#discarded Amazon boxes

[natailiatulls07]

your Marguerite stories are the best parts of my day

Jules Bianchi x Daughter!reader

Charles Leclerc x little sister!reader

Summary - There's a spider in Y/n's bedroom, Charles is trying to be a big strong man but sometime it's okay to be scared of a small spider

A/n - Aww thank you gorgeous!! This isn't my best, it was written on my phone so that explains alot lol

Marguerite

-

‘Ah fuck! Ew!’ I shout, jumping back from my bed. On the wall above my bed is giant black spider, one of my worse fears. Standing in the middle of the room, I contemplate if I should kill it or get it out somehow.

And then, out of fear, I decide that this little spider isn’t my problem anymore and Charles can deal with it. I mean it is his problem to take care of me, even if that means dealing with spiders. ‘Charles! I need your help please!’

Popping my head out of the room, down in the living room I can see Charles and Alexandra’s looks of concern as they jump up from the plush sofa.

Once they arrive, I nervously point towards the spider. Charles just gasps and turns to look at me with a shocked expression on his face. A laugh leaves Alexandras lips when she sees the spider; Unlike me and Charles, she isn’t scared of spiders.

We connect eyes, both of us having a cheeky glint in them, and we have the same idea. ‘Well Charles, can you get the spider?’ She asks him, biting her lip to hide the smirk.

I don’t even bother to hide my own mischievous smile.

Now stood just beside the bed, Charles now has a frown on his face. It’s very clear he doesn’t want to do this but he knows he doesn’t have much choice in the matter.

With a huff, Charles silently devised a plan. We watch as the clogs turn in his head. ‘Right! I need a glass and some cardboard.’ He declares before Alexandra walks down the hall to the kitchen, coming back with a wine glass and a piece of ripped up Amazon box and passing it to him. ‘Thanks..’

Hesitantly the driver approaches the wall, and I can how he is trying his best to hide how scared he is right now.

With how much he is hiding how scared he is, it doesn’t hide how long it takes for him to get even up to the wall.

Alexandra giggles before stepping over to him, taking the glass and the cardboard and with one smooth move, she has the spider trapped in the glass. She successfully scurries to the balcony to discard the little bug. I turn and look over to Charles who just has a defeated pout to his face.

Laughter escapes my lips with Alexandra’s own laughter joining mine a few seconds later. Walking into my bedroom I wrap my arms around Charles softly. ‘I know you didn’t do anything but thank you..’

I just know that the fail was a bit of a blow to his ego. He just rolls his eyes, wrapping his arms around me still. ‘Mmh I had it down, just wanted to give the spider a choice..’ He grumbles, almost a little childishly.

Alexandra joins the hug, chuckling at her partners little tantrum. ‘Whatever you say gorgeous!’ Earning one groan and one little giggle in return.

-

[brandycranby]

ce characters + their skill at wrapping presents (based on technique, style, and enthusiasm) 🎁✨

crocheting a last minute gift rn hehe

steve: 9.5/10. the military precision comes in clutch when it's time to measure out wrapping paper. if he's not doing the wrapping himself, he's at your elbow with tape strips and scissors when you need them. gift bags? hell no, back in his day, presents were wrapped (ok old man 🙄💕) heh expect steve to come home with half a dozen new tubes of gift wrap because he just can't resist the cuteness (target snoopy paper, beloved 🥺💕)

andy: 7/10. if he did it himself that is 😌 this is a man of experience and few close relatives. the holidays are a quiet uneventful time for him (besides the odd party) and he spends it with you, showering you in gifts and treats for the new year. most of those treats come with complimentary gift wrapping that he'll most definitely take advantage of hehe if not, he's a sparkly gift bag kinda guy

ari: 8/10. he doesn't have much skill at getting those sharp corners on a wrapped box but can he curl a ribbon or what? great color sense, he doesn't look like it but he can tell a french silver from classic silver 😌💕 whatta man whatta man. eight presents though, that's a lot of gift ideas to come up with. defaults to cash and gift cards for some nights, slaps a ribbon on top and adds mesh bag of chocolate coins and calls it a night

johnny: 6/10. look, he's a guy. still, he's a guy with a big sister. sue comes over and they make a night in of it. wrapping paper is everywhere, someone gets hit with a tube, nothing's lit on fire but reed's gift is singed and labeled "to: asshole". it's probably just fruit of the loom boxers. your gift though? he keeps adding stocking stuffers until sue makes him use a wicker basket to hold everything bc "it's chic, johnny, and a paper bag can't hold all of that."

ransom: 5/10 +3 effort points. ONCE HE TRIES?? HE TRIES!!! i mean not for his parents' gifts, he probably amazon shipped those to their house. but he'll pull out the ribbons, the glitter, the tinsel, the special wrapping paper just for you 🥹💕 ransom doesn't really Get It, not until you have a day of present prep with him. cups of hot drinks and a movie on in the back, that sort of warm nostalgia that's so familiar yet distant from what he's known 🥺surprisingly good eye for it

jake: 4/10. oh lord he tries. he tries so damn hard. the living room is a wreck, there's tape everywhere and mismatched wrapping paper. he measures a length of paper too small and worries about cutting another one because you like that paper!! you'd probably cry if he wasted it!! so he takes a discard piece and kinda... band-aids it together... oh baby 😔 also how do you wrap plushies??? (put it in a box, jake, please put it in a box)

curtis: 7/10. solid score because he goes for maximum efficiency and doesn't take a break until every single present is completely hidden in gift wrap, tissue paper, ribbons, bows, and a gift tag. would be a 10 if he was a little more fancy and a little less practical about his present style. but he has the assembly line efficiency and it helps you get everything done in one day so kudos 😊 points off for getting suspicious when you take a long pee break tho

---

since i've started writing this hc list, i've redone my amigurumi THREE TIMES. why do i do this to myself. i also wrapped last minute gifts like a jake today heh

[breelandwalker]

Witchcraft Exercise - Spring Cleaning

There’s a marked tradition of cleaning and airing out the house in the springtime when the weather warms. As you’re dusting and tidying and getting rid of winter stagnation, take some time to do the same with your craft.

Clean and organize your workspace. If you have an altar space or a shelf where you keep bottles and jars and the like, remove everything from the surface and give it a good dusting. Take the opportunity to rearrange things or swap out pieces if it suits you. If you have ritual tools that don’t often get cleaned, check them for signs or rust or wear and give them a bit of love. Repair things that need fixing, if you can. If you have an iron cauldron that you use for fire magic, get a wire brush or some steel wool and gently remove any burnt residue left inside.

Sort through your supplies. If you have lots of candles and crystals and small items laying about, consider getting some small totes or craft organizers to keep things tidy. Divided storage boxes for beads or scrapbooking supplies are great for small items, and shoebox-sized caddies are perfect for taper, chime, and votive candles. Organizing things will make your space easier to navigate and also gives you a proper idea of what you have on hand. Which might help you resist impulse purchases the next time you’re out shopping for witchcraft supplies. While you’re tidying, be sure to discard any rubbish, candle stubs, wax blobs, herb scraps, bits of string, incense bases, and so forth that might be cluttering up the place. 

Discard things that are too old or worn to be useful. Dried plants and seasonings can usually be kept for 1-3 years if they remain in sealed containers. If they have no scent anymore or smell musty or mildewy, discard them and sanitize the container. If you’re using supermarket spices, you can use the expiration date on the container as a guide. Powdered material will likely last longer than whole herbs or cut-and-sifted material. One helpful tip is to put a purchase date on packets or bags of herbs when you buy them, or to put a little date sticker on your jars of herbs when you refill them. (Anyone who’s worked in food service will probably be familiar with the concept of container dating or day-dotting.)

