#2000s bath and body works body splash

[y2kbeautyandother2000sstuff]

Bath and Body Works Pleasures Mini Body Splashes: Pink Grapefruit, Sweet Pea, Cherry Blossom, Coconut Lime Verbena

2002-2008

Found on ebay, user littletikesdecals

I had the Sweet Pea and CLV minis in my purse during high school!!! I love finding Old BBW stuff!!!

[spicyclover]

Water kisses

Summary: Swimming pole and lots of kisses.

Hope you’ll enjoy this part. Let me know in the comments section! And to support me by tipping me!

Little information, I will, for now, only post on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Thank you, and Enjoy! :)

Lots of love, xxx Spicy Clover

Warning: smut +18!

On vacation in Monaco, Charles decided to spend an evening in his villa with some friends. It is precisely rental for you to discover this world of jet-set you are not used to.

You and Charles have been talking to each other regularly for a few weeks, and he has invited you on several dates. However, nothing concrete happened because you always ended up being interested in fans or friends, a phone ringing, or just the time.

You arrived at this party with a little apprehension, your anxiety about the ceiling and aw nerves. You want to go longer with him. Not just contemplate, hold hands or just kisses on the cheek. No, you want something real.

You had a few drinks by the pool. We went for a swim in the early evening. It’s now 10:30, and everyone except you and Charles have gone inside.

The others are busy drinking while watching TV, playing an old movie from the 2000s. You think this is the time.

You feel Charles' gaze on you. You feel your skin tingling as you feel his eyes on you. You are, in the end, intimidated by his presence and highly excited by this new situation. However, you act as if you have not seen anything. You keep swimming slowly with your glass in your hand.

You end up putting down your glass to water Charles and relax the atmosphere, and sexual tension are very present. You laugh when you see his head, and he gets into the game and splashes you.

You laugh. It makes you feel good. It relaxes you. After a few minutes, you stop and start floating in the water to look at the stars.

You’ve always enjoyed stargazing. The universe has and is one of your favourite subjects, and Charles knows it. That’s what he likes about you. You’re obsessed with space, and yet you’re dizzy. You love to travel, but you have a blue fear of planes.

It is these opposites that make you the ideal woman for Charles. Because despite your own fears, you are still fascinated by this world.

You’ve been floating for minutes when suddenly, a hand grabs your ankle and pulls you towards it. You feel Charles' eyes staring at you once you’ve come close to him. You stand up in the water. Not having a foot, you wrap your legs around his waist to keep you afloat.

You are very close to each other. You feel his breath on your neck. Your lips touch the edge of his face before it crashes against his lobe. You play with it, and Charles' breathing accelerates. You understand quickly that he is sensitive to your caresses, hearing a slightly muffled moan from his mouth.

You keep stimulating this area, and you feel a bump forming in his lower abdomen. A corner smile appears on your lips, and you bring your pools closer.

You slowly move away and lower your eyes to his erect intimacy. He sighs while lowering his head and plays a hand in his hair, annoying. His cheeks are red, and yours are red too.

"It’s okay, I want it too," you say sensually.

You caress his face with your hands and bring your lips closer. You touch him several times before daring to lightly lick his lower lip to excite him further. And it works. He does not resist another second and grabs your lips vigorously between his, and a tumultuous kiss begins.

His lips are soft on yours, and you put your tongue on his mouth to ask him for access, which he does not refuse.

He draws you closer to him, a hand on your hips caressing your back, breathing, panting.

"Wait, wait, we can’t. We can’t do that," he says, trying to get his head together.

"It’s okay. They can’t see us. And then, it will be our little secret," you say as you lower your hand along his body, arriving at his crotch. "Oh, maybe not so small," you assert by putting your hand in his bathing suit and feeling his dick between your fingers.

He kissed you eagerly. You put your hands in his hair, caressing your body against his. Your breaths mingle, and your envy rises. Your tongues engage in an epic battle filled with desire, envy, and madness. He grabs your hips firmly and gently slams you against the pool wall.

He pulls his hand down to the bottom of your jersey and removes it completely. He throws it on the pool's edge and does the same for his. He positions himself in front of your entrance, touching it with his tail and making you feel frustrated. To make him stop, you bite him and lick his neck. The most sensitive place in his body, the most exciting place. He blows with a hoarse sound and comes into you all at once, startling you.

You choke the noise as best as you can, but he’s forced to put his hand on your mouth when he starts his quick back and forth inside you.

Charles accelerates his movements, and you let out a whimpering delight. He kisses you on the mouth several times not to attract the attention of other people in the house. The more he moves, the more your sighs intensify, each one more lascivious than the other. Charles' burning skin against yours. You will turn against him, further deepening the penetration.

"Charles!" You said, "Tell me that you love me."

"Www.... what?"" he asks, panting, holding you closer to him, sinking deeper into you.

"You don't have to think it. Just said it for me. " You explain to him in front of his gaze, mixing desire and misunderstanding.

Charles is speeding up his pelvis, and you had a hard time keeping up with the new pace at first, but he’s still going on. The rhyme, which he has undertaken, brings you close to enjoyment. You feel the contraction of your vagina around his limb getting tighter and tighter. You cum and release a big moan shouting his name.

"Charles!" You scream, bite your lip, and realize a few seconds later that you’ve probably just alerted the house to what’s happening in the pool.

He continues a few pushes before he also lets go. He enjoys without protection inside you. This is the first time someone has come into you. It’s a strange feeling, as if you finally feel whole. Full of him. There are a few seconds left in you, and he whispers "je t'aime" in your ear in a hoarse voice.

You slowly take your mind back, and you kiss his, giggling.

"I’ve been waiting for this," you said, letting yourself float back to the top of your body.

Your legs are still too weak for you to trust them to swim. Then you remain clinging to Charles like a Koala. Fulfilled.

Charles will answer something when a voice breaks out.

"There are rooms to do that, Leclerc! Otherwise, next time put a warning sign. There are sensitive souls here," exclaims Daniel, putting his hand before poor Lando's eyes.

Charles doesn’t bother laughing and pulls you towards him to hide from the guests.

"Va te faire foutre," he said while trying to reach for your underwears.

However, Carlos is faster; he catches them and throws them into the grass. A little out of it, you’re laughing at the childish behaviour of Charles' friends. Charles doesn’t think it’s funny, and he’s trying to negotiate to at least get your bottom back, but the guys refuse.

Charles is annoyed, but you just do what you want. You get out of him and you walk to the steps to get out of the water. Everyone is a little shocked that you dare to do this, but after the orgasm you just had. You don’t give a shit about their judgment. You go up the stairs and up. You turn around and look at Charles lasciviously.

"Ready for round two?" You add while walking back to the house completely naked.

You don’t turn around, but you know Charles has been following you because you feel hands grasping your waist to accelerate your movement to his upstairs bedroom...

[doesntmakeitalright]

Bath and Body Works Art Stuff part 1

[bakugohoex]

loveee your work can i get 8 nsfw with my dirty boy shigaraki ?? 🤤

“keep moaning, go on”

pairing: tomura shigaraki x female reader

cw: MINORS DNI nsfw (nipple play, spitting, bath sex, riding, quirk play (shigaraki threatens reader with his quirk implied consensual), creampie, thigh riding, jaw grabbing, choking, corruption kink, praise kink, degradation), language, some fluff maybe idk 

word count: ​2000+

a/n: ria finally posting after two weeks and it’s about shigraki of all people, its a shock i know, and thank you so much my lovely this is probably like two months late but i hope you like it

summary: in which after a loss to all might, all shigaraki needs is a relaxing bath with you which ends up turning into a lot more

1k event masterlist

↞ back to my hero academia masterlist

Shigaraki was pissed, more than pissed he was frustrated and the whole league understood. After another failure, another downfall at the hands of All Might, Shigaraki was seeing red, and you instantly knew what was to occur when you heard the loud banging against your apartment door. You had seen the news, the mighty All Might having defeated Shigaraki once again and you instantly knew where his anger would lead you.

You stood firm closing the screen as you slowly opened the door, Shigaraki stood at the door, the hood against his head as he finally met your eyes. “You saw?” You nodded as he moved closer, pushing the door open as he stepped inside, you felt him move inside, move closer as you stared at the boy. An innocence and vulnerability after he lost, you moved closer as he closed the door, your hands wrapping around his waist as you brought your head to his chest.

“You’ll win next time.” It was a whisper; he wouldn’t have heard it but with the silence of the night sky and the way you held back onto him. His hands moving to your sides, cautious of his quirk not activating as you looked to the side. He put his head against your shoulder, as your hand moved to his locks of thick blue hair. “I promise…”

He didn’t answer, remaining attached to you, until you both finally looked at each other. Your hand skimming through his hair, your eyes remaining attached to him. “I want you now.” His words were firm as he grabbed your sleeve taking you along to the bathroom, you didn’t understand until you finally saw him unzip his hoodie, feeling the way two of his fingers moved to slip your own shirt off.

“Let me…” It was quiet as you took his shirt off, leaving a kiss on his neck and shoulder as you moved to his jeans, undoing his belt as his fingers skimmed against your bra. “I want you…too.”

Your relationship with Shigaraki had always been filled with small words but with the retaining of small touches to show your adoration to the man. He seemed quiet, fidgeting as your fingers skimmed onto his shoulders down to his chest. The way he had let the bath run, his fingers moving to check the water as you took the rest of your clothes off.

The splash of the water as you turned to see Shigaraki sitting in the hot steam, his arms resting on the side of the white bath. The way his head leaned back, and his hair had become drenched by the water, you looked at his form, his closed eyes and harsh breaths. “Get in.”

He stared at you, his eyes lazily gazing against your body as his fingers moved beckoning closer, “I’m not repeating myself Y/n, get in now.”

You didn’t question instead hastily moving towards him as you dipped your feet into the hot water. His fingers gripping onto your waist as he pulled you onto his body, pulled you till your hips rested against his own. His growing cock already pushing against your ass as you felt his head nuzzle into your shoulder, finger flicking to your tit. The water and soap hid your body’s as he let you rest against him, “why do you let me do this?”

“I don’t know…” You trailed off in a moan as his grip on your nipple became harsher.

His chapped lips brushed against your shoulder as you felt his cock grow behind your back, “you should be with a hero.” His voice was soft, eyes staring blankly at your skin as he traced his finger against your waist.

“Wh…why would you say that?” He heard the shakiness in your tone, the way you turned to meet his eyes, water splashing to the sides as your eyes became watered. “If I wanted a hero I would have gotten with one, you think I…I let anybody do this with me.”

Shigaraki loved you, even with his selfish immature personality, he loved you and he acknowledged how you deserved better. He hated how he admitted it, but he knew that one day you’d leave him, one day you’d find a hero and start a family and live in a picket fenced house…without him. He watched you turn to face him, your chest pressed against his own as you stared up at him. Hands moving to cup his face, you noticed the scratches against his neck. The way skin had been picked off as you softly brushed passed it looking right up at him.

He didn’t dare look at you, his eyes gazing outside the window again, the way the blacks and blues of the sky enraptured his eyeline. “One last time…”

It was all he said, you didn’t understand the implications of his words, disregarding it as him never wanting to be defeated by All Might ever again. He finally met your eyes, leaning down to kiss you as his hands caressed your back through the water.

It was sloppy, full of a need and a want to feel more of you, his cock grinding against your clit as you moaned into his mouth. “Let me have you tonight.” His words were firm as every word led to another kiss, he always had a fear of hurting you and especially through sex the way he made sure to never fully touch you, you’d never get all of him, you always knew that. But the way he still brought comfort but the risk of your death at his hands, how could he not feel powerful.

“I’m...all yours.” You were breathless as his mouth moved to your neck, the way your hands moved to the back of his neck, playing with his hair as he kissed and moaned at the way you rutted your clit through the water right onto his sensitive cock. It was something you knew he loved, ever since your first encounter the way the blushed tip pressed against your clit as you continued moving back and forth. “Ma…master…”

The way you easily submitted to him, calling him a name he loved to hear to fuel his ego. How could he ever resist such a pretty thing like you. His mouth moved to your chest as you straddled his lap, clit brushing against his thigh as he could feel the mix of water and slick skim past his thigh. “Wan..want you in me?” You arched your back at his mouth sucking at your tits, the water helping him as his saliva mixed with the droplets across you.

You were beautiful, he knew that he knew others knew that to be fucking you, fucking the number two hero like this. It was disgusting, but he had made you his pet, his little toy and you’d be stuffed full of him and still put on the persona to others that you were their hero, that you were bound to them. Loyal to them.

“My slut…” He watched you move yourself on top of him, the way his tip brushed against your cunt before you pushed yourself down onto him, a loud groan as he bit at your nipple. “Dumb little hero taking me…so well…”

He couldn’t help but groan and moan at your movements, the way you looked as you took him all, the water splashing around you both. Soap clinging onto you both as your damp hair stuck to the back of your neck, “I’m doi…doing well?”

You craved his praise, craved the response he’d give you. The way he looked up at you doing all the hard work, feeling suffocated by your cunt at every movement. He admired the way your head would go back; the way your chest bounced every time you went back and forth with him. But most of all he loved the way your eyes were closed as you took him in, the way your hands rested on his chest, and the way your tongue lolled out as every thrust.

