quantify--and most “free-range” parents still feel like they’re swimming against the current--many parents are speaking out about why they’re intentionally choosing to step back.

Statistically--no matter what the perception may be among a public glued to 24-hour-news reports--this is an incredibly safe time to be a kid. Violent crime has been on a downward trend for a couple decades, rates of physical and sexual abuse against children have been falling, and the danger of kidnapping by a stranger remains, as it’s always been, very low.

Danielle Meitiv’s daughter, now almost 9, has been biking by herself to school since she was 7. When they went to Europe last summer, her kids explored Paris on their own, within a defined area.

Several years ago, she was still regularly walking her kids--then 6 and 10--to the bus in the morning, after a harried get-out-the-door routine familiar to many parents.

On a day when she had a conflict and her husband was out of town, she told the kids they’d have to do it on their own. They did, with no prompting. The next day, she was set to walk them to the bus, but her daughter announced that wasn’t happening: They were going on their own.

“From that day until the last day of school last month, I think we’ve had one fight in the morning,” says Ms. Meitiv. “I didn’t even realize I was doing for them what they could do for themselves…. Parenting is literally getting out of your children’s way from birth to 18.”

That attitude can come with risks, as once-normal parenting decisions are sometimes criminalized or judged harshly.

Meitiv learned that the hard way, when she and her husband found themselves investigated by Child Protective Services two years ago after they allowed their 6- and 10-year-old children to walk to the park together. Their case gained significant attention, and Meitiv says, ultimately helped get both police and CPS policy changed in Maryland’s Montgomery County.

Now, officers who see children walking alone have the discretion to ask them if they’re OK and make a reasonable judgment about whether they need help, rather than automatically picking them up and calling CPS. CPS workers no longer automatically consider certain parenting styles neglect.

Meitiv notes that working for that change is the main reason she and her husband went public, instead of just hiring a lawyer to quietly get them off.

“The majority of people who get in trouble for having kids unattended are poorer, or from other cultures with different parenting styles,” says Meitiv, who is now running for a seat on city council. “We didn’t want to get off the hook; we wanted justice.”

Indeed, free-range parenting is a luxury that that some lower-income families don’t feel they have. Disproportionately, poor families, especially families of color, can find themselves under a microscope by child welfare authorities. In recent years, single mothers in South Carolina and Florida were arrested and briefly jailed after allowing their children--one a 9-year-old and one a 7-year-old--play at parks on their own, even though they had phones and their parents knew where they were.

These sorts of cases only underscore the reason for an understanding of the independence that children are capable of, says Lenore Skenazy, chair of the Let Grow Foundation, and author of “Free-Range Kids” (the book that helped coin the now-popular term).

“The sooner it becomes normal again to see kids running around, riding their bikes and playing in the parks unsupervised, the sooner we remove an easy excuse for the authorities to investigate anyone not living up to the current, middle-class, ‘hyper-parenting’ ideal,” says Ms. Skenazy.

So much of the current prevalent parenting model is based on fear, she says. “It’s underestimating kids and overestimating danger.”

#parenting #children and parenting #free range kids

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cr2brooklyn · 6 years

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Meet Mischa Abakumova: Jane of all Trades Creative Technologist

Interview by Mikhal Weiner

Mischa Abakumova is an alumnus of Parson’s School of Design and Technology, a designer with a twist. On a recent, gray, autumn morning I sat down with her at a local cafe to hear about her relocation to NYC and her wide variety of projects - whether teaching kids creative tech and interactive design at Blink Blink, exploring how tech and dance can interact at Lehman College, or imagining futuristic objects with the Iyapo Repository. She’s also building a musical instrument that will record the pulse of the musician and use that along with other biological information to define a message characterized by pitch, timbre, and duration. With each of her answers, the day grew clearer and more inviting, until we hardly noticed the drizzling sky at all.

Abakumova, 27, was raised in Yaroslavl, about 4 hours from Moscow. “It’s like Boston”, she laughed. “When I was about four I went to Moscow and saw the high-rise buildings. I knew I wanted to live in a city.” Fifteen years later she got her chance - while studying architecture in Russia she came to New York for a summer and never left. A naturally curious person, she finds that NYC’s strong DIY community allows her to experiment with defining space and experience through tech.

