#[ and I never thought in a million YEARS I would have a Rana to write this with so I have my favorite artist who I check on daily who

[coldjustness]

@pactheld

obligatory cuddle drawing bc I’m still obsessed with Neve and her long-suffering frenemyship situationship with Knight-Templar Rana Savas in Tevinter Nights

[emolgabrine]

It's my birthday so I decided to write a short hurt/comfort fic with Steve and Alex.

Tw: Natural disasters, flooding, drowning, minor character death, grieving.

-----

The tide is already in their homes, and now they have to resort to sitting on the roof. Severn has no idea what is going on, but he knows he is in danger. He is seven years old, not much older than his friend Rana and a year younger than Beast Boy. He looks at his dads in fear, as if Stephan and Garrett will be able to save everyone somehow.

Stephan is a warrior and he protects his family and friends with his iron blade, while Garrett is a fisher, catching food and other things by the ocean they live next to. They are an unstoppable duo in Severn's eyes and his role models.

"This is it, this is the end." Stephan hugs his husband and his child tightly.

Screaming is suddenly heard from other roofs, sobbing and frantic prayers following it. Severn looks around until he sees a giant wall of water, bigger than any of the homes and even the nearby monument. Everything is a blur as Severn starts to cry, the water hitting them harder than any force the child knows of, and the world starts to fade to black.

-----

Steve quickly sits up, shaking and breathing heavily. He brings his knees up to his chest and hugs himself. The nightmare continued to play in his head, the sad memories refusing to fade away.

Steve really wishes he had never regained his memories. He would rather continue to question why he woke up on the shore as a seven year old eleven years ago. The fact he was reincarnated without his friends and family continues to haunt him, friends and family that were taken away from him far too soon.

"Another bad memory?"

Looking to his left, he sees Alex sitting on the bed next to his, a concerned look on her eyes. Four years ago, she had been new to the world, and Steve saw her as a new friend. Now, the two are dating, after three years of being obvious. They genuinely care about each other for who they are and enjoy each others presence.

Steve had been there for Alex when she had needed him most. Now, it is time for her to return the favor.

"I see the tears in your eyes Stevie. Let it out, it's okay. I'm right here, you're safe."

Alex hugs Steve tightly. Steve tried not to cry, but after a few shaky breaths, he can't stop himself. He hugs his girlfriend back, holding her as if she would fade away if he let go. He lets out a huge wail, sobbing into Alex's arms as he unleashes the grief that he hid for so long. Two hours pass, but to Steve, it feels like thirty hours.

As he calms down, a million thoughts go through Alex's head and she has to keep herself from saying any of them. She wipes off the remaining tears on Steve's face and puts her head on his shoulder. They sit together in silence for a little bit, Steve taking comfort in her presence.

"I just don't know how I'll get over this, I was hit out of nowhere with this grief."

Alex looks up at Steve. His hair is a mess and his eyes are red from crying so much. She gives him a comforting smile.

"It'll be fine. You're gonna take time to get over it but you just got some of your past memories back. You'll heal from your pain, like how I was able to."

"I guess. You'll still be there for though, right?"

Alex nods. "How is that a question? Of course I will. I'm not going to abandon you because of one stupid thing, I'll never abandon you in the first place. I've done so much stupid shit and you're still by my side."

Steve smiles for a moment. "Asking me to leave you behind is like asking me to break bedrock." He takes a deep breath. "Thank you Sunshine, I needed this."

Alex kisses him on the cheek. "I'm just doing my job here Moonlight."

[sumayyahwrites]

Fashion in the time of COVID

WILL THE PANDEMIC LEAD TO A MORE ETHICAL, SUSTAINABLE INDUSTRY?

"We went way too far. Our reckless actions have burned the house we live in. We conceived of ourselves as separated from nature, we felt cunning and almighty. We usurped nature, we dominated and wounded it."  

Alessandro Michele, Creative Director of Gucci

Gucci's creative director Alessandro Michele posted 1,200 words of poetic, impassioned diary excerpts on Instagram, making one thing abundantly clear, Gucci, and possibly the fashion industry as a whole would never be the same again.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit the fashion world hard, gravely impacting all of its global capitals. Even before the virus struck, the industry was ailing. What happens now that no one's compelled to dress up from the waist down? And with our precarious place in the world coming into sharp relief, shopping for season “must-haves” seemed not only frivolous but immoral.