“You’re doing well…could be better.” Shigaraki moved his hand to your neck, the way you instantly looked down at him, you watched as he gently rested each finger onto your neck until he had one left. “Do better or…”

It wasn’t a threat, he’d never kill you, you meant too much to him. But the way you seemed to get more and more wetter as you easily fucked him, you had enjoyed it. He knew how much you loved being tainted, loved having a villain as yours to fuck. It wasn’t like you didn’t have feelings for him, but the unlikely hood of a future was evident, so you’d make this the best sex yet.

You continued to move back and forth on him, each time slamming your hips down before you rested at his base. Feeling the way your legs rested on his side, the way you rolled your hips as he moaned your name softly, “my good hero…”

Your own moans filled the bathroom, his grip tightening against your neck as his mouth moved to your boobs. The way his tongue circled your tits before biting at the sides of the flesh. Your moans felt intoxicating as you moaned his name, moaned “master” for him.

“Keep moaning, go on.” He loved hearing it, loved it so much that he would die a happy man if your moans were the last thing he heard. “Agh fuck Y/n.”

You knew his own high was coming as you felt a coil in your stomach, “c…cum…”

“No. You cum when…when I tell you too?” Shigaraki wanted to be in control, you may have made him become weak under your body and mouth, but he was the one in control. “Fu…fuck.”

“Pl…please Tomura…”

The way his hand moved away from your neck as to your jaw, making sure to keep one finger off of it, he made you stare at him. Made your cheeks squish as his grip tightened against your mouth, “whining now…that’s not very hero like.”

“I…I…” You could barely speak as he thrusted up into you, his tip hitting the back of your cervix as you knew you couldn’t last any longer.

“Stupid bitch…cum for me.” His words led to an instant release, the way your cunt pushed out the white gush right onto his cock. He used your cum to keep thrusting up into you, mouth moving to your own as his fingers stayed firm on your jaw. “What would those pro hero friends of yours say?”

You could barely answer, barely say anything as he got his own high, thrusting into you. “Fuck…” You felt his cum fill you up, his cock making both your cums mix together as the kiss was filled with spit and saliva as his tongue pressed against your own.

The bath had gone cold, barely any water left inside at all the movement. And the water left had been filled with your cum and slick, it was disgusting as Shigaraki stayed inside of you. “They’d never look at me again.”

You answered his question, his fingers against your sweaty skin, the way you rested against his stomach. Shigaraki didn’t know how to reply, instead pulling the plug of the bath and putting the shower on, it was quiet as he helped you get clean. The way he let you clean him of any dirt, clean his hair and touch him in places he’d never expected any beautiful woman to touch him in.

Both ending up in your bed, Shigaraki knew the real reason why he had said one last time. He knew as he got out of your bed after hours of you talking and then falling asleep. He knew it all as he got his clothes, leaving you in your fancy hero apartment. That the next time you both would see one another would not be for sex or a relationship. It would be on opposite sides where you’d fight alongside All Might, fight him because this was the last time he’d ever taint you again.

i’d really appreciate if you guys could leave a like, reblog or comment, thanks x

if you guys want to be a part of a tag list, just fill out the form in my navigation or send an ask and i’ll add you xx

@samusimp @alaina-rose13 @crispychannie @underratedmage @cathy8taffy  @moonlightaangel @kat-sukis-hoe @effmigentlywithachainsaw @swankiifiied @maat-the-prescriptive @kuroos-world @levisfilm @katsuhera @answer-the-sirens @animexholic @wapbenders @the-shota-king-masayuki @bakugousmrs @crystal-lilac @dai-tsukki-desu @fandomsinthegalaxies @crimsonbows-and-arrows  @admin-in-residence @otterlockholmes @gabrann @zlatanakermann @c0urtn3y @bakuhoesworld @halloweeniebicth @jaegerswifey @sageandberries-png @ukigxmo @shisoaya @suna-reversed @loveforbakugo @decayedz @mitarashi18age @blackdeawing14 @peachysimp @lifestylesleep @bakhoe @n0baraa @shoto_supremacy00

[linaofthemyscira]

Swimming with the Dolphins (Part 2)

Pairing: Jason Todd x Aquarium!Reader

Word Count: 1290

Prompt: reader works at the Gotham Aquarium and meets Jason Todd after a dolphin show and hit it off.

Warnings: [mild] language, fluff, slight nudity (its SFW, undergarments are still on)

A/N I was so astonished by the amount of notes and requests for a part 2, so I just wanna say thank you guys! I had no idea this would be a hit. This is going to be the only continuation for the Aquarium AU since I am working on my Adventurer AU w/ Jason and the Batboys. (please go check that out if you haven’t already!)

Part 1

2 weeks after the incident

“Alright, bye guys! See you tomorrow!” you waved goodbye to the dolphins as you made your way out of the dolphin habitat. Thomas and you were both recovering from your injuries at the same time, so you spent time just visiting the dolphins instead of training them. Mr. Taylor was removed from his job as manager of the aquarium and you received approximately $2000 out of the legal case, which allowed you to pay off some of your college student loan debt. Now, since your new boss was much nicer and more understanding, you had reasonable hours and you weren’t pressured to come back right as your injury healed.

Jason stopped by your place a few times to check up on you, but he didn’t stay for very long. He always had somewhere to be.

However, today was the day of your first date with him, and you made sure to be on time. You thought Jason was pretty freaking attractive, and since it was your first date in a good couple of years, you didn’t want to blow it, especially because it seemed like the feeling was mutual.

“Hey stranger,” you heard, and when you looked up, there he was. His green eyes almost glowed in the dark-ish room.

“Hi.” you waved. “What are you doing here? I thought we were gonna--”

“I gotta make a good first impression, right? Gentlemen pick up their dates, not meet them at the location.” Jason stuck his hands in his leather jacket pockets.

“I didn't peg you as a gentleman, to be honest,” you admitted. Jason raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“Oh yeah? What did you peg me for?” He smirked.

“I don't know, the stereotypical bad boy?” You said as more of a question. Jason laughed at your remark.

“Believe me that's not the first time I've heard that,” he shook his head.

“I'm guessing you don't have a motorcycle or anything,” you shrugged.

“As a matter of fact I do. It's waiting outside with the rest of my biker gang and I use it to run people over and terrorize them. Also, I have about 6 tattoos and they're all the names of people I've killed,” Jason said with incredible sarcasm.

“Wow, that's pretty impressive,” you giggled.

“You have no idea what you're getting yourself into with this ‘bad boy’,” he pointed to himself. “But in all seriousness, I'm not really a bad boy.”

“Oh yeah? I dare you to jump in that show pool with nothing but your underpants,” you blurted out, then covered your mouth. “I really have to stop doing that!” You thought to yourself. Although the dare didn’t really have much to do with bad boys, you figured he was also the kind of guy who fulfilled dares like yours.

“If you wanted me to rip my clothes off, you should have just asked.” Jason smirked as he began taking off his shoes and clothing. He threw his jacket at your face so you wouldn't watch him undress, not that he didn't want you to admire his body, but he had just met you.

As soon as he was in nothing but his boxers, he ran over to the show pool (which was, in fact, clean) and dove in. You took the jacket off your face and when you didn't see Jason standing in front of you, you looked behind you and there he was in the show pool. He ran his hands through his now wet hair and began swimming around.

“Are you gonna join me or just stand there?!” He yelled.

“I'm gonna get in so much trouble,” you muttered. “Uh, I'm still healing so…”

“Bullshit! It's been two weeks! Come on!” He waved you over. He was right, you were basically healed already, and since you had your bathing suit on (in case you decided to try to train the Dolphins) why not?

“Fine fine,” you rolled your eyes and put your bag and stuff on the bench. You took off your shirt and sweatpants leaving you in your sporty one piece. You jogged toward the pool and got up on the platform you stood on two weeks prior.

“Look at you, with your little bathing suit,” Jason smirked as he waded in the water.

“Shut up,” you grinned. You took a few steps back and then ran forward, doing a small flip and dove into the water.

Jason was pretty surprised. He didn't know you could do things like that, but you had to learn it in order for the routines. When you resurfaced, he swam over to you and smiled.

“So you're a gymnast?” He asked.

“Nah, I just know a few flips and things for the show routines,” you swam away and laughed. You two swam and played around in the pool for about an hour and then decided to get out.

“That was a lot of fun,” Jason commented, “we should do it again sometime.”

“Yeah but not here, I could get in serious trouble,” he pulled you up from the pool. Suddenly you found yourself against each other and an awkward silence imposed itself on you two.

“Um…” you trailed off.

All of a sudden, Good For You by Selena Gomez boomed from the speakers, which frightened you so much that you fell back in the pool.

“GET SOME Y/N!” A prepubescent male voice yelled into the speakers. Jason stifled laughter as you splashed in the water.

You pulled yourself out of the pool and grumbled. Hal, an 18 year old tech whiz who controlled the music for the show, hung out in the aquarium during his free time and the fact that he was here this late at night on a Saturday, quite frankly, disturbed you.

“Get a life, Hal,” you muttered.

“Are you okay?” Jason kneeled down while he was still laughing.

“I'm fine and that was not funny, jackass,” you scowled.

“Oh come on, it's a little funny,” he nudged your arm.

“You think that's funny? I'll show you funny,” you evilly grin, and push Jason back into the pool. You began laughing, but Jason pulled you down with him.

When you both resurfaced, you beamed at Jason, who swam towards you with only his eyes above the water as if he were a shark.

“Oh no, a shark is gonna eat me! Someone save me!” You played along. When he finally got to you, he lifted you into the air and launched you back into the water.

When you resurfaced (again!) you flipped your hair out of your face, but before you could open your eyes and look for Jason, you felt a pair of lips on yours.

You opened your eyes momentarily to see Jason cupping your face, but closed them again to return to your bliss.

Jason pulled away to take a breather while you did the same.

“Yeah, Y/N!” Hal spoke into the microphone. You cringed at his voice and then smiled apologetically at Jason.

“I am so sorry,” you whispered.

“It's fine.” He whispered back. You both got out of the pool and grabbed some towels to dry off. Then, you both gathered your things and changed, and headed outside.

“Well, that was...fun.” You sat next to Jason on the steps of the aquarium.

“I thought it was really fun, but just ‘fun’ will do,” he smiled.

“Okay it was really fun, then,” you joked. “My favorite part was when you kissed me out of nowhere.” You really needed to control yourself.

“How about I do it again?” And with that, he leaned over and kissed you once more. You kissed him back, of course, but this time you smiled.

Thank god for your job at that aquarium. 

TAGGING:

@redhoodshood @crazyfangirl1810 @4evahevah @its-scarlet-witch-bitch @carryonmy-assbutt 

(if I left you out I am very sorry)(Once again this is the last part to this oneshot, sowee)

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Bad Food:  Chapter 5

Daisuke expected roughness. He expected Kaiser to take a chance to hurt him.

He wasn’t sure why he expected this, except for the fact they were enemies. But Kaiser had taken him in – against his will, he reminded himself – and was taking reasonably good care of him – that he didn’t want – and so he should’ve really expected what came next.

Gentleness.

Kaiser chose a clean washcloth from the small stack of them, soaped it up, and began to move it in long, graceful movements over Daisuke’s legs and hips. He touched nothing that Daisuke wouldn’t have wanted him to, nor did he act in any fashion that Daisuke would’ve thought might lead to so much as an unwanted touch.

Granted, his current definitions of ‘unwanted touch’ weren’t what they’d been a short while earlier, and on certain occasions, when people bathed together, some rules could be bent or suspended, but…

Daisuke’s mind slowly drifted off into a place of warmth and rest and without the gut-wrenching pains that he’d had for the last few hours. He didn’t feel back at his peak at all, but he did feel better. The bath washed away the sweat and a little of the weariness that came with fighting his stomach, and Kaiser made certain to wash his hair as well, those long fingers going across Daisuke’s hair with a tenderness Daisuke really hadn’t expected.

I could stay here...

He knew he wouldn’t. Just a passing thought brought on by the odd situation, but if you didn’t think about what Kaiser actually did…it was nice. Very nice.

Daisuke’s head drooped down a little, his eyes closing all the way. He wasn’t exactly sleeping, but he wasn’t completely awake, either. A sort of in-between state, when all he found himself aware of was the pleasure that thrilled through him at the thought of not hurting, at least for now.

Kaiser missed absolutely nothing that Daisuke did. Not a movement, not a twitch. He couldn’t read the other’s mind, but he didn’t need to, not when Daisuke’s body language was as open and expressive as a book.

I could do it. He’d set the Ring down when he’d started to wash Daisuke. It would take little more than a movement to pick it up and put it on him.

He wouldn’t even notice a thing, not in his current state. The Ring would activate as soon as it was on him and then …

Then Daisuke would be his. His enemy. The leader of his enemies, the one who’d slid into him at high speed and spoiled a goal – a small thing compared to everything else that he’d done, of course – who’d done so much to attempt to stop Kaiser from taking what was rightfully his.

Just like Daisuke was rightfully his, for the simple fact that Kaiser wanted him.