If you make oils or tinctures or suchlike in your practice, check on these as well. Make sure nothing has gone off or lost its’ potency. Day-dotting your potion containers will help with this as well. A simple sticker with the name of the brew and the date it was bottled will help you keep track of your supplies and know when something needs to be tossed and replaced. (You can also print labels with the ingredients and purpose of the brew if you’re feeling super organized.)

Reorganize your books and resources. Review what's there and see if there are any materials that need to be weeded out, donated, or discarded. Remember that as you grow and progress, some things will become obsolete or may show themselves to be unhelpful or inaccurate. It's okay to remove things from your resource library that no longer serve you if you want to make some space on the shelves.

You can also cleanse your workspace and/or components while you’re tidying if you wish. It doesn’t have to be a full clean-slate-everything-must-go cleansing, but it can be helpful to just clear out stagnation or bring in some freshness and vitality.

Happy Witching! 🧼

Want more witchcraft exercises? Check out the masterpost here and visit my shop for spell kits, books, magical powders, and more!

(If you’re enjoying my content, please feel free to drop a little something in the tip jar, tune in to my monthly show Hex Positive on your favorite podcast app, or check out my published works on Amazon or in the Willow Wings Witch Shop. 😊)

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for (kind of) porch pirating?

I live in an apartment complex with shared outdoor hallways, and about a month ago a huge box containing an entertainment center was dropped off beside my door. It didn’t appear to belong to me, so I left it there assuming whoever would come get it later. Two weeks passed and it was still there. The leasing office started sending out emails to the community saying we’re not allowed to use the hallways for personal storage, and obstructive items will be picked up by management and discarded if left out for an extended period of time. So, I decided to check the box for any kind of identifying label. I couldn’t find any… so, figuring that management would probably throw it out, I took the entertainment center inside and unpacked it, figuring it was probably abandoned by this point. After doing so, I found a tiny shipping label addressed to an upstairs neighbor. I’d already opened it, so I figured the safest option was to get rid of the box + label and just keep the thing, hoping my neighbor reported their package as misdelivered and got a refund/replacement. I looked the item up and found it costs about $400 so it’s not cheap.

For context, I frequently get my neighbors’ Amazon packages mistakenly delivered to my door and always redeliver them to whichever unit is on the label. No one has bothered to do the same for me when my parcels go missing, and people do sometimes outright steal my stuff—I know this because the delivery email shows a picture of the package at my door, then it’s gone when I go to retrieve it. If I’d found the shipping label before taking the entertainment center, I’d have left a note at my neighbor’s door informing them where the item was delivered. As it is, I kept it and have no intention of giving it back. AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[anxiousgaypanicking]

Okay, so I have a request 🙈 -that you can feel free to ignore- because my real life situation is frickin setting up for a smut plot but I'm not activating it 😂 but one of the Sides 👀👀👀 definitely would. So a roommate who constantly makes noise like he's getting off/fucked and like, lays in bed twitching like he's got somethin in his ass 👀 so what happens when someone buys him a thrusting/vibrating dildo/plug via Amazon and it shows up when he's home alone. Does he use it alone? Does he get caught by the roommate who bought it? That day? Eventually? Ever? I'd love to know your take. Pairing of your choice. -😳

Home Alone

Demus (Janus x Remus) Warnings: toys, plugs, hair pulling, thigh fucking

"I don't remember ordering a package," Remus mumbles, scratching at his stubble as he leans in the doorway of his house. He's staring at a box placed at the front door, addressed to him, but the contents unknown. 

Sure, Janus often has things shipped to their house - they are roommates after all - but he puts his name on those packages, and gets rather pissy when Remus snoops inside of them, claiming "that's illegal" and that he'll "send Remus to the pound" if he does it again.

Perhaps this was something Remus has ordered while drunk, and simply forgot. That's happened more than once, after all. 

He grins and grabs the package, so delighted with himself that he basically skips inside. Sure, he may not remember what's in here, but he's looking at this situation like it's a nice, surprising gift! Anything could be in here, and Remus had quite the vivid imagination, which meant this box delighted him immensely. 

The mere thought that this could be anything from a bomb to a basic tee-shirt entertains his hyperactive mind as he tosses the box onto the couch, and then falls onto it after, laying on his stomach as his sharp nails dig into the packing tape. 

Effortlessly, he pokes his finger through the material, and then slices it open, gathering up and then tossing the sticky strips carelessly to the floor, knowing he'll probably get an earful for making a mess when Janus gets home from grocery shopping.  Then, he's opening the box up.

 Inside is a thick, black plug, and a small remote folded within an equally minute packet of instructions printed in small, hard-to-read lettering. Immediately, Remus is whooping as he rolls onto the floor, barely stunned by his back hitting the ground as he rushes to dig the plug out of the packing peanuts and set the remote on the table.

"Man, I sure do love spoiling myself!" he exclaims excitedly, congratulating himself on his unplanned purchase. 

Tipping the remote over, he slides the back open and checks it for batteries, only to see a plug instead. At the bottom of the box is a small charging cord. Remus hums as he stands and brings his new toy to his room, immediately sitting near an outlet and plugging the remote in. He lets it charge until a small light on the remote glows blue, where he's hitting what he presumes to be the "on" button (a big button in the center, with two smaller ones below and above it).

Immediately, the plug starts buzzing with intense vibrations, making Remus squeal. He grabs the plug with his hand, holding it as he takes his time hitting the small button on top until the plug seems to reach its max intensity, and then doing the same thing with the lower button until the plug stops vibrating at all. It seems to have a wide range of vibrations that have Remus kicking his feet with anticipation.

"Thank you, Past Me, for surprising Present Me with a lovely little toy!" Remus babbles out loud, already shimmying his clothes off. He mumbles a silly response to himself of "you're welcome, Present Me. Aren't I a genius?"

His shirt and pants discarded, Remus is quick to reach toward his nightstand and feel around for lube, which he's quick to pop open once he finds. He doesn't care that he's still seated on his floor; all he cares about is pouring an excessive amount of lube on the toy and then picking it up, bending down to be on his forearms and knees as he teasingly drags the plug between his cheeks.

He leaves a trail of lube between his crack, before he slowly pushes the toy into his hole, moaning loudly as he feels himself stretch around it. He's sexual enough normally that he didn't bother to finger himself open beforehand, but this plug makes him feel pleasantly full, especially after Remus pushes it in up to its base.

Moaning obscenely loud, Remus lets his face push against the floor, working the plug slowly in and out of him just to tease himself, before he pushes it in fully and then lets it go.

It fills him up so nicely, and as he sits back on his calves he can't help but slap his own ass and grin. Damn, he's sexy.

The plug seemingly fits perfectly inside of him, or so he'd claim, but the plug itself isn't that exciting on its own. What really delights him is the remote that came with it, of which Remus is eager to grab and click on.

Immediately, medium vibrations are pleasuring his ass, making him squirm happily as he pushes his chest against the floor, presenting his ass into the air.

His door is wide open, but he's home alone, so his noises of pleasure echo throughout the house.

His thumb caresses the remote as he debates between flicking it as high as it can go, or lowering the vibrations and edging himself just to be a tease.

Finally, he settles on raising it a bit, and then sitting back on his knees, groaning as he messes with the plug. He pulls it out just enough for the widest part of the plug to stretch around his hole, and then pushes it back in deep, clenching around the toy as he fidgets with it until he can feel it pressing against his prostate. Violent vibrations torture the bundle of nerves, making him cry out a sultry "oh, fuck!" followed by a loud and nasally moan.

That just so happens to be the noise Janus is greeted with as he opens their front door.

