#(you can see them on my self portrait in the about section on my site !!)

[squisheebugdoodles]

This was a revenge on YavinTheSloth of two of our sonas hanging out and making cookies together!! 83> we're same hat!!

The Bunny character belongs to @slothfulartist !!

[megashadowdragon]

Kasumi Yoshizawa & Japanese Sociocultural Issues (Persona 5 Royal Character Analysis) comments on youtube :

Forgot to mention that we don't really know the "true" Kasumi at the end of the day, only Sumire's perception of her. The fact Coach Hiraguchi's insight is such a shock to Sumire just further proves that Sumi's narrative bias likely plays a part in how we the players perceive Kasumi. It's not a huge deal in this video, since it's Sumi we're trying to analyze here anyway, so it's just food for thought!

The "respect for anyone older" aspect of East-Asian values is interesting to me. P5 shows where it can go wrong and that's something a lot of westerners latch on to, but there's a flipside to it. Asian cultures respect the elderly far more than the west does. When my grandmother spent her final years in a nursing home, the most caring staff to her were all of East-Asian backgrounds, and she and my mother grew very annoyed at how dismissive westerners could be of the aging members of society. (Not so relevant to this vid, just wanted to mention that) Cu Cuchulainn and Scathach were mentor and student, wonder if them being encounters in Maruki's Palace is symbolic. What little we see of Kasumi and Sumire's relationship is interesting. Yes Kasumi was showing "on", but I feel she was doing it in an unintentionally condescending way that was ultimately hurting Sumire mentally. A lot went unsaid between then and I'm sure they could have worked things out if Sumire had the courage to tell her about it, but it went bottled up for so long that the traffic incident happened. Sumire seems to have had a bit of supressed resentment over never having her own feelings considered, always being stuck in her sister's shadow (in more ways than one, talking about Persona). Again, Kasumi wasn't a bad person, it was just a tragedy of unexpressed feelings. (You basically said that in the "Gaman" section) On "gaman", I wonder if it plays into tropes of the traditional Shounen protagonist, always persevering to get stronger. This character trope has fallen out of favour in anime recently, replaced by the Isekai protag who already starts strong and only gets stronger with little effort. I wonder why? Wish-fulfilment, gaman falling out of favour in society, or a bit of both? Sadly there's a bit of an aversion to seeking therapy in the west too, but it's definitely worse in Japan. I held off on going to therapy for a long time and I feel my university years would have been a LOT happier if I'd done it sooner. I always had that feeling of "if I go, I'm admitting that I'm crazy." Side note: the clothing store owner talking about "carnivore" and "herbivore" energy... if I'm remembering my Japanese classes right, those are dating slang over there. Coach Hiraguchi's a pretty underrated character and I wish we got to see more of her. Good point about her portraits reverting at the end of the game. And also 23:53 YES, THIS THIS THIS THIS!!!!! That bothered me so much of my first playthrough of Royal I had to ask people "did I miss Sumire's goodbye or does she really not get one?!" It made me think of a Friends quote from the 2nd last episode. Sumire: "I don't get a goodbye?! Sure it's hard to say goodbye to 22 Confidants, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye gh- IT'S PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE! It's not like I awakened my Persona with you, saved the world with you, dated you oh wait a minute wait a minute I DID ALL THOSE THINGS!!" So overall, Sumire feels like a Persona 4 character arc in Persona 5's world. While all the other PTs had an abuser they had to learn to stand up to, Sumire's abuser was HERSELF. (Some would argue Maruki, but imo what Maruki did was a "seemed like a good idea at the time" that really did prevent her from committing suicide in the short-term, but we'll get into him later) This might not be true of everyone, but these kinds of characters are the ones I really relate to, as someone who suffers from self-esteem issues and, not exactly a fear of failure but more... a "fear everything you do is a failure"? General feelings of worthlessness. I also struggled with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder all through university without knowing I had it until I saw a therapist (it is NOTHING like pop culture says it is, I'd recommend looking it up on medical sites. It's more about intrusive, distressing thoughts than obsession with order and cleaning), so in a way my own mind was literally my enemy for a lot of my life and that's a big part of why Persona 4's Shadows used to scare me so much. The stigma around therapy is awful, because it was only after it that I started to turn things around. (This is why Maruki's a favourite of mine too but we'll get to him later)

[janaikam]

Adrien Protection Squad

HAPPPY BIRTHDAY APS!!!! I love all of y’all so so much! Thank you for all your help and support in my writing and my attempts at art! I hope you enjoy this little fic I wrote for you all!

Thank you @macaronsforchat for betaing!!!

Summary: Alya discovers a fun little website and decides that she wants to share it with her friends.

Read on AO3

“You will not believe what I discovered last night,” Alya said, sitting down at the bakery’s table.

The ‘Fab Four’, as the school called them, had planned on spending the Saturday together, meeting up at the Dupain-Cheng residence.

Marinette had been surprised when she was not the last one to the table her parent’s reserved for them. Usually, she was late because she underestimated how long it took her to get ready.

When Marinette had come down earlier, Adrien and Nino had just been casually talking. They were sitting across from each other with a plate of croissants in between them.

Marinette had taken the seat next to her boyfriend and grabbed a croissant for herself.

It didn’t take much longer before burst Alya in.

“What did you find, oh wise one?” Marinette asked sarcastically.

“There is an Adrien Agreste Protection Squad Blog.”

Adrien, who was mid-bite of a croissant, coughed, choking a bit on the pastry. Marinette patted his back in an effort to help.

“Why is that such a surprise? We already knew our dude Adrien had a fan club,” Nino questioned, winking towards Adrien.

Marinette noticed how Adrien flushed, his face becoming even redder.

“This one’s way different. Like it’s almost obsessive, but not in a creepy way if you get what I mean.” Alya pulled out her phone, loading the webpage for them to see. “It’s like one big chat room. There’s a section for general chatting, admiring anything you’ve been in, there’s even fan art and fan fiction.”

At the disgusted faces of the group, Alya quickly added, “Nothing inappropriate. It’s all pretty well moderated and contained. Surprisingly there aren’t a lot of self-inserts.”

“Alya! Did you read some of them!?” Marinette couldn’t decide whether she wanted to know more or stop Alya from talking. It was all weird to her.

“Only a few.” Alya waved her hand dismissively. “Apparently you fans think you’re some super suave guy or you’re just a weeb. There’s no in-between.”

“Well they’re wrong. He’s both,” Marinette said, kissing Adrien on his cheek. Adrien leaned in a bit closer to her, resting his head on top of her head.

“What else is there Als? Why is this place so unique?” Adrien questioned.

“They aren’t just admirers. There’s a lot of other stuff beyond making stuff about you. There’s a page dedicated to chaos called, Xhosa. There’s one talking something called, sult, which I think is supposed to be a sock cult? Probably has something to do with that floating sock in one of your pictures. My personal favorite though is the one named, Gabriel Agreste has no rights.”

“Glad to know they have a page dedicated to the truth,” Nino commented, leaning in closer to Alya’s phone.

“Yup! It’s pretty neat. They practically bash him because he’s a trash parent and ya know the whole supervillain thing,” Alya explained. “They go about it such a detailed manner and from what I can tell most of it was before Ladybug and Chat Noir stopped him.”

Under the table, Marinette squeezed Adrien’s hand. Everything with his dad was really complicated since he had just been arrested a few months ago. The trial hadn’t occurred yet, which officially left him under the care of Gabriel, but Adrien had been bouncing between staying with Marinette and Nino until things were finalized.

“These seem like my kind of people! What’s this xhosa tab?” Nino clicked on the link, which brought them to a chat room type place. Compared to some of the other pages they had seen this one seemed to be really disorganized.

Based on the name in the chat, it seemed like everyone was pretending to be a knock off of some other person. Marinette couldn’t really tell who because the chat was moving so fast.

“This chat is always like this from what I can tell. I think this is what they call an apocalypse, where they change their usernames to be something similar. Honestly, it’s all really confusing, and this page gives me a headache every time I see it.”

Alya clicked on the fanart tab, which had lots of art of Adrien. Some pieces had pictures with Marinette in them, while others had the Fab Four. Marinette couldn’t help but stare in awe at some of the different art styles on the screen.

“Woah,” she breathed.

“Yeah, it’s really cool,” Alya scrolled down the page a bit, stopping at a familiar piece of art. “Remember that person who vamped up that self-portrait you did?”

Adrien nodded.

Marinette remembered it really well too. They had just been passing some time with a fun little Instagram tag game and someone had taken Adrien’s cute little self-portrait and turned it into an amazing piece of art.

“That girl is on this site too! She had some other stuff too, but I have to say the collaboration was on point!”

“I’m honestly still surprised someone thought to make that for me. It was a really nice surprise.” Adrien squinted his eyes a bit. “Hey what’s that events tab?”

“It’s just a few things that they’ve done collectively as a blog. A secret Santa, an Easter event, blog birthday. Things like that.”

“What could they have possibly done for Easter?” “Ooh, when was their birthday?”

Alya ignored Nino’s question in favor of Adrien’s. Probably because there was a lot an Adrien server could’ve done for Easter.

“Their birthday is in a couple of days actually. Wanna do something?”

XXXX

Marinette gave Adrien a thumbs up as she pressed record on the camera.

Adrien had decided to make a video for the people of the fan site.

Marinette thought it was a great way to show appreciation to them, so she was helping Adrien create his video.

They had set up a little recording area in her room, and all that was left was for Adrien to record the video.

“Uh, hi there...It’s me, Adrien. Oh, wait you probably knew that already.” Adrien laughed nervously, pausing in his speech.

Marinette gave him an encouraging smile and thumbs up. Adrien smiled softly, thanking her through his eyes.

Taking a deep breath, Adrien continued, “I wanted to say thank you for creating this amazing website dedicated to me. I can really feel all the Adrien appreciation, and I love how you all seem like an inviting community. I’m so thrilled to know that I have indirectly contributed to creating such a wonderful community. Thank you. And just know Adrien loves everyone on the Adrien Protection Squad!”

