#but there was no way i was tackling that grainy video

[sonofarathorn]

return the favor

Pairing: Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw x Reader

Word Count: 2.9k

Warnings: Fem!Reader. Mentions of Pregnancy. Reader and Bradley Have A Son. Dilf!Bradley. Oral Sex (m! receiving). Dirty Talk. Domesticity. 

Summary: He’d traded flight suits and fatigues for sweatpants and a t-shirt. And despite the fact that both items of clothing tended to get covered in spit-up by the end of the day, he still managed to make them look sexy. You wanted him every time you saw him, and judging from the little smirk Bradley wore whenever he caught you staring for a beat too long, he knew it too.

A/N: Honestly, I blame @withahappyrefrain​, @ouralcohol​, and Bud Light for this. 

Little Nicholas “Nicky” Bradshaw came into the world kicking and screaming. Though he chose to make his grand entrance at around 3:30 AM on a quiet Thursday night, he was hell-bent on letting the whole world know about it. And so, with a whirlwind of forms, bills, and the shrill cries of the darling baby boy, you and Bradley were thrust into the throes of parenthood.

You both handled it well, or as well as you could for first timers. Working as a team to tackle midnight bottles, blowouts, spit-up and the frequent sleepless nights. You’d settled into an easy rhythm over the past seven weeks. Bottles every 2-3 hours. Naps in-between. Diaper changes. A little tummy-time when Nicky would tolerate it. 

Day in. Day out.

You were worried the Navy-issued twelve weeks of parental leave would make Bradley squirrely– the repetition would become tedious–but here you were more than half-way through, and you hadn’t heard him complain about a thing. 

If anything, Bradley took to the role of fatherhood eagerly. Sure, he might have missed being on base, the camaraderie, the planes, but he has other things to think about now. And he wouldn’t trade all the excitement for the joy of spending time with you and his son. 

Everyday was another milestone, and so far Bradley had been there to witness them all. 

“Nicky blinked at me today.” 

“He almost turned his head.” 

“I think I heard him try to say da-da.” 

“He drank his whole bottle!”

“Do you think he’s old enough to wear shoes yet?” 

Deeper down inside there was the growing fear of his impending absence . It wasn’t a question of if, but when . A mission would come, the phone would ring, and the goodbyes would begin. Pictures and grainy videos would stand in for the real thing.  

But he was here now, and he was determined to soak up as much as he could.   

Fatherhood suited Bradley. 

He’d traded flight suits and fatigues for sweatpants and a t-shirt. And despite the fact that both items of clothing tended to get covered in spit-up by the end of the day, he still managed to make them look sexy. 

It would be infuriating if it didn’t turn you on so damn much. Of course, it didn’t help that he’d opted to let the stubble on his chin get scruffy now that he didn’t have to comply with on-base grooming standards. 

For you, hopped up on hormones and the longing that comes with forced post-birth abstinence, it was a truly lethal combination. More than once, you’d gotten lost in your daydreams about what the coarse hair would feel like as his lips caressed your skin. Trailing down your neck, over your sensitive nipples, scratching between your thighs. 

You wanted him every time you saw him, and judging from the little smirk Bradley wore whenever he caught you staring for a beat too long, he knew it too. 

You try to push the horny thoughts to the furthest recesses of your mind, as you enjoy the quiet afternoon. It’s a rare occasion. Nicky’s nap is going longer than usual–probably because he kept you and Bradley up the entire night before–so you’re trying to relish the stillness.  

You doze on the couch, head pillowed in Bradley’s lap while he scrolls through the endless black hole of his phone. His thumb circles mindless patterns into your upper arm and shoulder. He hums quietly under his breath. 

The TV is on, David Attenborough going on and on about the ocean and all its wonderful creatures. Sleep tugs heavy on your eyelids, aided by the soothing drone of his voice, and the patch of warm sunlight that falls over you. 

You’re thinking you might finally be able to catch up on lost sleep, when a wail crackles through the baby monitor. Harsh and breathy, it shatters the silence, snapping you to attention. A hunger cry. 

You sit up, rubbing a hand over your face. “He’s due for a bottle.” You stretch your arms to the sky, groaning as the muscles in your back and shoulders stretch and loosen. “I’ll go warm one up.”

“Hey.” Bradley’s hand curls around your waist. “I got it.”

“You fed him last time,” you protest, turning to face him. “Stayed up with him for half the night, and changed his diaper three times in a row. S’not fair for you to do everything.”  

He cups your face, rubbing his thumb over your lower lip. “I got it. He’s my kid. ‘Sides you were falling asleep.”

“Bradley–”

He cuts you off with a quick kiss. “Baby. Don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll take care of Nicky.”

“I’ll pay you back,” you promise, eyes not-so-subtly scanning over his body. 

Bradley chuckles. “No payment necessary.” He kisses your forehead and then your lips once more. “Get some rest, yeah?” 

You nod, and stretch back out onto the couch. Bradley pulls the crocheted throw blanket over you and, with one last smile, heads upstairs.   

The door to the nursery squeals, and then you hear his voice through the baby monitor. 

“Hey, Nicky,” Bradley whispers. “Look at you. Sleep okay, bubba? Yeah? You ready for lunch?” 

The one-sided conversation continues as Bradley changes Nicky’s diaper. He asks about Nicky’s dream, tells him some of the facts he picked up from Our Planet, and shares his latest sports predictions. 

“Your Auntie Natasha thinks the Padres have a shot this year. I told her she was crazy at first, but I might be eating my words soon.” A pause. “That means I’ll have to admit I was wrong. It’s an idiom. Your mama’s the English teacher though, she can teach you all about that later.” 

You smile dopily at his words. The easygoing way he interacts with your baby. He’d been so worried at first. Scared to fail, scared Nicky wouldn’t like him. But there was no denying the simple fact that Bradley was meant to be a father. He proved that more and more everyday.  

The steps creak as Bradley begins his descent. “Gotta be quiet, okay? Your mama’s sleepin’. Yeah, you tired her out last night.”

You hear him moving around in the kitchen and then the soft gurgling of the bottle warmer. Nicky whines impatiently, and Bradley distracts him with more stories. The effect of his words are two-fold, soothing both your baby and you. You blink sleepily, snuggled up on the couch all comfortable and warm. A few minutes later, aided by the hush of Bradley’s voice, you fall into sweet unconsciousness. 

When you wake later, the room is wrapped in shadows. The once bright sunlight has started to dim. You swallow thickly, tasting stale breath. Your body aches from sleeping in the cramped space, limbs still heavy with sleep. 

You reach for your phone sitting face down on the coffee table. The screen is bright in the dark room. You squint to make out the round numbers. 5:52 . Fuck. You’d been asleep for hours . 

“Babe!” You call out. “Why’d you let me sleep this long?” No answer. “ Bradley .” 

Still nothing. The house was uncharacteristically quiet. The baby monitor wasn’t picking anything up either. Your heart twinges painfully in your chest, stomach turning with the thick ice of dread. 

You tap your phone screen again, looking for a message or a missed call. Any kind of clue as to where Bradley had disappeared off to. There’s a text waiting for you, must’ve missed it in your initial alarm. You scan it quickly and breathe out a sigh of relief. 

Almost out of diapers. Went to the store with Nicky. Don’t freak out. Love you honey. 

Panic now abated, you drop the phone back onto your chest. You should probably get up and do something, anything . There was no shortage of chores to do around the house. Laundry to fold. Dishes to wash. You were due for a pumping session too. But try as you might, and admittedly you don’t try very hard, you can’t bring yourself to disturb the peace. So you stay on the couch, drifting in and out of sleep.

You must have fallen asleep again, because sometime later you’re startled awake by the click of the front door. 

“Bradley?” you mumble, rubbing the heel of your hands into your eyes. 

“Hey, honey.” He kicks the door shut behind him. “Sleep okay?” 

“Yeah.” You stretch. “Freaked me out a little when I woke up and you guys were gone.”

Bradley kisses your forehead and flicks a lamp on. “Sorry, baby. Didn’t mean to, but I didn’t wanna wake you up.”

You draw in a sharp breath when you see him. He’s looking sinful in a pair of jeans and a dark blue Henley. A backwards baseball cap rests atop his unruly hair. Your eyes flit over his body, head to toe. He prattles on about his errand, completely unaware of the fact that you’re currently undressing him with your eyes.

Somehow, at this moment, he’s the hottest he’s ever been. 

“Got more diapers. They’re in the car. I wanted to bring Nicky in first and get him settled. He fell asleep on the drive back. He got a compliment from the lady at the register. Honestly I think all this attention is starting to go to his head. Can’t help that he’s so cute though, he got it from you. I also got more onesies, cuz I saw them in Target and couldn’t help it. Oh and those peanut butter cups that you like from Trader Joes, and…” He trails off, catching you staring. “What?” 

“Babe,” you mumble, still in your lust-fueled trance. 

“Yeah?” Bradley’s eyebrows knit together. 

“C’mere.” 

He sets Nicky’s carseat down gently. “You’re looking at me weird. Did I do something wrong?” He asks, moving over to you slowly. 

You shake your head. “You let me take a nap, and you went to get diapers without me asking you to.”

“Uh huh. So?” He looks down at you, lips pursed. “I still don’t understand why you’re looking at me like that.” 

You don’t answer. Instead, you grab the waistband of his jeans and pull him towards you. 

“Whoa, baby.” Bradley stumbles forward. His hand covers your fumbling ones. “What are you doing?” 

Your tongue darts out to wet your bottom lip. “What does it look like I’m doing?” You undo his belt and pop the button of his jeans. 

“I mean it looks like you’re about to–” his gaze flits to where Nicky rests still fast asleep in his carseat. “Suck my dick,” his voice comes out in a hoarse whisper. “Wait, right here? Shouldn’t we move–”

There was definitely logic in his words, but it didn’t really register at the moment. The only thing on your mind was him . Emerald tinted lenses colored your world. Greed plain and simple. For the taste of him. For the weight of him on your tongue. For the sound of his throaty groans to fill the air. 

“Bradley,” you whisper, lips following the trail of dark hair down his stomach to where it disappears into his elastic waistband. 

Your husband swallows thickly. “Yeah, honey?” 

You free his cock from his boxers. “Stop talking.” 

“But, sweetheart– oh fuck .” Bradley runs a hand over his face. 

“Let me return the favor.” You shush him. 

“You don’t have to do–” Bradley chokes as you swipe your tongue over his hip bone. “ Shit . Okay, yeah.” 

You spit into your palm and stroke him slowly. He’s halfway there, but getting harder with each languid flick of your wrist. You sink your teeth into his thigh and he groans throatily. The noise settles deep into your stomach, pulsing against your clit. 

You missed this. The heady paradox of being on your knees, yet having Bradley completely at your mercy. Making him feel good. Pulling him apart piece by piece. 

You mouth at the base of his cock, tongue laving at the underside of it. Bradley rests a hand at the nape of your neck. There’s no force behind the gesture, it’s more like he’s anchoring himself than pushing you further onto him.

“Fuck, baby.” His eyes are squeezed shut, jaw slack, and lips slightly parted. “ Christ. ” He rocks his hips forward into your hand. 

A wordless plea. You know what he’s asking for. Your mouth slides up his shaft slowly, and you swirl your tongue around the head, still pushing, still teasing. It’s only when Bradley moans brokenly that you decide to have mercy on him. 

Your lips part, and you swallow him down slowly. His head tilts forward and he lets out a breathless whisper of your name that has you squeezing your thighs together as your clit throbs. 

Bradley’s a perfect picture of debauchery above you. Shoulders drooped and leaning over you slightly. His face is flushed, eyebrows screwed together. The veins on his neck and arm bulge prominently. His grip on your neck tightens, and he gently guides you forward. 

You take as much as you can handle, stroking what you can’t fit into your mouth. Your jaw aches from the lack of practice. But it’s worth every bit of discomfort to hear the moans and praises he levels your way. 

“Your mouth feels so goddamn good, honey,” he whispers, when his cock hits the back of your throat. “Just like that, baby. Such a good girl. You’re doing so good. Keeping going, sweetheart.”

Your hand drifts downward of its own accord, and dips into the waistband of your leggings. You rub insistent circles into your clit to relieve the ache. It’s been so long, you think you could come from this alone.

“Look at you getting off,” he says, hazel eyes blazing into your own. “Wish you could see how pretty you look with my dick in your mouth, baby,” he mumbles, lazily thrusting forward.

Bradley cups your jaw, thumb rubbing over your cheek where he can feel his cock moving. He rolls his hips forward again, biting his bottom lip as he watches your lips stretch to accommodate him. 

“Pretty girl,” he coos, brushing your hair out of your face so he can see you better. “Taking me so well. Gonna make me come.”

You moan, and Bradley chuckles.

“That what you want? Want me to come down your throat?” 

You blink up at him, pleading with watery eyes. You wanted it more than anything. 

“Yeah? Gonna swallow every drop, like a good girl?” The thought sends a shudder down his spine. “My good girl. Won’t last long with you looking at me like that.” 

That’s the plan . 

You move the hand on his thigh around to gently squeeze his balls, and Bradley thrusts forward sharply.

“ Shit –sorry, baby.” His thumb brushes at the newly shed tears that track down your face. “You okay?” The fire in his eyes dies slightly as he searches your gaze for any sign of pain or reluctance to continue. 

Instead the only thing he finds there is hunger and greed. 

This time when you squeeze, you’re ready for his reaction. You take his next roll of his hips easily. And the next, and the next. Letting Bradley gently fuck your face. He was close, you could tell by the slur of his words, the inconsistent buck of his hips. 

“Goddammit,” Bradley says through gritted teeth. His fingers snag into your hair, tugging at the nape. “Gonna fucking kill me, honey.” His chest heaves with shallow breaths. “‘M gonna come, sweetheart. You ready for me?” 

Please, oh please . Your thoughts chant, words blurring into a slurry. You hope your eyes convey the desperation you feel. 

Bradley’s eyes roll into the back of his head. He bites his pointer finger, trying to muffle the shameless groan he lets out as he unravels. 

You take all he gives, and he gives you so much. His cum coats your throat, and you swallow as much as you can, but you have to pull away for air. The last dribbles of his cum paint your lower lip and drip down your chin. You tilt your head back and stick your tongue out to show off your empty mouth. 

Bradley stares at you, eyes crossed and unfocused. He pushes his hat off and runs a hand over his face and through his hair. “Holy shit,” he mutters. “Fuck, baby.” 

He swipes at your lip, smearing the cum and spit into your skin. “Don’t look at me like that.” 

“Like what?” You smirk. 

“All innocent and shit.” Bradley pushes his ring finger into your mouth. “I’ll fuck you right here.” 

You clean the digit off with your tongue and pull away with a pop . “You promise?” You arc an eyebrow up.

“Fuck.” He leans down and gives you a kiss that leaves your toes curling. “Give me five minutes to put Nicky in bed, and I’ll be right back.” He whispers. 

You lean back and peel your shirt from your body. “ Tick tock .” 

Bradley bites his bottom lip, eyes sliding hungrily over your body. “Don’t go anywhere.” He points a stern finger at you. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” you chuckle. “Hurry up so you can fuck me.” 

He grabs the carseat, and still manages to be gentle despite his obvious excitement. “Five minutes, baby, I promise.” 

Bradley’s never one to break a promise. 

[yes-divine-ruler]

Can I request rory monohan and fem reader smutt. In this scenario they are both actors and the reader visits him on set. She waits in his trailer until the day is over, getting ready. Rory had recently suggested making a tape with the reader. When he returns they make the tape, smutt (obviously), a lot of extreme degrading and dirty talk for the camera (rory has one of those old home video cameras), a lot of the reader exaggerating their actions for the camera and so on.

I guess this could be used as a base for an Evan fic BUT this is based around my idea of Rory being sort of naive and air-headed and being a guy whose really into porn scenarios.

Please have fun with this idea and go extreme to the max, excited to see what you make of this 💗

Rory Monahan (Evan Peters in AHS Roanoke) x Fem!Reader Smut - “My Little Pornstar” (18+)

i haven’t actually got rory in my character list but I rlly wanted to write this so I hope it lives up to ur expectations 🥺

CW: dirty degradation, porn shooting, oral (m receiving), cream pie, unprotected penetrative sex, fingering

Word count: 1864

"Hey baby, how much money do you think we could get from a sex tape?" Rory had asked once while the two of you sat on the sofa in your high rise apartment in Los Angeles.

You only laughed, thinking that his question was inconsequential, until you answered.

"Probably a few grand."

"You think? I think way more than that, look at us, we're such a hot couple." Rory tackled you down onto the sofa, peppering your face with kisses as you laughed at his conceitedness.

You didn't think that he'd keep bringing it up after that. He was so adamant on this sex tape, that he suggested you'd film one at almost every meal, until you finally caved, and watched him as he fist pumped the air in victory.

You didn't mind being seen on film, even if it was while you shared an intimate moment with your partner. Rory's camcorder was so outdated that you didn't think that anyone could even make out your face if it was filmed on it. The resolution was so shoddy, any video he tried to take always came out grainy.

Your compliance had led to you doing your make up in Rory's film trailer. He was on set, filming his next tv series, when he'd suggested that now was the right time to do it. The spontaneous nature of your impending sex tape almost made it more thrilling.

When your make up was finished, you did a once over in front of the mirror, scrutinising your reflection for any faults in your work. Your eyes wondered over to Rory's film camera, perched on the table behind you. You wondered that despite all the thrill, if you really wanted to go through with it. He could always film it, and if you weren't comfortable, you could keep it for your own viewing pleasure, if that's what you ended up deciding. Having options eased your anxiety, and just in time, Rory swung open the door of his trailer.

"Well if it isn't my little porn star," he purred, turning immediately to the camera and flipping open the screen.

"How was set?" You asked, looking over again at the mirror and fixing a strap of your lingerie. Rory thought that if you wore red lace it would compliment his hair colour.

"Good, all I could think about was this though," he came towards you with his camera, crouching down to set it on the vanity in front of you. You watched as he adjusted the angle, using the mirror to get the placement right.

"I'm kinda nervous Rory," you confessed, pouting as he turned to you with a frown, cupping your cheeks in his hands.

"You'll do great baby, we'll do great, it'll be fine," he reassured you, pulling your head forwards to plant a quick kiss on your lips.

"Okay, you ready? You remembered how we planned it? I've taken the viagra," He said, standing in the middle of his trailer and luring you over with outstretched arms. You nodded reluctantly, getting up and striding over to him in six inch heels.

"It's filming now but- we'll cut out this part, or maybe, we leave it in for authenticity," he rambled, grabbing you by the hips, the smile on his face wide as he looked at you.

"Shut up and let's get this over and done with," you teased, pulling him in by the collar of his plain t-shirt and pressing your lips to his.

Rory didn't hold back, pulling you closer to him so your chests were pressed together, tilting his head to deepen the kiss. Your fingers tangled in his short hair, your tongue begging to enter his warm mouth. Almost in an instant, you'd forgotten the camcorder was there, and it felt like every other time you'd expressed your carnal desire for one another.

His hand ran up your back, to the nape of your neck, his fingers grabbing a hold of the ends of your hair. He jerked your head away, a gasp leaving your lips from his roughness, as he forced you down on your knees.

With one hand still in your hair, his other worked at the zip on his jeans, pulling down his boxers next to reveal his already aching erection to you.

"Now be a good girl, and take my cock in that pretty little mouth of yours," he said, running his tip along your soft lips. You nodded graciously, wrapping your hand around the base of his cock, and guiding it towards your open mouth.

You sucked softly on the tip, moaning loudly as you tasted his pre cum, sure to make sure the camera pick up every one of your euphoric noises.

