#and most ppl have normal chins. pretty much everyone has a normal chin!!!!

[ningningkittie]

🦨

[wlwhq]

A VERY DESCRIPTIVE PROFILE OF YOUR MUSE !! Repost with the information of your muse, including headcanons, etc. if you fail to achieve some of the facts, add some other of your own!

► NAME: samantha elizabeth foster. ► NICKNAME: samantha to everyone when she's working, sam to pretty much everyone else. it's a testament to how well ppl know her, since she introduces herself to everyone as samantha and it takes a min for her to be like "call me sam". ► TITLE(S): loves to sign her name with "j.d.", does that count? ► AGE: late thirties, verse dependent. ► SPECIES: human. ► SEX: cis-woman. ► NATIONALITY: american. ► INTERESTS: yoga, hiking, going to museums and art galleries, crossword puzzles, doing the nyt wordle every morning, currently learning german (after mastering french), listening to podcasts, birdwatching. ► PROFESSION: private criminal defense attorney.

► BODY TYPE: sinfully curvy. broad shoulders, jumbo ass, not very leggy. short but has tall energy. ► EYES: baby blue. ► HAIR: ginger red, bob with the side part, occasionally curled but most of the time just straight. we know this. ► POSTURE: always, always, always pin straight. the day this woman has her neck slack and her shoulders slumped is the day hell freezes over. even in informal settings, sam always has her chin-up and is looking like she's about to give a ted talk. ► HEIGHT: 5'3". ► VOICE: here is a lovely example, since she's great at working a crowd and being clear what she says. in and out of the courtroom, sam's an expert at conveying many said and unsaid things with her tone of voice. she's very even, mostly flat, but does have a lilt to it when she's particularly interested in the topic. ► SIGNATURE OUTFIT: sam never knows how to be casual ever. i'm talking turtlenecks, pencil skirts, blazers, even when not working. courtroom attire is normally power suits and heels, bonus if it's heeled boots. prints and solids, anything is fair game. sometimes wears a tie.

► SIGNIFICANT OTHER: in her main verse, sam is married to clark foster, her law school sweetheart, who also practices as a public defender. default fc for him is chri.s pine, and in this main verse, they've been married for about 6ish years. it's an on-the-surface peaceful marriage, but they've both been quietly unhappy for various reasons. he is not a bad person, and they are not inherently bad for each other - but the romantic era of their relationship is over, and they struggle to come to terms with this. ► COMPANIONS: her reflection in her glass closet. LOL but no, she's got a few closer-than-work-acquaintances, law school friends that she's had over the years. in most instances, clark's friends are also her friends but she doesn't always think he's a great judge of character. ► ANTAGONISTS: sam is her own biggest obstacle and antagonist. she's really given up on the idea of happiness outside of other people's orbit. she's one to convince herself that the path she's carved out for herself is the only path she's allowed to remain on, and working towards straying from that path is never seen as an option. other than herself, the boy's club that is her profession can wear on her senses and frustrate her to no end. ► STRENGTHS: fearless defender of anyone. you could be accused of being late for dinner, and sam would plead her case that being 'late' would imply a time set, or a meal missed. she's big on keeping the peace and finding a solution to every problem, deductive reasoning and creative thinking are two of her strongest qualities. she didn't make it in an ocean of sharks without being one herself. sam also excels at interior decorating (clark left all of the decor options to her and t's a cute monotone moment), and budgeting for the month. ► WEAKNESSES: having moments of clarity about what she really wants out of life, really fucks with her head and causes downward spirals. the promise of coffee to any morning meeting will get her up and out the door, going back for seconds or even thirds. the brief times where she and clark do not argue, she snaps herself back into the mindset of being the doting wife and caregiver.

► FRUITS: grapes, kiwis, green apples. ► DRINKS: water, coffee, coke zero. ► ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES: margaritas, gin and tonic, champagne. ► SMOKES: has the occasional cigarette if she's really stressed out. ► DRUGS: took ecstasy in college, maybe a handful of times? these days she's pretty cut and dry. ► DRIVER’S LICENSE: yes, but passenger princess.

tagged by: @goxinsane thank you!! , tagging: @shivcomplex, @k4ndall, @heroexxs, @thursdaygrl and anyone who wants to do it!!

[peekintoeternity]

so wtf is up w obito's height?

(aka how tf is that a 1 cm height difference, kishi?)

(aka just working out the inconsequential detail that is Obito's vertical reach, compared to which perhaps only the Narutoverse continuity is more elusive...)

(just putting it out there for other obito simps to stress & mull over i guess lol)

so i randomly recalled some funny posts from ppl who hc Obito as the Tallest Uchiha™, being a whopping 6'3" while the other men of his clan are around 180 cm

and at first it seemed like just another canon?-what-canon? hc bc per the databooks he's 175-182 cm (whatever that hyphen means...)

and sasuke's adult height is also 182 cm, while madara is 179 cm (basically the same?), so

so much for "tall obito" hcs?

but... what if we doubt the databooks?

(wouldn't be the first time they've been wrong compared to canon manga content...)

let's say 175 cm is Obito's height at age 14 / 15, which turns out is quite normal for an Asian teen male, and would make sense because when he faced off with Minato, who is 179.2 cm, they seemed about the same height

let's say he uses henge (transformation jutsu) to keep appearing this height, even as he grew taller—bc he was supposed to be fully grown Madara and not a kid with the longest cosplay gig, going through puberty while managing a criminal organization and all that

(it's sorta a running joke by now: "pain & konan not noticing obito getting taller is a plot hole"—but maybe obito simply used henge, hence, no plot hole after all?)

so is that the reason for the hyphen? obito pretends to be 175 cm tall even into adulthood while his real height is 182 cm? (6ft tho, not 6'3")

but then i thought of that nigh-iconic panel of Obito & Kakashi, where they are drawn clearly from head to toe, standing side by side

(this was the only panel i could think of off the top of my head that you can use to compare obito's height)

now, Kakashi's height is 181 cm; this is purportedly consistent in the databooks, through parts I & II (makes sense since he's introduced as an barely functioning adult and has no reason to hide his height, unlike obito)

so obito should be, as far as we can see, practically the same height as kakashi.

(who can even detect a 1 cm height difference?)

if anything, thanks to kakashi's floofy hair, kakashi should appear taller than obito

but in this panel, obito seems to be taller than kakashi—by more than just 1 cm.

in dumblingo (only language i speak rly), i'd say he's about... a forehead taller?

Naruto - Chapter #666

aka srsly, how is this a 1 cm height difference, kishi?

yellow lines: obito's head

red lines: kakashi's head

you can see that the top of kakashi's head (ignoring his epic floofly hair) only reaches the base of obito's forehead

(thanks to black zetsu we also clearly see the top of obito's head without (spiky) hair length muddying things up)

and kakashi's chin is just above obito's shoulders / clavicle

blue line: kakashi's shoulder

you can see that the line of kakashi's shoulders are lower than obito's—they're practically at obito's pecks

(i went by kakashi's left shoulder but you can see his right one also doesn't reach obito's, and it's worth noting: kakashi there is wearing a pretty thick protective vest / flak jacket, while obito is completely shirtless)

green line: their feet

aight idk how to calculate angles / perspectives n all but it should be fine to just go by their heels where you can see their foot flat (horizontally) on the ground right?

anyways...

it would make sense for obito in this panel to show his real height (as opposed to when he's method acting as madara or sth), because, to name just one reason:

he's had the jūbi ripped out of him & been forced to perform rinne rebirth (among other fun things, like losing his heart and having his throat slashed)—basically surpassing everyone in the Narutoverse survival olympics

so at this point, he should be way past wasting chakra for a henge, hence, this panel should be the most accurate reference for obito's height

and, based on this canon manga panel, he should be well above 181 cm—certainly more than the databooks' 182 cm

left: obito's tallest possible height per the databooks

middle: kakashi's height

right: what obito's canon height is more likely to be, based on that panel of obito & kakashi in chapter #666

in conclusion:

canon obito should be closer to 6'3" or 190 cm (6'3" is apparently 190.5 cm) than the databooks' reported max height of 182 cm

and since manga canon trumps side content like the databooks, lemme validate the hc crowd and say...

those hcs of obito being 6'3" are more accurate / canon compliant than the databooks' 182 cm

(or maybe i need better glasses, idk)

[willowistic22]

Before I start my main topic on this post, I don’t want y’all to get the wrong idea. I LOVE Sprace as much as the next person. The whole Manhattan and Brooklyn are in love stuff has me wEAK. But lemme tell you abt another Manhattan and Brooklyn love that SOMEHOW goes unspoken of

Dare I say,,,,

IKESHOT 

Sprace is an amazing ship and I love them but Ikeshot is actually an awesome ship and I encourage everyone to give it a try if you haven’t. And if you have and still don’t vibe with it then that’s ok. My hugest respect to y’all who have given the time to try and vibe with it but just genuinely can’t because ik we can’t all like the same things. 

Now for the ones who wants to vibe with it... let’s talk business

*rolls up my non existence sleeves*

Brooklyn boys are tough aight. We’ve all established it. So Hotshot is no exception in the whole tough dude club if that even exists but if it doesn’t let’s just pretend it does :) Doesn’t matter what your headcanon his rank as a Brooklyn newsies. Second in command after Spot? The tough bodyguard dude? Just Spot’s bestie in general whilst sellin’ papes’? Or just a random newsies in the bunch of the Brooklyn kids but is like tol and buff af? (i’m 99.52% that we’ve agreed Hotshot is hella tall and buff) Or your normal newsies hc are mostly modern ones like me. He’s still Hotshot that we all know and love. 

My headcanon is that he’s a little stiff and uptight with the whole ‘i’m tough as hell move outta the way or i kick you where the sun shines!’. So that’s him in general. But much like what most ppls headcanons for Spot, Hotshot too has a soft spot in him that not many ppl see. 

And then along came Ike. 

I feel like most ppl will headcanon the twins as chaotic bros. And y’know what? I vibe with it! Although I headcanon Ike is slightly more sensible and responsible than Mike even though he’s like younger than Mike by 13 minutes or 12 I forgot which number I decided lol I’ll go check later.

They cause a lot of trouble. pretty chill at taking life like mostly taking everything as a joke. a skinny bean pole. no one thinks the two are tough and well, they never want to be seen as tough dudes so it’s ok. But can deck a person if someone messes with their brother (loving brothers are my shit I will hold that love till the day I die). 

Idk how but Ike accidentally met Hotshot. Hotshot was not so fond to meet Ike the first time around, tough dude (^TM) thing y’know. Ike having the annoying genes in him is being, you guessed it, annoying. But they managed to hold a conversation. Ike was wHIPPED. He went back to Mike and was like ‘yoooooooo that dude is hot aS FUCK BRO’ and Mike just goes ‘.... yeah ok?’. Hotshot was surprised Ike was not at all intimidated by him and was impressed that his annoying aura kinda like... entertained him? intrigued him? made him kinda angry and want to punch him in the face? maybe all three of them at once. But whatever it is Hotshot is FEELINGS THINGS. 