“Growing up in a town with a rich historical background definitely had its upsides and drawbacks. A thousand years of history nurtured respect for tradition and understanding the need for cultural preservation in me. However, my relationship with it has been very complicated. I vividly remember the moment when I started analyzing different traditions, folk stories, food recipes, and questioning which were uniquely Russian and which were borrowed and appropriated from other cultures.”

Abakumova dabbles in many fields - environmental design, architecture, graphic design, animation, and web design (to name a few), but the thread that connects her current projects is an insatiable curiosity. Her works draw connections between history, philosophy, and technology.

Her main short term project is a workshop for Lehman College she’s teaching with her design partner, Ayo (Ayodamola Tanimowo) Okunseinde, who she met while studying at Parson’s. The workshop explores ways to incorporate technology, such as motion sensors triggering projectors and other visual effects, as a continuation of human movements. Student dancers are taught to program these sensors, but also take time to discuss the introspective side of utilizing technology in daily life and art.

She encourages student dancers to ask philosophical questions. What if machines take on the human quality of believing in a Creator and start worshiping us? What if they question our authority? When I asked about this, she just said that “[Religion, technology and humanity] is something that’s very interesting to hear [digital natives] work through.” To Abakumova, it’s equally important that students learn that technology can help them “use their limbs like a paintbrush” and ask questions about how this fits into a continuous historical arc of religion and humanity.

vimeo

“In my hometown, Yaroslavl, most efforts were focused on preservation of history, essentially turning the city into a large scale open air museum. There was little to no room for young creatives to experiment. As an act of defiance, a group of my friends and I organized a festival that brought together different art forms. We claimed and repurposed underdeveloped areas - parks, abandoned parking lots, dilapidated buildings - as hosting platforms. In the work that I do today, I like to explore and reference traditions of different cultures, but always try to find the balance of how this knowledge would translate in the future. This was partially why I got interested in joining Iyapo Repository project.”

The Iyapo Repository is an ongoing archive of futuristic objects created to imagine, and therefore affirm, the futures of people of African descent. “To [Okunseinde], a Nigerian man born in the States and raised in different parts of the world, it was a natural course of action to identify [...] social injustice towards marginalized communities.” The project draws on community participation; the artists conduct workshops where participants of all ages imagine and create possible objects by tracing a logical arc of traditional African materials and cultural objects. “While it started with the African Diaspora, it quickly spread to other disenfranchised communities as well, because social justice isn't confined just to your immediate circle.”

Mikhal: You've worked, and continue to work, in many educational roles, exploring tech with students at Blink Blink and now at Lehman College. Why is this kind of exploratory work important to you? How do you empower students to use technologies on their own?

Mischa: I never thought I’d find myself in the position of teaching and I never sought after it either. When I first started at Blink Blink all I wanted to do was technology powered products that would hopefully make technology more inclusive to all. When I helped host my first few kids’ workshops at Blink Blink, though, my eyes opened to a whole new world of possibilities.

You really need to deeply understand how technology works and what you’re trying to do with it in order to explain it to someone else, especially someone with a limited knowledge of physics. Also, kids - especially 5 and 6 year olds - are naturally creative and not yet influenced by the standardized learning system. They can take a simple piece of technology and put it in a context that you have not considered or ask a question that you do not have an immediate answer to. I should also mention the endless reserve of patience that you need to muster up in order to work with youngsters. Working with kids definitely pushes my creativity forwards and allows me to stay current with new trends, and the fact that my students come from different backgrounds keeps me on my toes. I have to be very flexible and think outside the box about the application of technology in meaningful and relevant ways.

Mikhal: One of your main projects is a spatial, interactive musical instrument that uses biological information tracking to create new levels of communication. What drew you to create this object? How do you think technology can enhance or detract from human communications?

Mischa: Octocom was the original project that sparked my interest in using biological information to enhance communication. At the time, when I was working on the concept, I was very interested in the ways humans converse face to face as opposed to online interactions. When we converse face to face, we rely on things like tone of voice, timbre, intonation, body language, and eye contact. By analyzing all this abundant data, we subconsciously calibrate our body to the same wavelength as the person we are talking to. This happens so that we can react to the same emotions as our conversational partner.

