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jerseydeanne · 3 years ago

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When I last sat down with Prince Harry for an honest, candid, funny and frank interview, he told me he would use his “privileged position” for “good stuff” for “as long as I can, or until I become boring, or until [Prince] George ends up becoming more interesting.”

Harry, then 31 and one of the most popular royals, seemed aware of his sell-by date. “There’s nothing worse than going through a period in your life where you’re making a massive difference and then suddenly ... you drop off. You want to make a difference but no one’s listening to you.”

Recently it has been almost impossible not to hear Harry, although the jury is out on how much people are still listening. So when he announced last week that at the age of 36 he is writing his “intimate and heartfelt” memoirs, “not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become”, it felt as if Harry thinks his greatest hits are already behind him. After settling in America, why the rush so soon after the soul-baring interview with Oprah Winfrey and a glut of other interventions?

A friend of Harry’s says that while he was still a working royal, he harboured a Prince Andrew complex of slipping down the pecking order and becoming irrelevant: “Harry has always been in such a rush to make an ‘impact’, because he thinks he has a limited shelf-life before the public want to hear more from George and his siblings and he worries that after that, he’ll turn into his uncle.”

Harry now wants to tell us about his “dedication to service” and how he’s “worn many hats over the years”, because “my hope is that in telling my story — the highs and lows, the mistakes, the lessons learnt — I can help show that no matter where we come from, we have more in common than we think.”

The privacy-obsessed prince will let us into his head for a rumoured multimillion-pound advance, with “proceeds” from sales of the book published by Penguin Random House in late 2022, the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee year, going to charity. Harry is said to have been working on a manuscript for more than a year with the American ghostwriter JR Moehringer, who worked on Andre Agassi’s memoir. Whatever is — or isn’t — in the book it is certain to outsell Meghan’s The Bench, which has shifted 6,195 copies here. Yesterday, a spokeswoman for Harry denied reports of a four-book deal, with a second book after the Queen’s death, as “factually inaccurate”, confirming “there is only one memoir planned” and “no project co-ordinated around” the monarch’s demise.

We are likely to hear Harry’s take on the very public breakdown of his parents’ marriage, the impact on his childhood and more on the devastating effects of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, when he was 12. He has said he failed to deal with it for years, leading to a period of “total chaos” and a near “total breakdown” in his twenties. Of walking behind his mother’s coffin, Harry has said: “I don’t think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances.” Will the book reveal who asked him and what choice, if any, he was given?

How Harry chooses to relay the “party prince” years, when he was living it up in London nightclubs and smoking cannabis at his father’s Highgrove home, leading Charles to arrange a visit to a rehab centre, will be fascinating. Will the period be analysed retrospectively as the reeling aftermath of his mother’s tragic death? Or will there be candour about a young, privileged prince having a blast and doing what many young men in his position would have done?

“I never thought he was out of control then,” says a source who knows Harry well. “In his new Californian guise, I think he’ll tell it honestly, framed in the context of his ‘journey’ towards ‘healing’. I think there will be a lot of the old broken me versus the new fixed me who dealt with the pain, and a lot about Meghan as the woman who liberated me to deal with it all.”

A seasoned royal watcher says they are “looking forward to the Vegas chapter”, one of Harry’s most notorious escapades when he was photographed naked playing strip billiards in a Las Vegas hotel suite in 2012 shortly before being deployed to Afghanistan. “Too much army, not enough prince,” Harry later said, admitting: “I let my family down.”

Having become so outspoken on race and “unconscious bias” after meeting Meghan, the first mixed-race woman to marry into the modern royal family, what will Harry tell us he learnt after calling an Asian army colleague “our little P*** friend” while at Sandhurst military academy in 2006? The incident was widely condemned, a year after he was forced to apologise for wearing a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party. “He’ll be smart enough to know that to gloss over those incidents would undermine the book,” says a royal source who knows him.

Harry’s account of family life will be intriguing — how the triumphant trio of William, Kate and Harry briefly became the “Fab Four” with Meghan, their fairytale wedding with the no-show by Thomas Markle, the father-in-law he has never met, William and Harry’s rift, the painful split from the royal family and their new life in America, right up to the controversy last month surrounding the naming of their new daughter, Lilibet. The Sussexes called in lawyers to dispute a BBC report that the Queen was “not asked” about the intimate nickname. “False and defamatory” said team Sussex. The BBC stood by the story. Buckingham Palace did not dispute it.

What will Harry’s version of life inside and outside the royal goldfish bowl look like? He has pledged total honesty, and is “excited for people to read a first-hand account of my life that’s accurate and wholly truthful”. But as the Queen’s statement following the bombshell Oprah interview in March pointed out, “some recollections may vary”.

In that interview, and in the mental health documentary series Harry made with Winfrey, he claimed talking about mental health with his family was off-limits. Royal life “wasn’t an environment where I was encouraged to talk about it”. His comments left some scratching their heads. After all, Harry, William and Kate championed ending the stigma around mental health for years in their hugely successful Heads Together campaign.

On the Armchair Expert podcast in May, Harry also credited “a conversation I had with my now-wife” for his decision to have therapy. Yet in another podcast in 2017, Harry said he sought professional help “three years ago” encouraged by William, who told him: “You really need to deal with this.” The inconsistencies in some of Harry’s recent recollections have been well documented, leading some to describe him as a “revisionist historian”. Harry’s rumoured ghostwriter has spoken about the importance of honesty.

There is little hope in royal circles that will happen. The Sussexes’ recent outbursts have driven once-loyal aides to despair. “I fear they may sail into the sunset now, convinced they did the right thing by speaking ‘their truth’,” says one. “Now I hope everyone shuts the f*** up.”

Charles has been portrayed as an emotionally and financially stingy parent. A source close to him says: “He has genuinely been so upset by it all. He just doesn’t recognise any of the examples or narrative.” Friends of William and Harry say William, who was forced to publicly defend his family against accusations of racism after the interview with Winfrey, “despairs” of his brother but the shock factor is wearing off.

Harry has done brilliant things in his time. Moving the dial on mental health, serving his country at war and launching the Invictus Games are just a few of his achievements. Nobody should begrudge him wanting to bang the drum there, and if he wants to bare his soul on how he has coped with undeniable adversity and tragedy in his life, fair enough. But if his book becomes the main course of a score-settling feast then he will lose many more hearts and his greatest fear will be realised — “no one is listening”.

#prince harry #prince andrew #memoir #british royal family #meghan markle

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rmuranaka · 4 years ago

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Project #1 Signs

For my designs, I wanted to create a group of signs that would scratch more than the surface of the idea of littering. Whether if you are a photographer taking pictures of a beautiful scenery or just a group of friends camping at your favorite spot at Sherwoods, I wanted to make sure that these signs hit you in some type of way. It doesn't have to make a very significant change but at least to the point where you would know that the next time you litter, you will automatically assume that what you did was wrong and you should either keep your litter or throw it away at your nearest dumpster. Due note as well, that I decided to take a photographic point of view instead of using illustrations in my designs. One may say lazy but I believe that photographs hit harder to someone's soul than simple doodles. No offense!

Sign#1: What's wrong with this picture?

For this sign, I wanted to create a sign for our fellow photographers working at Ala Moana beach park. Before the pandemic, I constantly saw photographers photographing Japanese people for their wedding photos. Even though not all of us are asian, you have to look it from their point of view. Would you have a wedding photo with a bunch of trash around you? The most common sense answer would be NO so why would you litter in someone else's photos or someone else's beautiful scenery then. Think common courtesy in this situation and not about your selfish act. What you do today will indeed affect others in some type of way. Especially, it doesn't have to be other humans, it could be the birds that live in the park, or even the fishes that swim next to the bay. Also, this could affect you as well. The next time you go beach at Ala Moana beach park or even if you were just exercising or just relaxing to take your next Instagram/Snapchat photo, would you take a scenery photo/sunset view with trash in it? Probably not right. So think twice before littering because your not just affecting your next photo but it could be your friends or even a fellow tourist/photographer.

Sign#2 Keep Hawaii Beautiful

This sign is just an alternate version of sign number one but clearly states "Do Not Litter!". I wanted to choose a beautiful image of Hawaii which can be changed out depending on the location where these signs will be placed. Since Hawaii is a beautiful place, we the people of the island would like to keep our home clean. If we dirty the island up with our disgusting trash, do you think tourist would be coming to see our beautiful island? Probably NOT right? I know they would only be staying in places like Waikiki or Hanuama Bay and NOT places on the West side but still, everyone's point of view of Hawaii being beautiful is different. So don't ruin it for the rest of us. Plus, if we don't have tourist in the island, how would we survive financially? Think twice because what you do will indeed affect you later on?

Sign#3 The new food chain

This sign was inspired by the ad, "What goes in the ocean, goes in you". I saw a picture on the internet of an ad with a rubbish sushi roll and thought that was clever. For myself, I am a sushi lover and when I saw that, It really got me thinking. I decided to create a food chain sign and to show what goes in the ocean will indeed go in you.

Sign#4 You wouldn't do this at home, so why are you.........

For this sign, I decided to make a sign of a comparison of our home and our animal homes. I chose a nice scenery of a house and a completely horrified photo of squirrel's home. There weren't much photos online with animals near trash. Majority of the photos were animals with litter on them. I guess those images would work but the idea for mines was to compare the different homes and not the aftermath on what our litter does to our fellow animals.I felt those photos were to graphic and I wanted to show how these animals have to live day by day, month to month, and year to year in our waste. That's disgusting even though we don't have squirrels (NOT THE POINT) . We would NOT litter in our own homes, so why are we doing it to theirs?