Fast forward to the future, the do the hanging out thing. Doesn’t matter how you think it goes they just hang out. One thing let to another and now they make out regularly and are exclusive to each other. It’s cute. Like Sprace, Ikeshot has adorable height differences. Even if Ike is on his toes to kiss him, Hotshot still needs to bend down to reach his lips because Ike head only reaches Hotshot’s chest or sumn along the lines. (can you tell how unprepared i am in writing this post lmaooo) 

Hotshot is still stiff and still being the tough guy everyone all knows. But he won’t push away Ike if he ever comes running to him for a hug, and it’s fucking cute considering his face full on smack on his chest while his hand wraps around Hotshot’s hips. He looks up with the stupidest grin ever and Hothsot can’t help but to smile at him plus hug him back. Y’know those kinds of hugs where the smol one wraps around the tol ones hips and looks up at them, palcing their chin on tol’s chest while smiling and then tol one tries to wrap around smol’s shoulder because it’s the only body part they can reach with the hugging position they’re in? Yeah, that kinda hugs. Bonus: Hotshot leans down to grab Ike’s thighs and lifts him up of the ground. Ike wraps his legs around Hotshot while he’s hoisted up to the air with his hands around Hotshot’s neck and then they kiss and I go AJHFGAHSFGHKSF UKCNHKSRGCKEGR UKHF JUST THINKING ABT IT AKJLFHKJLABFKJ NJKHCJKLSH UH UKAEHCMLKUAH ULIWYRI

with this all set up there’s a potential for protective brother Mike and I love him with all my hearts. He’s no longer intimidated (or probably never was in the first place) knowing his brother got Hotshot wrapped around his hands. So one time when Hotshot arrives looking for Ike but found the other dude, Mike goes up to him and threatens him to not hurt Ike or Mike will hUNT HIM DOWN. Ike slaps Mike for even saying that to Hotshot and they go one their marry way. 

In short: Sprace is cool but Ikeshot can be just as cool if ppl just wants to give it a try to vibe with it. I gave it a shot, and there’s no going back for me so it’s better if I drag other’s in this Ikeshot hole that I’ve dug for myself. 

I wrote this essay bcs: 

Ikeshot needs more content and recognition 

I am kinda piss i didn’t even get one note on my ikeshot fic but that’st he first angst fic i’ve ever written and maybe it’s better that way bcs yeah i kinda cringe at it too oop- (is this me wanting attention? probably. do you need to project it? no really but donations are appreciated:))))))

I love all romantic and platonic relationship newsies fics but I need to see more FAMILY FICS (and i don’t just mean found family. I love that trope but I need more of Mike sharing stories to their friends how Ike frequently pees his pants when he was five and then Ike took revenge by telling everyone how Mike really got that huge scar on his hand. Or them talking shit about their cousins. Or Mike just smacking Ike’s face outta nowhere for no reason at all, he just feels like hitting Ike for some reason bcs that’s what real brothers do) 

Anyways I hope you like this essay that i’ve used as a procrastinating mechanism from my writers block (the irony of me saying that I got writers block and can’t write the next chapter of my newsies au or continue finishing the next modern newsies fic i need to post only to go to tumblr to write this essay abt Ikeshot being awesome) 

hopefully i can finish my newest modern newsies fic tonight so i can post it tomorrow so bye bye!

Edit:

OMG WAT THERE IS ONE NOTE ON THAT IKESHOT FIC I TAKE IT BACK. THANK YOU RANDOM DUDE ON TUMBLR FOR LIKING IT AND MAKING ME FEEL VALID BCS I WAS REALLY SAD WHEN IVE WORKED HARD ON IT AND IT TURNS OUT IT DIDNT GOT ENOUGH ATTENTION LIKE MY OTHERS IM SORRY I DIDNT MEAN TO FORGET YOU UGHH I FEEL SO BAD AND FEEL LIKE A HUGE BITCH PLS FORGIVE MEEEE

I’d tag you but I’m a huge pussy ://

[dreamlikeapsycho]

I saw the max facts (pun intended 😂) you did for that question a while ago. So I was wondering if maybe you could tell us some more facts about Max it doesn’t have to be anything too detailed but anything you know would be nice to know, pretty please 😊

Okay... RANDOM FACTS ABOUT MAX - PART 2

I went on deep analysis mode this time to try and say all of Max's little nice and cute moments I know of.. Pls take notice, tho!! I'm not trying to flex or anything, I'm just a simple peasant girl on Maximilian's kingdom for a long time and it happens I have FBI blood in my veins 😭 so It's all gather on my brain and hard drive lol SO! I'm just answering this ask with a lot of thought and care so you can know more about Max and how he is even more awesome than you think!!! (And just in text form, cause Max doesn't need to be tagged on more personal stuff on IG (there’s too much illegal fishing at my tumblr pond already! 👏). It’s probably weird to know certain things, yes, but at least I'm respectful, I'll never bother him with this kind of stuff). Well, enjoy the bible below to end up knowing very little about him, still haha.. Just some more small facts.

- Max was at a barbecue just yesterday. It was someones birthday from the set of his new movie. He drank his beer, like usual, idk about the meat.. there was wurst and chicken.. I'm not sure if he's trying to be a vegetarian or not (after that thoughtful video he posted) 🤔.. maybe he didn't eat it, I don't know!!

- a little while before the start of this shooting, he was at the Baltic Sea filming for the series he's gonna be in (just one episode again! Don't get your hopes too high lol he's gonna be a security guard who disappears mysteriously, so....)

- He helped his friend renovate his house a few weeks ago!! How could I forget that on the first post.. Then, he had to go to Hesse for the movie shooting, and his friend had to call another friend to come help him lmao damn

I think I could describe some videos I have then... at least there's some cool and funny stuff. (Friends himself tagged in the past and cast friends)

- Max's dad went to the same uni as him. Also, he voiced a police officer on the phone in a short film Max wrote and directed all by himself (he didn't act on it, but he was also another police officer over the phone haha). Another thing, his dad made the official music for one of his plays.

- The falafel day.. his friend was taking a piss filming Max at the shop from afar and zooming in, saying "omg, guys! I found Noah from Dark! He's right there buying falafel" lmao, then, Max is just standing there looking all wonderful with his perfect hair and such, moving his hands, scratching his chin, ordering his food, and his friend talks some more, doing like a rough Max voice "yeah yeah, I'll have that one. Good, yeah". 😂

- the day he went to take a walk in nature. His friend asks him for a cigarette, he is denied, he goes to take it anyway, Max slams his cup of tea on the table and tries to take his cigarette back and it's all black and they're just laughing lmao (I love his laugh btw, so giggly!)

There was storys posted by Max himself.. so, maybe you saw it, but it's from before dark s3 came out.

- The pigeon storys. He filmed two pigeons chasing each other at the station, one always running from the other and he captioned "me trying to flirt" haha

- He screen recorded an ad for an app that deletes people from pictures and made some joke too, I can't remember exactly what he wrote, smt like "when you break up, but still wants to keep the picture" lol also, he unfollowed like 5 people that week after posting that... hm 👀

- he posted a video of him walking in the dark with really cold wind.. you can only see his hair flying around. Also, with a mask on, another chasing a cat in a big field, and that one drinking his coffee and eating his yogurt (you most likely saw it already)

- Ohh.. His friend was playing Max's drums the other day!!! Made a lot of jokes, it was obvious he was messing around in Max's room (maybe they live together, maybe he just waters the plants lol idk). Some of the jokes were "I've been playing this drums since 1921" and "the drums and me are a perfect pair, don't ever believe otherwise". I wonder what Max said to him.. he can't do anything about it, he's not in Berlin hahah. He has a little giraffe in his room, and other home decors (you can see it on his drumming video on his own IG)

- he likes to read on longer train rides.

- there's a video of him screaming inside a wardrobe after being jumped by a friend and one of him putting lipstick on with the song "I'm a sexy motherfucker" playing in the background hehe we was tagged, it was easy to find when there wasn't much tagged post.

- There's moments of ppl filming something/themselves and he just comes and photobombs it lol he is just like thiss 👏 showing his tongue and doing a funny face and such. One of those I saw it on the IG of a Das Boot cast member I actually already followed before.

- this group was such a blast. There's a few pictures, one of them he's in a dress, he has white stockings on til his thighs, heels and all haha lovely

- His improv-group.. he was almost in tears singing "I believe I can fly" with the group on their last day.. But he was happy! A mix of emotions. He loves everyone, he expresses his love a lot to people in general, he says it and adds heart emojis to make sure haha you can see his comments going on IG of his cast friends, especially from Das Boot (I followed a lot of the guys). So, about always commenting something funny on people's posts.. I didn't saved those, so I forgot most of it, but one I remember was that someone posted a video of a hailstorm and he was like "what are u doing, free ice!! Go grab them" hahaha

- Max has that Noah picture where he's peaking by a wall (you know that one Baran posted) printed and framed! 👏

- Things he’s pretty much always with: his backpack and his big headphones (it's always on his neck. At almost every picture, from every year, with different people etc. I was confused when he had normal headphones at his farm storys. Maybe he forgot them in Berlin 😭. Besides those, his rings, necklaces and bracelets (always, for years and years! Same ones, even). He uses frequently on premieres, as I saw it. Sometimes they also show up on his characters in his one-episode works!! Hahah is so nice when that happens. You can notice this on my screencaps.

- that pic of him that is everywhere now (with glasses, holding a bottle of champagne), I posted that months ago.. There's 2 more pics and 1 video. One pic, he is pretending the automatic lighter that's on the table is a Harry Potter wand (but I think I cropped the table, right.. I can't remember). This was actually posted by Max himself and he tagged his friend who took it. I went to see if they posted smt and there was a picture where he is literally biting the cork of that bottle off with his teeth Lmaoo, and one video.. he is talking on the phone trying to block the view with his feet.. this man!!

- he really doesn't care about buying too much unnecessary clothes and shoes and stuff. He is mindful of his things and the environment!! 

- there's a video of him on the set of Der Zauberlehrling, I need to recall where I got that from (maybe I could share this one. I'm not sure), he is messing with the broom and someone asks him "hey Max, what's that animal?" and points to the fluffy microphone. He says "it's a fucked up coala bear" (in english) 😂

Again.. I can't say names or anything, cause ppl are not mindful! Like.. I know I'm probably weird, but only for myself and my FBI office LOL I don't go over there and follow/reply to all these people’s posts and storys or take their videos and tag Max on them, this is just not.... nah. I'll always be respectful (yeah, some older stuff has gifs, cause he had like 10k followers, and 5 fans on tumblr lol But i never sent/tag him in anything personal directly.. that’s why i only posted on tumblr for the past year, in fact! I never thought things would be the way they are now a year later.. so, newer stuff it's not posted/gif nor ever will). I don't want him to be weirded out and like, disappear from IG!! I think about these things.. when people are being weird and stuff towards him. I don’t know how ppl don’t think about this when tagging him recklessly in random pictures and videos!!!

I wish he had more interviews, so we could know more proper stuff about him. (The few interviews he has are translated on my IG highlight. There's still an 8min interview missing there, cause I'm contemplating about being more of a bother to german speaking people, since I only have basic german..

[waveridden]

@sunflowersnips said: jonmartin (or tma ppl/ship of ur choice i didnt magnus enough archives to rlly grasp the dynamics) 60?

jason you really have a gift for prompts i hope you know that. set nebulously sometime between 163-164, ish

#

60. “can we just pretend like we’re normal for once?”

Martin insisted on stopping for the night - or what he decided is the night, which is just a few arbitrary hours. It’s the end of the world; Jon suspects that the only places where “night” exists are the domains that belong to the Dark.

Jon would like to say that he handled the request with grace and respect, but he actually argues pretty viciously. It feels, sometimes, like Martin doesn’t understand - and of course he doesn’t, how could he, but there’s a level of willful ignorance that grates on Jon. It’s like he’s trying to ignore the reality of everything, of the fact that they don’t need to sleep, of the way that Jon is bursting at the seams with the need to see and learn and know.