[tinkerd]

Interview with www.achuka.co.uk

See Original post here: https://www.achuka.co.uk/blog/meet-an-illustrator-14-david-litchfield/

Meet An Illustrator 14 – David Litchfield APRIL 17, 2021 BY ACHUKA  self-portrait © David Litchfield

ACHUKA is thrilled to have David Litchfield as the 14th guest on Meet An Illustrator, an informal weekend feature introduced this year.. Do visit the backpages  to read the responses from previous guests.

The Bear And The Piano, David’s debut picture book, was published just 5 years ago, but he is already established as one of the UK’s leading illustrators and picture book creators. That debut title won Waterstones Illustrated Book Prize in 2016. Much more recently he has come to attention as the cover illustrator for David Almond’s Bone Music:

The Bear And The Piano became a trilogy with publication in 2019 of The Bear, The Piano, The Dog And The Fiddle and, this year, with the third title The Bear, The Piano And The Little Bear’s Concert.

A particular favourite of ACHUKA’s is Lights On Cotton Rock:

His 2021 publishing year kicked off with illustrations for A Shelter for Sadness by Anne Booth

and the paperback edition of Rainbow Before Rainbows by Smriti Halls is published this coming week:

Next month (May 2021) we can look forward to Pip And Egg written by Alex Latimer:

and, as we hear below, there is lot lots more to come.

As a child, what were the first illustrations you remember being pleased with?

I think that it was a drawing of a panda. It was in primary school and we all had to draw one. We then put them all on the wall and I remember feeling a bit arrogant and quietly smug that my panda was definitely one of the best ones on that wall.

Who/what inspired you when you were young?

Again at primary school our teacher sat us all down and read us Where The Wild Things Are. I remember being absolutely blown away by Maurice Sendak‘s drawings and characters and totally felt transported away from the reading mat in that classroom to that dreamy monster island. Mr Sendak and Albert Uderzo were absolutely the two biggest influences on making me want to draw every day.

Who inspires you today?

Still mainly Sendak and Uderzo. But I love finding out about new illustrators. There are an infinite amount of styles and techniques and approaches to drawing and I love being surprised by how different people create a spread or tell their stories. My current 2 favourites are Sydney Smith and Frances Ives. They both have such a free and natural style. They are amazing.

Did you study art/illustration?

I actually studied Graphic Design at Camberwell College of Art. Graphic Design felt like the most sensible career choice in the art world. I loved the course and I met some great people there. But I was really shocked at how little drawing was involved. I think more than anything that course showed me how much I really loved to draw and that I just wasn’t a Graphic Designer.

What is your favourite artist tool/product?

It sounds obvious but a pencil and a sketchbook. My absolute favourite part of a project is when it’s just me, a pencil and a sketchbook and I am just letting the idea develop by scribbling and experimenting and making a mess.

Where do you buy your art supplies?

I have two favourite shops here in Bedford. One is called the Arc which sells all kinds of incredible arts supplies and exotic paints and brushes etc. I also like Coleman’s which is obviously more of a standard stationary shop. But I don’t know, I like their pens. I spend far too much money on pens.

What software/apps do you use?

I only really use Photoshop. I tried to get my head around Illustrator but I’m just not that technically minded to be honest. I have had a play with Pro Create but my kids keep stealing my iPad so I have not had enough time to learn it yet.

What was your first commission?

My first commission happened when I was 13 years old and I drew a poster for a local comic shop. They paid me in comics. My first proper paid commission was with The Beano comic. I think that it was in  2013 or so when the editor Michael Stirling found my drawings online. For a few weeks I drew the illustrations that accompanied a poetry section in the comic. It was amazing to be drawing for a comic I had been in love with for most of my life. I will forever be grateful to that team for giving me that opportunity.

What are you working on at the moment?

I am just finishing drawing a pretty epic book written by Gregory Maguire. After that I’m so happy to be working on another ‘Earth’ book with Stacy McAnulty. I love drawing these books, and I learn so much about our planet too. After that I’m starting a beautiful book with the writer Nell Cross Beckerman which is going to be a total stunner. Towards the end of the year I’m creating artwork for my next author/illustrator book too.

Which is all very exciting. I always feel like I’m being very vague when I don’t give too much info but I’m never sure how much I’m actually allowed to say. What I can tell you is that my author/illustrator book is going to be a Christmas story set in Victorian times.

Twitter or Instagram? Instagram I think. I love Twitter but Instagram just feels a lot friendlier. Also as an illustrator it is a great, visual medium to share work on. I have also found so many new great artists from this site.

Coffee or tea?  

I love coffee. But I have had to cut back a lot. I was getting the jitters because I drank it so much. Now I just have two cups a day. And only in the mornings.

Cat or dog?  

Oh my goodness Dog. Dog every time. I always had dogs growing up. They were my best friends. We got a dog last summer. I was adamant that my two boys should have a dog growing up. My wife wasn’t that convinced I don’t think but now that we have one she loves her as much as we do.

Grape or grain? 

Hmmm, both good, but I would have to say grape.

Sunrise or sunset? 

Sunset. I don’t know if it’s a getting older thing but I love sitting in my garden as the sun starts to go down. It’s like a magic time of the day where everything is winding down and becoming peaceful.

What do you listen to when you are working?  

Mainly loud rock music.  But I’ve also started to listen to a fair few podcasts. My favourite ones at the moment are ‘Pod Save America‘- helps me get my head around American politics, which I can sometimes find quite baffling from time to time- and The Force Center – which is a massively geeky Star Wars podcast which has none of the snark and negativity of other fandom type discussions. I recommend it if you are a Star Wars nerd like me.

Where can we follow you on social media? I’m on twitter: @dc_litchfield Instagram: @david_c_litchfield

I also have a blog at:

tinkerd.tumblr.com

and a Facebook page at

facebook.com/davidlitchfieldillustration

-but to be honest I do keep forgetting to update that one.

[battle-of-alberta]

OCtober: Lilith and Red

Once again take a look at the tourism sites. Is there a city you’d rather visit? I’m curious to know!

Lethbridge | Red Deer

Below is some meta stuff about the ‘research’ (if you can even call it that, it was more of a vibe check) I did for re-doing the profiles. Read on, if it intrigues you.

Mid-Sized Cities: Lethbridge and Red Deer

At first glance, it's hard to tell whether trying to fit Lethbridge and Red Deer into the major city rivalry mold is either productive or relevant. The two cities are distribution hubs of their respective regions, have closely competing populations as well as a growing post-secondary community, and are both hitting their stride in representing parts of Alberta that are typically overshadowed by its larger urban centers. There were "no hard feelings" between the two as Lethbridge's stability and its position as a city uniquely independent of the oil and gas boom/bust cycle allowed it to once again surpass Red Deer in size. It seems that there's a long history of commonality and always just enough room to share the third place podium

Website Round Up Premise

While I was revisiting these character profiles, I took a look at how cities represented themselves on their municipal sites and tourism sites rather than how cities were represented in the news or in stereotypes, as the latter already tend to live in the back of my head. I was interested to see who the target audiences for each city were, what they considered their strengths, and how much effort each city put into putting its own identity on display. I was also interested into what ideas sort of fed into any pre-existing confirmation bias I had about each city's personality as well as interested in what narratives might be used to counteract negative stereotypes.

The first thing I tended to notice was the overall information architecture of each city's website. How easy were they to navigate? What kinds of information did they have? How did they organize it? How did they communicate that information?

Municipal: Out and About

Lethbridge's information architecture leaves a little to be desired... instead of the obvious first tab "Living Here", the "About Lethbridge" page was hidden under "Things to Do" (in an ever extending sidebar reminiscent of older web design). The city portrays itself as a "central" location despite being the last major stop before the U.S. border, which is an interesting contrast to Red Deer's "true" central nature. Still, as southern Alberta is the true "birthplace" of the modern province, the city's pride in being the centre of the South is well earned. The About Page includes a lot of geographical and climate statistics and also helpfully defines words such as "coulee" and "chinook" and "viaduct", which are integral to understanding the environmental context. Lethbridge makes up for what it lacks in organization by being the only city to offer a downloadable colouring book on its about page. Underneath this page is a separate City Identity page for city emblems and symbols, with brief explanations and images of each. There are also a couple pages about the history of the city.

Lethbridge also has a page in their "About" section for visitors, linking them to the tourism pages of the city, the region, and suggesting their own "Top Ten" suggested activities for visiting families.

Red Deer has its "About" section as the first tab on its site, although the large number of categories provide different pieces to the puzzle rather than directing a visitor to a single page. Emblems, symbols, facts and trivia are all squirrelled away under "History" (although many of the facts are short of a little context). The "Moving to Red Deer" page has a more general overview, describing the city as "easy to get around" but with amenities of a larger city. There's also a "Downtown Red Deer" page which describes the three districts of the city centre with six themes: great streets, great places, great connections, vitality, authenticity, and sustainability. Finally, there's a section called "We Are Red Deer" with a promotional video and statement about the city, emphasizing "real" (work-life?) balance, a can-do volunteer attitude, and a city that is the ideal blend of urban and rural.

Red Deer also has citizen-contributed stories and i was Entranced by The Case of the Bolting Bovine in which a cow just. got loose in a suburb. great video.

Overall, both city sites struck me as accommodating and trying to be welcoming and accessible, even if those goals weren't always reached. Lethbridge tended to focus more on environment while Red Deer tended to focus more on the welcoming temperament of locals. I also got the initial impression that Red Deer had put a little more thought in their branding than Lethbridge in both organization and self-description; the site was more oriented to new residents than Lethbridge's as well. However, Lethbridge has an excellent "internal" brand in its promotion of its colouring book and the adorable illustrations and animations I found scattered here and there. They also refer to their history through mural art, which strikes a unique contrast with the extensive archival material featured on Red Deer's deep historical pages.

Neither city had a particularly strong guide for prospective residents, but neither city is as concerned as smaller municipalities might be with attracting them.

Tourism: Staycation Destination

Finally, both cities also have tourism pages.

Both cities are providing regular COVD-19 updates and encouraging local tourism. Lethbridge encourages the hashtag #YQLocal while Red Deer suggests #ExploreRedDeersBackyard.