He can't really feel anything but amusement and a sense of pride as he listens to Remus no doubt play with the toy he bought. After all, he'd gotten the alert that his package was delivered this morning, and it isn't on the porch waiting for him. But why would it be? He'd addressed it to Remus, after all.

Janus sets his groceries down on the kitchen floor, directing them towards the counter with his foot before he shamelessly struts to Remus's room, not surprised to find the door wide open.

Smugly, he leans in the doorway, crossing his arms over his chest. "Hm," he begins, loud enough to get Remus's attention, "I see you're enjoying your little gift."

Unsurprisingly, Remus isn't ashamed of being caught at all. In fact, he doesn't even bother to pause his playing while talking, just grinning wide at Janus as he grinds down on the toy as best he can.

But Remus still picks up on the implications of Janus's comment, and smiles wide as he slides the toy out a little bit once more. "So that explains why I don't remember buying it!" he exclaims, before moaning loudly as he shoves the plug back in, muffling it's intense vibrations. "But why question a good thing?"

His words are routinely broken by his lewd noises, but he still gathers enough breath to ask "may I know why you've decided to spoil me all of a sudden?"

"Don't make it sound so sweet," Janus chastises, as he pushes Remus's bedroom door closed. He strides towards Remus without hesitation, and helps him off the floor and onto the bed, pulling the remote from Remus's hands in the process. "I did this selfishly. Your gift was completely for my benefit."

Remus moans. "How so?"

Janus clicks the toy down until the vibrations cease entirely, making Remus whine immediately. When he goes to complain, he's silenced by Janus raising his hand, clearly about to offer an explanation. And though Remus is impatient, he's also curious, and so can settle on clenching around the toy until Janus is done.

"You're loud," comes Janus's immediate response. "Very loud. Even with your door shut I can hear your perverted moans seeping into the living room, interrupting my shows or distracting me from work. It's really inconsiderate, you know." Janus moves closer, before waving Remus up.

"Get on the bed," he orders, and Remus scrambles to obey immediately despite the fact they've not done anything sexual previously. He's still inclined to obey.

Remus immediately rolls onto his chest, lifting his ass into the air and bringing one of his hands back to pull his ass cheek to the side in order to show Janus the plug's base, with the toy itself nestled comfortably inside of him.

"Do you know how much of a tease you are?" Janus continues, and Remus can feel him kneeling on the bed behind him. "Always torturing me with your whorish noises, and never inviting me to touch?"

"I thought that could be assumed," Remus responds, only to jolt and moan when he feels a harsh slap to his ass in response.

"Shut up." Janus is firm, and swats Remus's groping hand away after a moment, taking to running his own hands over Remus's cheeks, groping them to his liking before he spreads them apart and grabs the base of the plug, slowly pulling it out before pushing it back in, repeating the process a few times before he's seemingly over Remus's quiet grunts of pleasure.

Janus's hands slide away from Remus's body, making Remus turn his head back to try and catch a glance of him, only for the plug inside of him to suddenly buzz to life once more. He cries out immediately, arching his chest further against the bed while his cock leaks onto his comforter.

"It's powerful, isn't it?" Janus commentates, knowing Remus isn't going to respond. "I made sure to get something stimulating enough to keep you interested. You seem like the needy type, after all."

"How'd- how'd you guess?" Remus gasps out, between moans.

Janus smirks. "I'm very perceptive."

There's the sound of a zipper, followed by lube, and then Remus feels Janus's hand dance across the back of his thighs.

"I can assume the answer, but just to make sure, this is okay, right?" Janus asks, pausing for a moment. Remus is quick to affirmatively answer, making Janus grin before his hands are placed on the sides of his thighs.

Momentarily, Remus wonders what he's going to do, before he feels Janus sliding his cocks - two?! - between his legs, rubbing them against Remus's own cock and closing his thighs around them to give him more friction.

"It'd be a waste to pull that plug out of you," Janus muses, as he shifts the toy around a few times before pressing it up against Remus's prostate, making Remus cry out in sudden pleasure. "Especially after how much I spent on it. You really owe me, you know." Grinding slightly, Janus rubs his cocks over Remus's own, making them both moan.

His arm slides around Remus's waist, and grabs all of their cocks to the best of his ability, squeezing them against each other.

"Two cocks," Remus moans, tongue brazenly out of his mouth as he pants like a dog. "You're a fucking freak. That's so hot!"

Janus scoffs. Here Remus is, letting his roommate use him like a toy, and he's the freak? Hmph.

In response, he squeezes his hand roughly around their cocks, stroking them hard and fast and making himself groan as he leans over Remus's back. His free hand fiddles with the toy's remote, and he lowers the intensity a few notches. When Remus whines, Janus just says "we don't want you spoiling our fun too soon, do we?"

Realistically, even if Remus came too soon for Janus's liking, he'd just overstimulate him until he was satisfied.

"Turn the vibe up," Remus pleads, through dramatic sobs of pleasure. "Pretty please?"

Out of spite, Janus drops the remote onto the bed and grabs Remus's hair instead, pulling his head back and watching drool roll down Remus's chin. The lower half of his face is a mess of spit, and he's careless in moaning louder at the feeling of Janus's fingers tangled in his messy locks.

"Fuck!"

Janus curses under his breath at how vocal Remus is. He knew this would be the case; that's why he was encouraged to do this in the first place, but being in the room with him and listening to him moan and cry with each stroke of his cock or fidget of the plug made Janus realize just how sensually sensitive he is. No wonder he's so loud; a brush against his nipples or a thumb over the slit of his cock probably has him nearing an orgasm almost instantaneously!

Janus keeps one of his hands knotted in Remus's hair, and tugs his head occasionally just to earn a pained whine, while his hand speeds up on their cocks. Remus really is quite the teasing slut.

"I should have done this sooner," Janus grunts, lips pressing against Remus's neck. His sharp teeth scratch Remus's imperfect flesh, dragging over scars and moles and random patches of rough skin that Janus leisurely lets his tongue roll over. With the plug vibrating so low, Remus is the one that's feeling truly cheated. Yes, it's pleasurable, but it's not enough. If Janus wasn't stroking him off right now, he'd be saying a lot more!

"Please," Remus begs, shooting his shot with pleading once more. "Turn it up! Need it, please!" 

Janus sharply tugs on Remus's hair, earning a cry of desperation, but finally slides his fingers out of it after a moment, watching Remus's head fall quick onto the pillow beneath him, moist with his spit. Despite how fun it is hearing him moan and cry, Janus didn't spend an absurd amount of money on this remote-controlled vibrator just to not use the remote. That'd be silly. 

He grabs it, clutching it tight as he works his hand over his cocks, rubbing them against Remus's quickly. Without a word, he's flicking the remote up a few notches, watching Remus push his chest into the bed as he moans out Janus's name. 

"So hot!" Remus gasps, feeling the plug torture his prostate. "I don't- I don't-" he gasps, before steadying his voice just enough to express "I don't know how I'm going to take this toy out. I want to keep it inside me forever!" 

"Gross," Janus utters, but he clicks the vibe up another peg. He doesn't doubt that Remus will get plenty of use out of the plug, but he'd rather Remus take it out once in a while, lest they want a hospital trip on their calendar. 

Moaning loudly, Remus's fingers drag across the sheets as he rocks his hips, feeling Janus's hand pump his cock and the plug jostle in his ass. He feels so hot. 

And then Janus is turning the plug up all the way, maximum vibrations torturing Remus's prostate with little more than a soft click, which has him crying out immediately "I'm close! I'm close!" 