(“Can we just pretend like we’re normal for once?” Martin said, exasperated and tired.

“There’s nothing about this that’s normal,” Jon snapped back.

Martin folded his arms across his chest, a new stubborn set to his chin that Jon recognizes and loves and was mostly just hoping he wouldn’t see in this particular argument. “We’re normal tonight,” he said, and that was that.)

So they made camp in a rare pocket of land that wasn’t claimed by a fear. Jon thinks that’s part of why Martin wanted to stop there; some stretches of land feel burning hot and some feel like vertigo with every step, but this is a patch of a few square meters of safety. He understands the allure.

Martin’s packed bags included a couple of sleeping bags, even though he sheepishly admitted that he hadn’t expected needing to sleep much. He does most of the work setting up a tiny campsite, and he has chocolate bars for rations.

Jon sits down next to him on top of the sleeping bag. “Hi,” he says, hesitant, a little penitent, not sure how exactly to say that.

“Hi,” Martin says, and hands him a candy bar. “The world’s not going to end if we take a couple hours to sit down, right?”

“I suppose not,” Jon says, and is rewarded by a tiny smile from Martin. He takes a bite of the candy bar. It tastes like nothing and like a mouthful of pure sugar, all at once. He takes another bite. “I know I was… difficult about stopping for the night.”

“You’re going through a lot,” Martin says, something guardedly neutral to his voice. Jon hates when he sounds like that. It means he’s hiding something, probably the fact that he’s unhappy with Jon.

“Everyone’s going through a lot,” Jon says. “And I’m sorry. If it’s important to you to have some downtime, we can always have downtime.”

“Important to me?” Martin repeats incredulously. “Jon, for the last hour you were grinding your teeth so hard I thought your jaw was about to snap.”

Jon blinks and instinctively lifts a hand to his jaw. Martin’s right; his jaw is oddly sore. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“I know we don’t need to stop, strictly speaking.” He thinks that’s going to be the end of it, but then Martin cautiously leans his head on Jon’s shoulder. Jon instinctively wraps his arm around Martin’s shoulders, and Martin makes a contented noise. “I just think it’s good to… to take a minute, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jon murmurs. This is nice - a word that feels woefully inadequate, given the situation, but is still the best fit. It’s good to have Martin here, and it’s good to stop moving. And they’re not safe, of course not, but it feels safe here. “Thank you.”

“Next time, don’t be an ass about it,” Martin says peacefully.

Jon snorts. “No promises.”

Without missing a beat, Martin whacks Jon on the knee, not hard enough to hurt but still hard enough to notice. “Don’t be an ass about it,” he repeats.

And somehow, despite everything, Jon grins. “Course not,” he says, and he can tell that Martin is smiling too.

[acilykos]

Midorima Shintarou Headcanons No One Asked For

Because I wanted to update the ones I already had, especially since I was back then like: “Oof? Posting nsfw headcanons on tumblr?! I can’t post that!” (Excuse my insecure self back then and now lol) But since I already made my Kaga-chin headcanons and they’re nsfw too and because Last Game reminded me that Midorima is still my husband/son and that I still love this Tsundere very much, I’ll redo the stuff and add new ones I, again, did not add the first time. (And because writing headcanons is much funnier than doing German,Biology and Math lol) Like in the Kaga Headcanons, I’m gonna make three catergories: Normal Drunk and Porn and stuff So beware of nsfw and enjoy them! Normal:

That Mido-chin is a Tsuntsun is not a secret, but I’m gonna tell you some of his darkest secrets, he tries to hide with it

First of all, Mido is most likely not straight, I think he’s more bi (or just gay idk)

Mido has definitely a shelf or a whole room for all the lucky items he obtained over the years (I mean dude, come on, all middle school + high school items are a whole room worthy or maybe even two)

I can totally see Mido telling Kise or Aomine whenever they didn’t learn for a class test in middle school (and whenever he was pissed) made up lucky items when they asked him about it to pass like “Kise, you’re lucky item is to walk around with a bra”, “Aomine, you have to wear a bunny onesie” or something like that

But in the end he always brought their real luck items with him because “No one should mess with Oha-Asa-nodayo” and because he cares for his teammates, but he never gave them the right ones, mostly because they would stop walking around holding/wearing their fake ones

He definitely walks around with Takao’s lucky items (he just hides them in his bag or something like that so that his dear crush friend won’t notice that Mr. Tsundere cares about him

This carrot totally had a slight crush on Akashi (don’t u deny it) damn, now I’m in the mood for some AkaMido Headcanons, but I’ll do an extra post for them later

Akashi was definitely a good friend (maybe his only real friend) and a good rival back then in Teiko until Boku took over and everything broke down

Mido needs his sleep and will be with every hour without sleep that passes grumpier and 24/7 complaining about everything “This ball is too bouncy!” “Our hair is too colourful” “Kise shut up” “Aomine ahut up” “Akashi shut up” “Murasakibara stop eating and shut up” “Kuroko WHY DON’T YOU TALK FOR A CHANGE? No actually don’t. You, too, shut up” Oof that got out off hand lol

I think he and Kuroko would have a mutal understanding like, they both could sit there for hours without anyone saying something and just stand up and say “This was a very nice conversation”

Mido-chin complains about Mura eating snakes, but I bet Mido is eating many, too (but mostly healthy ones tho, because he is an athlete lol)

He is easily embarrassed because this boy is smart and understands immediately whenever someone (a.k.a Aomine) says something suggestive or is up to say something perverted

Like really, he could sense that and be like “Well, if you would please excuse me. I have to go and save my ears from this idiocy”

This is not a headcanon, but Mido really used to play the piano for Akashi and Murasakibara during breaks and they were his audience too and my AkaMido/MuraMido shipper heart can’t handle this

He really really loves to play the piano and it’s actually happy when someone (a.k.a back in Teiko Akashi and Murasakibara ( and maybe Tetsu , too) and now Takao) listen to it and if they sing/hum to the songs, especially when he wrote them himself

Drunk:

Oh boy drunk Mido, I tell you that all the Tsunderes make a whole 180° change when drunk

But even so, I have a strong believe that Midorima is actually good in handling his liquor

Like, it will take some time until it hits him

But when it does, oh boy

Mido-chin makes a 180° change as mentioned above, meaning: he will be pretty talkactive and laugh about everything and anything

He probably will only be a lowkey pervert, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try anything at all

I see him try things one time and then stop or move on

CATS ARE HIS FAVOURITE ANIMALS AS DRUNK

I can totally see drunk!Mido adopting one or more cats and the next morning just wakes up like “…What…”

He’s one of those wine and champagne drinkers

Porn and stuff:

You know, everyone is all about the Tsunderes without experience in this topic and that they’re all like blushing and the whole “B-baka” and stuff, but not Mido

Well, ok maybe a little bit

I would say no one in Teiko really is innocent (I blame it on them finding Aho’s porn mags everywhere)

Oof I feel like I should talk about Mido’s porn collection here, too.. ehh, I’ll do it

So, we all now that Mido has a thing for older woman (and I’ll just add man here too), I think that solves already half of the mystery, or at least a bit

And I have this, very, very, very strong feeling that this boy is pretty into bdsm (I mean dude, seriously, u could do so much dirty stuff with all the tape u use my son)

This boy definitely experimented with many things

I also think that he is pretty damn kinky in generall (The quiet and tidy ppl who always play after the rules are always the ones with the dirtiest secrets in the end lmao)

H I S F I N G E R S

Boy, he has such a thing for hands (especially if it involves his partner playing with his left hand’s fingers)

I already said before in my old headcanon post that this man probably has, due him taping his left hand always, pretty sensitive fingers, so when his partner unravels the tape on his fingers with their mouth than B O Y Mido will go wild wild

Mido is a rather submissive person (no matter bottom or top bc damn even tho he doesn’t like losing control, in bed he’s the opposite), but with the right partner, the right mood or when he needs to remind his partner who he belongs to beacuse this boy get jealous pretty easy and stuff, I totally see him being dominant as hell

But just as Kaga, I think he would also have this “Are you alright?? Did this hurt?? Should I do that??” mood

When he’s at it D I R T Y T A L K (he can give it pretty damn good and LOVES to hear it from his partner as well

Him putting his hand over his partner’s eyes and whispering their name with his deep voice right into their ear oof

When it gets too wild he puts his glasses away, because hey, he loves his partner and wants to see them, but those are his favoutite glasses and he doesn’t want them to break

But in sweet and relaxed times he keeps them on

He definitely uses his luck items as toys if they’re suited (Like if they’re ropes or part of a custome or something like that)

This child is possesive af when jealous

But seriously, the really dirty time mostly happens, if he really is in the mood or has to prove something, most of the times it’s really sweet and the literal definition of love making

And as wild as it can get, he will always let his sappy and caring side out and the aftercare is just A++

He is not a big fan of cuddling, but after sex, I can totally see him to love to spoon the other when they’re smaller or cuddle closer to their chest when they’re taller

Sweet sweet kisses everywhere 100/10 would recommend

I think those were all for now, but I feel like I forget some so I’ll definitely add them later when I’ll hopefully remember them lol

[isisisak]

Soooo :D after you all requested it (about 3 ppl did - but just let me exaggerate in peace) here is part 3 of Isak and Even doing trust excercises <3  it starts up right where part 2 ended so if you want to read those first: Part 1 / Part 2 

When they stepped back from each other Isak looked over to Magnus and Vilde. Vilde had a frown on her face that changed into a too bright smile when she caught his gaze. Magnus looked a bit deflated when he saw how close Isak and Even had been. The other two had stopped close in front of each other when both decided this was as close as was comfortable, but there was still a hand length between their bodies.

They had been pretty happy with themselves (especially when most of the other couples had stopped a meter or further away from each other) until their eyes landed on Isak and Even. Who were obviously trying to morph into each other to be closer, toes stacked, noses pressed against each other, touching from chests to knees.

Even shot Mags an encouraging smile as the woman – maybe Lille? – announced the next test.

“Everyone, take one of these scarfs,” she said as she went around and handed each couple one of the colorful fabrics.

“I want the light blue one,” Even stage whispered to Isak who rolled his eyes with pure fondness. “You’re a child, Even.” But nevertheless he hurried over to where the women was and plucked the light blue one from her arm (this got him a rewarding cheek kiss).

“Blindfold your partner and take your place behind them,” came the instruction. Even raised his brows at Isak and grinned.

“So, nothing new there,” he said as he turned his back to Isak who snorted at his words.

Magnus gave a high pitched “What?” at that which got ignored by the other three.

The next exercise was to guide your partner just with your voice through an obstacle course that the woman – Laura? God, he knew it had been something with L – placed on the ground in front of them.

While the woman talked on about how important it was to completely trust your partner for this Isak rested his hands on Even’s hips and his chin on Even’s shoulder. Even leaned into him a bit and tugged on one of Isak’s hands. He understood the gesture and wrapped his arms around Even’s middle. When it was time to start Isak placed a quick kiss to the shoulder his chin had been resting on and untangled his arms from around him.

“Ok, go one step forward. For the record, we are talking about normal human-sized steps.” Even laughed and took a relatively moderate step forward.

“Don’t do any of your long spider steps.” This got Isak an offended scoff.

“Spider legs? Really, babe? I call you adorable animal names all the time and I get spider?” Even shook his head which made the blue tail of the blindfold bounce. Isak grinned.

“Lift your leg a bit - I’m sorry I forgot for a second that spiders are a delicate subject when it comes to you (*) – forward and then to your right.” Even grinned. Isak could only see the back of his swoopy blonde head but he just knew that he grinned.