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madscientistjournal · 5 years ago

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Fiction: The Titan Through the Dust

An essay by Claire Gainsborough, as provided by Joachim Heijndermans Art by Leigh Legler

You’ve seen it. Everyone’s seen it. Kids know of it from their school books. It’s been on TV, in movies, and in every history book published in the years after the incident of Singapore City. Hell, even if you’ve never seen the actual shot, you’ll know it from the ripoffs and the parodies and the references by college kids trying to be artsy in their projects. Cultural osmosis, I think they call it. It’s a hell of a thing, to have your work be absorbed by the current zeitgeist and spat back out, like a cheesy meme passed around on Twitter, to the point that everyone around the world will instantly recognize your photo on sight, even if they have never heard your name.

And I gotta say, with the passage of time, I don’t know how I even feel about the shot anymore. For one thing, it’s been nearly twenty years since I aimed that camera, pressed my index finger down, and made a piece of history in a split second of time. So yeah, that part’s cool. But you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone familiar with any of my other work. Last year I had a book collection of my travel photography published in conjunction with Nat Geo. Sales were so-so. Biggest complaint? That shot wasn’t in it. That’s all that people want anymore. Kagemura, on the most devastating day of my life.

Is this what Eisenstaed felt like when he shot that photo of the VJ day in New York? I doubt it, because even if that kiss was forced and all that, it still had some sense of beauty to it. A joy was captured in that scene. My shot? It’s beautiful in its own terrifying way. But I just see the carnage. Carnage in blood, rubble, and dust. Absolute carnage.

This morning I got an offer to do the photography at a wedding. It’s a famous couple. You know them, I guarantee it, but I signed an NDA before I even met with them, so I can’t say much about it other than that the money is blasphemously great. Had I accumulated any, I could have paid back my college loan debts three times over. It’s insane. And do you know what they called me when they rang me up? Claire? Of course not. I was “that Kagemura lady.” They wanted that style for their reception. As in, that exact style. Happiest day of their life, but shot in a sepia tone and with the sun partially blocked. I said yes, obviously, as the KSF needs the cash more than I do. My best guess is they just didn’t realize people actually died when I took it.

I’m tired of talking about the shot in public, to be honest. Because that’s all that people discuss when the topic of my work comes up. The technique. The type of lens I used. The other dumb crap. And it’s so … what’s the word I’m looking for? Dull. Yeah, that’s it. It’s dull. It’s technical jargon and people standing around printouts of it with glasses of champagne in hand, each of them trying to find something new and profound to say about the photo. In the end, it’s just words. Words about a picture I took in the spur of the moment as I was half-suffocated by ash and grime.

Nobody ever asks what it was like, being there when it all came down. I think that’s why they’re all drawn to the photo. It’s a way to get close, but not too close to the actual awfulness of it all. The Disneyland version of it, where they can see the horrible monster without having to think about what it can do and what it did.

I want to talk about that day. What it was like. This is what happened on that day when I shot The Titan Through the Dust. My opus, I suppose.

Do people take gap years anymore? Or is that just a rich people thing these days? I swear, every time I talk to a student who either has never heard of a gap year, or worse, mentions they couldn’t afford it because they have student loans to pay back, it just reminds me again and again how I was born with a silver spoon up my ass. I love my mom and my dads, who really did their best to pool everything two orthodontists and a lawyer could scrape together to get their ditzy daughter through college pain-free, but boy howdy did they shield me from the realities of the world. Might be why it hit me as hard as it did when the earth literally opened up that day.

Anyway, I’m off topic. Back to the event.

I’d just graduated with my BA in programming and game design. Yeah, that’s right. Claire Gainsborough, the one whose book your mom has on the coffee table and who shot that photo you owned the poster of, wanted to make a career for herself in video game production. The art critics either tactfully neglect to mention that whenever they praise my photo work, or somehow bring up the supposed influence that “Banjo-Kazooie” on the N64 had on my choice of angle and lighting. I don’t know if any of that is true, as I only played it for about a week and a half during a retro-game bender in college, but whatever. To wrap it up, I graduated the course and had my fill of screens and code and engines after four years, so I chose to take a year to travel. I wanted to see the world and snap some pictures along the way to fill up a scrapbook or a blog or something. I never expected to go down in the history books as the next Joe Rosenthal, which only happened after my photo began circulating around the net and Nadaria, my agent, hooked me in and began to tour my shot, helping me realize I had a knack for a good photo. Lucky me, falling into a career like that.

I’ve often thought about going back into video games, make a simple platformer or an RPG with cute cartoon animals who save the world. But I just can’t seem to muster the drive to sit down and do it. I mean, making video games? After what I witnessed and lived through? It seems so quaint … no, childish even. How do I imagine the fantastical anymore? How can I create the illusion of power, when I’ve seen what real, actual raw ball-busting power looks like in the flesh? Now that I know what it feels like as it walks past you, too large to notice something as insignificant as me? What the air around it tastes like as it marches onward? How can anything compare? Well, I guess only Team Ico got close, and maybe those “God of War” guys, but still–

Wait, wasn’t I talking about gap years? Sorry. I got way off topic.

So, my gap year. The idea was that I’d backpack through Asia. Had a whole route planned out. I’d start in Jakarta and see all the Indonesian islands one by one (which I did in three weeks’ time). Then it would be on to Singapore, then Malacca, Kuala Lumpur, Krabi in Thailand, and so on up the peninsula and into the continent. My final stop would be in Wakkanai, the most northern spot on Hokkaido, Japan. It was going to be the experience of a lifetime. Just traveling, seeing the sights, taking selfies, and going out at night with whomever I met along the way. Food. Sun. Shots out of someone’s belly button. And maybe there’d be things that would go horribly wrong, and I would have had to wash dishes for a week to get my ticket out of there. Something I would vlog about and then do a book and the whole shebang. Then, twenty years down the line, they’d make a movie about it with someone who doesn’t look a thing like me, but is willing to look less pretty on screen for when the awards season rolls around. That’s where I was with my mind at the time. Just laughs, experiences and the idea of fame coming from my Asian trek.

I didn’t get that far, barely a quarter way of the journey. As you might guess, my third day in Singapore was the March the 23rd. The first Kagemura Ascendance. Day Zero.

What I did those first two days in Singapore is a haze for me now. I doubt anyone really remembers what they did on half their vacations down the line. But I’ll tell you this: everyone who was there can recall that day with near 100% accuracy. I guarantee it. What they had for lunch. Who they talked to. What clothes they put on that morning. All of it. Trust me on this one.

As for me? I was in the midst of an iced coffee and a croissant with an omelet and chives, which I’d told myself would be the only familiar food I’d eat that day (part of the whole “experience the local cuisine” thing I was going for). It was 10:32 AM on the dot, and breakfast was coming to a close in the dining area. I had my nose in my tablet … like, nose in the book, but I guess it doesn’t go in a tablet. Is there a phrase for that? Dang. I’m rambling. Sorry. I always ramble when that day comes up. It’s … it’s difficult to talk about this. But anyway, I was planning out my day, when my glass trembled. And when I say trembled, I mean it was flung right off my table.

That’s when it started.

It’s funny, but the camera I used that day? A hand me down. The most famous modern photographer, and I didn’t even go out and get my own equipment. It was one of my dad’s, my biological one, who had bought it for a summer trip he and my step-mom were going to take down to Tijuana. Then he won an even better one at a sweepstakes thing with the Shoprite around the block, so he gave me the Canon for my trip.

It’s never taken more than thirty photos, and twenty-eight of them are pics from the plane, the hotel, and the pool that was on the roof. The other two are from after the attack. The camera itself now sits on my mantle, still dirty and containing its original memory card. A conversation piece, really. I use better stuff for work.

I don’t know why I keep it. I’ve had to fish it out of the trash over six times, thrown out during my darker mood episodes that are common to people with survivor’s guilt (according to my therapist). Two other times, Carla, the lady who comes in every Tuesday to clean, pulled it out. She just put it back and never said a word about it. She looks out for me. Bless her heart. I should really be nicer to her. Like, to her face, instead of anonymously paying her daughter’s college tuition as I have been.

But yeah, the camera. It sometimes drives me batty. It sits there, reminding me of what I’d done. What I could have done. There are still days I desperately want to get rid of it. But then I would blind the last eye that saw them.

It was so sudden. There wasn’t any build up to it at all. A calm, serene morning the one moment, and then the earth broke open like a fresh baguette ripped in two. A horrible noise blasted past us, a sound wave of broken steel and ten billion nails against ten billion chalkboards, that threw us from our feet. Before anyone could react, the glass in all the windows shattered, broken by the pitch of the sound. That was the first roar, but I didn’t find that out until later.

I wasn’t hurt, but I could hear the people in the streets scream as the shards came down on them. While everyone else in the dining area ran for the nearest exit and the stairs, I leaped under my table, which might have been what saved me from what came after. Not a conscious choice. Just a habit I picked up from my time dealing with the L.A. quakes.

Now, for a while, I didn’t have a clue what was going on outside. There weren’t any tremors after the initial quake, but from the sounds, I knew it had to be bad. I just stayed where I was, in case someone came to get me. No one did. In fact, the first sign that things were weird was the sudden collective silence. There were some loud astonished gasps and some incoherent yelling, but it didn’t sound like anyone was in a panic.