Interestingly, both tourism pages feature "Ask A Local" or "Local Insider" stories and tips that are very cute. Red Deer has a panel of local experts which visitors can direct questions to, such as "What should be the city's motto?" or "What is an iconic Red Deer dish?". Lethbridge structures an entire section of the website as "Insider Tips", which includes frequent blog updates about local events, an "About Lethbridge" page, but most interestingly includes an "Authentic Lethbridge" page. This page features links to sites like TripAdvisor and Twitter where visitors can explore the reviews and hashtags for the city outside of their tourism page, which struck me as an interesting option considering that it was the only tourism site that encouraged looking at information or opinion that was not curated to paint a 'sunday best' portrait of the city.

Tourism: We’re Headed Downtown

Both cities describe themselves on distinct pages.

Lethbridge has an impressive about page in the sense that less is more, a large image of the viaduct sets the tone for the short description below, which is concise if not vivid or particularly unique. It feels as if the site is confident that Lethbridge speaks for itself.

Red Deer's about page is a little more informative, but you'll have to scroll down and squint or you might overlook it. The description is very warm and genuine, painting the city as the heart of a beautiful agritourism destination filled with active and friendly volunteers (which echoes Calgary's Olympic branding...). It also bolds the sentence "We are fiercely proud of our community and the quality of life it affords." and for some reason it sounds just a tiny bit threatening?!

Tourism: Hitchhiker’s Guide

Both cities have downloadable guides.

It's kind of adorable that Lethbridge takes full advantage of having a digital guide and embeds teeny tiny YouTube videos on the cover and throughout the pages. This year's guide also basically admits straight up that 2020 kind of sucks, and I respect that.

Red Deer's guide is from last year and has a beautiful, colourful design. The theme of this guide is "Adventure" from cover to cover, and the image/text balance is well employed.

It's interesting to see the different priorities of each guide. Lethbridge tends to focus more on museums, galleries, cultural experiences and interpretive centers before looking towards the great outdoors, dining, and sport. Red Deer's guide launches right into extreme sports and the local food scene, which are similarly reflected as the top two draws on their website. It is pretty interesting that this is very often the case for other analyses I've made: Southern Alberta seems to be more concerned with arts and culture while Northern Alberta is a little more sport and recreation. (And since the major cities are the only ones left and I have an Edmonton bias, I'm interested to see how my own tourism site is going to spin what I think I know to be true, haha.)

I got the impression Lethbridge assumed its visitors would be visiting family in the area - maybe it's due to COVID-19 restrictions that family is their focus this year, but I'd be curious to see if this continues. Red Deer's guides were naturally much more focused on the urban corridor traffic and really stressed an "escape" for commuters.

[phantom-soldat]

Meeting Sebastian Stan. 

This is not an opportunity I ever expected to have, at least not anytime soon. When he was first announced to be a guest at MCM Comic Con (London, May 2019) I had a bunch of people tagging me in the announcement post. Sebastian is an actor that means a lot to me - He’s caring and has struggled with a lot of the same things that I struggle with; from anxiety to depression, and generally being a bit lost in the world. We’ve all seen the posts of him commenting on fan’s posts, giving them advice while simultaneously putting more positivity and support into the world. For this reason, and more, he is incredibly inspiring and important to me. I aspire to be as supportive, caring, loving, goofy and giving as this man. 

So, when he was announced, I knew I had to meet him. For me, it wasn’t an option: I had to. It was simply too important for me not to. 

One thing I had wanted to do before I met him was get a tattoo of the Winter Soldier, however, due to money issues and time, etc, I had never had the opportunity to get one before comic con. Until comic-con. Another opportunity came up when MCM announced that they were having tattoo artists at the convention, and so I booked in with a lovely lady by the name of Laura, from Empire INK in Edinburgh. Thankfully, I managed to save up enough money for the tattoo - Through both selling possessions and saving up money from my day-job. 

She was absolutely lovely and great with communicating the design I had in mind. I wanted something to match the other tattoos on the opposite arm; a portrait, with his signature at the bottom (on my opposite arm I have a Hela portrait). The Bucky tattoo would be on my left inner forearm, covering self-harm scars with something - someone/a character - that means so much to me. Bucky, much like myself, has been through a lot of mental issues. He’s lost, finding his way, but despite all of the issues he’s had? He’s made it through it all, he’s continued fighting despite all of the challenges he’s faced... and that’s something I can remind myself: I can fight and get through the challenges I face. I will survive, and have survived. The significance of this tattoo, and getting Sebastian to sign it, was and is extremely important to me. 

Which leads to the first picture. 

First picture.  So, on the first day of comic-con (the Friday) Sebastian wasn't there. This was the day I booked in for a full-day session for my tattoo. Laura, my artist, was absolutely ecstatic as she’s also a fan of the guy, and was super pumped to find out that Sebastian would be seeing her work. The session lasted for, roughly, seven hours with only one five-minute break for both my artist and I to have something to eat. During the course of the tattoo, the MCM staff came up to view the process of the tattoo; the security were very excited about it, and got the media team to come down to the section of the hall where all of the tattoo artists were. It was all very exciting, talking to them was lovely - They were all so supportive, kind and frequently returned throughout the course of the day to see the process. Alas, the media team turned up and took a few photos: One of which winded up on the MCM social media sites: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Both Laura and I freaked out, it was getting a lot of attention. 

Second/third picture.  Saturday came around fairly quickly. This was the day where I would try to get my autograph - The day I HAD to get it, as to not disturb the healing process of my tattoo. I was dressed as Wakanda Bucky that day, deciding to cosplay something more comfortable due to both the pain from my arm, the hot weather, and the fact that I couldn’t restrict my arm in tight costumes. 

Before the convention, I had put together a little gift-box for Sebastian to give back to him the love, care and gratitude he gives to his fans. Inside, there was a Winter Soldier book (Civil War) that I had made him; personalised on the inside to, firstly, look like it held Winter Soldier documents which lead on to messages I had collected from fans. All stories about how he had changed their lives for the better, how he had made a positive impact on the world. I included other gifts, too, like a t-shirt (that says ‘Straight Outta Cryo’, much like his ‘Straight Outta Romania’ shirt), some drawings of mine, a Bucky, Nat and Sam tsum-tsum and a little lego figurine of Bucky. 

So, with the box in my arms, I waited for about an hour and a half in the autograph queue. Although I missed his panel, it was worth it, because I knew that if I had attended that I would only spend more time waiting, and less time with my friends later on. 

While waiting in the queue, I was alone and full of anxiety. This was a big moment for me. I’d actually see him. Meet him. Something I’d been waiting for years and years to have the opportunity for. People were trying to snag sneaky pictures of him: going on their friends shoulders just to get a peak of the infamous Seb Stan. 

Eventually, it was my turn to walk up to the table where he was signing. Due to the sheer amount of people that were there, it was very rushed, for they wanted to get through as many people as possible: I knew this going in, and so I’d been going over and over what I’d say to him in my head. With a smile, he greeted me; it was clear that he was tired, having flown in the previous morning and hadn’t stopped working since. Rumour has it he worked through his breaks to continue meeting fans - between the photo-ops, the panels and the signings he must have been really exhausted, with jet-lag on top of that, and so I felt really bad for the guy. 

In brief words I explained my gift to him, and he smiled and let out a laugh upon hearing what the t-shirt said. At the time he didn’t open the box, because it was simply too busy to do so and the convention staff were pushing him to continue  going through as many people as he could. In the panel I had missed, or the panel the next day (I can’t remember which one) I believe he referenced this and said how he wished he could spend more time with us all, and talk to us all properly. I still treasure every second I got to spend with him, though, because as previously stated, it was a moment that is extremely close to heart, and I know a lot of people wouldn’t have had this opportunity (this was also why I gathered fan messages, so that I could give him something from them in-case they never do have this opportunity). 

The convention staff got me to show him what I wanted signed: Most people brought posters, or pop-vinyls, but I showed him my arm and said I’d like my wrist tattooed. He delicately held my hand and arm as he signed it, and then I was on my way once I had thanked him. 

Afterwards, I immediately called up my bestfriend and burst into tears. I had met him. I had thanked him. I had given him a gift and, now, I would have his autograph on me forever, knowing that I have a very personal reminder to myself: I can do this. Whatever ‘this’ is, I can do it. 

Due to the overwhelming emotions I was having, the busy crowds, the heat, and the pain and toll the tattoo session the previous day had caused me, I did have quite a big panic-attack. During this time, I had to go outside and get some fresh air, but my best-friend stayed on the phone with me and calmed me down - I am eternally grateful for his friendship and support, and for moments like these when he helps ground me back to reality. 

This leads on to the next photo; where, once I’d had some fresh air, a drink and some food, I went back inside to get the signature tattooed. Once again, Laura and I freaked out over it, and I told her all about it excitedly as she finished up tattooing the autograph and shading around it. She even went back over the little red star at the top of my wrist, which Seb had signed over. Laura did an amazing job with the tattoo, and worked the signature into it flawlessly. I can’t thank her enough. 

Sunday.  This was the day that my photo-op was booked (that was an entire process of its own. Tickets sold out within 2-3 minutes - I am so, SO thankful that I managed to snag one). Much like the autograph process, the MCM staff were trying to get through as many people as possible, and so the entire thing was very ‘click and go’. Generally, this is the case with photo-ops at conventions - It’s less personal, more of a ‘capture the moment’ type of thing. 

On this day, I was dressed as Black Widow from The Winter Soldier. It wasn’t the best costume I have ever worn, admittedly, but I was excited for my photo-op none the less. My costume broke on the way to the con, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me, and once again I was waiting in a long line for one last moment with Sebastian. 

I knew that he likes Bucky and Natasha’s relationship in the comics, and that he would’ve liked them to be together in the movies. This is a ship that I also sail, along with Stucky, but I thought that being Nat would be a lot better as it’s also something that he enjoys. I actually managed to capture a sneaky video on my phone of me approaching him during the photo-op. They were very strict about no-photos apart from the one you paid for, which I understand, but at the same time, this was too important for me not to try and grab sneaky videos, etc. So I did. Sue me. (Please don’t, I’m going to be a poor student soon). 

As I approached him during the photo-op, he looked a lot less tired, which I was thankful to see. He greeted me with a smile once more, and I showed him my finished tattoo - I kind of stood my ground and spoke to him very briefly before the photo-op was taken. Most people were conveyor belted through their sessions with him, but I was determined to show him the finished product. With a smile and an expression somewhat akin to awe, he said that it was amazing. We soon moved onto talking about what I wanted for the photo-op, and it took a split second for us both to get into position. 