“And anyway – now crouch down a bit, yeah like that, and now one step to your left and forward – you call me monkey. What is adorable about monkeys. They smell,” Isak continued. Guiding Even through that little ‘parcour’ was more than easy and didn’t stop them from keeping up their banter.

“What! I call you baby monkey which is the most adorable nickname anyone has ever come up with.” Isak’s grin at his boyfriend’s dramatics got bigger as he asked “Are you saying you are the master of nicknames?”

Even laughed and he saw the back of his head nod. “I’m saying that.”

Isak only let out an amused “Hmm” before Even continued with “I won’t argue the smelling part, because…” Even let his voice trail off and Isak laughed (loudly, which had Vilde startle next to him and send him a scolding look).

“Fuck you, Even. I kinda want to make you trip now,” he teased, the smile clearly audible in his voice.

“But you won’t,” Even replied. It wasn’t a question and was said with a warm certainty which made Isak want to cross the distance and get his arms back around his boy.

“Nei. I won’t.” He agreed.

Then it was Isak’s turn to be blindfolded and guided. in the process of getting the scarf over his eyes Even kept giving him cheek kisses and nuzzled his nose into his jaw. But it was ok because even though they kept talking and Even was taking his sweet time getting Isak ready for his round they were still faster than the others. -- Vilde had cast Isak an annoyed look after they discussed the nicknames and told him “I call Magnus lion! Because of his huge-“ which was thankfully interrupted by Magnus crashing over one of the obstacles in front of him, since his guide had not been paying attention to him.

“Now, trust is important in a relationship, but for it to be healthy you also need communication.” The woman was collecting the blindfolds again as she began the new instructions.

The women all made wiping gestures that Isak assumed were meant to make sure their makeup was intact. He himself blinked a few times, the room bright after having his eyes closed for a while.

“Communication doesn’t just happen verbally, but also silent.” Isak scrunched his face up at that and threw a huh look at Even, who nodded as if he totally agreed and Isak should listen. Tsss, smartass.

“So, all of you sit down in front of your partner. Don’t touch, don’t talk, but sit as close as you’d like. And then you look each other in your eyes. You will do this for two minutes,” she said and gestured to a clock that hung over the door of the living room they were in.

There was commotion as everyone took their seat. Isak and Even sat in front of each other, legs crossed. This time it was Isak who raised his brows which was answered by a teasing smile on Even’s full lips. Isak’s gaze dropped down.

“Hey, eyes up here,” Even said with a shake of his head, pointing to his eyes and Isak let out a “pfff” with a roll of his eyes. They grinned at each other again.

“Everyone ready? Good. While you look each other in the eyes, try to communicate to your partner what they mean to you. Communicate with your eyes.” The exercise (if you can call sitting on the floor and doing nothing an exercise) started and silence stretched through the room.

At first they both kept their teasing looks and smiles on their faces, both making fun of the idea to communicating through their eyes. But after a few moments something shifted. Communicate to your partner what they mean to you. Isak looked at Even’s clear sparkly blue eyes and something in him melted. What Even meant to him? He meant the world. All his dorky little quirks, the embarrassing songs he serenaded Isak with, the old and cheesy movies he made Isak watch and about which he could hold a passionate speech for hours, all the times Isak had woken up from a bad dream or couldn’t fall asleep and Even had been there. Had held his hand and stroked his back and combed those lovely fingers through his hair. All the post-it notes he found everywhere in his school books with little drawings on them of the two of them or Isak with Jonas or Isak with Sana or Isak with Even’s parents. All the times Even had made him feel like he was the most precious and perfect person to walk the earth. All of it, all of Even meant the world.

Isak saw how Even’s eyes grew soft and loving and he felt a million sparks go off in his stomach. His head felt fuzzy with the idea that Even was thinking the same stuff about him right now. That Even loved him just as much as he did him. Isak placed his hands that were laying on his knees on the ground beside him and pushed himself forward, closer to Even.

Their knees knocked gently against each other and Even’s eyes got smaller when his mouth widened into a fond smile. His teeth showing which normally made Isak’s eyes zip down to the lips of his boy, but right now their stare was too intense to break. Even leaned forward unconsciously which brought them even closer.

The proximity was so small that Isak felt himself go a bit cross eyed, but he didn’t want to lean back. It was all he could do not to climb into Even’s lab and wrap his arms and legs around him. He knew Even would chuckle warmly at him and bring his own arms around his back. He’d whisper “See, you’re my baby monkey” with his deep voice, only meant to be heard by Isak, and...

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR they both jumped when the alarm of Lisle-or-what-ever went off.

“Woah,” Isak let out, sounding as breathless as he felt. He heard Even breath out a laugh as he closed the distance between them by leaning forward, giving Isak a gentle kiss.

“Yeah,” Even agreed and he sounded just as breathless as Isak.

“That was awkward, huh?” Magnus said loudly beside them, gaining him a relieved chuckle from the rest of the room. Isak and Even both smiled in his direction but after that exchanged a look. That wasn’t awkward. That was intense.

“Good. Everyone stay seated. Now that you told your partner non-verbally what you think of them, it’s time to use words!”

Even made a small gasp as if he had been waiting for that forever and Isak could just barely cover up his laugh with a cough. Slapping his back Even looked more than satisfied of himself for making him laugh. Isak couldn’t help but adore this idiot.

“Tell your partner three things you love about them. Three characteristics that made you fall for them or made you love them even more.” The woman rolled up and down on her feet as she said this, clearly the most excited about all of this from the entire room.

“I can’t name just three things.” Even complained, putting both his hands on each of Isak’s knees. Isak rolled his eyes.

“It’s not your cheesiness, that’s for sure.”

Even leaned back and put one of his hands on his chest, offended. “Excuse me, you told me I am the man of your life and I’m the cheesy one?”

“That was more than half a year ago.” Isak protested and went to grab the hand on Even’s chest, placing it back on his knee, leaving his own over it.

“Oh, so that has changed?” Even asked, brows high. Isak shrugged, pursing his lips to keep from smiling. “Maybe.”

“Is it too late to switch partners?” Even asked and pretended to look around the room. Isak giggled and tugged on the hand he still held. “Nei. You are the best thing in my life, Evi.”

Even looked back at him, a mix of wonder and fondness in his eyes, as if he was a bit taken by surprise by Isak switching from their banter to this.

“Three things.” Isak said to divert the attention from himself, his cheeks a bit pinker than before. “Go.”

Even grinned but nodded after a second longer of intensely looking at him.

“Hmmm. I love your loyalty,” Even said and counted it off with his fingers of the hand Isak wasn’t holding in a firm grip. “Your patience. Aaaand” his eyes growing teasing again, “your squishy nose.”

Isak looked at him startled for a second, still very much occupied with his faltering heart at the first two statements, before he threw his free hand up. He sputtered out a laugh and shook his head, huge grin betraying his outrage.

“Hva faen, Even?” He asked, which got him an innocent look.

“You are meant to point out characteristic. And don’t call it squishy. Eskild does that.”

Even shook his head, gesturing Isak to stop, “Eskild got that from me. I said it first.”

“You said it first.” Isak's voice was disbelieving.

“Ja.” Even shrugged with a proud smile on his face, as if he expected praise.

“I repeat: hva faen, Even.”

“What? I love your nose! Remember when I told you it was my favourite part of you?” (*) he said an and reached up to Isak’s face – or rather, to his nose – and stroked over his nose with his thumb. “It’s the softest! And just so bendy. It’s perfect,” he finished his explanation, not putting his hand down but continued to press into Isak’s nose.

“You’re ridiculous,” Isak said, sounding more nasal than usual, but leaned a bit into the touch. His boyfriend was officially the strangest person he knew – he loved it.

“It’s still against the rules to name a physical attribute,” Isak protested which made Even roll his eyes for once.

“Pfff. Oh physical attribute. Mr. big words. Ok, you can name two characteristics and one physical attribute, too.”

Isak nodded his ok, Even’s hand finally stopped to squish the nose and slid to Isak’s neck instead.

“Ok,” Isak started, “so, I love your hands,” he said and held one finger up to signalize one.

“And second-“

“My hands?” Even grinned widely, his eyes almost vanishing from the force of it. He lifted the hand that was on Isak’s neck and wiggled his fingers.

“This hand?” Isak rolled his eyes and grabbed for it, entwining their fingers of both hands.

“Both of them, yes.”

Even’s smile grew soft and he leaned forward a bit but not crossing the distance, which left Isak to initiate a kiss (which he did, of course). So, after two (or five) pecks Isak continued, “Your positivity and your strength.”

Even’s face sobered a bit at that and Isak saw him swallow and then, to his surprise, there was a slight blush on Even’s cheeks.

Even was barely ever shy or blushy and when it happened it made something primal bloom in Isak. He wanted to just throw Even over his shoulder and lock them into their bedroom for the rest of the week.

Isak squeezed Even’s hands and leaned forward again, nuzzling his nose over the pink tinged cheeks of his boy.

“You’re cute.” Isak murmured against Even’s skin and closed his eyes when he places tiny kisses from one cheek over Even’s lips to the other cheek.

 Some time later that day:

They were at a party, Isak and Even sitting on a wide couch with Jonas. Mahdi and Magnus sitting on the little couch table in front of them.

“You two seem even more cozy than usual,” Mahdi noted, handing the joint over to Magnus.

Isak looked to Even at Mahdi’s comment and couldn’t help the lovey-dovey smile that took over his face. They were not only sitting close, but almost half of Isak’s back was pressed against Even’s chest, hand on Even’s leg.

Even had his arm around Isak’s shoulder and his hand lay flat against Isak’s stomach.

Even mirrored his fond expression and leaned in, placing a soft kiss to the tip of Isak’s nose. Isak’s eyes drooped shut at this.

In the back of his head he registered Magnus telling (complaining to) Jonas and Mahdi all about the trust seminar, but Isak’s focus was pulled back to Even when the hand on his stomach began to gently stroke over it. Isak hummed his contentment and melted further into Even.