Then came the second roar. And with that, hell was unleashed on the city.

There are reports of what happened in the initial strike as it emerged. I’ve read them all, but they don’t mean anything to me. Just a list of factoids and hypotheses about its tunneling ability and how long it laid dormant underneath Singapore, a sleeping giant upon which we just built a city. What I could gather from them was that, just by coming up from its resting place, it took out three of the adjacent buildings in an instant. After that, it stumbled about for a bit. While it wasn’t like it was immediately attacked, something must have set it off in a real bad way, because what it did next is what hit the building I was in.

But back to the massive tremor that knocked everything over. At the time, I thought it was an earthquake, which is why I leaped under the table. That theory went out the window the second a purple beam of pure heat ripped across the city skyline and shredded through buildings. The Summer Palms hotel I was in lost its top eight floors in one swoop. If anyone screamed, I didn’t hear it on account of my eardrums shattering (still have the tinnitus as a souvenir).

I think I may have hidden under that table for a good ten to fifteen minutes before I crawled out. Dust was already coming down like snow in December, but I could feel the rays of the sun hitting me. The roof was gone. Not broken. Not damaged. Gone. Rendered to dust.

As I look back now, I’m surprised as all hell that I didn’t panic. Somehow I kept myself level, waited for a couple of minutes after the heat blast took out the top floors, then just grabbed my backpack and ran for the exit, nearly tripping over people that just lay there in the path. Were they dead or unconscious? I haven’t the foggiest, as I was too busy trying not to get trampled by the others who made their way down. But I remember cursing myself for going out to breakfast in flip-flops that day, since they made my escape three times harder. I tripped and fell down a flight of stairs, bruising my knee and scraping my arms. It hurt, but I forgot about the pain when another beam blasted overhead. I saw its purple light ripping through a cloud of dust, but the sound from within was that of steel melting, foundation crumbling, and screams silenced in an instant. I didn’t think about it, or at least I tried not to. I just ran down the stairs with one thought on my mind: escape. Run like hell and try to make it out on the street. Maybe there would be somewhere I could hide. Find an ambulance or a cop I could hitch a ride with. Be anywhere but a demolished building that could topple down any moment.

Then the stairs collapsed right out from under me.

Hours had passed when I finally woke back up, though I didn’t find out about that until later. When I came to, there was nothing but darkness around me. Engulfed in panic, I shrieked and flailed my arms wildly in an attempt to break free, thinking I’d been trapped. Technically, I was, but it wasn’t rubble I was stuck under. Three men, two women, and a potted plant had tumbled on top of me and shielded me from the debris. There were other people, who all laid there as limp ragdolls, with not a single sign of life among them. I remember I started sobbing, even though no tears were coming out of my eyes. For a bit, I stumbled in the semi-darkness to try and find a way out by touch, which I did eventually. Bad news? It was blocked with rubble. No way out but either wait for help or dig. I seriously considered just waiting it out. Help would come soon, and I wasn’t in a bad place. Then the earth shook again. So I dug.

Like a frightened mole, I burrowed my way through the dirt with ferocious speed till my fingers bled. I credit my adrenaline for giving my 125 pound frame the strength I needed to get out of there, even as I hacked up my lungs in the process. It wasn’t until that first beam of light hit my face that my heart finally stopped trying to leap out from my chest.

Wasting no time for comfort, I dug out a hole large enough for me to fit through. I pushed my bag out and followed suit, writhing like a worm after a rainstorm. I stumbled and fell twice, scraping my knees again, but I’d done it. I’d made it outside on the street, although I still couldn’t breathe for shit, with the massive dust cloud seeping right into my nostrils and lungs. My eyes narrowed in an attempt to keep the dust out of them. None of it mattered. I was deaf, dumb, and blind, stumbling through a cloud of dirt. Every exhale was a cough. I could feel the blood in my lungs and tear ducts. I knew with absolute certainty I was going to die. But I still kept going.

It was then that I remembered the bottle of water in my backpack. I scrambled for it blindly, overjoyed to find it unbroken. With some sloppy haste, I pooled some of it into my hand and splashed it in my face. A reprieve. Water had never felt that good on my skin. And with that, I got my sight back.

Then I wished I hadn’t.

There’re these two paintings by Goya. They get brought up and compared a lot in the art books that have my photo in them. Pose and lighting and all that. I do see it. And yet (and I’m going to be completely honest here), I’d never seen them before I took that picture. But I see their point when the comparison is brought up again and again between The Colossus and my photo. Goya couldn’t have known what it would be like, to see a massive behemoth waltz across through mist and smoke. But he nearly got it. Out of all the paintings, he came the closest. Because he got the dust right.

The dust. That’s all I could see that day. The dust. After the first few buildings collapsed, the dust shot out over every inch of the city. It became a cloud. No, not a cloud. More of a ghost. A specter. A second monster, a mollusk of granite and ash and human remains that fell down on the city like a sheet of pain and tears. The bride of the beast, a herald to its approach and a silent mourner, standing vigil in the wake of its terrible walk. I remember the dust more than Kagemura itself. The creature was just a flash that passed by, shone its giant eyes down at the little people screaming for their lives below, then stomped off.

There’s a second Goya painting. Saturn devouring his Son. This giant titan, the most ghastly dude you can ever imagine, is ramming this little kid into his gaping maw, all on account of a prophecy that proclaimed his children would bring his downfall. He eats a child to preserve his own future.

Goddammit, Goya. Get the hell out of my head.

Dust. Nothing but a giant cloud of dust as far as the eye could see. I felt like I’d walked into a grey-brown fog, and the city that had been there a few hours earlier was now a “Silent Hill” level, but a lot hotter. With the towel from my backpack, I made a mask to cover my nose and face, while I blocked my eyes with my hands, peering through my fingers. For some reason, I also took out my camera, the Canon, and just held onto it. I’m not sure why. Maybe as my last testament? Was I that certain of my death?

Now, I had no idea what to do next. Where was I walking to? To safety. Where was that? I didn’t have a clue. There were faint sirens that came from every direction. Muffled screams beyond the dust clouds. And me in the middle of it all.

I picked a direction on pure instinct and just booked toward it. Me, missing one flip-flop and with half a bottle of water, a towel, and a camera, shuffled in the direction to what I’d assumed was away from the danger. My foot got cut up on the rocks and debris, but I managed by some miracle to avoid any glass shards. Here and there I’d see what I thought were bodies, but to keep myself from completely losing it, I tried to block them out.

Then I heard it again, even with my fuzzy hearing and blood-soaked ears. The sound that had announced its attack and shattered all the glass. The sound of hell. The roar. I turned around, trying to see where it was coming from, which seemed like from all directions at once. Destruction in surround sound. Each breath was a hurricane. The beat of its heart was an earthquake. While I couldn’t see it through all the dust and debris, I knew it was close. Hell, I didn’t even know what “it” was at the time. The sounds were just unexplained noises. I still thought it was some kind of a bomb at the time. That’s what I assumed the source of the heat was. I tried to rationalize it all. Terrorists. A war. Or an accident. Gas pipes. All these rational explanations for all that horror. Something to just make a little sense of it all.

And then I saw it. For real this time, as it stepped right over me. I couldn’t comprehend what I was looking at. But in that moment, like a reflex, I aimed the camera and pressed the button.

A few weeks ago, in an interview with Time for the tenth anniversary of the Singapore attack, I told them that I’d only seen Kagemura the one time, back when I snapped the picture. That’s actually not true, and I should apologize for my lie. I’d actually seen it twice. The second time was about seven years after Singapore, during the three-year hiatus when they couldn’t locate the creature anywhere, during my trip to Switzerland. Yeah, you’ve seen the story. You know where this is going.

I was in the midst of climbing to the top of a mountain whose name I can’t remember, because who cares what mountains are called anymore when actual titans now walked the earth? I climbed it because I hated skiing and I wanted to get away from the world and the aura of sorrow and fear it had wrapped itself in since the monster began to walk across the landscape. Stupid me.

I saw it in the early morning, lit up by the early sun’s rays as it breached the dew that descended from the Alps with its massive frame. It was actually more bizarre to see it there. A giant crab/dinosaur/eel that keeps going in and out of the Chinese sea wasn’t that out of place in that area, if you know what I mean. But in Switzerland, among the green hills glistening with dewdrops and the sturdy pine trees that formed a carpet of bark and needles, it was as if Heidi suddenly got a weird last chapter. It was more alien than ever out there. Especially since it didn’t do anything.

There was no fire that day. There were no screams. It wasn’t even loud. A complete one-eighty from that day in Singapore. It just lurched forward and slowly made its way past the hills and mountains, cloaked in the haze that was the mists of Switzerland. Wrapped in a cloak of morning dew and fog, rather than fire and dust, it looked beautiful this time around, as it rested itself against the mountainside. Had I brought my camera, I would have gotten my second Pulitzer. Yeah, I sound like a cocky bitch, but I’ve got the royalty checks and the big gold coin on my shelf next to my Pikachu change jug, so I’d like to think I have the cred to back that statement up.

Now, how do you react to something like that? I was on vacation in Switzerland for God’s sakes, with uncomfortable hiking boots and two walking sticks in hand. I expected it all to just be pine trees and purple cows from those chocolate wrappers. Nothing weird, and certainly not it. But there it was, among the Alps without a care in the world.