I wanted to look as if we were dancing romantically, as Natasha has a history of ballet. The final photo in the post was my photo-op, and I couldn’t be happier with it. It was a very full-on weekend, but I enjoyed every second of it. 

Thank you MCM for giving me, and others, the opportunity to meet such an amazing man. Thank you Sebastian for flying all the way to London to take the time to meet your fans in England. Thank you Laura, for being an amazing tattoo-artist and for the nerdy talks we had during my tattoo session, and for giving me a piece of work on my art that is very, very treasured to me; and, finally, thank you to all of my friends for supporting and loving me, for continuously encouraging me to step out of my comfort zone and to keep on fighting. 

And continue fighting on I will, just like Bucky. 

[rossenrasch29-blog]

Health, Healing, And Rejuvenating.

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[sapphicscholar]

Chapter Text:

“Agent Alex Danvers, FBI.” Alex flashed her badge at the NCPD officer stuck on front desk duty.

He barely deigned to look up from the sports section of the newspaper propped up in front of him. “Yes?”

“I have a meeting with Officer”—Alex glanced down at the index card with the scrawled name of the woman Kara had picked out of their virtual lineup of NCPD officers—“Maggie Sawyer.”

“One minute.”

Alex tapped her foot as she waited for him to call her.

“Sawyer? … Yeah, some fed’s here to see you. You want me to send her to you? … Alright.” He looked back up at Alex. “She’ll be here in a minute. You can take a seat.”

Alex glanced over at the rows of plastic chairs bolted to the floor, opting to stand instead. After a few moments, a small woman strode into the waiting area. With a smile that seemed less than certain on her face, she raised her hand in greeting. “You’re here to see me?”

“Officer Sawyer?”

“Detective Sawyer, but yes, that would be me.”

“My name is Alex Danvers. I’m an agent with the FBI unit that your division has expressed interest in supporting on the occasional small case.” She held up her badge as a show of good faith, even if it was a faked ID.

“I don’t think that’s quite how we phrased it, but sure, come on back.”

Alex followed behind Maggie, watching the way her hips swayed slightly with every step, drawing her attention—nowhere, absolutely nowhere. She shook her head and sped up to walk at Maggie’s side.

Once they were settled in one of the small meeting rooms, Maggie sank into a chair, steepling her hands on the table in front of her and regarding Alex with a slight tilt to her head. “What can I do for you, Agent Danvers?”

“I figured it would be good to meet after the first extraterrestrial threat in which you and your division”—Alex bit back words like “meddled” or “got in the way” or “talked about things you couldn’t understand”—“intervened.”

“Mm, right. The K’hund.”

“I…yes. Did Supergirl speak to you?”

Alex couldn’t help but notice the way Maggie rolled her eyes at the question, feeling herself bristle in turn. “No. You think I need Supergirl to give me information as basic as the kind of alien we’re dealing with?”

“It’s just, certain things aren’t exactly common knowledge.”

“Most things aren’t common knowledge. But once it’s your job, you learn them.” Maggie said it so matter-of-factly that Alex almost found herself nodding right along with her.

“Some things are classified, though, and there will be situations in which we at the FBI will need to be the ones to call the shots and take point.”

“You mean steal jurisdiction and leave us in the dark.”

Alex ground her teeth together, hearing J’onn’s voice in her head telling her to play nice. “I mean ensure that the situation is handled appropriately.”

“With no oversight or care for the aliens’ rights.”

“Do you have any idea about the K’hund you were dealing with?” Alex scoffed, pushing her hair back from her face. “He’d been imprisoned before. Twice actually. Even if we ignore his prior records, here on Earth he went out on a spree destroying armored vehicles, abetting criminals in stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of gold, killing or seriously injuring almost a dozen guards in the process.”

“So there are trial records?” Maggie arched an eyebrow as she held Alex’s gaze, the corner of her mouth curling up slightly as though she were enjoying herself.

“You have a jail cell to hold someone who can crumple a car into a ball of metal with his bare hands?”

Maggie shrugged. “Even if the containment is on you, there are rights that shouldn’t be abridged.”

“I—you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh really? Do I still not know what I’m saying when I look at that fake badge of yours and call your bluff ’cause I can tell you’re DEO from a mile away?”

Alex felt her hands curling into fists. “I can see this was a pointless meeting.”

“What? Mad that someone might not let you get away with running a black ops site in the middle of nowhere?” Maggie yelled after her, but Alex was already through the door and striding back outside.

On the drive to the DEO, Alex called J’onn, grumbling loudly about pain in the ass cops who should learn to stay in their own lanes.

“Alex, please tell me that the working partnership is still intact.”

“It is. I left, but I didn’t yell at her…not really.” She could hear J’onn sigh through the line.

“These orders are coming from high above me. With the President’s new Alien Amnesty Act signed into law, we’re going to see more and more changes.”

“But—”

“Alex, some of them will be good. People like me, like your sister—we might be able to live openly, and even if I'm still not certain about how it will work in practice, it is law now. But that means that things like alien rights will need to be a consideration. The way we’re operating now might no longer work.”

“Okay, fine. Say you stole from a store. Sure, you should get a trial. But J’onn, these Fort Rozz aliens have intergalactic rap sheets that go on for pages!”

“And a few of them were subjected to an unduly strict justice system and given life sentences for petty crimes that might only have garnered fines and community service here.”

“What about the ones trying to kill my sister, J’onn? I’m supposed to let the cops throw some flimsy handcuffs on them and put them in front of a jury of people they could kill with a single punch and call that justice?”

“It’s—it’s more complicated than that. We are not ceding control completely. But the new law means there will be cooperation. It means being a little more upfront and self-reflective.” A pause. “I’ve not been the most open to these changes, but I’ve been working to understand them. I think Kara might be a step ahead of both of us here. Perhaps it would be wise to listen to her.”

“Maybe.” Alex was anything but convinced.

“Change is coming whether we like it or not. We’ll do well to get out in front of it, set the terms of these partnerships while it’s still in our power to do so.”

Alex hummed in understanding. She’d adapt; she could do that. But ceding any amount of control to Detective Sawyer? That would happen over her dead body.

---

Alex spent her evening reading through the articles Kara and Cat had been writing about the Alien Amnesty Act and alien rights over the past few months. She remembered listening to Kara rave about having the opportunity to work with Cat “as equals, Alex, can you believe it?” but she had heard so much about the articles while Kara was writing them that she never got around to reading the final drafts, let alone Cat’s pieces.

Begrudgingly, she admitted that they made a few good points. The interviews they had done with aliens from across National City had moved Alex in ways she hadn’t expected. There were children forced into home-schooling because they couldn’t pass as human, and adults forced into manual labor without any protections or insurance, being paid well below the minimum wage because they couldn’t get papers.

Alex thought back to Kara’s early days with them. She’d had trouble controlling her powers at first, and she had spoken in halting sentences with odd inflections on the words, but she’d never struggled to look human. That was something Alex had always taken for granted. But seeing the portraits featuring silvery skin that shimmered underneath bright flashes or scaled hands that held a child close to a mother’s chest…that wasn’t a possibility Alex had ever considered. She’d seen less-than-human hands curled around weapons pointed at her and her team and her sister; she’d watched distinctly non-human faces contort with rage in the midst of warfare and destruction. But the portraits Cat had organized—well, there was a reason she won as many awards as she did.

Come the end of the night Alex was far from convinced—especially when it came to NCPD’s involvement—but she thought J’onn would be proud of her for trying, and that had to be enough for now.

---

Two quiet days in a row with J’onn out of town had to be too good to last, and sure enough, on Thursday, a group of three Tormocks, one of whom pinged as a Fort Rozz escapee, laid waste to downtown National City.

Ignoring the call from NCPD, Alex ordered Alpha and Beta teams to mobilize and meet Supergirl downtown to provide backup. A call to Vasquez at the desert base from the van was enough to have a third team meeting them to secure the area and provide aerial reinforcements should they become necessary.

Deep in the fray, Alex cursed as bullets bounced ineffectively off the skin of the Tormocks, shifting as they did to become bulletproof and static or mobile and deadly in turn. Supergirl was holding her own, but there were only so many things she could do when her opponents could alter themselves at will, becoming impervious to her every attack.

Bullets ricocheted off the Tormocks' suddenly solid forms, and Alex found herself ducking and dodging more rebounding attacks from her own team than from the aliens.

The DEO agents confused and frustrated, and Alex watched on in horror as a few of them let their guard down long enough for a Tormock to strike out with an arm that was suddenly sharp as a blade.

“Man down! We need a med evac,” Alex barked into her earpiece as she watched Jackson, one of the agents from Beta Team, fall, a gash across his face and upper arm, his chest having been saved only by his Kevlar. Dodging attacks, Alex wove her way across the street and grabbed Jackson, dragging him to the relative safety of an alleyway.

“You’re okay,” Alex insisted, putting pressure on the wound and calling again for backup as she watched blood soak through the fabric over his arm at a pace that seemed much too fast to give the man a solid chance at survival. She swallowed back fear, repeating over and over again that he would be okay, even as she radioed in to the med team to let them know that his brachial artery might have been cut and they needed to have blood ready for him stat.

As soon as Jackson was whisked away into the back of one of the med vans parked a few blocks over, Alex threw herself into the fight with a renewed zeal, rage and frustration pulsing through her veins.

It seemed like a small eternity before a first shot landed, wounding one of the Tormocks while he was in a more vulnerable form, lashing out to try to attack Supergirl.

Alex whipped her head around, looking to see who’d managed to get the shot off, following the bullet’s trajectory back to a dumpster where she found the same damned detective from Monday crouched low, little more than a standard-issue police gun in her hand.

“Get out of here!” Alex hissed, jogging back to the dumpster.

“I’m the first one that got a shot in! I’m staying.”

“This isn’t your mission.”

“Only because you’re all too stubborn to admit you could use help.” Maggie popped up, firing off another round and landing a glancing blow to the same Tormock as before, who seemed to be moving more slowly, his shapeshifting not coming as easily as it once had. “See!”

“Do you even have a vest on for protection?” Alex grumbled before leaning out to fire off a round of her own, cursing under her breath as she caught the thick armor.

