#because some randomer put ‘happy 10 years’ in big font on it so that’s what everyone saw

[tahthetrickster]

420 rage comic yesterday and 11 years of cats and firemen today i will be so relieved to get my activity page back again

[bucksblr]

#showyourprocess

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES — When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Thank you so much for tagging me @lan-xichens​, I’ll try my best to explain how I made this set from start to finish hehe ♡ and also a big thank you to @suibianjie​ @highwarlockkareena​ @nyx4​ @aheartfullofjolllly​ and you as well Kris for putting this all together! Content creators get a lot less recognition than they deserve for all the time they put into their content, so getting everyone to see the (sometimes excessive) process we all go through to put our content in our blog, I hope it creates a positive change!! 💖

1. Planning

The set in question was actually requested by someone so they could celebrate their friend’s birthday! At first I wasn’t entirely sure if I was going to be able to finish it on time (college is very hectic right now) but I was able to finish it three days before the deadline which was may 1st! ^-^

The first thing I did was decide what characters I wanted to use in the set, I first reached out to the person who requested the set if there were certain characters they wanted me to use but they said they didn’t know enough to really give me any directives outside of the quote. I decided, since the quote is applicable to the entirety of the show, that I would try to put in as many characters as possible.

Thus, of course, came the hunting for scenes. Those of you in the net discord surely know I came into the content help channel a few times to ask for certain scenes here and there, and eventually I had to download an additional 10 episodes to the back then 20 or so episodes I had in my CQL episodes folder.

As you can see I have 30 random episodes of CQL downloaded (slowly but surely getting to the point where I have all 50 episodes downloaded) and I think I ended up using scenes out of at least 20 of those episodes.

I planned out beforehand what characters I would use per gif. I knew obviously I would start out with Wangxian, them being the main characters of the show, and then would work my way down the list. The second gif consists of Nie Huaisang, Nie Mingjue, Jin Zixuan, Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning. They’re all family pairings, two being siblings and one being a married couple. The next gifset consists of the Yi City characters, then the fourth gif consists of the juniors, and the final gif has Jin Guangyao, Mianmian, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Xichen in it.

I have to admit though that when I had made the first four gifs I’d forgotten who I would put in the last gif and the when I thought about it the first time around I could only think of Lan Qiren and the very cursed Yaoyang ship 😭 it was only at dinner time that same day that I remembered I hadn’t put Jiang Cheng in my gifset yet and that’s when I thought of the other characters as well.

I had already made my first two gifs when I went to check Hanyi’s blog for layout inspo and eventually I decided I wanted to try a triangle-ish layout, which I doodled below. I eventually ended up changing the layout of the last gif in the final design. It was also the first time I would work with a triangle-ish layout so I was a bit nervous as I was scared it wasn’t going to work out...

2. Creating

I use Avisynth 2.5 and Adobe Photoshop 2021 (the paid version, unfortunately, I need it for school except I didn’t need it this year but I wanted it so I paid for it with my own money ouch) to make my gifsets! I always start out with trimming down all the scenes I’m going to use into three to five second videos and putting them through Avisynth. This time around I did it separately for each gif I made, simply because I needed so many scenes. I would include a screenshot of my “gif vids” and “temp” folders but I’ve already deleted all the videos, which is what I usually do immediately after a set is posted.

I’ll try my best explaining this gif by gif since each one had a different layout!

2.1 Wangxian

I think I had up to five different designs of this gif 😭 it started out with the gif on the left originally being more centered and the quote right smack in the center but somehow it felt a bit too... empty? I changed up the design and pulled the gif over to the right and put the two closeups on the left, the exact opposite of the gif I eventually ended up with. I switched things around one more time and saved the gif as you can see it right now, except I didn’t include the lines yet. It was only as I finished up my fourth gif that I decided this gif needed lines as well so I added them ^-^

2.2 Nie Huaisang, Nie Mingjue, Jin Zixuan, Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning

I got the inspiration for the font layout on this gif from this Wenzhou post! I hadn’t tried it before and when I did for this gif I was very happy with the way it turned out :D I wanted to portray that life is a pile of good and bad things, as the quote says, in CQL by mirroring these happy scenes side by side with the sad scenes

2.3 Yi CIty

My first time working with the triangle layout!! Putting in the lines and making sure they would line up with the second gif took me the longest of all actually  😭 I think once I got the line on the left in I just copy pasted it and flipped it horizontally so I didn’t have to fiddle around with angling it anymore :’) my original idea was to get a happy Song Lan scene and a sad A-Qing scene, but when I stumbled upon this A-Qing scene in ep38 I just had to put it in there because her smile is so precious 🥺 Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen in the center are also supposed to be mirrored, with Xue Yang embodying the “bad things” and Xiao Xingchen the “good things” ! I also think the Yi City characters fit this part of the quote very well!!

2.4 The Juniors

Ah yes, the junior quartet!! :D I had this planned out from the very beginning, that I would include happy versus sad juniors in the “vice versa” part of the quote, and I think it worked out quite well! My first idea was to put the “vice versa” completely in the special font and have it typed out over the gifs like I did with the “vice” but as I typed out the “versa” I realized it had one letter too much to be able to do that 😭😭 it took me a while to come up with how I would position the “but” and “versa” and after some moving around I decided to just place them the way I did in the final gif! For the font, I duplicated the “vice” and added a stroke to the duplicate, then I changed the fill setting to 0% so I could slightly drag the duplicate away from the original layer to create the effect that’s in the gif — also, finding a scene in which Jin Ling smiles is really difficult.... he barely even smiles in the scene I ended up using :(

2.5 Jin Guangyao, Mianmian, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Xichen

The final gif!! I feel like this might come a little across as “I promise I didn’t forget these characters” because they’re a very odd quadruplet to put together, but they were the most important characters left to put in the set! I was thinking of putting Nie Mingjue in here together with Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen, but I did feel he fit more with his brother up in the second gif. Mei @mylastbraincql​ cheered me on making this gif for which I was very grateful :D <3 the layout came to be after I googled “how to evenly split a rectangle in four” because I didn’t want a repeat layout in the set  (*/∇＼*)

2.6 Coloring

For the coloring I pretty much did all of the tweaking on the first gif and then copy pasted all of it onto the second, third, fourth, and fifth gif. This is usually the way I go about my coloring, I will always edit certain gifs if necessary but I don’t think I had to change the coloring much on any of these gifs? Maybe I added in a curve layer here and there, but nothing major! This is really one of my preferred coloring styles, even though I try to step outside of my comfort zones with other sets ^-^

3. Posting

I will always upload sets into my drafts and edit the caption in there as well, clicking on “preview post” a couple times to check everything looks good on my blog as well, before I post a set. However, this time, since there was a deadline and I finished before the deadline, I put this set in the queue so it would automatically post on the 1st of may! Knowing myself, I would’ve forgotten to do so </3

Whew that was... a lot 😭 did it make any sense? Probably not, but it was fun to ramble （ ´∀｀）

I’ll tag

@blinkplnk​ with this set !

@wuxien​ with this set !

@wendashanren​ with this set !

@wanyinxichen​ with this set !

@yibobibo​ with this set !

@mylastbraincql​ with this set !

@sugarbabywenkexing​ with this set !

@yiling-recesses​ with this set !

@jiancheng​ with this set !

Please feel totally free to ignore this if you’ve already been tagged and don’t want to do it again!! <3

[hayjeon]

Tips on creating fun fanfic headers!

i had so much fun writing the fanfic writing tips yesterday and i got a few more questions about header-making, and so i decided to make one more of these! i hope these tips help somebody out there! hope you enjoy :) 

p.s. these tips won’t require any hard editing skills or photoshop skills, nor any expensive tablets/apps! 

typically i spend around ~5-10 min creating one header, and that’s either after i think of/finish a fic. i have so much fun doing it and sharing it with you that i figured i’d share how i do it! 

why headers? 

as I talked about in my fic tips, one of the most eye-catching things about fics are headers. when i’m scrolling through a rec page, my home page, a tag, or even someone’s masterlist, i’m immediately drawn to well-made headers. that’s what captures my attention, and then i’m more drawn in by the content. so, you can say that headers is your own version of an ad for your own fic, or an extension of it (like the cover of a novel!) 

if you were writing your own book, imagine how much time you’d spend figuring out what you wanted your cover to look like. i try to have as much fun and invest as much time making my own headers because it’s just the cherry on top to my finished product :) 

disclaimer: BUT HEADERS ARE NOT NECESSARY/DO OR DIE! if you don’t feel like you want to do this, then keep writing! its ok! this is just a suggestion. i’ve seen plenty of well-written fics without headers at all, so don’t beat yourself up over not having one/not wanting to do one. this is truly just a fun, extra kind of thing, and only keep reading if you want to learn how i do it! :) 

tips for people who don’t want to make headers: if you still want something to make your fic stand out, use gifs! i use them in my drabbles a lot! this will at least give ur fic a lil boost! 

how to find pictures

I typically use unsplash, which is a free website in which photographers upload their HQ pics for free use. the pics are really high quality, typically stock photos, and don’t have any logos on them like other ones on google. unfortunately, you won’t find any pics of the members or anything, but you’ll find beautiful stock photos of typical scenes like “ocean scene” or “desert scene.” I found the stock photo for cut me open (shown below) on that site by just looking up “medical” or “doctor”. 

i used to use google a lot and just use keywords like “desert scene HQ” and edit the search settings to deliver HQ pics, and a minimum # of pixels, but unplash is definitely better in terms of quality, more aesthetic photos, and no logos/watermarks. 

on some occasions, i will screenshot some scenes of youtube videos, turning up the quality to 1080p or 4k and zooming in so that the pixelation is as crisp as possible, and then editing it later to look good (which i’ll explain in a second!) 

the above photo was a scene from the specific characters from the drama, “100 Days My Prince” that I screenshotted from a youtube video that TvN uploaded, recapping the drama. I cropped it just right so that their faces were left out, which i’ll also mention soon! 

things to look for when picking pictures: 

you want the picture to reflect a specific motif/theme from your fic! if its a moody fic, then try to find a moody scene that you can edit with filters/lighting to look even moodier; or if the characters’ jobs are a big portion of the fic (like cut me open/doctor theme) try to look for stock photos with that shown very clearly!

make sure its high quality: tumblr really dumbs down the quality of the photo when uploading it, so try your best to find something with a lot of pixels in it so that when you start editing, you don’t sacrifice too much of the quality already

try to look for something simple/clean: a picture with too much subject (ie. people in the background, or too much detail) may end up taking away from the main point of your header, which is your title. so find pics without too much clutter! 

try to make sure its landscape: which will help during editing to save some of the quality better. 

editing your pictures

now that you have a specific photo you want to use, now its time to edit! I use VSCO CAM (free app) and my own apple photos cropping tool for faster crops. 

crop/adjust: if your picture is too large/wide, crop it to at least a 16:9 ratio. i’d say aim for skinnier if you can, so that you don’t take up too much space (especially if you’re planning to add headers to your masterlist). also crop out any faces, any clutter, any unnecessary details, so you have a nice, clean slate to work on when adding text. 

contrast/sharpen/clarity/white balance/etc.: i’m not gonna give you a lesson on photography, but i’ll tell you I learned like 80% of everything that i know just by fiddling with it on VSCO! So just try it out and play with the app, see what you can make of it. i’d say a rule of thumb to follow is that you want happier fics with a brighter tone, and moodier/angsty fics with a darker tone so that it can reflect the nature of the fic further, without saying anything! 

if you wanna be extra af like me, then go a step further and photoshop your pics. this one is a good example; when i screenshotted this scene from another youtube video for my fic One Year My Love part 2, i was specifically looking for a scene that would showcase the ornate/regal details of their clothing/environment in contrast to part 1′s modest clothing/scene (the first header in this post). 

i found this scene, but actually, this scene portrays the Crown Prince and the Princess, not y/n. So, the actors weren’t smiling at all! They were actually frowning at eachother in this scene, to portray the tension between the two characters and their marriage. 

So, I took the extra step, adjusting the pic with VSCO so that their shoulders/chins were at the same level, cropped off their faces up until their lips, and then used the adobe photoshop free app to photoshop their lips to be SMILING at eachother!!!! subtle, but important! 

call me crazy for taking that much time but i’m so proud of how it turned out and i loved every second of making this one. that way, this scene makes it portray the happy ending for Jungkook and y/n! 

adding text to your header

you can use any app out there, but i really like Font Candy! I actually ended up buying the 2$ version of this and never regretted it, but you can actually find a lot of their basic fonts on the free version; I tend to use the fonts: OSTRICH SANS, BEBAS, TREND, and INTRO the most! these are pretty clean-looking, block letters that look good whenever i put them as my titles. 