For years, I’d imagined how I would react if I ever ran into Kagemura again. I thought I’d scream insults. That’d I’d raise hell as jet fighters bombed the shit out of it. Or that I’d at least flip it off, should it happen to look my way. But no. I did nothing. I just watched it for a while as it stumbled slowly around, pushing clouds aside by merely exhaling. After about ten minutes or so, it moved out of sight into the fog. I could hear its steps, as the tremors became gentler and gentler. Just like that, it went away. Then I went back to the hotel, listened to the other guests freak out about the giant prints across the landscape, had my tea, got a book from the book-swap shelf, and called it a day. Stayed there until they evacuated us all.

I’ve never told anyone else that story. Lucky you.

It stopped for a moment, as a thunderous rumble emitted from its throat (think a lion growl, but a billion of them at once), then tilted its head back to let out a deafening roar. And me? I took aim, clicked, and took the photo that defined that day and the rest of my life.

Seeing it that first time, my mind went blank. The words “what” and “the fuck” and “is that?”. A giant lizard-like thing waltzed right over me. One wrong step, and I’d have been jelly on the pavement. But as soon as it passed me, I could barely make it out anymore through the dust. The only part I got a good look at was its long, almost chameleon-like tail, which ripped through the buildings like a whip as it twisted. All I could make out was its silhouette, partially illuminated by the purple glow from its eyes. I’m not going to lie: it was beautiful. For a moment, I completely forgot how terrible everything was. There was just me and it, a skinny girl in shorts with a camera, and a creature unlike any the world had ever seen. It stopped for a moment, as a thunderous rumble emitted from its throat (think a lion growl, but a billion of them at once), then tilted its head back to let out a deafening roar. And me? I took aim, clicked, and took the photo that defined that day and the rest of my life. Like I said before: a split-second that neither I nor anyone else will ever forget.

You know what question I get asked the most? Whether I took any other shots of Kagemura later. Do they seriously think I went and ran after it? Do I look like Jimmy Olsen? It was thirty stories high, and that was back before it was full grown! No way did I risk my life like that.

But there was a second picture I took on that “fateful” day (as they call it in the history books). It was right after Kagemura made its way through the main street, right through those four buildings. And it was the only one I took with the intent for people to see it. No one did. Or if they did, no one cared. Everyone was in such awe of the best picture taken in the history of humanity, they neglected the picture I took of humanity.

It was a girl. She must have been around fifteen or sixteen, though she looked decades older. Her skin had been turned a smeared dark grey, with soot and ash clinging to her body. Her mouth was agape, gasping for air as strands of spittle clung to her chin. Then, without warning, a deep, bone-chilling wail escaped her. I stood there, frozen and coated in the same grey goop that rained from the sky, unsure if I should approach her gently or just grab her and try to find shelter. It was then I noticed she held something in her arms. At first, I thought it was a doll. But what teenager carries around a doll, especially in a disaster zone.

When it clicked for me, I nearly puked on my feet. I stood there, dry heaving bile and what little I had in my stomach out on the street, while this young girl wept for the charred body in her arms. When I regained my composure, I … I just stood there. I watched the woman cry with wild abandon. I could have approached her. I could have helped her. Shared my water or taken her by the hand and tried to find help with her in tow. But what did I do?

I raised the camera and snapped a photo. The second I took that day. And no, I have no idea why I took it, instead of anything else I could have done. But it was something real. Something human in a sea of unknown horror. And I approached it like the tourist I was.

A part of me likes to think I was going to help her and the child in her arms. Or do anything. Anything! And maybe I would have, if Kagemura hadn’t turned around.

A squadron of jets dived toward it. Missiles flew. More fire. The creature roared, snarling at the little men in the little metal birds. Like flies, they nimbly dodged its claws as they unloaded volley after volley right into it, so for a moment, I thought they might actually hurt it. But another purple light dashed through the dust, ripping those jets to shreds. It was then I saw that those beams came from its mouth. Its mouth! Do you have any idea how insane that looked at the time?

I turned to the woman, holding the body. She must have been about my age. The girl in her arms couldn’t have been more than ten. She screamed as Kagemura turned around and made its return down the street. As in right toward us. I looked at her, my legs frozen in place. She reached out at me. Then the second step hit the earth, which nearly knocked me off my feet. That’s when I snapped to. That’s when I did what I did.

I wish I knew their names.

I don’t have any copies of Dust in my home out for display. I don’t want that to be the centerpiece around which I’ve build my life. All the stuff I have for that one, the books and posters and trophies and accolades, are packed into storage boxes up in the attic. The only thing of that day I have out are these two photos on my nightstand. A photo of a young woman, cradling her little sister’s body, while the shadow of a woman falls on them. The second is a selfie of me, with ash caked into my hair and a stream of tears leaking down my cheeks. I took it after I made it to a rescue center to let my mom know I was okay. I’m alone in it.

I survived on my own. I’d ran for what felt like hours, alone. I dodged boulders of cinderblock and concrete and rebar, alone. I was even showered with empty bullet shell casings from a helicopter strike, all alone.

I could’ve taken her by the hand. I could have stayed with her. But I didn’t. No, I ran. And I became famous and rich for a photo that the smallest drone can take way better nowadays (which they have, as you can see on the Kagemura Tracker Stream). Yeah, good call Claire. Awesome choice.

My shrink tells me not to blame myself. But did she ever see Kagemura in the flesh? No. All of my exes, who just couldn’t deal with the moods and the night terrors, told me I couldn’t have done anything to help her, which is clearly bullshit meant to make me feel better. My agent always sends me clips of Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting (“It’s not your fault”) whenever I send him drunken e-mails at three in the morning about how awful I am for surviving, which in all honesty make me feel so much worse.

No matter what I do. No matter how much money I give away or pump into the Kagemura Survivor Fund or places it’s stomped through I visit to drum up aid, her face never goes away. Who was that in her arms? Did she love that child? Was it hers? A sibling? Or just a kid she tried to save, because that’s the kind of person I imagine her to be.

And if you’ll excuse me, I can’t breathe right now.

There are nights, the ones where I can’t sleep, that I just stare at my phone at the KTS. I see its face in full hi-def. Cracked, green-purple skin. Mad, almost insane eyes that look like those of a crazed crocodile, with rows of teeth like an angler fish. I still can’t believe this is the same thing I saw in that dust cloud. There’s no beauty to it. Just rage and pain, lashing out at the world as it marches wherever the winds take it. I’d say I know what that’s like, minus the lashing out and the laser breath. Sometimes I envy that part.

I hate Kagemura. I absolutely hate it. It has become everything that my life revolves around, whether I let it or not. But it’s also the only one who was there in that street. Would it remember me? No, that’s insane. I dunno; I’m rambling. Sorry.

I want to like myself. I did at one point. But now it’s gone. And I tell myself the Titan on the other side of the dust is to blame. But no. It was the cowardly twenty-two-year old who ran. No one forced her. She did that.

Now, when Kagemura shows up on screen, all I see anymore is a reflection, staring right back at me.

Claire Gainsborough, B.A., is a graduate of the School of Greater Design in Pasadena, CA. During her gap year, she survived the Day Zero event of the first Kagemura Ascendance in Singapore. After her trials, she became the most renowned photographer of our modern age, among the highlights being her works “The Titan Through the Dust,” “The Royal Wedding of the Prince and his Husband,” and the “Tezuka in Blue” series.

She currently lives in Colorado and can be contacted through her agent in New York.

Joachim Heijndermans writes, draws, and paints nearly every waking hour. Originally from the Netherlands, he’s been all over the world, boring people by spouting random trivia. His work has been featured in a number of publications, such as Ahoy Comics, Asymmetry Fiction, Gathering Storm Magazine, Hinnom Magazine, and The Gallery of Curiosities, and he’s currently in the midst of completing his first children’s book. You can check out his other work at www.joachimheijndermans.com, or follow him on Twitter: @jheijndermans.

Leigh’s professional title is “illustrator,” but that’s just a nice word for “monster-maker,” in this case. More information about them can be found at http://leighlegler.carbonmade.com/.

Fiction: The Titan Through the Dust was originally published on Mad Scientist Journal

#Claire Gainsborough #Cryptozoology #Joachim Heijndermans #Kaiju #Leigh Legler

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lethesomething · 6 years ago

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A note on fictional jobs

There's a joke that all fanfic characters are either baristas, teachers, lawyers or some denizen of the tattoo/florist au set. This isn't really fully true (there's also witches and vampire hunters!) but for anyone going for a realistic setting, let me at least, as someone who has worked a number of jobs in media, software development and catering, give some pointers on how that stuff works, because dear lord does Hollywood get it wrong.

This post is 2k words, so under the cut it goes.

Journalism/Photography/Media

General tips

This sector seems to be pretty popular in old school comics, and for good reason. Clark Kent gets to go out into the city and be near events. It's a job women are historically allowed to do (and be sassy in) and even Peter Parker gets to just traipse around the city getting into adventures.

It must also be noted that all these characters were developed in the first half of the 20th century, and media has changed a lot since then.

If your character is a journalist, they will work long hours and not be paid *that* much. Carrie Bradshaw is the most unrealistic journalist character in the history of everything. Especially after, oh, 2010 or so, when the traditional press sales really started declining. No journalist is that well paid for that little. And none will have that much free time.