“Trick is to start shooting while they’re still armored. The second Supergirl leaves herself open for an attack is when they shift, and that’s when they’re vulnerable, but only for a few seconds.”

Alex watched, noting the exact moment when Supergirl turned her attention away from one of the three aliens. Never one to be bested, Alex sent a volley of bullets in his direction, letting out a satisfied huff as they met their mark, leaving one down—or at least down enough to contain—and two to go.

Maggie looked almost impressed. “Good shot.”

“It’s my job.”

“God, you’re infuriating.”

“And you’re not?”

They were soon distracted by one of the remaining two Tormocks, and Alex called out orders to her teams, breaking down Maggie’s instructions over the comms and getting her best long-range shooters in position, while Supergirl was left with only a small handful of agents who knew where to stand to avoid the line of fire.

By the time they wrestled the third alien into containment in the back of a DEO van, Alex had three wounded agents, including Jackson, who remained in critical condition. With an excuse to that effect, Alex brushed off Maggie and hopped into the back of a van, calling in for updates from all of her teams as they drove back to the downtown branch while the transport van took the Tormocks out to containment in the desert base.

Between check-ins with the wounded agents and more phone calls than she’d ever wanted to make and stacks of paperwork that seemed endless, Alex felt the post-battle adrenaline surge seeping out of her and leaving her exhausted.

After one final call down to the med bay to inquire into Jackson’s status—still critical, though it looked like he would pull through—Alex dragged herself out of the office. The short drive back to her building passed in a haze, and she cursed the lack of an elevator as she dragged her legs up the four flights of stairs to her apartment.

Once she was in the door, Alex kicked off her boots and shucked her jacket, pulling off the rest of her clothes as she made her way to the bathroom and into the shower. It didn’t matter that she’d washed off at the DEO; it never felt like she’d quite left the battle behind until she stood beneath the hot stream of water in her own bathroom in her own apartment, letting the final remnants slip away in the steam. Not that they ever went away entirely. She knew well enough that the nightmares that woke her weren’t random, much like she knew there was more behind the way her thoughts raced and spiraled, keeping her awake on days when she’d come a little too close to losing people, to losing her sister.

That night, though, Alex felt ready to fall into a deep sleep as she sank down on the mattress and pulled the sheets up around her, letting her head nestle into the pillow.

Barely an hour later, she woke with a start, bolting up and scrambling for her gun as she tried to figure out what had pulled her out of such a deep sleep.

A thud against the wall behind her headboard drew her attention.

“Fuck.”

Alex narrowed her eyes at the offending woman’s voice, but it seemed to quiet. Perhaps she hadn't been the culprit after all.

After a few minutes of murmurs from next door that were barely enough to constitute noise, Alex sank back down into the covers, letting herself get comfortable once more.

It was then that she heard the squeaking of a bed frame. Incessant. Grating. A few minutes later it was joined by a woman’s breathy moans—fuck, oh god, don’t stop.

Alex blinked at the clock on her bedside table. 10:49. Possibly early enough that normal people would still be awake. Of course, normal people hadn’t been awake since 4:30 and battling aliens into the early afternoon. Not that her neighbor knew any of that. Because Alex was a good neighbor who didn’t leave any indications about her schedule.

She ground her teeth as the rattle of the bed grew louder, the woman’s demands and moans increasing right along with it. A loud, high-pitched whimper finally rang out, and Alex let out a preemptive sigh of relief.

To Alex's dismay, the process repeated another two times before the noises stopped entirely.

Well, wasn’t he considerate, Alex thought to herself. Then again, maybe it had all been faked. God knows she’d done it a few times. Or, well, more like all the times. But she didn’t need to dwell. Instead she pushed all those questions down with her ever-growing to-do lists and thoughts about calls she had to make, resolving to deal with them all in the future. Maybe.

[mysticdragon3md3]

spoilertastic reactions to P5A ep3

So we’re going with family names, huh?  *bitter sigh*  Fine...!  But I expect that to eventually change, you two!

Ryuji, don’t make your RenRen jealous.  (Let me stretch interpretations for my OTP, okay!)

Obligatory AkiRyu screengrabs:

Morgana Cat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really like how the changes from the game's storyline efficiently condenses the story.  That'll come in handy when they need more time to establish character tones or cram in everyone's Confidant routes, later in the series.  And yet, it doesn’t feel choppy anymore.  That seemed to stop after episode 1.  I can see this being much easier for a Persona-newbie to follow, than the Persona 4 anime, which got me completely lost.  x_x;

I liked how Ryuji directly interacted with Shiho.  Since the anime skipped a lot of the game's long section of showing Ryuji's concern for the prisoners in the Palace, which went a long way towards his protective characterization, it's nice to get these replacement instances of portraying his concern for other people.  Also, he knows best about Kamoshida getting worse while everyone is working towards Nationals.  It’s kind of odd that the game didn’t have them interact before.  

And again, the camera closes in on subtle eye movements to convey emotions and important points.  

OMG Kamoshida's shit lost Ann's job to Mika?!  >O<!!!!!!!!!!!  These changes the anime makes to condense the story are really effective.  ^_^  I hate Kamoshida even more, if that's possible.

Again, with the shifting facial/eye expressions replacing actual dialogue scenes, that were in the game.  In the game, Ann directly apologized for misplacing her anger onto Akira/Ren. In episode 3, instead, it’s all in facial expressions.  It's really efficient to convey characters’ emotions with this direction in the anime.  But it's kind of ironic, because it used to be that if an anime wanted to save budget, they'd put in a lot of voice acting vs drawing more movements.  But this anime is the other way around.  ^_~    

"But they don't know anything."  Right when Ann said this, she gets reflected in Akira's glasses and his head slumps down slightly, like Ann's situation reminds him of how no one would believe him when he was arrested.  In fact, it very immediately shows the similarity between the sad expression in Ren's eye and the sad expression on Ann's face.  That shift in lenses was just like when the glare came off Ren's glasses after Kawakami was talking to him about how everyone was ostracizing him over rumors, but then Ren's glasses suddenly shifted to clear and showing his eyes, when Kawakami mentioned "Sakamoto" to start talking badly about him.  I wonder if this lense glare/reflection shifting is going to happen with every Confidant, to show their similarities with Ren and Ren’s sympathies towards them.  It would build up Ren's character development and rapport with the Confidants well.  ^_^  

And once again, some key dialogue from earlier gets repeated. 

 In episode 2, Ryuji’s lines “You can’t just walk away when someone’s in trouble, right?...How is that wrong?” paralleled Arsene’s question “Simply going to watch? Wouldst thou forsake him?...Was your choice back then a mistake?” to Ren during his Awakening, to reaffirm his resolve.  It may seem obvious to emphasize key themes by repeating virtually identical dialogue across characters/scenes, but I like how such a clear emphasis on what’s important to the story, also says what’s important to Ren and what created the bond with his friends.  

Yup.  Not a cat.  LOL  

"MonaMona"  ^_________^  (I kind of miss the portrait icons, but this is ok.)

So the director said in an interview that there would be a surprise in this series, implying something different from the game's storyline.  All this time I was afraid the change would be Akechi not getting his game ending, since I dislike Akechi.  But what if the change is something nice, like characters who were originally intended to join the Phantom Thieves, but got cut from the game, getting to join them?  Hifumi was originally supposed to be Queen!  O.o  When I first went through the game, I wanted Mishima to join the Thieves.  I wonder if he'll get to in the anime.  *.*  ...Probably not though.  A lot of the plot depends on his Phan-site, and he only did that because it was the only thing he could do to help, since he didn't get a Persona.  

No, Morgana.  You are an awesome cat.  ^___^  

Don't give your name, Ren!  LOL  And Ryuji is the one who corrects him.  LOL  I don't want to hear anymore crap about how "Ryuji is stupid".  ^o^

I like how Ren is always saying something to give everyone Strength.  

Look at Morgana's and Ren's smirks when Ann Awakens.  ^o^!  It’s like Ren is figuring out his place/role to give others Strength and he’s becoming proud of it.  And not just that, but he’s also proud of his friends finding Strength to get out of the same Weaknesses that he used to be in.  

Yes!  Ann being a cool dominatrix!  Kamoshida and his goons need to suffer!!!!!!  

And I like that they directly referenced "Cougars".  Look at Morgana’s eye expressions!  LOL

Morgana's slingshot!  ^o^

I like how in addition to Ren encouraging his friends' Strength, he also protects them during the fight.  

Ryuji was right about Ren being different in the Metaverse.  He has to wait until he gets there, for him to actually say the things that he feels and act on that protective nature of his that he seems to have been doubting ever since his arrest.  (Why else would he need both Arsene and Ryuji to reaffirm that his impulse to protect others wasn’t wrong?)  Like what he should have said to Ann in that cafe, while she was crying for what to do.  I look forward to the series progressing and the emergence of smirky, sassy Akira, who can start to say these things and be confident in himself, outside of the Metaverse.  It occurs to me that meeting Ryuji was Ren’s reaffirmation that he wasn’t wrong, while helping Ann release her unrestrained self is kind of what Ren also needs to do.  I guess each Confidant represents a part of character Growth that Ren needs.  Ryuji represents “protect people regardless of the consequences to yourself”, and Ann reflects “don’t restrain/repress yourself”.  So I guess the story is kind of an indirect character arc for him, reflected through the friends he gains.  

Alright.  That's a MUCH better transition for the All-Out Attack!  So much better than ep2!  ;u;  And I like the group ending finale too.  ^__^  

It occurs to me that Ryuji is always the one offering drinks.  His mom sure raised him to be polite.  O_o  

“The four of us...” = “Yon-nin”.

My favorite "yon-nin"!  ^u^  <3 <3 <3 <3

Before this series was released, I had watched the Persona 5 Daybreakers OAV and some of the pacing's lag during the fight scene made me vent out a post full of all my fears.  Fears that I did not want to come true when the anime series production had finished, but I just had to get out of my system. And there was no way to know whether it’d come true or not, until the series premier.  Nothing to do but whine and cry out in fear.  I'm so relived now, that each episode of this series so far has given me primarily positive things to say---each and every episode.  ;u;  I'm so happy to be wrong!  ;U;  That’s ALL I want!  I just want to be wrong, when I have nothing but worries!  ;u;  After years and years of anime adaptations screwing up every time they deviated from the source material, anime production is finally getting to that point where it really adds to the manga or videogame, more than dilutes.  ;u;!  