He's so loud, so shameless, and so quick to come after announcing his approaching orgasm. Clearly, he was a lot closer than he claimed, and his semen spurts over the sheets in thick ropes, until his cock hangs leaky and spent. 

Janus strokes him through his orgasm, before pulling his hand back and turning the vibe down low. Not off, low. Then, he scoots back just enough to push Remus's thighs further together, and leans over him, promptly fucking his thighs as quick as he possibly can. Lube slicks up the sides of Remus's legs, with Janus's cocks rubbing against each other and Remus's flaccid shaft, which seems excited by the brief contact it gets with each thrust until it's twitching and hardening once more. 

"Whore," Janus spits, though his words are more amused than anything else. "If you get hard again you're on your own." 

Remus whines, fully intending to stroke himself off again once Janus comes. And he wants Janus to come. 

"Make a mess of me," Remus pleads, clenching around the plug in his ass. He lifts his body up so that his back is weirdly bent, and so the top of his head is against the pillow, facing toward Janus's rocking hips and his own limp cock.  Tongue hanging out of his mouth, Remus implores Janus "come on my face! Fucking ruin me!" 

And Janus does. With little more than a moan of his own, Janus thrusts his cocks hard between Remus's thighs, and comes. He makes a mess of Remus's chest, the bed, and Remus's face. His come spills over Remus's cheeks, lips, and even gets into his hair, meaning that when Janus pulls back and Remus rolls over, he gets to see the fruits of his labor. 

Remus licks his mouth. 

"Fuck," he curses, panting. His half-lidded eyes observe Janus from across the bed. They both just stay for a moment, catching their breaths, before Remus goes "so... do I get another sex toy the next time you want to bang?" which promptly gets Janus throwing the remote at Remus's chest. 

"Buy your own damn toy," he huffs, before tucking his cocks back into his pants. "And close your door. Especially at night." He pinches the bridge of his nose, recalling the many sleepless nights he's had as a result of Remus getting horny at two in the morning. 

Remus just laughs in response. 

But as Janus gets up to leave, smoothing out his clothes and running his fingers through his sweaty hair to straighten it out, Remus calls "feel free to use me any time you'd like, though." 

Janus glances at him and sees Remus scooping Janus's come off his face and sucking it off his fingers, before Remus adds "after all, I'm going to be moaning your name a lot more after this. It's only fair that you come be the one to make me moan it, y'know?" 

Janus rolls his eyes, and doesn't respond, but Remus knows he'll be back. And until Janus decides to use him again, Remus had a new remote control toy that he could turn up whenever he so desired. Such as right now. 

And as Janus pulls his door shut, he hears muffled buzzing, followed by a crescendo of moans that Janus knows will echo through the house until Remus is done. 

[trivialbob]

Today we supported the local economy, even as one Amazon box arrived at the house.

Gift shops!

Some of the stuff is fun, but "gifts" means a wee bit overpriced. I found some drink mixers I would have bought for myself but... They were small Mason jars filled with dried fruits and spices. Add 8 to 12 ounces of your favorite distilled spirit, wait three days, enjoy.

Except they were $25 each.

Using Mason jars I already have I am going to try making my own mixer kits. I'll need to get a food dehydrator but think of the money I'll save by making, not buying, "gifts." You'll love my brief, handwritten notes I plan to put on Christmas cards cut from pieces of discarded office paper! Why waste the side that didn't have any printing on it?

We shopped around South Minneapolis. I love the old brick buildings. If I worked in one of these I'd want to know the history of all the businesses had been there. This one is 104 years old.

This is one where we ate breakfast. Sheila and I split a large chorizo burrito. Quite tasty, but expensive for counter service, I thought. The bakery had fresh baked green olive bread. It looked crusty and a card said it was "good served with chili."

That made me want chili with green olive bread. I didn't buy any of the fresh bread though because it would be too much for the two of us to finish before it got stale. Maybe when my son and his girlfriend are here later this month I'll buy some.

A genre of gifts I find tacky. They are like those comedians who can't craft a clever joke and prop up the gag with four letter words.

That Amazon box had my new Minnetonka Moccasins. They are fleece lined and very comfortable, but only appropriate for dry weather outside. They were discounted 60% for some reason. That makes them feel even more cozy to me! I might sleep in them tonight.

[bitchinbarzal]

Joey | Indie down under

Jack was in Monaco, Indie still in London at their house after coming down with a horrendous illness.

Jack told her to come, that the sunshine would be nice and that they could stay in France after the race have a nice break. She’d been really hard on herself lately, strict diets and workouts to keep her body on top form for IVF.

It was day three of laying on the couch doing nothing but watching free practice on the tv, a soft smile on her face everytime he appeared on the screen.

Their dog, Nova had situated herself uncomfortably close to Indie, giving her little to no personal space.

“Nov, girlie you got you move”

She wasn’t budging, the dog stood firmly by her side, her head rested on the couch next to her belly.

“You’re a Velcro dog you know that?” Before she could continue her rant to the dog, the door rang making Indie trudge off the couch to the door where the Amazon delivery man was standing smiling

“Package for Indie Doohan”

“That’s me, thanks!”

She frowned, shaking the package “What did I order?”

Ripping open the package on the kitchen counter, a tampax box fell out. Her repeat order on Amazon coming for the month.

“I have a full box still from my last order, I thought I had it on every two month-“

It took her a moment to register before her body filled with dread.

“I’m late”

She almost fell over the shoes Jack had discarded in the hallway on her run into the bathroom, ripping open the drawers to find the tests.

Her hands shook as she held it, she hadn’t taken one in months. Jack had made her promise to stop, only letting the doctors do it as she was upsetting herself.

She read the instructions carefully, not like she hadn’t done it a million times but she was scared she’d mess it up.

Once the lid was in place she put it down on the counter and began the tap, to splash her face.

“Indie calm down, it’s probably not, you’re not do not get your hopes up” she snapped at herself.

When the timer on her phone went off, she snatched it off the marble counter immediately.

Her hands shook, knees weak as she sobbed out. The cross on the test was so red, it was so strong. She had never seen that before, she took a moment to remember this, the view of a pink cross on her test. The first time she’d ever witnessed it.

Indie sat on the bathroom floor for an hour crying to herself, holding the test and looking at it again and again just to ensure her mind wasn’t playing tricks.

When she finally pulled herself off the floor Nova was standing outside the door, looking concerned before jumping up to her inline with her belly

Indie’s eyes grew soft “Nova… you knew”

It took her all of ten minutes to pack a bag, call the dog sitter and book an Uber. She was going to Jack.

In Monaco, Jack was worried out his mind after trying to get in contact with Indie and receiving no reply. He got the notification on his phone that Amazon had delivered her stuff, ultimately understanding she would be upset because of it.

He text her before he went to bed

I love you, it’s going to be ok. This isn’t your fault In.

She never received it, after forgetting to pick up her phone charger in her rush.

It took some convincing the front desk staff that she was in fact Jack’s wife not some weird fan trying to get into his room at two in the morning. But they did finally give in after she told them to look back at his booking last year with her name on the reservation, it also helped she was almost in tears.

She tried to be quiet getting into the room, with race day in the morning she didn’t want to wake him up. That failed when she tripped over his suitcase in the dark and yelled out in pain.

The bedside light switched on immediately and Jack was startled “Who the- Indie?”

“Help?” She mumbled, hand out for him to take.

“Babe what are you, why are you on the floor?” He asked, pulling her onto the bed with him “why are you here?”

Indie couldn’t help the smile on her face “I can’t, I can’t hold it in I’m going to burst and I’ve been thinking about this moment for,since we met and yeah I wanted it to be cute and instagramable but it isn’t and I don’t care-“

“Indie calm down”

“I can’t because we’re having a baby!”