In March, Vogue partnered with the Council of Fashion Designers of America to set up A Common Thread, a pandemic-relief initiative that has raised $4.9 million to date. By May, more than 1,000 companies applied for aid, with even the biggest names on the precipice of an uncertain future.

In the interest of damage control, there has been industry talk of pushing the unreleased 2020 collections to 2021. It's curious that this requires we literally disavow the concept of fashion itself; that amorphous behemoth that tells us whether midi skirts are in or out this season.

With no end in sight to this state of flux, could this be an opportunity for the industry to ask itself some serious existential questions?

THE PROBLEM WITH FASHION

"We didn't respect the planet until now and in a way this [pandemic] is a message and unfortunately it's a very, very heavy message. Change had to be done. Everyone thought that the change would happen gradually, but that's not the case. Change has to be done now, and done quickly."

Sara Maino, Deputy Editor in Chief of Vogue Italia  

Before the fashion world spiralled out of control, you had four seasons in the four major fashion capitals - London, Paris, New York and Milan. But the emergence of fast fashion accelerated the situation to a dizzying degree. Brands were sucked into the vortex of insatiable consumer demand. The pressure on luxury and high-street alike to drop new trends at higher speeds and lower costs had designers in a hamster wheel trying to outpace the copycats. "We were out of breath", admits Gucci’s Alessandro Michele, referring to fashion's unrelenting schedule of up to eight collections per year.

In her book, 'Fashionopolis: The Price Of Fast Fashion And The Future Of Clothes', Dana Thomas takes an unflinching look at the catastrophic environmental and human cost of this obsession with newness. Fast fashion refers to the production of masses of cheap, trendy clothes at breakneck speeds. Thomas refers to this as "a dirty, unscrupulous business that exploited humans and Earth alike".

Fashion is one of our biggest global polluters, "responsible for nearly 20 per cent of all industrial pollution annually" and "10 per cent of the carbon emissions in our air". Deep down, we knew our clothes often were made by desperate people in unthinkably dire situations; how could we forget the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh that took the lives of more than a thousand factory workers? Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic has made the human cost of fast fashion devastatingly clear. Crowded, unhygienic environments coupled with exploitative employment and a shady supply chain left brands with no accountability and employees with no pay.

According to Thomas, we buy five times more clothes than the previous generation, with the average garment being worn only seven times before being thrown on the scrap heap. There's no escaping the pangs of guilt that many of us experience with these suspiciously cheap garments. However, there is also no denying that slow fashion can be prohibitively expensive.

Should caring about the environment be a privilege afforded only to the haves, with the blame being placed squarely on the have-nots? And should the onus fall on the consumer to fix the deep-seated problems in the fashion industry or should corporations take responsibility for their exploitative behaviour?

THE SEASON OF DISCONTENT

"At a certain level, most of us were forced to make what the industry told us to make, but it's already proven that the industry is broken. We will now concentrate more on making what we want to make and how we want to make it."

Sonia Carrasco, Fashion Designer and Brand Owner

There are calls for reform, with designer Dries Van Noten urging leading industry figures to sign an open letter setting out some demands. Van Noten wants to reduce the number of runway shows, and the preposterous volume of clothing produced, and sell collections in real-time. That is: bikinis in S/S and coats in A/W. Have you ever been shopping for summer staples, only to find all the season's rejects already relegated to the sales rack? Fashion moves at its own pace darling, a pace at odds with customers' needs. Van Noten says this is about making collections "more environmentally and socially sustainable" with a move towards sustainability throughout the supply chain with less product, less waste and less travel.

Not that Chanel is paying attention, taking customers and press to Capri for its Cruise 2021 pre-collection in June, in the midst of the COVID pandemic. The French fashion house is resolutely old guard, announcing it will stick to six shows: two ready-to-wear, two couture, as well as cruise and Métiers d'Art. Chanel is not alone, with Dior also showcasing its cruise collection physically in Southern Italy.