He reached to the side of the tub. He’d never tried a Ring on a human before. Contrary to what he’d told Daisuke, he genuinely didn’t know if one of these, or a Spiral, would work on a human in the Digital World. The logic and the mathematics were sound. He’d just never tried it.

I should. What better target could I have? If it didn’t work, then he would put forth the effort to refine the project and figure out how to make it work. If it did, then he’d eliminated one of his biggest threats, and beheaded the Chosen’s little army or whatever they considered themselves at the same time.

And gained Daisuke for his own, not an inconsiderable treasure.

His fingers brushed against the Ring. Almost in the same moment, Daisuke stirred. Little more than a shifting, but Kaiser drew back and started to work on washing Daisuke’s shoulders and back.

It had nothing at all to do with honor or promises or Daisuke not being able to defend himself. He didn’t care if Daisuke couldn’t defend himself. He was the Digimon Kaiser, he took what he wanted, when he wanted, and he could eliminate one person who tried to tell him no right here and now!

But that wasn’t what he wanted. He didn’t want a red-eyed Daisuke who wouldn’t be able to tell him no because a device wouldn’t let him.

I want Daisuke to stay here because he wants to. I want him to be with me because he wants to.

And that would never happen. Daisuke wanted to defeat him, overthrow him, win this game once and for all, and Kaiser refused to let it end like that.

Daisuke lifted up his head and twisted around until he was looking at Kaiser, who was behind him now. Kaiser did nothing at all to indicate he’d been within a hair’s breadth of finding out what the interaction of Rings and data-transformed humans would be. He only smiled one of his favorite slow smiles before he tapped on Daisuke’s shoulder.

“I think that’s both of us clean enough. Dinner is waiting.” If it wasn’t waiting by now, then he would have a very serious talk with his cooks. They knew his habits well enough by now, and he’d ordered dinner at roughly the same time every day since he’d moved here on a permanent basis.

Daisuke started to get up, then hesitated, glancing at him again. “Clothes?”

Kaiser paused in the middle of reaching for a towel. Then he grabbed it and tossed it to Daisuke. “Yes, I suppose you’ll need some. But as I told you, yours are being washed. You’ll get them back when you leave.”

Daisuke still didn’t move. “So what am I supposed to wear until then?”

Kaiser suspected that he wouldn’t have been displeased if Daisuke didn’t wear anything at all. But that might’ve made eating a little difficult, especially if he splashed his soup.

Bother. He hadn’t thought about that.

“Wormmon!” He raised his voice, expecting the little worm to be within hearing distance, and not displeased to see him wriggle into the room. “Find some clothes for Motomiya. Tear up something if you have to, as long as it isn’t mine.”

Technically everything in the fortress belonged to him, but for all of his other faults, Wormmon was bright enough to know what the Kaiser actually meant. As he wriggled out again, Kaiser dried himself off and started to dress in a fresh set of casual garments. He didn’t often wear anything that wasn’t his uniform around here, but today did seem like a special occasion.

Daisuke grumbled even as he dried off and wrapped the towel around himself.

“You really aren’t ready for guests, are you?” Daisuke demanded. Kaiser gave him a very level look.

“No. But I can always be ready for a prisoner if I need to be.” He wanted Daisuke to stay because Daisuke wanted to. He was far more than willing to take the time to persuade him to do so.

To Be Continued

Notes: Posting begins anew! And this time I have the whole story finished, so it will be a daily posting until it's all done.

[thefinalcinderella]

DIVE!! Book 1 Chapter 2-WHO IS THAT CAT?

New chapter! And I’m starting on Book 2 today! 

Something trivial: when I rewatched the second anime PV, I noticed that the MDC seems to have their own club building, which is weird considering the book makes a point of talking about how hard the president of Mizuki had to struggle to even get the club running (It’s why they dive at Tatsumi and the Sakuragi pool instead of having their own pools)

Also, I wonder how would technology impact the story, since the book is set in 1999-2000, and the anime is set in modern day...?

Full list of translations here.

Previously on DIVE!!: I can’t believe Tomoki’s relationship problems (platonic and romantic, maybe even familial??) were foreshadowed from Chapter 1.

When Asaki Kayoko showed up again, Tomoki had thought “As expected”, and although he had expected that they would meet again, he still kept his eyes open for the unexpected shape their reunion would take.

A week after that, Kayoko showed up again at the Tatsumi Swimming Center, this time greeting Tomoki and the others in a black athletic swimsuit.

Tanned skin. Her long hair gathered at the top of her head. While she was slender, her body suggested hints of strong muscle. Long eyelashes framed her cat-like eyes as ever, and as soon as she spotted Tomoki, they shone like they had on that day, but there was also a mischievous light, like a child waiting for the moment a secret is revealed.

The reason for that would be discovered soon.

Today, when the stretching exercises before practice were finished, Coach Fujitani called everyone over and introduced Kayoko.

“From today on we will have a new coach here. This is Asaki Kayoko-kun.”

The elementary school students cheered over the unexpected appearance of the new coach, Tomoki and the other middle school students looked at her blankly.

This woman is their new coach?

Moreover, Kayoko said she would succeed Coach Nakanishi, who had transferred out of the club.

The MDC originally had three coaches: Ooshima, a portly man, was the coach of the elementary schoolers; Coach Nakanishi was in charge of the middle schoolers; and Coach Fujitani was the head coach who supervised both groups. In other words, Kayoko would be in charge of Tomoki’s group.

“I will work hard to send out strong competitors from this club.”

Before the dumbfounded middle schoolers, Kayoko greeted them like a cat hiding her fangs. In the circle, Coach Fujitani asked Youichi a question.

“What are you going to do? Do you want to be instructed by Coach Asaki from now on, or will you continue practicing with Coach Abe like before?”

“I’ll do the same as before,” Youichi answered without hesitation. “But I will do the dryland training together.”

“Well, okay. If you aim for the top, either way it’s better to practice with people older than you rather than younger than you.”

Coach Fujitani nodded, knowing that there was no opponent at Sakuragi High who could motivate Youichi. Despite being father and son, Youichi and Coach Fujitani had a certain distance between them. Tomoki always marveled at how strangely formal they were with each other.

“Well then, let’s start practice. Ah, a word to elementary schoolers. During practice, please don’t pluck the poolside plants. Plants are for enriching the eyes, not tearing…”

With their backs to Coach Fujitani’s voice, Tomoki and the others slowly went to take showers.

“Seriously? She’s our coach? Is she even qualified for it? Sheesh.”

Next to Ryou, who had a torrent of complaints, Reiji also looked uneasy.

“No way, she must be Mizuki’s spy, right? She must be a bad coach sent by them to destroy us.”

“I don’t think so. It’s a weird thing to do. Mizuki can close us down whenever they want. Besides…”

Besides, Kayoko had said that she hadn’t come to destroy the MDC, but to protect it. Tomoki now understood that this is what she meant.

Nonetheless, if Kayoko really was serious about wanting to protect the MDC, she would need to devote all her strength and perseverance into it.

Diving was a sport where the coach wielded a great deal of influence. Obviously, the diver would not be able to see their own form when diving from a platform or springboard. Things like how precisely is their body moving, or how big of a splash are they making during entry, were completely unknown. When they received the explanation from their coach about what they are missing, the diver would know how their performance was for the first time. At the same time, issues and problems were pointed out, and tips for improvement were given. Without that relationship of trust, there was no chance for improving one’s skills.

“Well, if she’s a fake coach, then she’ll be fired. Let’s check that today.”

While Ryou fixed his eyes on the diving board in an aggressive manner, Tomoki secretly made a checklist in his head.

First, how much did she know about diving at such a young age?

In conclusion, for today, it wouldn’t be Kayoko who would be checking them strictly, but the other way around.

“First of all, I want you all to try diving one by one.”

Prompted by Kayoko, the first one on the platform was Ryou. Being a show-off, Ryou tended to choose a fancy move that was more than he was actually capable of, perhaps wanting to display his good points in front of the new coach, and he was standing on the tip of the platform longer than usual to build up his fighting spirit. Finally, when he raised both his hands and was about to dive, Kayoko clapped her hands from the poolside.

“Alright, I see now. Get off.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t need to dive. Please come down from the stairs.”

The one who appeared next on the platform, Reiji, was by nature a careful diver. Today he also closed his eyes lightly, concentrating his mind on his performance from now. Then, before actually diving in, Kayoko’s cruel voice rang out. “Yes, it’s fine. Come down.”

Tomoki, who was last, was also similar. In order to not follow Ryou’s and Reiji’s examples, he was intent on diving as soon as he got onto the platform, but he didn’t stop at the edge for three seconds before Kayoko hurriedly clapped her hands.

“Yes, good, it’s over now. Please get off quickly.”

The three made their humiliating descent off the platform, and were made to do “standing posture” practice on the poolside. They hadn’t touched the water even once during today’s practice.

“A diver who can’t stand in the proper posture cannot perform proper dives.”

“You’re exerting too much force in your necks. Pull in your butts more. Your arms are straight, but not stiff. Align your fingers, but don’t exert force into it!”

“Relax your upper bodies, but stiffen your lower bodies tightly. Gather all your strength into the center of your stomachs.”

“All of you have been diving for years, but you can’t even do proper body alignment?”

Body alignment—something Kayoko fussed over a lot. In a few words, it meant the correct position when diving. She wanted them to imagine a plump bunch of grapes. If you drop the bunch from off the platform, it would be broken apart and rain down everywhere as its center of gravity was tilted, and landing in the water in an ugly way as its balance was disturbed. But, would this happen to a cucumber? A straight cucumber would fall in a straight line and cut into the water vertically. Body alignment isn’t the ability to distribute power around the body (e.g. grapes), but to turn your whole body into a stiff board during your performance (e.g. cucumber). It was the foundation of a beautiful aerial performance and a no-splash entry, and Kayoko tried to drill it thoroughly into their heads on the first day.

However, that persistence was opposed by Tomoki and the others.

“We just stood on the poolside for an hour!”

“She’s crazy. It’s just not sane.”

The first half of practice has passed, so Kayoko told them to take a ten-minute break before continuing. They had all dashed to jump into the Jacuzzi bath, where they let loose everything that they had been forced to put up with up till then.

“How many times did she keep talking about how body alignment is? It’s stupid thing to do for one and two hours. It’s like telling a land athlete to stretch their Achilles tendon for an hour.”

“It’s a strategy, a strategy. She’s making us do weird things on the first day, to freak us out. Isn’t this her true plan?”

“Yeah, she’s that type of deceiver. Those underhanded tricks are only used by those who have no self-confidence.”

Then, to the ears of the three people who yammering on and on in the same vein, came Youichi’s voice.

“It’s true that type exists.”

Turning around with a start, they saw Youichi’s shadow floating on the other side of the frosted glass that partitioned off the Jacuzzi bath.

“Youichi-kun…”

“I’ve met them too, that type of coach. When I was at a training camp in middle school, a male coach from America came and he taught exactly like how that woman teaches. The first day was all about body alignment. The second day was dryland training. The third day was take off and approach practice. In the end, we were never actually taught diving itself. Just like you guys are doing now, everyone was complaining nonstop about it.”

“I thought so.”

The three all nodded, but Youichi continued on. “But, after that coach went back, I saw that everyone’s diving had become almost unrecognizable. It was like a toddler who could only walk suddenly started skipping. The Japanese coaches were stunned. Also, I learned this later, but that coach also trained the American gold medalists.”

“…”

On the other side of the speechless trio, Youichi stood up with a splash of hot water. Tomoki chased after him as he went back to the poolside.

“Wait, Youichi-kun. Does that American coach have something to do with her?”

“No, not really. It’s just that their coaching styles are similar. But, it doesn’t seem like that woman is an ordinary person.”

“Why do you think that?”

“It’s said that you’d know a first-class diver just by looking at them standing on the platform. And somehow, you’d know a first-class coach just from looking at them on the poolside,”

Following Youichi’s gaze to the poolside, there was Kayoko’s figure, wearing a yellow t-shirt over her black swimsuit. It seemed like she was helping with the elementary schoolers, making it harder for her to return to Tomoki and the others. She was using hand gestures to instruct the little divers, who were moving around restlessly. Certainly, her unique presence and elegance were affecting.

Diving pool.

Main pool.

Sub-pool.

There was a lot of noise coming from these three inside the building.

Water was spraying on people.

The aloof diving tower that overlooked everything.

The springboard that’s next to it.

The sounds of the footsteps of the elementary schoolers running along the poolside.

The dazzling lights from the ceiling.

The smell of the pool chemicals.

The drowsiness that could attack him in a moment—

Because she’s used to it, Tomoki thought. That woman had been accustomed to all of it, as though she’d fused to become a part of it.

“She has a nice butt.” While blushing from what Youichi murmured, Tomoki was thinking about it once again.

Who is that woman?

“Hey, you’re Sakai-kun, right? Wait up.”

Tomoki was called by Kayoko after they were finally released from two hours of torture, as the others staggered off towards the showers.

“I want to give something to you. Will you come to the lobby before you get ready to go home?”

“Sure.”

While conscious of Ryou and Reiji staring at him, Tomoki tried his hardest to nod as though he wasn’t interested.