[caveartfair]

This Photographer Envisioned a Fierce Army of Girls, Forging Their Own Paths

Justine Kurland, The Wall, 2000. © Justine Kurland. Courtesy the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York.

Throughout her career, photographer Justine Kurland has trained her lens on divergent subjects both documentary and staged: young girls, nude mothers, men at auto body shops. Across her work, there’s a muted sense of romance, of both gritty desire and desperation. Kurland relishes gravel, fences, dead animals, cell phone towers, broken windows, and car engines. Now a mother herself, she’s ultimately outgrown the label that once reductively described her young, female cohort who captured even younger women on rolls of film: “girl photographers.”  

Just over 20 years ago, Kurland began photographing young women both in tough, urban settings and more idyllic, secluded locales. The subjects in this series, simply titled “Girls,” rest against one another outside a bleak Toys ‘R’ Us, sit beneath an underpass, roast an animal over an open flame, and gather along rivers or in wooded clearings. They torture boys, eat ice cream, and play cards. The 69 career-launching images, made between 1997 and 2002, are now on view all together for the first time (as vintage prints)at Mitchell Innes & Nash—they’re only for sale as a complete set, transforming the individual images into a larger event.

Justine Kurland, Bathroom, 1997. © Justine Kurland. Courtesy the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York.

Kurland began the series when she was a graduate student at Yale, where she studied under Gregory Crewdson and Laurie Simmons. Her relationship with Simmons extended beyond the classroom: “I remember how thrilling it was to share cigarettes with her on the back staircase, to hear her talk about her work and break the no-smoking rule together,” Kurland tells Artsy via email. “Her attention repaired some of the confidence that had broken during my time in the program.”

Simmons also introduced her to her babysitter, Lily. Kurland began photographing Lily and her friends in staged scenarios around what she calls “interstitial sections of Brooklyn.” Kurland gave them minimal direction, though her shots suggest that they’re runaways, both fierce and independent. Of all the stereotypical roles a teenage girl could occupy, Kurland believed that this was the most hopeful—“there’s a potential to find a world in which they belong,” she explains.

In 1999, a year after Kurland graduated from Yale, Crewdson included her work in a group show at Van Doren Waxter, entitled “Another Girl, Another Planet.” All but one of the 12 exhibited artists were women, and most of the included work featured adolescent girls, simultaneously tough and vulnerable. Along with a few of her co-exhibitors, including Katy Grannan, Dana Hoey, and Malerie Marder (all fellow Yale grads), Kurland earned a reputation as a “girl photographer.”

Justine Kurland, Making Happy, 1998. © Justine Kurland. Courtesy the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York.

In one of the “Girls” photographs, Making Happy (1998), Kurland captures a rusty, beat-up car parked near barren trees and a graffiti-laden underpass. A Budweiser billboard looms in the background, while trash and leaves litter the nearby brush. Upon closer inspection, we see two entangled bodies in the back of the vehicle, ostensibly in the middle of “making happy.”

Indeed, a steady undercurrent of sex runs throughout the entire series. Shortly after completing the series, Kurland began dating women as well as men. “For the last three years I’ve been madly in love with a woman I feel lucky to call my partner,” she tells Artsy. “Looking back at the ‘Girl’ pictures it’s hard not to read the homoerotic subtext of these pictures as my optical unconscious.”

Kurland hopped continents in 2001, photographing girls again, but this time, across the New Zealand landscape. The settings there were more lush, the girls often clothed in school uniforms. She returned to the United States and spent the next 12 years on the road, traveling in a green Chevy Astro minivan. Her models were naked women or members of communes. The resulting images often depicted strange feminist utopias.

Justine Kurland, Kung Fu Fighters, 1999. © Justine Kurland. Courtesy the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York.

Then, in 2004, Kurland gave birth to a son. She named him Casper, inspired by the painter Caspar David Friedrich, who rendered one of art history’s most famous wanderers, staring out at the fog. Reluctant to abandon her itinerant life, Kurland took her son on the road; sometimes, he even became her subject matter. She captured him in their van, lying on a picnic table, climbing a dusty ledge. Kurland recalls him telling her: “Mama, you’re a photographer so you can go on road trips.” Indeed, her work required a certain bohemian vagrancy, constant movement in order to capture—paradoxically—“stills.” While the photographer’s themes evolved beyond adventure-seeking youth, a certain wildness was still pervasive.

As Kurland adjusted to life as a new mother, she turned her lens on women undergoing the same life-altering experiences. In her series “Mama Baby” (2004–07), pregnant women and young mothers cavort nude in idyllic landscapes: on a misty beach, in a sunlit forest, in snowy mountains.  

If Kurland’s van had been integral to her art practice, her son developed an affection for another kind of vehicle: trains. She recalls how, at two years old, his obsession led the pair to visit railroad museums and trespass on railroad property. Her series “This Train is Bound for Glory” (2007–11) captured boxcars and the vagrants who hitched rides on them across the open American landscape. Many of the photographs were shot from a long range, making them more about the scenic environment than the locomotives themselves.

Road Bunnies, 2012, . Justine Kurland Aperture Foundation

280 Coup, 2012. Justine Kurland Mitchell-Innes & Nash

Justine Kurland, Flashlight, 1999. © Justine Kurland. Courtesy the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York.

Untitled, Spoon, 2016. Justine Kurland Mitchell-Innes & Nash

Justine Kurland, Girls in Sand, 2002. © Justine Kurland. Courtesy the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York.

Justine Kurland, Clothes make the man, Desert scene, 2001. © Justine Kurland. Courtesy the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York.

Beginning in 2011, Kurland zoomed in. Her next series, “Sincere Auto Care” (2011–15), focused on cars and the mechanics who fixed them. Many of these shots offer granular detail. She highlights the musculature and tattoos that define a man’s body, or the precise inner workings of an engine. After all those years depicting women, Kurland’s son, in part, inspired her to turn her artistic vision toward American masculinity. She even titled one of these photographs What Casper Might Look Like if He Grew Up to be a Junkie in Tacoma (2013). Her concerns about children’s opportunities and expectations had become deeply personal.  

An era, however, was ending. Around 2010, Kurland’s van was totalled. She enrolled Casper in elementary school. Even if her work isn’t autobiographical in the traditional sense, the story she’s written for herself has become a dreamy, though fraught, adventure tale. It ends—as many such narratives do—in her own backyard. Within the past few years, Kurland has turned toward her past. Now, she’s shooting around her hometown of Fulton, New York. “The town’s economic depression underscored a psychological depression I felt growing up there,” she says. “In many ways, my road trips were about putting as much distance between Fulton and myself as I could. I decided to go back to see what I was running from.”

In recent work, Kurland returns to more intimate sites, as well. She photographed her mother à la Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine du monde; her dead father’s artwork (he was a painter); and a series that involves strap-ons (including a self-portrait that shows her wearing one at an ex’s house).

Justine Kurland, Broadway (Joy), 2001. © Justine Kurland. Courtesy the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York.

These later pictures meditate on many of the same themes evident, if more quietly, in “Girls”: sexuality; the intersection of mood and place; childhood. The series, though slightly tinged with a late-1990s grunge sensibility, is still haunting. Kurland confides that Lily—whom she photographed decades ago—died 10 years after she took her picture. Kurland found out while she was driving, her son sitting next to her in his carseat. She withholds the particulars of the tragedy, but tells Artsy that “for months afterward I would have panic flashes imagining the horrific last moments of her death. Had she been scared? Had she been in pain? I imagined her fighting to live. Out of pure narcissism I blamed myself for not saving her, that had after all been my mission with these pictures.”

Kurland stresses the importance of revisiting this work in our contemporary political climate. “I pictured a standing army of girls united in solidarity, outside the margins of home or institution, working together to build a community that foregrounded their experience as primary and irrefutable,” she says. “These photographs were a call to action, then as now.”

from Artsy News

[lubbuthedigitalnomad]

The Treasures At Our Fingertips

Hi! I hope you are happy and healthy. What’s new where you are? Life in the big city of Kathmandu rolls on. This place has many wonderful qualities. Air quality is not among them. Smoking cigarettes here is redundant. Within a month or so, I will be moving to where there are more trees, more quiet, a lake, and less pollution.

I’ll miss the many wonderful people that I have met here in Kathmandu.

The following are two very, very short pieces. Some folks tell me that both are a little abstract. Considering that the whole world seems to be painted in a bizarre shade of paisley these days, I don’t suppose that a bit of abstract will hurt anything. The two pieces are in the spirit of a couple of guys that taught many people what the phrase “walk your talk” means. The first is about overcoming obstacles that prevent us from being who we want to be. It comes from the book, Reincarnation Through Common Sense and was inspired by Archan Den. He was the head monk of the forest temple in Kok Ta Hom,Thailand that took in a very troubled man from Brooklyn, New York and allowed him an unconditional half year of living among saints. Archan never asked me to, nor did I while there, study Buddhism. The one job he gave me was “Make your self comfortable.” That half year turned me back into a human. The second section is from the book Fearless Puppy on American Road. It was mostly inspired by Kunsang Dechen Lingpa Rinpoche. He is the Tibetan Lama and mystic that I have seen more often than any other. He has been dead for a decade or so. I still see him sometimes. I have met many other very wonderful Lamas before and since, but Kunsang Dechen Lingpa Rinpoche was just the right one for me to meet at just the right time.

In spite of the fact that both pieces were written by a nearly 70 year old juvenile delinquent, I hope you will enjoy them. Thanks very much for reading, and for the backlink clicks.

Please be happy, Tenzin

“All talking will become sheer nonsense, if one cannot elucidate the Truth.” Milarepa

p.s. If you find the reading at all enjoyable, please — it literally takes only seconds — click one or more or all of the highlighted backlinks following this paragraph. This simple process is completely without risk, cost, or difficulty. All it does is bring you to the site that is highlighted. Each click is a big help in pushing Fearless Puppy up in the Google rankings. Whether you browse the sites or close the windows immediately, your help has been delivered when you click. Thank you!

FEARLESS PUPPY WEBSITE BLOG

FEARLESS PUPPY ON AMERICAN ROAD/AMAZON PAGE

REINCARNATION THROUGH COMMON SENSE/AMAZON PAGE

FEARLESS WEBSITE

Would You Rather Be a Finger or Part of a Hand?