I love this app too cause you can easily control the spacing between letters to make them take up more space, add shadows, or even make them contrast their background using the overlay feature; like this one i made for wildest dreams (see how the text changes depending on what part of the photo its on? amazing! it’s literally with a click of a button!!)

And i’ll always add “written by HAYJEON” or “by HAYEJON”, space it out, and add it somewhere underneath as my own branding.

orrrrrr 

if you want to be more creative, you can even go a step further and use whatever you have on hand to enhance whatever you’re trying to portray. 

for this one, i ended up finding this amazing photo on unsplash and i thought it would do a create job of portraying the “movie-set” quality of what wildest dreams is going to be about. this stock photo had someone else’s names on it, so i used my ipad, and used instagram to just erase the existing writing with the color of the background, and then wrote in my own title and url with my own handwriting/apple pen!!! 

i thought this was pretty cool because it’s like wildest dreams is its own movie/has its own movie set, which, once it’s out, you guys will see that it’s supposed to be! 

saving/uploading

this is pretty easy/obvious, but i figured i’d mention it. all the apps i mentioned are available on the appstore, and they will save directly to your photos. after doing that, i’ll just upload them into a special folder i have on my google drive so that when i’m finished writing a fic on tumblr using my laptop, i can easily download the photos without sacrificing quality. easy! 

and that way, i can save them forever; even if i have to delete them from my computer, i can always redownload them! 

side note: making text separators

i just recently started doing this, but ever since tumblr took down their text separators, i’ve just been cropping the bottom like 5-10 pixels of the header to use as my text separators! (with my laptop)

i saw some other writer doing it and thought that it looked better than what i had used previously (a cropped photo of a random line i found on google); i found that doing this tied my fics together a little better and just looked better aesthetically; 

so there it is! hope you enjoyed! :) i would love to see what other tips you guys have been using, feel free to send me an ask or reply to this post; and if you end up using any of my tips, please let me know! I love to hear from you guys all the time <3 

lots of love, especially during these times, 

hay <3 

[louloubabys1992]

Ask for writers

Tagged by @theisolatedlily​ thank u babe xoxo

1. describe how you first started writing and when you first posted: 

I got so into the 1D fandom that I opened a tumblr account and found loads of fics about Harry and Louis. I got hooked. I go way back as a fan. am one of those who started reading fics from tumblr accounts and livejournals. I know a lot still read from those until now, even me, until ao3 became the basis of fics. I read so many fics that i wanted to write my own as well. my first ever fic, officially, was an apocalypse/zombie au called Nothing Can Come Between You and I. I say officially because I posted a couple of fics before this one but they were edited fics from a writer who took down his/her fics for reasons I don’t wanna get into. I asked permission to post them and edit them. That’s when I started joining up as a beta as well :D

2. which of your characters do you typically resonate most closely with? do you base any characters off of yourself?

I typically write in Louis’ narrative but I don’t usually base it on any perceptions I have of him, even if it’s canon. most of my fics are inspired by circumstances I see around me in my day to day life or by events that one can relate to because they do happen.

3. where do you often find inspiration?

I read a lot of fics as I’ve mentioned before and each and every one of them has left an impact on me that made me the fic writer I am today. Whenever I lack inspiration, I just open my bookmarks on ao3 and read. And then, a bulb lights up and voila, inspiration hits

4. has quarantine helped or hindered your writing process?

helped a lot! i wrote more during quarantine than I do now even though am somewhat working from home. but when corona was at its peak back in March, everything was on hold and I turned to writing.

5. do you listen to music/noise while you write or do you prefer silence? 

silence. Am sadly not one of those people who could write in a corner in a cafe even though I wish I could do something like that.

6. what is your biggest writing pet peeve in your writing or in general?

word vomit. not into that.

7. describe your ideal writing setup: 

after midnight, laptop on a cushion on my lap, neck pillow for my neck, my bed, and a quiet house where everyone is already sleeping and my mind is brimming, racing faster than my fingers could type hahahaah

8. favorite time of day to write?: 

after midnight. it mostly has to do with the fact that I am not available during the day but even before when I wasn’t working, i would find myself procrastinating all day or totally lacking inspiration and then come night time, and my mind comes alive hahahaha

9. favorite genre to write + one you’d like to try writing in the future?

Canon fics

10. do you struggle with writer’s block? 

I mean, who doesn’t, right?

11. what is the easiest part of your writing process and the most difficult? 

easiest is after I’ve day-dreamed the scene because when I day dream, its detailed to the tee, down to the words and the dialogue but the most difficult is when I postpone an idea I had in my head. If I don’t write it down instantly, it never turns out the same and that’s quite frustrating

12. how do you come up with original characters? (

I do insert a lot of original characters in my fics and they are sometimes inspired my real people but only in terms of appearance not by character or name. so, if am describing an original character in any of my fics, know that he exists but his character is not the same in real life hahahaha

13. what is your favorite and least favorite word? f

wow, this is random. um. fav would be scars and least would be veggies

14. what is one thing about your writing that you’re really proud of and one thing you hope to continue working at?

I don’t think it was something I was proud of at first but a lot of people who comment on my fics say that they like my pacing and the dialogues. so maybe that? I would say I think I need to work more on my originality. sometimes, i find myself drifting to a fic I’ve just read, especially if its the same trope and am like, wow, that’s not mine at all.

15. what work of yours has your favorite ‘verse/world building? how did you come up with it?

definitely my first abo fic Hang there like fruit, my soul/Till the tree die. I love that au and I’ve always wanted to put my own tiny twist in it. am really proud of how it came about and am massively humbled by the comments and support it received :D

16. what font and size do you write in? single spaced or double?

arial, font 18 and sometimes bigger because I don’t have good eyesight

17. what is a typo(s) you find yourself making consistently?:

names, because sometimes the names I choose are apprarently just not cool with microsoft word for some reason....sighs

18. (if applicable) do you separate fic writing from fandom?

yes, but its not intentional, it just happens

19. what emotion is your favorite to write? which is the most difficult?Angst because that’s just me hahahaaha. the most difficult? hmm, emotional love confessions maybe or the transition from friends to lovers. yeah.

20. what is one thing you hope readers always take away from your works?

the passion behind it maybe?

21. what is the best and worst writing advice you’ve ever received?

best advice is to sleep on it because I do come up with scenes for my fics when I am about to sleep ahahahah. the worse one I got came from someone who obviously doesn’t know a thing about writing. he said, ‘’just don’t write it and do something else.’’ I mean, really?

22. which one of your works would you most want to see turned into a film/television show?

nope, not happening.

23. do you write scenes chronologically or out of order?: 

most of the time in order.

24. how do you handle criticism?

quite well I think. 

 25. what is the advice you would give to someone who is looking to start writing?

Go for it. Writing is not a silly hobby. if it’s really something you wanna do, even if its just for fun or to pass the time or to make new friends. go for it, There are so many fics in this fandom that until this day, are still ingrained in my mind because they were so touching and moving to me. you never know what your words could do for someone or how much your words could make a person’s day a better day 

26. what kind of feedback on your work always makes your day?

the comments posted on my fics in ao3 always make me happy. I feel like its the best to find out if my work is worth someone’s time, you know? even though I do write for myself most of the time, the validation is nice sometimes :D

27. which fic ‘verse of your own would you most like to exist in? which fic’s characters would you most like to befriend? 

wow, all of them? 

28. what do you always enjoy getting asks about/wish people would ask about more?

hmm, I mean people could ask what they want so am cool with anything. am not picky. I get asked about plot lines or what would happen next when it comes to cliffhangers and I do my best to answer them without revealing too much :D

29. what has writing added to your life? how has it changed you?

I definitely made new friends through it and it’s been great :D

30. why do you write?

it’s my favourite thing in my entire life. It’s the one thing that no one in my life knows about, as in the people that I work with, my friends, even my family, none of them have ever read anything I’ve ever written and am fine with it. I feel like writing is purely for me and it’s something I’d like to keep as a part of me you know?

boost yourself + tags!

1a. share the last sentence you wrote:

Harry smiles despite himself. Three years together, since he was nineteen, and it shouldn’t be a surprise that Louis knows him so well, can tell by the sound of his voice if he’s okay or not, nervous or not, happy or not.

2a. describe the wip you’re most excited about:

the one am writing for the harry/men fic fest

3a. share the piece of dialogue from one of your works you’re most proud of: 

‘’You’re being really quiet and I don’t like it,’’ Louis points out.

‘’Just a bit tired,’’

‘’Stay here then,’’ Louis pats the bed. ‘’Sleep next to me,’’

‘’Are you sure? I don’t want to mess with anything by accident or…’’

‘’Harry?’’

‘’What?’’

‘’I won’t get a wink’s worth of sleep if you’re even an inch away from me,’’ he says firmly. ‘’And I’ll go on a limb here and say neither will you.’’

‘’But…’’

‘’No buts, I’m serious.’’ Louis cups his cheek, his blue eyes big and beautiful, like an entire fucking galaxy. ‘’I missed you something terrible these past few days,’’

‘’Lou…’’

‘’Be here with me, Haz. Please?’’

Harry hums before he pushes himself forward. He cannot stop it, cannot keep himself from gravitating towards Louis, taking what he wants, what he needs to make it through the night. He cups Louis’ face and kisses him but even then it’s not enough and he skates one arm around Louis’ small shoulders and tugs him closer, careful not to jostle Louis too much and kisses him like Louis’ a mermaid and he needs his air or else he’ll drown.

It eases an ache in him he didn’t know was trying to get his attention the moment he entered the room, something deep and visceral, calming down with the way Louis’ molds his lips against his, with the shape of his mouth fitting with his own, with the way his body is trying to align with his, like a constellation, each star coming together to mean something greater than they can ever grasp, something more infinite and vast.

‘’I love you,’’ Louis whispers into his lips.

‘’I’m never letting you go,’’ Harry says before he reaches for another kiss. ‘’Love of my life, fucking best thing to ever happen to me, you know that?’’

‘’My rock,’’ Louis kisses him back. ‘’My fortress,’’ and kisses him again, ‘’my strength,’’ and again and again. ‘’I love you so much. Would be dead without you,’’

‘’Don’t say that,’’

‘’It’s true,’’ Louis gasps as Harry devours his mouth, trying to stop him from saying another word. ‘’I would’ve crawled out that room right to your feet, Haz. I would’ve…’’

‘’Shh, just me kiss, babe. Just kiss me,’’ Harry pleads.

And so they do.

4a; line from my fics that I am most proud of:

hard to choose really

5a. link the last fic you read: 

bang bang (my baby shot me down) by thepolourryexpress

6a. link the last work you published: 

Ellen's haunted house by louloubaby92

7a. link to your ao3 (if applicable): 

https://archiveofourown.org/users/louloubaby92/works

8a. someone that inspires you 

Louis Tomlinson

9a. a comfort fic/work that you’ve been grateful for this year: 

bruise you like a peach by falsegoodnight

10a. other writers that you’d like to tag! 

@falsegoodnight​ @twopoppies​ @mediawhorefics​

[dream-a-little-bigger-x]

I Want A Sister | Dad!Calum Hood

Anonymous requested:  Can you please do something with Calum and Y/N when they’re pregnant with their 2nd child? You can do it whatever you like 🌼

A/N: I wanna do a part 2 to “What was our life even before that?  with this one. Also, I don’t know how long this request has been sitting in my inbox for, so I’m so sorry if you had to wait for a long time! Hope it’s worth it :)

Pairing: Reader x Dad!Calum

Words: 1586

Warnings: Cuteness, that’s all :)

Summary: Kaea is five years old when Y/N finds out she’s pregnant again. Another tiny Hood will be occupying their already busy schedules. They want to tell their friends and family and Calum’s managers immediately. But more importantly how are they going to break it to their little Princess Kaea? 