Something she wanted to give me?

However, while he was changing clothes, Tomoki was silently thinking about this a lot, making it very obvious that he was interested in it.

The three of them changed clothes in silence, and left the locker room which echoed with the shrill voices of the elementary schoolers. At some point while the atmosphere was strained, Reiji greeted his father and left with him, and Ryou said he’d “go on ahead” to Crostini on the first floor, and left quickly.

Crostini was a coffee shop which overlooked Akebono Bay from a glass window. The mother who was on pick-up duty usually waited for the two of them there while reading.

Left alone, Tomoki waited for Kayoko as the perfume of the synchro-moms flooded the lobby.

“Sorry for the wait.”

Twenty minutes later, Kayoko appeared, who had let down her hair in a pretty hairstyle, fixed her makeup, and glossed her red lips.

Even though she was keeping a middle school student who was exhausted from practice after school waiting, she still took the time to put on makeup. That just shows that I shouldn’t put much trust in this woman, Tomoki thought resolutely, but without voicing his thoughts, he said, “The thing you wanted to give me, what is it?”

Kayoko took out several pieces of paper clipped together from her well-worn leather bag (1).

“This is it.”

Taking them and looking at them, Tomoki was speechless.

“What are these?”

“A training schedule for every morning.”

“For who?”

“Don’t play stupid all of a sudden!”

“This…must be a joke…”

Indeed, he cannot believe that she was sane. The self-training schedule Kayoko made was intense. It seemed time-consuming, like digesting French food, and it would take two hours to digest a full-course meal properly. That was described how much time he was going to have to spend on this every morning.

“It’s self-training, so I’m doing this voluntarily, right?”

“I don’t have to tell you to, after all, since you’re all Japanese kids.”

“I will do it, sometimes.”

“What kind of mediocre athlete would you be if you only do this sometimes? Extraordinary athletes always do extraordinary training.”

“I’m mediocre anyways.”

“I know. During last year’s Junior High School Championships’ Kanto meet you were tenth place out of twelve. You couldn’t even participate at the national meet. When you were in elementary school you had no success at the Junior Olympics, and finished without leaving an impression in either the tournament’s records or in people’s memories. You might be even below mediocrity.”

Tomoki glared at Kayoko sullenly. Her beautiful face was armed with makeup, with eyeliner firmly applied to that hateful thing.

“So, is Coach saying that giving me self-training is going to turn me from a below-mediocre to extraordinary?”

“Exactly. But I will check on you in this case. However, what exactly do you think is extraordinary?”

“Like…winning the Japanese Championships.”

Winning the Japanese Championships. Tomoki smiled weakly at the extremely overambitious words he had just said.

But Kayoko did not laugh at him at all.  “You’re a small-minded boy, huh.” She told him seriously.

“What?”

“What we are aiming for are the Olympics.”

On Sunday the next day, on a road in Setagaya Ward brightened by the morning sunshine, Tomoki was running alongside his pet dog Chikuwa.

Chikuwa was a stray dog found by Hiroya six years ago on a rainy day. His wet fur was then blow-dried, and when he was shown the refrigerator, the pitiful little dog jumped in joy. He ate as much as he was given. He liked eating chikuwa (2) so much that Hiroya named him after it, but when Tomoki thought about it later, he realized that was probably because he was just hungry. He would have been named “Cheese” if there was cheese in the refrigerator, or “Kamaboko” if there was kamaboko (2). Every time he saw Chikuwa, Tomoki kept thinking about the role fate played in that.

The neighborhood in the freezing early morning was deserted, and still covered in an opaque thin mist, but when they passed by people occasionally, they looked surprised to see Tomoki and Chikuwa going through it at a fast speed.

Chikuwa swung his bushy tail, his milk-colored body shaking with delight. Tomoki, who constantly made Hiroya take a walk with him instead, rarely took him outside, and he made him run at a faster speed than usual at a much longer distance. No matter how much Tomoki panted as he gripped his leash, or how sweaty his whole body was, those things became irrelevant to Chikuwa.

Tomoki’s exercise clothes were damp. Tucked into his pocket was the schedule Kayoko had given him yesterday.

Why I am doing this?

Why am I doing exactly what that woman told me to do?

He kept running, not understanding anything. As he let Chikuwa drag him ahead, Tomoki’s head swirled with the words Kayoko had thrust at him yesterday.

“I’m telling you this for your own good. Even if you think about falling into the gutter, give up and listen to what I’m saying. First of all, do some jogging every morning. If you have a dog, you should run together for at least an hour. Don’t forget that anything that happens in your daily life can count as training. Of course, you don’t wear socks and stuff like that at home, do you? Diving is a barefoot sport, so isn’t it good to try to sharpen the sensation of being barefoot everyday?”

As soon as he finished jogging for an hour, Tomoki returned to his room as quickly as he could, taking off his jacket that was sticky with sweat. After a short break, he started to do stretches in his T-shirt. From his ankles to feet, arms, shoulders, neck…his whole body was stretched. Tomoki’s double-jointed body, which was discovered by Kayoko, certainly bended well.

“Basic physical strength is the basics of basics. Okay? There are a lot of intervals in a diving competition, and it seems easy at first glance compared to other sports like soccer and basketball, but in order to do the nerve-wracking performances that last until the end in those long competitions, you will need extraordinary muscle strength, concentration skills and mental strength for the performance. I think in the end these will all form the foundation that is basic physical strength.”

After stretching, it was muscle training. Since Tomoki was a middle-schooler, his body hasn’t matured yet and therefore he could not use machines to do full-scale muscle training. However, Kayoko said that the most minimal muscle strength should be trained from now on to create a foundation in the future.

Abs and back muscles, and then push-ups. He did fifty push-ups for one set for a total of three sets. In other words, he did a hundred and fifty of them. How much is minimal? Tomoki thought as he gasped for breath.

“And after that, though I’ve said it many times, it’s thorough body alignment. Every morning and evening, check your posture in the mirror. Are you exerting force into your shoulders? Is your stomach sticking out? Are your buttocks tight? You have to keep that posture until the very last moment to ensure that you have a good water entry. And in order to keep that posture, you must have the corresponding muscle strength and power.”

While doing it in bursts of intervals many times, he finally finished muscle training. He dropped down onto the floor and could not move. But he was still not released from Kayoko’s schedule yet.

He had to do handstands for thirty seconds ten times.

“Doing a handstand on the platform is in the sixth category of diving.(3) Many Japanese divers are not good at it. The reason for that is obviously from lack of practice. The muscles necessary for handstands can only be trained from doing handstands. Every day, do handstands to death. If you have free time, or during recess at school, do handstands. If you get called the Handstand Boy behind your back, that’s great. Since diving is a mental competition, if you’re confident about an event that everyone else isn’t good at, it will definitely lead to a wide margin during the competition.”

Tomoki summoned his remaining strength and got up, and placed his trembling hands on the floor as he kicked his feet about it. He raised his lower body with a great amount of effort, and felt lightheaded as his toes approached the ceiling. However, because his fatigue from the muscle training dragged on his arms, he had no strength to support his entire body and…  

Thud. Tomoki fell forward and hit his forehead against the floor.

It hurts. It’s painful. I feel dizzy. Oh, I feel awful!

“Hey, what do you think are the qualities that a diver must have? Good proportions, excellent leg muscle strength, explosive power, a feel for rhythm, strong force of will and expressiveness…as many qualities as there are, I think the most important one is flexibility. It’s obvious if you look at who’s at the top in the world. Their bodies are very pliant. That pliancy gives their performances beauty and stability. Speaking of flexibility, you are born with qualities that they cannot not defeat. And beyond that…well, we will do that another time.”

A cool wind blew through the open window, comfortable against his sweaty skin. On the other side of the billowing blue curtains was the even bluer sky with scattered pale clouds that hovered over it.

The sky looks like a diving pool this way, Tomoki thought suddenly.

A blue boxed in by a square border.

I’m always boxed in by the world outside the pool…

“I only promise one thing. You will definitely grow. You improve as much as you polish your skills, and perhaps you can become a greater diver. Of course, it’s not going to be easy for you, having to do self-training every morning and attend practice after school, not to mention homework. But, you will definitely seize that result only if you work hard. It should be a result that’s the most realistic thing that you’ve ever savored so far, pleasant, and easy to understand. Is there anything else in this half-hearted country that can make you feel like that?”

School and home were enjoyable in their own ways, but they always felt constrained somehow, and he felt like he’s surrounded by a box. A very small, cramped box. It made him sad to think that even he himself was small-minded.

It was an unclear feeling of suffocation, or an unidentifiable depression.

By comparison, everything looked so much clearer in the water.

“Aim for the top. You are a kid who can do it. Focus on ascending to a higher place.”

To a high place?

“Yes. Always ascend.”

Ascend.

“There’s a scenery that only you can see.”

Scenery.

I can go beyond the box—?

“Hey Tomo, phone.”

Suddenly, a voice from reality sounded outside his head. Tomoki, surprised, returned back to himself.

He looked up to see Hiroya peering in from the half-open door.

Hiroya, who was getting into river fishing recently, would be going to a river sometime today. He was wearing a thick navy blue down jacket, and was handing him the phone while telling him to “hurry up”.

“Miu?”

“No, it’s Hirotaka from Class A.”

Relieved, Tomoki raised his aching body up and took the phone.

“Hello, Hirotaka?”

“Ah, Tomo. Are you free today? Everyone’s talking about meeting up in Ishii.”

“Um…actually, I’m doing dryland training this afternoon.”

If it was before, he would have skipped practice after some hesitation, and go out with Hirotaka and the others.

While thinking this, he said, “That’s why I can’t go, sorry.”

“Diving again? Oh well, I’ll just ask someone else.”

“Sorry, maybe some other time…”

The other side hung out before he finished talking.

Beep—beep—beep.

Tomoki listened to the cold machine sounds for a while, slowly moving his gaze at the receiver in his left hand to his right hand.

In his right hand that was damp with sweat, he clutched Kayoko’s crumpled-up schedule.

Holding a handstand for thirty seconds ten times. Then jump fifty times. And lastly, cooling down exercises. Carefully massage the whole body around the wrists and toes.

Tomoki let go of the phone, and quietly continued his training.

Translation Notes

1. More specifically, “bag made from cow hide tanned using tannin”.

2. Chikuwa is a tube-shaped fish-paste cake, and kamaboko is a steamed seasoned fish cake in a semi-cylindrical shape.

3. There are six groups of dives: Forward, back, reverse, inward, twisting, and armstand.

Next time on DIVE!!: Saaaaaaaaalt.

[cutshawsnidowoa]

Toyger

The post Toyger by Erika Sorocco appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com.

Tiger by looks, lap cat by temperament, the Toyger will leap into your heart with one swipe of her paw.

The name game

The Toyger earned her moniker in a fairly simple way: by combining the words “toy” and “tiger.” Though once known as the “California Toyger” due to her California origins, the name was shortened to Toyger, and it fits her purrfectly.

Wild in looks only

The Toyger may look feral, but she’s 100% domesticated, with not a drop of wild blood in her. Created by Bengal cat breeder Judy Sugden, the Toyger breed came to fruition from a desire to bring attention to the plight of the endangered tiger by creating a domestic, miniature version of the big cat.

Photo: Credit | Getty Images

So inspired

When Sugden, the daughter of original Bengal breeder Jean Mill noticed tabby markings on the temple of her Bengal, Millwood Sharp Shooter, she was struck with inspiration. Beginning with a Bengal named Millwood Rumpled Spotskin and a striped Domestic Shorthair dubbed Scrapmetal, along with Jamma Blu, a street cat sporting spots in lieu of tabby lines imported from Kashmir, India, Sugden got to work. With assistance from breeders Alice McKee and Anthony Hutcherson, the Toyger was born.

See how she sparkles

Like the vampires in Twilight, when they step into the sunlight, Toygers have a shimmering quality to their coats. Often referred to as gold glitter, the twinkling topcoat, so to speak, rests upon a white belly and vivid orange coat that is crisscrossed with dark, dramatic, vertical, patterned, branched and broken stripes.

Fun Fact: The International Cat Association (TICA) is the only registry that recognizes the Toyger. In 1993, TICA accepted the Toyger for registration. By 2000, TICA had moved the Toyger to new breed status and, in 2007, the Toyger was bestowed the honor of recognition for champion status.

No two alike

Like a fingerprint is unique to a human, the patterns found on the Toyger are unique to each and every cat, making them 100% one of a kind. The one commonality across the Toyger board is to ensure that facial markings are circular in pattern.

Big looks

They don’t call them “tiger cats” for nothing! That said, in the grand scheme of things, the Toyger is still considered a medium-sized cat. Females tend to range between 7 to 10 pounds, while males hover in the 10 to 15 pound spectrum. Her physique (high shoulders coupled with a long body) and gait (similar to that of wildcats), however, give the illusion that she is bigger.

Photo: Nataliia Pyzhova | Getty Images

Let’s play!