In response to COVID-19, the British Fashion Council and the Council of Fashion Designers of America released a joint statement, echoing many of Van Noten's concerns. It urges brands, designers and retailers to slow down, with appeals for changes that will benefit customers, improve the wellbeing of the industry and have a positive effect on the environment.

FASHION IN THE TIME OF PANDEMIC

"I try to ask myself what is the meaning of my actions. It's a vital and urgent questioning for me, which demands a careful pause and a delicate listening."

Alessandro Michele, Creative Director of Gucci

The big players in luxury fashion produce between six and eight collections per year, spending an eye-watering amount of money on each show. But is fashion week, with all its excesses and spectacles, gone for good?

The pandemic has led to a cascade of reflection and introspection, and fashion's big players were not unaffected. Saint Laurent announced plans to '"take control of its pace and reshape its schedule". Alessandro Michele has reduced the number of Gucci shows from five to two, nixing both seasons and gender. He writes: "I will abandon the worn-out ritual of seasonalities and shows to regain a new cadence, closer to my expressive call. We will meet just twice a year, to share the chapters of a new story".

After the cancelling of June's men's fashion week in Paris, Louis Vuitton disregarded both the industry's European home-base and its calendar, taking its latest men's show to Shanghai, a big change that signals a significant move towards a consumer-first approach. Which makes perfect sense with shoppers from Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America accounting for the bulk of luxury sales. Is it time to admit that Eurocentric fashion shows are so last season?

Many brands have gone "phygital", which is the somewhat awkward portmanteau describing the hybrid of physical space and digital technologies. With Shanghai and Moscow both fully embracing digital for their fashion weeks in March and April, and Helsinki adopting a purely digital format with innovations such as 3D shows. If more fashion houses go off-piste with localised, digitally amplified events, this could be the death knell for fashion week as we know it.

Another big IRL fashion event on the calendar is the Met Gala, an annual fundraising gala for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York City, and the most-watched fashion/society event of the year. It's usually an occasion for a (very) select few to dress-up in response to the year's theme, in a grand display of fashion as art, with the results ranging from the sublime to the ludicrous. This year it was postponed.

The show must go on, as they say, and it was a group of Gen-Z internet kids known as High Fashion Twitter (or 'hf twitter', because they're too cool for CAPS) hosting the biggest fashion party of the year. On May 4th, instead of the exclusive, highly branded, extremely profitable, marketing opportunity the Met Gala has become, hf twitter brought us an inclusive online celebration of self-expression and diversity. Whether dressing themselves, collaging or using other visual means, the guests shared their 'looks' on Twitter with the hashtag #HFMetGala2020, taking fashion out of the hands of the establishment, if only for a day.

High Fashion Twitter is a loosely structured mix of fashion fans and aficionados, who share inspiration and knowledge while being vocal about industry issues such as representation, sustainability and accountability. And for the event, they purposefully excluded any brands they deemed problematic, such as those known for cultural appropriation.  

FASHION AND SOCIETY

"I understand that, for many, the purpose of a fashion magazine is about escapism, about providing beautiful images of beautiful people in beautiful clothes […] But there are moments when this feels weird. And this is one of those moments."

Emanuele Farneti, editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia

The effects of a global disaster of this magnitude amplified many social justice issues, notably resulting in the backlash over tone-deaf comments from fashion brands about the Black Lives Matter Movement, or their conspicuous, deafening silence. There was nowhere for the industry to hide.

While taking any political stance wasn't de rigueur for most major fashion houses, it's now not only accepted but expected to be in touch with issues facing the wider community. In fact, for some, this out-of-touchness is seen as impossibly callous in a world confronted by human tragedy and economic devastation.

There have been attempts to meet the moment, with efforts such as Vogue's new web series "Good Morning Vogue", fashion's self-proclaimed "wake up call". If the last decade has shifted the discourse around issues such as racism and climate change, then the global pandemic has accelerated it.

FASHION GOING FORWARD

"Through the creation of less product, with higher levels of creativity and quality, products will be valued and their shelf life will increase. The focus on creativity and quality of products, reduction in travel and focus on sustainability […] will increase the consumer's respect and ultimately their greater enjoyment in the products that we create."