That one morning when you knew for sure you were pregnant. It’s been a couple days where you’ve been feeling nauseous, had headaches and just felt tired all day long. On top of that, you were pretty sure you had missed your period. You and Calum hadn’t necessarily been trying for a second child, but neither did you try and avoid getting pregnant. You didn’t use condoms during sex and the two of you had agreed it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if you’d stop taking your pill. You both wanted a second child, that was mutually agreed, you just didn’t really try your hardest.  “Calum,” you mumble that morning. He was cleaning up Kaea’s mess she had made during breakfast. She was now playing in her playroom, you made sure to check on her before going downstairs to tell Calum. You wanted to tell him first and then you’d figure out a way and a moment to tell friends and family. And Kaea. You were scared about how she’d react to a new brother or sister.  “Yes, baby?” he asks, not even looking up at you. He’s too busy tidying. It annoys you a little. You need some attention right now.  “Could you look at me for a second? This is really important,” you tell him, the annoyance clear in your voice. He turns to you, eyes wide as if he’s scared and going over everything he’s done in the past weeks to check if he didn’t do anything stupid that could make you angry. The truth is, those are the hormones giving you the biggest mood swings.  “What’s wrong, baby girl? Are you okay? Is Kaea okay? Is it Duke? Did I do something wrong?” he rambles, causing you to roll your eyes.  “No, stupid. I am pregnant. I mean, I think I am,” he freezes as he stares at you. You don’t really know what to say or do. You had expected him to be a little more excited about it. “I haven’t done a test yet. But I am pretty sure there’s a bean in the oven,” you mumble, averting your eyes from your husband. You’re startled when he’s suddenly really close and starts peppering you with kisses.  “Are you really? Should we get a test to be sure? Are we going to tell everyone already or should we wait? Shall we tell Kaea?” he rambles again, taking a break from all the kissing.  “Maybe we should go to the doctor’s first to make sure. Then we can tell our family and friends... I’m kind of scared for little Kaea’s reaction though,” you tell him honestly, playing with the hem of his shirt.  “I think she’ll be delighted,” Calum tells you and kisses you on the lips as a sign of true happiness.  Your hunch was right; you are pregnant. The doctor had done an ultrasound and even though it’s the second time, Calum still cried at seeing the little bean inside me. The doctor had told me we were already 7 weeks far, which means it’ll be with us around the 23rd of July. Calum and I are beyond excited about having a second little Hood to extend our family. We might still be young, but we know we can do it, we’ve shown that by taking care of Kaea for five years already. When you’re 10 weeks far, so three weeks after our doctor’s apointment, you decide to have your friends over for dinner to break the news to them. You were excited, yet nervous to tell them.  “Mommy, why are we having a party?” Kaea asks as she looks at the dress you put on her. It’s December, so telling her and everyone else it’s a Christmas party, may have been the best excuse ever. That way, they won’t be too suspicious.  “Because it’s Christmas, baby. We have parties for Christmas every year,” you tell her while pinning earrings in your ears.  “Right, yes,” Kaea mumbles and runs out of your room. Peculiar girl that one. It’s almost like she feels something else is going on. She’s been much timider, has helped you a lot more and has drawn a lot more pictures for you.  “Are you ready, gorgeous?” Calum asks when he enters your shared bedroom.  “I think so. We just need to put everything out on the table and we’re done,” you tell him with a little smile and rub your belly with a sigh.  “You look perfect, my love,” Calum tells you as he comes to stand behind you and puts his hands on your stomach. He’s been too kind for you the past couple of months, even though you’re only at the end of the first trimester.  “Do you think we’re too young to have children?” you ask him, having a random burst of insecure thoughts in your mind. Calum kisses the bare skin on your neck as he chuckles.  “Not at all, darling. You’re never too young or too old for anything. As long as you’re ready for it, I say we’re perfectly old enough,” says 25-year-old Calum. You take a deep breath and nod. He’s so right. “Let’s get downstairs. Our parents will be here soon,” he tells you and leads you out of the bedroom and downstairs to the kitchen. Kaea is playing with her dollhouse in the living room and it makes you smile and wonder if she’s going to get on with her brother or sister. You just hope they’ll be two peas in a pot like Mali and Calum. You just hope she’ll be excited about the news. Dinner has passed, and you and Calum have given one another some glances while eating to figure out when you’d tell them. You hadn’t drunk anything alcoholic, so they must’ve already caught on. But no one has said anything yet. After the main course, you all decide to open some presents as you hadn’t done that yet.  “I want to start! Open the cards first!” You tell them as you each give them a present with a card stuck between the ribbons and strings around the presents. While everyone opens the cards, Kaea comes to sit on your lap with her teddybear in her arms. The little girl is starting to get tired. Choruses of “No way!” and “Are you really?” chime through the living room.  “What is that, auntie Mali?” Kaea asks her aunt sitting next to you. She had just opened the card that had the first ultrasound stuck on the inside with Hood n°2 coming July 2023″ written underneath. Mali looks at you as if to ask if she knows yet, you shake your head.  “Hold on, princess,” Calum tells his little girl, “I believe we have a present for you too,” he tells her and hands her a gift. You and Calum had the cutest idea for matching jackets for the two children. Two little glittery jackets, like the ones their daddy wore on tour a lot. On the back of Kaea’s was “Hood n°1″ embroidered, while the second one, a much smaller one, reads “Hood n°2″.  “Pretty jackets like daddy’s!” she exclaims as she looks at both.  “Yeah, but honey, do you think this one will fit you?” you ask, holding up the small one for the new baby. Kaea sticks her finger in her mouth, Mali immediately pulling it out, as she thinks about it.  “Why did you buy one that’s too small, daddy?” she asks, frowning at her father.  “Because that’s not your, baby girl,” he tells her, chuckling a little.  “For who is it then?” she asks. The others had stopped opening their presents as they wanted to see Kaea’s reaction first.  “For your little brother or sister in mommy’s tummy,” Mali explains to her, pointing at your stomach. Kaea looks up at you, then at your belly. You anticipated her reaction, kind of sweating in freight as you didn’t know how she’d react. She then puts both her tiny, tiny hands on your stomach and softly rubs it.  “I want a sister,” she then tells you, and it makes you burst out into tears. You hug your little girl tightly, not wanting to let go of this moment and this precious human. When you look up, you can see your husband beaming with pride. He gives you a little wink. He knew everything would be fine.  “Wait, hold up...” Mali then says, making you jump out of your thoughts. You look at her to see she has opened her present. A mug that said “Only the best sisters get promoted to godmother” with July 2023 in small font beneath it. She looks at you, then at her brother. For Kaea, you had chosen Joy and your dad as godparents, but this time, you wanted Mali to be the godmother of your new child. Ashton was the next one to gasp. He had gotten the same mug as Mali, only with “Only best friends get promoted to godfather” on it.  “Aw, that’s so cool!” Michael exclaims excited when he sees his ‘Best uncle’ mug. Luke got that same mug, Sierra and Crystal got one with ‘Best auntie” on it. They’re so stoked and that makes you stoked too. You’re stoked for this child to come into a family this warm and amazing. To have an amazing big sister, an amazing dad and amazing godparents and uncles and aunties. This is going to be one lucky kid. Like you are one lucky woman.  

[wesleybates]

The Most Prevalent Web Design Mistakes to Avoid in 2020 and Beyond

Web design as we know it today focuses on deftly combining form and function, all to provide users enjoyable, interesting, and usable visits.

In other words, web design is now all about enhancing the user experience. Today’s web designers strive to fulfill what Internet users need, whether they’re creating a site with minimalist and simple web design or one that’s visually stunning.

Still, mistakes are not uncommon in the world of web design, most of which don’t do the user experience any favours. Let’s take a look at some of the most prevalent mistakes web designers should steer clear of in 2020 and the years to follow.

Pages That Take Forever To Load

There was a time when a page loading fully within 10 seconds or so already makes users happy.

That time is long gone. In 2020, the norm is three seconds or less.

Anything beyond that and people will label a page as one that takes forever to load. Yes, four seconds is already “forever” to many users, which speaks volumes about our ever-shrinking attention spans.

Slow page load speed is something web designers must address. Sure, some other factors may be causing the lag, like web hosting or the Internet speed of users, but web design is often at the top of that list.

Unoptimized images, heavy use of custom fonts, excessive ads, social media script overload, and other factors contribute to slowing down your pages. All of them are web design issues, which means you should avoid them when you can.

Random Use of Stock Photography

Let’s make it clear that there’s nothing wrong with using stock photography per se.

While it’s true that stock photos have nothing on original photography when it comes to setting your brand apart, some businesses simply don’t have the budget to commission a professional photographer.

For them, it’s almost always a choice between mediocre original photos of their staff and high-quality images of impeccably-dressed people in staged situations wearing smiles that come across as fake.

If you have to resort to stock photography, choose images that somehow represent your brand, not a random photo set that seems like something you just put together for the sake of featuring pretty pictures on your site.

If you want to present a polished image for your brand, you should at least pick stock photos where the lighting, the technology being used, the models’ outfits, and other small details are consistent.

Navigation Issues

For Internet users, few things are more frustrating than being led on a wild goose chase while exploring a website.

A bad website navigation structure can easily ruin the user experience. People have very little patience for issues like links that lead to the wrong page, far too many navigation options, and a search feature that doesn’t work, among other things.

You can’t expect people to put up with navigation problems. They will just drop your site like a hot potato, and you’ll end up with a much higher bounce rate.

Navigating your site should be easy, so tweak your web design and do stuff like adding clickable navigation elements, checking all links to make sure they lead to the right place, dividing categories clearly, and linking the logo back to the home page.

Animation Overload

Every year, web design trends come and go. Some trends, however, seem bent on staying. The use of animation and video in web design has been trending for years now and shows no signs of ever leaving.

Animation and video are great, but some web designers tend to go overboard with them. Add the fact that a growing number of web designers are now toying with moving elements, and they eventually end up with websites so distracting that focusing on one thing can be difficult.

Animation is particularly good at drawing the eyes of visitors. Instead of trying to impress them with an animation overload, try placing elements in an area where they will lead people to contact forms, live chat, offers, and other critical elements of your website.

Using Barely Readable Fonts

Video may be getting a lot of attention from users, but people still typically read the written content.

Sometimes, however, web designers use fonts that are either too small or difficult to read.

Ideally, body text should be at 16px, which is quite easy to read regardless of the device you’re using.

Also, avoid using cursive fonts, hand-drawn scripts, and other typefaces that look pretty but offer little in the way of readability.

Use no more than three fonts as well. And if you’re going to use colored typefaces, don’t torture readers with low-contrast text, like yellow fonts on a white background.

Too Many Colors

Colors play a very crucial role in making a website look great. Sometimes, however, web designers go to town and use as many hues as they want.

You don’t need to use a multitude of colors for your work. Ideally, websites should only have two to three colors, although some could reasonably go up to five or even six. Seven or more colors on one website can be uncomfortable for the eyes and confusing for the brain.

Zero Mobile-Friendliness

When users access your website on a mobile device, and they end up doing a lot of pinching and zooming and scrolling sideways just to read anything, don’t expect them to hang around. They will exit your mobile-unfriendly site without hesitation, and you will surely miss out on leads, conversions, and even sales.

Not being mobile-friendly is no longer an option for websites these days, when mobile users far outnumber desktop users.

You have to make your website easier to read, and its buttons easier to tap on mobile devices. Switch to responsive web design, and Google will also love you for it

Stuffing Pages With Too Much Content

A web page filled with quality content is okay, but cramming in too much content—even when it’s of high quality—on one page only makes the whole thing look cluttered.

Go easy on the content stuffing and make sure your web pages look clean and organized. It would also be great if you could leave plenty of whitespace, which allows your content to breathe and make the whole page look more professional.

Too Many Ads

Websites are a business, and ad placements are an integral part of that business.

Some overdo it, though. Too many ads on a page tend to be distracting—even annoying.

Aside from annoying visitors, a plethora of ads can end up undermining the web design in general.

Practice some restraint in this regard because visitors will likely leave if you bombard them with ads every single time.

Autoplaying Videos With Sound

This may be news to some web designers, but many people hate the idea of opening a web page only to be greeted by an autoplaying video with the sound on.

If you have to put that in for whatever reason, the least you can do is turn autoplay off or mute it. That way, you won’t be giving visitors wearing headphones a heart attack when they access your website.

Missing Contact Information

It’s odd that many websites have no contact information, or don’t display them as prominently as they should.

If you want prospective customers to reach you, make sure that your contact information—from your business phone number to social media account links—is displayed in a highly visible spot on your website, like the header or the footer.

Creating a dedicated contact page would also be great.

Ill-timed Pop-ups

There is nothing wrong with pop-ups. They can help encourage visitors to engage with your business more, among other things.

Pop-ups, however, can quickly turn annoying when they appear at the most inappropriate times.

In most cases, pop-ups urging visitors to subscribe or sign up to their mailing list appear the moment they open a page before they even get to read the content they were seeking.

The most irritating part is when the pop-up box is big enough to block the content visitors are about to read completely.