[fuckmaniknowbuthey]

i took 3 grams of magic mushrooms & saw ghost in the shell (rupert sanders, 2017)

ramblyyyyyyy but here we go

- not an adaptation of the oshii film or the manga and a distressing amount of dipshit fans & critics will scorn it for this but fuck 'em - very very aware of the multiple schools of thought on ghost in the shell (in conceptual reverence as much as aesthetic, this was clearly a film made by ppl who had intimately explored the possibilities of ghost in the shell & decided that this would be the most palatable configuration for an american audience in 2017 - the script, as a consequence mostly of the "for an american audience in 2017", is very banal & while it respects franchise legacy & prior characterizations it is also A Superhero Origin Story so that scarjo can have a non-marvel franchise BUT as a standalone film aside from the screenplay's cloying ambitions of franchise-building it is very good & enjoyable - kin very much 2 johnny mnemonic & for more reasons than just being a highly polarizing hollywood attempt at cyberpunk w/ a prominent beat takeshi supporting part, it has that same strange glee abt taking the big studio budget and going "now let's tease out past/present/future of an aesthetic", it's a film built entirely in its tiny little details (costuming, set design, the general dreamlike vibe, the sound editing, physical gestures) - scarjo is amazing in this!! i am generally not a fan but her interpretation of motoko kusanagi is fucking fascinating & weird & very much in the spirit of standalone complex's ver. of motoko (not quite at that level of brashly confident & comfortable yet, but possessing the same intensity & directness); she approaches the idea of "playing a robot" like, not just as "oh i've gotta be clumsy w/ my speech & motions + not emote very much" but instead like, genuinely behaving in a kind of alien impression of what "humanity" is??? like it's not even the usual sort of "robot that wishes it was real" shit, like she's hostile & inscrutable in affect in all moments where she isn't being hostile & there are so many weird little facial twitches + bits of odd body language she uses 2 communicate this is idea of like, struggling w/ being a constructed version of human rather than an authentic person and the arc is that she kinda just makes peace w/ the idea that she was once a person and now she isn't but she still retains like, this faint shred of this prior experience + she'll use it as fuel 2 live her new one fully in the terms afforded her, it's fucking weirdly heavy-lifting in acting terms for what plays out in plot beats as basically just tryna chum up ghost in the shell's whole franchise history into a post-raimi superhero origin story - the scene w/ the prostitute that's been in every trailer since the earliest teasers is a great moment for showcasing this performance's general vibes in a nutshell, she's like...not just doing bog-standard "oh wow this is a real human, how i'd love 2 be her" sorta wistful detachment, she's forceful + very fixated on how tactile & real the other woman is, like she wants 2 touch her not because she doesn't understand touch or the form of a face or the nature of skin but because she has an intense hunger for her original human perceptions of these ideas and she's got 2 find a way 2 reconcile this w/ her new body in a tangible way instead of just intellectualizing it - michael pitt's hideo kuze on the flip feels very much like a gimmick performance, but it's also a fun one: he's working w/ a lot of the same basic themes, but like cast as a villain for the bulk of it he's gotta dumb the shit down 2 shtick + so he's got the prosthetics & CGI freak body + he does a max headroom meets microsoft sam voice and he screams clumsily w/ every mannerism "I WAS HUMAN, I FEEL THAT I MAY STILL BE, BUT THAT I AM UNSURE I AM HUMAN IS AN IRRECONCILABLE TRAUMA" but he's fuckin' michael pitt so he's having a lot of fun w/ it and it's an interesting contrast of scarlett fucking johansson doing this very subtle character work while pitt's ham monologuing w/ scratched CD stutter tics at her from under cover of darkness - like seriously fuck this dumb screenplay it's very trite but unhelpful 2 focus on cuz this is a film that functions on so many more levels in ways that are compelling - the action is cool, riffing a lot on the peppier moments of oshii's films + kazuchika kise's arise OVA series but never just settling for carbon copy, uses 3D well (reminded me a lot of the sense of texture & movement & space in tron: legacy, which is a tragically overlooked film that maybe just doesn't work quite right outside of a theatre unfortunately) - pilou asbaek's batou is surprisingly good, i had him written off as far 2 generic action man but like he clearly did his research, his batou has a heart & a sense of humor & he absolutely has the body + the voice necessary 2 pull this character off (he manages 2 make the inherent goofiness of rendering batou's tiny camera eyes as a real thing on a person totally workable by having batou be proud as fuck of his augments & not remotely uncomfortable at the notion of them as a replacement for his real eyes, which considering they give him a dramatic "he got hurt on the job" moment after introducing him 2 the audience as a dude w/ normal eyes is cool & not corny cuz any other fucking film would've milked this for a subplot where batou could go "MAJOR, I ALSO FEEL YOUR PAIN, FOR I LOST MY EYES AND THEY GAVE ME ROBOT ONES, THAT'S JUST LIKE LOSING YR HUMANITY, RIGHT??" and that would've sucked) - beat takeshi gets way more screentime than you'd expect and as much as his performance is very much just him Doing His Thing that's honestly an ideal vibemarriage for the daisuke aramaki character + this also feels like a corrective 2 how sloppily he was used in johnny mnemonic hahaha like hollywood just karmically owed this dude one and he finally got it - chin han is a very good togusa, like all incarnations of togusa tho he gets fuckin' paltry screentime compared 2 everyone else and he also is just there 2 be like "he's the normal guy who is a pretty good cop" which is a downright shame - the rest of section 9 all feel like characters who are begging for a sequel and/or spinoff 2 rly flesh out proper but that also means they serve in a perfect capacity for fulfilling both the superhero origin shit (give you a hook 2 intice you 2 dig deeper) and also just like the general cool fringe sci-fi genre piece vibes (everyone looks badass, there's some neat little distinct tic or visual quirk on top of said general badassness that makes you think "maaaan i wanna see more of this guy" which fucking like all of these movies have, like again johnny mnemonic, that's an entire film of characters like that) - i love the retrofuturist plastic shell cars, it's extraordinarily "some high school kid's loving blade runner fanart" but it's executed w/ a respectable unwinking nature abt its whole shit, like it doesn't try 2 make this like the slick CGI ver. of a retrofuturist plastic shell car, it's just a shitty old car w/ hyper-stylized plastic shell on it hahaha - most of the spider-tank scene pales in comparison 2 mitsuo iso's beautifully animated take from the oshii flick but the actual exact sequence where motoko breaks 2 pieces prying the tank open is fucking gorgeous & riffs on iso + oshii's original work sublimely w/o just straight-up jacking it (this is a moment where the 3D rly shines, the frantic swaying of the arm as the last tendons shred and it pops off)

overall this was dumb as fuck but very gorgeous & kept compelling by performances that are strong & play well w/ the genre elements

[stonequake]

This is what I do hwen I’m bored

1.Who was the last person you held hands with? this answer would normally be my boyfriend but oddly enough it is a random boy in the pit at billy talent who just held hands with me during a song i cried a little

2. Are you outgoing or shy? pretty shy

3. Who are you looking forward to seeing? my boyfriend tomorrow, my best friend soon

4. Are you easy to get along with? usually

5. If you were drunk would the person you like take care of you? I’m usually the one taking care of people even when I’m drunk

6. What kind of people are you attracted to? weirdos, very emotive people, sincere, thoughtful, artsy, quiet, contemplative people, alternative ppl

7. Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now? yes

8. Who from the opposite gender is on your mind? from the opposite gender? bob ross

9. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable? not really talking about it

10. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with? cale

11. What does the most recent text that you sent say? “ *flap* :( “

12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now? damn uh if I had to split-second choose: -  something weird by awful din

fuck shit up by ghost mice

good enough by tiny moving parts

common cold also by tiny moving parts

carjack by greys

13. Do you like it when people play with your hair? oh fuck yes

14. Do you believe in luck and miracles? I don’t believe in it but my brain often makes me act on it

15. What good thing happened this summer? i can’t even remember last month

16. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again? fuck no, unless we’re counting the little one I gave cale, then of course

17. Do you think there is life on other planets? of course

18. Do you still talk to your first crush? I don’t think I ever even talked to my first crush I was like 7

19. Do you like bubble baths? ya

20. Do you like your neighbours? she abuses her dogs

21. What are you bad habits? I have so many, washing my hands is probably one of them, staying up too late

22. Where would you like to travel? everywhere fr

23. Do you have trust issues? I don’t think in that way

24. Favorite part of your daily routine? doin my makeup

25. What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with? I’m pretty comfortable with my body nowadays, probably my nose or teeth

26. What do you do when you wake up? go on my phone, piss, eat cereal

27. Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker? i wish it wasn’t so blotchy

28. Who are you most comfortable around? cale

29. Have any of your ex’s told you they regret breaking up? uh

30. Do you ever want to get married? idk

31. If your hair long enough for a pony tail? yea

32. Which celebrities would you have a threesome with? ummm évelyne brochu and hugh dancy

33. Spell your name with your chin. elkhyxd

34. Do you play sports? What sports? I swim and ski

35. Would you rather live without TV or music? I already live without TV

36. Have you ever liked someone and never told them? who has not

37. What do you say during awkward silences? nothing

38. Describe your dream girl/guy? cool

39. What are your favorite stores to shop in? uh west 49 and like, winners

40. What do you want to do after high school? I’m not in high school and i’m doing nothing basically

41. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance? generally

42. If your being extremely quiet what does it mean? nothing unusual

43. Do you smile at strangers? yes

44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean? space

45. What makes you get out of bed in the morning? the fact that dad got milk last night so I can have cereal

46. What are you paranoid about? like everything. catching sickness especially

47. Have you ever been high? yea

48. Have you ever been drunk? yea

49. Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out about? not /nobody/

50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore? black like my emo ass

51. Ever wished you were someone else? ya

52. One thing you wish you could change about yourself? my functioning, how I dissociate, make my voice stronger thats 3

53. Favourite makeup brand? low end is either nyx or elf, high end is too faced

54. Favourite store? #39

55. Favourite blog? qckdn

56. Favourite colour? grey or maroon

57. Favourite food? man idk, shrimp tacos maybe

58. Last thing you ate? wonton soup

59. First thing you ate this morning? cereal ?!

60. Ever won a competition? For what? can;t remember

61. Been suspended/expelled? For what? no

62. Been arrested? For what?n o

63. Ever been in love? yes

64. Tell us the story of your first kiss? can’t even remember

65. Are you hungry right now? nah

66. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends? I don’t even really have tumblr friends

67. Facebook or Twitter? neither

68. Twitter or Tumblr? tumblr

69. Are you watching tv right now? no

70. Names of your best friends? pat and mat and cat

71. Craving something? What? death lol

72. What colour are your towels? most of them are shades of blue

72. How many pillows do you sleep with? two

73. Do you sleep with stuffed animals? yes

74. How many stuffed animals do you think you have? on my bed, like TEN

75. Favourite animal? I love penguins and bats and foxes and owls

76. What colour is your underwear? I think lilac

77. Chocolate or Vanilla? choc

78. Favourite ice cream flavour? bublegum

79. What colour shirt are you wearing? black :-(

80. What colour pants? grey

81. Favourite tv show? hannibal

82. Favourite movie? mmm idk spiderman

83. Mean Girls or Mean Girls 2? 1

84. Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street? 21 js

85. Favourite character from Mean Girls? uh idk the weird gay one

86. Favourite character from Finding Nemo? that stoner sea turtle

87. First person you talked to today? cale

88. Last person you talked to today? ^

89. Name a person you hate? shae!

90. Name a person you love? cale

91. Is there anyone you want to punch in the face right now? yeah

92. In a fight with someone? no

93. How many sweatpants do you have? 1

94. How many sweaters/hoodies do you have? lots

95. Last movie you watched? tangled lol

96. Favourite actress? anna sophia robb or évelyne brochu

97. Favourite actor? mads mikkelson, hugh dancy tbh.

98. Do you tan a lot? ha! no.

99. Have any pets? :——(

100. How are you feeling? sleepy, paranoid

101. Do you type fast? yea

102. Do you regret anything from your past? of course

103. Can you spell well? yes

104. Do you miss anyone from your past? yes

105. Ever been to a bonfire party? yes

106. Ever broken someone’s heart? yes

107. Have you ever been on a horse? no thanks

108. What should you be doing? sleeping

109. Is something irritating you right now? yes

110. Have you ever liked someone so much it hurt? my boy c-dawg

111. Do you have trust issues? ?

112. Who was the last person you cried in front of? calé

113. What was your childhood nickname? elile, el, zach

114. Have you ever been out of your province/state? yes

115. Do you play the Wii? oh yeah

116. Are you listening to music right now? yeah

117. Do you like chicken noodle soup? yeah

118. Do you like Chinese food? yeah

119. Favourite book? hm, idk

120. Are you afraid of the dark? no

121. Are you mean? oh yeah

122. Is cheating ever okay? no i don’t think

123. Can you keep white shoes clean? i can’t keep any shoes clean :\

124. Do you believe in love at first sight? no

125. Do you believe in true love? not the usual concept of ir

126. Are you currently bored? thats why I’m doing this

127. What makes you happy? my boyfriend, being in the pit, playing piano, hugging dogs, being downtown at night, warm snowy days, sleeping on the bus, looking at the stars, being underwater

128. Would you change your name? i don’t think so

129. What your zodiac sign? virgo

130. Do you like subway? ya

131. Your bestfriend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do? yo that’s something I’m trying to figure out rn

132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with? cale

133. Favourite lyrics right now? if i haven’t had a good dream in about ten years are my dark days coming or are they here

134. Can you count to one million? why would i

135. Dumbest lie you ever told? I always lie

136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed? closed

137. How tall are you? 5'2

138. Curly or Straight hair? I like when my hair isn’t straightened

139. Brunette or Blonde? i’m blonde, i like both

140. Summer or Winter? winter

141. Night or Day? night

142. Favourite month? october maybe

143. Are you a vegetarian? no, i don’t eat much meat

144. Dark, milk or white chocolate? white

145. Tea or Coffee? tea

146. Was today a good day? eh

147. Mars or Snickers? mars

148. What’s your favourite quote? i like a lot of quotes

149. Do you believe in ghosts? idk

150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line

“ the old woman came in” quality bukowski

[warholiana]

On August 1, 2017, at the Swiss Institute in New York, I sat down to watch all five hours and 21 minutes of “Sleep,” Warhol’s first serious movie. In 1963, Warhol filmed his boyfriend John Giorno sleeping; in 2017, I committed to staying awake to take minute-by-minute notes on the whole thing. (Click here to read my similar notes on Warhol’s eight-hour “Empire”.)