Journalists generally have a beat, and what they do and know heavily depends on that. Your character can get into the gritty streets of downtown chasing drug dealers, or they can go to theatre premieres. They won't do both. The Vast Majority of modern media have beats. A person can be a sports caster and then he will go to sports events to report them. They can be a jetset reporter or restaurant reviewer and go to swanky places. They can be a cultural reporter and be invited to premieres and shows. They can be a dedicated business journalist, reporting on IT, or cardboard logistics, or whatever, and go to conferences around the world. But they will rarely be all these things at once.

How wide this beat is, depends heavily on the 'range' of the medium. Big news rooms, like NYTimes, have a lot of journalists, and some very, Very specialised ones. This is deep dive, spend weeks trailing every leak out of the White House stuff. In contrast, a small regional tv station can have their reporter (with or without a camera man and sound tech) drive around the countryside reporting on pumpkin carving festivals one day, and grisly murder the next.

A lot also depends on the medium. If the character works for a newspaper, they will have a noon to eight shift as a writer, and a two to ten shift, most likely, as an editor, because papers need to get printed overnight. If it's a weekly or a monthly print mag, there will be a few days with relative freedom to do interviews and such, and then a few days of crunch time. If they work for a news website they will have a desk job and most likely work in shifts. TV and radio news people are the ones doing most of the running around to get quotes, but they are also on the tightest of schedules.

Speaking of schedules. Unless the character is a blogger, they won't finish an article and immediately rush it to the printer/publish it. Reputable news sources have, at the very least, a copy editor to check for mistakes and typos. Bigger newspapers and magazines and sites have a dedicated fact checker.

Very VERY few papers in the world have full time photographers on the payroll. If your character is a photographer, they will most likely be a freelancer and do corporate events or weddings on the side (sorry Peter Parker). What happens is, a medium will decide in advance which article or interview will require a picture, and book a photographer for that piece.

Any other pictures tend to come from news agencies. Think Reuters or Associated Press. These sort of agencies do use full time photographers, as well as freelancers who happen to visit an event. They'll take like two hundred picture and sell them to the agency, who distributes them to media all over the world.

Few media have the money for correspondents, so they'll pick only a handful. This means a foreign correspondent has a large area to cover. European news media tend to have one correspondent in the US, covering the Entire US, for instance. American media tend to have more moneys, but if your character is a respondent in, say India, expect them to trek along India a lot, because they're prob the only one in that vast country.

Having said that, coverage, especially war coverage, is super expensive. If they're sending a journo to a war zone, it will absolutely not be a rookie. They will have proven themselves capable, preferably speak the language and they'll be Very Prepared. Think local guides, vast networks of informants etc. A startling amount of war reporters and investigative journalists are also freelance. If they are trekking through a jungle and come across anything exciting, you bet they'll try to sell that story in several angles/versions to different media.

Have you considered:

Bread and Butter Freelancers: It's a gig economy my friends. Freelance writey people don't have a boss and usually work from home or from some coffee shop. If they are to be successful (enough to make a living), they'll still have a beat, and will actually have to be fairly good at this subject. Since these characters make their own shifts, they do have the ability to go out in the middle of the day to do superheroing or witchery or to investigate the disappearance of their best friend. Upsides: Freedom. Downsides: Usually very little money. Unstable hours, like one day nothing and then a week of 14 hour days. The crushing stress of looming deadlines ànd job insecurity.

Copywriters: The people that write the text on corporate websites, that fill mail order catalogues with entries for every picture, compose newsletters for various organisations, turn technical instructions into actually mildly readable user manuals. Upside: money. If they're good at it, they will have a fairly stable income. They have the same freedom as freelancers to go flirt with flower shop assistants. Downside: the crushing knowledge that with every piece you write, your soul sinks deeper into the void. Anyone who's ever read clientsfromhell will know what to expect of their clientele.

Lay-outers: The creative side of making media. The bros making the graphs, putting the text to paper, photoshoping the head of Putin onto the body of a baby, whatever. Upside: artist character. This is a slightly more realistic character than the 'painter'. They're creative, but they have yet to sell their soul to the corporate machine (depending on the medium you put them in, of course). Downside: this is basically a desk job with stable hours.

Cameraman, sound technician: the people that hang out with the news reporter and trot all over the region with him/her. Upside: see the world! Without being instantly recognizable. Downside: they're probably stuck in their mission and they rarely have the power to go 'hey, let's investigate over there'.

Software development

General tips

There's actually a few different environments for software engineers to work.

Start-ups: the hip one. Think Silicon Valley, the upstarts in sneakers and Star Wars t-shirts living on pizza and red bull and basically coding 20 hours a day. Depending on where they are in the growth of their start-up, these people will be nearly alone, or have a team of coworkers. Traditionally, start-ups start with like a founder (or four) and an idea, and some coding. As the company grows they'll hire a sales person to sell this stuff, a marketing manager to brand it, a support person to troubleshoot it, an HR person, etc.

A very Very VERY large part of start-up business is pitching, aka selling your premise to a bunch of venture capitalists and investors. It's Dragon's Den. Literally. Your super shy, autism spectrum character who hates public speaking and who can't even look at another person without blushing would make a super crappy start-up founder by themselves. They will definitely need their bubbly, motivational speaker best friend. On the other hand: this is an amazing environment for that suave, smooth talking character who could sell sand in the desert.

Second environment: corporate. The vast majority of software engineers out there just work for some big company. These are the people building and deploying management system software for banks, installing security in factories, that sort of thing. A lot of the time they're consultants. They wear a suit. They use something called the Waterfall method, which sucks out your soul, or the Agile method, which also sucks out your soul. There's a lot of managing and meeting and progress reports. If they're good enough, they're allowed to leave the tie at home.

Software needs to be tested. You don't just write the code last minute and put it live.

The coders are absolutely not the only people in a software development team. There's the project managers, the designers, the copywriters, the testers, the lawyers, oh god, the lawyers, etc.

Software Needs to be tested. It takes ages. I cannot stress this enough. It usually happens in India or some other Asian country where the wages are lower.

Will a lot of environments, even corporate, allow their creatives to come to work in like… jeans and a t-shirt, the only people realistically allowed to actually act like teenagers, in any environment (corporate, start-up, small business), are the ones with skills that are very hard to find. In essence: security experts and specifically white hat hackers. Yes, you're allowed to have a hacker character that acts dumb and comes to work in his pyjamas and it will be realistic that he does not get fired. Your clerk character that's super rude and deals in hurtful quips? Not so much.

SOFTWARE NEEDS TO BE TESTED

Have you considered:

Researchers: you know those people that made a song that can give Alexa commands without the owner knowing? Those are university researchers. A lot of really cool stuff is being developed not by office workers, but at universities. This includes software. Upside: probably a looser environment, with a lot of young people. Downside: you're basically writing a college AU.

Venture capitalists: in a Silicon Valley environment, this is basically the 'wealthy businessman' stereotype of old. The dragons in the dragon's den, the people that traipse around the city talking to people and assessing the potential of their pitch, before throwing money at them (or not). There's a bunch of paperwork, but they probably have a small army of accountants to handle this.

Evangelists: the cool people that hold TED talks. They usually work for a big tech company, as a specialist, and part of their job is to be a spokesperson. A good example of this is the tech researcher, who has a day job finding nasty hackers or viruses, and who also blogs about that and holds talks and presentations about securing your business. A character like this has the advantage of being a deep tech nerd hacker type. They're rarely the CEO, so they can go deep into the coding, while also travelling places and meeting crowds of press or business people.

Project managers: these don't tend to do the actual coding, but they do, well, the managing. Characters like this will be more social and creative, they're the ones making the reports and presenting their progress to the CEO, and they're the ones troubleshooting when stuff goes wrong. In general, there's a lot of planning involved.

Bakeries/Catering

General tips

Mass production of food is gruelling. You think you're writing about your sexy pastry chef and how they're carefully, tip of their tongue peeking through their lips, putting a cherry on top of that little moeilleux, but in reality, there's two hundred more to finish on this rack alone and they need to be done in under an hour.

Say it with me, people: baking is a night job. Industrial baking, mom-and-pop rural French bakery, bagel shop, donuts. Someone is going to be making all that stuff before the first customer arrives and that someone is slaving in front of a hot oven at four in the morning.

Any type of catering is a time management business. You know this. You've all watched Great British Bake-off (or, like, Chopped or whatever). If your professional cake maker is only working on one project/wedding at a time, they're not going to be in business for long. Your line chef will be plating up several dishes per minute. Your short order cook is baking six pancakes and scrambling eggs at the exact same time.

Unless it's a very large kitchen, the people that cook are the same ones that clean. And since it's food prep, there is a lot of cleaning.

Have you considered:

Recipe writer: ok so we're kinda back to media but big tv chefs don't make all those recipes themselves. Someone, usually a freelancer, writes them and tests them. Imagine someone getting the request to develop a seasonal cronut recipe that involves peaches and charcoal, because it's hip, and then baking several batches until they find something edible. This is a somewhat realistic environment for your super creative baker to live in a small house and make some money while also working on a book on the side, and falling in love with the quirky … goat… herd… brewer, florist, whatever.