It’s preposterous to assume that your pop-up can convince a visitor to do its bidding without having read a single word of your content.

The right thing to do is give your visitors some time to explore your site before showing that pop-up.

More than twenty years in, web design as a science or art is still at its very early stages. The level of work today’s web designers are capable of turning in may be a far cry from how websites looked and functioned during the 1990s, but it’s still easy for them to make a mistake.

Web design is still evolving, and what may be considered good practice now may no longer be acceptable in the future. Nevertheless, following current best web design practices and steering clear of the mistakes listed above remain the right path to take toward achieving your business website’s goals.

To get more details on web designing please be in touch with the expert Web designer in Denver, CO.

[chloe-elizabeth-price]

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 16 17 18 20 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 37 38 40 41 42 43 and 44

Wow, almost all of them, huh, @annoyinglyuniquebread? I’ll put it under a read-more as to not hit everyone with walls of text but read if ya feel like it…Okay, here we go!

0. Height 

I’m 5′1 just like Carrie Fisher/Princess Leia!

1. Age

I’m 21, but my birthday is in February so pretty soon I’ll be feelin’ 22! *Dances horrendously*

2. Shoe Size

 I’m a 5 in US sizes I think…?

3. Do you smoke?

I do not

4. Do you drink?

Well yes, it’s important to stay hydrated kids, my drink of choice is coke or tea…But I assume this is asking if I drink alcohol which I do not do

5. Do you take drugs?

Once again I assume this is referring to illegal drugs and not meds, I do not do any of those. However I do take antidepressants and sleeping pills for my anxiety-related insomnia/the occasional anxiety-suppressor.

6. Age you get mistaken for?

As I’m pretty short and thin (+ you tend to look smaller in a wheelchair which i occasionally use) I’d say people tend to assume I’m a lot younger than I am. If asked my age most people tend to guess around 15, or at least they did when I was in my late teens, no one has guessed my age in a while so maybe i look older these days? idk lol

7. Have tattoos?

I do have a tiny lightening bolt on my wrist, it’s a Harry Potter reference/a symbol for my general love of stories.

8: Want any tattoos?

I do definitely want more tattoos in the future, I haven’t really decided on placements yet but I know that I want a Buffy-B (a B in the Btvs-font) on my other wrist so that my two fandom tattoos can match in placements. I also want a fox somewhere and “fearless” in Taylor Swift’s handwriting to remind me of her brilliant definition of the word: (”To me, fearless is not the absence of fear. It’s not being completely unafraid. To me, fearless is having fears. fearless is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, fearless is living in spite of those things that scare you to death.”)   which I think will help with my anxiety. Those are a few of the tattoos I know that I want to get at some point, but there’s always room for more options since I really like the idea of a lot of tattoos!

9: Got any piercings?

Nope, not even pierced ears

10: Want any piercings?

Not really, no

11: Best friend?

@gay-grandma

12: Relationship status?

Single, sapphic and sad

13: Biggest turn ons?

As far as personality and little things go I’d say people who listen and respect my opinions and my view of a situation, but also aren’t afraid to say what they think/voice their opinions I guess. Also like, when people are genuine with their affection and you can tell that they just genuinely care for you I guess? Geez this sounds cheesy! As for physically, I’m gonna say collarbones…Is that weird? I feel like that’s weird…Not necessarily seeing collar bones (malnutrition isn’t sexy, kids!) but just like biting or kissing them I don’t even know! Maybe I have a few kinks too, but this is already officially TMI and I’m gonna stop………..   

14: Biggest turn offs?

Bigoted or small-minded people honestly, nope not gonna interact!

16: I’ll love you if…

You respect me, seduce me with your nerdiness and/or let me introduce you to nerdy stuff (Movies/shows/books/games etc) I like and most importantly, genuinely seem to like me tbh, I don’t ask for much…

17: Someone you miss

I live pretty far away from my family for school so I find myself almost constantly missing them and my dog :( Also you and your stupidly pretty face, @annoyinglyuniquebread I can’t believe it’s gonna be so long until I get to see you!

18: Most traumatic experience?

Probably something emotionally abusive at the hands of my biological dad or his wife but honestly I’ve repressed most of it and I don’t really wanna talk about that sooooo………*shudders* Anywayyyy

20: What I hate most about myself?

Too many things to list to be honest. I’m not trying to sound negative, but I do have a lot of issues when it comes to how I view myself, but I am working on them and am hoping to be getting to a place where I can honestly say that I don’t think I suck in the near future, wish me luck!

22: What I want to be when I get older?

Author! I wanna write, write write! If ONE kid picks up a book I’ve written and it helps them in any way at all or sparks that love of stories in them that has become my own driving force, then my goal in life has been achieved!

23: My relationship with my sibling(s)

Okay, so I have 4 siblings, two older sisters and two younger brothers. My relationship to my sisters are pretty much your standard sibling-situation, we grew up together and occasionally we wanted to murder each other, but most of the time we got along and now as adults we’re all pretty close even though I live far away. My brothers are a more complicated situation, due to my nonexistent relationship with my biological father I haven’t actually seen my little bros in years, I hope that we’ll be able to have some type of relationship one day, but as long as they live with dad I don’t see that as possible, although I love them and would love to be a proper big sib to them someday!

24: My relationship with my parent(s)

My mom is absolutely one of the most important people in my life, I love spending time with her and she’s the one I go to first if any problem, big or small arises in my life, we’ve always been extremely close and she’s quite simply my best friend. My step-dad (who I tend to refer to as dad most of the time) has been in my life since I was 4 and he’s more of a father to me than my biological dad (who i don’t even view as my ‘dad’ at all) ever was or could ever be. I love him with all my heart, he’s the best and one of the funniest people I know! I’d say generally I’m very, very close to both of my parents and they’re both extremely important to me and here I am getting sappy at 2AM. 

25: My idea of a perfect date

Movie/Show marathon and cuddling with snacks tbh

26: My biggest pet peeves

When the cover/general appearance of a book on my shelf doesn’t match what the rest of the books in that series look like…All my books have to match if they’re part of the same series or I freak the fuck out honestly! That’s really the only pet peeve I can think of at the moment.

27: A description of the girl/boy I like

I kinda really like @annoyinglyuniquebread but don’t tell her, it’d just get to her pretty head and she’d probably tease me about it and I’m shy!

28: A description of the person I dislike the most

Wow, has someone told the oversized cheeto running America that he has a giant dead cat on his head yet orrrrr…?

29: A reason I’ve lied to a friend?

I can’t think of a specific situation in which I’ve done this just now, but chances are if you’re my friend I’ve probably lied to you and told you I was sick so I wouldn’t have to hang out with you that day, it’s not that I don’t WANNA hang out, I love you I promise…it’s just my very awkward introverted ass not being sure how to tell you that I need to reschedule because my social battery is drained and that I am going to physically explode if I have to be around humans for the next few days, without sounding like a hermit and/or hurting your feelings soooo…Yeah, sorry about that!

30: What I hate the most about work/school?

That it ruins the fun of learning with all those deadlines and gives me performance anxiety about stuff I’d normally be good at/comfortable with doing…

31: What my last text message says?

“Night, I love you

32: What words upset me the most?

Any type of uninformed, ignorant hate speech, when someone is being bigoted in my presence it always makes me feel like I want to scream and/or cry 

33: What words make me feel the best about myself?

When people compliment my hair, clothes or writing it really makes my day every time without fail! Also when people use my chosen name and pronoun it makes me feel like I could take on the whole world on my own and win, so thank you SO much to everyone in my life who make an effort to do that every day!!

34: What I find attractive in women?

Um, everything about them, i mean have you SEEN girls??? I love being a lesbian; ladies, you’re all so beautiful I wanna squeal just thinking about it!

35: What I find attractive in men?

Them being Harrison Ford. If you are male, but not Mr. Ford I’m sorry but I’m simply not attracted to you at all and won’t date you. Sorry men, I don’t make the rules. However, if you’re reading this, Harrison from ca 1980 (why would you be?) hit me up!

37: One of my insecurities?

Too many to list again, but like I said, I am working on that! 

38: My childhood career choice

Author, not much has changed, huh? I’ve actually known what I want to be since I was like 5.

40: Who I wish I could be?

A happier, more secure version of myself…Or you know Han Solo/Veronica Mars/Kim Possible, that works too!

41: Where I want to be right now?

Right at this moment I’m pretty happy here under the covers in my big comfy bed listening to Taylor Swift with my laptop in my lap and answering all these questions. Even though I’m having a pretty bad case of insomnia I feel pretty content, a little hungry tho…Think I’m gonna go make noodles and finish Stranger Things when I’m done answering these! 

42: The last thing I ate

Some salted caramel chocolate a while ago, it was delicious!

43: Sexiest person that comes to my mind immediately?

Well I’d be cheating on my wife if I didn’t say Sarah Michelle Gellar, wouldn’t I? Although there are a few other candidates as well…

44: A random fact about anything

Did you guys know that @annoyinglyuniquebread aka Bella is really cute and awesome and great at holding hands? Well, if you didn’t there’s a random fact for ya!

Wow, that sure was a lot of questions, but it was fun to answer them all! Thanks for sending them, Bella

[stretchjournalemerson]

Turkey Run Inn

By Audrey Iocca - 

Before my parents divorced, there was a place we used to go as a family once a year, every year: Turkey Run State Park. It is a small forest preserve about two and a half hours from where we lived in Illinois. It has a few good hiking trails, an adorable inn, two horses, and a river. This random state park on the edge of Indiana was a place of tradition for us, one of very few places our family had. My grandma was taken to this place as a child; camping, hiking, and playing in the river were cheap ways to entertain farm kids. And when she was old enough to need a cheap way to entertain her farm kids, she took my mom and uncle there. And then, as the cycle goes, my mom took my sister and me.

But it never felt cheap. It never felt like we were doing this to save a little bit of cash. It felt like an adventure.

Looking back, everything in my childhood was like an adventure. When I was young, I grew up on a lot of land, like my mom and grandma before me; 11 acres of grass and a pond was my backyard between the ages of 0 and 10. My sister, Isabel, and I would saddle up on our John Deere battery-powered mini truck and ride out as far as it would take us, or until my parents yelled that they couldn’t see us anymore. We would ride it down to the dock on the pond, lay on our stomachs, and look down at the blue-green fish swimming around, sometimes even dragging our fingers through the murky water that often needed cleaning. When the pond got particularly green, my dad would haul out the little faded blue, tin rowboat. Occasionally, he would take us on the pond, fashioning us with bright orange life vests before he began to tell us the wonders of the world beneath the moss. It was in this rowboat that I first learned about tadpoles and schools of fish, all while my dad sprinkled pond moss remover into the water.

Once a summer my parents would take us across the land bridge to the other side of the pond where the blackberry bushes were hidden. It was something that became tradition over the years: going across the bridge, picking the blackberries, putting them in little baskets. There was nothing better than tilting my head back in anticipation as my mom picked one off the top of the bush before dropping it into my awaiting mouth; it was a blackberry paradise. We felt like Mary and Laura in Little House in the Big Woods, the girls we heard about every night from our mom’s lips before bed.

I never realized then that this was a love project of sorts, our upbringing. I imagine my mom and dad planning this life for us, my mom making the apparitions of her nostalgia come to life through this house that was as close to the farm as she could get. And yet, there is a point where nostalgia is not enough; the gaps in life experience begin to fall in on themselves and suddenly, they need to be filled.

At one point, my mom stopped being at the house with us all the time. My mom no longer chased us through the peony and rose gardens on September afternoons; she watched us become a two-man band from the screened in porch as she scribbled away in her college-ruled notebooks. My mom going back to school was something I didn’t understand when it was happening, and so my memories of this time are very fuzzy: I see the textbooks on her bedside table, I smell more of my dad’s cooking in the kitchen, I hear my parents voices gradually rise each time they fight, I feel the rough fabric of her black robe and play with the tassel on the fancy flat hat. I don’t think my mom regrets being a stay at home mom, but I do think she would have done things differently. She wouldn’t have had her first kid at 22. She wouldn’t have gotten married twice. She would’ve had more of her own life. And I don’t blame her for that. I think she wanted to get far away from that place; she needed to see what else was out there.

***

When I was ten, my parents separated. And when I say separated, I really mean separated. My mom moved Isabel and me to Skokie, Illinois--a Chicago suburb over 200 miles from my hometown where my dad stayed. He got a job as an account tech with the state, sold the house and the land, and opted for an apartment closer to the mall. Just like that, our blackberry paradise was gone.