Obviously, there are various degrees of synchronization, but the idea is that we do this to form special bonds. In digital communication, these patterns are removed, causing a lot of misunderstanding and confusion as people often misinterpret and assume. My solution was to use the biological data our bodies generate and apply it to the metaphor of a radio wave. Octocom was using our pulse to alter voice messages. Custom built software was taking measurements of the human pulse when the user was recording a voice message and altering it once the pulse of the recipient was available. The amount of distortion would change based on the discrepancies between the pulse measurements; the further the parameters from each other, the more distorted the message is. So the receiver has to work toward synchronizing her pulse to the pulse of the sender and getting to the same wavelength thus fostering better, deeper communication and connection. More recently, the project has evolved into a spatial musical instrument that uses the same mechanics to generate sounds. It was a very natural transition, many think of music as a binding, expressive element. I’m curious to see what can be done with it and how music can potentially enhance the way we converse.

Mikhal: Who are some of the people in your fields who you find particularly inspirational and why?

Mischa: NYC has such a vibrant community of artists working with technology, which makes it easy to meet people who are doing awesome things. Check out some of people I follow:

Dave and Gabe: a duo of artists who work with technology to create interactive experiences. There are many people working in the experiential area of design, but D&G create playful, engaging and poetic interactions that are accessible to anyone, and not just a few tech gurus. I first saw their art at the big music festival, which so many artists would consider detrimental to the art, because of the way that concert goers interact with installations, treating it like wallpapers for Instagram. Entertainment gets a bad rep for being shallow, but in reality, it might be the hardest industry to be in. Artists showing work in an entertainment space have a responsibility to make technology accessible and engaging to everyone, while still conveying a compelling message.

Zack Lieberman: Zack was a super star of my program at Parsons. His name was the first name students learnt entering the program. Zack was one of the guys behind OpenFrameworks, an uber popular C++ library that is widely used in creative tech community. His work is displayed around the world and in the permanent collection in MoMA. Now I share a workspace with Zack and I have even more respect for his practice. Despite having international success, he works on his craft every day, which takes an enormous amount of self-discipline, something that I have struggled with! Everyday, when I go to his Instagram it's an enormous source of inspiration and wheel to get me going and keep adding to it. He also started a School of Poetic Computation - a hybrid between school, residency and a research group.

Theo Watson. Theo was Zack’s closest collaborator at some point created many acclaimed projects together including OpenFrameworks and Eyewriter. But the project that really stuck with me is Connected Worlds - a massive scale interactive installation that can be seen at the New York Hall of Science. It’s one of the most magnificent and poetic pieces of technology I've seen. It's fairly simple in its implementation, but the impact is undeniable. When going through the installation - one is completely transported into the fairytale making you completely forget that this environment is completely artificial. What drew me to the project was the fact that it wasn't trying to take away or substitute nature, but rather to create an imaginary world that can only exist there. I'm glad I found this project early on in my career as I was struggling to justify the creation of the artifice when I could be encouraging people to interact with the real world. Connected Worlds opened my eyes to how technology can enhance and alter its surroundings.

My conversation with Mischa Abakumova left me full of wonder. After just an hour or so of hearing her unique, poetic way of looking at technology and humanity I was full of questions, excited to learn more. We hugged our goodbyes, and headed down the misty streets of Brooklyn - two simple, complex humans walking off into a city full of invention.

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fixerupperchic · 6 years

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Meet Ashleigh, my HERO from Stone Link; she may look young, but Ashleigh is super knowledgeable about all types of stone, quartz, tile, sinks, iron doors….and probably much more I don’t even know about!

Stone Link is located on Highway 80 in Longview, & they have a super extensive showroom and stone yard full of the most impressive displays I’ve seen this side of the Dallas design showrooms….just take a look at the view from their front door:

Nice, huh?! This is only a tiny part of the showroom, but the rest you’ll want to explore on your own….