  00:00

–  Begins w. shot of nipple – could almost be female. Hard to read. Establishes possible heterosexuality. (Somewhere Warhol is quoted saying he was afraid Sleep would be read as gay.)

So very tender: Watching someone sleep is the ultimate maternal act. (I wonder if the story about Julia Warhola watching her son Andy sleep is true. It was told after the movie was famous)

Note how close we are to Giorno’s nipple. So absurdly intimate.

–  I start to notice rise and fall of the chest, giving away the subject. Also, white crumpled sheet visible in background.

–  So very tender – watching someone sleep is the ultimate maternal act. (I wonder if the story about Julia watching Andy sleep is true. It was told after the movie was famous)

–  Vexations by Satie playing in background at Swiss Institute, as it may have been (or may not have been) in an early screening. Does its sweetness push the tenderness of the footage too far? There should be a stronger edge of painful boredom to the piece. But this is after a bare few minutes. May yet get painful.

–  Nipple still there. (Surprise-not-surprise.)

–  Actually seems less tense than Empire, where you actually thought something might happen. Here, the sight of the chest rising and falling gives a rhythm to the scene that makes it play out more easily over time.

–  With Empire, you thought that you might almost be watching a still. Here you know absolutely that you aren’t. Two pieces always seen as cognate are actually more different than one might think.

–  Nipple has now disappeared into darkness. Was there a change of lighting – and film reel – that I failed to notice? The problem with taking notes is that it distracts you from the events in a film that is supposed to be event-free.

00:07

–  Going to spend two minutes NOT typing

–  Nope: Gotta record that a change in reel led to change in exposure, so nipple is again visible. But nothing else seems to change. At a time when everyone was familiar with the basics in film technology, and the three-minute reel, would audiences have understood that the action was continuing across film changes? Would that have added a pacing to the film that we’ve lost?

00:10

– Two minutes not typing again.

00:11  

–  Nope. Too much I want to write, at least early in the process of watching.

–  Note how CLOSE we are to Giorno’s nipple. (Would ppl. have known it was Giorno?) So very, very, absurdly intimate.

- Change of reel, and exposure, and slight change of angle.

–  Looks as much like a landscape as like a body (cf Venetian nudes-in-landscapes, almost a cliché). Close-up is so extreme that this feels like a fully

modernist exercise in form, a la Weston. A denial of the intimate, sexual nature of the piece – useful to in-the-closet Warhol – but also sets it right into the modernist tradition that Warhol has such great training in, and that he never ever jettisoned. I think Edward Weston’s photos were shown in Pittsburgh when AW was young. Gotta see if they were the nudes. (Do the dates – late 1940s – make that possible?)

–  Back to darker exposure of the nipple. Is AW looping some of the same footage (as I know he did, and as some early watchers knew) or have we really moved forward in time with the sleeper?

00:11

–  From almost its first public appearance, people have said – ads for it have stated – that Sleep was eight hours long. That’s how powerful the cliché of the eight-hour-night turns out to be. We want – we need – Sleep to be even LONGER than it is. (I’ll see if I feel that way in five hours.)

–  Sorry to be watching it on projected video. Not at all the same thing as film (as I watched Empire.) The click of the film projector, and the need to stop to change reels, would have

00:20

–  Hold that thought. Radical change of angle. Now camera is looking up Giorno’s body toward his chin and face. Meaning we must be down at his crotch.

00:21

– More angle changes, to indefinable but vaguely public spots on his body.

00:22

– Now his face, in Hollywood-style closeup. Can’t tell he’s breathing, so could be morgue shot. Plangent and commemorative. Ties to history of portraiture – Fayum funeral portraits? Roman funeral monuments with sleeping/dead hero? Meleager – most famous of gorgeous dead guys.

00:23

– Another angle change. Now top of chest and part of jaw, and ear, visible in close up. Nb links to the LOOK of the first American avant-garde films that AW saw in P’burgh – Maya Deren etc. This new shot reads as about surrealist dismemberment and collapse.

00:25

– Back to the up-the-body shot. DOES make us pretty sure that some shots have  been repeated/looped. Hard to imagine the camera going back to precisely the same positions again and again.

–  Very COMPOSITIONAL – against the grain of its moment’s most radical, anti-European thought.

–  AW gets it much more right in Empire – this film should be a continuous shot, or at least truly sequential shots of the same scene.

–  Must have been VERY tedious to keep reloading the camera every 3 mins.

–  Now back to the “pubic” shot of earlier moment. Such a strange shot that we KNOW it’s the same footage, repeated.

–  Was anyone at the premiere watching closely enough to take any of such subtleties in?

–  Strange shot of…. Giorno’s thing? Can’t tell. Sexy regardless. More sexy for being hard to read.

00:29

–   Back to the face shot again.

–  Back to thinking re video vs film projection. At very least, I want to see this video at some absurdly high def where the artifacts of video simply disappear. The new scanning being done of Warhol films should allow that. Here, I can see the little “pixels” that the projector’s LCD image is made up of, competing with the original film grain.

00:32

– I really do want to hear the film-projector sound. Makes one aware of the physical side of the film – that shooting the piece involved someone manipulating physical film through a physical camera, in the presence of a physical body.

00:35

– But would the sound of the projector have been salient in 1963, or a background phenomenon read-through as cognitive noise.

–  Funny that I feel very worried about any minute that I’m not attending to the film. (Someone just came in from the street, and asked me about the film. And it made me very nervous to be missing seconds or minutes of … Giorno sleeping. As though there were any chance of him actually doing anything!)

–  I thought of asking the gallery for the remote, so I could take a break if needed. (As now, when my glasses need cleaning!) So glad I didn’t. The film needs to move forward relentlessly, without the viewer having any control. The FILM time and VIEWER time need to be very different, even out of synch and in different realms of control.

–  Film time is Warhol time, controlled – at least originally – by him. And I have to see how much I want to bring my time in synch with it.

00:40

– Also glad I didn’t ask for the WiFi code for the gallery. The 21st century permits distractions and multitasking that the 1960s didn’t. Does that make us feel even more stranded in Giorno’s sleep, since we aren’t used to EVER surrendering to one stimulus?

00:41

– Screen goes to white, as at end of a reel – for first time – now footage of what looks to be part of a pimply rear end, with very Modernist geometricization.

–  Were there Modernist precedents for the MALE nude body being reduced to geometry?

–  I notice, as I am supposed to, the scratchmarks running down the film and the bits of lint flickering across it. But I think it takes Modernist training to (want to) truly become aware of such things.

00:45

– Same shot, but seems to have been a change of film reel – after the 4 minutes that are supposed to elapse between reels.

–  Still the same bum-shot.

–  Nb that four people have just walked in. Having them chatting (loudly) in background is probably MUCH more like the orig. experiences of watching the movie … but I kind of want a more laboratory experience of silence. Is my duty as a historian to recapture original viewing experiences, or to zero in, autopsy-style, on the art object in question, so as to understand it fully?

00:50

Still that bum! (If that’s what it is.) Reaching that point where the image on the screen starts to lose its salience. The brain assumes that it’s no longer “signal” worth attending to. Nb that Warhol’s durational films – like durational music by Satie or Yves Klein –  is almost a psych experiment on attention and perception and how they interact.

–  Funny, Alva Noe’s notion of “embodied consciousness” should be relevant as I stay conscious of a body, but I’m too aware of Giorno’s body as representation.

–  I guess I am aware of my own body, as I shift in my chair. Wish I had the Factory’s famous “couch” to watch this on.

00:54

– New angle! Looking from behind at Giorno’s rear, as he lies naked on his side. Could almost be a woman’s body …. Except for the visibly hairy bum and back.

–  Utterly sexual, as the film hasn’t been until now. I was about to write that only a gay filmmaker could have done this shot … but then realized that I ought to be able to imagine a woman having shot it – but our society doesn’t leave much room for such “scopic agency” (sorry) even in the 21st century.

–  Camera records the bedsheets as so bright white as to seem like a fashion photog’s prop, rather than normal everyday sheets.

00:56

–  I suddenly realize how BRIGHT Warhol’s lights must have been, to allow such exposures on movie film. Could Giorno have been such a heavy sleeper, as is claimed, that Warhol’s shooting didn’t wake him up? Or should we imagine him complicit in the shoot?

–  If we imagine him complicit – and why should we imagine him asleep in ALL the shots? – then he is “suffering” the same duration, and possibly boredom, as us. He is us, but worse off because he really has nothing to look at!

–  And of course, as with all representation, we are also Warhol looking at Giorno at the time of the shoot. (Is it at the time of the shoot, or some present “now”? Does representation always situate the viewer in some past time as well as in some alternate space? I’m not sure…)

–  About one hour gone by. Pretty quickly. Not so bad. Pretty easy to imagine staying six times as long.

–  No seats (normally) in the Swiss Institute show. I had to borrow one specially. Can curators simply not IMAGINE someone staying throughout? Are we assumed to have such short attention spans? Nb that “durational time-based work” is now a staple of contemp. art, and we assume that we are allowed to give it the glancing attention we give to a painting. Whereas in 1963 the absolutely ruling paradigm for film was the auditorium (or loft) screening of a film that would be watched, sitting down, from end to end.

–  Inviting the possibility of casual, interrupted, non-continuous, painting-like viewing of film is one of AW’s most radical artistic moves. The resistance to AW’s films partly comes out of the failure to assimilate this new model – until fairly recently.

–  Some camera shake/motion at one cut in the “bum shot” – makes us doubly aware of Warhol (or someone’s) presence as the camera operator.

–  “Bum shot” rhymes with “cum shot” – of course absent from this film, but always there as a possibility because of the OVERWHELMING assimilation (in 1963) of this film to porn. In 1963, I bet most people’s most likely encounters w. 16mm film might have come via illicitly circulating, mail-order porn.

1:11

– Sudden cut to almost illegible shot of … corner of an eye? Nope – it’s the top of Giorno’s bum-crack, but seen horizontally because he’s lying on one side. Truly fetishistic to see this much sustained attention to one (potentially) sexual body part that is completely passive and immobile.