Our new claim to a half acre hardly felt like an upgrade, but my mom insisted we were on to bigger and better things. She worked part time at the park district as a receptionist for a year before being able to put her MBA to use at the local mall. It was about a ten minute drive from our house. In fact, nothing was more than ten minutes away: the grocery store, my middle school, the bank, the mall, the orthodontist, my friend’s houses. It was like a third grader’s drawing of their street in art class, everything in that town was packed together like the charcoals they would have used to color the picture in with. While there were trees and some parks sprinkled in throughout, Skokie was overwhelmingly gray.

Martin F. Peccia Park was the greenest place I could escape to with my friends. It was a half block of grass complete with an unnecessary amount of “no dogs allowed” signs. Laying in the grass with the sun beating down on my forehead, I am taken out of my city for a moment: the birds chirping, the grass prickleing my bare legs, the breeze blowing through my hair. But with that breeze brings the smell of car exhaust and I am brought right back to reality. The park is surrounded by I-94. Commuters whizz past, their horns overpowering the birds and everything else. The highway is visible from the park: only a chain link fence protected us from the insanity of commuter life, a life my mom would join in a few short years. For some reason she wanted this, wanted to prove to everyone that she could make it here, to this polluted daydream.

At this point, my uncle and grandma had moved away from Springfield as well, both settling in Chicago suburbs a little further out from the city. I guess the consensus among the family was that there was more opportunity in Chicagoland: there were better schools, better jobs, better everything, apparently. As a pre-teen, I didn’t really understand the difference between all those “betters.” School was still school, no matter where I was. But now I think I see what they meant.

At Fairview South Middle School, I was in a class of 80 and at least half were not white, if not more. My class at Farmingdale Elementary school was over 100, and I can remember one asian girl and one black boy. I remember one year, the Skokie school district had so much extra funding that we each got five dollar gift cards to Barnes & Noble in the mail. There was a class at Fairview that taught me Latin roots weekly and incorporated the works of Shakespeare and Homer. I was able to test out of Algebra 1 before high school, along with about two-thirds of my class. Spanish was a requirement for seventh and eighth grade. These were all things that I would not have experienced in Springfield, and my mom was well aware of that because she had stayed there her whole life, without being exposed to any of it.

I think, in the end, whether all this was really better or not, it was a better life in my mom’s eyes. Exposure, education, diversity, wealth. I think they were all things my mom had always wanted for herself, things she never got growing up on a farm in the middle of conservative Illinois.

***

One of my best friends at the time was a girl named Julia who spoke Polish at home and English at school. We would sometimes brave a walk home from school together, usually only on sunny days where it meant enough reward for the hassle. To get home, we had to cross the bridge that took us directly over I-94. I was in Dorothy’s tornado on that bridge, desperately clicking my heels three times waiting for it to carry me home. In a whirlwind of fast cars and heavy backpacks, we finally made our way to the other side.

When we didn’t walk home, we always took the bus. There were five of us in the same grade that always took over the back of the bus. I remember one day I was sitting next to Julia while she stared out of the window when suddenly she started slapping my leg excitedly and yelled: “There’s a deer!” Everyone’s heads snapped to look out the window like it was an exotic zoo animal. But it was just a deer. I saw them every day in my backyard where I grew up, and I could not understand their fascination.

***

When we lived in Skokie, we still went to Turkey Run. It wasn’t every year, but we went. It became the place we would beg to stop at on any road trip that went relatively close. It became the place I wanted to bring friends on long weekends. It became the place I thought I was going to get married. It became the place I knew I would take my children one day.

I want to share the journey there with them, the way I know I’m almost there when the curved road turns straight. After what feels like all day, we finally pass the many canoe and kayak rental shacks, the curved road ends, and there is a brown sign with bright yellow generic font reading “Turkey Run State Park.” I want to share with them what is beyond that sign: the magic of the covered bridge and the punch bowl, the family singing “grandma got run over by a turkey” while hiking Trail 3, the feeling of feet sinking into thick mud and reluctantly rinsing it off in the creek, the beauty of wild animals and how even just their sounds would stop me in my tracks.

***

In 2014, my mom moved us again. By then, my dad had bought a house in Springfield, and we had been driving four hours every other weekend to see him for four years. The driving continued as we started new schools in Naperville, IL. Naperville is complicated for me. It was a happy medium of my two very different worlds. It’s a city of nearly 150,000 with many dog-friendly parks, forest preserves, bike trails, ponds, and geese. It also had a real downtown that contained not one, but two Starbucks and had blocks filled with designer stores like Lululemon, Pandora, and Anthropologie. Once I had my license, it was easy to be more concerned with getting a frappuccino after school than riding my bike through the park. I could also now drive myself to either of two train stations that after seven dollars and 50 minutes had me in the heart of the third largest city in the country.

The high school I attended is ranked in the top 20 in the state of Illinois, having some of the best administrators, teachers, and fine arts directors available. It was a rich area equating to ample funding for the district to be able to provide these things to us. I was lucky to live here. Not just lucky--privileged.

This high school allowed me to fill in my own gaps of knowledge. After taking a history class that taught me the beginnings of all the world's religions, I met a girl that actually practiced Buddhism. And a girl who practiced Hinduism. And another girl who spoke Tamil. A boy who spoke fluent Chinese. I was a tutor for a group of English Language Learning who came specifically here from all over the world. I attended the first ever Women's March in Chicago and reported on the March for Our Lives for my school newspaper. By senior year, I had so much in my college portfolio from leadership positions, to volunteer work, to experiences with diversity that I got into Emerson College in Boston and one of the only undergraduate publishing programs in the country.

I don’t say all of this to brag. I say it because it’s amazing to me how different my life would have been if my mom had not made the choices she did, moving us across the state, leaving behind everything she had ever known.

***

The last time I was at Turkey Run, I was learning how to drive. I like to say I first learned to drive on our bright orange lawn tractor, sitting on my dad’s lap at age ten, barely in control of the steering wheel as my dad’s rough and calloused hands engulfed mine, making sure we didn’t crash. We moved before I got to try using the gas pedal. Eventually, I got my permit and had to figure out how to drive a real car with no one's hands to hold the steering wheel but my own.

We were driving back from visiting my uncle in Viginia when we decided to stop at Turkey Run. He had bought a farm out there--one with a house my grandma moved into shortly after its purchase. We figured the park was kind of on the way back, it would break up our 16 hour drive and let us see a place we hadn’t been in years.

After pulling through the gates, my mom and I switched seats, and I could go wherever I wanted within the park grounds. I remember it was bright out and unusually warm for the season, the sun making me sweat through the windshield. Slowly, I pushed on the gas, and we creeped along the dusty road. There was a fork, left bringing us to the inn, and right bringing us to the horse barn. Without much thought I turned right. We quickly passed the horses, all of us rubbernecking to stare at their sleek brown coats shimmering in the afternoon sun. I had never been past this barn though, and so my curiosity took me to where the road soon turned into uneven dirt, right as the shade from the trees swallowed us into their secret wonderland. After driving through the trees for a while, we reached a loop, my mom explaining to me that this is where the campgrounds used to be. This is where she and her brother, her mom and her dad, would set up tents and look up at the stars. I felt a pang deep in my stomach as I gazed out at the dirt patches in the grass and rotted wooden poles that marked each site. We had always stayed at the inn.

***

When I’m missing my childhood blackberry bushes and large expanse of grass, when I’m regretting the money and time I spent at Starbucks, when I’m sometimes wishing that I had never been brought to the city, I imagine my mom riding in the back of her parents car without a seatbelt on, looking out the window as the curved road turns straight. After passing the gates and reaching the fork in the road, I see her watching the lights of the inn fade away as they drive down to the campground.

It is then I remember all my mom has ever been trying to do is give us a life she never had, a life she dreamed of. And I thank her for it.

Acknowledgements

I would like to first thank Professor Kovaleski Byrnes for giving me this call to write. I’m not sure I ever would have attempted memoir if not for this assignment, and I am so grateful that she presented me with the task. I would next like to thank Kayla and Diti for being amazing peer reviewers and encouraging me throughout the whole revision process; your comments and support was more helpful than you know. I would lastly like to thank my mother. She is an incredibly strong woman who would do anything for her children, and I can’t thank her enough for all she has done for me.

[alexisdesignsstuff]

Designing a Greeting Card Kiosk

By Alexis Kim

OVERVIEW:

I am designing and prototyping a greeting card kiosk. It will be a vending machine that sells cards and stickers to high school students. I researched purchasing general purchasing behaviors and then tested my concept to refine the

EARLY RESEARCH:

Papyrus:

Huge selection of greeting cards.

Birthday section is biggest.

Cards are very unique and artful.

Lots of different styles of design.

Humor/joke designs, minimalistic, physical decorations, art heavy, vintage, graphic design, animals, shiny etc.

Feels more marketed towards female purchasers.

Empty. No customers inside at 10:30 am.

Older Lady in her 60’s. Walgreens, 9/19/18: “It’s so difficult to find a good card. Usually buy from Nordstrom. It’s more expensive but better selection and designs. Buying card for a friend who is having a 60 something birthday. Like Papyrus much more. It’s more beautiful and has lots of beautiful cards. Every one of them is beautiful but each one is $10 - $7. $4.99 is an ok price. I’ve been looking here for half an hour. I have problems with knees that’s why I’m here at Walgreens (easier to get to). Ideally a perfect shopping experience, every card is beautiful. A less nice looking card is ok for someone I don’t really know. Less wording inside is better. Going to look at Papyrus now.”

Middle aged man with British accent. Target, 9/19/18: “I bought these [2 humor cards] because I have a warped sense of humor. It’s for my 17 year old son’s birthday. I spent less than 10 minutes looking for them. I’ll give the first one to him 1st thing in the morning. It’ll be the first thing he see’s and he’ll laugh all day about it. And the second golf card is to accompany his gift; I got him a voucher for golf lessons. It’s a spur of the moment thing, and I buy cards for close family only. It’s typical male humor. I’m happy with it.”

Young professional Female, late 30’s. Target, 9/19/18: Observations: She’s scanning and browsing. Take a step back to see. Look at messages in the Thank You section. Scan first. Message is important.“Giving this to thank a close friend who has been really supportive. I’m going through a big career change and its to thank her for believing in me. My eye goes to the bit above the fold. I’m attracted to fonts, bright colors. I like a mix of modern and unique. I like puns sometimes. I don’t like preachy, cliche, or old, traditional looking cards that my grandma would give. Would rather write my own sentiments. If there’s a lot of words I’ll just glaze over it and lose interest. Sometimes I find something very thoughtful and written in a way I wouldn’t have thought of and appreciate those.  Trader Joe’s has really killer 99 cent cards that I’ll buy a bunch of in advance. I’ll pay $3.99 for an nonembelished card. Something fancy like with rhinestones $4.99. Those kinds of cards are for someone really special and if I gave it to them in person. If mailing, I’ll pick something really flat. Looking here at Target because I’m picking up something for lunch. It’s convenient. Papyrus normally has good stuff. Paper Source has unique/off beaten path and random ones. I’ll buy a months worth of cards at Trader Joe’s and line them up for the month. My friends are so grateful to get real mail these days. It’s so worth it to make them feel so good for just $1.50. Minted - it’s an online order stationary store. Funny and unique. I like to buy cards in advance and hold onto it for months. For example, if I find a good romance one for my boyfriend, I’ll give it to him later. These days I’m also attracted to funny cards if I want to have fun or want to give someone a laugh."

CONCEPTING

CONCEPT TESTING

Q1: What do you think is going on here? (to learn if your concept is clear)

Q2: What questions do you have? (find out where it's not clear)

Q3: What would you change and why? (find out how they would improve it.)

Q4: Who do you think would use this? (if they would, they will tell you so. If not, listen and learn.)

Q5: Any ideas to add? (capture their ideas; you do not need to use these ideas, but you must listen to them.)