The room went silent, Jack’s mouth dropped open and indie couldn’t stop smiling “You’re-“

“Pregnant, with child, having a baby. I’m having your baby!”

In one swift motion indie was on her back being attacked with kisses “I love you, I love you”

She cradled his face in her hands “We are going to be parents, Jack”

He smiled, hand sprawled across her belly “Hi little Joey”

[o5-the-daughter]

How about a compromise then? :]

M!A Henry and Edwin2 appear in the box with all of the agreed upon circumstances. Liar is allowed to lie only mildly when explaining Willow's existence. Any major lies will result in them being released and Henry being given his voice back immediately.

Aw, how sweet of you~ ;3c

Now, we don't have a name for that little freak of nature, considering that whole "most died a century ago and everything that survived hides from view" situation, so there wasn't all that much interest in them after they stopped causing problems. They are, or were, a longgg longg long and very traceable line of something that paired with a few type blues in the early middle ages and hence started looking pretty convincingly human with some time. We're pretty sure that the original thing died out on its own a bit later and now we only have the hybrid version left. Sad, but better so, really (๑￣ω￣๑)/✨

Anyyyyway, we know that they are a matriarchal kind that has some similarities of what today's people describe as a succubus; all fanciful and alluring, if you're into that kind of thing, but only really the girls of the line. They're more commonly capable of magic and-or of developing anomalies, which is kind of the same thing the further you go back in time, while the males are pretty much discarded. Do you know the amazon warriors of ancient Greece? Kind of like that (๑✪0✪๑) that's also why Mikha felt mostly safe in taking that little thing home as a pet :3

Ohhh, and we also know that they have a truly dreadful taste for raw flesh, especially humans'. I think you were somewhat aware of that already though (๑￣ω￣๑) we never did much testing for obvious reasons, but theories have it that it's kind of a ritualistic thing, at least traditionally, in which that strengthens the magic they are capable of. No way to prove that though (๑✪ω✪๑)

In short, those things are some odd kind of combination most closest comparable to modern vampires and succubi, together with some kind of witchyness to varying degrees ;3

[takadasaiko]

One Turn at a Time (a Veronica Mars oneshot)

FFN II AO3

Summary: Logan buys a safe for the apartment and Veronica has questions.

One Turn at a Time

She would have walked right past the box if she hadn't recognized the safemaker label plastered on the side of it. Instead Veronica found herself pausing, already halfway to the second step towards her apartment, but rather than continuing up, she backtracked to bend down and take a closer look at what would have looked like a discarded package to anybody else.

Oh. She knew this version. Fireproof, waterproof, dial combination, and small enough to be tucked away and easily overlooked. It also would fit nicely in an apartment like hers, but she couldn't imagine any of her neighbors having the wherewithal to bother with a safe. "Who do you belong to?" she muttered as she circled the package to look for the delivery label.

Logan Echolls.

Veronica blinked, re-reading her boyfriend's name. Logan had ordered a safe. Interesting. He had a small one that he stored his firearm in. That had come with him when he'd officially moved his things in following Dick selling his previous residence, but as far as she had seen he didn't keep anything else that warranted a locked safe. At least not by his standards. If they ever were robbed the thief could easily bypass her sparse jewelry for his watch and a few other odds and ends that he'd indulged in. The Navy had certainly taught him how to downsize to the essentials, but he was still Logan. The day he stopped enjoying all nice things was the day she started to worry about him.

This particular model was mid-range. As small safes went, it wasn't the most expensive he could have gone with, but it was on the list of safes that she would have recommended if he'd bothered to ask. Which he hadn't. Not that she was going to read into that. Nope. Not her. That didn't mean that she couldn't try to figure out why he'd ordered it, though.

It was compact, with multiple shelves and a warranty, if the worst ever happened and their apartment flooded - not likely as far off the water as they were or the fact that they were three levels up - or caught fire, whatever was hidden away would be safe.

"The neighbors order something awkward from Amazon again?"

Veronica popped up and out of her squat at the sound of Logan's voice behind her, whirling to find him with that lopsided smile of his. He was still dressed in his Navy uniform, cap perched on his head and hands stuffed in the pockets of his khaki slacks. She felt her breath leave her lungs at the sight that she wasn't sure she was ever going to quite get used to. Or wanted to, for that matter. "It's yours, actually," she said as she finally recovered.

He shot her a questioning look and leaned in. She watched his brows dance upward as he took in the name on the box. "Hey, I've been waiting for that."

"Got some high-priced merchandise you need to stash away?" she teased as he leaned down to inspect the weight and gauge his best way to get it upstairs.

"Just the usuals. There was a built-in safe at Dick's place, so I've been meaning to get one here. It should fit in the corner next to the desk. That good?"

"It's your place too," Veronica offered and saw that goofy smile he flashed her any time she referred to the apartment as theirs. It was official. It had been that or he was buying a place of his own. That would have led to your place or mine discussions every night that could easily end in separate sleeping arrangements and she hadn't had any interest in that. They'd spent enough time apart and sooner or later he would be back out in deployment. She wanted him close. Needed him close, and he seemed to feel the same. For two loners they did crave each other's presence. That had to be a good sign, right?

"Veronica?" His voice startled her out of her thoughts and she found him standing with the boxed safe balanced in his arms and a look like she'd been completely zoned out. "You mind grabbing the door?"

"Right," she huffed and dug for her keys. She found them and Logan carefully hauled the safe up the stairs and set it down inside. A few minutes later he was changed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, seated on the floor with his long legs crossed and fiddling with the shiny new safe.

Veronica leaned back against the kitchen counter to watch him as he reset the code. "You afraid we're gonna burn the place down?" she teased.

His lips tugged outward a little into a tight smile as he unfolded himself from the floor and started down the hall. "More worried about the Air BnB'ers every spring break," he called out from their room, and when he returned he had a box in his hand that he had brought with him when he had moved in. He re-took his seat and pried the flaps in the box open to start looking through it.

She watched as he started to pull items out that she hadn't known were tucked away there. A photo in a half-melted frame of his mother at a red carpet event and an old, worn letter that had been laminated for protection. He held a lighter that she'd seen following his mother's death between his fingers, flicking the zippo lid up and down, soft brown gaze fixed on it and Veronica felt her lips tilt down. "The fire," she acknowledged softly, realizing why he was so intent on having a way to salvage a few things that he held dear to him and kicking herself for the flippant remarks. She should have realized it before. They didn't talk about it. They had never really talked about it. It wasn't like they'd been on the best of terms as his war with the PCHers had escalated to new and dangerous heights in their senior year of high school. In all the things that they'd discussed over the years, that simply wasn't one of them. She wondered if it should have been.

Logan offered her a small, sheepish smile. "Yeah, I learned my lesson."

Veronica pushed off of the cabinets and took a careful seat next to him. He didn't seem to have a problem with the way she peered into his box of carefully procured keepsakes, but even as she did she felt like she was pushing right up against a boundary. She just wasn't sure if he wasn't enforcing it because he was too focused on the items and memories or if he really was comfortable with her in the middle of it all. Slowly, carefully, Veronica let her finger trace lightly down his wrist and he didn't stop her when she picked up another old photo that showed signs of fire damage. It was the four of them: her, Duncan, Logan, and Lilly. They'd been sophomores that year - save Lilly, a year older than the rest of them - and falling over each other over some inside joke that she couldn't even remember. The camera - whoever had held it - had captured Logan and Veronica sharing a glance between them, amusement evident as their significant others tumbled over themselves. They'd been so young. So carefree. "I had no idea you still had this," she whispered at last.

"One of the few things that survived," he said quietly.