Laid-back and easygoing, the Toyger could easily be compared to a canine given her penchant for lap time, pleasing her peeps and playing. A highly intelligent breed, the Toyger is very easy to train (many recommend her for agility training) and loves to be kept on her toes. Some of her favorite tricks: playing fetch, solving puzzles (with treat rewards, of course!) and long walks with her one true love. Yes, you read that right! The Toyger is easy to leash train. That doesn’t mean that she needs daily walks like her canine counterparts, but she does love a walk or two thrown into her weekly repertoire.

Family friend

The Toyger’s chill persona, and 12- to 15-year life span, make her an ideal choice for families or those leading the single life. As long as she’s showered with a healthy dose of attention and affection (which she is happy to return), she’s living the good life. Bonus: She also gets along with dogs and other creatures you may share your digs with (a fellow feline perhaps?)!

Splish-splash

Like their Bengal cousins, the Toyger actually enjoys water, so don’t be surprised if she tries to play in the tub while you’re taking a bath!

Top photograph: Nataliia Pyzhova | Getty Images

The post Toyger by Erika Sorocco appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com.

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[y2kbeautyandother2000sstuff]

BBW Art Stuff Sparklin' Snow Glitter Splash

1996-2004ish

Found on Ebay, user indiesmidwestgems

[josephkitchen0]

How to Make Laundry Soap and Dish Soap

By Deborah Tukuah – One of the first things we acquired when we moved to rural America was a wringer washer, so it was only natural that the second thing we would need to learn was how to make laundry soap. Wringer washers are as American as the Columbus washboard from Ohio. I suppose that’s why many of the “country faire” type restaurants position one on the landing. We knew we had finally arrived in the country when washing clothes outdoors with a wringer washer could be done without anyone doing a double take. I guess I cheat a little because ours is electric. When laundering clothes in the wringer, as one sock is drawn through the wringer (cuff first), I join the next sock to the toes. It’s like hooking up boxcars. But the challenge is to do so while the train is moving. I try to keep a continuous line of clothes going through the wringer.

The time I enjoy laundering clothes the most is when it’s time to wash the “whites.” That’s because I can draft a willing partner, our toddler son, to help Mama. As I wring out each sock, briefs, handkerchiefs, etc. I hand them to Josiah. He carries each item dutifully to the basket or dryer, whichever I ask of him and hurries back for yet another item. This keeps me from slowing down as he is back from his brief tour of duty for the next assignment before I hardly have time to wring out the next garment for him to carry. I try to have a lot of little items handy to keep him moving because once he gets started on this mission, he’s quite into it.

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Part of what makes laundering clothes with a wringer washer so enjoyable is knowing how to make homemade laundry soap to use with it. Homemade laundry soap is economical to make and has many household uses. Here are a few ideas for how to make homemade laundry soap:

Grate one cup of bar soap to use as laundry soap. If washing in hot or warm water, add the flakes directly to the water in the washer. If washing in cold water, dissolve first.

Homemade laundry soap works to remove stains. Wet a bar of soap and rub directly on stained area. Launder as usual. Or, make a past of one teaspoon flakes and a little warm water. The rub into the stain. For tougher stains, use a toothbrush to rub the paste into the stain and launder as usual.

Garment pre-soak can be made by grating a one-half cup of homemade bar soap and dissolving it in one gallon of warm water. Use a whisk to be sure the flakes dissolve. Allow water to cool. Add garment and soak 30 minutes to one hour. Launder as usual.

Have we given you enough reasons to learn how to make soap yet?

How to Make Laundry Soap. It’s an Easy Soap Recipe for Beginners.

You’ll need:

2 quarts of melted lard, lukewarm

1 quart of cold, softwater (rainwater or spring water works best)

1 can Red Devil lye (12 oz.)

Dissolve lye in one-quart cold water. When both the lard and the lye-water are lukewarm (touch the outside of both bowls to judge temperature) slowly stir lye-water into the melted lard. Be careful not to splash lye on your skin. Continue to stir slowly and constantly until the soap is the consistency of pudding and traces. (Trace means that your spoon leaves a trail across the top as you stir.) At this point, pour the solution into molds. Let set overnight. The next day, cut into bars but leave in the mold. On the third day, remove the soap from the mold and stack little bricks to air dry leaving space between bars for air circulation. Allow to cure dry for two to three weeks before using.

Tips for success and safety when learning how to make homemade laundry soap:

Keep a jug of vinegar handy during soap-making, in case lye spills on your hand or arms. Splashing vinegar on the skin will stop it from burning.

No need to purchase a soap mold when you’re learning how to make soap: just take a small, shallow cardboard box and line it with a plastic garbage bag cut to size.

Never use aluminum in soap making. Use plastic, glass or cast iron and reserve those items for soap making only. (Lye reacts with metals such as zinc, iron, aluminum, and tin. Use wooden or plastic spoons and glass or enamel bowls. And don’t use Drain-O because it contains metal particles. ̶ ed.)

How to Make Liquid Soap:

How can one bar of soap be in three or more places at the same time? By making it into liquid soap. Here’s how:

Grate one bar of soap in the blender.

Add 1 cup boiling water and whip in blender.

Add ½ cup of tap water (room temperature) and stir in blender.

Add 1 tablespoon honey and 1 teaspoon glycerin and stir in blender.

Let cool approximately 15 minutes, then whip again. Mixture should measure about two cups. Add enough cool water to blender until mixture reaches the five to six cup mark and whip.

Pour mixture into containers for storage and allow to cool without the lids on for at least an hour. Mixture will thicken as it sets up. If needed, shake before using.

Note: Herbs such as calendula, lavender or fresh pine needles can be steeped in boiling water and strained before adding to the grated soap if desired.

How to Make Soap: Make Your Own Dish Soap

Here is an easy recipe for learning how to make liquid soap for dishwashing. Grate one-half pound of bar soap into flakes and place in a large pot with one-half gallon of water. Stir to dissolve flakes. Boil for 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Pour into a glass jar and allow to cool. After the liquid soap has cooled, cover to prevent the soap from drying out. As the soap cools, it will thicken to a gel consistency.

To help dissolve in the sink and form plenty of suds, place a tablespoon or so into a small jar when ready to use. Add hot water and the lid. Shake to dissolve the gel back into a liquid and add to the sink as you would regularly. It is also referred to as jelly soap.

And to think of all those special soap products sitting on the store shelves. Who’d think that we could take just a few bars of soap and turn them into so many useful household products? I don’t know about you, but it sure feels good to give the pocketbook a little break when I can.

Also, don’t forget that this lye soap recipe is gentle and pure enough to bathe the baby — body, hair and all.

Originally published in Countryside in 2000 and regularly vetted for accuracy.

How to Make Laundry Soap and Dish Soap was originally posted by All About Chickens

[mistertcat]

25 Lessons from Age 25

1. HOME IS A VIBE

Throughout my whole life, I always thought home was a place. A city, a state, four walls and a hard-wood floor. I don’t believe this anymore. With my family and friends spread out across the country like a cream-cheesed bagel, I realized now that home is as much everywhere as it is nowhere. It’s in the memories and the songs and the thoughts that race through my mind as I fall asleep. Ain’t no place like it. 

2. SUMMER IN THE SOUTH IS LIKE WINTER IN THE MIDWEST

It’s the kind of lock-yourself-in-and-binge-watch weather that I though only existed in the dark days of Midwest winter. Except in the South, an Irish Coffee does not soften the blow. No liquor nor liquid can save you from this wet heat. It’s like being trapped inside of a beached whale. Just embrace the sweat. Just breathe. It’s the price one pays for 70 and sunny in December.

3. THE SOPRANOS IS THE GREATEST SHOW OF ALL TIME

I don’t know why it took me so long to press play on episode one. Probably some combination of fears. The fear that one cultural phenomenon from the early 2000’s could never live up to the hype. The fear that 7 seasons might as well be considered a hobby. In any case, the fear wasn’t warranted. The character depth on this show could home a giant squid. It’s simply the best.

4. NFL KICKERS ARE VALUABLE 

Every August, I offer up my emotional wellbeing to the 53-man roster of the San Diego Chargers. And every year, they find an innovative way to lose games – spiraling me into a fit of heated disappointment for 2-3 subsequent days. This year, my anguish was at the feet of 5 incompetent kickers. Never in my life have I seen so many different people do equally shitty at the same job. 9-7 could have been so much more.

5. TALES FROM THE CRYPT

I don’t really know what crypto currency is and I don’t really care to do the research. All I know is that my roommates convinced me to buy some. Now, on a daily basis, I’ve either lost everything or I’ve exponentially multiplied my money. It’s a great way to inject some crippling fear into your otherwise stable life.

6. I CAN ROUGH IT

We were warned that humans should not go to the Appalachian Mountains in such hazardous winter conditions. “That’s cute,” they said. “I love camping and I would never do that,” they said. I laughed this off as I soaked up the rays of the mountain sun. At the tender hour of 6 PM, I knew they were right. Never in my life have I been so cold, but I survived the night. 

7. THE GRIND IS REAL

My dentist recently told me that I grind my teeth when I sleep. I didn’t really believe him until my first night with a sleep-in mouth guard. I woke myself up 3 times from chomping down on that bad boy like corn on the cob. Touché mister dentist…touché.

8. HOW TO EAT CRAWFISH

It’s way harder than it fuckin looks, and everyone has a style that they think is right. The most effective way for me: Rip off that head, slurp the juices, crunch the sides of the tail lightly, peel back the shell, and eat the meat. Repeat until you are disgusted with yourself.

9. DON’T SKIMP ON THE FISH BOWL CONDITIONER

Instead of running out to PETCO to grab another bottle of water conditioner, I thought I could stretch out the last remaining bit among two bowls and re-up for the next round. The next morning, I found both of my Beta fish (Pepperjelly and Kyrie) dead at the bottom of their tanks. The scene will stick with me until I too am dead. I’m so so sorry guys. 

10. KEEP IT SALTY

The easiest way to turn your body into Gumby and your brain into gum balls is through a hot epsom salt bath. I don’t know what they put in that stuff, but I am hooked. You ladies had this shit down a long time ago and I applaud you for it.

11. HOW TO FLY ON AN AIRPLANE

I flew on more planes this past year than I did the 24 years prior combined. With lots of practice, you learn little things that assist on the journey. Firstly, download your Spotify playlists before the flight so you can listen in the sky. Secondly, use the debit card with the bad strip and they will give you your Gin & Tonic for free to avoid holding up the line.

12. HOW TO MAKE A GOOD GIN & TONIC 

I had a new-found love and appreciation for this drink in 2017. It’s sharp, yet refreshing. Sophisticated, yet simple. Just a damn good drink for the night time hours. Pour 2 shots gin and 2 ½ shots tonic over a ¾ full glass of ice cubes. Top with a one-second squirt of lime juice. Stir and drink with a colorful bendy straw. Add a splash of orange or cranberry juice if you are feeling “tropical.” Enjoy.

13. THE RAPPER’S WRITING PROCESS

There’s something magical about the driver’s seat that I just can’t get from sitting down at a desk. As much as I like to write, I’ve never written a song on paper. I start with a line in my head and say it out loud and build it bit by bit, so by the time it’s done I already have it memorized. With the beats blasting, I can write and recite over and over until it’s polished. Sometimes at night I drive up and down the same strip of Canal St. while I work on a song. I probably look like a drunkard, but process is process.

14. KENDRICK LAMAR HAS MY BACK

DAMN. came out about one week before I moved from Omaha to New Orleans, and it served as the soundtrack to my re-location. It was the sound of a transition of styles. Something new, scary, and exciting. Fast forward six months, and I’m feeling lost. I see Kendrick live on stage at Voodoo Fest, surrounded by thousands of people chanting “We gon’ be alright!” in unison. His presence alone feels like some sort of divine intervention. He was my support system throughout this whole thing.

15. BEWARE THE SPICY SALADS 

I learned this lesson twice at 25. The first time was a pre-packaged Cajun salad at Louis Armstrong Intl. Airport in New Orleans. The pink dressing made my eyes water and I was completely taken off guard. It was a good burn. The second time was at the Chili’s in the Dallas Fort-Worth Airport. Their chipotle ranch dressing was spicy on a practical joke kind of level. When the waiter asked if I wanted more dressing we both laughed in a “fuckin good one” kind of way. My subsequent flight was the worst of my life.

16. I CAN ROCK A CAP

I always thought that my head was too small or misshapen for hats. I experimented at age 15 and hated the results. Since then, I have largely avoided the idea altogether. One Autumn day, I tried on a random hat hanging on the coatrack and my whole view changed. My head was made for the so-called “dad cap.” My hair might not last forever, but a new door has been opened when it comes to cranial decorations.

17. DON’T BET ON THE SPREAD

You might as well buy something instead of just throwing your money away on sports betting. “Oh, Creighton is a 9-point underdog to Gonzaga?! This is too good to be true!” Creighton lost by 17 and this was the first and last time I will bet on a sporting event. Even at the casino, you play games and get free drinks. Sports betting is a hot date that never shows up to the restaurant. Enjoy that cold dinner alone, Tyler. You deserve it.

18. CLOTHES STEAMER > CLOTHES IRON

Light, compact, effective, and efficient. I don’t know how I got by without one  of these gizmos before. Just put that shirt on a hanger and blast away with some steam. It’s almost too easy. Word of caution: DO NOT use the clothes steamer while you are wearing the clothes. I did this and got a Burger King looking grill mark burn on my chest for about a week.