Gina K.17, texting her while she’s in yearbook class; 9/24/18

“So basically someone can buy these stickers or whatever is gonna be on there for cheap b/c like most students don’t keep a lot of money on them or just don’t have a lot in general. These stickers can be for like things to make things look better (in the storyboard) but in general for funnies. I think things like stickers can be used for many things. B/c right now a lot of people like to put stickers on their water bottles. The origami one is unclear. The secret message I like but I’m not sure if people would get the point?? Or like use it b/c I feel like there are a lot more ways now to do secret messages or something. idk we just like use our phones lol. I think it’s a great idea but I’m not sure if a lot of people would use it. And as for the storyboard… Not many people write letters now. I think if you do something handwritten it might be more of a girl thing nowadays??? Thinking about it I do think boys would use it but it does appeal more to girls in terms of most of the things you could use with these products. I think for the way you’re using the stickers in the storyboard you might wanna replace them with girls? Maybe not thank you cards but I can see birthday cards for those who forgot about someone’s birthday. I don’t know about boys but we girls typically just give them their gift and are like happy birthday! And sometimes watch them open their gift. I do find it a pain when it comes to getting bday cards b/c I have to go out to get them lol. And i try to make them but sometimes I just don’t have time. Depends but yea [we give presents] at lunch or b4 school. Lunch is more probable tho. My friends and I still give birthday cards, and I have some but they are just really kiddy lol. Like for someone in elementary school. So if it’s someone I’m not close to I don’t feel comfortable giving it to them lol. We have birthdays almost every 3 months or so. I think the product is ok. The storyboard you might wanna change them to girls and make it like a card instead but you can still incorporate stickers. If you wanna keep them as boys it would be like oh crap I forgot it’s so and so bday and get them like a card with stickers (like its the gift) and give it to the friend. I think it’s good to have the part where it shows that you can buy the product for a cheap price. It’s common for someone not knowing someone’s birthday until the day of. B/c most people don’t tell others what their birthday is unless they ask. The forgetting and the convenience of it is good b/c we are at school 5 days a week and at least like 6 hours lol. I think girls would use this mostly.

Valentyn T.32, phone call; 9/24/18

"The storyboard is trying to describe how using a sticker can increase value of letter. What’s the relationship between Shawn and Fred? It’s kind of weird. Feels girly. It’s feels fine if it's two girls who are friends. It’s also weird if a boy was writing to a letter to a girl. When I was student girls like stickers; boys don’t like stickers. Maybe you should make stickers have more value to differentiate them. Like some stickers can be really rare like pokemon. Or make some of them tattoo stickers. Target seems pretty limited to school kids."

Stacey T.31, texting her while she’s at work; 9/24/18

“Probably the one thing that sticks out it is the ‘I’m so poor’ comment. It has god in it, and it also is making a social commentary that spending only $5 is cause for someone to say with despair ‘God I’m so poor.’ I might be the wrong person to ask for feedback on Something like this because I’ve also been poor, though not as poor as there are people in the world, and hearing something like that riles me up. But everything else is lovely. Pretty straightfoward (what’s going on). Though it’s hard to tell where everything is happening. If you didn’t tell me at the start that this machine is in a high school… Maybe it’s a San Francisco thing, but growing up, I wouldn’t be able to bring cupcakes to a friend. I took the bus to school, and I didn’t have a way of getting to a grocery store or cupcake store bakery whatever. I wouldn’t connect with this experience unless I grew up in a city with those amenities. Nor did I even have $5 to spend, maybe in the summer when I had a job. But I think all of what I just said is coming from the far that it’s disjointed, the comic strip/storyboard. I liked the big hug in the end. [Who would use this?] Kids collecting stickers and fighting over who has the most coolest ones; Kids with money; Kids wanting to hack the machine so they can get them out for free; Maybe teachers. Beware of the angry parents who might not like things being sold to their kids in a school setting."

REVISED CONCEPT

I changed the persona to a female as all of my test subjects remarked that the cards and stickers would more likely be bought be females. I made sure to include in the Persona details about the student’s busy life and inability to get around independently. I also changed the storyboard to reflect the last minute and convenient nature of the purchase. 

[bjornartesttest]

July 2017

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General

So, summer is almost over, and quite a few things has happened during the 2 months time it has been since I write the last time. Ot - that means, not any MAJOR things, but still some progress in different directions. I am currently sitting at a Quatar Airways flight brom Dar Es Salam to Berlin, via Doha (where I have a 7 hour night layover….) after 3 weeks of summer holiday. 

I started of in Tel Aviv for 10 days with Vegar, Sigbjørn, Benni, Vik, Kristoffer and Julia. We shared a big nice apartment close to the Old Town. I had my own room, we had 3 balconies, a huge rooftop, a large nice kitchen and several bathrooms. Perfect base even though we were based a bit far from the center of the town. I personally liked the old town more though so fine by me. Tel Aviv is a fantastic city. It has some of the best food Ive ever tasted, a beautiful san beach that follows though the whole city, a vibrant night life, humble, proud and open people and a rich history. I was unsure about how I would feel about visiting Israel beforehand because of Palestina, but I am glad I came. The people I met had all sorts of different backgrounds. They are not the politicians, and seemed just as frustrated about the situation as everyone else. Having that said, I guess its only so much you can take in during 10 short days. We also had a trip to Jerusalem. We did not do enough research, so my impression of the city was quite messy and exhausting. I am glad we went either way, though I probably wont go back there. Tel Aviv also have beautiful, passionate men.. I met a few while there. One arabic guy that was a bit younger then me. He invited me over for cake and showed me his Mind Craft world.. He had made houses for all hes previous love interests. A bit weird I must say, but he was also a interesting guy. Not something to go forward with though lol. The second guy I met was mega hot, inteligent, tall spanish guy. He had been living in Tel VAiv the last 5 years, studying Arabic and foreign relations. He was planning to move to Iraq to follow a minority group up there in some time, I think I will go to visit him. Anyways - it was some of the hottest sex Ive had in a long long time. He was bottom (the perfect), but also had an amazing cock, mouth.., evertying. We had sex twice right after eachtother. I had to do a Skype interview over phone for a job offer in Beijoing (more about that later), and because I ran out of time, I had to have it at his place. A bit weird to go though my whole professional life in a Skype interview in front of him, but I think he took it well. A few days later I met a tall, a bit sturdy, beardy Israely/turkish guy. Also very handsome. I invited him over to the apartment when everyone else was out and we had sex all over the place. In the sofa, and the kitchen table… The lats night I had a quick hookup with a tall israeli psycho terapist. Was fun and a nice ending of a nice trip. Very fun. 

Anyways. enough about the Tel Aviv boys. Poor Vegar and Sigbjørn both got food poisoned after 2 days and ended up at the hospital. They stayed home most of the time, though we did have some fun times too. Unfortinuatley I managed to get in the middle of a drunken row they had. Ive now learned to NEVER get involved in other peoples love life. It got heated! We talked about it though, and it was all good the next day. I got alone time with everyone on the trop except Bennedicte. She was out partying til 9 every morning and were a bit to moody for my taste. Interesting enough she was the one who were the least easygoing, with is funny as she talked so much about who else that could potentially be moody before hand. Honestly I find herself a bit selfish from time to time, or a bit closed in her own world. I guess we all are though… Kristoffer met A LOT of boys during the trip. More then me. I felt a bit strange about it, as I am very good friends with his boyfriend in Norway Harald. The last nigght, he even brought one of his dates for dinner, and sat kissing with him openly infant of everyone. How can he expect us all to just forget about that? If he wants to leve things in Tel Aviv, then he should keep his stuff in the bedroom, and not drag his boyfriends best friends into it. I wont mention it to anyone ever, but I totally lost a lot of respect for Kristoffer after seeing that. Fuck that shot. Just no. Not ok. I hope he breaks up with Harald when he gets home if thats how he feels. If nothing else, I hope they have a proper talk and manage to fight it out and then move on. I dont really see them lasting if its as dark as this. As for Vik, we had a great time togehter. She is so funny and easy going, and made sure that everyone had a good time, all the time. Never put herself first. She also openly went on Tindr dates while there (with blessing from her boyfriend). All these poor guys that she used for tips and guides and free drinks, before she dropped them off. She didn't even exchange a kiss.. hilarious.As forJulia, we also had a super nice day together at this swanky rooftop. Im happy she joined. only bad thing about tel Aviv was the prices btw. Equally expencive as Norway! Last day I spent with Liat, Klauses goof friend from London. She's a funny, stress woman. She's sper nice, but a bit intense and talkative in her own way. Nice, but one day was enough! 

After Israel, the trip went to Nairobi, via Jordan and Quatar. I had a long trip, but managed to both get sleep and relax. In Nairobi Carmen was waiting for me together with Sigur, the guy we were lucky enough to stay with. He is a close friend of Maren, and hes half Norwegian/Kenyan so he hes family has a few houses in Nairobi and close to the Uganda border. Superduper sweet 24 year old guy. Hes been based in london the last few years, where he has built himself up a name in the fashion PR / Producer industry, but after a long though and a realisation about what matters ib life he has decided to drop it all and start to study development studies back in Norway from the fall. An old sole for his young ange, even though the 24 year old came out from time to time. Anyways, we staid in their villa in Nairobi. Huge house in the richest part of town. We lied there for free with servants, free food and all we could have wanted. Like living in a luxury hotel. After a few days in Nairobi, me and Car jetted of on a safari trip to Nairusha and Hells gate. One the way we ended up at the mandatory Kenyan police station expereince. Our driver had been speeding, and had to go to court 8!). Meanwhile me and Car went of on our own. We walked thought this random, poor, kenyan village and into a forest to check out a lake we found on the map. All of the sudden we found ourselves walking though a cactus forest, and then a ancient forests with a million bird sounds. So beautiful. After that we were suddenly standing on a filed full of zebras, giraffes, buffaloes, wild beast and more. Totally surreal… Turns out we had trespassed into one of the national parks, so a grad found us and helped us out and back to the policestation. Regardless - one of the more magical experiences of my life I think :-)

After picking up our driver we headed to Hells Gate. A national parks where you are clouded to bike (illeagl in all the others). Super nice trip, we were biking in between zepras, worth pigs, and more. I would definitely come back. After the bike ride we headed down in hells gate, a volcanic old water system. Also stunning. In the evening when we got home we had a drunken pianos session in Sigurs mums piano concert room. What a day and nigt. The next few days we explored Nairobi more, went to Gosepel church, went out line dancing on a tacky rooftop nightclub, Sigurs were friend hit heavily on me, we went to Karen Blixnes house, we went to some fancy restaurants and cocktail bars, and we got to meet Sigurs 92 year old father, as well as his amazing mom and step dad. What a family. We also almost ended up in jail and court after having taken a picture of a government building. I was so shocked by it that I was shivering. These two big guys with machine guns came out and started to harass me and Carnen. Luckily Carmen is a very lud, smart, tiny, cute asian woman, so she handled the situation like a star. I am SO impressed. After 45 minutes the police gave up and let us go. A good thing, as we were jumping on a plane to Lamu the next morning, so a sleep over at the police station and court hearings would have ruined our trip.

Lamu is one of the most beautiful places Ive ever seen. I will definelty come back. Its a unesco protected, muslim old trading island on the border to Somalia. It used to have loads of tourists, but now its very poorly visited due to recent terror atacks in the Lamy district closer to Somalia. We felt 100% safe, and 500 % amazed. Ive never seen nature like it. Also very cheap. We went for sunset runs, sailboat rides, luxury hotel hangouts, drinks, we showed alcohol at the local police station (only place where they sold it at the islands) and took boat taxiss. There are no cars at the island. After Lamu, we went back to Nairobi for one night, before we said bye to Sigur and headed to Airusha and Tanzania for 3 days of safari, Also an amazing experience. Its insane that there are areas in the wold where so many species live freely, in huge numbers in full harmony. We met hundreds on hundreds of zebras, wildebeests and elephants, We met lions, strutser, hyenas and monkeys. All in harmony. The landscape was varied and beautiful. We even went into a old vulcani crater caller ngroro ngoro. Supposedly it ha the widest range of animals gathered in one area in the world!

After the safari trio it was time ti say goodbye to Carmen. We have now known each other for 10 years, so this trip was sort of out anniversary. She wrote me this beautiful letter the day we parted, where she said that I have been a big inspiration for her to make her take the choices in life that she has done the last 5 years. Honestly . the most flattering and heartf´worming thing anyone has ever written to me. Carmen is a sister to me now. I love her :-) We will potentially meet up in Cape town this winter. I hope so. It was a bit sad to send her of, but also a bit nice to have some time alone before heading home. I had one night in Arusha, and then one night and day in Dar Es Salam. I went around Arusah with a few local guys I met on the street. They showed me the markets and some charming areas of the city, In Dar, I just went for some indian food on my own and had a hookup with a hottie from South Africa. Before I met him I met up with another guy that I had to send home He sent me pictures of this tall handsome guy with a big dick, but when he turned up he was a midget with loads of aces and a micro penis. How delutional is it possible to be?? And how rude!!! Ugh.. Today, my lat day I went for manicure and pedicure, nd then had a beer at the bech. Dar is a strange town. I did not really like it I must admit. Very segregated between rich and poor, very expat, quite intense on the streets, and a lot of people in desperate pverty. If I come back I will make sure I have many days so I can get o meet and understand the locals a bit better. On my way to the flight I am now I almost lost the flight due t heavy traffic. A 30 min car drive ended up lasting for alsmot 2 hours… Anyways…. that was my holidays so far. Now Im headed to Berlin for 3 days before heading home to work on Tuesday. I have a good feeling about Berlin, but it will also be a bit interesting. I will meet and maybe stay over with a  really nice guy I have been dating from Oslo lately. He is there too and has rented a hotel room. I am supposed to stay with Goro, but I might trade her out for the boy… Lets see. Sigbjørn, Benni and Vegar is there also. So a big crew.