Veronica risked a glance at him, trying to gauge how open he was to talking about this. "Did the fire department let you go in to get what you could after?"

Logan's lips stretched into a thin and mirthless smile. "Let would probably be a stretch. They had the whole thing barricaded off and said it was structurally unsound once they got the fire out."

"So how did you get these?

"I just waited until they'd cleared out and went anyway. No one really cared."

The words struck an old nerve. Didn't care if he went in, didn't care if he got hurt alone in there, didn't care if the house fell on him and crushed him. She knew what he meant and Veronica balanced precariously on the thin line between sympathy and anger. She pulled in a steadying breath and forced the hardness in her tone to soften a bit at the edges, even if they left no room for argument. "People cared. Duncan, me…."

"I didn't exactly make it easy for anybody to want anything to do with me then," he huffed and she reached out, her fingers light on his bicep. He offered a sad, distant smile at the touch.

There was a long moment, then another while Veronica searched for something to say. Every response felt so hollow, as if the only purpose of it was to try to make him feel better - maybe to make her feel a little better too - but no matter how many ways she tried to mentally rearrange the words, they didn't line up with what had happened. At least Duncan had given him a place to live, but neither of them had really checked in to see how Logan was doing. They had been focused on their own lives - the bus crash, everything that had followed with Meg and, yes, a few bitter feelings on Veronica's side left over from hers and Logan's first attempt at a relationship - and Logan had always worn indifference like body armor. Easy to miss unless you knew what to look for.

And she had known. Or at least she should have.

Veronica leaned in, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago." He loosed a breath, tilting his head so that it was leaned against the top of her own. "'A bend in the road is not the end of the road unless you fail to make the turn.' Helen Keller."

She snorted a soft laugh. "We've had a lot of bends, haven't we?"

"A lot of hard lessons learned. One turn at a time, right?"

Without pulling away, Veronica found his hand. Her fingers closed around his and his around hers and she heard a soft, content sigh escape him. A smile tugged at her lips and she nestled in. "Just as long as we take the same turns."

He pulled her hand up, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. "Always."

Notes: I went nosing around through some old folders and found a few unfinished LoVe fics for this series. Thought I'd see if the plot bunnies bit again on any of them.

[dariocrowder-blog]

Eco Friendly Solutions for Brand Packaging

With the new year getting started, we’re still dealing with a pollution crisis that’s on a global level.

But, with new eco friendly branding and packaging, you’ll be able to offer a new lease to help the planet, through the packaging that you have.

Plastic pollution is invading our planet, and most of it comes from the foods and drinks that are discarded after just one use.  While it might be useful for a little bit of time, the problem is, if you continue to encourage this waste, it actually causes centuries for it to fully decompose. How do we solve this? through better packaging and solutions of course! 

Biodegradable Food Packaging 

One solution is biodegradable food packaging.  This is the type of packaging that’s great for food packaging that’s sustainable, such as pizza boxes and tableware that’s biodegradable, or made with kraft boxes. It’s great for takeout, and it’s made from materials that are recycled, and it can offer biodegradable options, so that it keeps food fresh, and also saves the planet.

Eco-friendly Packaging for your Deliver Items 

With the pandemic still being a thing, there are now skyrocketing amount of home deliveries. There are more staff being hired than ever before to handle the demand for packaging, and some retailers like amazon have since tripled their profits since the beginning of this.

With major changes in how people are able to shop, some eco friendly types of options such as mailers and boxes that self-seal are the call for brands that wnt packaging solutions that are sustainable.  They’re crafted utilizing cardboard, and they come in different sizes, making it more simple than ever before in order to offer sustainable types of items that are there.

You can now offer different varieties of products that offer packaging to bigger shipments, and also are used to protect the earth and other animals and items too.

Shopping bags that are sustainable 

For a lot of businesses that market to vendors on the street, or maybe sell foods, the products also need to be factored in when you’re looking at this.

For some, this is a mere afterthought, but some close attention does need to be put in how the goods get carried.

With the prices for bags that are plastic increasing, and people having to front the cost, there are now some businesses that are looking to provide biodegradable types of bags, which are great for saving the planet. 

These types of bags are the best for ecofriendly types of solutions as they offer similar types of characteristics to the bags that are plastic, while also being totally biodegradable.

Biodegradable Void Fill and Paper Tape 

There is also a new change in the type of ways that you seal the items that are there. paper tape is one of the new ones, and it’s become a sustainable, better way of handling this. it’s made through Kraft paper, and is similar to regular tape, while also being totally recyclable. It’s great for sealing your packages, so that customers are able to recycle everything, without having to worry about the tape that’s there.

Then there is void fill. While packaging peanuts are popular, they are not good for the planet. The same goes for bubble wrap, as it’s based on plastic. If you switch to these they offer a safety net for packages when they’re transported, and customers can repurpose these too, making this better for packaging that’s eco friendly, and better for the planet too! Try this type of packaging today, and see the difference it makes.

[excessexorcism]

Item #30

Yet another needless purchase from Amazon.

This unattractive necklace is a testament to an impulsive Amazon buy. It was part of a set of 10 necklaces that I acquired for $9.99 (and now it's even cheaper at $8.99!). The reason behind this purchase was an upcoming party and where I wanted a variety of chokers and black necklaces to pair with different outfits. However, this set turned out to be a disappointment. Most of the necklaces snapped shortly after being worn, leaving only this one intact. Unsurprisingly, it's the one I find least appealing and have no intention of wearing. The initial luster has already faded, and the shoddy craftsmanship makes it unfit even for passing on.

Verdict: The entire set cost only $9.99, which means this necklace's value boils down to a mere $0.99 cents – an accurate representation of its quality. Despite its low price tag, this purchase still registers as a fail. While the other necklaces served their purpose for the planned outfit, their fragility became evident soon after. Rusting and general deterioration led me to discard them (well before this blog came into existence). However, this specific necklace somehow managed to cling on in my jewelry box. It's time to say goodbye and consign it to the trash. It's not suitable for wearing, and its appearance is too shabby for gifting. Regrettably, it will end up in the landfill. My remorse is twofold – I've not only added to the pile of disposables, but once again, I've contributed to Amazon's pockets. This is a stark realization, especially as I currently have an Amazon cart full with items of varying necessity. This situation serves as a poignant reminder for me to reassess my needs and seriously contemplate my relationship with Amazon.

[fictionfromafar]

Boys Who Hurt By Eva Björg Ægisdóttir

Boys Who Hurt

By Eva Björg Ægisdóttir

Translated by Victoria Cribb

Orenda Books

Publication Date: 20 June 2024

Five novels into her published writing career, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir is now a firmly established name in crime fiction, one who is hopefully gaining more readers which each subsequent story. While in recent years, there seems to be an increasing number of Icelandic crime novels emerging from a range of authors and time periods, Ægisdóttir is firmly and securely at the peak of her powers. It's largely due to the blend of intrigue, the flow of her storytelling, contrast between different eras, character development as well as having an excellent translator in Victoria Cribb. 

While last year's title 'You Can't See Me' stood in contrast to the earlier novels in the series, being a prequel which did not feature her principal character Elma, 'Boys Who Hurt' picks up from the end of her 2022 novel 'Night Shadows' where Elma had made a life changing discovery. Worry not if you haven't read it yet, 'Boys Who Hurt' can be read without any prior introduction. 

When Elma and her boss Hordor are led to a remote holiday home they are unprepared for the savage nature of the killing that has recently taken place there. A middle aged man has died of multiple stab wounds, yet to add to the shock, a message has been left, leaving no doubt that this was premeditated. But who and why? 