Waiting for God or Congress to fix things won’t work. The Collective Human Attitude cannot change until the attitudes of the individuals composing it do. This has been proven many times.

Great Masters have come and gone. We immortalize their words and images. But the actual purpose of their teachings was to inspire us toward functional applications of those words in real life situations. Unfortunately, much of humanity seems to mislay those functional applications as consistently as a teardrop in the rain.

Why?

It may be true that some people are just too damn lazy to change their minds. The bigger problem is that many of us are too stressed out, distracted, and preoccupied to concentrate on the process of making this a truly better life for our selves, and a better world for everyone. Inhumane stress levels numb us into surviving under comfortably fossilized lies instead of living with truths that might be disturbing in the very short run, but will save us in the long run.

The inhumane stress levels that modern people suffer are largely fueled by two pieces of drastic misinformation. Nearly all of us have been brutally misled regarding the qualities defining our most critical human directions — the purpose of life and the meaning of success.

A more functional definition and a consistent practice of these terms are necessary in order for us to maintain peace and decency on an individual level. Only after plenty of that has been accomplished can peace and decency arrive, survive, and thrive at the community, national, and planetary levels.

The bigger masterpiece can only be painted by combining the brush strokes of all our little self-portraits.

All the great teachers, religions, and spiritual traditions seem to be nearly unanimous in their on-paper notions of the terms “purpose of life” and “success.” Their notions — unlike the general public’s questionable and constantly wavering standards for doing Earthly business — usually nail it.

The purpose of life is to not only achieve health, love, and happiness but also to assist whatever else is alive to do the same. Personal success is defined as developing the individual decency and courage to promote that universal well being, and building the skillful means to turn that brilliant motivation into actions that are realistically helpful to self and others.

Great ideas! Of course, the big problem is the “on-paper” part. Installing these notions from the on-paper version into actual practice seems to be a rare happening among humans.

No One can save humanity now. Salvation has been circling the planet for a long time. It has no place to land! We can provide that landing pad by personally moving toward what we are asking for, by actually becoming dynamic peace and cooperation, and by leaving a lot of old bullshit behind.

It can be difficult for a person to independently redirect his or her focus. Millennia of outdated conditioning and our present-day hypnosis by modern media only scratch the surface of what needs to be overcome. But we have to start somewhere.

The best place to start may be to simply make ourselves comfortable with our selves.

It is a sad fact that the pressures of life in our modern world make being uncomfortable in one’s own skin a very taken-for-granted condition — a condition that often seems like it is an insurmountable obstacle to so many people.

There are very few insurmountable obstacles in life. What may seem like insurmountable obstacles at first are more often just challenges. We can victoriously rise above almost any challenge by just making a consistent, stable, relaxed, focused, determined effort to do so. This is true whether that challenge comes from the darkest corners of the world — or the darkest corners of our own minds.

“There are no problems. Only solutions.” John Lennon

The Ties That Bind/The Treasure That Heals

Iam not a qualified teacher of anything except English as a Second Language — and am not very good at that. I have always been a haphazard and rebellious student. In high school, I threw pencils at the backs of teachers and attended more drug parties than classes. I’m not going to try to tell you things that I have no spiritual or intellectual authority to tell you — except for this one thing. Here’s the reason.

Years after high school, I fell in love with a teacher. Not in the romantic sense, of course. He might more likely and more accurately say that I fell in love with what was coming through him. As a result, I might have paid attention to what he was saying in a different way than most folks pay attention in class. I may have picked up some of his unspoken thoughts well enough to fashion words around them. (There might also be some residual LSD notions of my own that have survived from long gone decades and are mixed in here.) So here goes.

We are all connected. There is a singular fabric of life that contains everything that is living. This bigger picture is more real than our little individual ones. We are each a part of one big unit as surely as, and more profoundly than, we exist as independent individual humans.

Choose any of the well-known cloth metaphors: cut from the same cloth, threads running between us, woven into the fabric of… They all have truth to them.

There’s a thread that ties you to your mother. There’s a lesser one that ties you to the grocery clerk. You and I have a strand that connects us. There are other threads — and they may be a lot less visible but believe me, there are other threads — that tie you to every other living creature on Earth. You have never met most of these people or other living creatures in the flesh. You never will get to meet most of them. There is still a connection so true that your wireless provider would kill to figure out its technology.

There is also a connection between every person (including you!), and some powerful esoteric energies. We may not be aware of these connections and energies. They exist nonetheless.

One of my stronger threads ties me to an energy represented by a mythical bird that can rebuild its life from the ashes of its own destruction. This energy teaches how to transmute poisonous experiences into success and benefit. Relative to this, there seems to also be a thread running between my self and some very wise people who can translate, even to a relatively dense human being like me, exactly what that mystical bird symbolizes. These wise folk can make a complex concept more easily understandable.

Millions of people everywhere are consciously enjoying these types of connections. Folks of every conceivable nationality, occupation, and spiritual tradition receive transmissions of energy and information from who or whatever their teachers may be.

These teachers offer this information openly. They send it out like the sun sends out its warmth and light — but have no control over whether folks choose to receive that warmth and light or shiver in the shadows. The quality of attention paid by the student is at least as important as who the teacher is.

Teachings may come through exemplars such as Jesus and Buddha, or through a pony’s ass or an alfalfa sprout. The lesson to be learned is within the student. Anything or anyone is potentially a catalyst, a vehicle, that opens up a deep mental circuit for us.

The frames of reference, language, and nuance that all these catalysts are carried on can vary greatly according to the needs of the individual student. They consider the unique receptive abilities and disabilities, the habituations of cultural programming, and the reflective tendencies of the student. The presentations may all be different, but the root nature of the non-verbal information and energy being transmitted are the same.

The common denominator among the people I know to have received these sorts of transmissions seems to be a simple but active motivation. If you have a deep inclination to transmute harm into help and be of benefit to others — whether they live next door, on the other side of the world, or in the Twilight Zone — you will eventually be connected with the sources of energy and information that will assist your effort. If your motivation is less altruistic, you may be in for a bumpier ride. Contact with these sources seems to be a matter of continuously asking for it through action as much as word, then persevering (maintaining direction, strength of conviction, and determination) until assistance arrives.

Another thing seems apparent. Teachers aren’t only teachers. They were, and usually continue to be, students themselves. In Lincoln, Vermont, I saw evidence of a very strong thread running between a modern-era Lama/mystic and a legendary teacher of a thousand years ago. Almost everyone with any knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism is familiar with the famous teacher of a thousand years ago. The modern-era teacher is nowhere near as well known.

My text book research of this modern teacher says that Lama Kunsang Dechen Lingpa Rinpoche is considered to be a “treasure revealer.” I have to disagree with my own research. All personal experience tells me that the man, himself, is a treasure.

p.s. There may also be a connection running between what we commonly know as time-and-space, and a pathway to detour them — but that’s another story.

About the Author

Doug “Ten” Rose may be the biggest smartass as well as one of the most entertaining survivors of the hitchhiking adventurers that used to cover America’s highways. He is the author of the books Fearless Puppy on American Road and Reincarnation Through Common Sense, has survived heroin addiction and death, and is a graduate of over a hundred thousand miles of travel without ever driving a car, owning a phone, or having a bank account.

Ten Rose and his work are a vibrant part of the present and future as well as an essential remnant of a vanishing breed.

Follow him on Facebook, Doug Ten Rose

Travel Adventure Books can be an excellent gift to your friends and family, buy from Amazon.com

#traveladventurebooks #keepreading #kindlebooks

Many thanks to our wonderful friends at Pema Boutique Hotel for their help and support.

The books Fearless Puppy On American Road and Reincarnation Through Common Sense by this same author are also available through Amazon or the Fearless Puppy website, where there are sample chapters from those books. Entertaining TV/radio interviews with and newspaper articles about the author are also available there. There is no charge for anything but the complete books! All author profits from book sales will be donated to help sponsor an increase in the number of wisdom professionals on Earth, beginning with but certainly not limited to Buddhist monks and nuns.

If you missed the Introduction to the new book that will be titled Temple Dog Soldier, or would like to see several chapters of it that are available for free online, go to the Puppy website Blog section. This is a book in progress. You will be reading it as it is being created! Just like you, I don’t know what the next chapter is going to be about until it is written. As the Intro will tell you, this is a totally true story — and probably the only book ever written by and about a corpse journeying completely around the world!

[davidmann95]

You did your top ten Superman Artists before, who are your top ten Superman Writers? (I know you've already given your number one, but I'd still like to see your thoughts on the other 9)

Honorable mentions up front: There are the great creators who worked on him in the Silver and Bronze ages such as Leo Dorfman, Edmond Hamilton, Cary Bates (who would be VERY close to the top in a ranking of the best Luthor writers), and of course Jack Kirby. Mark Millar’s work with the character is consistently among the best of his career, and his nebulously upcoming miniseries has every chance of shooting him into the top ten. Max Landis’s American Alien is easily the best Superman story of the last few years, but given his atrocious previous shot at the character in Adventures of Superman and his frequently inconsistent quality across the board, I’m not certain yet that wasn’t a lightning-in-a-bottle moment. Making better showings in Adventures were Joe Keatinge and Matt Kindt, who blew me away with their respective pieces and I think could make real impacts if properly utilized. And while his work with the character was fundamentally compromised and cut short, Chris Roberson’s vision of him was one that tremendously appealed. Finally, while he’s never ‘officially’ worked on the character, Samuel Hawkins’ all but unknown Tales of Smallville for the site Superman Thru The Ages are absolute top-tier, all-time-great stories.

10. Greg Pak

What an utter goddamn shame; Pak was by all rights destined to be The Definitive 2010s Superman Writer, and DC shit all over him until he finally gave up and vanished back to Marvel. But in between the endless crossover nonsense and making him and poor Aaron Kuder put up with the New 52 suit, his Clark had a visceral sense of humanity and physicality that made him feel true and lived-in in a way few if any other writers have matched over the years, driven by a sense of righteous anger and pained compassion. If, god willing, he ever gets the subsequent shot he deserves (preferably with Kuder) and isn’t constantly compromised and undermined, expect to see him ultimately wind up significantly higher.