#writing resources #also salt #possibly #fanfic

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deliciouskoalaphantom · 2 years ago

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Wedding Photographerswolverha

Top Ten Tips For Planning A Wedding

youtube

Top Ten Tips For Planning A Wedding If you're going to a wedding, there are a lot of things to think about! What should you use, what present should you bring, what sorts of things should you say? If you're going to participate in a wedding and aren't sure how to act, keep reading for some wedding event suggestions. If you don't understand the language in the location, you have actually picked for your destination wedding event, think about hiring a regional guide to assist you. This will help you in all your wedding event preparations in addition to any tours or occasions you choose to participate in outside your wedding event itself. Your household might also appreciate it for any problems they might face. Have an unforeseen twist at your wedding event to make it more remarkable. If you are preparing to have your wedding event throughout the summer season, think about having a winter associated style. If your wedding event is prepared for the winter season, you might attempt a beach style. Visitors will bear in mind that your wedding event style was different from the real season. When providing a wedding toast, keep it brief basic and sweet. If you are going to inform an amusing story, do not select one that will embarrass the bride-to-be or groom. When buying your wedding event cake, think about the alternatives that might save you cash. If you desire a fancy wedding event cake, purchase a small one for just the wedding event celebration and buy a large sheet cake for the rest of the guests. Your guests will still enjoy it just as much as your smaller wedding event cake. Think about having your wedding event in a public park. Places can be exceptionally pricey, but a park offers you a large, lovely area at a fraction of the cost of other locations. It is essential to bear in mind that you will need to establish seating and deal shelter for your guests, which might add on to the cost. If you have an extremely tight budget for your wedding event, among the simplest methods to cut your costs is to keep away from banquet halls and think about areas that are more uncommon and unused. Some examples could be a close-by park, flower gardens, the zoo, the beach, and lake club type venues which will have much lower costs and be more distinct. It might be a good idea to put an announcement for your wedding event in the newspaper. It is common to forget to invite particular individuals to your wedding event, and you do not want to make anyone feel neglected. Do not forget to put the place, date and time of your wedding event in the announcement. Participating in a wedding can be enjoyable, but it can also need a lot of planning. Make certain to keep this article in mind before and throughout the wedding event, to make certain you do everything expected of you. Apply these suggestions to make certain you have a great time at the wedding event! If you're going to participate in a wedding and aren't sure how to act, check out on for some wedding event suggestions.

If you are preparing to have your wedding event throughout the summer season, think about having a winter associated style. If you desire a fancy wedding event cake, purchase a small one for just the wedding event celebration and buy a large sheet cake for the rest of the guests. Your guests will still enjoy it just as much as your smaller wedding event cake. Make sure to keep this article in mind before and throughout the wedding event, to make sure you do everything expected of you.

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zsproductions · 6 months ago

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#professional film making studio near me #Asian wedding photographer #professional film making studio

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brandonwaratah01 · 2 years ago

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🍷 Hello h e y hi 💋

“The Wedding of France and Coral”

“The architectural design of the Church was built with a convertible roof where albino peacocks appear on the premises. Water fountains and warm sunlight shine on the inside interior. Beautiful historic sculptures and Hyperrealism oil paintings create a spiritual foundation for their faith.

Boy walks side by side with Girl towards the bride and groom. Rose petals thrown onto the red carpet. Reflective rings with a diamond. Music is performed at this special occasion. A musical band of violinist, pianist and vocalist playing every note and pitch in harmony and in such accuracy making attendees amazed at their performance.

Magenta and Violetta shed a tear each out of joy and overreact in an immature manner whilst laughing. This happened before the Wedding started. They are such lovely drama queens.

France and Coral stand together with their loved ones staring at them. France exhales deeply to remove any nervous tension and Coral cries a tear out of joyous emotion.

Grandma and Grandpa wave at the Priest as they are seated near the front. The Priest nods his head in response to their wave. Brandon sits with the elderly couple to keep them company and to explain and answer any concerns that are worrying them.

Vietnamese Uncle and Auntie take selfies before the Wedding start and video call their friends from overseas. They love to socialise and make use of their time wisely.

Babe and Poshy Barbie compliment each other by stating the kindest comments with out hurting each other’s feelings. Love you babe. Kiss, kiss. Mwah! They state to each other. Everyone sitting beside them stare in disbelief because their language is so new to the whole bunch.

Bloke and Built Dude photograph their partners in utter immaturity right before the bride and groom meet. Sharing photos that are inappropriate giving a glimpse to their partners in increased inappropriateness. They complain and try to delete the image to save their reputation.

The Italian couple and their extroverted daughter record their daughter cheer very loudly as they all exit the church. Ouch, my ears they all state at the deafening vocal. Oops, sorry.

Mocha is in alert mode and paying attention to the bride, Coral. “What do you need?” “A cup of water please. This spring / summer weather is getting to me.” Whilst fanning herself with an asian fan.

Nicholas and Franchesca sit at the back and attend the wedding to show their respect and support. No dramas, no problems and no incidents occurred.

Rice, petals and bubbles are thrown and blown into the air by everyone at the smiling bride and groom. They are definitely ready to spend their life together!

(Everyone prepares for dinner. To be continued. . .)”

#ArtBrushesCreate #BrandonvpNguyen #CreativeLiterature

- B r a n d o n v.p N g u y e n -

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videographyu09 · 3 years ago

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QuickRyde

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dassala · 7 years ago

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In Focus

Rated M - Chapter 5/? (Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4)

Emma Swan’s CEO fiance Graham Humbert has hired a wedding photographer to capture every aspect of the wedding planning process. Killian Jones usually hates these stuck-up, spoiled rich brides he captures on film, but Emma is different.

Disclaimer: This fic contains elements that may be squicky or disturbing to some of the CS audience. I want you to know that both Emma and Killian have sexual relationships with other characters in this fic (NOTE: NO SMUT). They also both get very drunk at different times throughout the story. So if you have an aversion to alcohol abuse (especially as a crutch), and you can’t stand the idea of Emma and Killian being with other people, this may not be the story for you. However, that said, you should know that I never write CS fic without a happy ending. :) So if you can stick it out, I promise satisfaction.

@awkwardnessandbaseball is my most incredible beta! <3 Thank you so much, lovely!

Read it on AO3

“I can’t believe I’m letting you talk me into this,” Liam Jones muttered, fixing his collar as he stared into the mirror. He was dressed in a grey button-down and a pair of jeans. With a heavy sigh, he turned to his younger brother and held out his arms. “Acceptable?”

Killian nodded and ran a hand through his hair. He was not quite dressed, but was getting there. Tonight was Emma’s bachelorette party. It was difficult to think that she was having this party when she wasn’t even totally sure about Graham. He dabbed on a bit of cologne and turned to grab his own shirt, a heather blue v-neck tee. He pulled it over his head and fussed with his hair a second more.

“Killian,” Liam began, leaning against the door frame in his brother’s small bedroom, “you don’t think she’s actually going to leave this guy for you, do you? She’s still going on with everything.”

He stayed silent for a moment, rather than answer. Turning, he pressed his lips together in thought. “I want her to be happy. If she’s happy with him then so be it. If she can’t take it anymore with him, I...I want to be there for her. I want to be the one she comes to.”

Liam shook his head. “This is a recipe for disaster. How do you pick these damaged women?”

“I can’t help it,” Killian groaned. “They’re drawn to me, it seems.”

“Damage begets damage,” Liam muttered and picked up his wallet. “You ready?”

Emma looked up from her eyeshadow palette, sweeping some smoky grey across her lash line. “Is this going to be awkward for you?” She asked as she dolled herself up for a night of partying.

Ruby shook her head and wrinkled her nose. “Nah, he was cool about it. I think maybe he’s got a thing for someone else, too. He didn’t seem fazed at all.”

Pausing, Emma tapped her brush on the side of a jar. Since Ruby was definitely over Killian, and she was Emma’s best friend, the only thing she could do was let it all out. She had to tell someone, or she would absolutely explode. Looking up at her friend in the mirror, she paused, then turned to face her.

“Rubes, I need to tell you something.”

After some pre-gaming with the girls at Emma and Graham’s apartment, the ladies piled into a limousine and took off for the bar, where they were to meet up with Killian and his friend. Ruby’s date was also set to be there.

The first stop of the night was a swanky martini bar. Ruby led the way as the ladies entered.

A thin, gorgeous woman with Asian features and a black braid down the center of her back greeted them inside the door. She was petite but somehow statuesque in a floral maxi dress with 60s mod accessories. Emma beamed and offered her hand. “Mulan, it’s so nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much,” she nudged a blushing Ruby, who slid her hand into Mulan’s free one.

“Pleasure is all mine, Emma,” she smiled in return, “Thank you for inviting me tonight.”

“No problem!” Emma giggled and gestured to the bar. “Shall we?”

As they approached the bar, Emma spotted Killian across the room. She waved, beckoning him over.

“Easy,” Ruby muttered into her best friend’s ear, “you’re kinda drunk so don’t say or do anything stupid, okay?”

Killian and another young man stepped over. “Ladies, good to see you,” he smiled to Emma and the girls, “this is my older brother Liam.”

“Not...not that much older,” Liam corrected him, clearing his throat. They all greeted one another and agreed to ordering a round at the bar. Killian carried his camera bag on his shoulder, lifting his lens to take a few snaps here and there as everyone dove straight into the festivities for the night.

Emma slid into a round booth near the back of the bar. Ruby was quick to supply her with a lemon drop martini and scooted in next to her. “So?” her Maid of Honor asked.

“She’s beautiful, Rubes...Wow,” Emma beamed and nudged her friend. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Yeah, not what I was asking about,” Ruby drew in a deep breath and seemed to force a smile. “Do you think you can behave when you’re drunk like this? I want you to have a good time, but maybe I should suggest that Killian leaves?”

Rolling her eyes, Emma took a swig from the sweet and sour cocktail. “I’m fine. I’m in love with Graham. I’m marrying him soon.”