The British Fashion Council

Driven by a new generation of socially and environmentally conscious consumers who care where the things they buy come from and where they'll end up, brands have upped their sustainability game. And with the threat of this pandemic acting as a call to action for the fashion industry to slow down and scale down before we find our selves facing a much bigger existential threat.

COVID-19 has caused a significant shift in the mindsets of both brand and consumer, teaching us all to slow down and reset. And should this pass, the things we learnt to value, such as our health, our freedom and hopefully our planet, may eclipse our desire for any conveyor belt of trends.

[creativesage]

(via Leonardo da Vinci: How to See the World Like Nobody Else)

By Zat Rana

In late 2017, Salvator Mundi, one of Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings, sold for $450.3 million.

For a child born out of wedlock in the 15th century, that’s quite an accomplishment. And yet, many would argue that this isn’t even close to being his greatest contribution to humanity.

When the word “Renaissance” is spoken, no one comes to mind faster than da Vinci. Not only was he the embodiment of an artist, but he was also a prolific inventor who contributed to everything from architecture and music to anatomy and geometry.

If you were to form a surface-level impression of this almost-mythical person, it would be hard to come to any other conclusion than the fact that he was a genius. Plain and simple. And that conclusion would indeed be right. He was a genius unlike anyone we’ve ever seen. Whether or not that genius was fully born into him at birth, however, is a different story.

While it’s difficult to draw a definite conclusion about someone who lived more than 500 years ago, it does appear that da Vinci’s genius came more from experience than good fortune, as Walter Isaacson argues in his book.

From a young age, more than any talent beyond what he earned through practice, it’s pretty clear that what drove him was his endless curiosity. Everything else can be traced back to it.

He imagined, he asked, he learned, and he did very ordinary things in an extraordinary way. While his work may be unreplicable, his method isn’t, and it shows how we can nurture similar curiosity in our own lives.

1. Observe Without Predefined Distinctions

If you look through the lens of history and study the lives of many great inventors, builders, and creators, there is a common thread that turns up more often than you would think.

While not always the case, it’s clear that some of the most important contributions that have been added to the flow of culture have been found at the intersection of science and art.

Rather than deep specialization alone, what we see is that the magic of creativity and human ingenuity is a product of the mixing and matching of different fields, perspectives, and people. It’s obvious looking at da Vinci’s contributions that he played at a similar intersection.

One thing, however, that is different about da Vinci is the fact that he didn’t really ever think of it as a distinction. There seemed to be little separation between fields in his observation.

He simply watched, noted, and contextualized things as he saw fit. It wasn’t like he was intentionally studying science one day and art another. To him, they were one and the same thing. They danced together, and it wasn’t possible to understand one without the other.

Although we are seeing more and more talk about the benefits of cross-disciplinary learning and thinking, we still create firm boundaries and are ruled by them like they inherently exist.

The truth is that there is no such thing as science or art beyond the linguistic labels we use to make sense of the different aspects of the world. There is only one reality, and that reality crosses over and mingles with itself in ways that can’t be captured by named disciplines.

Of course, naming, labeling, and creating boundaries helps us better order and make sense of the world, but at the same time, they also restrict our curiosity to a very narrow angle.

If you want to see the world for what it really is, then you have to observe without such bias.

2. Question the Mundane and the Obvious

There are 7,200 pages still left of da Vinci’s famous notebooks. That’s estimated to be about a quarter of the total volume that has ever existed. Even so, they provide incredible insight.

They contain records of his time in both Florence and Milan, they dive into his feelings of doubt and insecurity, and they discuss his relationships with friends and collaborators.

By far the most prominent appearance, however, is that of questions. And not just questions about big and important things, but also questions about seemingly small and unimportant ones. He was literally fascinated by anything and everything. In his own words:

“I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand. Why shells existed on the tops of mountains along with the imprints of coral and plants and seaweed usually found in the sea. Why the thunder lasts a longer time than that which causes it, and why immediately on its creation the lightning becomes visible to the eye while thunder requires time to travel. How the various circles of water form around the spot which has been struck by a stone, and why a bird sustains itself in the air. These questions and other strange phenomena engage my thought throughout my life.”