A chance encounter by Elma's partner Saevar perhaps offers a clue but a long path lies before Elma as various possible scenarios emerge before her, some of which go nowhere and some of which lead in unexpected directions.  The hallmark of  Ægisdóttir's work is that everything is about what happened before, but not simply in terms of events but also in terms of behaviours and experiences. endured There is never a born evil character in any of her stories, her approach is far more nuanced and far more realistic  The scars of mistreatment are present in her characters both physically and mentally, tales of broken families and never ending grudges   In essence this is demonstrated by the double meaning behind the title 'Boys Who Hurt'. Much like the book's title, nothing in the story should never simply be taken at face value. A masterful writer does it again, leaving a tantalising story tread to be picked up in a future story.

https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Boys-Who-Hurt-by-Eva-Bjrg-gisdttir-author-Victoria-Cribb-translator/9781916788206

Many thanks to Orenda Books for an advance copy of Boys Who Hurt and to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for inclusion in the blog tour. Please check out the other reviews of this book as shown on the above tour poster.

Dark secrets from the past threaten everything …

Fresh from maternity leave, Detective Elma finds herself confronted with a complex case, when a man is found murdered in a holiday cottage in the depths of the Icelandic countryside – the victim of a frenzied knife attack, with a shocking message scrawled on the wall above him.

At home with their baby daughter, Sævar is finding it hard to let go of work, until a chance discovery in a discarded box provides him with a distraction. Could the diary of a young boy, detailing the events of a long-ago summer have a bearing on Elma’s case?

Once again, the team at West Iceland CID has to contend with local secrets in the small town of Akranes, where someone has a vested interest in preventing the truth from coming to light. 

And Sævar has secrets of his own that threaten to destroy his and Elma’s newfound happiness.

Born in Akranes in 1988, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir studied for an MSc in globalisation in Norway before returning to Iceland to write her first novel. Her debut thriller The Creak on the Stairs, was published in 2018, and won the Blackbird Award in Iceland. Published in English by Orenda Books in 2020, it became a digital number-one bestseller worldwide, was shortlisted for the Capital Crime/Amazon Publishing Awards in two categories and won the CWA John Creasey Dagger in 2021. Girls Who Lie, the second book in the Forbidden Iceland series was shortlisted for the Petrona Award and the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger, and Night Shadows followed suit. In 2024, she won the Blood Drop Award for Crime Book of the Year in Iceland. With over 260,000 copies sold in English alone, Eva has become one of Iceland’s – and crime-fiction’s – most highly  regarded authors. She lives in Reyjavik with her husband and three children.

[the-corrugated-catalog]

Curators Statement:

I’ll admit, I’m obsessed with cardboard. It all started in January of 2021. I was having a hard time back then. Unemployed and dangerously disenchanted, I watched dust collect on my camera and paintbrushes as we muddled through our first pandemic winter. 

But then, scrolling through TikTok, artist Corrie Beth Hogg posted a video where she used cardboard to make decorative trays. The next day I sat down, determined to figure it out. I watched the video several dozen times until I understood what to do. My first tray was lumpy and misshapen, but when I held it in my hands, I was content. Satisfied to have made something sturdy and functional from cardboard, tape, newspaper and paint. 

My love for cardboard bloomed with all the flowers in the spring. Every box that crossed my front door was inspected for quality and if it passed, it was inducted into the stash growing in the back of my closet. That summer I worked with children, making swords, shields, robots, flowers and pumpkins from cardboard. My appreciation for the material deepened. I love how unpretentious cardboard is, its low price and high availability allows for artists to not be so beholden to perfection, giving space to experiment and create freely.

Nowadays as I walk through the world, I notice cardboard everywhere. In New York City on recycling days, mountains of bagged cardboard sit alongside giant cubes of flattened boxes. I’m haunted and enchanted by its presence, frightened by the volumes but captivated by the possibilities. 

Cardboard serves as a marker for our late-stage capitalist state and its ubiquity highlights that no material can be awarded absolute neutrality. It is intrinsic to our global food systems, the trade networks of consumer goods and our over-consumption of such goods. How would a business like Amazon succeed without the existence of cardboard? How would all of the food in our kitchens safely arrive at the grocery store or sit on the shelves without its cardboard packaging? 

Cardboard speaks to our housing crisis, as individuals facing housing insecurity make shelters from discarded boxes, using it to write messages and speak to the world. The architect Shigeru Ban constructs temporary housing following catastrophic events with cardboard. As climate change continues to alter meteorological patterns and cause extreme weather incidents, this form of architecture will increase in relevance. 

For those of you who have joined in on the-corrugated-catalog photo project, I hope you can see how pervasive this material is, how much it holds and brings to us. These artists saw the potential of cardboard, and unleashed its potential to make wearable clothing, decorative vases, soft sculptures and intricate wall hangings. I hope the work of these wonderful artists electrifies a creative spark, or at least motivates you to see cardboard as a dynamic, expansive material - perfect for your next artistic project. 

Thank you for coming to the show and considering cardboard. May you stay safe and always be inspired to think outside of the (cardboard) box. 

-Caroline Taylor Shehan

[back-and-totheleft]

Monster Time

William Oliver Stone is the rare Hollywood figure who, you come to understand, probably downplays his outlandish antics in his book. “There were a few ‘Oliver Stone’ stories that I’d heard, bounced back at me, often with unbelievable outcomes,” he writes, a little prissily. He notes that a fellow screenwriter once told him that his legend had become a kind of model for other writers who wished to be seen as bad boys. Stone drily notes that at parties, “I would do something, never violent or intentionally harmful, but often outrageous, to make the moment less boring.” He withholds many of the details, which no doubt were gory (and perhaps delicious).

Less Boring would be an apt title for Stone’s memoir, but in the one he entitled Chasing The Light: Writing, Directing, and Surviving Platoon, Midnight Express, Scarface, Salvador, and the Movie Game, Stone shouts with the exuberance of a free American man — an obnoxious, abrasive loudmouth like the one played by Eric Bogosian with a buzzsaw voice in one of the director’s best films, Talk Radio (1988). As did many other Stone efforts, Talk Radio (available on Amazon Prime) took a true American story (the 1984 murder of Alan Berg, a liberal talk-show host gunned down by white supremacists) and filtered it through the director’s self-destructive passions: Bogosian’s Barry Champlain just can’t stop enraging people by shoving what he knows to be the truth in their faces. He’s a sort of lone gunfighter of the new American West, armed only with sleek, modern weapons (sarcasm, putdowns) in sleek, modern Dallas as hostile forces plot to ambush him in the night. Their weapons are more atavistic, but their goal is simply to shut his mouth.

For Stone, living loudly, nakedly, and extremely is the only way, even if it means dying extremely. Like his idol Jim Morrison, who channeled William Blake into acid rock, Stone is an archetypal Sixties Romantic (“Nothing was sacred — it was all possible — we were all going to ‘break on through to the other side,’” he writes) who places subjective feeling over objective fact and seeks elevated truths by burrowing into lived experience. Hence his accomplished career as a drug user; drugs cut you off from the distraction of external reality and help you bore down into yourself.