19. I HAVE A THING FOR FRENCH GIRLS

Namely, French girl singers of the 1960s. France Gall, Brigitte Bardot, Françoise Hardy, and the like. I have no idea what they are saying in their joyous tunes, but it’s so buttery that I don’t care. I feel like I understand it nonetheless. I also met Marion this year, a real-life lady from France. She loved to dance and I will miss her.

20. ALONE TIME IS A GIFT

I took this for granted when I had my own apartment with just me and my cat Pancake. I could do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted and got very little pushback on my lifestyle choices. If I cleaned up, it stayed clean unless I made a mess. If I wanted to sleep in, I slept in. It was simple. Now, with two roommates, I’ve learned to cherish the time I get alone. You never know how long it will last.

21. I CAN FINISH AN AUDIOBOOK

It’s always been difficult for me to read an entire book. I get bored, my eyes get tired, and after a while, I’m just reading words while thinking about food or when I fucked up “memorable” in the 5th grade spelling bee. “M-O-M...do I have to finish?” My love of podcasts has been around since my late teens, so it seems pretty obvious that audiobooks might be a good way to absorb some literature. Obvious or not, it took me several years to figure that out. I’m very happy to have gained valuable insights from Chuck Klosterman, Malcolm Gladwell, Tina Fey, and others this past year.

22. THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT TYPES OF POOLS

Back in Nebraska, I knew of three types: home, public, and country club. I figured that this was just how pools worked in the United States. I was wrong. There are all sorts of weird pools. Swanky rooftop pools with all attractive people and $15 drinks. Tiny park pools that look like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater creations. And then there is The Drifter. A pool for the punk scene where tops are optional. What a world we live in.

23. AMAZON PRIME IS AN INCREDIBLE DEAL

I had my entire living arrangement shipped for free to my doorstep in 2 days. Bed and desk and chairs - everything. The works. If it can be bought, you can buy it on Amazon. On top of that, you can watch Transparent, Mozart in the Jungle, and One Mississippi. If that’s not worth $100, I don’t know what is.

24. TALKSPACE THERAPY IS MY SHIT

Thank you for everything Jenise! 

25. YOU CAN MAKE NEW FRIENDS, BUT YOU CAN NEVER REPLACE YOUR HOMIES

You know who you are. You know all of the dumb shit we’ve done. You were there through all of the bad breakups and shakeups and opportunities to eat chicken wings. It has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. I love you guys and gals to death.

[ouraidengray4]

I Will Never Look Like Kate Bosworth in “Blue Crush”

I pulled on my new bathing suit and stared at my body in the mirror. I’d had my eye on the bathing suit to wear at my friend’s bachelorette party in Palm Springs for a while: a white one-piece with lace-up sides. The model in the photo online looked carefree and thin, but I’d made the mistake of imagining that when I pulled on the same suit I’d look like her. Instead, I looked like a misshapen bag of mayonnaise somehow wearing an even smaller misshapen bag of mayonnaise. I couldn’t believe I’d spent $127 dollars to look like something that someone placed haphazardly in the back of a Subway walk-in refrigerator.

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I could feel a familiar panic setting in. I felt dizzy. I peeled off the suit and curled up on the bed. Outside, I could hear the rest of the bachelorette party laughing, splashing around in the pool. I knew in a few minutes I’d have to come out ready to pose on the giant inflatable Pegasus in my mayonnaise suit. My breath got short just thinking about the photos that didn't exist yet but I already knew I’d hate plastered all over Instagram.

I traced the cellulite on my legs with my finger, the surface of the moon on my upper thigh. If your life passes before your eyes when you die, then when I put on a bathing suit, every single thing I’ve ever eaten passes before my eyes: a guilt parade of fun-size Snickers bars and too many white cheddar Cheez-Its. Remember that cheese plate you insisted on finishing at Thanksgiving? When you ate a jelly donut at work last week? You never even went to that Spin class you signed up for. And then a familiar refrain: This is your fault.

I first became aware of how much I hated my body after seeing what I deemed to be an unflattering photo of myself in a multi-colored Limited Too turtleneck in fifth grade. But it really started in full force the summer before ninth grade when I saw the movie Blue Crush. If you weren’t a teenage girl in 2002, Blue Crush is the story of four women who live in a shack on Hawaii’s North Shore and live for surfing and wearing mismatched bikini sets. The movie is aggressively early 2000s: dark tans, beachwear as everyday clothes, the notion that anyone can pull off a puka shell necklace, and the introduction of Kate Bosworth and her surfer girl body.

Every magazine was saying the same thing about Blue Crush: Finally, a movie that features a woman with a real body. OK, maybe not every magazine—I’m pretty sure The New Yorker didn’t run a feature on Kate Bosworth’s abs—but every magazine a 14-year-old girl would read was talking about it. Kate had muscle; she looked different from the other, thinner leading women.

There were a lot of things that stuck with me about Blue Crush. Roxy brand was a staple in my wardrobe until circa 2008 (RIP Pac Sun). I occasionally told people in high school "I surf" because once in California I took a 45-minute surfing lesson. But most importantly: Kate Bosworth’s body.

By eighth grade, I’d already taken to hiding my body under oversize sweatshirts whenever possible. I had been comparing myself to the thin actresses I’d seen on TV, but now there was Kate. If the very thin models weren’t "real" and Kate Bosworth’s muscley (but notably still very slender) surfer girl body was "real," shouldn’t I be able to look like her if I tried hard enough?

For roughly the next 15 years of my life, I worked out daily, banning specific foods arbitrarily because of things I’d read in magazines, like "French people never eat popcorn." But it didn’t seem to matter how many weights I lifted, how many miles I ran, how many times I opted for salad instead of pasta—I still didn’t look like Kate. So I kept trying. My brain was always holding up a tattered Seventeen magazine fold-out page from 2002, squinting its eyes at me and saying, "Nope, not yet."

It wasn’t just that I wanted to look like Kate Bosworth in Blue Crush, it’s that I blamed myself for not looking like her. Everything was about what I didn’t do: didn’t run enough miles, didn’t lift enough weights, didn’t say no to a side of onion rings because they are my favorite thing you can deep fry. No matter what I did do, I felt like a failure.

But lying on my bed in Palm Springs, I felt something I hadn’t felt before: exhausted. I was about to be 30. I was at a party with a group of funny, intelligent women who were all out there having a great time and I was doing the same thing I’d been doing since I was 14: hiding, missing out.

But what’s so important about looking like Kate Bosworth? It’s not like one day she and I will be walking down the same street and a paparazzo will yell, "Which one of you is Kate Bosworth? I can’t tell!" And even if that very unlikely circumstance were to occur, who cares? Certainly not the women who were having fun outside on the inflatable donut. They just wanted me to hang.

The only people who really cared were me and the invisible ghost of Kate Bosworth that lived in my head and controlled my every move. But she wasn’t real. At some point, I had to accept that there was no amount of effort in the world—barring a Freaky Friday body switch situation—that would turn me into Kate. It wasn’t my fault.

I recently read an interview with Kate Bosworth where she was asked her dieting secret. She admitted she doesn’t diet. She worked out to put on muscle for Blue Crush, but she’s just naturally thin. It turns out that I was working much harder at looking like Kate Bosworth than Kate Bosworth ever worked at looking like Kate Bosworth. If the Looking Like Kate Bosworth Olympics were judged by a panel of people watching us perform the act of looking like Kate Bosworth, I might actually win.

After I got home from Palm Springs, I experimented with the novel idea of cutting myself some slack. Instead of eating a donut and then panicking over how long I’d have to run to burn it off, I tried just eating a donut. It was hard. Some days I still catch myself trying to suck in my stomach in the mirror, even though nobody is in the bathroom with me. I still leave the gym occasionally crying because I saw my arm fat flap in the wind like the sail of a ship when I picked up a set of weights. And I’ll admit it, I’ve picked up a bottle of Sun-In in the grocery store and pondered if it would really look that bad.

I still work out. I still eat healthy. But I try to do it now because I want to, not at the demand of phantom Kate Bosworth. I’ve pushed her out to sea on a flaming surfboard, never to be seen again. Figuratively, of course. Because literally I’m eating a bowl of Cheez-Its.

Lucy Huber is a writer, multiple cat owner, and sufferer of Reverse Dawson's Creek Actor Syndrome, which is a disease she made up for when you are 30 but look 15. To see her other work or ask more specific questions about her cats, visit lucyhuber.com.

from Greatist RSS http://ift.tt/2DofTJH I Will Never Look Like Kate Bosworth in “Blue Crush” Greatist RSS from HEALTH BUZZ http://ift.tt/2kAvXzV

[foursprouthealth-blog]

I Will Never Look Like Kate Bosworth in “Blue Crush”

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/health/i-will-never-look-like-kate-bosworth-in-blue-crush/

I Will Never Look Like Kate Bosworth in “Blue Crush”

I pulled on my new bathing suit and stared at my body in the mirror. I’d had my eye on the bathing suit to wear at my friend’s bachelorette party in Palm Springs for a while: a white one-piece with lace-up sides. The model in the photo online looked carefree and thin, but I’d made the mistake of imagining that when I pulled on the same suit I’d look like her. Instead, I looked like a misshapen bag of mayonnaise somehow wearing an even smaller misshapen bag of mayonnaise. I couldn’t believe I’d spent $127 dollars to look like something that someone placed haphazardly in the back of a Subway walk-in refrigerator.

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displayTitle READ

I could feel a familiar panic setting in. I felt dizzy. I peeled off the suit and curled up on the bed. Outside, I could hear the rest of the bachelorette party laughing, splashing around in the pool. I knew in a few minutes I’d have to come out ready to pose on the giant inflatable Pegasus in my mayonnaise suit. My breath got short just thinking about the photos that didn’t exist yet but I already knew I’d hate plastered all over Instagram.

I traced the cellulite on my legs with my finger, the surface of the moon on my upper thigh. If your life passes before your eyes when you die, then when I put on a bathing suit, every single thing I’ve ever eaten passes before my eyes: a guilt parade of fun-size Snickers bars and too many white cheddar Cheez-Its. Remember that cheese plate you insisted on finishing at Thanksgiving? When you ate a jelly donut at work last week? You never even went to that Spin class you signed up for. And then a familiar refrain: This is your fault.

I first became aware of how much I hated my body after seeing what I deemed to be an unflattering photo of myself in a multi-colored Limited Too turtleneck in fifth grade. But it really started in full force the summer before ninth grade when I saw the movie Blue Crush. If you weren’t a teenage girl in 2002, Blue Crush is the story of four women who live in a shack on Hawaii’s North Shore and live for surfing and wearing mismatched bikini sets. The movie is aggressively early 2000s: dark tans, beachwear as everyday clothes, the notion that anyone can pull off a puka shell necklace, and the introduction of Kate Bosworth and her surfer girl body.

Every magazine was saying the same thing about Blue Crush: Finally, a movie that features a woman with a real body. OK, maybe not every magazine—I’m pretty sure The New Yorker didn’t run a feature on Kate Bosworth’s abs—but every magazine a 14-year-old girl would read was talking about it. Kate had muscle; she looked different from the other, thinner leading women.

There were a lot of things that stuck with me about Blue Crush. Roxy brand was a staple in my wardrobe until circa 2008 (RIP Pac Sun). I occasionally told people in high school “I surf” because once in California I took a 45-minute surfing lesson. But most importantly: Kate Bosworth’s body.

By eighth grade, I’d already taken to hiding my body under oversize sweatshirts whenever possible. I had been comparing myself to the thin actresses I’d seen on TV, but now there was Kate. If the very thin models weren’t “real” and Kate Bosworth’s muscley (but notably still very slender) surfer girl body was “real,” shouldn’t I be able to look like her if I tried hard enough?

For roughly the next 15 years of my life, I worked out daily, banning specific foods arbitrarily because of things I’d read in magazines, like “French people never eat popcorn.” But it didn’t seem to matter how many weights I lifted, how many miles I ran, how many times I opted for salad instead of pasta—I still didn’t look like Kate. So I kept trying. My brain was always holding up a tattered Seventeen magazine fold-out page from 2002, squinting its eyes at me and saying, “Nope, not yet.”

It wasn’t just that I wanted to look like Kate Bosworth in Blue Crush, it’s that I blamed myself for not looking like her. Everything was about what I didn’t do: didn’t run enough miles, didn’t lift enough weights, didn’t say no to a side of onion rings because they are my favorite thing you can deep fry. No matter what I did do, I felt like a failure.

But lying on my bed in Palm Springs, I felt something I hadn’t felt before: exhausted. I was about to be 30. I was at a party with a group of funny, intelligent women who were all out there having a great time and I was doing the same thing I’d been doing since I was 14: hiding, missing out.

But what’s so important about looking like Kate Bosworth? It’s not like one day she and I will be walking down the same street and a paparazzo will yell, “Which one of you is Kate Bosworth? I can’t tell!” And even if that very unlikely circumstance were to occur, who cares? Certainly not the women who were having fun outside on the inflatable donut. They just wanted me to hang.