While the importance of asking questions to find answers isn’t lost on most of us, to many people, some of these questions may seem uninteresting and irrelevant to their lives.

The thing they overlook, however, is that what is uninteresting and even obvious on the surface may just hold an undiscovered treasure when explored in depth. Very few things are interesting on the surface. Often, we have to make them interesting by digging into them.

Many of these questions didn’t immediately add anything to da Vinci’s works of art, but they added to the richness with which he saw the world, and that richness contributed to the way he painted valleys and rivers, landscapes and mountains, and even bodies and smiles.

There is a whole world of things worth your curiosity, but you have to look to find them.

3. Experiment like It’s Always a Work in Progress

The curse of perfectionism isn’t uncommon. It instills fear and doubt, and at some point or another, it plagues anyone who makes decisions, whether it be artists or business people.

The most apparent downside of such perfectionism is that it stops production and creation. It paralyzes people into never completing what they need to put out into the world to progress.

Given the quality of da Vinci’s painting, it’s perhaps no surprise that he was also conflicted by the need to produce only the best. In fact, the vast majority of the work he began was left unfinished, and even what he did finish, sometimes, took years and decades to complete.

For da Vinci, however, it went a step further. It wasn’t just that he needed to put his best work out there, but he also never wanted to stop improving something. What he created was always a work in progress because he knew that he wasn’t done mastering new techniques.

The Mona Lisa, for example, is thought to have been produced over the course of 10 to 14 years. Even at that point, it appears likely that da Vinci still didn’t consider it fully completed.

There were tweaks to be made and new methods to employ. When debating the possible dates of the painting, some scholars argue that parts of it could only have been done towards the end of his life due to the style used. Da Vinci was refining his skill until death.

The insight here isn’t necessarily that you shouldn’t ever finalize what you produce or decide — you should — but more that even when something is done, it can still be improved upon.

Reality isn’t static, and neither are your decisions and productions. They can and should be refined over time, and it’s on you to experiment enough to ensure you’re better tomorrow.

All You Need to Know

To conflate curiosity with genius may seem irresponsible, but when you think about curiosity as a measure of your engagement and connection to your surroundings, it isn’t too far off.

Leonardo da Vinci saw the world like nobody else, but the reason he did so was due to the choices he made in his interactions with it. He chose to always be aware and attuned.

The way you interact with and understand reality informs the parts of it that stand out to you. Curiosity is a subtle but potent weapon that each and every one of us can use to influence it.

Being curious isn’t a guarantee of any kind of ingenuity, but there is no genius without it.

The internet is noisy

I write at Design Luck. It’s a free high-quality newsletter with unique insights that will help you live a good life. It’s well-researched and easy-going.

Join 25,000+ readers for exclusive access.

[Entire post — click on the title link to read it on Medium.]

***

You’re working on your goals, and your team’s goals. We can help you spring into action and develop a real plan that you can implement in a smart way, so you’ll start seeing results immediately, before you feel discouraged. If you feel that you’ve already gone off-track, we can help you get your focus, courage, and motivation back.

At  Creative Sage™, we often coach and mentor individual clients, as well as work teams, in the areas of change management, building resilience, making personal, career or organizational transitions — including to retirement, or an “encore career” — and facilitating development of leadership, creativity and collaboration capabilities. We also work with clients on work/life balance, focus and productivity issues.

We guide and mentor executives, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, artists, and creative professionals of all generations, to help them more effectively implement transition processes, and to become more resilient in adjusting to rapid changes in the workplace — including learning effective coping techniques for handling failure, as well as success. We work with on-site and virtual teams.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to discuss your situation. You can also call us at 1-510-845-5510 in San Francisco / Silicon Valley. Let’s talk! An initial exploratory phone conversation is free. When you talk with me, I promise that I’ll always LISTEN to you with open ears, mind and heart, to help you clarify your own unique path to a higher vista of success.

              ~Cathryn Hrudicka, Founder, CEO and Chief Imagination Officer of Creative Sage™, Executive Coach, Consultant, and Mentor.

***