"Oh, just like that, such a little fucking whore," Rory groans, pushing your mouth further onto him, taking almost all of it in your mouth. You tried to withheld your gags, as his tip brushed the back of your throat.

“Gag on it, I wanna hear it,” Rory seethed, his grip on your hair only getting tighter. You whimpered, looking up at him through wet lashes, as he continued to pound his cock into your mouth. He watched you with shuttering eyes as you took his hard length in his mouth, seamlessly leaving it costing in your saliva. You enjoyed giving Rory head; especially when he was rough, you fed off every grunt and every “fuck”, knowing that you were making him feel like he was on cloud nine.

“My god I need to fuck you right now,” he groaned, pulling his cock from your mouth and pulling you to stand. You didn’t get a chance to catch a breath, before he pushes you over to the vanity, right in front of the camera. He bends you over the table top, your ass in the air, as he unclips your lingerie from the middle. It pulls apart in two pieces, your already soaking wet folds on display for him to now marvel at.

Rory crouches down, now face level with your pussy, his fingers reaching out to rub against your swollen clit. You let out a moan of pleasure, as he touches you, his finger toying at your entrance.

“So fucking wet, you like it rough don’t you?” He asks harshly, before plunging a finger inside you, his knuckle grazing your folds. You let out a gasp as he adds another finger, moving them in and out of you at a steady speed. Your fingers grasp at whatever they can, as your eyes screw shut, stars painted across the inside of your eyelids.

“Oh fuck baby,” you breathe out, a whine escaping your lips as his fingers suddenly leave you. Everything was moving so fast, but you craved for his well-endowed length as much as he craved to give it to you.

Before Rory stands, his spreads your folds with his thumbs, spitting directly on your opening. The fire in your lower abdomen burned with passion as he stood, grabbing onto his length and positioning his tip at your entrance.

“How bad do you want it?” He asks, his tip running against your slit teasingly.

“So fucking bad, please Rory, I need you,” you plead pathetically, your face almost directly in front of the camera.

Rory doesn’t wait another moment, pushing his tip inside you, immediately stretching out your walls. He lets out a low groan, as he grips onto your hips, his fingers digging into your skin, only pushing himself further inside you. When he was all the way in, he slowly pulled out. Waves of bliss pulsed through your body from the stimulation on your core, making sure to part your lips and clench your eyes shut for the film, so everyone else knew how good it felt.

“You’re so fucking tight, such a needy cunt between your legs,” Rory said, more to himself, as he thrusts all the way back in slowly.

Suddenly, he picks up pace, moving you back onto his cock by your hips as he rocks all the way in, and all the way out again. Soon he was pounding into you to the beat of a silent drum, every thrust enticing loud moans and profanity from the pair of you.

His head hung back in pleasure as his lips parted, enjoying the feeling of being inside you, feeling you contract around him in titillation. It was an undeniably good feeling, having sex with Rory, but also knowing you could watch back on it later, that the moment didn’t have to end and could be on a continuous loop at your fingertips.

“You like when I fuck you like that?” Rory asks seductively, his thrusts slowing for only a moment as he awaited an answer.

You whimpered at the loss of traction, reaching behind you to try and pull him back into you. He only chuckled, moving his body away from your searching hand.

“Yes, please, more,” you choke out, your head falling forwards in desperation as Rory then continues to pound into you. His hand snaked around to your front, his fingers making contact with your throbbing clit and rubbing small circles.

Reaching behind you, you spread your cheeks and arched your back to help drive Rory’s cock in farther. The deep penetration sent your body into overdrive, falling into a moaning mess, feeling every push up against your g spot.

“That it baby, spread out for me, I wanna feel you cum around my cock,” Rory’s lips were by your ear, whispering words of dirty encouragement to you as you felt yourself approaching your sweet release.

With Rory massaging your engorged clit, and his balls slapping against your dripping pussy with every fast, deep thrust the knot in your stomach finally untied. Gushing around him, Rory let out a low growl, feeling every contraction and working you through your orgasm.

“That’s it baby, fucking cum for me,” he nipped at your earlobe, your legs shaking as you tried to take his last few thrusts before his own release.

“Gonna cum,” Rory said briefly, his fingernails digging into the skin of your hips as he finally met with his climax, his warm load coating your pulsing walls.

He pulled out shortly after, hastily reaching for the camcorder, as you remained bent over the vanity, breathless, feeling like you’d just had the best sex of your entire life. Rory crouched down behind you again, his camcorder viewing his semen as it dripped from your exposed core, down the inside of your thigh, mixed with your own arousal.

He turned off the video, pacing over to his laptop on his desk, pulling up his pants as he walked.

“That’s a wrap baby!” He said excitedly, earning a small defeated laugh from you.

You finally stood up, taking a deep breath of composure, following him over to his desk and taking a seat in his lap.

He reached around you to plug in his camcorder, pulling up the footage of your prior activities, waiting for it to transfer over.

“Now we get to watch it,” he said, pressing soft kisses to your neck, “you were so good, my little pornstar.”

Taglist/ @v-love @evanpetersfav @demxnicprxncess @kitwalkersgfff @quicksilversg1rl @dahmevan @charsdunkie @iruzias @alexxavicry

[emilysbader]

MUSICAL THEATRE APPRECIATION WEEK day four: favourite movie musical/pro-shot: KINKY BOOTS

We're the same, Charlie boy, you and me.

[satansjit]

Reflections on the Color of My Skin

By Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

My colleague had other encounters with the law that he shared later that night, but his first story started a chain reaction among us. One by one we each recalled multiple incidents of being stopped by the police. None of the accounts were particularly violent or life-threatening, although it was easy to extrapolate to highly publicized cases that were. One of my colleagues had been stopped for driving too slowly. He was admiring the local flora as he drove through a New England town in the autumn. Another had been stopped because he was speeding, but only by five miles per hour. He was questioned and then released without getting a ticket. Still another colleague had been stopped and questioned for jogging down the street late at night.

As for me, I had a dozen different encounters to draw from. There was the time I was stopped late at night at an underpass on an empty road in New Jersey for having changed lanes without signaling. The officer told me to get out of my car and questioned me for ten minutes around back with the headlights of his squad car brightly illuminating my face. Is this your car? Yes. Who is the woman in the passenger seat? My wife. Where are you coming from? My parent’s house. Where are you going? Home. What do you do for a living? I am an astrophysicist at Princeton University. What’s in your trunk? A spare tire, and a lot of other greasy junk. He went on to say that the “real reason” why he stopped me was because my car’s license plates were much newer and shinier than the 17-year-old Ford that I was driving. The officer was just making sure that neither the car nor the plates were stolen.

Among my other stories, I had been stopped by campus police while transporting my home supply of physics textbooks into my newly assigned office in graduate school. They had stopped me at the entrance to the physics building where they asked accusatory questions about what I was doing. It was 11:30 p.m. Open-topped boxes of graduate math and physics textbooks filled the trunk. And I was transporting them into the building, which left me wondering how often that scenario shows up in police training videos.

We went on for two more hours. But before we retired for the night we searched for common denominators among the stories. We had all driven different cars—some were old, others were new, some were undistinguished, others were high performance imports. Some police stops were in the daytime, others were at night. Taken one-by-one, each encounter with the law could be explained as an isolated incident where, in modern times, we all must forfeit some freedoms to ensure a safer society for us all. Taken collectively, however, you would think the cops had a vendetta against physicists because that was the only profile we all had in common. In this parade of automotive stop-and-frisks, one thing was for sure, the stories were not singular, novel moments playfully recounted. They were common, recurring episodes. How could this assembly of highly educated scientists, each in possession of the PhD—the highest academic degree in the land—be so vulnerable to police inquiry in their lives? Maybe the police cued on something else. Maybe it was the color of our skin. The conference I had been attending was the 23rd meeting of the National Society of Black Physicists. We were guilty not of DWI (Driving While Intoxicated), but of other violations none of us knew were on the books: DWB (Driving While Black), WWB (Walking While Black), and of course, JBB (Just Being Black).

None of us were beaten senseless. None of us were shot. But what does it take for a police encounter to turn lethal? On average, police in America kill more than 100 unarmed black people per year. Who never made it to our circle? I suspect our multi-hour conversation would be rare among most groups of law-abiding people.

As I compose this, about 10,000 chanting protestors are filing past my window in Manhattan. And because of the intermittent looting and related violence, the curfew for this evening has been pushed earlier, to 8 p.m., from 11 p.m. in the preceding days. The most common placard was “Black Lives Matter.” Many others simply displayed the name George Floyd, who was handcuffed face-down on the street with a police officer’s knee on the back of his neck, applied with a force of at least half the officer’s body weight, resulting in his death. Curious irony that NFL star Colin Kaepernick offered a simple demonstration of care and concern for the fate of black people in the custody of police officers, by taking a knee during the Star Spangled Banner before football games. (One media outlet mangled the moment by describing him as protesting the national anthem.) The outrage against his silent act of concern for a national problem persisted through the 2017 season when, as a free agent, he went unsigned by any team to continue his livelihood.

So, we went from a peaceful knee to the ground to a fatal knee to the neck.

The way peaceful protesters and the press are being shoved, maced, tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, and tackled in the streets of our cities (when the police should have focused on arresting the looters) you would think the protestors were doing something illegal or un-American. But, of course, the U.S. Constitution has something to say about it:

Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom … of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Which amendment was that? The First Amendment. So, the founders of this nation felt quite strongly about it, empowering one to declare that protesting for redress of grievances is one of the most American things you can do. If you are the police, pause and reflect how great is the country whose Constitution endorses peaceful protests.

What do we actually expect from our police officers? To protect the peace and arrest the bad guys, I presume. But also, to be armed with lethal force that they can use when necessary. That part clearly requires training on how and when to use (and not use) the power of your weapons. The rigorous Minneapolis Police Academy training lasts 4 months. The slightly more rigorous NYC Police Academy lasts 6 months.

Yet to become a certified pastry chef at a prestigious culinary academy requires 8 months. The perfect croissant demands it. So maybe, just maybe, police recruits could benefit from a bit more training before becoming officers.

In 1991, Rodney King (age 25) was struck dozens of times, while on the ground, by four LAPD officers, with their batons, after being tased. The grainy 1990s video of that went media-viral, inducing shock and dismay to any viewer.

But I wasn’t shocked at all.

Based on what I already knew of the world, my first thought was, “We finally got one of those on tape.” Followed by, “Maybe justice will be served this time.” Yes, that’s precisely my first thought. Why? Since childhood my parents instilled in me and my siblings, via monthly, sometimes weekly lessons, rules of conduct to avoid getting shot by the police. “Make sure that when you get stopped, the officer can always see both of your hands.” “No sudden movements.” “Don’t reach into your pockets for anything without announcing this in advance.” “When you move at all, tell the officer what you are about to do.” At the time, I am a budding scientist in middle school, just trying to learn all I can about the universe. I hardly ever think about the color of my skin—it never comes up when contemplating the universe. Yet when I exit my front door, I’m a crime suspect. Add to this the recently coined “White Caller Crime,” where scared white people call the police because they think an innocent black person is doing something non-innocent, and it’s a marvel that any of us achieve at all.

The rate of abuse? Between one and five skin-color-instigated incidents per week, for every week of my life. White people must have known explicitly if not implicitly of this struggle. Why else would the infamous phrase, “I’m free, white, and 21” even exist? Here is a compilation of that line used in films across the decades. Yes, it’s offensive. But in America, it’s also truthful. Today’s often-denied “white privilege” accusation was, back then, openly declared.

The deadly LA riots associated with the Rodney King incident are often remembered as a response to the beating. But no. Los Angeles was quiet for 13 months afterward. Everyone had confidence, as did I, that the video was just the kind of evidence needed to finally bring about a conviction in the abuse of power. But that’s not what came to pass. The riots were a response to the acquittal of the four officers in the incident, and not to the incident itself. And what is a riot if not the last act of helpless desperation.

The 1989 film by Spike Lee “Do the Right Thing,” which explored 1980s black-white-police tensions in Brooklyn, New York, ends with a dedication to the families of six people. Eleanor Bumpers (age 66), Michael Griffith (age 23), Arthur Miller (age 30), Edmund Perry (age 17), Yvonne Smallwood (age 28), and Michael Stewart (age 25). All are black. One was killed by a white mob. The rest were unarmed and shot by police or otherwise died while in police custody. All deaths occurred within the 10 years preceding film, and all occurred in New York City. None of the police-induced deaths resulted in convictions, as continues to be true for 99% of all police killings.

We know of these events because they each ended in death. But even so, back then, it was just local news. Was this just NYC’s problem? I asked myself. But for every police-related death anywhere, how many unarmed victims are shot by police and don’t die, or are wrongfully maimed or injured? Most of those cases didn’t even make the local news. But if you lived there, you knew. We all knew. For what it’s worth, NYC now has the lowest police-caused death rate per capita among the sixty largest cities in the US. Is it that extra two months training in the Police Academy?

The corrosion and ultimate erosion of our confidence in the legal system in cases such as these, even in the face of video evidence, has spawned a tsunami of protests. With sympathetic demonstrations across the United States and around the world. If the threat of prison time for this behavior does not exist—acting as a possible deterrent—then the behavior must somehow stop on its own.

Some studies show that the risk of death for an unarmed person at the hands of the police is approximately the same no matter the demographics of who gets arrested. Okay. But if your demographic gets stopped ten times more than others, then your demographic will die at ten times the rate. I suppose we first have to get the bias factor down to zero, but then there’s still the matter of police killing unarmed suspects, white people included.

I talk a lot. But I don’t talk much about any of this, or the events along this path-of-most-resistance that have shaped me. Why? Because throughout my life I’ve used these occasions as launch-points to succeed even more. Yes, I parlayed the persistent rejections of society, which today might be called micro-aggressions, into reservoirs of energy to achieve. I learned that from my father, himself active in the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s.

In a way, I am who I am precisely because countless people, by their actions or inactions, said I could never be what I am. But what if you don’t have this deep supply of fuel? What becomes of you? Who from historically disenfranchised communities, including women, LGBTQ+, and anybody of color, are missing—falling shy of their full potential because they ran out of energy and gave up trying.

Are things better today than yesterday? Yes. But one measure of this truth is a bit perverse. Decades ago, unarmed black people getting beaten or killed by the police barely merited the local news. But now it’s national news—even breaking news—no matter where in the country it occurs.

So how to change all this? Organizations have surely assembled demands for police departments. Here, I offer a list of my own, for policy experts to consider:

Extend police academies to include months of cultural awareness and sensitivity training that also includes how not to use lethal force.

Police officers should all be tested for any implicit bias they carry, with established thresholds of acceptance and rejection from the police academy. We all carry bias. But most of us do not hold the breathing lives of others in our hands when influenced by it.

During protests, protect property and lives. If you attack nonviolent protesters you are being un-American. And you wouldn’t need curfews if police arrested looters and not protesters.

If fellow officers are behaving in a way that is clearly unethical or excessively violent, and you witness this, please stop them. Someone will get that on video, and it will give the rest of us confidence that you can police yourselves. In these cases, our trust in you matters more to a civil society than how much you stick up for each other.

And here’s a radical idea for the Minneapolis Police Department—why not give George Floyd the kind of full-dress funeral you give each other for dying in the line of duty? And vow that such a death will never happen again.

Lastly, when you see black kids, think of what they can be rather than what you think they are.

Respectfully Submitted

Neil deGrasse Tyson — trying hard to Keep Looking Up.

Copyright © 2018 Neil deGrasse Tyson

[roronoasanjii]

An Ultimate Guide to the One Piece Anime (+ Movies, Specials, Live Action, & More)

So I know this has probably already been done a million times before but after having just finished a re-watch of the series I found that having a checklist like this came in incredibly helpful for navigating my way through the show.

I hope that this guide might make the series seem a little less daunting to those wishing to tackle it, or even tempt those who have been putting it off to give it a go.

If by the end of this post I can persuade some of you to try this truly incredible piece of anime history (and present I suppose) then I’ll be happy.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This guide is spoiler-free and care has been taken in selecting GIFs which fit this criteria so don’t fret and enjoy ;)

So here we go:

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A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

One Piece began airing on October 20th, 1999 and is still going to this day.

The manga, written and drawn by Eiichiro Oda, celebrated it’s 1000th chapter on January 4th, 2021 and is still releasing. You can read the manga on the same day it releases in Shounen Jump Magazine in Japan on the Viz website and the Shounen Jump app.

The One Piece anime is available on Funimation, Crunchyroll, and Netflix Japan.

Funimation does not license One Piece for the UK & Europe which therefore makes both the series and the dub unavailable in these territories.

Thankfully though, on February 22nd, 2020 Crunchyroll announced that they were expanding the One Piece franchise to the UK, Europe, and MENA with both Episodes 1-325 and the currently airing Wano Country Arc being added to the websites of these territories.

The Wano Country Arc is released on the Crunchyroll website at 2AM GMT every Saturday, one-hour after the episode airs in Japan.

It is also important to note that there are two versions of the One Piece anime available: the original aired version and the ‘Special Edition’.

The Special Edition is the version I would firmly recommend you watch the series in as the difference in quality is astounding. Instead of grainy 4:3 you get fullscreen, colourful, grainless shots with improved animation in HD. Crunchyroll has this version in the following territories (USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Latin America).

- - - - - -

THE SUB

The sub is the only complete version of the show available (see below for information about the dub’s progress) making it a great way to watch the series.

A lot was different back in 1999 when One Piece began airing. TV screens were smaller, technology was crap, audio recording devices weren’t great, and animation had yet to turn digital.

Most of the cast where in their early to mid-thirties when the show began and so in the sub you can hear the seiyuus grow with their characters over the years. You can also hear the evolution of technology around them which is quite cool too.

- - - - - -

THE DUB

4Kids

The One Piece anime was originally released in the west under the 4Kids company who provided the original dub. The series was ran from 2004-2006 with Romance Dawn to Ruluka Island Arc being dubbed.

The dub has become infamous due to it’s severe (and quite often hilarious) censorship, but problematically it also changed scenes and even cut entire arcs from the manga. It is not recommended to watch this version for this reason.

Funimation

Funimation purchased the license after this and continued the dub from this point onwards with the first arc with the new voice actors being the Jaya Arc before going on to re-dub the original 143 episodes of the series before this point too.

Due to 4Kids originally holding the rights the English cast were introduced to their characters at Episode 144 and dubbed from this point onwards before going back to re-dub the original episodes in the show. This makes the One Piece sub the only version of the series where the cast voiced their characters in chronological order as the show aired.

The Funimation dub would later go onto hiatus after completion of the Fish-Man Island Arc.

On October 20th, 2019, Funimation released a video on their YouTube channel announcing that the One Piece dub would be returning starting right up from where they’d left off at Episode 575 at the Z's Ambition Arc.

The Funimation dub is ongoing with episodes being released first to buy on their digital storefront as Voyages and later onto the Funimation website to stream.

As of December 27th, 2022, the Funimation dub has reached Wano meaning that both the sub and the dub are currently in the same arc!

- - - - - -

BUT WHICH IS BETTER SUB OR DUB?

As someone who has seen the entire show in both sub and dub numerous times I hate this question and the reason I do is because I honestly love both just as much as each other.

Both casts are brilliant in their roles, both casts brought me to tears in the emotional scenes.

Watching the show subbed and dubbed are two different experiences, which is great because it’s two for the price of one. If you come to love this show then honestly give both a go and you’ll see what I mean.

- - - - - -

EAST BLUE SAGA

Our story begins in the peaceful(ish) East Blue where we are introduced to one Monkey D. Luffy a boy who ate the Gomu Gomu no Mi (eng. Gum Gum Fruit) and became a rubberman. His goal in this saga is mainly to find crew members for his pirate voyage to find the One Piece and become King of the Pirates.