9. Joe Casey

Maybe the most frustratingly underrated guy in my top ten. In spite of a few gestures in a more radical direction - he explicitly wrote Superman as a pacifist, which obviously didn’t take - he didn’t particularly reinvent the wheel during his time with the character, especially given it was only for about his last year that he actually got to work solo rather than as a quarter of a complete unit. But that last year’s adventures are some of Superman’s best, with a vivid quirkiness and grand scope grounded in a particularly humble and introspective take on big blue that deserves its due as a cult classic run with the character.

8. Alan Moore

While I hold dearly to my contrarian take of For The Man Who Has Everything being significantly overrated, Moore’s other Superman comics more than make up for it, with both Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? and Jungle Line scratching down to the bloody raw floorboards of his mind and demonstrating his vulnerability in a way that remains unmatched. He is to date the one and only truly great writer of Dark, Grim Superman Comics.

7. Otto Binder

Binder contributed more to the raw depth of Superman’s world in terms of mythology than anyone other than Siegel himself, ranging from Brainiac and Bizarro to Supergirl and Kandor and the Legion of Superheroes, with stories such as The Old Man Of Metropolis! and The Return Of Superman’s Lost Parents! proving he could also hang in there with the best of them in delivering the emotional gut-punches that Superman’s best tales so often rely upon.

6. Jerry Siegel 

I don’t think any reasonable person could seriously contest that Siegel belongs on any list such as this by default. But his position on it comes down not just to creating the dang guy, but the caliber of his material, particularly in his 1960s return where his stories ranged from mournful (Superman’s Return To Krypton!) to blackly comic and gleefully celebratory (Superman’s Day Of Doom!) to relentlessly heartbreaking (The Death Of Superman!) - just as he provided the rolicking adventure and bombast that birthed Superman alongside Joe Shuster, he and the contemporaries that walked in his footsteps found the wistful, melancholy heart that still defines his creation to this day.

5. Garth Ennis

He’s only written him the twice (thrice counting All-Star Section Eight, though he doesn’t pull focus in there in the same way, and it goes in a…different direction), but twice is enough for a lifetime in this case. The one superhero Ennis seems to hold sincere affection for as opposed to liking well enough at the absolute best, his Superman is whip-smart, ethical, self-aware, entirely understanding of how the world really works and the limits of what he can accomplish in it even as he grieves his inability to do more, and in Ennis’s own words “constantly let down by humanity, and never giving up on them”.

4. Mark Waid

The ne plus ultra of Superman fans, that he’s never secured a long-term tenure with his hero surely frustrates him even more than the legion of fans who’ve waited in vain for decades for him to get his deserved shot. What he *has* gotten to do has shown it would be more than worth the wait: while his vision with Alex Ross of an elder Superman in Kingdom Come weighed down by regret and lost in a strange new era resonated with a generation, his take is clearest in the criminally disregarded Birthright, whose alienated and passionate version of a young Clark Kent represented a scale of potential in his early days that has yet to be truly captured.

3. Kurt Busiek

Another underrated writer, Busiek’s time on Superman proper - while never getting to reach its proper culmination as he left to work on Trinity - is easily the best run that main title has ever had, with a warm, clever, classic Superman up against wild new threats that tested both his abilities and his ethics; in other words, the platonic example of Good Superman Comics. What pushes him into this kind of rarified air though is Secret Identity, with the most purely down-to-Earth, vulnerable, and thoughtful ‘Superman’ of all at its heart letting readers attach themselves to the fantasy he represents more acutely than maybe any other story.

2. Elliot S! Maggin

The first Superman writer to not only recognize that he was working with a modern legend but consistently and overtly write his stories with that in mind, it was under his pen that Superman gained a sort of self-awareness, questioning his methods and mindset as he tangled with some of his most astonishing threats. As Siegel provided Superman with his muscle and heart, Maggin was the first to actively map the contours of his mind and place in a larger universe, with a portrait of a truly alien intellect anchored by the most human of concerns and an unshakable ethical base that still resonates, bolstered by an equally well thought-out Luthor and a firehose spray of heady ideas - especially in his essential novels Last Son Of Krypton and Miracle Monday - that set a standard that has rarely if ever been recaptured.

1. Grant Morrison

Whether with a spitfire 20-something charging through the streets of Metropolis in a t-shirt and jeans, an unstoppable champion uniting with his counterparts from throughout the multiverse to rescue the very concept of story, or a relaxed god-man floating through his bittersweet last days among us, Morrison reaches deeper than anyone else into the vague, intangible essence of what Superman is to us - the goodest of guys, the one you can rely on, the one who’ll never fall and never stop believing in you - and grabs hard. With seemingly his every talent and every thematic preoccupation throughout his incredible career tailor-made to suit telling Superman stories, whether in his crushingly foredoomed attempts at redefining him for a new generation in Action Comics or All-Star with its mythic self-image and subtle character work, the very fact of Grant Morrison Doing Something With Superman constitutes an event unto itself. He fits the fundamentals together in the framework of his own unique cosmic approach and love for the material, with a model for Superman that while more flexible than any other always maintains his compassion and cleverness and unyielding spirit, and as it happens, that’s the tack that’s worked the best across all these 79 years and counting.

[wallpaperpainter]

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PARIS — Amoako Boafo was already a ascent brilliant of the art bazaar back he met Dior men’s artisan Kim Jones at Art Basel Miami Beach aftermost December. The aftermost few months accept apparent the prices for Boafo’s assignment circling at auction, alike as the coronavirus communicable attenuate the bazaar for added accustomed artists.

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Speculation is acceptable to be fanned added by the Ghanaian artist’s accord with Dior on its summer 2021 men’s collection, apparent on Monday. Boafo’s portraits of Black characters set adjoin monochromatic backgrounds aggressive the bright outfits, in article of a full-circle moment.

“I’d been cutting Dior for some time afore I got alien to Kim,” Boafo tells WWD by buzz from Accra, Ghana. “It was amazing to abrasion article which is fabricated by someone, and again accommodated them in person.”

It’s alone the latest affiliate in a charmed aisle for the painter, who advised at the Ghanatta College of Art and Design in his home country and afterwards completed a Master of Fine Arts amount at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

American painter Kehinde Wiley noticed his assignment on Instagram and alien him to his Los Angeles gallery, Roberts Projects, which staged the aboriginal U.S. exhibition of Boafo’s assignment in January 2019. “When Kehinde wrote to me on Instagram, initially I anticipation it was a joke,” Boafo confesses. “I was aloof afraid and surprised.”

Amoako Boafo’s painting “Boy in a Black & White Striped Shirt.”  Amoako Boafo/Courtesy of Roberts Projects

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His paintings additionally bent the absorption of Chicago gallerist Mariane Ibrahim, who now represents him. That Boafo should accept landed on the alarm of a arch artisan comes as little surprise: his sitters afford alone style.

“As a appearance lover, I get fatigued by the characters that I acrylic back they accept that affectionate of faculty of fashion. I get connected,” he explains, abacus that he is admiring to self-confidence. “I tend to attending at characters that are accomplishing article in the community. I additionally attending at colors.”

Boafo uses solid backdrops to draw absorption to the announcement of the sitters, whose bark he draws with his fingers, cartoon comparisons with the alive appearance of Austrian painter Egon Schiele. Lately, he’s been appointment patterns from European-sourced wallpapers to add added abyss to the paintings.

A screenshot from the Dior blur about Amoako Boafo.  Courtesy photo

While he has portrayed acclaimed asleep bodies such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Tupac Shakur, best of his sitters are not well-known. Rather, Boafo brand to bless personalities like Thelma Golden, administrator and arch babysitter of The Studio Museum in New York City, who use their articulation to actualize amplitude for others.

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“I apperceive what it’s like to be in that minority, to not be able to say what you absolutely appetite to say,” says the painter, who struggled for accepting back he relocated to Austria to accompany his partner, artisan Sunanda Mesquita.

“I had to catechism my Blackness back I got to Vienna. You know, they accomplish it attending like it’s absolutely bad to be a Black person. For me, my painting is to appearance altered means of attractive at Black people,” he explains. The brace accept back cofounded We Dey, a belvedere for queer, trans, inter, nonbinary and BIPOC artists.

His advancing alternation of “Black Diaspora” portraits challenges absolute behavior about Black identity, while his self-portraits accept addressed baneful adulthood and anatomy politics. “The primary abstraction of my convenance is representation, documenting, adulatory and assuming new means to access Blackness,” Boafo has said.

Despite its able messages, he does not articulation the growing absorption in his assignment to the all-around activation triggered by the Black Lives Matter movement. “Maybe some bodies will affix or aces up on that,” he muses. “But the appeal for my assignment has been actual aerial alike afore Basel, and afterwards Basel it got crazy.”

In February, “The Lemon Bathing Suit,” a account completed alone aftermost year, awash for 675,000 British pounds at the “20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale” captivated by Phillips in London, far beyond its appraisal of 30,000 to 50,000 pounds. Boafo is activity a bit feverish about the appulse of the Dior collaboration.

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“I mean, it is big,” he says, pausing. “Once in a while I get fatigued out because this is activity to change the way bodies attending at my work, and it’s absolutely activity to add some amount to it. So I’m actual abundant aflame about it.”

Amoako Boafo’s painting “Yellow Dress.”  Amoako Boafo/Courtesy of the artist

His admired allotment was seeing some of his portraits translated assimilate clothes, like the sweater abstract with “Yellow Dress,” a account that flirts with gender ambiguity. “To accept witnessed what they did is aloof amazing,” Boafo enthuses.

“People accept been allurement for means to be able to access a painting, not necessarily on canvas or paper, but whether I do prints, or if I accept shirts or things like this. So to accept the accord and to see them on shirts or clothes is absolutely nice. I anticipate we will ability added people,” he adds.

As he works on “I Stand By Me,” his aboriginal abandoned exhibition at the Mariane Ibrahim Arcade appointed for September, Boafo is answer the anticipation of introducing adornment into his aesthetic practice. In the meantime, Dior will accommodate its abutment to his activity of creating a abode of abode for adolescent artists in Ghana.

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“Fashion is a agent for art, and art can be a agent of empowerment for individuals. This has been a momentous artistic befalling for my career and for the approaching of my art,” he says.

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