The only people who really cared were me and the invisible ghost of Kate Bosworth that lived in my head and controlled my every move. But she wasn’t real. At some point, I had to accept that there was no amount of effort in the world—barring a Freaky Friday body switch situation—that would turn me into Kate. It wasn’t my fault.

I recently read an interview with Kate Bosworth where she was asked her dieting secret. She admitted she doesn’t diet. She worked out to put on muscle for Blue Crush, but she’s just naturally thin. It turns out that I was working much harder at looking like Kate Bosworth than Kate Bosworth ever worked at looking like Kate Bosworth. If the Looking Like Kate Bosworth Olympics were judged by a panel of people watching us perform the act of looking like Kate Bosworth, I might actually win.

After I got home from Palm Springs, I experimented with the novel idea of cutting myself some slack. Instead of eating a donut and then panicking over how long I’d have to run to burn it off, I tried just eating a donut. It was hard. Some days I still catch myself trying to suck in my stomach in the mirror, even though nobody is in the bathroom with me. I still leave the gym occasionally crying because I saw my arm fat flap in the wind like the sail of a ship when I picked up a set of weights. And I’ll admit it, I’ve picked up a bottle of Sun-In in the grocery store and pondered if it would really look that bad.

I still work out. I still eat healthy. But I try to do it now because I want to, not at the demand of phantom Kate Bosworth. I’ve pushed her out to sea on a flaming surfboard, never to be seen again. Figuratively, of course. Because literally I’m eating a bowl of Cheez-Its.

Lucy Huber is a writer, multiple cat owner, and sufferer of Reverse Dawson’s Creek Actor Syndrome, which is a disease she made up for when you are 30 but look 15. To see her other work or ask more specific questions about her cats, visit lucyhuber.com.

[foursprout-blog]

I Will Never Look Like Kate Bosworth in “Blue Crush”

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/health/i-will-never-look-like-kate-bosworth-in-blue-crush/

I Will Never Look Like Kate Bosworth in “Blue Crush”

I pulled on my new bathing suit and stared at my body in the mirror. I’d had my eye on the bathing suit to wear at my friend’s bachelorette party in Palm Springs for a while: a white one-piece with lace-up sides. The model in the photo online looked carefree and thin, but I’d made the mistake of imagining that when I pulled on the same suit I’d look like her. Instead, I looked like a misshapen bag of mayonnaise somehow wearing an even smaller misshapen bag of mayonnaise. I couldn’t believe I’d spent $127 dollars to look like something that someone placed haphazardly in the back of a Subway walk-in refrigerator.

You might also like

displayTitle READ

I could feel a familiar panic setting in. I felt dizzy. I peeled off the suit and curled up on the bed. Outside, I could hear the rest of the bachelorette party laughing, splashing around in the pool. I knew in a few minutes I’d have to come out ready to pose on the giant inflatable Pegasus in my mayonnaise suit. My breath got short just thinking about the photos that didn’t exist yet but I already knew I’d hate plastered all over Instagram.

I traced the cellulite on my legs with my finger, the surface of the moon on my upper thigh. If your life passes before your eyes when you die, then when I put on a bathing suit, every single thing I’ve ever eaten passes before my eyes: a guilt parade of fun-size Snickers bars and too many white cheddar Cheez-Its. Remember that cheese plate you insisted on finishing at Thanksgiving? When you ate a jelly donut at work last week? You never even went to that Spin class you signed up for. And then a familiar refrain: This is your fault.

I first became aware of how much I hated my body after seeing what I deemed to be an unflattering photo of myself in a multi-colored Limited Too turtleneck in fifth grade. But it really started in full force the summer before ninth grade when I saw the movie Blue Crush. If you weren’t a teenage girl in 2002, Blue Crush is the story of four women who live in a shack on Hawaii’s North Shore and live for surfing and wearing mismatched bikini sets. The movie is aggressively early 2000s: dark tans, beachwear as everyday clothes, the notion that anyone can pull off a puka shell necklace, and the introduction of Kate Bosworth and her surfer girl body.

Every magazine was saying the same thing about Blue Crush: Finally, a movie that features a woman with a real body. OK, maybe not every magazine—I’m pretty sure The New Yorker didn’t run a feature on Kate Bosworth’s abs—but every magazine a 14-year-old girl would read was talking about it. Kate had muscle; she looked different from the other, thinner leading women.

There were a lot of things that stuck with me about Blue Crush. Roxy brand was a staple in my wardrobe until circa 2008 (RIP Pac Sun). I occasionally told people in high school “I surf” because once in California I took a 45-minute surfing lesson. But most importantly: Kate Bosworth’s body.

By eighth grade, I’d already taken to hiding my body under oversize sweatshirts whenever possible. I had been comparing myself to the thin actresses I’d seen on TV, but now there was Kate. If the very thin models weren’t “real” and Kate Bosworth’s muscley (but notably still very slender) surfer girl body was “real,” shouldn’t I be able to look like her if I tried hard enough?

For roughly the next 15 years of my life, I worked out daily, banning specific foods arbitrarily because of things I’d read in magazines, like “French people never eat popcorn.” But it didn’t seem to matter how many weights I lifted, how many miles I ran, how many times I opted for salad instead of pasta—I still didn’t look like Kate. So I kept trying. My brain was always holding up a tattered Seventeen magazine fold-out page from 2002, squinting its eyes at me and saying, “Nope, not yet.”

It wasn’t just that I wanted to look like Kate Bosworth in Blue Crush, it’s that I blamed myself for not looking like her. Everything was about what I didn’t do: didn’t run enough miles, didn’t lift enough weights, didn’t say no to a side of onion rings because they are my favorite thing you can deep fry. No matter what I did do, I felt like a failure.

But lying on my bed in Palm Springs, I felt something I hadn’t felt before: exhausted. I was about to be 30. I was at a party with a group of funny, intelligent women who were all out there having a great time and I was doing the same thing I’d been doing since I was 14: hiding, missing out.

But what’s so important about looking like Kate Bosworth? It’s not like one day she and I will be walking down the same street and a paparazzo will yell, “Which one of you is Kate Bosworth? I can’t tell!” And even if that very unlikely circumstance were to occur, who cares? Certainly not the women who were having fun outside on the inflatable donut. They just wanted me to hang.

The only people who really cared were me and the invisible ghost of Kate Bosworth that lived in my head and controlled my every move. But she wasn’t real. At some point, I had to accept that there was no amount of effort in the world—barring a Freaky Friday body switch situation—that would turn me into Kate. It wasn’t my fault.

I recently read an interview with Kate Bosworth where she was asked her dieting secret. She admitted she doesn’t diet. She worked out to put on muscle for Blue Crush, but she’s just naturally thin. It turns out that I was working much harder at looking like Kate Bosworth than Kate Bosworth ever worked at looking like Kate Bosworth. If the Looking Like Kate Bosworth Olympics were judged by a panel of people watching us perform the act of looking like Kate Bosworth, I might actually win.

After I got home from Palm Springs, I experimented with the novel idea of cutting myself some slack. Instead of eating a donut and then panicking over how long I’d have to run to burn it off, I tried just eating a donut. It was hard. Some days I still catch myself trying to suck in my stomach in the mirror, even though nobody is in the bathroom with me. I still leave the gym occasionally crying because I saw my arm fat flap in the wind like the sail of a ship when I picked up a set of weights. And I’ll admit it, I’ve picked up a bottle of Sun-In in the grocery store and pondered if it would really look that bad.

I still work out. I still eat healthy. But I try to do it now because I want to, not at the demand of phantom Kate Bosworth. I’ve pushed her out to sea on a flaming surfboard, never to be seen again. Figuratively, of course. Because literally I’m eating a bowl of Cheez-Its.

Lucy Huber is a writer, multiple cat owner, and sufferer of Reverse Dawson’s Creek Actor Syndrome, which is a disease she made up for when you are 30 but look 15. To see her other work or ask more specific questions about her cats, visit lucyhuber.com.

[amif2017]

JAYNE PARKER

A.L. Rees

_____________________________

"In my work I try to see and understand what the body can do… Inanimate objects can also be the body."

"I like the physicality of film and its precision; I like the sense of space within the frame… Filmmaking allows me to make connections between seemingly unconnected images or events. There is a strong element of performance in all my work."

By the time she went to the Slade (1980-2) for her postgraduate degree she had, in these early films, begun to explore some unique aspects of the film medium, such as its framing of the subject in space and its potential for the shaping of time. The film she completed at the Slade, I Dish (1982), retained and expanded this direct and photogenic style, in which ordinary actions are also enigmas. The sparse events in the film - such as cooking and eating a fish - are shown 'out of sequence'. The two protagonists are divided in film space but linked by editing, so that the viewer connects them imaginatively even though they never appear together in the same shot. Finally, a naked young woman in a rock pool sifts stones and hooks, at the very edge of the frame that contains her.

The images in the films were both literal and metaphoric, depicting exact events but also creating physical and personal associations for the viewer. Ideas are evoked in images rather than words (as the puns in the film titles may suggest, in their play with the ambiguity of language). This was to characterise much of her later work, although she also made a long 'talkie' video with her mother called Almost Out(1984), whose title and theme suggest birth and beginnings. Here, the naked mother is filmed and questioned by the daughter in a TV studio, surrounded by monitors, while the daughter is similarly filmed and questioned by an unseen cameraman (her former tutor and mentor at Canterbury, Pierre Attala Lapierre). The search for identity borders on transgression in this striking video, whose documentary rawness is equally shown as mediated within a formal structure that reveals its own artifice.

With the exception of En Route (1986) - 'a video about transition and trying to find the right track' (JP) - she then returned to 16mm film for a series of short, intense films that make up a trilogy; (K. 1989, The Pool, 1991, Cold Jazz, 1993). Each contains acts and objects that evoke the fluids and forms of the body. Stark and literalist black-and-white cinematography depicts in K. the knitting of a garment from guts that seem to have been disgorged by the naked performer. Blood splashes from the naked protagonist's nose in The Pool and drips down her torso as she stands in an empty swimming pool. A graphic dance sequence with a male partner leads to the graceful movement of a fish in an aquarium, and to a final scene of release in which the performer swims in a pool now full of water. Cold Jazz contrasts an older woman slowly coaxing a tune from a saxophone while a younger woman cracks oysters to drink their juice and 'removes small stones from her body, washed there by the sea' (JP).

In these 'chamber' works Jayne Parker plays the central role in front of the camera, working with a small team on camera and sound (including Belinda Parsons, Anna Campion, Patrick Duval, Peter Scoones), and with Pat Fogarty as associate producer until her untimely death in 1999. The films also included the dancer Donald MacLeary (The Pool) and the jazz musician Kathy Stobart (Cold Jazz). The intense themes and imaging of the 'trilogy' were expanded along with other collaborations in the longer and more cyclic film Crystal Aquarium (1995). Evoking music hall stunts as well as contemporary art, this film includes a drummer, a swimmer and an ice-skater. Jayne Parker herself performs underwater tricks and is the subject of a muted drama, seen in fragments, in which she visits a room and finally sits on a bed that has been set alight. Although the performers are never seen together, 'they are inextricably bound up by their actions' (JP).

The implied narrative of Crystal Aquarium, which follows a series of shorter films in which protagonists hover on the verge of action and gesture towards freedom, is similarly about performance achieved over doubt and risk. These themes are evoked as visual concepts or signs. The drummer frowns in sharp-etched close-up as she thinks and listens, the skater digs her heels in ice, the swimmer's body creates abstract space, and Parker defeats gravity to eat and drink underwater, as in a circus act. At the same time, the room sequences which punctuate these events, repeated from different angles and focal planes, assert a literal figure of 'the interior', in which melting ice, empty space and unexplained fires are disturbing and perhaps melancholic emblems.

Her next two projects were commissioned for TV as dance films. While some of her earlier films were shown on television after they were completed, The Reunion (1997) and The Whirlpool (1997) were conceived for broadcasting. In The Reunion, Donald MacLeary and Lynn Seymour dance an imagined aftermath (choreographed by Ian Spink) to their roles as young and doomed lovers in the 1966 ballet 'The Invitation'. Here, the ageing body and the theme of time are paramount. Shot in the as yet unrefurbished Hackney Empire, the film is framed by an objective placement of the viewer in the theatre, before the camera enters the imaginary field of the dance. The Whirlpool, a 'dance spectacle' (JP), is a short lyric psychodrama in which a swimmer is lured into danger by the magic of light and water.

Further collaborations emerged from these projects, with Lynn Seymour in The Reprise, 2000, and with Katharina Wolpe, the pianist seen in The Whirlpool. A stunning result was Thinking Twice (1997), in which Katharina Wolpe plays three pieces for piano by her father, the composer Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972), the first of which is called "Piece of Embittered Music", (from the Zemach Suite). The sardonic title is characteristic of this experimental, argumentative and influential musician. In parallel with the stripped and spartan music, and its fierce intensity, Parker strips the rich colour sequences of her TV films down to black and white in deep tones. In its lucid editing of piano keys in motion, and especially in close up shots of the pianist's hands and face, Parker "attempts to reflect the rigour of the music" (JP). Although she is a highly subjective filmmaker in her personal themes, and in linking ideas that are embodied in the physical world,Thinking Twice seems to draw out her classicism in its formal shaping of visual concepts.