This little saga is the absolute bare bones of One Piece and right of the bat you are introduced to the pure genius of Oda’s storycraft. This isn’t an anime/manga which ‘only gets good later on’, no, the core values of the show are presented straight away.

Now the arcs here are pretty short so the East Blue is very easy to binge.

The first episode may seem very slow and a little strange but just get through it and then the good stuff truly starts. Zoro makes his appearance in Episode 2 and from that point on it’s smooth sailing to the Grand Line as we collect Usopp, Nami, and Sanji along the way.

Some of the show’s most memorable moments come from these arcs and it truly is the beginning of the legendary nakamaship we all came to love.

Episodes & Arcs in this saga:

1-3 (Romance Dawn Arc)

4-8 (Orange Town Arc)

9-18 (Syrup Village Arc)

19-30 (Baratie Arc)

31-45 (The Arlong Park Arc)

46-47 (Buggy Filler Arc)

48-53 (Lougetown Arc)

54-61 (Warship Island Arc)

- - - - - -

ALABASTA SAGA

Episodes & Arcs in this saga:

62-63 (The Reverse Mountain Arc)

64-67 (Whiskey Peak Arc)

68-69 (Diary of Koby-Meppo)

70-78 (Little Garden Arc)

79-91 (Drum Island Arc)

92-130 (Alabasta Arc)

131-135 (Post-Alabasta Arc)

- - - - - -

SKY ISLAND SAGA

Episodes & Arcs in this saga:

136-138 (Goat Island Arc)

139-143 (Ruluka Island Arc)

144-152 (The Jaya Arc)

153-195 (Skypiea Arc)

196-206 (The G-8 Arc)

- - - - - -

WATER 7 SAGA

Episodes & Arcs in this saga:

207-219 (The Long Ring Long Land Arc)

220-224 (Ocean's Dream Arc)

225-226 (Foxy's Return Arc)

227-263 (Water 7)

264-278 (Enies Lobby)

279 (Chopperman Special)

280-290 (Enies Lobby Cont.)

291-292 (Boss Luffy Historical Special)

293-302 (Enies Lobby Cont.)

303 (Boss Luffy Historical Special)

304-312 (Enies Lobby Cont.)

313-325 (Post-Enies Lobby)

- - - - - -

THRILLER BARK SAGA

Episodes & Arcs in this saga:

326-335 (Ice Hunter Arc)

336 (Chopperman Special)

337-381 (Thriller Bark)

382-384 (Spa Island Arc)

- - - - - -

SUMMIT WAR SAGA

Episodes & Arcs in this saga:

385-405 (Sabaody Archipelago Arc)

406-407 (Boss Luffy Historical Special)

408-417 (Amazon Lilly Arc)

418-421 (Straw Hat Separation Serial Part. 1)

422-425 (Impel Down)

426-429 (Little East Blue Arc) [Note: This is a set-up arc for the One Piece Film: Strong World movie]

430-452 (Impel Down Cont.)

453-456 (Straw Hat Separation Serial Part. 2)

457-489 (Marineford Arc)

490-491 (Post-War Arc)

492 (Toriko Crossover)

493-516 (Post-War Arc Cont.)

- - - - - -

TIME SKIP

After this we have a time skip of two years.

- - - - - -

THE NEW WORLD

The New World marks the beginning of the second-half of the Grand Line.

- - - - - -

FISH-MAN ISLAND SAGA

Episodes & Arcs in this saga:

517-522 (Return to Sabaody Arc)

523-541 (Fishman Island Arc)

542 (Toriko Crossover) [Note: This is the 2nd part of the crossover with Toriko Episode 51 being the 1st]

543-574 (Fishman Island Arc Cont.)

- - - - - -

DRESSROSA SAGA

Episodes & Arcs in this saga:

575-578 (Z's Ambition Arc) [Note: This is a set-up arc for the One Piece Film: Z movie]

579-589 (Punk Hazard Arc)

590 (Toriko & Dragon Ball Crossover) [Note: This is the 2nd part of the crossover with Toriko Episode 99 being the 1st]

591-625 (Punk Hazard Arc Cont.)

626-628 (Caesar Retrieval Arc)

629-746 (Dressrosa Arc)

- - - - - -

FOUR EMPERORS SAGA

Episodes & Arcs in this saga:

747-750 (Silver Mine Arc)

751-779 (Zou Arc)

780-782 (Marine Rookie Arc)

783-877 (Whole Cake Island Arc)

878-889 (Levely Arc)

890-891 (Pre-Wano Country Arc)

892-894 (Wano Country Arc)

895-896 (Cidre Guild Arc) [Note: This is a set-up arc for the One Piece: Stampede movie]

897-906 (Wano Country Arc Cont.)

907 (Romance Dawn)

908— (Wano Country Arc Cont.)

- - - - - -

And that’s the series up to date!

The next section is about OVA’s, Shorts, Movies, and other One Piece goodies to check.

As a general rule I would suggest watching anything listed below this point last, or at least until you’ve watched a large amount of the series.

- - - - - -

OVA’S & SHORTS

OVA’s

Defeat Him! The Pirate Ganzack Released in 1998 this OVA pre-dates the show and features Luffy, Zoro, and Nami. The seiyuus for these characters are different to those who would later voice the three in the 1999 anime. [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

One Piece Film Strong World: Episode 0 This is the prequel to One Piece Film Strong World. [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

Glorious Island This is the prequel to One Piece Film: Z. [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

One Piece Film: Gold Episode 0 This is the prequel to One Piece Film: Gold. [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

- - -

SHORTS

All three of these shorts can be found on YouTube.

Jango's Dance Carnival [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

Dream Soccer King [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

Take Aim! The Pirate Baseball King [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

- - -

STRAW HAT THEATRE

These are little shorts featuring the Straw Hats, all can be found on YouTube.

Report Time [Sub (✔) | Dub (✔)]

Obahan Time [Sub (✔) | Dub (✔)]

Jingi-nai Time (eng. No Respect Time) [Sub (✔) | Dub (✔)]

Monster Time [Sub (✔) | Dub (✔)]

Chopper Man [Sub (✔) | Dub (✔)]

- - - - - -

SPECIALS

[Note: Chopperman and Boss Luffy Historical Special are classified as specials but as they fall into the series as episodes they are listed there instead]

Adventure in the Ocean's Navel [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

Open Upon the Great Sea! A Father's Huge, HUGE Dream! [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

Protect! The Last Great Performance [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

Episode of Nami [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

Episode of Luffy [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

Episode of Merry [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

3D2Y [Sub (✔) | Dub (✔)]

Episode of Sabo [Sub (✔) | Dub (✔)]

Adventure of Nebulandia [Sub (✔) | Dub (✔)]

Heart Of Gold [Sub (✔) | Dub (✔)]

Episode Of East Blue [Sub (✔) | Dub (✔)]

Episode of Skypiea [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

- - - - - -

MOVIES

As of the making of this post, 15 One Piece movies have been released:

One Piece: The Movie (2000) [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

One Piece: Clockwork Island Adventure (2001) [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

One Piece: Chopper’s Kingdom on the Island of Strange Animals (2002) [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

One Piece: Dead End Adventure (2003) [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

One Piece: Curse of the Sacred Sword (2004) [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island (2005) [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

One Piece: Giant Mecha Soldier of Karakuri Castle (2006) [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

One Piece: The Desert Princess and the Pirates: Adventure in Alabasta (2007) [Sub (✔) | Dub (✔)]

One Piece: Episode of Chopper Plus: Bloom in the Winter, Miracle Cherry Blossom (2008) [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

One Piece Film: Strong World (2009) [Sub (✔) | Dub (✔)]

One Piece 3D: Straw Hat Chase (2011) [Sub (✔) | Dub (X)]

One Piece Film: Z (2012) [Sub (✔) | Dub (✔)]

One Piece Film: GOLD (2016) [Sub (✔) | Dub (✔)]

One Piece: Stampede (2019) [Sub (✔) | Dub (✔)]

One Piece Film: RED (2022) [Sub (✔) | Dub (✔)]

You can view my rankings and reviews for each of them right here!

If you do want to go into these movies completely blind though then I would recommend not reading these until after completion.

- - - - - -

OTHER FUN STUFF TO CHECK OUT

A-RA-SHI : Reborn

A-RA-SHI: Reborn is a song by Japanese boyband Arashi which was released on December 20th, 2019 to celebrate both One Piece and the band’s 20th Anniversaries.

The music video which you can watch here, is animated and includes all of the Straw Hats.

- - -

HUNGRY DAYS

Nissin Foods released numerous commercials featuring famous faces from the world of anime and movies with four of them One Piece themed.

I won’t list the names of the four adverts as there are a LOT of spoilers and references within them so definitely check them out but please wait until you have watched the show before doing so.

All are available to watch on YouTube.

- - -

HUNGRY DAYS x BUMP OF CHICKEN

This five-minute long animation is truly beautiful and the song which accompanies just makes for a perfect watch for any One Piece fan. As stated above it features an astonishing amount of plot points, references, and spoilers so again please watch this after.

YouTube blocks the song on this video, and the official version was taken down by the channel which originally posted it upon release so just type this in on google and you’ll quickly find it. If 2 seconds in this title plate pops up then you have the right one.

- - -

CHARACTER SWAP

Seiyuus for Luffy and Zoro, Mayumi Tanaka and Kazuya Nakai swapped roles for a hilarious YouTube video on the official One Piece JP channel.

The clip from the show they use is from the Wano Arc so obviously please don’t watch unless you’ve already watched the beginning of this arc.

- - -

ONE PIECE’S SEIYUUS

The Japanese cast are amazing, here are some videos featuring them:

One Piece Jump Festa 2022 SUPER STAGE

VIDEO ONE

One Piece Film RED World Premiere

VIDEO TWO

- - -

And last but certainly not least...

ODA’S ARTISTIC GENIUS

Here are some videos of Oda working on colour spreads for the One Piece manga.

VIDEO ONE

VIDEO TWO

- - - - - -

NETFLIX LIVE ACTION

There is even a live action production of One Piece set to release in 2023 with Oda having a huge role in the making of the show and it’s scripts.

Here is the cast announcement:

VIDEO ONE

The Jump Festa 2022 Special Message

VIDEO TWO

& the One Piece: Set Sneak Peek from Netflix Geeked Week 

VIDEO THREE

And if you haven’t already, I highly recommend following the Straw Hat cast on social media as their videos both from their time filming in South Africa, and their time spent visiting each other afterwards are awesome to watch.

Taz Skylar’s instagram is well worth a follow to see the evolution of him learning to kick like Sanji through his taekwondo training.

Plus, you will also come to discover through their social’s just how pure Iñaki Godoy is too :)

- - - - - -

IN CONCLUSION

I love this show/manga (as you can probably tell) and I honestly couldn’t sing it’s praises enough. I know it’s really REALLY long but it is worth it.

One Piece is truly incredible and even if this guide has made you just want to give the manga a go then I’m happy.

I hope this has helped and if you have any questions then feel free to send me an ask.

Thanks for reading!

[novantinuum]

Fandom: Steven Universe

Rating: Teen Audiences (TW: language)

Words: ~3K

Summary: Lars has no idea what he was expecting the moment Steven texted him in the middle of the night to ask if he could come over, but being immediately tackled in an intense vice-grip of a hug the second he opened the door probably wasn’t it.

Set mid SUF.

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten to write Lars’ POV before this, but it was really fun! If you read this and enjoy, I’d greatly appreciate your support through reblogs here, or kudos/comments on AO3. Thank you! <3

____

Besides the quiet lull of the TV and the electric hum of the attic’s rickety old heater, all is silent in the Barriga household. The nighttime streets outside are vacant. Not a soul roams through his section of town, not even the newer Gem arrivals, who thankfully have been informed of humanity’s biologically mandated curfew by now. Sheesh, it’s about time.

After all, silence is peace. And in this day and age, in a world where the barriers between human and intergalactic politics are becoming increasingly blurred by the hour, peace is a gift.

Which is why having free time to play whatever old video games he wants in complete and total solitude at one AM is probably the single thing keeping him sane at this moment.

Lars’ fingers expertly flick at the joysticks of the controller as if by innate memory. It genuinely feels like forever since he’s been able to lose himself for hours in a solo campaign like this, and quite honestly, if given a choice he prefers it to any other leisurely activity. Chatting with his online friends or with that Gem gang of his is fun, sure, and working the counter at his bake shop can often be emotionally satisfying, but pushed too long and any kind of social interaction feels draining. He shifts on his bed, paying little to no attention to the slight chill against his bare chest. He’s pretty sure it’s like, near freezing outside and yet somehow it’s no more an annoyance to him than having to pause to reload an ammo clip in this game. It’s weird. Really weird. But then, at this point everything about his dumb life is.

It’s the Steven effect, he thinks with a soft scoff. Weird practically orbits him and his moms, and inevitably, every person he comes in contact with is brought into the fold. He’s a good kid, though. Don’t get him wrong. Steven always tries his best to be thoughtful when dealing with people he doesn’t understand— even when initially those people just act like dicks in return— and he for one is grateful for that, for the gift of a... a second chance. He knows full well he didn’t deserve it, (he still doesn’t), but he’s grateful.

The kid’s still on his mind when his phone lights up on the nightstand beside him, like the now familiar glow of Gems synchronizing to fuse.

(And goddamnit, does a part of him still balk almost two years later that it’s so normal to be casually relating everyday things to outer space Gem stuff anyways. What is he, with his pink hair and alien friends, the main character of an anime?)

Eyes skirt away from the grainy television set he’s been playing his favorite Immortal Combat on, and glance at the new notification.

Steven, the name at the top of the text reads. Well, lo and behold. The true shounen protagonist himself. Somebody’s ears must have been burning. Though, hmm. Come to think of it, that’s actually unusual. They pass bullshit memes back and forth sometimes, yes, but he never sends him anything this late at night.

Lars frowns, failing to obscure that annoying, instinctual worry that seizes him like the long lost sensation of hunger rising from the pit of his stomach, and scoots forward on his bed to grab his phone. What’s he want at this hour, anyways?

Steven: hey, sorry i know its late but can i come over ?

His frown deepens as he glances down at himself, clad in only a pair of boxers. He doesn’t mind having an unexpected visitor— after all, it’s not like he requires sleep anymore— but he’s not exactly dressed for company, here.

yeah but gimme a mo, he types back. kinda need to put on a shirt

Steven: k

Yawning out of sheer habit, he leans over the other side of the bed and grabs the first decent smelling tee he can find off the floor. It’s got an overlapping triangular emblem on it, a symbol from one of the game series he used to be obsessed with as a kid. He quickly shrugs it and a stray pair of sweatpants on, then returns to his phone.

decent now, he updates him.

The response is almost immediate.

Steven: be there soon

With a heavy inhale, he leans back against the headboard and begins to mentally prepare himself for the passage of One Whole Teenage Boy through the portal in his hair. For the most part he’s grown used to the changes caused by Steven’s literal magic resurrection, but not this. Who the hell knows how his pet lion puts up with it all the time. Quite frankly, how that creature has remained so docile and patient after years of interloping within Steven’s chaotic world of Gems eludes him, ‘cause it sure as hell isn’t a side effect of all the death-defying space voodoo.

Also, he’s like, 97% sure that “docile” and “patient” aren’t words anyone would pick to describe him at any stage of his life, ever.

And yet, yawning in his boredom, Lars waits.

And he waits.

And he waits.

And when eventually he breaks his stubborn streak and dares to check the time on his phone to see how many minutes have elapsed, how many minutes of his thrice-damned maybe infinite lifespan he’s wasted sitting up against the far wall of his room waiting for that kid to tumble right out of the literal inter-dimensional door hidden amidst the curls atop his head, he’s mildly surprised that his first emotional response to this delay is... dare he admits... disappointment.

It’s been nearly fifteen minutes. For whatever unknown reason, it seems as if Steven may not be coming over after all. Huh. He wonders what changed his mind. Pressing his lips into a thin line, Lars decides to check his texts. It’s possible the guy wrote something else and he just didn’t see it. But when he pulls up his latest conversation, all that comes up are the last messages they sent to each other. Be there soon, he said.

He hovers hesitant fingers over the keyboard, caught in the midst of trying to decide whether or not it’s too invasive and prying to send some sort of casual check-in, when he picks up on a very timid knock on the front door downstairs. And given the lateness of the hour, there’s really only one person it could be. He blinks for a moment, his mind still doing somersaults in order to process the mere concept of Steven not gleefully taking the opportunity to explode out of his hair for once in his life, and then drags himself up to his feet. Walks out of his attic room and down the stairs, being careful not to disturb his slumbering parents. Unlatches the locks on the door.

Truth be told he has no idea what he was expecting the moment Steven texted him at one fucking AM to ask if he could come over, but being immediately tackled in an intense vice-grip of a hug the second he opened the door probably wasn’t it.

He struggles not to stumble backwards at the initial force of the teen’s silent yet yearning embrace, eventually regaining his stability and... slowly, delicately... hugging him back. Honestly, he’s never been much of a hugger himself, but eh. He’ll give the guy this one. After a brief moment Lars gives him a few awkward pats, clearing his throat.

“Uh, Steven? You good to let go, now?” he asks quietly, still keeping his voice in a whisper for his parents’ benefit.

“Oh! Y-yeah, yeah,” his younger friend stammers, immediately pulling himself away. His eyes are drawn to the floor as he wrings his hands together. Timid. “Sorry, I just— I just needed somewhere I could clear my head tonight. Thank you, by the way.”

“No problem,” he throws back, gesturing for him to follow up the stairs. “‘S not like I ever sleep a wink now anyways. So I might as well have company.”

The two of them tiptoe towards the attic, a familiar setting for both. Steven’s been in here quite a few times before, so— already knowing the lay of the land— he plops himself down in the beanbag chair Lars keeps at the foot of his bed. They don’t talk about much of anything at first, merely passing back and forth brief updates about their lives. Small talk, nothing more. As expected though, Steven’s update is infinitely more interesting than his. Apparently he went on some mission to an alien planet with that Lapis friend of his the other day and had to deal with the attitude of some stubborn terraformers who didn’t want to stop working on their shitty old Homeworld assignment. (Meanwhile, the only update he has to offer is how he’s teaching Blue Lace Agate the art of bad baking puns while at work. Gotta leave behind some sort of legacy before he leaves with his fellow Off-Colors, of course.)

When the small talk finally dries up, (which seems... uncharacteristic, given the typical enthusiasm of his current visitor), Lars offers him a second controller.

“We can play the go-kart one, if you want,” he says, knowing full well that his friend isn’t a huge fan of all his war-themed combat games. Still, he figures the guy could probably stand to blow off a little steam. He looks super stressed, with his brow all creased and his stare unnervingly glassy.

The sixteen-year-old nods, adjusting his hands around the grips of the controller as Lars switches out the disk.

They race a few rounds in relative quiet, wholly insulated by the reassuring stillness of the night all around them, before Steven decides to open up again.

“Where do you think the line is?” he asks when they finish their current course.

His whole face scrunches in confusion. “Huh?”

“Between like, doing bad things, and outright being bad?” he continues, seemingly unaware of the comedic pulse of Lars’ initial response.

Lars blinks.

Considers these words deeply and thoroughly for a moment, as any good friend should.

And then...

“Where the heck did you pull that question from?”

Steven merely shrugs, his shoulders drooping a bit lower than they had been when he first entered his house a while back. “I dunno, just musing, ‘s all.”