All of this is why I wouldn’t trust Stone to accurately report the score of a baseball game. As Gabriel Seidl once wrote of Beethoven, “He feels through his mind, he thinks through his heart.” But Stone serves what he sees as the truth. Late in the book, he discovers that the story that became his Oscar-winning script for Midnight Express (1978), which was first told to him as “hapless American kid smuggles a tiny amount of hashish to pay for college” (the amount in question was actually two kilos), was not what he thought it was. Billy Hayes, the subject of the film, laughingly told Stone many years later that he wasn’t busted until his fourth smuggling run, and though discarding inconvenient facts to make a better story is Hollywood S.O.P., Stone was hurt by the revelation. Midnight Express would almost certainly never have been made if Hayes had told Stone the truth beforehand, which might in turn have cost Stone his career — the movie became an out-of-the-box sensation just two years after he arrived in Hollywood. But instead of shrugging off Hayes’s after-the-fact admission, he’s genuinely upset that he was conned into participating in a lie, seeing himself as a weapon of truth in dangerous circumstances. Despised Cassandras are everywhere in Stone’s pictures, from Tom Cruise’s Ron Kovic in Born on the Fourth of July to Kevin Costner’s Jim Garrison in JFK to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Snowden.

Though Stone has worked with and known many famous people, his book (which ends after his third directorial effort, Platoon, wins the Best Picture Oscar) is almost entirely inward-facing; there are very few “as I told my good friend Laurence Olivier”-style anecdotes. Olivier, though, does pop up, in a funny second-hand way, as the source of the most perfect distillation of acting, relayed to Stone by Frank Langella: “Look at me. Look at me — that’s my bloody motivation!”

Chasing the Light is a study in Stone’s fears, his frustrations, and his addictions, as he tries to put his obsessions on the screen for us to share. Throughout his career, he has composed in his own brutal, vulgar, ostentatious key, scolds be damned: “The hell with good taste!” he writes. A recurrent phrase in his book — he heard it many times from people to whom he pitched his scripts — is “too much.” Too much sex, too much violence, too much everything. It took a while for the industry to grasp that, as the Eighties roared forth, “too much” could be the raison d’être of a highly successful filmmaker. Stone started to attract allies who loved the idea of going too far, such as the gonzo San Francisco journalist Richard Boyle, who would be played by the gonzo actor James Woods in Salvador. (Woods stole the role from Martin Sheen, who was originally cast, by telling Stone that Sheen’s wariness of the profanity in the script would result in “another bull**** Hollywood picture.”) As Stone was struggling to get Salvador made after his only previous directorial effort — a piece about a murderous, creeping appendage called The Hand — occasioned more laughs than screams, producer John Daly told the director, eyes twinkling, “I hope you live up to your reputation.” What he meant, Stone writes, is “be who you are, ‘the lunatic.’ . . . John was saying, ‘I want that Oliver, not their Oliver.’”

Stone’s matter-of-factness about his many mistakes makes for lots of dryly funny episodes. He once held a pound of heroin in his closet for friends, for instance. He doesn’t remember his 1981 wedding because he was high on marijuana, quaaludes, and cocaine during the ceremony. He notes that Gore Vidal once proposed a three-way tryst with Stone and Mick Jagger. On a Scarface research trip to Bimini to chat with some wealthy gentlemen who just happened to have a lot of theoretical knowledge about how one might go about sneaking cocaine into Miami, Stone unwisely mentioned a defense attorney he knew. The lawyer had once been a prosecutor, and the mention of his name made Stone’s interlocutors wonder if their new friend might perhaps be an undercover agent. The fellows excused themselves to discuss the matter in the men’s room, and Stone believed he was about to be tortured and fed to the gators. As dicey as it was to research, though, Scarface turned out to be useful in surprising ways: When Stone went to beg right-wing Central American government officials for help making Salvador, his leftist follow-up, their affinity for vigorous anti-communist Tony Montana made them incorrectly think the director was ideologically simpatico. (It helped that Stone whipped up a phony two-page treatment that suggested Salvador was a film about brave right-wing governments battling despicable Commie insurgents.)

Stone refers to his and his wife Elizabeth’s cocaine-defined years (as opposed to later ones, when he clarifies that he merely used the drug “socially”) as “monster time.” He was formed in a painful time for America, from the assassination of JFK and on through Vietnam, the shattering of Sixties idols, and Watergate, and he covered it all in his films. Did he engage with his subjects accurately? No, but I think he was honest about what he felt about them: panic, outrage, excitement, desperation, and anguish. He felt he had lived through America’s monster time, and set about sharing his sense of horror with as much operatic gusto as he could.

-Kyle Smith, "Monster Time: The Cinema of Oliver Stone," National Review, Mar 8 2021 [x]

[toysrlagosonline]

Nigerian Children Need High-Quality, Educational Toys.

Toys are things used for play that can be utilised to teach kids new skills. Toys can be produced from a variety of materials, including paper, plastic, clay, and wood. Although many items are made specifically to be toys, products made for other uses can also be put to use. For instance, a young child might "fly" an ordinary piece of paper by folding it into the shape of an aeroplane. Interactive digital entertainment is a type of toy which is fairly used toys in Nigeria.

Although the word "toy" would have no known origin, it is thought to have been first utilized during the 14th century. Action figures, animals, educational toys, acoustic toys, creative toys, dolls, games, model construction, wooden toys, puzzles, and other toys come in a variety of forms and are primarily produced for children.

For the time being, we'll concentrate on greater, educational toys for children in Nigeria.

Toys that encourage learning in youngsters are regarded as educational or informative toys. Learning about conflict resolution, cause and effect, and problem solving may all be accomplished with the aid of educational toys. Additionally, it teaches kids the importance of sharing, aids in the growth of their fine and gross motor skills, and fosters their imagination and creativity.

Purchasing Robot STEM toys in Lagos Nigeria are a wise decision because play-based learning is the best and most natural way for children to learn new skills and talents, according to science. One of the nicest gifts a parent can offer is the appropriate educational toy for the child's age, as well as their love, care, and support. Children's potential is unlocked more quickly and while having fun with the aid of educational toys. Toys for learning encourage:

Gross and fine motor skills.

Cognitive development.

Emotional development.

Social intelligence.

Nigeria's Lagos has the best educational toys.

As long as you can see the child is looking to play with the educational item, there is no right or wrong choice. To encourage the development of all talents and pique the child's curiosity, it's a good idea to offer toys that aren't all that familiar to them. Examples include Monopoly, Scrabble, the 3x3 cube, children's construction blocks, writing and drawing boards, scribble and write tablets from Leapfrog, an abacus counting set, the educational Y-Pad tablet for kids, children's dinosaur figures, etc.

In Lagos, where can we purchase educational toys? Around Lagos, there are numerous locations where we may purchase educational toys. Rehoboth Restore & Renew Stores is one of these establishments. We can also purchase online at www.toyrlagos.com.

Fairly Used Toys InLagos, Nigeria.

Toys that have been utilized by kids but put away when they outgrow them are considered to be in fair condition. They could also be toys that were given to companies for sale despite never having been played with, including Amazon, E-bay, and Rehoboth Restore & Renew Stores in Nigeria, which has a website at www.toyrlagos.com.

One of the greenest consumer lifestyle choices you can make is to purchase old toys. There are many advantages to this shopping behaviour;

Buying used toys cost much less than buying new ones.

Used toys require no new resources or energy to create.

Fairly used toys are inherently fair trade.

Landfill space is preserved.

Useful materials are given a second life rather than discarded before their usefulness has been exhausted.

Baby toys are objects hung in plain sight, such as colourful mobiles, crib decals, and wall decals; sturdy rattles; large plastic rings; soft toys for throwing; colourful balls; light plastic blocks; cloth cubes; music boxes; teething toys; floating bath animals; and washable squeak toys. Baby toys are toys for babies between the ages of 0 and 3 years. Rehoboth Restore & Renew Stores also carry them.

In conclusion, Rehoboth Restore & Renew Stores meets the demand for high-quality, educational toys for children in Nigeria. For more details, please visit our website at www.toyrlagos.com.

[acuriousdoodle]

Monami Ohno and Her Wondrous Works of Cardboard Art View Full Post