WORK

I manages to finish of most Bleed work before the summer. The main project being the Sikkerhet i NAturen one. I think it went well (minus too many hours), and we ended up as the main event on the NRK TV news. Not bad! After the summer most of my Bleed projects are pretty dull though… Cant say I am too excited. As for my freelance stuff, I have almost too much going on. between August and October I have to finish FAF festival catalogue + website, Im making a book for Rogaland Kunstsenter with More and Geir, Im doing concert  banners and t-shorts for Cezenando, finishing a website for Tove, Im helping More on a book project for National museet and I am making a ctakouge + some other effects for Oslo otobook festival. Its in reality too much too handle, so I need to find a way to deal with it. Another problem is tax… I have not yet pais any tax money, and am earning a lot. Ive decided to hire a Tax guy to do it the right way from now in. In total I think I will earn ca 100.000… Too much! But really good too, as I have set myself a goal - and that is to save 70.000,- NOK by the end of the year. The reason I want to save up is because I want to slowly start working more independently. I am planning to have a talk with Dag at Bleed about this after the holiday. My current plan is to start to ask for a 90% position at bleed, rather then 100. That means that I want to ask if I can work one day less per week. If he is not fie with that I have to try to negotiate though something else. I have to be super strict with myself to make this happen. It is NUMBER ONE priority after the summer. I dont wish to quit bleed, but in order to stay, I need to respect my need for creative development on my own terms. Hopefully him and them will understand this. I will try to make a little draft during the next following days to define what I want more closely. Other then that I have gotten a bit further with the planning for Grafill one night only concept. I want to invite BLAD (petri) and another new design duo in Oslo and see what they can come up with. Lets see what they can do. Start-up meeting in August.

FRIENDS

So Im shifting a bit away from having Benni as my closest. I guess this is maybe also because we dont work together anymore. The people I see the most right now is Tor Erik, Vegar, Sigbjørn and INgemar. I also see Agatha, Benni, Maren, Vik, Harald, Saga and Siri quite often. There is actually almost a bit too many close people now. I think I will have problems finding time to follow up after the summer. Maybe I need to take a little timeout from friends and focus one work and a few social things per week instead? Also, if I will keep on dating EManuel, that will for sure also demand time, and should be a priority. I guess dating someone is always a fair excuse :)

LIFE

I generally feel that I am on a swing upward atm. Probably because Ive done some thinking and decided to do some changes. Just the knowledge about that something will change and that its in my power to make that happen feels empowering somehow. I am also being more and more aware of my age, and that I am growing old, and not growing up any more. Its a strange thing. Its almost as if I feel I have to make the most out of it while Ive still got it. It feels a bit fucked up. There are all these new young people hoping up everywhere, and also suddenly my a bit older friends are pushing 40. There is a new generation taking over y’all… I guess I just have to exept it sooner then later. 

LOVE

So I just read though my previous post, and there I mentioned something about Ole. That was totally nothing more then a thought. He is a big flirt, has a super cute boyfriend and I think were becoming potential frineds. They invited me for their pride party, with was super fun. Lets see if we can make it into a real freindship. I also dated a guy called Ole Magnus briefly. We met 3 times. Had som great sex, and then I think we were just both over it. I was probably over it because I had met another really nice guy called Emanuel. Hes a dance teacher, my age from Norway. I sleep lik a baby when I am with him, he is really warm and kind, just enough insecure and vulnerable (I like vulnerable guys), but still sturdy, mature and also quite handsome I would say. He is quite masculin, but at the same time one of his main hobbies is to be a drag queen! We met around the time Oslo Prode was, so his life was a lot about dragging up around then. I was  bit unsure how I would feel about dating a guy that has a altered that is so different from the one I know and have met, but I also think what I saw was much more intense then what everyday life is. Ive decided that if we still date when hes having hes next show, I will show up and support. I think he is more p, but I think he has a good A in him too. Maybe I will find more out about this during the weekend in Berlin. I think he is really into me, but I dont want to over think it, and have decided that its great we are having such fun, and that I am looking forward to get to know him better. I think hes the best match Ive come across in quite some time. Having this said, we have only sent time together in t´hotel rooms, and its friends apartments that we have been looking after. So no regular life so far.

OTHER

Ive been renting out my apt at Air BNB this summer , summer thing I really regret. There has been construction work on the house, something that has lead to loads of nouce, dust and bad conditions in the flat Many of my guests has moved to after one day, and Ive had to do a lot of sweet-talking and reductions in price. Poor Maren said yes to look after the place, so she was dragged into it too. Ive promised to give her 500,- nok for each booking. A small price to pay after all that drama. Luckily she's kept it cool nd relaxed the whole way. 

Kritina has broken up with her trubadur boyfriend (Yes!), Agatha is back with her crazy boyfriend Henrik (No!!).. Mamma seems to be happy. Im going to Bergen for Linnis 90th, Heges 50th and Kristinas 40th in August.. So many travels. Im also heading to Moscow in September. I went to Lisboa in June. I was supposed to stay with a freind, but he had double booked and was out of town. He let me stay in his appartment, introduced me to his lovely frineds, who took me out for dinner, clubbing, gave me drugs and took me to museums. I also took with me home a tall swedish handsome guy. I think traveling on my own is my new thing. I will try to do it more. I feel so free doing so.

LIST

Make self analyzation form

Decide how to deal with Dag (make draft)

Make a proper working plan list for freelance

Hire an accountant

Buy russia tickets

Buy bergen tickets 

[g-castel]

My Top 10 Albums of 2016

I've been wanting to post this since January 1st lol, but I never got around to it haha. I need to be better about blogging. Well, I figured that since we are halfway through 2017 it would be good to share, once again, my top 10 albums of the year (last year). I've been doing this annually for a while now and it's been fun for me. Take a read if you'd like!

Top 10 + Honorable Mentions

Honorable Mentions

-Signs of Light (Head and the Heart)

-24K Magic (Bruno Mars)

-A Seat at the Table (Solange Knowles)

-WALLS (Kings of Leon)

-The Hamilton Mixtape (Various Artists)

-The Life of Pablo (Kanye West)

-Coming Home (Leon Bridges)

-Views (Drake)

-This is Acting (Sia)

-There’s A Lot Going On (Vic Mensa)

-22, A Million (Bon Iver)

-Telluric (Matt Corby)

-Wild World (Bastille)

-Bobby Tarantino (Logic)

-Oh My My (OneRepublic)

-Stranger Things, Vol. 1 (Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein)

Passion, Pain, and Demon Slayin’ (Kid Cudi)

A Moonshaped Pool (Radiohead)

Farewell, Starlite (Francis and the Lights)

Starboy (The Weeknd)

Sunlit Youth (The Local Natives)

   indicates nearly making my list haha

Top 10

10. Home of the Strange

Young the Giant

The third studio album for Young the Giant, Home of the Strange, to me has pushed the band to become one that I will continue to listen to for the rest of my life. They are able to create a good range of styles. I think HOTS is able to listened to in so many different settings.

This California band has focused on the phenomenon of the diversity in ethnicity that the band possesses. The lead singer being, Indian-American, and other members being from across the globe plays a part in the album’s theme and dynamic.

I was super happy with songs like “Something to Believe In” (which sounds so perfect for a live performance) and “Titus Was Born”. If you are about to take a listen to Young the Giant for your first times, start from their first pieces of art and move towards their latest piece of art and you will see a fitting a beautiful revolution.

Also, go ahead and head to their Youtube channel where they post the “In the Open” videos that are stripped versions of their music and it’s record so raw and simple. Those videos have inspired me to do video work for music as well!

9. The Colour in Anything

James Blake

The music in James Blake’s album, just like before, is the some of the most unique current music. I have not found other songs out there that sound anything like his other than Bon Iver and Radiohead’s music this year.

So, so, so weird. if you’re gonna go listen this, because I said I like it, please be warned, it doesn’t mean you will, like you might hate it actually, and that’s okay. We tend to adhere to sounds that’s familiar and that coincides with our minds. This album, if you haven’t been a listener of James Blake’s previous works, will not do that for you. There are some odd sounds, weird time signatures changes, and he sings once again with beast vocoder vocals! Sometimes there are some horror silences behind nasally high frequency vocals.

It sounds like I am somewhat shoving you away from listening to this. However, do not get me wrong, I love The Colour in Anything! 

Favorite Songs:

Meet You In the Maze

Points.

The random interruptions of repeated lyrics into silence are interesting and I think they reflect perhaps the character of Blake or the anybody out there who shares the stories and feelings written in his lyrics. They’re brash and the noises are loud. & I DIG it.

8. Georgica Pond

Johnnyswim

Johnnyswim. The (Latin) American folk soul pop-duo have returned this year with a banger of an album. I think personally that this is the best work that they have done. This couple are two incredibly talented musicians and they’re chemistry in and out of the booth is something like the dynamic of a Shaq and Kobe.

“The longer you’re out on the road, it gets nicer to have [Abner Ramirez] there. Because he’s the closest thing to home I have,” Johnnyswim’s Amanda Sudano says. “Home is where he is.”

I watched the videos that they shared on Youtube giving commentary on a couple of the songs that were a part of the album. They talked about the process in the studio and the  inspirations behind songs like “Drunks” and “Touching Heaven”. One thing I picked up from what they attempt to maintain is the loyalty to the authenticity of the craft.

This was an album that I listened continuously for maybe three straight weeks. I went through phases were song after song became my new favorite. That happens a lot of times when the record is good from start to finish.

I want to be friends with them, simple as that.

#goals

7. THREE

Phantogram

I was introduced to them years ago by my brother, who I could honestly give credit to for a lot of the music I listen to now. This album, THREE, yes, in all caps, was music that I had no clue they had in them.

I definitely used a few tracks on this album for workouts. This is the album that this year I felt comfortable bumpin with both my more conserved buddies and also with some of my hood friends. After Phantogram released some music with as Big Grams in the past, you can surely feel the influence of Big Boi, a former member of the hip hop legendary group, OutKast.  The 808s on songs like “You’re Mine” and “Cruel World” are so fulfilling.

One song from this album you’ve probably heard if you haven’t heard of any of the songs on the list is the song “You Don’t Get Me High Anymore” They collaborated with other people to produce such a fire beat. The lyrics are weird and polarizing but that’s what’s great about it

On release day, I went through the entire record as I usually do with music and immediately sent Phantogram a fan girl tweet. I just had to tell them that they nailed this one and it is probably their best work yet.

6. Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight

Travis Scott

S’il vous plais. Those in favor of auto-tune, or at least okay with listening to it and not being baffled by the off-the-(traditional hip-hop)-wall that it is, take your time to listen to a few tracks of this album by the G.O.O.D. Music prodigy, Travis Scott.

I just know in 2017, this man Travis is going to blow UP! I do not know in what way, whether it’s with his music, or with his involvement with big name fashion clothing lines, he will find his way into having you know his name. It’s just the loud and abrasive nature that he possesses.

Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight to me was like a real intro to the world, though it isn’t his first album. When Ye signed him, he was doing a bunch of writing and waiting his turn to get on the map. Kanye finally did what he does best and gave him more pushes and connections. I’ve never seen someone with so much energy. Hip hop gone be alright.

Usually, I listen to albums from front to back, but I know that’s not how everyone does it. So, if you do not have much time and want to take a peek of the record, check out these three, “goosebumps, through the late night, and way back”.

5. The Human Condition

Jon Bellion

  Mr. Jon Bellion, out of New York, is the next Chad Hugo, No I.D., and Timberland, all put together, who also sings and raps on the music he produces. Riding that “come up wave”, he will be a name that pretty soon will have a bigger font size on next summer’s festival lineups, guaranteed.