The edges of his mouth curl downwards as he lets this corker of a conversation starter wash over him, not so much intended as a frown at Steven, but a frown at... whatever force of this universe would lead his friend to start musing about such depressing philosophical quandaries in the first place. Acting numb and brooding at the rest of the world is supposed to be his job, not this kid’s! And sure, yes, yes, yes, he knows he can’t exactly call him a kid anymore— at least not to his face— and that he’s been a teenager for a good three years now. It’s just that... well. For all his complaints about it earlier in life, Lars kinda grew to respect and feel uplifted by his cheery, upbeat, never-give-up-hope outlook. Dare he says, he kinda misses it.

(And for Steven’s sake, he kinda hoped he’d never discover the burnout and cynicism waiting on the other side. Alas, he fears that ship has probably sailed.)

“Sorry,” the sixteen-year-old mumbles upon noting his extended silence, his cheeks flushed with shame. “Probably not something anyone wants to think about at two in the morning. Just- forget I said anything, okay? Let’s play one more round, and then I can lea—“

Eyes widening, he holds up a hand to intercept that train of thought. “No, that’s— you asked an interesting question. Deep, but interesting. It’s fine, I don’t mind. I...”

He inhales deep, collecting his wits and whatever years of wisdom he may or may not have accumulated ever since dying and coming back to life.

“I suppose in my mind, people aren’t truly bad unless they intend to cause harm, y’know?” he begins, meeting Steven’s eyes. “You can still hurt others without meaning it, and like... that’s still not great, and you should still try and make up for it however you can, but... life’s complicated. People are complicated. It’s all a huge mess of emotions and ethics and beliefs all the time.”

He pauses, a twinge of melancholy rising within his chest as he catches a glimpse of a photograph hung on one of the wooden support beams at the far wall. It’s a selfie of him and Sadie he printed out a few years back when they were still low-key dating, one that— for the life of him— he can’t bear to take down. She’s kissing his cheek. He’s caught in the middle of laughter, playfully trying to nudge her away. They look... so young.

So naive.

(So human.)

“And sometimes it can be so, so easy to convince yourself that you’re always in the right,” he continues, quieter, “that people feeling hurt because of something you did is just their problem. In that case, it’s not that you wanted to harm anyone, it’s just... that you were blind to it, I guess.”

(And he was blind for a long, long time.)

“Like I said, it’s messy.”

Lars sighs, willfully averting his glance from the photographic reminder of all the ways he ignorantly fucked up with Sadie as a friend and partner, and with everyone in his life, making the same stupid mistakes over and over with nearly no improvement until he literally died to his old self.

“So, yeah. There. I guess that’s my opinion,” he mumbles, absentmindedly fiddling with the collar of his graphic tee. “Everyone makes bad choices sometimes, but you’re not actually a bad person unless you literally want to harm others. I don’t think people are bad once and bad forever, though,” he adds, pulling his hand away from his shirt.

Inhaling deep, he splays his palm wide, admiring those same old loops and whorls at the tips of his fingers, identical in every detail to his old, living, human self... but now pink. It's haunting, sometimes.

“People can change, y’know? If they make the effort to.”

When he finally glances back at Steven, he seems thoroughly spaced out by all his impassioned rambling, his gaze walleyed and void of any identifiable emotion. He scowls, unsure whether or not he should feel offended, and gives an exaggerated shrug to defuse the sickeningly earnest atmosphere out of this room.

“But hey, I’m biased,” he mutters, letting that instinctual, age-old self-depreciation coat his tone once more. “For all I know, everything I said could be absolute bunk, and I’m still just an asshole.”

“I don’t think you’re an asshole, Lars,” Steven finally speaks up, his expression still perplexingly unreadable.

“I—“ His eyes blow wider, the sheer frankness of this comment catching him entirely off guard, overturning all of his once-impenetrable defenses. “...Thank you. I’m trying not to be.”

The conversation doesn’t advance any further from there, both parties content to fade back into the understated comfort of silent companionship. They play a few more rounds of their racing game, Lars beating Steven handily each time. (Truth be told, he’s not confident he’s bringing his A-game, though.) Then, sometime around three AM, his friend drags himself out of the beanbag chair and announces that he should probably head home and get some rest. Apparently he’s got a lot of planning to do for Little Homeschool's graduation ceremony that’s happening in a few days, or whatever. Which, is fair. Not everyone is blessed enough to be a sleepless zombie like him.

“Y’know, it’s been nice, getting to hang out, just us,” Steven says— quiet, but genuine— as Lars leads him back down the stairs. “We should do this more often.”

Purposefully, given the unusual emotional atmosphere of this whole visit, he decides not to mention the fact that he's planning to leave Earth again when his all Gem friends finally graduate. Later, he thinks, when everyone's in a better place.

“Well, if you’re ever bored, you know where to reach me,” he replies as they reach the bottom step, fondly rolling his eyes. “The good ol’ inter-hair-mensional express. Just, y’know— text me. And not during work hours.”

The teen gives his thanks once again, and then exits out the front, making sure to be extra gentle shutting the door on his way out for his parents’ sake. Huh. Seems that even when he’s (seemingly) in a funk, he’s capable of being uber courteous like that. Goodness, how does he do it?

Lars stands motionless at the entryway for a few moments after he’s gone, staring blankly at the now empty space the sixteen-year-old just occupied. His brow furrows, his fingers curling in perplexion at his side. He doesn’t have enough insight into Steven’s inner life to claim anything for sure, but he can’t help but feel like something with that boy was... off, tonight. Like, beyond your standard teenage moodiness. His demeanor, his bizarre and specific question, his relative silence... it all seems to be pointing towards something, lurking in the background. Still, there’s little he can do for a person who’s not volunteering information. And it ain’t his job to drag it out of him, either. He always hated when his parents tried to do that when he was younger, and it almost ruined their relationship entirely. That’s the last sorta scenario he’d want to force upon Steven. He’ll open up when he’s ready, in the end.

And until then... well.

He just hopes that the kid knows that— beyond the bizarre magic portal in that pink lion’s mane— he’s always got a brother on the other side who’s willing to at least listen. To be but a small source of support.

If he wants him to be.

[daisiesforlacey]

clouds - chapter 4 : altostratus

Pair : Julie x Alive!Luke

Summary : After her mother’s death, Julie Molina moved away from Hollywood, across the country, to Ithaca, New York. She’s left behind her two loves in life: her best friend, Luke, and her music. There, she finds new friends and enemies, new experiences and joys, she might even find herself. Every night, Luke calls Julie to talk about the clouds. But what if Luke is hiding something?

Word Court : 4,148

Warnings : N/A (Unless you see any, if so please notify me!)

Notes : This is really just fluff!! I love Alex and Willie, absolute babies. Please please leave feedback, I love knowing my writing is appreciated!!

Masterlist

Taglist

---

Julie didn’t hate English. In fact, it was quite the opposite. She was good with words, they came naturally to her. She seemed to think in sentences, which made writing essays one of the easiest things for her to do in school. Her favorite thing to do was to write songs, and they seemed to be everywhere, in every part of literature: poems were songs without a backing track, metaphors described heartbreak and being alive and feeling free just the way lyrics do, sentences were structured with a sort of reading rhythm, a pulse. She really did enjoy English. 

It was just sometimes, English could be a bore. 

Her teacher was going on and on about the importance of how authors write their stories or tales, and yeah, Julie could get behind that. But right now, as she drew shapes with her eraser on her desk, the monologue was putting her to sleep.

She pushed her loose curls back from where they were casting a curtain over her eyes and looked across the classroom until her mind wandered far enough away to where she couldn’t hear the teacher.

Last night, Luke had seemed weird. Weirder than normal. She wasn’t used to having to pry information out of the boy, he was usually an open book. Her brow furrowed; he had seemed so reluctant to tell her about Reggie and Alex, people she had already met last year. 

And why hadn’t he told her about his family? Emily and Mitch had treated her like their own daughter, always inviting her to stay for dinner and to ‘stop by whenever, you’re no burden,’ and they treated Luke like he had hung the moon. The last thing she had heard about them was a few months ago, when Luke had ranted about how they just didn’t understand them sometimes, but Julie had figured that that was pretty normal. She pursed her lips and thought maybe it had just slipped his mind; she didn’t tell him too much about Carlos’ ghost hunting, or her father’s new photography excursions. 

But she couldn’t help but worry. She and Luke were thick as thieves, they would talk for hours, although that had been cut short as of late, about everything. What if he was hiding something big from her? What had happened to one of his parents? Julie would totally understand his aversion of the topic. 

But what if he and his friends were in trouble? What if they had gotten arrested? What if he was locked away in some juvenile institute where he only had one call a day, and he had used that to call her? What if he had tripped, or fell off of a ladder, or got hit by a car, or done something so completely Luke that he had landed himself in the ICU?

Oh god, what if he was doing drugs! Julie didn’t know if she could handle it if Luke had gone off the deep end. 

“Partners?”

Julie stopped her doodling to look up to her left at the blond. She smiled sheepishly, “Yeah, of course.”

Nick was in two of her classes, music and English, and so far, had proved to be nothing like his girlfriend. He was sweet and smart and all around helpful; he had been her tour guide on the first day of school. She just didn’t understand how someone as nice as him, could end up with such a foil of himself as Carrie. See, she did pay attention. 

“I’m not going to lie, I completely zoned out. What are we doing?” She looked down to see that she had an assignment on her desk.

Nick laughed as he explained the assignment to her, having to do with last night's reading. As they completed it, they chatted.

“Your guitar solo yesterday was pretty killer,” Julie winced, she was yet again picking up more traits of Luke’s, “Did you write that yourself?,”

“Thanks! Yep, I tried to make it Brian May-esque with a hint of Jeremy Spencer. I don’t know if that had translated, though.”

To be honest, Julie didn’t know either. She knew some names here and there, she certainly knew Brian May, but this was more Luke’s territory. And even if she did, she wasn’t exactly paying close attention to it. So she played it safe.

“I think you definitely achieved the vibe you wanted.” Julie scribbled down an answer. She knew he wouldn’t bring up her lack of a performance.

Nick hummed, changing the subject, “You go to the park a lot.” Her eyebrows shot up as his eyes widened. “Oh, um, not to be creepy or anying. Although that really did sound creepy, it’s not like I watch you or where you go. I barely notice you! I mean, no, not like that, well I mean I do notice you, we have classes together. We’re talking, we work on projects, but I guess you know that.” He hadn’t looked up from his paper, if anything, his shoulder seemed to shrink in on themselves. 

“What I meant to say is that I have workouts out there sometimes, and you always seem to be there.” He ran a hand over his face before shooting her a lopsided grin. 

Julie huffed, “Yeah I like to look at the sky a lot. Or sometimes I just go there to clear my head.” She sent a sideways glance his way, she had never heard him rant like that, “Are you okay?”

“For sure. Me? Tip-top shape.” He nodded before flicking his hair back. 

While she didn’t particularly like small talk, yet she somehow felt obligated to continue, “How’s practice been going?”

Nick launched into a full fledged word dump of phrases she didn’t know the meanings of, and didn’t want to interrupt to ask. He became enthusiastically animated, forgetting his work and talking with his hands, seeming to bounce out of the seat. His face shone like the sun in the dreary classroom as he went on to talk about strategies and game plays and how they would win this year's championship if only so and so would tighten up here. She didn’t comprehend half of what he was saying, but she couldn’t help but listen. 

She wondered if that’s what she looked like talking about music.

---

Julie sat down at the piano bench with a sigh. Mrs. Harrison, thankfully, had let her redo her piano piece today, which would hopefully save her spot in the music program. Her class stared at her with disinterest, she knew that they didn’t expect anything, but she was ready to prove them wrong. She had copied down Luke’s song onto sheet music and had set it on the piano, then looked to Flynn. She shot her an ear splitting grin and a rigid thumbs up.

Julie could do this.

She played the opening chords of the song, hearing a few gasps from her classmates. Julie moved her hands up, then down, down, down, then back up. The chord progression was nothing revolutionary, but for her, it was everything. This was Luke’s song. She could see Nick smiling from the corner of her eye. 

“‘Sometimes I think, I’m falling down. I wanna cry, I’m calling out, for one more try to come alive.’” Her voice was strong, and had yet to fail her. Julie had worked on the song before the school day with Flynn’s support. She could feel a smile carving onto her face.

“‘And when I feel lost and alone, I know that I can make it home. Fight through the dark and find the spark.” She could feel pure joy fill her soul, “‘Life is a risk, but I will take it, close my eyes and jump. Together, I think that we can make it. C’mon let’s run!’”

Julie threw her head back, “‘And rise, through the night, you and I, we will fight to shine together, bright forever. And rise, through the night, you and I, we will fight to shine together, bright forever.” These were Luke’s lyrics, about the two of them, about their friendship. She could almost hear him singing along with her. 

Julie could hear Carrie whisper to Nick, “Is this really happening?”

Nick nodded, not taking his eyes off of Julie, “Just go with it.”

“‘In times that I doubted myself, I felt like I needed somе help, stuck in my head with nothing left. I feel somеthing around me now, so unclear, lifting me out. I found the ground I'm marching on!’” Julie nodded her head along with her fingers running across the keys. Luke had been there for her through all of this; her mother’s death, her moving away, her finding new friends. This was their song. 

As she finished playing, she didn’t register what was happening. She stood up and Flynn raced to tackle her in a hug. Her class clapped politely, but she could hear Nick over them all. Maybe she shouldn’t have played such a song like that in front of all of her classmates, but she couldn’t take it back now. Anyway, it seemed like she had done a pretty good job.

Mrs. Harrison set a hand on her shoulder, “That was wonderful! I’m so glad that you have decided to share that with us, what a song!” She spoke in a quieter tone only for Julie to hear, “I’ll email your father later.”

At lunch, Flynn showed her the video that she had taken. It was grainy and a backpack was covering half of the screen, but you could hear her voice ring out. She had Flynn send it to her, to which she then texted it to Luke.

“That was Luke’s song?” Flynn screeched. “All about you two; your friendship, you supporting each other? Where can I order friends like that, because it’s not on Amazon!”

Julie blushed, “Luke and I used to write songs all of the time. And, hey! I’m your supporting friend! You didn’t even have to order me, I was delivered from L.A just for you.”

“True, true. You also have unparalleled math skills.”

“Try telling that to Pythagoras.” 

Julie almost choked on her chicken nuggets as Nick walked over to their table, having to go out of his way to get to their part of the cafeteria. Carrie and the rest of her friends had yet to show up, and Nick had already set his lunch box at his own table. He slid into the seat across from Flynn and Julie. 

“That was amazing! Your performance in music class! If you have a talent like that, why haven’t you used it beforehand!” He unknowingly echoed Luke’s words.

Julie tried to act casual and shrugged stiffly, “I don’t know. It just hasn’t been the right time.” That wasn’t completely a lie. 

“You have to perform at the dance! Literally, you belong on stage. That was pure magic.” Nick’s eyes were wide in disbelief and he had a stunned smile on his face.

Julie froze, “Oh, I don’t know, that was only in front of the other kids in music class-”

“That’s perfect!” Flynn cut Julie off, “You have to!”

Julie gave Flynn the most withering glare she could muster, “I don’t think I’ll be able to come up with a whole set in two weeks. Although, thanks for thinking so. Anyway, they probably already have a band booked and everything.”

Nick shook his head, “Nope, they were just going to get the computer teacher to jerry rig a playlist, or at least that’s what I overheard. And Dirty Candi will also be performing, so I’m sure Carrie wouldn’t mind sharing the stage for a song or two.”

Julie and Flynn shared a glance. There was no way that Carrie would do such a thing. 

But Julie nodded, knowing that she definitely wouldn’t play at the dance, “I’ll think about it.”

---

Alex had had a pretty rough day so far. He had woken up late for school, smashing his hand on his alarm in frustration. The sky was way too light for him to have not slept in. When he saw the time, he quickly moved to put on clothes, hopping into his shorts as he ran to his bathroom to brush his teeth. His hair was a wreck, his eyes were bloodshot, and he had dried drool on his cheek, but before he could fix anything, he heard Reggie’s blaring car horn and a muffled shout.

“Alex! Your friends are here!” His mother yelled from the kitchen. 

He grabbed his jean jacket and an apple from the kitchen, before kissing his mom on the cheek and dashing out the door. He got into the passenger's seat of the blue Honda Civic, taking a bite.

“Wow, you look absolutely terrible.” Reggie said with a low whistle.

Luke punched his shoulder from the back seat, but then ruefully nodded. “You’re not exactly prime Alex right now.”

He glared at the two of them, grumbling around his apple.

Reggie raised an eyebrow, not taking his eyes off of the road because he was a safe driver, thank you very much. “What was that?”

“I said, at least my bad days look better than you guys’ good days.”

Luke let out a hearty laugh, “Sure, like you didn’t just find out how to dress yourself.” Alex had had a… difficult time figuring out what his personal style was. As they moved out of middle school and into high school, everyone seemed to find their signature thing except for him: Luke barely knew what sleeves were, and Reggie wouldn’t be caught dead out of his leather jacket-flannel combo. Alex had tried a few different things but nothing seemed to feel like him. After a few years, he decidedly settled on a few signature items; a pale pink hoodie, a denim jacket, and his fanny pack, which carried around his EpiPen and inhaler along with a few first aid supplies. He quickly found out that Luke’s sudden growth spurt over the summer before junior year came with it’s fair share of clumsiness. 

Alex went to reach for his fanny pack before realizing that he forgot it at his house. “We have to turn around. I left my fanny pack at home.”

Reggie tapped his finger on the steering wheel, “If we do we’ll be late. Again.” He shot a look through his mirror at Luke who gave a timid smile. 

“Please,” Alex whined, drawing out the ‘e,’ “I’ll go pick up a pizza for practice if we do! I promise.”

Reggie mulled it over in his head before swinging a uey, “Fine. But you better not get pineapple on it. That shit’s nasty.”

“It is not!” Luke placed a hand over his heart as if he was Caesar on the Ides of March. “Pineapple on pizza is a gift!”

“No! What’s a gift is my country songs, especially Home is Where My Horse Is. Pineapple is unnecessary and an unholy offense.”

“Puh-leeze, your country songs are the unholy offenses! Don’t even try it!”

Alex just rolled his eyes at them.

Now, Alex was walking downtown to pick up said pizza; half ham and pineapple, half pepperoni. The pizza shop was only a few minutes from his house, and yeah, he could’ve borrowed Reggie’s car, but he needed to clear his head. Twilight was setting in like a blanket over the world. Or at least, his part of the world. There was a slight chill in the air as he gripped his fanny pack slung across his chest with two hands.

The day just kept getting worse. He had failed a Physics test, even after Reggie had helped him study. He spilt chili from his hot dog on his hoodie, leading him to steal one of Luke’s extra shirts he kept in the car, surprisingly one with sleeves. He then proceeded to choke on that same hotdog in front of the whole cafeteria, forcing Luke to perform the Heimlich. And after all of that, his hair still wasn’t even remotely tamed, sticking up in every direction. 

His terrible day wasn’t helped by being crashed into. 

He fell to the ground with a yelp, and so did the skateboarder. The wind was knocked out of him as he tumbled and coughed, before standing up.

“Aw man, you dinged my board.” The other boy said, inspecting his skateboard. 

Alex couldn’t believe him and scoffed. The nerve on some people. “I dinged your board? Dude, you ran me over! You’re lucky I didn’t-”

The skateboarder took off his helmet to reveal locks of soft looking brown hair. Time seemed to slow down, or maybe stop, Alex couldn’t be sure. What he was sure about was that he was one of the most handsome people he had ever seen. He had high cheekbones and warm looking brown eyes and the softest looking lips. Alex was going to hyperventilate if he would ever remember to breathe. 