OK, so here’s the story of my urban cottage’s countertops: I really really wanted to use quartz in the kitchen of this house; I had wanted to use it in a former Lake Cherokee remodel, but alas, that was 2008 and it was quite a bit more expensive than granite…..which always seemed strange since granite has to be formed over thousands of years, in the earth, by pressure, and therefore is a limited resource. Quartz, on the other hand, is man-made using 8-10% polymers etc, and roughly 90% crushed quartz….which is actually usually crushed or waste granite, marble & natural stone or recycled industrial wastes like ceramic, silica, glass, mirrors, etc. The pricing on quartz countertops is usually still higher than granite, as demand has continue to drive the price of granite downward….and while quartz started out ‘trying to look like granite’, the trend now is towards very different-looking quartz material that doesn’t resemble anything nature made! I see it as a great way to recycle waste material, so it’s a win-win scenario!

Soooooo, weeks ago I visited Stone Link on a Saturday; it was D-Day. I had to know whether or not I could get quartz countertops into the budget, and pick out the granite if not. I was so lucky to meet Ashleigh, who was totally prepared to answer all my questions, figure estimates based on my kitchen/bath scaled drawings, and was generally all-around encouraging & helpful. And here is how she made it work for me:

These are 3 pictures of the beautiful PRE-CUT slabs of granite and marble Stone Link has on hand; the selection always varies, and presumably the more desirable slabs sell fastest….though really, aren’t they all beautiful?! By using pre-cut slabs for both of my bathrooms (thus greatly decreasing the labor involved) we were able to save enough off of my countertop budget to do quartz in the kitchen for just a TAD more….and I decided it was worth it! So I picked this quartz, which looks a great deal like Carrara marble:

And for the two baths, I chose these 2 slabs (honestly I went back and changed one of them a few weeks later, but still chose from the pre-cut slabs)

If you’re wondering why I wanted quartz in the first place, here is a good resource for the comparison between granite, marble & quartz. But one of the main reasons for me is that granite has to be sealed, & re-sealed yearly, as it is a porous material. (and most granite owners fail to re-seal….life gets in the way) For a cook’s kitchen, quartz is actually a harder surface, & easier to keep clean….& it never needs to be sealed. Also, my vision for this kitchen included white countertops; while there are now more white-based granites available, they are premium-priced & still, more colorful. Carrara marble is a traditional choice for a cook’s kitchen, but marble is soft & porous….so this beautiful quartz was my favorite choice to give the best of both materials.

I’m happy to say that my lovely countertops were installed last Thursday, and while I’ll give you a tiny peek now….you’ll have to wait a week or two longer to REALLY be awed! Here’s why:

The house is in serious finish-out phase right now, but that makes it hard to get good pictures of any one thing! Because we are ‘layering’ the tasks to get me moved in on time (and just because I think that’s the best way), we were still operating this past week without any interior lighting. The electricians will be back this week to put in the final service panel and install ceiling lights….AFTER the ceilings are painted. So these pics are going to look really really rough….and you may well not believe the house will be ready for movers in 2…..yes, 2 weeks. But we do have a plan……stay tuned

First look at the edge of the 7′ island….

First look at one of the countertops (and cabinets!)….

First look at the stainless one-bowl apron sink…

And….first look at the hall bath counter installation in progress; later that day the undermounted sink was installed beautifully! But…speaking of sinks…..

The sink issue reminds me to pass on to the uninitiated what can happen the day of countertop installation, in hopes of preparing you to, well….be prepared!

RULE #1: HAVE ALL YOUR FAUCETS ON-SITE!

Having been through this a gazillion times before, I knew this rule….so Roger made sure the plumbing fixtures were all delivered to the job-site on Tuesday, to be prepared for Thursday. If you’ve never had stone countertops installed before, it’s crucial to have both the sinks and faucets available. Often the fabricators will install a standard stainless sink in their workshop, making it necessary to get it TO them ahead of time – which is also why they often include the sink in the price of the job. But in my case, the apron sink made it necessary to install on-site, as the cabinet front had to be modified at the same time. They also elected to install the 3 bathroom sinks on-site, as they were porcelain bowls that could have broken in transit, since they were transporting quite a bit of stone.