1:13

– Warhol is always billed as a passive observer, but here he’s met his match in a partner who’s so passive, he’s actually unconscious. And Warhol’s looking doesn’t seem passive at all, but determined and almost aggressive in its relentlessness. The aggression of a private-eye determined to crack a case.

1:15

– Another face shot, this time a different angle, w. Giorno in near-profile, looking up. Is he really asleep as AW looks on, or is he faking his inattention?

–  Giorno looks absolutely Roman (ancient) – a perfect Roman pugilist’s face. Slightly prognathous jaw.

–  Amazing! Giorno moves! I genuinely said “Woa!” when it happened, after more than an hour of immobility.

–  Wait – does anyone move as little as he has while sleeping for the last hour? Does that prove that this footage is to some extent faked? Someone give that man a FitBit, so we can record his sleep.

–  My own rear end hurts from sitting – I want Giorno’s bed!

1:19

– Going to stand up while I watch, w/o keyboard. Funny how much I’m worried about missing something.

1:21

– Back already. Wanted to record that the way the projection is installed is totally 21st Century, perfectly filling the big end wall of the gallery from wall to wall and floor to ceiling (wall runs straight to floor and ceiling w/o baseboard or top molding). This would have been an unknown presentation in 1963. A screen would almost always have been involved in the showing of the piece, whether in a cinema or a loft or the Factory. It would have felt closer to a Hollywood movie than to a gallery painting.

–  Giorno moves again … with exactly same motion as earlier. Anyone paying any attention would twig to the fact that the film has been looped now and then, and is NOT recording a true session of sleep in real time. Moves again … with exactly same motion as TWICE earlier.

–  Nb hard shadow of Giorno’s head on a wall next to him conjures sense of him in a small, bohemian space, on a single bed. If the bed isn’t narrow, AW would have to be lying on it next to Giorno to get the close-up shots he does.

1:28

– Does the slowing of the original footage to “silent” (3/4) speed also slow the familiar (visual) pitter-patter of the film grain? Certainly feels like it does, letting us KNOW that the film has been slowed. (Jonas Mekas, first and greatest fan of AW’s films, claims Stan Brakhage, AW’s rival in radical film, hated AW’s durational works when shown incorrectly at normal speed, but loved them when slowed.) So we end up, weirdly, with a slowed vision of something/someone who is already necessarily static. What does that mean?

–  Am I (is anyone?) sure that Sleep was always shown at slow, “silent-film” speed? I really doubt that in the wild-and-wooly sixties Warhol or anyone else would or could or would have wanted to guarantee such consistency.

–  Suddenly felt a slight wave of sleepiness – for first time! You’d think that would hit much sooner, given the subject and form of this film!

1:36

– New shot (or have we seen it before) sliding up Giorno’s body from below, framed to cut off all but the top of his pubes/bottom of his belly. Camera has to be about level w his (naked) crotch.

– He shifts and moves and breathes deeply.

–  Nb that, as with earlier shots of his cheek, if you stare at any one pale patch of skin you realize that the grain artifacts of the film actually turn its tone into something like a roiling pit of lava. Very strange since it ought to look ivory-smooth and immobile.

–  Nb that the hairy Giorno presents a “normally” masculine image of the homosexual male that was almost absent from 1950s and early-60s discourse. Even the (tiny) pro-gay literature – “One” magazine; “The City and the Pillar” by Gore Vidal – was obsessed with the “problem” of the swish, effeminate queer. (I.e., Warhol)

–  I am barely hearing the Satie – but it is also clearly making the whole experience more mellow and pleasant.

–  Compare Sleep, screening w. Satie played on the piano (by whom? On a record? What are the details of that narrative? Do they make sense?), with Rauschenberg having Feldman piano pieces played lived during his Egan Gallery (cct?) show.

1:46

– Giorno has been on his back for quite some time now, w. camera in same position. That’s what we (falsely) think of as the unchanging status of the entire film. In fact Sleep has (even) more event in it that Empire does.

1:47

– Foreshortened body, although not seen at full length, evokes Mantegna Dead Christ seen from his feet. Warhol must have known that from slides (I should check his college textbook) and once AW saw something, it NEVER seems to have left his memory bank and tool kit.

1:51

– Long period of white “leader” (as I guess it’s called), for second time that I notice in the film. Is that left in the digitized version to evoke the change of reels that would have been required in an original screening? Does the film survive as a bunch of 3-minute reels, as shot, which were then spliced together to fill six one-hour (?) reels for projection?

1:52

– Two hours gone by, more or less. I (guiltily) check my phone, which I realize I couldn’t have done in 1963. What distraction might I have had then? A visit to the concession stand for popcorn and a Coke?

1:54

– Reminds me that I’ve read early reports of Sleep screenings, and the anger that people felt in watching. (Famously, one wag went up to the screen and yelled “Wake up!” into Giorno’s ear – but actually, not sure if there’s any moment in the film when his ear would be thusly available to a standing viewer.) Most people walked out – some were angry at the “no-refunds” sign proudly posted – but some 50, the reporter said, stayed to the end. I have a feeling that in the (druggy) 1960s, more people might have watched straight through than now.

–  What would be the drug of choice for Sleep-watching? Speed, to increase one’s focus and to keep one awake, or pot to help one relax and go with the flow? Or acid, to add incident and excitement to the subject matter?

2:01

– Funny how representations never commit us to the size of the figure seen. Here Giorno is projected some 12-feet tall, from just the waist up, but doesn’t read as any bigger than if we were to see the same shot reproduced as a 3inch high still in a book.

2:02

– Screen went black for maybe ten seconds, then leader-white, then back to footage. Why?

–  Would even a bare hairy chest have been almost beyond the pale in 1963 Hollywood terms? How often did one see a naked man’s chest on film? I think Newman’s chest is bare in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

 –  Was homosexuality so very very forbidden in that era that some or many original viewers couldn’t have conceived of a homoerotics? I’ve certainly interviewed people (women, mostly) who said they had never heard of queer love until quite far along into their adult lives.

–  Now typing so much I’m in danger of lying if I say that I’ve “watched” Sleep for all 5.4 hours.  If only I could touch-type and never look at my computer screen, only at the movie screen and its image instead.

–  By almost always being below Giorno’s head, is AW’s gaze somehow “subordinate” to Giorno’s? Is Warhol establishing himself as a “bottom”. (I hate that silly, limiting terminology; also, I’m aware that it was EVERYWHERE in gay talk and writing in the 1960s)

–  This is almost Warhol���s (later) Blow Job, but from the position of the blow-er. Once you think of that, it’s very easy to think of Giorno as being a rather impassive blow-ee, feigning sleep.

–  Seems like we’ve been on the same few (looped) shots of Giorno’s torso from below for a LONG time. The normal notion of what Sleep is supposed to have been.

–  In a world of utter distraction like ours, what a pleasure to concentrate, in isolation, for so many hours straight!

–  Is this the ultimate in Arden Reed’s “Slow Art”? (Did Arden make a MoMA appointment to watch all of Sleep? He must have said, but I can’t remember.) The subject is the ultimate in slow (not still, like Empire, which is a different thing), and it forces slow looking. But of course its near-static subject also allows itself to be adequately “got” in a single glance, making the piece in fact fast. Is a two-hour action flick in some ways inherently SLOWER, since it forces close watching, with no wavering in attention, for longer?

–  There’s a wonderful, almost comic rhyme between the slow in-out breaths of Girono, as he sleeps, and us as we sit watching. Has there ever been as perfect a mirroring between subject and viewer as here, across the plane of the cinema screen? (Just realized that that effect is even stronger in Warhol’s Screen Tests, where the Test-ee looking out is perfectly mirrored in us looking at them.)

2:23

– Funny, screen is now perfectly bisected by long black scratch – which arrived when in the history of the footage this is based on?

–  How much does anyone, or did anyone, think of the material substrate for this film, and what it was and has been. It was shot on “direct reversal” (ie, slide-type) film, as it could have been edited and then watched for the first time in AW’s studio, and must have been turned into an inter-neg later so it could be printed for distribution to cinemas. In the digitized version now being screened, which artifacts are a product of which stage in the process? And of course some are artifacts of the digital transfer, and then the digital player and projector at the Swiss Institute.

–  Warhol said his slow films should be treated like a cozy fire in a fireplace, ie as background effects in a room, rather than as subjects for contemplation. (And I think I have him, somewhere, talking about them as paintings we look at now and then – at least I’m certain that a curator once asked him for permission to treat his films as paintings, to be shown alongside paintings in the gallery.) But the problem is:

a) That Warhol very often said things that he absolutely didn’t believe, for effect or to please a listener.

b) That we may not want to care about how Warhol wanted us to contemplate his work, when it’s in fact our turn to watch it.  Who is he to tell us how to look and attend? I assume that most artists, working in any medium, may have spent very little time attending to a piece once it was done. They are most normally in the presence of the unfinished. Does that (mostly) make them lousy elucidators of their own finished works?

2:38

– Looking at a strange bald patch in Giorno’s stomach hair, I’m reminded of that shot, in the long-ago Sensations exhibition of YBAs, that showed a hole in someone’s hairy head where a bullet had gone in.

2:40

– Funny, but a big black scratch that bisects the image, during certain segments of the piece, would have had to be a scratch on the interneg (scratches on the original positive would have been white) – so how is it that the scratch is repeated on different parts of the film that AW edited together? Wasn’t the interneg made in one go, from the entire film in its completed edit? (Greg Pierce, oh master of film stock, where are you when I need you?)

2:46

– Almost three hours in, and I’m acutely aware that the note-taking that allows me to attend for so long is also not true attention to the sensations of the film. I am, basically, attending to the contents of my mind, with occasional prompts from the work of art. But is this always and especially the case with slow art? Do I like slow art because it conforms so well to my model of the work of art as a “machine for thinking”? – that is, as occasion for thought and talk, rather than as freestanding sensation with its own inherent qualities independent of what we use them for. (Not sure what the “inherent qualities” of a work of art would be, except for its physical attributes, and why we would care about them outside of the effects they have on us and the thoughts/sensations they trigger.)

–  I guess I’m arguing for (or prone to) valuing the thoughts triggered by works of art over the pure sensations or emotions they trigger – even though I guess you could argue that the sensations and emotions are in some way (but in what way?) more inherent to the work and its qualities. Thoughts can wander a long way from the work, whereas sensations and emotions are triggered more directly.

–  Of course the range of possible emotions and sensations so triggered is more limited than the range of thoughts – and, most especially, can’t really be shared. Whereas the thoughts inspired by a piece can be shared and used and revamped and updated by an entire community of lookers.

2:55

– Back to LOOKING, Blake.

2:56

– For Beyond the Fringe fans: “Mine brother Giorno is an hairy man, but I am an smooth man.”

2:58

– Very weird skip in the footage. I wonder how it came about, and how it entered the history of what we now see in this digital version of the piece. The digitizers must have chosen to leave the skip in, even though it would have been trivial to remove it.

–  Seeing basically the same, almost identical (two? three?) shots of Giorno for a long, long time now. I wonder why or how Warhol decided to introduce more different shots at the beginning of the piece, then allow it to settle down to a more passive sleeping form later on.

3:01

– Precisely as I wrote that, image cut to a close up on Giorno’s sleeping face, in profile, that I don’t think I’ve seem before.

–  Feels very different from the footage of his entire torso.

3:03

– Funny glitch in the digital signal, so that some info about the HDMI source appears for a sec. Funny how the digital is no more foolproof and flawless than the analog and physical. I almost miss the old days when the film would get stuck in the projector and you would get to watch it burn and melt.