He swallowed as the boy's eyes softened, “Hey, sorry I ran into you. I thought you could hear me coming.”

Alex let out a nervous laugh, “Yeah, sometimes I just get wrapped up in my head.”

They stared at each other, and he was sure that the skater’s eyes traced him up and down as he stuck his hand out, “I’m, uh, I’m Willie.”

Alex grabbed his hand to shake. Could a handshake really be that attractive? “Oh, uh, Alex.”

“So, um, what brings you to downtown, man? You sightseeing?” Willie gestured up to the brick buildings lining the street.

Alex nodded before letting out a humorless chuckle, “Yeah, actually I was having a minor crisis. I came to pick up a pizza for my friends, but my day has not been too great. I was just trying to clear my head before you tried to crack it open.” He wanted to facepalm, his attempt at small talk was abominable. And why the hell was he telling a complete stranger all of this information? For all he knew, Willie could be a secret spy looking to murder him in a back alley for some reason unbeknownst to him. 

Willie laughed, his eyes crinkling, “I did pancake you, huh?” Alex nodded at the ground, before he heard his laugh die. “Uh sorry, minor crisis?”

“I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed, literally. And my day hasn’t gotten any better, it’s just been mishap after mishap. Shouldn’t we catch a break?”

Willie tilted his head, “Who’s we?”

“Oh, uh, me and my band mates. We all seem to have the worst luck in the world.” Alex shoved his hands in his pockets and chuckled. “Yeah, I almost died eating a hotdog.”

“Woah! No way! Weirdly,” Willie gave him a lopsided smile, “Mozart died eating a hotdog.”

Alex nodded, “Wow, that’s actually comforting. Thank you.” He smiled at Willie, “Hey do you mind if I ask you to tag along to come pick up this pizza? I mean, if you’re busy then obviously don’t, or like, if you have someplace to be. But I mean it’s almost dinner, and you can have some of it, I mean I didn’t pay for it, as long as you like ham and pineapple, because only one of my bandmates like it-”

“Yeah, totally. I don’t have anything on my schedule.” Willie smiled, and Alex knew then that his day had gotten exponentially better.

---

“I love my family, I really do, but I’m so glad that I can come over to your house.” Flynn had flopped on Julie's made up bed, scrolling on her phone, as Julie finished up her homework at her desk. “Like three screaming brothers? No thanks.”

Julie nodded as her phone dinged, “Well you’re always welcome here, you know Dad loves having someone to rant to about his photography.” She checked the message, it was from Luke.

Luke : You killed it! Stabbed-it-in-the-heart killed it! Knew you would :D

Julie rolled her eyes and shot him back a message.

Julie : Thanks for the song! I won’t be able to talk today, Flynn’s spending the night and I don’t want to be rude :(

The three little dots showed up, then disappeared. She frowned. It’s not like they haven’t missed a call before, so she sent him another text.

Julie : Maybe we could facetime and write some songs tomorrow???

When she didn’t get a response she set her phone down and finished the English assignment from earlier. When she finished, she pulled up their favorite show on her laptop, then joined Flynn on her bed. “I thought we could catch up, I missed Sunday’s episode.”

Flynn’s eyes bugged out of her head, as she whipped her neck so hard Julie thought she had gotten whiplash. “You missed it? Oh my god! You know I’m not one for spoilers, but shit went down. Like seriously. You’re going to blow a fuse. We are totally watching it.”

And they did. And Flynn was right. Shit did go down. And Julie totally blew a fuse. Turns out, her favorite ghost boy band characters had gotten themselves trapped in a deal with some other evil ghost: either they play at his club forever or they disappear from existence. It was a lot more emotional baggage than Flynn and Julie had signed up for when they first started watching, but now they were hooked.

“Oh my god, that was such a cliffhanger. How could they do that?” Julie wailed as she threaded her fingers through her hair. “They deserve so much better than this cruel world!”

Flynn nodded solemnly, “And we have to wait until Sunday to see what happens next. Life just isn’t fair.”

Julie hadn’t noticed Luke had texted her back until she got up to use the restroom.

Luke : Ok

Julie scoffed. The response was totally unlike Luke. No, it was totally like Luke when he was in a bad mood that he knew, deep down, was just him being overdramatic. She rolled her eyes and she knew she shouldn’t take it personally, but it still stung. They had told each other everything, even something as menial as a bad day. Whatever, his bad mood wasn’t going to stop her from having a fun night with her friends.

Her father called from downstairs for the two girls to come and eat dinner, and as she raced downstairs, she could smell the microwaved spaghetti. 

They made their way to the set dinner table, before they prayed and dug in.

“I think we’re being haunted.” Carlos started. 

Flynn rolled her eyes, “Nobody has died in this house or mine. It’s nothing like Kira and her Hologram Band.”

Carlos wagged his piece of garlic bread at her, “No, we’re definitely being haunted. By a ghost chef who never got to achieve his dream of making the best French Dip in the world. I have definitive proof.”

“Oh really? And where is this proof?”

“On my iPad.” Carlos made the move to get up from his seat.

“Mijo, eat your salad.” Ray said, then turned to the girl, “How was your day Flynn?”

“Pretty good, Mr.Molina. Julie performed that song that she was working on this morning, and let me tell you, it was amazing!” Flynn gushed.

“I saw the email. I’m glad that we don’t have to go through the options of choosing another elective for you. What were the options? Hospitality and Tourism and Marketing?”

“Yeah, nothing I am remotely interested in.” Julie picked the tomatoes out of her salad. “I think Mrs.Harrison and the class really liked the song, or at least my friends did.”

Flynn nodded, “Especially Nick.”:

Julie paled and fought the urge to elbow her friend. She looked down at her lap.

Carlos’ eyebrows shot up, “Lacrosse Nick?”

Flynn looked skeptical, “...Yes? How do you know about Lacrosse Nick? Floppy hair? Dating a demon?”

“Yeah, he’s an assistant coach for my baseball team. Something about community service and all of that. There’s another Nick on my team, but we call that one Lacrosse Nick. Because, well, that’s all that he talks about.” Carlos explained.

“Yes, it does make you wonder why he doesn’t coach a Lacrosse team, but nevertheless. Julie, how was your day?”

Julie looked up at her father, “About the same. I guess there's a dance in a couple weeks and I was wondering if I could go with Flynn.” She didn’t dare mention the part of her playing. She didn’t want her father as well and Flynn to egg her on. She wasn’t ready to go onstage, by herself, in front of the entire school.

“Of course, as long as it’s alright with her parents.” 

Flynn nodded, responding with a mouthful of spaghetti, making Ray cringe, “Yep, as long as I babysit the next day, they’re totally cool with it.” Flynn looked to Julie, but said nothing of playing the dance. 

--

Taglist: @siennanoelle01, @ scootermccall, @roses-and-ponds-and-bowties​ 

[alexshenry]

Hi Nuria! Hope you're doing well. For the gif maker ask 19,46,47 💕💞💕

Hi Orthy!! Thank you and hope you’re having a lovely day, aswell <333

What is your gifting process like? I have two: If I’m doing a 278px set, I import frame from layers straight from the video I’m using on photoshop, add my colouring, or in the case of 2gether I slap my own psd since it works in every scene, sharpen it, and then I’m done.

But if I’m doing a 540px gif, I use vapoursynth beforehand as it denoises, import it to photoshop, colour it manually, then use topaz denoise 6 on a moderate preset to further denoise it, especially if it’s a big gif; sometimes I’ll also use topaz clean if I want a softer effect but I realised that using it can sometimes make it v grainy. I also sliightly sharpen it again as I like the eyes to look clear bc emotionzz are in the eyes, then flatten the frames to layers and save it. 

Ever gotten a really sweet compliment over a set? Answered here!

Any advice for novice gif makers/people who want to start making gifs? 1. Start small at the beginning. From experience, I tried to do a complicated set for a beginner and was discouraged when it didn’t turn out the way I wanted. Learning the basics first is more important, and then the other advanced things will become easier and less scary to tackle.  2. Keep practicing and don’t be discouraged. I’ve been giffing for ages and I still!! don’t!! know!! how!! to!! blend!! two gifs!! together!! (😭😪) But also, there’s a lot of resources on tumblr - there’s so many tutorials in the tags or even blogs dedicated to photoshop.  3. ASK AWAY!! If you follow someone and they made something you really like and you want to learn, send an ask!! Most of the time that person will be more than willing to help and will be happy you asked.  4. It’s cheesy but have fun!! Keep experimenting and remember that there are different ways to learn and so many methods to it, and soon enough you’ll find your ‘thing.’ There’s never a right or wrong way to making someething, it’s just about what you like and what works for you. 

[the-real-xmonster]

GIF-Making Tips and Tricks

Hello guys, today I’d like to try tackling something different from the usual skating… things because the skating discourse recently has got a tad wearisome "how do you make GIFs” is a question I’ve been receiving quite a lot. If you have never attempted nor have any intention of one day tinkering with GIFs, feel free to scroll past this. If you are interested in GIF-making, especially for Tumblr, or are just curious to discover something new, read on.

So there are 3 main steps in this GIF-making process: (1) find the footage (2) edit the footage and (3) convert the edited footage into GIFs. For ease of discussion, I’ll organize my tips and tricks into these 3 buckets as well.

The software I used are:

4K Video Downloader for video download

Adobe After Effects CC for editing

Adobe Photoshop CC for conversion

You can substitute 4K with any other video downloader of your choice, or you can use one of the many web-based tools out there, like this one for example.

If you’re not familiar with After Effects (and you don’t want to have to learn it from scratch), you can use any other video editing app for this part. You can also skip this altogether and do your editing in Photoshop - though I personally would not recommend it. PS is simply not very efficient as a video editing tool.

I’m not sure if there is any viable substitute to Photoshop in the final step. If you know of any app that could replace PS, do let me know in the comments.   

STEP 1: FIND THE FOOTAGE

#1: YouTube is your friend.

#2: The video quality plays a big part in deciding the quality of your GIFs, so I’d recommend going for a video of at least 480p, ideally 720p or more - keep an eye out for that HD sign. So let’s say if I want to GIF Yuzu’s SP Otonal at GP Helsinki, I’d go for this version (thanks, @muffinlorando, you are the best).

#3: As a caveat to point #2, if you don’t have a video editor and opt for editing with PS, you might want to pick videos of not more than 30fps. PS is not great at adjusting the frame rate and you really don’t want to end up with a raw import of 60fps, for reasons I will get to soon enough.   

STEP 2: EDIT THE FOOTAGE (with AA)

#4: Learn After Effects in 20 minutes. Seriously, that tutorial is awesome. It covers all (or most) of the basics, the explanation is easy to understand and follow along. The only complaint I have about that video is that it is actually 23 minutes and 24 seconds instead of 20 minutes as promised (#fake news???).

#5: Re: the dimensions of your Tumblr GIFs

The maximum width allowed for Tumblr GIFs is 540px and that’s what you want to aim for, especially if you’re making an in-line GIF, i.e., a GIF to be inserted into a text post, like the example above, or this:

If you are making a standard Tumblr gifset with 10 GIFs arranged in two columns, like this, aim for 268px in width for optimal display.  

For a gifset with 3 columns, like this. the optimal width is 178px.

Three notes:

I only mention width because it’s the limiting factor, the length of the GIF is entirely up to you.

For full-width GIF, you can make do with something smaller than 540px, but I wouldn’t recommend going below 480px as it’d make the GIF quite grainy/blurry in display. Same for 1/2 and 1/3-width gifs, I would suggest a minimum of 250px and 160px, respectively.

For 1/2 and 1/3- width GIFs, you can go over 268px and 178px if you want your GIFs to look bigger in single view (i.e., when people click on the GIF to view them separately). In my examples, I used 270px for both gifsets. Don’t bother going over 540px with the big GIFs though, Tumblr will force-resize it to 540px.

For reference, most of my full-widh GIFs are 170px to 200px in length, my 1/2-size GIFs are usually in a 4:3 aspect ratio, and my 1/3-size GIFs are 1:1.

#6: Re: the duration and frame rate of your Tumblr GIFs

These are important factors because Tumblr has a size limit of 3Mb on GIFs. If you exceed that limit your GIFs won’t play at all on your blog, so there is a trade-off you need to consider in terms of the GIF’s dimension, duration, frame rate, color quality (which we’ll get to later), and size (in Mb).

My rules of thumbs are:

Frame rate: don’t go lower than 24fps, otherwise your GIF won’t look smooth, but don’t go for something as crazy as 50-60fps either, otherwise you won’t be able to condense it to <3Mb without some serious sacrifice on the color quality.

Duration: don’t go longer than 5-6 seconds for the small GIFs and 3-4 seconds for the 540px stuffs. 

#7: Make your footage slightly bigger than the composition. The reason for this is sometimes, in some footage, depending on the broadcast’s quality, there’d be some fuzzy pixels around the edges of the video. If you leave them in they can make your GIF look a bit messy. What I like to do is, first, fit the footage to comp width (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+H), then bring up the Scale property and slightly increase the automatic fit, usually rounding it up to the nearest percentage.

#8: Re: color correcting the footage.

Use an Adjustment Layer to keep the color correction separate from the footage. That way it’s easier to turn it on and off to assess the effect of the correction, and it’s easier to copy that layer to a new composition if you’re making a gifset.

I like to start with Curves to adjust the brightness and contrast to my liking. You can use other effects such as Levels for this. My note here is that you might want to err on the side of brighter and more contrasting for your footage, because when it is converted to GIF, it will lose quite a few colors and the result is often less vibrant than the footage. Here, for example, is what happened to a GIF I made from Mao’s Sochi FS when I was done converting: 

To quickly enhance the brightness of a somewhat dark footage, duplicate the footage, change the Mode to Screen, and reduce the Opacity to around 20%.

Use Selective Color to target-correct the color you want to focus on. For example, in this GIF, I dialed up the Cyans / Blues and lightened the Reds / Yellows to accentuate the color of Yuzu’s outfit: 

Use Leave Color if you want even more pop, like what I did here to make the red of Nastya’s dress stand out.

Some skating footage can have a yellow tint to it because of the light reflecting off the ice surface. If you don’t like that tint (I don’t), top the adjustment off with a Photo Filter. Pick one of the Cooling Filters and play around with the density until you get the desired look. I used this effect on the Yuzu spread eagle GIF above too.

STEP 3: CONVERT THE FOOTAGE INTO GIF (with PS)

#9: Usually, either of these two settings will give you the best result, i.e., the maximum preservation of colors and depth from your edited footage. 

One drawback of these optimal settings is that they can make the GIF quite heavy. In case you have to compromise, I would recommend not going lower than:

Pattern with 128 colors, or

Diffusion with 128 colors and 80% dither

 Anything lower than this can make your GIF look very washed-out and/or blurry.

FINALE: BRINGING EVERYTHING TOGETHER

#10: There are certain exceptions to all the rules of thumbs I mentioned so far. Since, as said, making a GIF and wrestling it into Tumblr’s size limit is always a four-way compromise of color integrity, video quality (frame rate), dimension, and duration, there are a few cases when you can make a 10 seconds+ GIF or a huge 540x540 GIF without sacrificing too much in the way of quality. Most of those are when the footage does not have a lot of different colors to begin with. So this one for example is a pretty big GIF (540x250) and yet only ~2.6Mb:

And this one is a full-width GIF that actually lasts 4 seconds (though I did have to reduce the dither a bit to make it <3Mb):

At the end of the day though, I’d say GIFs are for capturing the moments, so I usually would not go for too long of a footage. If you want to point out something that lasts more than 10 seconds, it’s much more convenient to just direct the viewers to the video itself :)

Aaaand, that’s it for the basics. Hope this was useful to at least some of you, If you want to see more posts like these, let me know in the asks / comments. I can also go into more details of how to make fancier GIFs with text overlay: 

or layer masking, this sort of stuff:

Happy GIF-making!

[nathanieldorsky]

Brett Kashmere’s writing about Nathaniel Dorsky’s A Fall Trip Home

This article on A Fall Trip Home (1964, 11 min, sound) was most generously written for Canyon Cinema by Brett Kashmere and presented on their website.

Image: Nathaniel Dorsky, A Fall Trip Home

Autumn Erotic: Nathaniel Dorsky's A Fall Trip Home

By Brett Kashmere

In the Shreve High football stadium, I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville, And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood, And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel, Dreaming of heroes.

All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home, Their women cluck like starved pullets, Dying for love.

Therefore, Their sons grow suicidally beautiful At the beginning of October, And gallop terribly against each other’s bodies.

James Wright, “Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio” (1963)

In America, fall is football season. An evidently irresistible cultural form despite our awakened comprehension of its traumatic aftereffects, the game’s popular appeal depends upon mediation. (This makes sense to me, elementally. Have you ever attended an outdoor football game in Ohio in October?) College football and NFL contests dominate the TV schedule from September to January, spilling further and further across the weekly grid: from Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the 1950s and 60s, to Monday nights (starting in 1970), then Sunday nights (as of 1987), and, since 2006, Thursday nights. Today, game footage is captured with high-speed cameras from every conceivable angle, repeated and dissected in slow motion replays, supplemented by torrents of statistics and a parallel fantasy football industry, in which players become interchangeable with, and reduced to, their data profiles. Mediated football’s affective, sensual pleasures are partly defused and redirected by its high-tech, scientific presentation.

As the media scholar Margaret Morse notes, “Football on television is a world of representation which has abandoned Renaissance space and Newtonian physics – but not the claim to scientificity of sport.”[1]  This recourse to scientific-investigative observation and statistical fixation is a means by which the erotic spectacle of football, wherein men are permitted to touch each other in a variety of aggressive and affectionate ways, is disavowed by its majority straight male audience. The anthropologist William Arens remarks that, while in uniform, “players can engage in hand holding, hugging and bottom patting that would be disapproved of in any other {straight} context, but which is accepted on the gridiron without a second thought.”[2]  And as the folklorist Alan Dundes observes in his psychoanalytic interpretation, the sexually suggestive terms of American football – “penetration,” “tight end,” “hitting the hole,” and so on – combined with the game’s structural goal, of getting into the opponent’s end zone more often than the opponent gets into yours, imply “a thinly disguised symbolic form by, and directed towards, males and males only, {that} would seem to constitute ritual homosexuality.”[3]

Few have lensed this symbolic ritual and pageantry of masculinity as sensuously as the film artist Nathaniel Dorsky. Even more remarkable, Dorsky’s delicate handling of the game and its defining season was made at the tender age of 21. The second film of a career-opening trilogy, A Fall Trip Home (1964), like its sister films Ingreen (1964) and Summerwind (1965), is restrained in its visual concept and skillfully executed. Partially inspired by James Wright’s football poem “Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio,” Dorsky’s subjective camera interleaves Northeastern foliage with the tangled, swirling, and collapsing bodies of adolescent footballers as well as close-ups of rapt onlookers. The flow of images is modulated by montage editing, slow motion photography, and floating superimpositions. A Fall Trip Home’s fluid construction was achieved through intuition and simple means, using a synchronizer and A/B rolls: “At that time, I can’t tell you how much one was winging it,” Dorsky explains. “You’d imagine this over that, then this over that. You didn’t really see it, until you got it back from the lab.”[4]

The film begins with an extreme long shot of a train, echoing the title, with fog rising from the distant tree line. A progression of blue-green forested hills and flora follows, signaling early fall. Dorsky’s landscape impressions meld with snippets of kids playing pickup football in a grassy yard, a high school stadium, pieces of mundane game action, a marching band, pompoms, and a cheering audience in dissolving cascades. Throughout the film’s 11-minute running time, images surface, assemble momentarily, then vanish and reemerge. Outside of its initial framing, the film adheres to a nonlinear logic; documentation is suffused with qualities of remembrance and fantasy. A mixing of film stocks adds to this perception of disjunctive timeframes. Most of A Fall Trip Home is shot on Kodachrome II, “the greatest stock they ever made,”[5]  but a passage in the middle of film, of imagery we saw earlier in full color, appears in black-and-white. A grainier, high-speed color stock is used for the final nighttime sequence, accentuating the juxtaposition of exterior and interior scenes visually and temporally.