Wolpe's music evokes directly the world of radical modernism in which he spent his life as an itinerant avant-garde composer and refugee, in Europe, Palestine and the USA between and after the two world wars. Along with John Cage he was a formative figure in the rise of the 'New York School' of composers in the 1950s and 1960s. In a series of short films made with the cellist Anton Lukoszevieze, Parker took further the filming of post-serial music based on this legacy.

Up to this point, her films had occasionally used music as a fragment of the montage ensemble. The early I Cat, for example, includes bursts of a mediaeval French song and Inuit imitations of animal noises. Parker herself plays the cello in En Route, as one of that film's performative actions. Later, the composer Max Eastley contributed a subtle soundtrack to the aquarium section of The Pool, although the 'natural' sounds in that film - such as the sound of moving bodies in the dance scene and of water in the swimming pool - are also semi-musical counterpoints to the image.

More recently however, in short works from 2000 to the present day, Parker has focussed directly on this relationship of music and film. The cello makes up a second body within the films. In Foxfire Eins, by Helmut Oehring, the cello is plucked and struck by both hands to play the abrupt and percussive score. Another contemporary composer, Volker Heyn, requires the cellist to play with two bows - one on the underside of the strings - for Blues in B-Flat. "The film opens in a music repair shop and we see the interior of the cello - the space where music resonates" (JP).

In Projection 1, by Morton Feldman, the graphic lines of the cello and strings, crossed by the moving bow, "mirror the graphic score from which this piece is played" (JP). The piece is played twice, seemingly without a break. In an illuminating essay on music and Jayne Parker for the catalogue 'Filmworks 79-00' (Spacex 2000), the painter Joan Key wrote that "Parker's films use slight dislocations of angle and viewpoint, like a cubist painting, to open up performance's continuity to speculation." This is thematized by a sequence in which the close-up bow cuts a diagonal line across an empty screen, in a dialogue between vision, motion, flatness, space, sound and picture.

Repetition is differently treated in 59 1/2 Seconds, by John Cage. Parker shot and edited several versions of this one-minute composition, and in projection they can be cut together in different orders. Because they repeat the music, and compel repeated viewings, these two films are more easily shown in gallery installation, as they were for screenings in 2000/1 at Spacex (Exeter), John Hansard Gallery (Southampton) and the Aldeburgh Festival, as part of a comprehensive tour of Parker's exhibition Foxfire Eins.

The most recent film in this series returns to Stefan Wolpe, with Stationary Music (2005), featuring his Sonata 1 of 1925, again played by his daughter Katharina. This is a strong and spiky but intricate and 'formal' piano work, as the title indicates. A flat wall panel behind the pianist's concentrated face, and stark angles of construction throughout, seem to echo the bauhaus-cubist culture that stands behind the music, just as inserted shots of a magnolia bud and a flowering branch subtly insist on the organic element in abstract sound and imaging.

As with the earlier music films, the continuous flow of sound is shown in related visual fragments built around the gesture and movement of the performer. The film performance appears uninterrupted, but is in fact the product of many shots taken with a single camera, so that the rhythms and counterpoint of the editing also imply or point to the film's construction as a process in time. In their purity and intensity, these highly figurative films are both portraits and lyric abstractions.

Jayne Parker's films, videos, photographs and installations reveal a central core of concerns that are explored in many ways. Her hallmark is the focussed gaze of the camera on the body and its actions, combined with editing that draws out inner rhythms from the shot to mould an unfamiliar sense of time. A running theme is the making of art and the production of selfhood, mirrored in the performance itself and in the formal shape of the film. By embracing such nonverbal arts as music and dance, meaning in the films is produced - and questioned - by the clash or fusion of images seen from changing viewpoints and angles.

Quotations from Spacex Gallery, Jayne Parker; Filmworks 79-00, Exeter, 2000.

A.L. Rees, Jayne Parker, January 2005.

First published by LUX.

Full Essay

[amif2017old-blog]

JAYNE PARKER

A.L. Rees

_____________________________

"In my work I try to see and understand what the body can do… Inanimate objects can also be the body."

"I like the physicality of film and its precision; I like the sense of space within the frame… Filmmaking allows me to make connections between seemingly unconnected images or events. There is a strong element of performance in all my work."

By the time she went to the Slade (1980-2) for her postgraduate degree she had, in these early films, begun to explore some unique aspects of the film medium, such as its framing of the subject in space and its potential for the shaping of time. The film she completed at the Slade, I Dish (1982), retained and expanded this direct and photogenic style, in which ordinary actions are also enigmas. The sparse events in the film - such as cooking and eating a fish - are shown 'out of sequence'. The two protagonists are divided in film space but linked by editing, so that the viewer connects them imaginatively even though they never appear together in the same shot. Finally, a naked young woman in a rock pool sifts stones and hooks, at the very edge of the frame that contains her.

The images in the films were both literal and metaphoric, depicting exact events but also creating physical and personal associations for the viewer. Ideas are evoked in images rather than words (as the puns in the film titles may suggest, in their play with the ambiguity of language). This was to characterise much of her later work, although she also made a long 'talkie' video with her mother called Almost Out(1984), whose title and theme suggest birth and beginnings. Here, the naked mother is filmed and questioned by the daughter in a TV studio, surrounded by monitors, while the daughter is similarly filmed and questioned by an unseen cameraman (her former tutor and mentor at Canterbury, Pierre Attala Lapierre). The search for identity borders on transgression in this striking video, whose documentary rawness is equally shown as mediated within a formal structure that reveals its own artifice.

With the exception of En Route (1986) - 'a video about transition and trying to find the right track' (JP) - she then returned to 16mm film for a series of short, intense films that make up a trilogy; (K. 1989, The Pool, 1991, Cold Jazz, 1993). Each contains acts and objects that evoke the fluids and forms of the body. Stark and literalist black-and-white cinematography depicts in K. the knitting of a garment from guts that seem to have been disgorged by the naked performer. Blood splashes from the naked protagonist's nose in The Pool and drips down her torso as she stands in an empty swimming pool. A graphic dance sequence with a male partner leads to the graceful movement of a fish in an aquarium, and to a final scene of release in which the performer swims in a pool now full of water. Cold Jazz contrasts an older woman slowly coaxing a tune from a saxophone while a younger woman cracks oysters to drink their juice and 'removes small stones from her body, washed there by the sea' (JP).

In these 'chamber' works Jayne Parker plays the central role in front of the camera, working with a small team on camera and sound (including Belinda Parsons, Anna Campion, Patrick Duval, Peter Scoones), and with Pat Fogarty as associate producer until her untimely death in 1999. The films also included the dancer Donald MacLeary (The Pool) and the jazz musician Kathy Stobart (Cold Jazz). The intense themes and imaging of the 'trilogy' were expanded along with other collaborations in the longer and more cyclic film Crystal Aquarium (1995). Evoking music hall stunts as well as contemporary art, this film includes a drummer, a swimmer and an ice-skater. Jayne Parker herself performs underwater tricks and is the subject of a muted drama, seen in fragments, in which she visits a room and finally sits on a bed that has been set alight. Although the performers are never seen together, 'they are inextricably bound up by their actions' (JP).

The implied narrative of Crystal Aquarium, which follows a series of shorter films in which protagonists hover on the verge of action and gesture towards freedom, is similarly about performance achieved over doubt and risk. These themes are evoked as visual concepts or signs. The drummer frowns in sharp-etched close-up as she thinks and listens, the skater digs her heels in ice, the swimmer's body creates abstract space, and Parker defeats gravity to eat and drink underwater, as in a circus act. At the same time, the room sequences which punctuate these events, repeated from different angles and focal planes, assert a literal figure of 'the interior', in which melting ice, empty space and unexplained fires are disturbing and perhaps melancholic emblems.

Her next two projects were commissioned for TV as dance films. While some of her earlier films were shown on television after they were completed, The Reunion (1997) and The Whirlpool (1997) were conceived for broadcasting. In The Reunion, Donald MacLeary and Lynn Seymour dance an imagined aftermath (choreographed by Ian Spink) to their roles as young and doomed lovers in the 1966 ballet 'The Invitation'. Here, the ageing body and the theme of time are paramount. Shot in the as yet unrefurbished Hackney Empire, the film is framed by an objective placement of the viewer in the theatre, before the camera enters the imaginary field of the dance. The Whirlpool, a 'dance spectacle' (JP), is a short lyric psychodrama in which a swimmer is lured into danger by the magic of light and water.

Further collaborations emerged from these projects, with Lynn Seymour in The Reprise, 2000, and with Katharina Wolpe, the pianist seen in The Whirlpool. A stunning result was Thinking Twice (1997), in which Katharina Wolpe plays three pieces for piano by her father, the composer Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972), the first of which is called "Piece of Embittered Music", (from the Zemach Suite). The sardonic title is characteristic of this experimental, argumentative and influential musician. In parallel with the stripped and spartan music, and its fierce intensity, Parker strips the rich colour sequences of her TV films down to black and white in deep tones. In its lucid editing of piano keys in motion, and especially in close up shots of the pianist's hands and face, Parker "attempts to reflect the rigour of the music" (JP). Although she is a highly subjective filmmaker in her personal themes, and in linking ideas that are embodied in the physical world,Thinking Twice seems to draw out her classicism in its formal shaping of visual concepts.

Wolpe's music evokes directly the world of radical modernism in which he spent his life as an itinerant avant-garde composer and refugee, in Europe, Palestine and the USA between and after the two world wars. Along with John Cage he was a formative figure in the rise of the 'New York School' of composers in the 1950s and 1960s. In a series of short films made with the cellist Anton Lukoszevieze, Parker took further the filming of post-serial music based on this legacy.

Up to this point, her films had occasionally used music as a fragment of the montage ensemble. The early I Cat, for example, includes bursts of a mediaeval French song and Inuit imitations of animal noises. Parker herself plays the cello in En Route, as one of that film's performative actions. Later, the composer Max Eastley contributed a subtle soundtrack to the aquarium section of The Pool, although the 'natural' sounds in that film - such as the sound of moving bodies in the dance scene and of water in the swimming pool - are also semi-musical counterpoints to the image.

More recently however, in short works from 2000 to the present day, Parker has focussed directly on this relationship of music and film. The cello makes up a second body within the films. In Foxfire Eins, by Helmut Oehring, the cello is plucked and struck by both hands to play the abrupt and percussive score. Another contemporary composer, Volker Heyn, requires the cellist to play with two bows - one on the underside of the strings - for Blues in B-Flat. "The film opens in a music repair shop and we see the interior of the cello - the space where music resonates" (JP).

In Projection 1, by Morton Feldman, the graphic lines of the cello and strings, crossed by the moving bow, "mirror the graphic score from which this piece is played" (JP). The piece is played twice, seemingly without a break. In an illuminating essay on music and Jayne Parker for the catalogue 'Filmworks 79-00' (Spacex 2000), the painter Joan Key wrote that "Parker's films use slight dislocations of angle and viewpoint, like a cubist painting, to open up performance's continuity to speculation." This is thematized by a sequence in which the close-up bow cuts a diagonal line across an empty screen, in a dialogue between vision, motion, flatness, space, sound and picture.

Repetition is differently treated in 59 1/2 Seconds, by John Cage. Parker shot and edited several versions of this one-minute composition, and in projection they can be cut together in different orders. Because they repeat the music, and compel repeated viewings, these two films are more easily shown in gallery installation, as they were for screenings in 2000/1 at Spacex (Exeter), John Hansard Gallery (Southampton) and the Aldeburgh Festival, as part of a comprehensive tour of Parker's exhibition Foxfire Eins.

The most recent film in this series returns to Stefan Wolpe, with Stationary Music (2005), featuring his Sonata 1 of 1925, again played by his daughter Katharina. This is a strong and spiky but intricate and 'formal' piano work, as the title indicates. A flat wall panel behind the pianist's concentrated face, and stark angles of construction throughout, seem to echo the bauhaus-cubist culture that stands behind the music, just as inserted shots of a magnolia bud and a flowering branch subtly insist on the organic element in abstract sound and imaging.

As with the earlier music films, the continuous flow of sound is shown in related visual fragments built around the gesture and movement of the performer. The film performance appears uninterrupted, but is in fact the product of many shots taken with a single camera, so that the rhythms and counterpoint of the editing also imply or point to the film's construction as a process in time. In their purity and intensity, these highly figurative films are both portraits and lyric abstractions.

Jayne Parker's films, videos, photographs and installations reveal a central core of concerns that are explored in many ways. Her hallmark is the focussed gaze of the camera on the body and its actions, combined with editing that draws out inner rhythms from the shot to mould an unfamiliar sense of time. A running theme is the making of art and the production of selfhood, mirrored in the performance itself and in the formal shape of the film. By embracing such nonverbal arts as music and dance, meaning in the films is produced - and questioned - by the clash or fusion of images seen from changing viewpoints and angles.

Quotations from Spacex Gallery, Jayne Parker; Filmworks 79-00, Exeter, 2000.

A.L. Rees, Jayne Parker, January 2005.

First published by LUX.

Full Essay