– Same profile shot as before is now lighter, as though Warhol adjusted his camera exposure, or the exposure that the interneg was printed at for this portion of film. Few minutes later, and it’s darker again. What gives, Andy?

3:06

– Giorno, in profile close-up, for some reason looks Brando-ish. The same funny combo of macho and tough and somehow slightly fay.

3:07

– Funny little thing, but I just noticed the perfectly squared and shaved end of Giorno’s sideburn. Reveals him to be the well-groomed former stockbroker that he was. Love to think of him visiting the barber in anticipation of Warhol’s arrival to film him. “Mr. Warhol, I’m ready for my close-up now!”

–  Come to think of it, a man as hirsute as Giorno would have had to shave before bed to appear as smooth-shaven as he does in “Sleep.” More extreme artifice in a film that seems entirely without any.

3:11

– Although I find Giorno very attractive in this footage, I’m struck by how essentially chaste, almost disinterested my reaction to him is, as a straight male viewer, and how different that must be from the reaction I might have if I were gay. Anyone who tries to play down the importance of sexuality to culture and art is ignoring how fundamental that difference really is, and how much it can affect the act of looking. (Even if you choose to ignore or repress a sexual response – as I might do when confronted by an image of a gorgeous naked woman, or by an image of a naked woman who wasn’t my “type” –  you are still aware of that act of ignoring or repressing, and your response is affected by it.)

–  Is this in any meaningful way Pop Art – even to the extent that Pop Art is a meaningful or useful category?  The four-square approach of the Campbell’s Soup is here too – the refusal of commentary or editorializing, and the presentation of subject for subject’s sake. That’s one of the most important features and innovation’s of 60s art, and extends also to abstraction (think minimalism’s “specific objects” and Stella’s “What you see is what you see”) and to photography (the “observational,” putatively anti-formal tendencies in photographers like Friedlander.) It’s my “ostensive” function of art, turned into an esthetic principle.

3:30

– Not sure why, but all of the sudden the cropping of one of Giorno’s eyes and cheeks by the tight close-up on his face seems violent, like an amputation.

3:31

– A section of underexposed footage makes the buzzing grain read very loudly as incident. Funny how mobile the surface of a projected 16mm film can be – like a Pollock! Would such a comparison to the previous generation have pleased or displeased Warhol and his fans in 1963?

3:34

– Giorno’s lips now seem very present. He’s shown on his back, as though awaiting a kiss (from Warhol). It’s so important to get rid of the myth of an asexual Warhol. He wanted and enjoyed love and sex as much as any (or at least many) of us. I worry that the culture has desexualized Warhol out of a kind of puritanism (and homophobia) that prefers not to think of greatness and sex (and most especially gay sex) as going together.

3:43

– Again, seems impossible not to conflate John sleeping with John, dead. I guess we have much more powerful precedents and models for images of manly men who are passive because dead than passive because asleep. (A nice piece of “quantitative art history”: Take a representative sample of Western paintings and sculptures and see how many show men asleep versus women, and ditto for men and woman who are dead. Also, I wonder how many images of sleeping men have automatically been categorized by art historians as images of male corpses.)

–  Always that rhythm of Giorno’s rising and falling chest, always visible if you take care to note it.

–  What would it be to watch this without taking notes? Just to be a completely passive observer, trying to truly take in the footage without actively reacting to it? How dull would that be?

–  Note how much less boring I find Warhol’s almost-static “stillies,” compared to his semi-narrative later films, which I find much more trying. Is that because the truly non-narrative can’t ever be failed narrative? And it’s narrative failure that produces frustration and boredom…

–  I have a feeling that most people who watch Sleep and Empire bring with them the narrative expectations of (Hollywood) film, and are annoyed when their expectations aren’t met. Whereas if you told them to look at, say, a painting of a sleeping man for five hours, they might refuse or even resist, but they wouldn’t somehow be annoyed at the work itself for not having narrative motion.

3:56

– When you turn away from the screen for a moment, then turn back, you’re struck by how much it feels like you’re seeing the close-up shot from a Hollywood film – and then you’re surprised simply by the fact that it doesn’t change to another shot as you watch. The fundamental semiotics are from Hollywood (unlike, say, in the films of Brakhage), so there’s an appropriation that matches the appropriation in the Campbell’s Soup cans. (Although, interestingly, that’s much less true of Warhol’s silkscreened paintings, where the subject – Marilyn or Liz or a suicide – is taken from pop culture but the fractured visual structures are fairly high-arty.)

4:01

– 5470 words written so far. Even if I post them, how many people are likely to read the whole pile? In an ideal world, would I actually write so much during a screening of Sleep that it would take a reader the full 5:21 to read my words?  Which of course would mean that I’d have to manage the impossible task of writing faster than someone can read, thereby turning a slow-art experience into a mad race.

4:04

– Suddenly aware of how the overexposed parts of the digital image go to a pure, bright white in a way they don’t with film.

4:05

– Another moment of all-black then all-white as some (fictive) projectionist changes the reels in Sleep. (How often would an underground theater have had the two projectors it takes to assure a continuous flow across reel changes?) I wonder if, in digitizing the piece, they should have included a track of the sound of the film projector, as I’ve sometimes come across with digitized art films? It would have been fake, sure, but there’s something unnerving and sterile about Giorno’s sleep unreeling in utter silence.

4:09

– Just about an hour left – and this has really not been hard or boring at all. But maybe that’s just because I love the sound of my own … thoughts.

4:11

– Was Warhol keen on the enlargement of his own love and lust for Giorno to movie-screen size? Sleep is really quite the act of commemoration – of a love and a lover and a love affair. Not one of the Old Masters managed to paint a lover’s face so it covered an entire wall.

4:14

– It’s almost impossible for most of us to remember or imagine how utterly formalist most thought about art still was right through the 1960s. It was very very difficult for most highly-trained viewers to see subject instead of pattern in a work of art. (I remember actually finding this hard, as a kid raised by diehard Modernists.) I wonder if Sleep was meant as the ultimate challenge to that old way of thinking. Was Warhol daring viewers not to see a man sleeping in his film? The hints of motion and action in the film make it that much harder to read it as a formal array; its near-total stillness, and its assimilation to painting, invite the failed attempt.

4:22

– All my notes until now have been taken from close enough to the projection that it just about filled my field of view – just because that’s where the gallery put my chair. I’ve now pulled back to the distance I’d be in a cinema, and the effect is very, very different. The piece felt very much like a painting, when seen from so close, but at this distance it feels much more cinematic – much more like a fine surrogate for the presence of a man really sleeping. Funnily enough, from the greater distance Giorno actually feels more present, at least as a cinematic subject.

4:25

– I wonder if the black-and-white of Sleep now feels more obviously and thoroughly old-fashioned than it did in 1963, when a good proportion of first-run movies, and most art-house movies, were not yet in color. The footage now feels very Golden-Age-Hollywood. I wonder if it did then? (Somehow, Warhol’s slowing of his footage seems to contribute to a nostalgic effect. Does the past always somehow feel in slow motion?)

4:28

– Aha! I think I just saw motion from Giorno I haven’t seen before, and new camera angles. Sounds trivial, but actually feels very notable, after so many hours of watching.  And feels surprising – you think you know Warhol’s tricks and procedures, and then he alters them.

4:30

– Giorno’s face now in close-up, facing the camera as he sleeps on his side. And now he’s back on his back, with his arm raised to present his underarm.

– Just noticed that Giorno has the little rings around the flesh in his neck that Renaissance men found so appealing, at least in women. (See Parmigianino, Madonna of the Long Neck.) There is a kind of “beauty-shot” effect in this film, or it’s like the Renaissance paintings of exemplary beauties.

–  Come to think of it, Giorno looks shockingly like the figure in a great Renaissance male portrait. I think it’s by Mantegna, but might be by Bellini or just maybe Antonello da Messina. Nice for once not to be able to look something up – as no one could have done, anyway, in a cinema in 1963.

–  Current shot (which has been looped a bunch of times, now) is really lovely – a giant, especially loving close-up on Giorno.

–  He moves his mouth as he sleeps the way a little kid does. And of course watching someone sleep is an inherently parental act, and the more tender for that.

–  How many people know that Warhol made several (half-hearted, more like quarter-hearted) attempts to become a father – by adoption, at least.

–  Giorno had a very lovely, sensitive mouth. Part of his beauty comes from its contrast to his notable, distinguished, Roman-general nose and jawline.

–  And such long eyelashes

4:42

– A new, strange shot, of Giorno sleeping with his arm over his head, with dark shadows hiding his eyes. Warhol seems to introduce just enough new shots to keep a pretense alive that the film is really continuous footage of Giorno sleeping, and changing positions.

–  With his eyes blacked out, he looks more dead than not. V. strange.  

–  Someone, somewhere, has obviously done a shot-by-shot diagram of the structure of Sleep.  I’ll have to look for such in my Warhol books – or wait for the catalogue of the films to appear. Like a dissection that lets you understand how a creature lived and moved.

4:49

– Yet another new shot (I think).  Strange enough in its composition (Giorno’s arm beside his head) as to seem almost Bauhaus.

4:51

– Giorno has such strong, identifiably Italian features that it’s hard not to see him as appealingly familiar to Warhol, the Slav who grew up among fellow immigrants. (One of his best childhood friends in Pittsburgh was Italian. She’s still in the family house, just doors up from Warhol’s.)

4:58 – OK, so I am indeed losing my concentration now. Have to ask, as my rear-end falls asleep on my hard chair: Is the experience of watching four hours of Sleep any different than watching five?

4:59

– But had I left just now, I would have missed yet another new shot of Giorno sleeping! Not a closeup on his face as he sleeps with one cheek against his pillow. And would my knowledge or understanding of the piece been any different had I not seen that shot?

5:00

– The difference between leaving early and staying throughout is that if you leave early you don’t have the certain knowledge of nothing happening that watching the full movie gives you. If you leave early, you can’t know for sure that there wasn’t some amazing, radical action that you missed.

5:04

– Seems almost as though Warhol deliberately lit Giorno so his eyes would be in deep, dramatic, funereal shadow. Warhol was capable of such planning (he was a much better technician than he let on)  but also quite capable of trusting to luck – and maybe, just maybe, to our willingness to find excellence in whatever he did.

–  Worth remembering that Warhol had only had one year of attention, of any kind, when he made Sleep, and was not yet the giant star he would become over the next few years. (The Silver Factory and its freak-show was still months away from coming together.) So Warhol was truly taking risks with his film, and daring to push a wary audience.

5:09

– Deeply weird new shot of Giorno’s face from above, camera now looking down his nose, with glints of sleepy tears in his one visible eye. Not at all a normal position from which to approach or view a sleeping person or friend or lover. It’s as though Warhol were peering (leering?) over the bed’s headboard.

- From this strange angle, the face seems somehow dismembered – becomes a congeries of features, with the (beautiful) mouth as the main identifiable item.

–  Talk about formalist, Bauhaus modernism, but with a Surrealist edge. Could really be a shot from Bunuel – or again, from Maya Deren.

5:16 

–  Film just  nearing its end – interesting that AW chose to end on this strange shot, and nb that there’s notable camera shake and movement, signaling a camera that’s clearly hand-held. Warhol is there at the end, as a palpable observer of his lover.

TA-DUM. Over. And out.

  (Installation photo of "Andy Warhol: SLEEP AND OTHER WORKS,” at the Swiss Institute, by Daniel Perez)