Dorsky describes the film as “less a psychodrama {though it is that} and more a sad sweet song of youth and death, of boyhood and manhood and our tender earth.”[6]  Dissolves between visuals of players and leaves emphasizes the themes of transformation and maturation. Tenderness is the film’s foremost emotional register[7]  until the conclusion, when A Fall Trip Home takes a sharp turn towards psychodrama. This shift in tone, from affection to anxiety, follows a move into the filmmaker’s family home. We see his mother at the kitchen window backlit by artificial light. It’s getting dark out, and Dorsky is seemingly being called inside. With this move, from public/social/day into private/familial/night, we are cut off from the reverie of male teenaged bodies inscribed in slow motion and layered assemblage. That spell has been broken by the domestic setting. Here we see black-and-white images of planes dropping bombs, connecting football to war, re-photographed off a television monitor. A sense of despair, claustrophobia, and unease attends this final passage. Returning home also entails a reminder of what one needed to leave in the first place.

Roughly speaking, A Fall Trip Home is what its title asserts: a return to the filmmaker’s hometown of Millburn, New Jersey, shot intermittently over the course of a season with his Bolex. At the time, Dorsky was living in Manhattan, a 35-minute train ride away, and attending film courses at New York University. What might be of visual interest to a young artist honing his craft, and, as Scott MacDonald writes, “coming to grips with the combined excitement and terror of gay desire,”[8]  upon returning to the autumnal suburban landscape of his childhood? Given the time, place, and circumstances of its production, it’s not surprising that A Fall Trip Home would focus upon the poetic and aesthetic aspects of football within the context of a seasonal rite, staged here as going home (crucially as a subject in flux). More accurately, it seems fitting that Dorsky would cast his eye on the male homosocial sphere of football, with its regiment of intimate male contact, as subject matter.

As Dorsky explains, “Like a lot of kids, I loved playing touch football after school. I was crazy about it. I mean, in the fall. You only played football in the fall, and you only played baseball in the spring. I loved playing touch football, but I was never on the level that I would want to play varsity high school football. In fact, I was in the marching band. {Laughs.} I was in the orchestra, and then the orchestra was the marching band during football season. So I did go to all of the football games, as a band member.”[9]

Dorsky’s recollections of football are framed within the pleasures of performance, looking, and accompaniment (as band member), at a remove from the competitive and violent physicality of organized tackle football. A Fall Trip Home mobilizes these personal threads into a fascinating counter-narrative of masculinity and erotic longing through primarily visual means – though unlike the majority of Dorsky’s films, A Fall Trip Home does have a soundtrack. Japanese flute music, discovered by the filmmaker in a record store in San Francisco’s Japantown, contributes to the film’s pensive mood and complements the slow-motion imagery. In eschewing the bombastic music most commonly associated with high school and college football – that of the percussive, upbeat marching band – for a solo performance of elegiac, non-Western music, Dorsky heightens his idiosyncratic presentation of this American game.

Image: Nathaniel Dorsky, A Fall Trip Home

A Fall Trip Home is also notable in the way that it anticipates formal advancements in sports media language. Dorsky’s film was shot at the same time that NFL Films was being conceived as a publicity instrument of the National Football League – the ultimate marriage of sports, advertising, and corporate media. Both Dorsky, working with film individually and non-commercially as an artist, and NFL Films, an institutional, large-scale documenting apparatus, used slow motion cinematography and color 16mm film to evoke distinctive visions of football: compassionate in Dorsky’s case, while mythic for NFL Films. The grainy texture of 16mm and the vibrant, high-contrast range of Kodachrome reversal convey a sense of romanticism and nostalgia. Unlike video, which imbues immediacy and “presentness,” film images carry an intrinsic archival effect, a sense of the past. And unlike the slow motion of the instant replay, an electronic process associated with analysis, Dorsky’s use of the technique affirms the theme of, in his words, “a melancholy struggle. I realized that if you slowed down the football players it would turn more into… not a bromance {laughs}, to use a modern word, but slightly eroticized.”[10]  John Fiske similarly observes that the use of slow motion in mediating sports functions “to eroticize power, to extend the moment of climax.”[11]

Dorsky’s film speaks to one of the foremost paradoxes of football. Forged in the culture of the late 19th century Ivy League, football has long been an emblem of white supremacy and heterosexual power, organized as a colonizing conquest of an opponent’s territory. At the same time, football is a homosocial enclave that authorizes the objectification of male bodies for a primarily male gaze: a fraternal exchange which belies the game’s homophobic culture and its racist practices. As scholar Thomas Oates describes, “From its earliest days, football has been a complex and conflicted cultural text, in which seemingly straightforward assertions of the power of white men consistently involve an undercurrent of uncertainty and anxiety.”[12]  In A Fall Trip Home this undercurrent is expressed by a desirous yet detached subjectivity. Male bodies are captured on film, slowed down, studied, but also obscured under layers of superimposition. The film’s specular gaze is complicated by aesthetic rather than scientific mediation. Here, a game in which masculinity is defined and affirmed unfolds in front of the camera, but its homoerotic traces are “masked by the (supposedly) hyper-masculine setting of football.”[13]  The erotic undertones of A Fall Trip Home are circumscribed within the seasonal frame. “I always found … like the composer Mahler, there’s something erotic about autumn, because it’s a season of death, of dying,” Dorsky notes. “That kind of thing sometimes intensifies a kind of erotic compensation, of life itself, as opposed to death.”[14]

A Fall Trip Home’s sensuality circumvents the accepted mythology of American football and in doing so complicates the dominant image of masculinity as embodied and expressed in popular media coverage of the sport. By shifting focus away from heroism, winning, and depictions of physical strength, A Fall Trip Home offers a gentle queering of football’s construction of manliness. At the same time, it highlights – and savors – the homosocial conditions that football creates.

Homosociality provides an important context for understanding what goes on when men watch other men perform in the sporting arena. In Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick explains that “‘Homosocial’ is a word occasionally used in history and the social sciences {to describe} social bonds between persons of the same sex; it is a neologism, obviously formed by analogy with ‘homosexual,’ and just as obviously meant to be distinguished from ‘homosexual.’ In fact, it is applied to such activities as ‘male bonding,’ which may, as in our society, be characterized by intense homophobia, fear and hatred of homosexuality.” Football’s sexually violent hazing rituals are an example of the fear (heterosexual panic) produced by homosociality. “To draw the ‘homosocial’ back into the orbit of ‘desire,’” Sedgwick continues, “of the potentially erotic, then, is to hypothesize the potential unbrokenness of a continuum between homosocial and homosexual – a continuum whose visibility, for men, in our society, is radically disrupted.”[15]

Football, through its enforcement of homosocial but often homophobic behavior, adherence to male authority, and suppression of individual speech, teaches patriarchal thinking and practice. The consequences are considerable. As bell hooks notes, “To indoctrinate boys into the rules of patriarchy, we force them to feel pain and to deny their feelings.”[16]  Football’s culture of violence stems in part from this condition of denial. The tenderness and poeticism that underpins Dorsky’s representation draw, as Sedgwick puts it, the homosocial into the orbit of desire and the potentially erotic. If even for a handful of moments, the viewers of A Fall Trip Home are accorded “the ambiguity of sexual orientation in the liminal state of love for and identification with the object of desire.”[17]

Brett Kashmere is a media artist, historian, curator, and doctoral student in Film & Digital Media at University of California, Santa Cruz. He is also the founding editor of INCITE: Journal of Experimental Media. His writing on experimental cinema, moving image art, sports media, and alternative film exhibition has appeared in Millennium Film Journal, MIRAJ, The Canadian Journal of Film Studies, PUBLIC, Senses of Cinema, Carolee Schneemann: Unforgivable, The Films of Jack Chambers, and Coming Down the Mountain: Rethinking the 1972 Summit Series.

1. Margaret Morse, “Sport on Television: Replay and Display,” in Regarding Television: Critical Approaches – An Anthology, edited by E. Ann Kaplan (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1983), 49. 

2. William Arens, “An Anthropologist Looks at the Rituals of Football,” The New York Times, November 16, 1975, 238. 

3. Alan Dundes, “Into the Endzone for a Touchdown: A Psychoanalytic Consideration of American Football," Western Folklore 37, no. 2 (April 1978): 87. 

4. Nathaniel Dorsky, telephone interview with the author, July 16, 2018. 

5. Dorsky, interview. 

6. “A Fall Trip Home,” Canyon Cinema website, http://canyoncinema.com/catalog/film/?i=802 

7. This quality of tenderness separates A Fall Trip Home from celebrated mainstream cinematic treatments of the sport, such as North Dallas Forty (1979) and Any Given Sunday (1999), which often explore the visceral brutality and degrading aspects of football’s professionalized variant. 

8. Scott MacDonald, “Nathaniel Dorsky,” in A Critical Cinema 5: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 78. 

9. Dorsky, interview.

10. Dorsky, interview. 

11. John Fiske, Television Culture (London: Routledge, 1989), 219. 

12. Thomas P. Oates, Manliness and Football: An Unauthorized Feminist Account of the NFL (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 8-9. 

13. James L. Cherney and Kurt Lindemann, “Queering Street: Homosociality, Masculinity, and Disability in Friday Night Lights,” Western Journal of Communication 78, no. 1 (January–February 2014): 2. 

14. Dorsky, interview. 

15. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 1-2. 

16. bell hooks, “Understanding Patriarchy,” in The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (New York: Atria Books, 2004), 18. 

17. Morse, “Sport on Television,” 57. 

link  Canyon Cinema  

[hyunwoo-archive]

gif tutorial !!!

hello !!!! it’s me, ur resident shownu stan w a gif tutorial !!! no one really Asked but i wanted 2 make it and also it turns out ppl Are interested in one so :D !!! here i am !!!! so under the cut will b the tutorial nd it’s really picture heavy because i’ll be covering a lot,,,,

we’ll be looking at: 

downloading the video :0 !!

trimming the video to get the clip you want

actually making the gif

some coloring advice :D !!! (i lov coloring Truly!!!!)

and some exporting advice too :D

and this is what i’m using:

ps cc 17

vlc

and i use a mac :D

part one. getting the clip !!

(also a quick note !! this isn’t my process for speed giffing or performance giffing as thats,,, thats an entirely Different adventure that makes me scream)

so !!! i will be giffing the dramarama music video and what you want to do is download it first :D so go to vlive, copy the url of the music video and i use two sites to download from vlive just because one of them can get a little buggy ?? but i use soshistagram and savieo !!! savieo is usually what i prefer to use but either is fine :D 

once you downloaded the video, open it in vlc and go to the part you want to gif. i recommend pausing a few seconds before the actual scene because it’s always better to get a little more than you intended than a little less. currently, my screen looks like this:

and what you wanna do Next is go to playback > record and record the scene you want! when your scene is done playing, just go back to playback and click record again to make it stop.

for me, all my clips end up in my “movie” folder so it’s best to check where your clips go :D i think ?? you can change their destination but i never really played around with that so i’m not sure D: 

part two. making the gif !!!

open up photoshop, then go to file > import > video frames to layers. select your clip and this window should pop up:

simply adjust the arrows until you get the scene you want and then press OK. a few notes about this part:

some people choose to select “limit to every 2 frames”. i personally don’t do this just because to me, it makes the gif look choppy, but use your intuition and go for whatever you think will suit the gif :D 

i Would recommend not using ‘limit to every 2 frames’ if your clip is really short, as you want every frame possible

make sure ‘make frame animation’ is selected

and also the rule of having a little more than you want is important here too! the arrows aren’t very accurate so it’s better to get frames from scenes you don’t want that you can simply delete later

once you’ve hit ‘ok’, photoshop will then process the clip and give you this :D

(if you don’t have the timeline, just go to window > timeline. it’s near the bottom :D!!!)

also a quick moment!!! everything in the timeline tab will be called a frame and everything in the layers tab will be called layers :D

moving on! mister kihyun is not part of the scene i want, so i select the frames (not the layers!!!) that i don’t want and hit the trash can button at the bottom. goodbye mister yoo leaving me with this:

aren’t they just,,,, Beautiful :’( ...... anyways !! now we want to Crop !!!! tumblr has certain width sizes that i recommend you use for Ultra Crispness, and you can see a guide of what to use here !!

because the clip i’m giffing is so short (only 23 frames), i can crop it to 540px by 250px without worrying about file size. simply click crop in the toolbar so you get this setup here

where it says 268px by 305px, just change it to whatever your dimensions are! also, make sure ‘delete cropped pixels’ is deselected. then, go ahead and select what you want to be cropped and then press enter :D my screen at this point looks like this

press enter and then :D!! all cropped!!

now we’re going to sharpen! in the timeline tab, there’s a button made up on three lines. i circled it here :D

click that and select “convert video to timeline” so you get this

select all your layers and then convert to smart object! (you can either do this by rightclicking on all the highlighted layers and selecting ‘convert to smart object’ or by going to filters > convert for smart filters 

now your gif is ready to be sharpened! i use actions to sharpen my gif and you can find a few of my favorites on this blog !! download a couple and play around with it :D once your gif has been sharpened, select all the layers again and convert it into a smart object again. then click the 3 lined button and click convert frames > flatten frames into clips. then convert back into frame animation (either by clicking the three lined button again and going convert frames > convert to frame animation or by clicking the three squares in the timeline)

you should now be back to where you started :D only this time you have one frame D: but don’t worry! what you want to do next is click the three lined button again and select make frames from layers. delete the first frame in the timeline because it’s just the smart object layer and we don’t need it. you should now have this

and we can officially move onto the best part :D coloring !!!

part three. coloring!!!!!!!!!!

let me preface this Entire Section with saying there is no right or wrong way to color. every gifmaker has their own distinct style, and you’ll develop yours too :D i really recommend looking to see if your favorite gifmakers have any coloring tips and if they don’t, there’s no harm in asking :D (just make sure ur nice abt it nd respect them if they choose not to share their coloring :D)

moving on to actually coloring, you wanna see what kind of colors are in your gif and enhance them. in the case of this gif, it’s very blue toned and blue tends to end up being very grainy in the end. i want to color correct this gif then and there’s a good tutorial that i learned from here :D (i don’t color correct all the time, only when the scene is very heavy in one color)

now we have a more neutral starting point, and you can color as you want from this point! i’d usually just Slap on my psd and adjust the settings until i get something i want, but i’ll go through some of my favorite adjustment layers and what my general coloring process looks like.

here is the Holy Grail of photoshop, the adjustments tab :D i use these adjustments the most:

brightness (i usually decrease the brightness and up the contrast just a bit)

levels (i take the black arrow down a bit and the grey arrow either increases or decreases depending on the gif)

curves (i use this sometimes!! if the gif is just a bit too dark, i usually bring this up a tiny bit)

vibrance (i usually bring this up to about +15 or +30 depending on how colorful the gif is)

color balance (another adjustment i absolutely need in all my gifs!! it helps to change the tone of the gif (if it’s too red/too blue/etc and lets you neutralize it more) and a good tutorial that explains how to use color balance can be found here)

selective color (i usually have like,,,, So Many Layers of this but this is a Must Have adjustment!!! i always change reds/yellows/cyans/blues/neutral/black)

gradient maps (just to add some more color)

exposure (usually to darken the gif a little and decrease grain)

and just for the sake of this tutorial, i’ll go through how i would color this gif so you can get an understanding of how i color :D

so we go from this

to this

i use the levels, curves and brightness adjustments to increase the contrast and darken/brighten the gif a little. it’s not a noticeable difference but it’s there :D

then, i use a color balance layer to make it more red-toned. i worked in the order of shadows > midtones > highlights and adjusted each slider until i got a result i wanted. i also thought it was still a bit too dark, so i threw in a curves layer too.

resulting in this

and then i added some selective color to enhance/change up some colors!

and because i thought it looked a little too red, i added another color balance layer.

and lastly, i add in an exposure layer! 

and that’s how i would color that gif :D this is just a really basic coloring but you can always build on it and play with all the adjustments !!! now we’re gonna time the gif and then save it :DDD

part four. timing and exporting :D

timing is easy :D select all the frames in the timeline and then click the number so you bring up this menu:

click other and input the timing. i follow this really rough guide of what timing to use per amount of frames:

15-30 frames: 0.07s

30-60+ frames: 0.05s

i had 23 frames for this gif so i’m using the 0.07s timing :D hit enter and your gif is timed :DDDD !!!!!!

now for exporting!!!

i used to think there was only One Way of exporting gifs but after reading a gazillion tutorials and playing around with the settings myself there’s actually a lot of different ways :D you can ask people what their save settings are and play around with it :D

 so to Finally save your gif, go to file > export > save for web and devices and this window should pop up

here’s a closer look at the settings i use to save gifs

make sure the looping option is on forever otherwise it plays once and then you want to Roll into a pool after you upload it and realize you hecked it up. also, make sure the file size is under 3mb. you can check that here

my gif is 1.08mb so it’s fine :D hit save and then name your gif and bam!!!! you made a gif :DDDDD here’s the final result, with a comparison for coloring :D

pat urself on the back and go tackle photoshop :D if you have any questions, feel free to send them my way !!!

[caffeinatedreviewer1]

Lenovo Flex 5 14" 2-in-1 Laptop, 14.0" FHD (1920 x 1080) Touch Display, AMD Ryzen 5 4500U Processor, 16GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, AMD Radeon Graphics, Digital Pen Included, Win 10, 81X20005US

PROS

Relatively thin and light

Budget price tag

Peppy productivity performance

300-degree hinge make touch use

PROS

Relatively thin and light

Budget price tag

Peppy productivity performance

300-degree hinge make touch use

Design

Once you get hold of the Lenovo Flex 14, the first ting you notice is how light it is. Not surprising, though. That’s what we expected. At 3.5 pounds, this 2-in-1 isn’t as flashy as the company’s clamshell laptops like the Carbon X1 that’s just 2.4 pounds with a 14-inch display.

It’s nevertheless noticeably heavier than the Asus ZenBook Flip 14 (3.3 pounds) and the LG Gram (2.5 pounds). That matters most for a 2-in-1 that’s to be carried on daily commute – you’re more likely to use the Gram 14 than any other convertible around.

Unlike some of Lenovo’s more expensive products, which come in colors such as Clementine Orange and Silver Gray, the budget Flex 14 can only be had in black. This model has simple gray plastic, which only makes for an underwhelming first impression.

That doesn’t make it unattractive, but there is nothing to visually distinguish this laptop from Lenovo’s other models, never mind competitors. Last year, we did a Lenovo Flex 6 14 review, little did we know an upgraded version would drop early in the year with an even better build.

Being a 2-in-1 convertible system, it boasts a pair of 300-degree hinges, allowing you to use the laptop in clamshell mode, tablet mode, or tent mode in between. The pair of hinges feel reassuringly sturdy, and does a good job holding the display in place with minimum wobble.

Ports

Connectivity on the Lenovo Flex 14 2 in 1 is excellent, better than most convertibles in the same price range. On the left, there’s a USB-C port, an HDMI port, power adapter input and an audio jack. On the opposite side, there’s a Novo button, a power button, a card reader and a pair of USB 3.1 ports.