This early 20s MC, is just a pure talent to say the least, and outside his talent, is seemingly a phenomenal character. He has worked so hard to make it to where he is in his music career, but has managed to stay as humble as he was when he was making beats in his college dorm room. The Human Condition was crafted and along with Bellion is the band, A Beautiful Mind, who were all buddies who have all committed to sticking together if one of them made it big in the industry which is such a noble thing to see. They have a natural chemistry.

Bellion says a lot of the people who inspired his sounds were the Neptunes, Kanye, and derivation.

So I can’t write this without giving one person credit for introducing me to him. My roommate Jeff did everything he could that season to make sure the whole world new about Jon Bellion. He played songs from previous EPs to prepare for the album release over and over. While he showered, I could here the songs including the pre-release singles. We ended up seeing Bellion live…twice actually.

I’m excited for his future, collaborations, and ideas he execute to change the way people see music. He’s got that much potential in my opinion. The dude is straight out of New York. If you haven’t heard the album yet, let me just tell you it is very evident. Jon Bellion is a multitalented artist. He’s got his hands on everything, being well-versed with the keys, vocals, and he’s got some bars too. He’ll break it down with the MPC pad too like his idol Kanye. Even on stage during his tour, homie would bring the pad to center stage and loop up the layers of his songs and the sing over the top of it brilliantly.

Bellion’s, like many of us, is also a closet nerd and loves cartoons and animation. One of his big dreams, which he might as well soon see come into fruition is to work with Pixar on scoring a film. I hope this happens! He’s a dreamer, he’s got a newfound faith, and has got a colossal muse. This artist is someone who is just peeking his head out of his egg and we have no idea what he will do once he starts flying.

4. 4 Your Eyez Only

J. Cole

This album is the cure.

Mr. Jermaine Cole. He is such an people’s person. I liked the fact that after he finished touring for 2014 Forest Hills Drive, he said “I’m out.” He had a withdrawal from the public eye. Just wanting to have a normal human experience here in America, he laid low, didn’t really share much on social media and rode his bike around the city. It gave him a fresh mind to intake life and be creative, especially in a tough all-around year like 2016. Seeing artists do that is a breath of fresh air to me. Fame is just something he doesn’t care about.

In the album, there’s a few times Cole rhymes from different perspectives apart from himself. What we have here is a real lyricist, and wordsmith. He chops up words perfectly to make them fit meter after meter. I honestly think he’s getting better and apart from Kendrick, no one out there is stopping him from being the most influential lyricist in urban culture. His mass appeal comes naturally, though he does not care about it or give into it.

Ed Sheeran said in an interview recently on the Breakfast Club that in the likes of the hip hop genre, right now he is really liking this J.Cole album. Reason why I say this is cause, Ed, too took a page from this book and, took a year off from music and celebrity living and just vacationed and traveled.

You can feel it in these songs. The calmness in the beats. There is something retro about the drums, the flows are mellow, and the vibes make me want to go for a soothing walk with headphones, or take a subway into a city like NY. I don’t know if any of that makes sense, but once you listen to a song like “Ville Mentality”,  you’ll know.

3. We Got it From Here…Thank You 4 your service

A Tribe Called Quest

They’re Back! Mr. Abstract, Phife the Five Footer, Ali! The return of the historic and legendary hip hop group, the pioneers for all current rappers today, the one, the only, TRIBE CALLED QUEST.

 Here is Phife Dawg. The Five Foot Assassin is what he used to go by. He founded this group back with Q-Tip I believe when they were in high school. Hip Hop was already on the rise and established, but it had no real characters that were unique and funky. Them comes along these gentlemen along with other members of the Native Tongues who brought a energy to the hip hop scene that was crazy and untouched. They weren’t talking about money and drinking. It was all conscious writing and fun creativity. This band is why I am a hip hop fan today.

Tribe to me is like the mantle of the earth if Hip Hop was looked at as the planet. And the core would be jazz. We hear it in all of their records, and after the band split in 1998 and after 18 years…it took the death of co-Founder Phife, for the men to get into a studio and make some powerful music for the people, for themselves, and for their lost brother, Phife.

I think it takes bravery to return. They’re a bunch of old men. They know there’s a new audience of hip hop lovers out there who don’t even know them. They know that a lot of people aren’t really gonna feel their music and rhythm. So, I commend their boldness in return and with their humility in asking a great conglomerate of artists from Jack White to Talib Kweli to help join them create their final album to send strong messages on things as simple as how it is to be a black man in America.

This band has left an impeccable legacy and imprint on hip hop music forever.

2. i like it when you sleep for you are so beautiful, yet so unaware

The 1975

You’re probably like.

Wait, what…huh?!?

And I’m sorry to put them so high, but I am not at the same time. I keep finding myself DRAWN to each and every track on this record. For a sophomore album, they definitely found the best way to expand but at the same time stay inside the realm that they created for the fans that is kind of the this imaginary “1975” world.

Kickstarting with a perfect “first single” in Love Me, to being the iliwysfyasbysu era was a pretty cool statement made because we just knew that they were bursting forth with a different brand. You’ll know what I mean if you go ahead and watch the music video. Musically, they’re was some experiments and that is always fun for me to hear. I wish I could know the terminology for what is being used to make that sort of grungy, wavy, synthy guitar sound to start and end the song, but it’s sexy and reminds me for some reason of Halloween?

Matty said that their London shows this year in the O2 were the biggest shows they did and since Vevo put on a sweet video production for it up on Youtube, I had to lay down and watch the hour-long concert. shows.

I found myself listening to the record over and over. Music doesn’t just make it into my top three just that. I really have got to like it. And I enjoy the music, simple as that. All visuals for the album certain vibe. They made a change to their brand and new look to their socials, beginning with a complete 180 of all their black and white monochrome look. It was hit with a hard flavor of flamboyant, loud, pink. That’s right, pink.

(Which, quick input, 2016 was the year of pink. Big year for pink)

Previously, on their first studio album, though they’ve been doing music for over a decade, the artwork of the album, singles, and live show light show were all bright whites and black contrasts.

Then at the end of May, we were introduced to the regeneration of the young (not-so-young) band, the 1975.

The lyrics, on almost every song, so vulnerable and loud, are what mostly impresses me about the record. Matty writes about a lot of things he deals and is trying to make sense of in morality, psychology, drugs, religion and love. Though the song titles are not as obviously direct with the messages like the first album, this album hit at so many questions that we as humans ask, or should ask.

Matty Healy’s intellect kills me. I would definitely put him in my top ten with musicians I would desire to have one or two tea time conversations with. I feel like there would be things we could teach each other. Just listening to what he has to say in interviews became quite a hobby of mine, especially the interviews where he was sober. He has interesting things to input about, love, politics, Jesus, and whatever makes the world go round. I found every lyric and every emotion put into the musically was very intentional.

They have definitely built an experience surrounding what is deemed, the 1975. It’s their own world. Everything about it. The social mediums. The twisted yet attractive persona of the lead. The sounds of the guitar that you hear in “She’s American”. It’s not much different than what you hear in “Settle Down” or even “Chocolate”. My point is, you know you’re entering the 1975, when you enter the 1975; it’s distinct.

There’s something special about that.

These are my lads.

my pics from the show*

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Processed with VSCO

1. Coloring Book

Chance the Rapper

Mixtape? Album? Whatever you call it, this body of work takes the crown for me of this year’s best musical work. Gospel and hip hop are the largest influences in my musical upbringing so, for others, this was just a good album. For me, however, this hit me in my heart strings, where my hair rises, and the bumps on my skin appear. The horns and the choir vocals are what told me that I was home.

The evolution of this young Chicago artist is major as I’ve been following Chancellor since 2013 to who he’s become today as a Grammy-nominated star. When he jump started his musical career with his 10 Day mixtape, he was just a shorty making beats in his city, snatching stages at the open mics. He released his first song on Soundcloud in 2011. The 2013 XXL freshmen article is where I realized this man was gonna blow up one day. He and his overalls, nose piercing, and whippersnapper attitude is what drew me. He was put on by Gambino, when he asked Chance to go on tour with him when Gambino had nothing but Royalty and was working on Because of the Internet.

Back then, lil Chano was a little more immature, a high school dreamer who opted out on college and grew on his experimentation of drugs. So many things has changed in a matter of three years lemme tell you.

He and his girl now have a DAUGHTER. Which he just recently is letting the world get to know through his social media platforms. “My daughter look just like Sia, yah can’t see her.” He and his friends who have been working on music producing and writing for other artist called “The Social Experiment” compiled an album for free called SURF, which ended up being a top three album for me last year if you read blog post last year. Finally, he’s cut down on the trippy drugs; he used to think that they would be his thing and something to be known for, but realized it was not something of value to him anymore. The growth mostly is shown in the music by far.

After the mixtape dropped and while Chano and his gang went of tour, they announced the Magnificent Coloring Day Festival, a festival in Chicago to end the tour. It was a day where he invited many of his musical friends, including Francis and the Lights, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Skrillex, Chicago’s own Common, Lil Uzi Vert, and his mentor Kanye West. He had the city of Chicago ‘doing front-flips’!

Undoubtedly, it can be said at least in hip hop, that the is his year. It’s definitely Chance the Rapper’s season in hip hop as much as it can be denied. Last year was Drake season, this year is Chance’s season, maybe next year is someone else’s. Chano had one of the  HOTTEST VERSES ON arguably biggest song in hip hop in 2016, Ultralight Beam. He helped heavily on Hamilton mixtape. He has sold out stadiums, became the first independent artist to do Saturday Night Live, performed at ESPYS for the late Muhammad Ali, and got the Grammys to open up categories for non-selling, stream only artists. 2016, as you can see below, was his year.

I’ll get to the main reason why Chance is my guy later, for right now let’s quickly talk about the music. Diversity in his features is what I thought was cool with him at first. In ’13, he spit a verse on James Blake’s, “Life ‘Round Here” and I was like, shoot this new cat messes with people like James Blake AND Action Bronson?!? I need hop on this train before it’s too crowded. Chancellor, along with his brother and other Chicago rappers, has a way with the way he says his words. Poetically he makes them fit into patterns of time rhythms that sets a unique flow almost every time. But there’s also a slight Chicago twang to his voice, especially when he was younger.

One thing I respect is that, this man was blowing up while still being flat out broke in relation to how big of a name he was becoming. He was only making his cash off of merchandise and touring, and doing features I guess. I mean maybe not anymore, I’m sure he’s well off, but it was just cool to see that someone could continue independence and be like, nah it’s really not about the money, Imma give this here music for free.

The Social Experiment.

These guys right here are the Social Experiment. #SoX

They stuck it out with along with Chance, not as a surrounding band, but as a group with equal say into decisions. Head by Nico Segal on the left aka Donnie Trumpet, they made music for the people and were a collection of songwriters for man artists out there and did it for fun. They are now the band of friends that Chance plays, and probably will always play with on tour.

Aint that something! :’)

He’s Happier. It’s evident. If you listened the drug-influenced, young whippersnapper  Chance the Rapper was during 10 Day, and his Acid Rap era, and dug deep into the reasonings for his anxiety and hurt in his young life, you’d see a difference in who we’re being blessed with today. He, growing up in Chicago, has seen lots of violence including the murder of one of his friends. Chance has rededicated his life to the Lord and has changed abundantly. It’s so obvious in his tone and poise nowadays. He’s still fun and buck, but man Chano is a transformed person.

So one of the real reasons I love this dude is his social involvement. Time and time again you’ll read that he has had a upbringing with educators and strong women in his life. His father worked in politics and was part of being running the campaign for Barak Obama to get into the presidential office. So, Chance learned a thing or too about how to meet peoples’ needs. He has donated and promoted giving warm, thick coats to the homeless during the winter through an organization in Detroit. These coats turn into a sleeping bag so it is designed especially for those who have no homes. He speaks up against violence like we all do, however, I love seeing someone with a platform like his, give a nonviolent voice of reason. In his community, the city of Chicago, Chance also hosts an open mic night every month called, Open Mike, which is near and dear to him because that’s how he began and how he realized he wanted to pursue music. He wants to give other young kids to opportunity to dream as well.

Anyways, that’s all.

I realized I’ve talked about him for a while now…I’ve tried to be very unpretentious over the year with Coloring Book…but personal blog so.

Anticipating Albums

Colony House

John Mayer

Lorde

Drake

Ed Sheeran

Lupe Fiasco

Paramore

Snubs (the eh’s)

Joanne (Gaga)

Lemonade (Beyonce)

ANTI (Riri)

Awaken, My Love (Bino)

JEFFREY (Thug)

matty and chancellor.

bye.