Ruby nodded, eyes glued to Emma. It was obvious Ruby wasn’t going to let her out of her sight for the evening.

Across the room, Emma spied Elsa leaning casually against the bar. Killian’s brother had made his way to her and was chatting her up. Good for Elsa. She was always so uptight and conservative as it was, very much the opposite of her younger sister Anna.

Killian stepped up and snapped a few photos of the girls as they squished closer together in the booth. He laughed at their attempts to look casual, making silly faces at one another.

“Alright, alright, look here,” he coached them, getting down on his knee to get the angle right. The girls all leaned in, smiling brightly at the camera. Emma pursed her lips and winked.

Killian paused after taking the photo. He cleared his throat and backed away slightly. “Thanks, ladies,” he turned back to the bar.

Ruby gave Emma a look.

“What?!” She sighed, “I can’t make a kissy face at the camera?!”

“Was it at the camera, or was it at the poor, suffering photographer?” Ruby muttered.

Rolling her eyes, Emma finished her martini and placed the glass down. “Another!”

Having decided they needed a more casual atmosphere to let loose, the group piled into a limousine and traveled down the road to a sports bar Emma liked to frequent with Ruby in their “younger days". In the car, Emma found herself squished between Killian and Mulan. She glanced over at him and giggled. “Sorry,” she muttered, doing her best not to press him too hard into the front partition.

“Nah, no problem,” he grinned back at her, “better me stuck here than the bride.”

“Right,” she tapped the gaudy tiara Ruby had insisted she wear. It flickered with tiny LED lights and sparkled in the mood lighting of the limousine.

“So, does your brother live here in town?” She asked him, clawing desperately for something to talk about besides the fact that her uplifted cleavage was practically in his face.

“Yeah, he moved here to help me through my divorce, and I can’t get the bugger to leave,” Killian grinned. He scanned down the row in the limo, then lifted an eyebrow, “Seems to be enjoying himself tonight.”

“Hm?” Emma turned to see Liam engaged in deep conversation with Elsa at the end of the limo. Their hands were intertwined on her lap. Her jaw dropped slightly. Elsa was the most timid of all of her friends, and the fact that she would display any affection publicly was telling. “Oh my.”

Lifting his fingers to his lips, Killian managed a loud wolf-whistle from his end of the limo to theirs. Liam turned to his brother and raised an eyebrow. The elder brother seemed annoyed, to say the least. Elsa blushed and released her hold on his hands. Liam took the opportunity to shoot a rude hand gesture to Killian.

“How many more bars?” Killian asked with a laugh.

“As many as we want!” Ruby shot back. She glanced at Emma and gave her a look. “Ems, you wanna check in with Graham when we get there?”

Emma shook her head. “No, I don’t. Thanks, though, Mom…”

Ruby sighed and returned to her chat with Mulan. The two young women shared a low conversation and small kisses as they bounced in the raucous limousine.

“Mulan is nice. Not who I pictured for Ruby, but hey...whoever makes her happy, right?” Killian beamed.

Happy. Emma nodded and smiled awkwardly. “Yeah, she’s great. I’m happy for them. Ruby is more serious about her than she’s been with the last four guys.”

“Gee,” Killian laughed and rubbed at the back of his neck.

“Sorry?” She laughed. “You’re amazing. You’re more than amazing. Your ex was an idiot, and you are going to find the most...incredible girl.” Word vomit. Stop, Emma.

She watched him as he stared into her eyes. He was quiet, the bass of the music in the vehicle pounding in their ears.

“I…” he stammered and looked away, going red all the way up to his pointy ears. God, she desperately wanted to nibble on them.

She knew he had to feel the same way about her. Emma felt her chest tightening and she looked away, clenching her fists. This was so unfair. Why now? Why when she was weeks away from being married? This made it all too difficult.

“We’re here!” One of the bridesmaids shouted. The piled out of the limo and made their way into the crowded bar.

Emma quickly pulled away from Killian and strode inside. She slammed her credit card onto the bar. “Tequila for my people!”

“Ems, maybe you should slow down,” Ruby hissed into her ear, “you’re gonna burn out or do something stupid.”

“I’m fine!” Emma shouted, raising her arms. She gave a wiggle of her hips. “This is MY party!”

The shots were poured. Dances were had. Everything started to get more and more blurry. Emma jumped and spun and shimmied on the dance floor. She laughed, dancing wildly with a complete stranger she'd met there on the floor. Spinning and spinning.

Holding up a hand with a chuckle, Killian refused the tequila. He sat on a bar stool and watched as Emma had what seemed like the time of her life. Liam had pulled Elsa to a quiet corner, and Mulan was putting the moves on Ruby as she danced alongside drunk Emma.

He had to keep some of his wits about him. One of them had to be a responsible adult, right? He pulled his phone from his pocket, flipping to a message from Liam.

Message from Liam: Holy shit little brother I'm in love

Killian laughed and replied.

You're drunk. But I can tell you like her. Good for you. If you forget to get her number I'll ask Emma for it later.

He placed his phone down and ordered a glass of water. His phone buzzed on the bar top.

“Jesus, get off your phone and pay attention to-" he froze as he lifted the device.

Message from Milah: I miss you.

Not again. He drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes. Another message came through.

Message from Milah: I’m in New York. I want to see you.

His chest clenched and he was suddenly dizzy. The glass of water came sliding across the bar. Looking up at the bartender, he sent it back.

“Double Bourbon, neat.”

Two more drinks down and he was stumbling to the bathroom. He pushed open the door to the men’s room and leaned against the sink. The water came icy cold from the tap. Perfect. He slapped handfuls onto his face and neck, breathing. In his mind’s eye be could see her dark, soulful eyes as she told him she needed to “live more". She meant, of course, that all of the deepest love and mind-blowing lovemaking in the world couldn't keep her happy - but money could.

Emma leaned against a bar stool, wobbling slightly on her feet. She was just about done with her heels. Had they not been Louboutins, she probably would have chucked them into the garbage twenty minutes earlier.

“Water, please,” she groaned to the bartender, hating the fact that she was throwing in the towel on drinking for the night. Seemed wrong to cut herself off at her bachelorette. Wasn’t that Ruby’s job? Glancing around the bar, she searched bleary-eyed for Ruby. The tall brunette was in a corner with Mulan, where they seemed to have found the perfect spot to make out. Emma shook her head. It was nice that Ruby was enamored with her new partner, but geez. Get a room.

The water came across the bar and Emma took three hurried gulps from the glass. Her body was aching for hydration, to be sure. Tomorrow would be a rough day.

After downing the remainder of the glass, she wobbled again as she turned. The bar stool was a swivel-type, and it was increasingly more difficult to hold herself up whilst leaning against it. Where was the damn bathroom? She’d been to this bar about a hundred times, but somehow, she couldn’t remember where she needed to go to tinkle. She giggled to herself. Tinkle.

Shuffling off toward a corner, she was relieved to see a ‘Restrooms’ sign. She leaned against the first door and stumbled in, allowing it to slam behind her.

Inside, Killian was bent over the sink. The room was dark and dingy, with fading green tiles and sketchy-looking stalls. It smelled overwhelmingly of urinal cakes. She blinked, realizing she was in the wrong room. But goddamn if he didn’t look amazing in that moment. He was wet, having splashed himself with water from the sink. She stood for a moment to gather her bearings, watching him.

How could she deal with never knowing? What if she married Graham and then...that was it? She would be pinned in this bland, lonely life forever. Forever wondering what could have been. And she never would know what those lips tasted like. Now or never, Emma.

The bathroom door opened, then slammed shut. He looked up at himself in the mirror and caught a sparkly reflection behind him. There was Emma. She had lost her tiara and she was covered in a sheen of sweat, but she was staggeringly beautiful in that moment.

“Emma,” he breathed and turned to look at her.

She stepped forward and grabbed his collar. With a sharp yank, she pulled his body against hers and crushed her lips to his. He could faintly taste watered-down tequila and a hint of a fruity lip balm.

It was instinctual, the way he pulled her close. His arms were first around her waist, and then suddenly his hands were under her firm, supple ass, lifting her up against the bathroom door.

Emma’s hands tugged at his shirt. She held him close, the collar stretching out in her grasp. The room spun, dimly lit with a flickering fluorescent bulb. Her nails scratched over his chest as she parted her lips to accept his wanting tongue. She ground her hips against his crotch, moaning deeply.

And just as fast as it had started, he pulled away. He settled her to her feet and backed a good distance from her. He was wrecked. Amped up, hard as a rock in his tight jeans, chest heaving, Killian was a mess. He ran his hands through his hair.

“No,” he exhaled a deep breath and drew in another, “no, I won't do this to Graham. And I won't do it to you. You're marrying him.”

Emma stared at him, dragging the back of her hand over her lips.

“I'm so sorry,” she whispered, as she leaned against the bathroom door for support. “I shouldn't have...we...we shouldn't have.”

“Even if things weren't like this, Emma, even if you weren't getting married...not like this.”

She seemed to be lost in thought for a long moment. “Nobody will know.”

He hated that she intended on keeping a secret from her husband-to-be. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Tell him. Don't have any secrets. I'm leaving New York as soon as I can, so I won't even be a problem.”

“Because of me?”

Killian shook his head, swallowing hard. “You're just one of many reasons.”

There was a knock at the bathroom door. Emma jumped slightly, but stepped out of the way. A man entered, looking a tad befuddled.