Unfortunately, there’s no Thunderbolt 3 support, meaning you won’t be able to plug an external GPU enclosure – but its something we didn’t expect to have at this price point.

Display

On the Flex 81SS0005US, you get a Full HD display that looks sharp and vivid, but loses its glitter when stacked up against more expensive, brighter screen. Its 224 nits are slightly below the class-standard of 250-nits for comfortable indoor viewing. Still, the screen is very usable in an office setting, so don’t be surprised if you find yourself squinting the screen when using the convertible outdoors.

On the plus side, viewing angles on the Lenovo Flex’s IPS-technology display are quite good. Although the screen dims when viewed from extreme angles, it doesn’t show signs of inverse colors, as you’ll see on cheaper displays.

The Flex’s touch display responds well to taps and swipes, and it also boasts pen support. There’s an included Lenovo Active pen, that comes complete with 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity. You can also snag a plastic USB pen holder for your Lenovo Flex 14 pen, something most business executives need.

Keyboard And Touchpad

The Lenovo Flex’s backlit keyboard feels comfortable, with slight concave keys with tactile bump about half way of each keystroke. It doesn’t include a number pad, but remains reasonably roomy, with very little signs of bending in the middle.

Beneath the keyboard’s bottom-right corner sits a fingerprint reader, which you can use to unlock your Windows profile and open Windows Hello supported apps with a single touch.

A midsize trackpad lets you interact with the Flex, giving a smooth and responsive experience. It delivers accurate swipes, but requires a fair amount of pressure before it can click. To that, there’s a 720p webcam on the screen’s top bezel, which is a little grainy and nosy, but as usual manages to capture relatively clear and sharp video, pretty perfect for Skype chatting.

For sound, there’s a pair of bottom-firing Harman Kardon speakers, better than most average laptop speakers.

Performance

AMD’s Ryzen R5 processors are very good performers with a remarkable balance between efficiency and pure speed. Our review unit comes with the AMD Ryzen R5-3500U with four Zen+ cores (8 threads) clocked at between 2.2 – 3.8 GHz, a Radeon RX Vega 8 graphics card, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB solid-state drive.

This Picasso SoC uses the Zen+ microarchitecture that promises an increase of up to 3 percent over its predecessor. Furthermore, the 12nm process focuses on higher clock rates while maintaining power consumption at the very minimal.

The processor used here is AMD’s latest release for budget notebooks. So far, it makes short work of the usual productivity tasks and can even tackle some demanding tasks like video editing. For the business executive who needs to take notes on the go or edit a few spreadsheets on the flip, the Lenovo Flex has the muscle to handle that and some more.

Compared: The The Lenovo Flex 6-14IKB boasts a 1.8GHz Intel Core  i7-8550U processor that delivers better performance, but costs almost double the Flex 14. Again, the  Lenovo Flex 6 14 i7 also gets a better chip, but for those on a budget, the AMD chip used on our review unit keeps the price affordable, but is well tuned for daily productivity.

Where the Flex doesn’t excel more is in graphics. It uses a Radeon RX Vega 8 graphics card that limits you to casual gaming. If your needs include some casual gaming, you’ll want to consider a 2-in-1 like the Asus ZenBook 14 that sports a discrete Nvidia GeForce MX150 GPU, that can handle a few demanding games.

Battery Life

Like most modern notebooks, the Flex has a non-removable battery that works for portability. The battery manages just over 8 hours 36 minutes of endurance on daily productivity. For a portable 2-in-1, this is a good feat thanks to a Full HD display and efficient CPU that offer hopes for longevity. Sure, this is a laptop that will last you well into the evening of a long working day.

Should I buy it?

Yes. If you won’t be playing games, the Lenovo Flex 14 (81SS0005US) 2-in-1 feels good in hand, provides all the performance you’ll need to be productive and it lasts a very long in doing both.

[soulspideys]

Battered

“It’s not my heart you’ve broken, idiot!”

Word Count: 1603

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Requested: Nope

Warnings: Injuries, some swearing, teasing fluff

Synopsis: Soulmate AU where whenever your soulmate gets injured, so do you. Peter Parker’s soulmate is none too pleased by the recent development after he obtains his powers. After all, just because he’s super resilient, doesn’t necessarily mean his soulmate is, too.

Send me a request!

Starter list

Master List

As long as she could remember, Y/N’s parents teased her about her soulmate being a klutz. As a toddler she’d start crying while sitting down, sporting a new graze or cut. When she was eight, she broke her hand while doing homework. When she was ten, she sustained a harsh burn on her arm. When she was twelve, she had to wear a boot for six weeks on her right leg. 

This was normal. Everyone could relate to having a bit of a reckless soulmate. But when Y/N turned fifteen, things started to really become ridiculous. At one in the morning she would wake up with a gash on her back or a black eye.

Whoever her soulmate was, he was getting more rowdy.

Her best friend, Y/F/N, said that Y/N’s soulmate was a criminal.

“They obviously are doing stuff they shouldn’t!” they would say. “I’m so sorry.”

Y/N would just roll her eyes. She wasn’t sure how, but she just knew that her soulmate was a good person. It was one day while watching a live instagram video when an amazing thought struck her. 

The stream was of Spider-Man stopping an out of control semi truck. It was grainy and choppy, but still impressive. Suddenly Y/N gave a gasp. A sharp pain shot through her shoulder as though she’d horribly strained a muscle. She clapped her hand to her shoulder as Spider-Man caught the car. He managed to knock it aside, but he’d obviously hurt himself. He waved at the cheering crowd, clutching his shoulder the same way Y/N was.

Is Spider-Man my soulmate?

She kept her thoughts to herself. Y/F/N would have teased her mercilessly if they’d heard such a silly thing, and Y/N didn’t believe it herself. It was obviously just a coincidence. Right? 

However, the pattern continued. Spider-Man and Y/N repeatedly bore the same wounds. When Y/N banged her shin open on a table, she noticed Spider-Man running with a slight limp in the videos. 

But who the hell is Spider-Man?

Then the hero went missing for a few days. On the second morning of his absence, Y/N could barely focus. She locked herself in the school bathroom, groaning in pain. She felt like she was getting her ass handed to her on a golden platter.

It first started with a slight pain in second period. Her knee throbbed like she’d landed on it funny, but that was tolerable. Spider-Man probably just fumbled a landing somewhere. Less than five minutes later, however, Y/N yelped at she felt a blow against her chin, like someone had hit her with an impossibly strong uppercut to the jaw. She staggered backwards, slipping off the stool.

Now the back of her head hurt, too, but she couldn’t tell if it was because of her own landing of her soulmate’s.

“Y/N?” the teacher asked. “Is everything alright?”

The whole class was ogling her and giggling. Shaking herself, Y/N got uneasily to her feet, her jaw still throbbing. She nodded, grunting, “Can I just... go to the--”

“Yes, of course.”

She rushed down the hall. The instant she closed the stall door, she let out a loud grunt as she staggered backwards, the back of her legs hitting the toilet. Her whole chest ached, and she struggled to suck in a breath. It was like someone had just rugby tackled her while wearing rocket-powered roller skates.

She finally regained her breath, groaning. Whoever her soulmate was, they were obviously tough as nails, because they seemed not to mind huge impacts. She sat on top of the toilet seat.

“Well, Spidey, hope you’re getting a few good licks in,” Y/N muttered, clenching and unclenching her fists.

Just as she was debating returning to class, she fell forward from an impact to her back. This one wasn’t as bad, and the pressure quickly released, but it was still enough to knock the wind out of her -- again.

She was hoping it was over, but then another wave of beatings washed over her. First there was something tight on her wrist, then a pain in her shoulder like she was being yanked. Something banged agonizingly against her ribs, and she felt one break. Then she nearly blacked out, flattening to the ground. Her soulmate had fallen and landed hard.

Barely able to breathe, Y/N tried to reach up and unlock the stall door, but she couldn’t function through the pain. The next few blows were lighter. She felt a few against her side and lower back, and then a harder one on her tailbone, but they were less like injuries and more like impacts.

This is good, Y/N thought. Maybe Spidey’s getting away.

Boy, was she wrong. Just as she teetered onto one knee, she shrieked as she felt her nose crunch. She clapped her hands over her face, her eyes screwed shut, breathing out whimpers of pain. Between her ribs and her face, she was worried she’d need to go to the ER.

She let out a gush of air barely a minute later as she felt a blow to her stomach. Her back ached too; Spidey had just gotten knocked into something.

“Come on, Spidey, beat them!” she growled, pushing with one arm, trying to get off the filthy ground. Then the worst feeling came. Her shoulders burned like she was being crushed, and she clenched her teeth, straining against an awful weight that wasn’t even there.

“Push!” she found herself gasping. “Come on, get outta there!”

After what felt like forever, the weight was lifted, and Y/N lay, gasping like a fish out of water, on the bathroom floor. She was granted a brief respite, catching her breath, and managed to push herself to the toilet seat. She still hunched in pain, clutching her side where the rib throbbed agonizingly.

“Okay, Spidey, let’s wrap this up,” she panted.

All was well for a few blissful minutes. There were a few impacts that would leave bruises, but nothing like earlier. Then her body erupted in the worst pain yet. Two more ribs snapped, and then Spidey landed hard, and she screamed as she felt her arm break. She teetered, delirious, then toppled onto the floor.

Another wave of pain washed over her, and Y/N blacked out.

A few weeks later, Y/N was still in a cast and a chest brace. Her nose was bandaged, and she was sporting a powerful shiner. She was being given lots of attention, with people asking what injuries were her own and what were from her soulmate.

Ned Leeds and Peter Parker seemed the most intrigued. Peter kept saying how sorry he was, as if it was his fault. The three found themselves bonding over various injuries they had received, and Y/N wasn’t oblivious to Ned’s inquiring eyebrows whenever Peter and her spoke of matching wounds.

She also wasn’t oblivious to Peter’s matching black eye.

However, Y/N was still intent on Spider-Man as her soulmate. She told Peter and Ned of this, and to her relief, neither mocked her. 

“You really think Spider-Man is your soulmate?” asked Ned during PE. “For real?”

“I mean, our injuries have synced up...” Y/N defended herself.

“I think it makes sense,” Peter said quickly. "Everything she says, we've seen."

"I guess," muttered Ned.

After school, the three were talking about Academic Decathlon when it happened. Ned was quizzing the other two from memory when a familiar voice crowed, "What's up, Penis Parker!"

It was a blur. Flash Thompson ran down the sidewalk, his hand raised; it came down in a graceful arc, landing squarely on Peter's right asscheek with a resounding smack! Peter jumped about a foot in the air, Ned tried not to laugh, and Flash took off down the sidewalk laughing.

And Y/N's own rear stung.

"Hit me," Y/N said without thinking. "Ned, hit me."

"Oh, uh, what's the capital of--"

"No, Ned, smack me!"

"What?"

"Oh, for the love of--" Y/N cut herself off, allowing herself to fall backwards towards a group of girls. The girls squealed and scattered, and she hit the ground hard. Peter winced, and his eyes widened.

"Hey, Ned, you have stuff to do, don't you?"

"What, no, I--"

"Yes, you do. Okay, bye, Ned!" Peter pushed his friend, and Ned started down the sidewalk, his face lined with confusion. Peter helped Y/N to her feet, and the two rode the subway in awkward silence. When they finally shut themselves in Peter's room, Y/N snapped, "Did you know?"

"What?"

"That Spidey wasn't my soulmate?"

"Uh... yes and no."

"The hell does that mean?"

Peter turned his gaze upwards, towards the attic entry space. "Now, listen, I don't want to break your heart or anything--"

"You've broken far more than my heart, dumbass! I have three broken ribs, a broken arm, nose, and just about my whole body covered in bruises! Why the hell don't you have those? I sure as hell didn't do them! Is there a third? Is that even possible?"

"Shut up, Y/N. Look!" He pushed upwards, and the slat of wood lifted. A red and blue outfit fell down, and Y/N's eyes widened. She looked back and forth between the costume and Peter.

"You're Spider-Man?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry. If I'm honest, I thought that my resilience would carry through or something."

"Well, it didn't."

"Yeah, sorry. I'll try and be more careful."

Y/N softened at that. She looked at him, and a slow smile spread across her face. She stepped closer, and put her good arm around Peter, pulling him close as was comfortable. When they stepped back, he pressed his lips to her cheek gently.

"I really am sorry," he breathed.

"Hey, I'll heal," she answered, looking him in the eyes. "I'm just glad I finally found you. Now I know who to yell at when I get beaten up."

Peter looked like he wasn't sure whether to laugh or not, so she decided for him. She kissed him. And just like that, it made all the wounds in the world worth it.

[toddlazarski]

Last Suppers Vol. 5

Shepherd Express

“In this past I long for, I don’t remember how even then I longed for the past.”

— Denis Johnson

In the El Tsunami parking lot in mid-January snow turns tumor-black and gets pushed, in some unholy unseen hour, into jagged triangle wedges up against the brick building, clearing space for the subsequent gray slush and glut of cars and those cars’ passengers, all trying to avoid ice-flecked black puddles and questions of why any of us would live in such an environment so threatening to dry socks. My daughter somehow eschews usually prominent stranger danger notions to cheerily, proactively, greet the panhandler just outside the door, leveling the playing field, at once, for all three of us, erasing discomfiture in smiling unexpectedness, seemingly validating good vibes therein. Inside, nursing a sportscar-red michelada, in a frosty mug of the size and depth and seriousness of an extra in that scene from Indiana Jones, the rim coated by a grainy quilt of spicy salt rendering the straw a silly suggestion, there is a pulse, well aside from the bumping telenovelas on all the TVs. It almost feels like there is a no-sitting rule for children, as they bounce around, between tables, blurring the distinctions between families, pirouetting by waitress trays, skipping and skirting and flaunting even pre-pandemic social graces. Parents look appropriately tired, waitresses overwhelmed, the end-of-week Saturday reward day is aglow, salsa-amped and horchata sugar-lit, even before a wandering mariachi duo wanders in, seemingly at random, as if they were traversing South 13th in the 30-degree day in cowboy hats, with classical guitar and accordion. By the time the oompa of alternating bass line balladry and emotively stretched squeezebox reeds mix—table to table they go, for a palmful or two of cash—with the svelty green table sauce, the ceviche dip, the warm chips, fierce, charcoal-kissed carbon tacos, or greasy smoky housemade chorizo, or oily flaky fish, it is easy and instant to forget what life resembled back in the parking lot. We’ve all, communally, arm-in-arm, with collective vision, forged the perfect escape plan.

At Vanguard, when it’s summer, or spring, or any time when the Packers are not on and it’s not a wrestling night or Halloween, when there’s room for small chat and the usual backdrop—Soul Train, maybe an O.J. Simpson workout video—there is no better feel than happy hour with exactly one open swivel black chair near the end of the bar. Even though the bartenders render me not cool enough, probably too old, far from properly bearded, I will stake a claim, rope off my spot with a hoodie on the back of the seat, like delineating property lines, as close to Manifest Destiny as I might get, sticking out elbows just a bit in subtle “don’t tread on me” histrionics. You can hover, sure, go ahead and take my drink menu, yes, food menu too, fine, oogle away at my curds and beer stein aioli all bloodied with house hot sauce, you can even talk close and ask for suggestions and pat me on the back when you lean over the shoulder to catch the barkeep’s eye. Just let me sit in the middle, in the beating heart, like the front row at a boxing match where part of the excitement is getting hit by a little sweat, like the Stubhub offerings we click just to see, front rows price tags to voyeuristically consider, to think what if? While I’m in, while the place fills to capacity—only now a nightmarish notion—-behind me, I slow-sip and savor a hungry evening bustle and a draft Manhattan, I delay gratification with menu pondering, possibility appreciating, before inevitably tackling a chilli cheese dog, a Velveeta-blanketed and appropriately-named “Durty Burger,” the whole thing a silly gesture of why not gluttonous indulgence, barely leaving room for the IPA I’m always about to order—like some kind of metaphor for the stuffed barroom itself.

These will be my first stops, when we’re all back, fully rubbing elbows, finding space in standing room only occasions. When we can be, what I’ve heard more than a few service industry folks refer to, “nuts to butts.” If and when the unidentifiable health metrics in my heart all check green, these are my buzzing Milwaukee mind spots, of food poetry yammering, of context being an ingredient, of flavor deriving as much from the atmosphere, as much from the flutter of a true peak social experience. I think of an Istanbul market, the group teem, the contrasting currents of crowds lending pick-pocket anxiety, general personal space ruffling, some dangerous enticement to the prevalent smell of roasting, rotating meat; a pizzeria in Naples, needing to engage in mosh pit antics for a spot on the list; Steny’s, for an Eastern Conference Finals Bucks game. The times to eschew ease, embrace struggle, deal with an annoyance for this will be worth it. When all is well, again, when I can cruise the city streets, casually pop in for a taco or four, stop for a beer or beers, such spots are where I might set my aims. Once so small-town, so simple-minded, now the idea of someone handing me a menu is a memory seed I treat and water like the notion of the one that got away. Here are the daydreams I’m afraid to risk, but keep tucked away in some kind of hope chest of sights to get back toward, one day, comfortably, normally, the good food times that come as much from the setting, from the moment, the people.  

And I don’t even really like people.

Another thing I’m not crazy about—outside. And yet, here I am, often these days, and not just because the weather has turned friendly, ironically, as the country seems to burn, standing in my backyard, staring at the stars or the clouds, or the military-hued helicopters, sometimes, waiting for my gut, or my meat thermometer, to tell me it’s time to turn back to the Weber, flip the sausages, burgers. Always aggressively testing the tongs, grabbing at ghosts as they waft, I wistfully wonder how the maestros at Vanguard always avoid the flare-ups, the drying-out, nearly always get it all so right, the snap, one order after another, without looking like they are trying, cool in backwards hat insouciance, even when confronted by an endless stream of hungry scenesters.  

Here I am, too, with makeshift picnics of Foxfire takeout fare, of taco truck tlayudas, cautiously staking a blanket claim or bench at Sheridan Park, its meandering jogging path and sweeping lake vistas leaving space for grass-tabled meals. Or at Humboldt Park, by the grimey pond that might as well be Walden’s, for the existential dread I’ve brought to it these past three months. It seems like a sanctuary of sorts, emblematic of anywhere there is space, really, from headlines, and health metrics, enough of it for nobody to be near enough to be afraid of. But of course there is no one to say gracias to after a salsa refill. There is fresh air, yes. And there is also the fending off of the geese, the dancing around of the geese poop, the chasing of napkins— inherent that any picnic venture provide at least this bit of Charlie Chaplin skit performance—and, inevitably, the throwing out of napkins because they probably touched some geese poop.  

Still, with a double patty Foxfire burger, coated and buffed in salt and love and oozing American goo cheese, or with some foiled-taco steam, anywhere I might end up, today, isn’t so bad. And also, before wasn’t always good. The past is only painted in technicolor ideals in our minds, and especially now. Vanguard was many times just far too crowded, and sometimes, too many times, they forgot to toast my bun. And it felt too loud to even mention. Tsunami, despite my perpetual best efforts and bad dietary habits, has never cared I’m there, that I keep coming back, that I talk about it and write about it and bloviate. Every time I hit the door they almost always collectively look at me as if I’m lost or am about to ask to use the bathroom and then leave. In general, how many restaurant tables are too dirty? How much service is too slow? How many menus are so alike? Oh wow, look, a Southwestern Burger! How many bartenders have that attitude that this next shake of the shaker—no, this one, above the head!—could be the one to cure cancer, and how dare I interrupt or not be appropriately captivated?