But you also must have your faucets on hand for the installers, as they will need to cut the holes after the countertops are installed. Some of my clients have been surprised to find out that “faucet holes” are not standard; they each come with a template to be used for cutting the holes, so there is a proper fit when they’re later installed. And if you think about it, some sets have a separate hole for the sprayer, lotion or hot water. (mine has only one hole, as I prefer a pull-out sprayer, and have NEVER ONCE used the lotion, soap or hot water hole effectively)

So I arrived at the house Thursday mid-morning to make sure all the faucets were laid out in the right location in case I couldn’t be there when they needed them. It was only then that I noticed the kitchen faucet & drain were NOT in the big box of plumbing fixtures that had been delivered! After a few calls, we determined they had just been left off…..so fortunately Coburns had the faucet in stock, and I only had to make a quick trip to pick it up and have it available….I was so thankful not to have interfering appointments that day so I could do it! Then later in the day I returned to the site, knowing they were finally there and working. Much to my delight, I saw that one bathroom countertop had been installed, and they were working on the master bath! PROBLEM #2!

RULE #2: Make sure your plumbing fixtures are measured correctly!

Remember these lovely round porcelain sinks from an earlier blog post? I just loved the shape, having never seen this exact elegantly curved and perfectly round sink. And I made sure to pick out a high-arc faucet that would reach over the rim and not splash water outside the bowl. What Ashleigh and I both missed was actually measuring…..one thing that IS standard is the depth of a bathroom countertop! As I arrived, the guys were standing there scratching their heads over the master bath slab, with the lovely sink sitting atop it for placement. What they were trying to do was mark exactly where the hole would be cut; this involves placing both the chosen sink and the faucet on the surface to be marked precisely (and since I have double sinks in that room they needed to match exactly as well). They not only need to LOOK right on the slab…..they also have to take into consideration the inside edge of the front of the cabinet, and the granite overhang. They were scratching their heads because I walked right into them realizing this just wasn’t going to work! The sink was too large to possibly fit it onto the countertop, unless I was willing to put the faucet on a side corner…….NOPE!

A quick call to Ashleigh confirmed that I was in fact the FIRST purchaser of these elegant new sinks…..and nobody yet knew they were too large for a standard installation! (The way they would work is to have the faucets wall-mounted, but that’s not a modification that can be made this late in the project). However, this is where flexibility is key to a successful remodel: we both knew they had just gotten in 2 sinks from the same line which were a softened rectangle shape. Ashleigh had actually called me to come in earlier in the week to see the new ones and make sure I didn’t want to switch. So there was the solution! She immediately sent out the alternate sinks and the job continued. I’m sure the new shape will grow on me, but on a project this size one really has to be flexible and not sweat the necessary modifications! Be the end of the day, the installers had finished all of the countertops, sinks, backsplashes and final corner polishing….and they are just beautiful! Unfortunately, I cannot show you how pretty they are, as this week all the interior painting is taking place….and the countertops are safely protected, not to be fully unveiled until it’s safe! However, I DID give you a sneak peek. Next time you see them, I hope you love them as much as I do!

I can hardly wait to reveal the gorgeous new kitchen backsplash I switched to this past week! I changed from a basic greige subway tile to an iridescent subway that pulls in the grays, bronzes and aquas in sight of the kitchen, very very subtly. Pictures do not do justice to this lovely tile, so just know I’ll show you very soon!

Finally in closing, thanks go to Ashleigh and her crew from Stone Link….your professionalism is much appreciated! And to Nancy with Coburns, who listened between the lines and made my selections easy, thanks to you as well! Both companies are a great resource to us in this area; please check our their showrooms next time you’re dreaming up a project at your own house!

Here’s what is coming up this week:

Window trim-out, crown moulding, door facings and base mouldings installed

Interior painting

Small carpentry ‘fixes’ including the finished step from master bath to bedroom and uneven floor fill-in (where walls were removed)

Tile installation

happy fall!

set your clocks back next Saturday night!

For adventures in stone countertop choice & installation, read on! Meet Ashleigh, my HERO from Stone Link; she may look young, but Ashleigh is super knowledgeable about all types of stone, quartz, tile, sinks, iron doors....and probably much more I don't even know about!

#pre-cut granite #renovation #urban cottage #Coburns Kitchen & Bath Showroom #fixer upper #Quartz countertops #Stone Link Longview

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