“Sorry, mate. She's leaving,” he gestured out the door. Emma gave him a lingering look, then wobbled out of the restroom.

Before long, he was leaning his temple against the cold window of a cab. Street lamps surged and then faded in his peripheral as the cabbie drove him home.

Upon reaching the docks, he stumbled down the gangplank and onto his boat. As he stepped inside, Roger whined and went to him, his tail wagging low.

“Hey,” he patted the dog on his head and walked to the bedroom.

Flipping on the light, he stopped in his tracks. Milah sat on his bed, her hands folded in her lap.

“Hi,” she said quietly.

Emma stumbled out of the mens’ room and into the ladies’. She sat against the tiled wall and buried her face in her hands. Not only had she just ruined things with Killian, but she may have also screwed up any chance of staying with Graham.

His kisses tasted like whiskey and salt. His hands were firm, yet gentle. She closed her eyes, remembering the way he ground his hips against hers as her back pressed against the cold, hard metal door. What would have happened, had he not stopped? Would they have fucked right there in the bathroom?

Ruby walked into the bathroom and paused, seeing Emma on the floor. “Oh, thank God, there you are,” she sighed and leaned down to offer her hands to her best friend. “Mulan and I lost track of you. Are you sick?”

Emma shook her head and took Ruby’s hands, wrapping her arms around her and sobbing into her shoulder. “I kissed him.”

“Emma,” Ruby groaned. She rubbed her back slowly and held her close. “It’s ok. Let’s get you home, alright? I saw Killian hailing a cab a few minutes ago so you don’t have to see him again tonight.”

Emma nodded and sniffled, taking Ruby’s hand as she was led from the restroom out into the continuous party atmosphere of the bar.

Liam offered to get Elsa back to her hotel. Ruby shot him a look of warning as they left. Elsa was quite obviously impaired from a few too many amaretto sours.

“On my honor, Miss Lucas,” Liam promised. She nodded and climbed into the limo, leaving the pair to walk down the street hand-in-hand.

Ruby walked Emma into the penthouse apartment and helped her out of her dress. Mulan ran a hot bath. Emma sank into the tub, leaning her head back upon the edge. While Mulan parted out of decency, Ruby stayed and sat with her friend.

“Are you gonna tell Graham?” She asked, looking at her hands. Emma knew she couldn’t ask Ruby to keep the secret for her. It wasn’t fair.

“Yes,” Emma whispered. “He wants me to tell him.”

“Killian?” Ruby raised an eyebrow. “I know he’s an honest guy, but this could lose him the payment for shooting the wedding photos.”

Emma turned her head to look at Ruby. “I don’t know if I can go through with this.”

“You need to think about it when you’re not wasted,” Ruby stood and grabbed a towel from the nearby rack. She placed it next to the tub. “I’ll turn down your bed and get you some pajamas. We’ll chat more tomorrow, okay? Mulan and I are gonna crash in your guest room.”

Emma nodded. “Thank you.”

Once she was settled into bed and the lights were out, Emma turned to her phone. She looked at the last text she’d had from Graham, who had offered to stay in a hotel for the night.

Message from Graham: Have fun, baby. I love you.

#cs fic #cs mc au fic #captain swan #in focus #chapter 5

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

Link

A Biologist, an Outlandish Stork and the Army of Women Trying to Save It Life can change in an instant, as I experienced when I first laid my eyes on a tall and bizarrely striking bird known as the greater adjutant. It was India in 2018, in the northeastern state of Assam. I’d ended up there partly because of absurd circumstances, which involved being filmed for a reality television pilot while navigating a motorized rickshaw through the Himalayas. After traversing some of the highest and most dangerous roads in the world, including the Tanglang La mountain pass, I ventured off to see a traditional selection of endangered animals: Asian elephants, greater one-horned rhinos, western hoolock gibbons. While en route to Guwahati, Assam’s capital, I saw a 5-foot-tall bird towering near the roadside. I was so taken by its appearance that I asked the driver to pull over so I could have a better look. It had piercing blue eyes, an elongated electric-yellow neck, a wobbly, inflatable neck pouch, long legs that moved with a stiff military gait, and spindly black hairs atop its (mostly bald) prehistoric-looking head. Little did I know that this outlandish animal — also endangered, though not famously so — would change the course of my professional life. Seeing how intrigued I was by the giant stork, the driver offered to take me to the site of the largest year-round population of greater adjutants in the world. To my surprise, he led me to the sprawling Boragaon landfill, a dumpsite that borders the Deepor Beel wetland, an ecologically important water storage basin threatened by pollution and encroachment. As we pulled into the landfill, I felt like I was entering a post-apocalyptic fever dream: Refuse was piled up higher than an East Village tenement building. I saw countless people, including young children, sorting through the garbage with their bare hands. Cows were grazing on medical waste, and feral dogs chased each other through the mountains of trash. All the while, an excavator kept pushing the trash heap taller and taller. In the middle of this surreal scene, scavenging beside garbage-stained cattle egrets, were the spectacular greater adjutants, who were circling and stiffly marching alongside the other foragers. After returning from India, I realized that my encounter with the greater adjutants had irrevocably changed me. Until then, I’d doggedly chased a career in New York City as a comedic ventriloquist while juggling mundane day jobs. Wildlife photography was relatively new to me; I had only considered it an enjoyable hobby. But suddenly I wanted to pursue conservation photography with every fiber of my being. I quickly discovered the work of Dr. Purnima Devi Barman, a wildlife biologist who has dedicated her life to protecting greater adjutants. The founder of the Hargila Army, a local all-female, grass-roots volunteer conservation effort, Dr. Barman led her corps of women in protecting nesting sites, saving fallen baby birds and educating the Assamese community on the importance of these rare and endangered scavengers. After corresponding with Dr. Barman for several months, I traveled back to Assam in February 2020. Dr. Barman invited me to stay at her home in Guwahati, where she lives with her husband, who is also a wildlife biologist, and her twin teenage daughters. On our first visit together to the villages of Dadara, Pacharia and Singimari, on the outskirts of Guwahati, Dr. Barman continuously pointed out her car window at “hargilas,” the local word for greater adjutants that is derived from the Sanskrit word for “bone swallower.” I couldn’t believe how many of the birds were peering down at us from their huge nests and soaring on thermals high above our heads — especially since, in 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimated that only between 800 and 1,200 mature individuals were left in existence, with the population in decline. Assam is the last stronghold of this endangered species, harboring more than 80 percent of the greater adjutant’s global population. (The remaining population is split between Cambodia and the Indian state of Bihar.) In the past, Dr. Barman explained, greater adjutants were viewed as unsanitary nuisances and believed to be bad omens, resulting in many of their nesting trees being cut down. Much of the Hargila Army’s efforts are aimed at protecting such trees. The group’s efforts are also directed at rehabilitating society’s perception of the birds — to “bring the birds into the hearts, minds and cultures of the people,” Dr. Barman said. Conservation work has long been plagued by taxonomic bias, since humans generally favor attractive mammals with forward-facing eyes. “The more people who see hargilas as a bad omen, disease-carrier and pest,” Dr. Barman told me, “the more I am obsessed.” The work has paid dividends. The greater adjutant’s local population has risen to an estimated 950 birds, up from 400 birds in 2007. The number of nesting colonies in the villages of Dadara, Pacharia and Singimari has also risen during the same interval — to 220 nests, up from 28. In recent years the Hargila Army has grown to include thousands of pledged members — people who have received some level of conservation training — and around 400 women who are actively involved in leading the movement. Most of its organizers are rural homemakers who are helping to integrate an appreciation for greater adjutants into local traditions. They weave greater adjutant motifs into traditional Assamese textiles and incorporate greater adjutant themes into baby showers. The most distinctive awareness program I witnessed was at a local wedding that included effigies of the giant bird guarding the entrance and hargila-themed henna drawn on the hands and arms of wedding guests, myself included. Dr. Barman’s efforts have led to a broader sense of empowerment among the women who make up the Hargila Army. Many receive tools and training — including donated hand looms and sewing machines — that can help them earn additional income. “It seems like our life has completely changed after integrating hargila motifs into our clothes,” said a member of the Hargila Army named Jonali Rajbongshi, who, after receiving a new sewing machine, began sewing cotton bags embroidered with greater adjutants. We also visited the house of a woman named Pratibha Malakar, who wove a red-and-white hargila gamosa — a traditional towel-like textile — with transfixing speed and expertise. Dr. Barman told me that her community conservation model could easily be reproduced in other parts of the world. “Women are the key and the biggest change makers,” she explained. “When we educate women, when we involve women, we achieve a sustainable goal.” Awareness programs among local schools are another of the group’s tactics, and I went along with Dr. Barman on a few such surprise visits. Her presentations, which include lively discussions, informational pamphlets, educational games and coloring pages, had the students on the edges of their seats. Near the end of my time in Assam, I accompanied Dr. Barman and her team back to the Boragaon landfill, where she led an outreach program. Children sat among the debris, eating sweets and coloring in drawings of the eccentric storks. In the middle of her presentation, I looked around to find our corner of the landfill filled with laughter and gaiety. It was an unexpected joyous moment: all of us brought together from such different circumstances by a remarkable woman and an endangered, if often overlooked, scavenger — the unlikely target of a spellbinding and transformative conservation campaign. Carla Rhodes is a wildlife conservation photographer who lives in the Catskills. You can follow her work on Instagram. Source link Orbem News #Army #Biologist #Outlandish #save #Stork #Women

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