The now, at least, has options. Such as, when it’s rainy, or too cold, or suddenly, too hot, we can sit in the car. The radio sounds better from in there anyways, the wind can’t steal and confetti-toss all the napkins like a cruel game of keepaway. We can think of ourselves as trying new things, embracing fresh thoughts, getting stains on our pants and shirts in different places, from different sit-and-eat situations. This month brings a new Bob Dylan album. It certainly won’t be Blonde on Blonde. It won’t even be Love and Theft. But there will be something you’ve never heard. Likewise tomorrow will bring something new, another distraction tactic, another approach, another appetite, and, if we’re lucky, another way to satisfy it.

Meanwhile, so much of the future seems to be being written for us, by unseen authors with little writing experience, the lot of them banging away on outlines behind scenes, on drafts where they can’t even fully commit to a genre. Post apocalypse-ism mixes with an economic playbook, fantasy meets self-help meets realism. Throughout, uncertainty seems to blend with malfeasance, announcements are unmade or surprise-made, or made and reversed, or misunderstood or ignored. Restaurants are not open, but tomorrow, at precisely 2pm, they can be and we will all be safe. Go ahead. Our reality, our way forward, seems tenuous, a bit dreadful, a venture out still coming with constant subconscious risk assessment, a survey of an unpredictable and maybe cataclysmic thunderstorm before a bike ride, the checks and balances on fun and need. Skipping headlines for more than a few hours seems to be willful ignorance. But maybe it’s more simple: if I can’t safely see my restaurant servers face, this situation is probably not quite right.

In our bubbles, in our political allegiances, it was easy to know where to stand, especially gauged by the actions and virally-spread photos of a bunch of boneheads at a bar Platteville, when the Supreme Court struck down caution and reason to make Wisconsin, again, a national laughing stock of unawareness. It seemed a slap in the face, the wake-up kind, a dose of belligerent selfishness. Yet, maybe history will see it all differently. Perhaps they, us, are all simply, naturally, hellbent on togetherness. On connection. With the country seemingly schisming more by the day, with fractures leading to offshoot fractures, maybe we actually just need something, somebody, each other. We invented taco trucks, and then, eventually, taco truck parks, as if even our restaurants should socialize with each other. We came up with small plates so that the same table could legitimately hold, say, at La Merenda, goat cheese curds alongside Jamaican goat curry next to seared Sockeye salmon. And they could all become friends. Cheers has always been so popular, held up, not just because it is pretty funny, but it represents an ideal, of comfortable cahoots, of escape from the real world. We can see, hope ourselves, there, all of us being our self-deprecating and whimsical best, with buds and brews and wisdom found. It represents a coming together, in the face of our absurd existence. A mariachi duo, or far too much to eat and drink, can show that our time is still now, that we—me, and you over there, at the same spot, in the same moment!—deserve something, sometimes.    

These days I think often of a long-shuttered Bay View corner tap I used to freely and proudly proclaim to anybody listening as my Cheers. It was a strange, dim nook of the world I drank and wedged my way into, forging a musical and lyrical brand of late-night conspiracy. By the time I became a regular, my bartenders, my Sam and my Woody, would occasionally let me stay after hours, would pour me a shot of Bulleit at 2:30, would joke about me having my “shift drink,” would not kick me out until I kicked myself out. We would bitch, complain, jostle, josh, give each other hurried TED Talks in the sporadic crowd lulls. I knew the names of their siblings, the health statuses of their dogs, they were invited to my wedding. All those nights, eventually, I would stumble out the door, solo stagger home, bleary-eyed but content, untouchable to Monday, knowing, simply, far from sober but assuredly, somebody got me. In the hullabaloo existence of parking lots, indifferent masses, I had a spot. I don’t know when, I don’t know who will tell me it’s time, I don’t even know where, but I know I need to get back to that place.  

[boyswanna-be-her]

goretober: space

“Hey, it’s me. Don’t be mad.”

Amal is mad.

She told the goddamn CAPCOM to keep her wife home--to keep Carmen out of all of this as much as possible. She asked him as a colleague and as a friend.

So what the fuck is her wife doing on this transmission?

“I know you hate it when I say shit like this, but it’s totally OK for you to be stressed out right now. You’ve been alone for a long time.”

Amal isn’t afraid of being alone.

She’s trained for years, prepped, spent months in carefully monitored isolation like a zoo animal. Amal can do years alone standing on her head.

Being alone wouldn’t be a problem.

The problem is that Amal is not alone.

“This stuff you’re seeing--this stuff that’s happening--it’s because you’re stressed.”

Carmen is being so careful with her voice and Amal can’t decide how she feels about that. Angry, she decides, because Carmen feels like she has to be careful. Thankful that someone exists back on earth who cares enough to want to treat her gently. Frustrated that Carmen--along with everyone else in Houston--doesn’t believe her.

“I can’t say we perfectly understand why it might be happening, but all of your vitals have been relatively normal.”

“Fuck my vitals,” Amal says to the empty capsule. “It’s not my vitals that are freaking me.”

She hasn’t been alone for three days, and if everyone back at mission control would just listen for half a minute, they’d know that.

“Please, Amal, take the diazepam. Get some sleep.”

She knows how much Amal hates being sedated. They all do. It’s part of what makes Amal such a good candidate for a years-long solo mission like this. She’s never been interested in sleeping away problems or worrying about them less.

You identify the problem. You assess the problem. You work the problem. That’s what astronauts do, and Carmen knows that because she’s been through the same training, been through the same emergencies on missions. Those situations should’ve been terrible--the type of thing to knock you down onto the therapist’s couch for a solid decade--but had instead been exhilarating for all of them, for the entire crew, and though Carmen and Amal never talked about it, she knew Carmen felt it.

Carmen may have started in Star City as a physician, but they all came out on the other side of Hermes I as astronauts.

Their minds went somewhere else--became something else--when potential catastrophes presented themselves in space. Training kicked in and took the situation out of their hands, the spectres of their months of drills in a swimming pool suddenly conjured up.

The crew became a troupe of dancers working through complicated choreography when they tackled problems together, and in the same way that Amal imagined a dancer might feel a high coming off of a good performance, they all knew the distinct sensation of seeing death’s design, understanding it, and dismantling it.

They beat death over and over again. Hell, manned space exploration in itself was an exercise in conquering death over and over and over again.

Fires. Breaches. Malfunctions.

None of those things were ever solved by popping a pill and zipping in for seven hours.

“Anyway, try not to be mad at Patrick for calling me in. I was already up anyway--and to be honest? He’s not the only one down here worrying about you.”

Amal snorts. “No shit, babe. I’m in charge of a multi-billion dollar operation and you all think I’ve lost my marbles.”

She lets herself wish for one split second that Carmen was there to roll her eyes.

“I’m not going to stick around for your transmission back because I know you’re going to tell me that you took your diazepam and you’re about to strap in for bed.”

Carmen is lying of course. Amal knows there’s no chance she’d split without waiting for a response.

“I love you Amal. I’ll talk to you on Tuesday.”

###

Carmen has been sitting at the empty desk next to Patrick, pretending desperately to pay attention to what he’s saying instead of staring at the time on his monitor.

She should’ve responded by now. Right? It’s been fifteen minutes. What’s she doing up--

“Shit, here we go,” Patrick says.

Carmen watches a status bar on the computer monitor tick up until it’s full and then there she is, floating a few feet away from the camera.

Carmen’s wife never looks different in space like everyone else does.

Space suits Amal, strangely. Her face doesn’t puff up like Carmen’s always had, and her close-cropped hair doesn’t need to be pinned and looped and braided like Carmen’s. No, in zero gravity and halfway to Mars, Amal still looks the same. The bruise-dark smudges beneath her eyes are the only real change.

She needs to sleep.

“She’s too pretty to be real,” Patrick sighs out--and Carmen laughs because their mutual and very gay friend Patrick is the only person in mission control, she thinks, who she doesn’t mind commenting on her wife’s appearance. Coming from anyone else’s mouth, it would either be completely irrelevant or totally inappropriate.

Coming from Patrick it’s ok because he knows she’s thinking the same thing.

Carmen’s heart is full to bursting every time she sees her. That’s part of why Carmen hasn’t been hanging out in mission control. It makes being apart too hard.

They’ve done this before. They got through it. Amal’s first stint on ISS was the hardest, but it all got easier after that. Carmen knows from experience that she deals best with her wife’s absences when she continues on with her own research on earth in the meantime.

This is the part she hates--the part they both try to avoid. These little snippets, these short speeches they deliver and then shoot through space to each other. It’s worse than not communicating at all.

In the fifteen-minute-old video, Amal reaches up to stabilize herself, grabbing handles on either side of the comms unit. It gives Carmen the uncanny feeling that her wife is reaching out, grabbing her by either side of the face, begging her to pay attention.

“I know it’s impossible,” Amal says--and her voice has a ragged edge now. “I know it doesn’t make sense. But I’m not alone in here. And I’m not taking a fucking xanny so that everyone can rest easy about me being sedated. I need to be sober if I’m going to--”

Amal goes still and it takes a beat before Carmen realizes that Patrick has paused the video.

“What’s up?”

“There’s something wrong with the unit,” Patrick says, frowning and leaning in to peer at the monitor closer. “There’s a reflection or--hm. Why’s it doing that?”

Carmen leans in and she sees it now, too. Amal’s face is being reflected in the observation bay window--but that doesn’t make sense.

“It can’t be a reflection,” she says. “It’s behind her.”

The statement makes Carmen shiver. It’s behind her. Like something out of a B-movie. The call’s coming from inside the capsule!

“Weird,” Patrick says. “I used to get rando visual artifacts from transmissions but I thought I fixed that. Whatever, I’ll worry about it tomorrow.”

With one hand, Patrick massages the bridge of his nose and with the other, he taps play on the video.

“--figure out who or what is fucking with me up here,” Amal continues.

Carmen’s heart drops. The more Amal talks like this, the more worried she gets. Why won’t Amal just bed down for a few hours? This is ridiculous.

“Anyway, I’ve got it under control, I’m working the problem, and it’s not like you can do anything for me from where you are.”

In the recording, Amal releases the handles and kicks off the wall, tucking her hands behind her head as she floats backwards.

“And Carm? You know I love you baby but the whole Nurse Ratched routine doesn’t really fit for you.”

Carmen rolls her eyes, sighs, leans back in the chair. At the same time, Patrick is leaning forward.

“Holy shit. Holy shit.” He goes stiff and suddenly he’s holding the desk like it’s the only thing tethering him to the earth. “Fuck. No. This isn’t… Carmen, what the fuck?”

She sees it then, the thing that’s set him off.

Amal is moving, drifting, playing it cool like she always does.

Her reflection is doing none of those things.

“It’s not a reflection.”

“It’s a messed up transmission artifact, like you said,” Carmen says shrugging.

“--Also, I totally know you didn’t just drive home without an answer from me, so quit being tacky and lying to me where Patrick can hear.”

Patrick is absolutely still beside her. He’s holding his breath. Why is he holding his breath?

It’s so odd to watch the two images of her wife on the screen: the Amal speaking clearly, joking, ribbing Carmen just like they’re sitting in their living room together, and the Amal who is a mirror image of herself, grainy but still just visible in the background.

“It’s not an artifact, Carmen.”

The reflection takes a breath. The reflection opens its mouth.

Very quietly but unmistakably, the reflection says its own name.

“Amal.”

The Amal in the front, the commander of this mission, hears it just as plainly as they have both heard it down here, so far away in Houston.

Amal’s biceps twitch. Her spine crooks. She falters in the air, moving her limbs to try to move her body, to face the noise, flailing and looking for an instant like someone who doesn’t understand the way a zero gravity environment works.

It’s panic.

She’s panicked.

In the eight years that Carmen has known her wife, she has never seen her panic.

Through fires. Through breaches. Amal doesn’t scare and she certainly does not panic and it is not until this moment that Carmen is truly frightened.

As Carmen watches, the center of her entire universe, the unshakeable core of what has made life bearable, the human vessel into which Carmen has placed all of her hopes for the future fights for leverage in a tin can hurtling towards a planet 55 million miles away.

Finally, Amal kicks a wall and spins to face her reflection--and now Carmen can’t deny it. She’s wrong. It’s not a reflection. It can’t be an artifact. Carmen struggles to make sense of what she’s seeing.

Amal faces her double and lets out a single yelp, hoarse and high and odd, a sound Carmen has never heard her make before. Amal--the wrong Amal, the one in the back, the thing that cannot possibly be her--Amal smiles.

Just as it had before, a moment passes before Carmen realizes that the video has stopped. She looks desperately to Patrick, but he hasn’t paused it.

The transmission is simply over.

[womenandfilm5]

Great Women Animators, selections: http://greatwomenanimators.com . Animation as an art form has its origins dating back to before the development of cinematography. Animation techniques were being developed between 1895 and 1920 including stop motion with objects, clay, puppets, etc. and drawn/painted animation. The first entirely animated film was Humorous Phases of Funny Faces by J. Stuart Blackton in 1906 using stop motion photography. Fantasmagorie (Émile Cohl, 1908) is considered by film historians to be the first animated cartoon. The first female animator was Charlotte “Lotte” Reiniger, a German film director. She is known as the foremost pioneer of silhouette animation. She made over 40 films over the course of her career using her silhouette technique.  . Another very important woman animator is Michèle Lemieux, who is the only woman to use the last working pinscreen in the world. Pinscreen animation uses a screen with movable pins that objects can then be pushed into. Light filters through the side of the screen so that the pins cast a shadow. The resulting image is constructed by particles that gives it a grainy look. Lemieux’s Here and the Great Elsewhere (2012) is a film that uses the particles produced by the pinscreen as a metaphor for the particles that make up the universe. It follows a man who is intrigued by these moving particles and lets his curiosity get the best of him as he tries to make sense of them. The film makes excellent use of light and dark, such as in the beginning of the film when the man is shining a light on the moving particles while surrounded by complete darkness. The light symbolizes hope and curiosity, while the darkness creates a sense of feeling lost and empty. At the end of the film, the man is standing alone in an empty white room with a door open on the other side when the particles begin eating away at the light, leaving the man in complete darkness again. Eventually, he too fades into the darkness and we see his silhouette composed of all the particles. The film uses light and dark to show a man’s journey to finding a deeper meaning in life.  . After watching all of the films, I was astounded by the amount of variation present in animation. I found some of the films to be quite silly, particularly Joanna Priestley’s Streetcar Named Perspire (2007), which provides a commentary on what going through menopause is like, comparing it to rollercoaster ride. Priestly took an informative approach, but was still able to present the subject matter in a fun, creative way. The music was playful and light and the thrashing around of the character in the streetcar was both humorous and representative of what going through menopause feels like. The subject matter of the film is still very relevant and useful today as many topics regarding the female body are seen as taboo and not widely spoken about. The way she was able to inform people, yet remain super playful and lighthearted made the film very enjoyable to watch and helps normalize talking about the hardships women face when going through menopause. This film was quite contrasting to another film of hers Bottle Neck (2015), which is a non-narrative, abstract film that shows a mixture of shapes and common everyday objects interlocking and transforming. My experience watching this film was the polar opposite of watching Streetcar Named Perspire. Watching this film was very satisfying and I found it to be very mesmerizing.  . Something I really appreciate about animation is how much creative control the artist has. They start from a completely blank page and go wherever they want with it. Unlike shooting things in real life, anything is possible with animation. If you want a bunch of movie shapes, you can make a bunch of moving shapes, which is what Jodie Mack did with her film Curses (2016). At the end the shapes become two people dancing and I found the colors and fluidity of movement to be quite beautiful. In Sally Cruikshank’s explanation of her film Face Like a Frog (1987), she says “I was aiming for a giddy, dream-like experience with as much intensity as I could squeeze out of a cartoon”. I felt the same dream-like feeling watching Kathy Rose’s work. In fact, I found the films from these two women to be quite difficult to watch. The movement in them felt more sporadic and energized. The characters in Cruikshank’s film rarely stayed still and were constantly changing shape. There were so many things going on and it was hard to follow, which is exactly what she intended the film to be. . One of the things I have concluded after watching these films is that animation and sound effects go hand-in-hand. In some cases the over-the-top sound effects partnered with the seriousness of the subject matter created satire, which was the case in Nina Paley’s This Land is Mine (2012). This film tackles the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Throughout the film, a melancholic song plays while men take turns killing each other and taking over singing the song. The sound effects of the men being shot, sliced, and hammered was quite humorous despite the serious nature of the story being told.  . I noticed a theme of nature throughout several of the films including Enter Life (Faith Hubley, 1981) and God-Mother (Nina Paley, 2017). Unlike Priestley’s film that utilized a narrative structure to comment on the ups and downs of a major turning point in many women’s lives, Paley and Hubley used a more abstract approach. Their respective films showcased telling a story through movement and sound. Hubley’s film showcases the origins of life through imagery of cells and biological processes. Paley’s film was more spiritual as it showed a woman’s body birthing this object that floats through various scenes (deer running, birds flying, fish swimming, etc.). At the end of the film, the woman’s body returns and transforms into bodies various shapes and sizes before transforming into a tree that is then chopped down and carried away by a group of men. This film relates to discussions we’ve had in class about women being associated with nature, i.e. Gilda being surrounded by plants for a majority of the film. There is a sense of purity associated with nature that Paley taps into with this film. This film is part of a longer film called Seder-Masochism (2018), which is a biblical film that depicts the rise of patriarchy. We can see this theme being introduced in God-Mother with the woman being one with nature throughout the film until the very end where the tree was chopped down.  . I find animators’ ability  to use an art form that is typically associated with super lighthearted, fun subjects (i.e. cartoons) to comment on current social and political issues to be very gratifying. My favorite of all of the films I watched was Shiva Ahmadi’s Ascend (2017). I don’t typically associate animation with captivating content, but Ahmadi created a film that did just that. Ahmadi, an Iranian-American artist, shines light on complicit landscapes of violence in this film. Ahmadi was born in Iran in 1975 amidst the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. Her work reflects this upbringing as she tackles concepts such as terrorism, refugees, capitalism, and corruption. She draws inspiration from Iranian and Middle Eastern artistic traditions to examine social and political issues. In Ascend, Ahmadi utilizes animated watercolor painting to depict a group of monkeys gathered around a pond and playing with bubbles. As the film progresses, the bubbles begin turning into bombs and grenades with little-to-no acknowledgement from the monkeys. They continue playing with the bombs. Similar to Paley’s God-Mother, this film represents a group of people falling victim to patriarchy. The monkeys and the woman’s body are both faceless, which helps represent a whole group of people, but it also creates a sense of helplessness and naivety. Both were just minding their own business, being a part of nature before being intruded upon. Both also established a calm, peaceful environment through the music and the movement. In Ahmadi’s film, the monkeys had a very small range of motion and they moved pretty slow. In Paley’s film, each scene transitioned into the other very fluidly as objects moved in and out, transitioned into other objects, etc. The colors helped aid these transitions as well. . There are many aspects that help aid the storytelling that takes place in animation, including colors, movement, and sound. Each of these women animators use a combination of techniques ranging from pinscreen animation to watercolor animation to convey a variety of different issues, some pertaining to women specifically, and others tackling global socio- political issues. Not only is animation in and of itself a very versatile art form, what women have contributed to it is very valuable as well. – AMo . Works cited . “History of Animation.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Feb. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_animation. . “Pinscreen Animation.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Feb. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinscreen_animation. . VIDEO LINKS:

https://vimeo.com/121834820 https://vimeo.com/184923964 http://greatwomenanimators.com/jodie-mack/ https://vimeo.com/108432037 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptHUasD-Bw4 https://vimeo.com/50531435 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we0vBoQfSjQ https://vimeo.com/229516124 https://vimeo.com/263398514 https://vimeo.com/207673473